#they need to be canon or EXPLICITLY friends i cannot do this right now

[thel1ghtningthief]

Wrath of the Triple Goddess bingo because im scared

*bottom left is referring to Ganymede. It wasnt that bad but it seriously did not sit right with me

*"Blanche'd" is when a perfectly good child of a minor god iS RIGHT THERE but Rick makes a new one-dimensional character instead of expanding on his existing ones (BUTCH I LOVE YOU)

[one-squash-one-end]

An unhinged recap of Ronan's homosexuality

Hi! This once again belongs to my big Raven Cycle analysis, click here for the masterpost.

Again, there's not much room for speculation here, but i had to write it for completionist purposes. I apologize for certain metaphores used, for the most part when I was writing this I was going through it (brain was fried).

Here u go (also spoilers for Greywaren)

d) Ronan Lynch

Next to Adam, Ronan is the only other canonically queer person in the Gangsey. A flaming homosexual with a car fetish (because there was something unbelievably sexy about cars at night). Ronan is the original Be Gay, Do Crime. (Adam is the Be Crime, Do Gay to that.)

You get the gist; he is seriously involved with one guy but used to have some bits of self discovery (not only on the topic of his sexuality) with another, which ended because that guy kidnapped his brother because despite being gay, Ronan unbelievably was not into him. I’m sorry, I really do not want to dissect the entirety of Pynch in here, that would go way too far and I bet there are so many people who could do and have done this better than I ever could, so I’ll stick to elaborating some more on how we find out that he is gay, considering I think he doesn’t say the word until Call Down The Hawk.

In the first book, Ronan does not get a pov, maybe because Maggie needed some more time to figure out how to make a character subtly and thirst over another character in a secret and homosexual way. Still we get some small hints, based on conversations with other characters, or just his behavior in general.

Gansey: “From now on I need all of us to be straight with one another” Ronan: “I’m always straight” Adam: “oh man that’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told” This, of course, is legendary. Ronan is gay, he jokes about it, Adam knows it. I genuinely cannot tell whether Ronan had come out to his friends, whether he just did it through jokes like this etc. If the latter is the case, I honestly doubt that Gansey would have known, as oblivious as he is.

We also have the case study of Declan and his Ashleys. Ronan seems to despise the heterosexual standards that his brother portrays, but it is not clear whether that’s because of heterosexuality, or because of Declan, because let’s be honest, in book one, Ronan would hate, absolutely hate, anyone Declan dates out of principle, because Declan’s just a bitch, or a manwhore, as Gansey would say.

Then it gradually all becomes very much obvious in The Dream Thieves. We got the parallels with religion, his nightmares (his night horrors/self-hate maybe being because of internalized homophobia?) and of course the secrets. The secrets you keep from yourself, the very obvious metaphor. Plus Kavinsky literally calls him the f-slur. You will very easily pick up on that if you’re not as oblivious as I was when I first read the book (I was in my Declan Lynch era with a tummy-ache ok?), but it is explicitly resolved in the epilogue. There is no more room left for ambiguity, thank you Maggie for ending the queer speculation yourself, within the book.

Then there’s gender, of course there’s gender. Gender is like Tad Carruthers, just always materializing out of nowhere, especially when you just want to stay away from it because it’s fake and a massive bitch.

Ronan definitely identifies as male, but if you look at this a certain way he is somehow trans or defies the entire concept of gender either way, considering he is a supernatural being, spirit, entity, that was just socialized as a boy. Ronan is like Cabeswater, or Lindenmere, which both don’t have a gender, obviously, they are forests. The Greywaren is often referred to as an “it”, which makes sense when people don’t know the Greywaren is human, but something about the entire thing smells very trans rights to me. Also that eldritch horror, not quite human at all,  jumble of dark matter thing in Greywaren was just so gender of him.

Ronan would wear a crop top, there’s no doubt to me.

[benjineedssleep]

a very long intro to a very long sambastian fic

before anyone gets baited and upset with me, i have to get this out of the way and say this fic is not out yet. i'm still writing it! but it does currently stand at **93k** words and has plenty of life left in it. with that said, if you wanna join the ride and see this fic come together (now that i'm finally ready to talk about it...) this post is for you!!!

BUT BEFORE WE DO THAT, while the fic itself not heavy on the 18+ content (most of it merely suggestive) it still has it. as a result, i'm kindly reiterating that this is an 18+ blog and for minors to not interact!!! this place is not safe for you!!! thank you...

NOW ONTO THE POST *KISS* *KISS* *KISS*

so benji, what's the fic about?

amazing question. come 'ere. closer... closer... okay! right there is good! let's not good too personal. *clears throat* IT'S ABOUT SAM AND SEBASTIAN STARDEW VALLEY!!! but more importantly, the fic is a slow burn and goes through almost every single part of their relationship until the final payoff. here's a quick summary:

sam spent summers in stardew valley when he was a kid and sebastian was his best friend. sebastian doesn't remember any of this. frankly, sebastian doesn't remember most of his childhood, not even the stupid shit he and abigail did that solidified their friendship. he just remembers the pain, the isolation, and the way everyone in town looked at him when he passed them by. he's grown content with the idea no one likes him, and ever would, until sam shows up at his door on his first day back in nearly a decade, and wants to be friends again.

or, alternatively, sam makes sebastian realize why exactly people move to stardew valley in the first place.

well, is it just sambastian? that's kinda boring.

tch, no. what do i look like? this fic is going to have a number of other pairings, platonic and romantic. even if your pairing isn't explicitly romantic in the fic, or not endgame, you will be fed well. trust me.

i'm talking platonic soulmates sebastian and abby, catty besties sebastian and haley, gay and confused sebastian and alex, haley/abby, seb + robin, seb + emily, seb + maru and more. Don't forget about all the trios. ass trio? gotchu. haley + seb + abby? gotchu. robin + maru + seb? i gotchu!!!

The characters in this fic are treated like human beings, more than just plot devices that push along the development of the main pairing. (and that's the way it should be, if you ask me.)

you said this fic is 18+ does that mean it's really nsfw?

no. that's the short answer. there are a couple of sexually explicit scenes but they are a) what i would consider "light smut" and b) solely there for the plot. if i expand on anything, which i have, it will not be in the main fic. it'll be posted elsewhere in a collection of fic-canon one shots and such. those things will not be prioritized though.

when will the fic be posted?

the fic will not be posted until i'm completely done with it. i've been in fandom spaces since i was 12-years-old and the stress that updating brings stunts my creativity. i've since learned from my mistakes and as this all started off as a passion project of mine, it's going to continue to be that way until i see it through.

with that said, i've been working on this fic since august and have more than half of it completed. the fic is set to end in fall year two and i'm currently at the end of winter year one. winter is also the bulkiest season in the entire fic, and currently makes up half of the word count. so we're in the home stretch at this point.

i still cannot give you a solid timeline but at the rate i'm working, and taking into consideration i'm a full-time college student with a part-time job and well, a life, i'm gonna say drafting will be done by the end of the year. from that point on i'll be writing additional chapters for the beginning of the fic (and where needed), revising, editing, and getting in secondary beta reads from my friends. that seems like a lot of work but the hardest part is getting words on the page. and i'm already more than halfway done with that!!!

so are we just... getting nothing?

lies! lies and untruths! i wouldn't be making this post if you weren't getting anything. for a matter of fact, there's already a post out! it's about writing a character's style into a story! (and since drafting this, there's another!)

now, the deal here is that while i'm working on the fic, we get to talk about it and hype it up. i really do work on excitement and hype and my friends Robyn, @itslc123, and @bitterpoison have really been here for me since the beginning, before this fic meant anything at all. So yeah, shout out to y'all. I love you so much =((( /pos

anyways!!! whether this gains traction or not, i'll be periodically posting my favorite bits of the fic, ideas, frustrations, and overall just bringing anyone who cares along on my train of thought.

i'm also trying my fuckin' hardest to be more involved in fandom spaces as i've been on the sidelines for much much much too long. so please, babble to me. share your ideas, headcanons for the fic, anything really. i don't bite! i'm just scared of... social interaction LOL

where will this be posted?

ao3! and it won't be posted anywhere else so don't ask.

do we get any extra goodies with the fic?

yes you do!!! because i can't do anything normally!!! if you know nothing about me, music is my special interest and pretty much everything i do revolves around it. as a result, you will be getting tons of playlists to go along with this fic. a general fic playlist, a playlist for certain scenes, a playlist for certain characters... YOU GET THEM ALL!!! I might sneak some other things in there as well. what it'll be? i dunno, but we shall absolutely see how far my brain goes and how committed i am to this fic + fandom.

once it's done, how will things go?

you're thinking real far ahead here, like, 2025 far, but it's okay. you're just a little excited AND SO AM I!!!

but in all seriousness, once the fic is completely finished, i'll be uploading it chapter by chapter to ao3. since it'll be complete, you can expect frequent and consistent updates. and the chapters will be thick for the most part. the average chapter length once it gets into the meat of the plot (about 20k words in) is 2.5-6k words long. but right now there's a super long, super important chapter that's 13k words long! trust and believe that you guys will be fed so very well.

is there anything else you have to say?

not that i can think of but-- OHHH THE FIC TITLE!!!

it's called "baby seasons change, but people don't" and is pulled directly from the take over, the breaks over, a fantastic song by my FAVORITE BAND EVER fall out boy. wanna know something cool about the title? a little silly? i picked it because i noticed a pattern in fob song lyrics/titles/related things being used for the titles of sambastian fics. and i wanted to keep the theme goin', so i had to do it too.

the title is subject to change, as the fic has come a long way since i first chose it, but i'm kinda sentimental about it right now so... we'll see.

but that's all! i said a whole lot just now. so take a break after all that reading.

i hope to see you around friend!

xoxo benji <3

[gunnhldrs]

⚜ — a study in knightgirlisms; the jean gender (jeander) analysis.

                                nobody asked but i am answering anyway.

this is entirely a self indulgent word vomit, but for some context: i have been diseased about jean for a really really long time. of course throughout the years my interest in genshin has had its ups and downs, so in starting gnostic hymns and revisiting my oldest and dearest fav, a lot of old headcanons and thoughts are resurfacing.

since i now have an outlet to voice them: welcome to my completely disorganized ramble about jean gunnhildr being just a girl.

For what is literally the oldest clan in Mondstadt, the actual information we have on the Gunnhildr clan itself doesn't detail any more than two (2) of its leaders since earning its name.

The first, its namesake, Gunnhildr. The second? Jean.

We actually never have it specified why or how Jean has been chosen as its successor, just that her mother has raised her to be. Reasonably, one would assume that her mother had been its leader based on such, but then even that isn't outright stated. All you get to know about Frederica Gunnhildr is that she's a knight of the clan. Awesome. We literally don't even know what being leader of the Gunnhildr clan means in present times.

And you can't exactly correlate the status of successor to the (seemingly entirely separate) title of Dandelion/Lion Fang Knight that was given to Jean at age fifteen, as it has literally nothing to do with the Gunnhildrs at all and was also given to her after she would have been declared the clan's successor.

I would like to believe that the Gunnhildr clan's leaders have been predominantly female, but then again I couldn't really tell you. They have existed for three thousand years so only having two names doesn't prove much of anything.

The biggest takeaway, at least, is that Jean's entire life has been focused upon becoming a knight. From day one she has known that protecting Mondstadt would be her purpose, and has carried the weight of countless responsibilities and expectations. Regardless of the gender of those who she was surrounded by, Jean never really had a chance to care for much other than her future. Trivial things that would be considered traditionally feminine just didn't matter as much.

To top it off, we know Jean to have been childhood friends with Diluc (as well as Kaeya by association though I actually cannot recall if that relationship is every explicitly mentioned in canon) which I personally think would only aid in her disinterest in femininity. Who needs to care about dresses and makeup when you can chase your friend around with a stick or whatever.

So now you're thinking "Lina what the fuck does this have to do with right now" and that's a really fair question so here's the part of the essay that is actually the whole point of why we are here.

I think, to put it plainly, Jean's relationship with gender (specifically femininity) is complicated. It plays a very small role in the world as she views it. However I believe that the part of Jean that does perceive it wishes to be more in touch with it.

It's an absent kind of thing-- she didn't have the time for it as a child and she certainly doesn't have the time for it now-- but I believe it to be there in a couple of things. The most specific being her affinity for romance.

This is the part of the post where I look you in the face and tell you that Hoyoverse sucks and is wrong and I am about to entirely undermine a single sentence of their stupid fucking lore.

From Character story 5:

Master Jean has yet another secret. No matter how many times she has read the historical classics, despite her title of Dandelion Knight, and though she has become the Acting Grand Master whom everyone relies on... Jean still loves romance novels. This is not for the years as a young girl that she missed amid her training and duties, or due to the rift that formed in her parents' marriage. Jean simply yearns for the mutual attraction spoken of in such stories, for those emotions as subtle and fragile as spider-silk. As a knight, she must put Mondstadt and the Knights of Favonius first. But...

I'M SORRY?

Be so for real right now. What. Like. What. Huh. Wh.

So basically this entire post was to come down to this one line and tell you all in a very loud TED Talk sort of way that I don't know what the fuck Hoyo is trying to say by declaring neither of those things to have ANY relation to this interest, but that I disagree. I think it makes perfect sense for a woman who was denied girlhood to have wistful thoughts of romance like in the books. I feel it seems ridiculously out of place as a part of her character without that context, in fact.

Fuck this noise. Anyhow.

Her summer skin in game also has quite the flowery description, as follows:

The Acting Grand Master's life runs like the gears of a machine, driven by the great force of heavy responsibility, constantly being ground down by work. Over time, the armor of chivalry has become like Jean's second skin, the presentation of proper dress code and a formal image becoming ever more firmly forged into her nature. But in truth, Jean is no older than the ordinary young women around her. In the novels that these young ladies enjoy, gorgeous gowns are as quintessential as sun, moon, and starlight themselves, and some opulent noble scions do indeed sit pretty in dresses that sprawl out like palaces, their hem-lines and long skirts intertwined like the lapping waves of the sea. Perhaps Jean once had such romantic aspirations too. After all, who has never hankered after the blissful beauty of luxury?

Which I think, when tied in with the knowledge of her love for those novels, highlights an interest in more than just the relationships within them.

(Also this outfit having been a shared effort by just about every friend of hers within Mondstadt, I can't help but assume that the way she seems to covet the idea of being Just A Girl is something that those close to her have picked up on. Especially Barabara, Amber, and Lisa.)

So, at the end of it all, I offer you my silly little knight who (whether hoyo agrees or not) has some internalized self image things to work out that she never will because she's literally this tweet.

If you read all this thank you i owe you money for your time.

[bisexualafbuck]

my issue with this whole "if one of them was female" argument is that it practically says that we cannot watch any meaningful deep relationships between men and women at all because they *must* lead to romance and sex in a narrative (else it is automatically judged as "bad writing" or what... "heterobaiting"?) 🤡 i have to deal with that as a bisexual irl already and it's just... sad. that we cannot acknowledge that some people love each other deeply and platonically, and that this is not inferior to a romantic relationship. we see not a single hint that eddie or buck are bisexual, even at points where they could have explicitly shown it (e. g., zero jealousy toward love interests, no hesitation to date somebody else cuz they do not "waiting for the other", eddie actively looking for a date and not a single time was he looking at any man like he's seriously into that option), so it's a fandom issue only at this point imo. especially because we have canon queer relationships in 911, and we have a very well-loved big canon gay ship in 911 LS, so why would they be afraid to canonize buddie? i swear more people should watch Elementary for sherlock and joan. a beautiful, deep, special relationship. they would die and kill for each other, they openly say they love each other, they live together, sherlock will inevitably be there an important figure for joan's son... and they are both very hetero, and it's still 100% platonic. i have not seen a friendship like buddie on screen yet either! we see a lot of bromance but it's usually just a regular friendship, often with two hetero men that do not really open up to each other *because they are hetero* so they must have a romantic partner for the emotional parts. because of toxic male standards for how close men are allowed to be to each other emotionally. and now we finally have smth that is so beautiful, and i see nobody simply appreciating it for what it is right now... maybe they will someday give these two a sexual crisis, maybe someday buddie will be canon! or maybe not. maybe they will always be best friends who really allow themselves to have each other's backs. but this perpetual disappointment and unhappiness of the fandom is so sad to me. buddie is and has been and will remain an amazing dynamic!

So I'm an ace/aro bisexual, so like your point of friendships not needing to turn romantic, I totally get, but I do actually think that a lot of the thing shown in the show are really easy to see as romantic, and I don't think it is actually that much of a jump to see that it's not just friendship. And I'm saying this as someone who hates couples being forced, or people perpetuating the idea that you have to be in a relationship to be happy.

Also I think the argument that you haven't seen friendships shown like this (i.e. are only ever either very cold, or turned romantic) is a very common argument against gay couples used all the time, so it kinda rubs me the wrong way, when there are so many examples of amazing male friendships done so well, and male friendships being emotional is becoming more common too. You can advocate for more male friendships like that without putting down ships of two men together, or people being upset about the missing opportunies for them to be canon, in my opinion. Also I don't only think people ship them because they connect emotionally, I think they just genuinely have romantic chemistry that makes it easy to ship.

It is totally okay if you don't see Buddie as romantic, and I think so many people do really appreciate their friendship as it is, so I'm not sure if maybe you interpet it all in a people shipping buddie romantically lense/only see that on your feed etc, but I defininitely see so much support for just the friendship.

I think the problem is that they force the straight relationships so much when they don't make sense for the character development. It makes it harder to accept the lack of Buddie when they aren't providing an alternative with any depth to it, so all people really can see is the potential of Buddie. Like putting them with the love interests from the end of season 6, when they actively go against the previous character development, no wonder people are upset at that. And it's easy to be upset at that and link it to being upset about Buddie.

Also, I genuinely do believe with the fan support and where the storyline has gone that they would have been made a couple if they were hetero. I think the reason why them being both male has prevented it, is because that wasn't the intention from the start, and while it is a progressive show, I think it's harder to turn two "hot straight men" into a gay/bisexual etc etc couple in the middle of the show, rather than what lonestar did with having them together from the start.

I do agree however, that there is a portion of the fandom that can't be happy with anything in their friendship until its canon, which is very sad, because even if they don't go canon, it's an amazing relationship that should be loved as is too.

At the end of the day, if you love them platonic then I'm really happy for you, but I think its not unjustified to point out the difference in how their relationship is treated compared to hetero ones.

I wrote this really quickly while doing an assignment so if any of my points dont make sense, blame my university brain lol

[peerlessscowl]

☄️ COMET!!!!

☄️ COMET - what do people assume about them? are they right?

Ah... Scary... But maybe not all that bad inside? Sure liked what I saw on the outside! Tee hee... (Raven-Rebecca C)

What need have we of chit-chat! We are men who live by the strength of our arms! Fists, not words! We—We talk with our fists! (Raven-Bartre C)

The assumption that people make about Raven is both as clear as the scowl on his face, and also the reason for it. He holds himself apart from the rest of the army, and for obvious reasons - he has a personal mission that he doesn't want to get anyone else involved in. In combination with this, his refusal or inability to let go of his trauma, and his stature (despite not having a canon height, it is clear from the official art that he is not a small man), Raven gives off the first impressions of someone who is Fucking Mean, and Knows It, and Likes It That Way.

In a broader sense in his job as a traveling mercenary, this is a wonderful tool to have in his belt. If you're the baddest motherfucker in the building, there isn't anyone who's gonna mess with you unless they're young, dumb, and got something to prove. But is it necessarily correct?

There must be something else keeping him from returning home… …Maybe it’s just his fool pride, eh? But, no matter what happens… There is no way he could forget you, Rebecca. No matter how far away he is, he is thinking of you always. …That’s what brothers do. (Raven-Rebecca A)

But, when you’re really, really, mad, Raven… I bet you’re the type to say nothing and just cut away with your sword! So, you’re not really mad now, right? (Raven-Wil A)

Ah! True! That is true! Forgive me, friend! There is nothing that needs contesting between us, is there? (Raven-Bartre A)

Like I mentioned before, Raven's most outstanding character trait is his kindness. Even when he's annoyed, he genuinely cannot help but be accommodating. In his Bartre supports, even though Bartre keeps challenging him, he does his best to avoid confrontation even though it is explicitly clear in the text that he can win - this is not the behavior of someone who cares about his reputation as a Tough Sonnova.

Indeed, if we dig a little further into some subtext, we can come to understand that Raven wants to dampen his reputation, not enhance it. He understands, if we read between the lines in the above quote from his Rebecca support, that what he's doing is genuinely preventing him from leading a happier life. And his conversations with Bartre emphasize that he actually prefers words, not actions, when it comes to resolving petty conflicts, when it would possibly be more beneficial if more people thought he was willing to cut a bitch at the drop of a hat.

Because he doesn't want fame or glory. He wants just enough power to get his vengeance for House Cornwell, but nothing further.

(This is a bit of a reach, and just speculation, but I feel that this is emphasized even further by the fact that he does not have any supports with Karel, nor is he mentioned in any of Karel's supports, even despite the Dart-Rebecca connection between the two.)

[pinkseas]

naur but everytime i word vomit into ur inbox i literally cant remember 70% of it than the core details and the ones you answered the next day so it's kinna funny i wish tumblr lets me save my anon asks than eating it up cus i ain't drafting it like ANYWAY TO UR BESTIE THAT MENTIONED US >> I LOVE GOING INSANE WITH ALY PINKSEAS TOO ur friends are so real!!!!!!! youre insane are you single IS SUCH A FUNNY ASS LINE I WISH I WAS HIT BY IT AND I'D SAY YEA WHAT ABOUT IT

"twitter scares me so bad" as you should it's a shithole for genshin altogether with discourse and mischaracterization and you'd literally cannot stop seeing any of them once you get genshin in ur algorithm and yknow what i realized my only Best fandom experience came from tumblr with undertale Despite its discourses bc its got effective filters and the people are genuinely Good so now i'm thinking of yeeting outta twt and spectating my way here like last time (i am already doing it)

"if i read soulmates it has to be done Right [...] they can’t depend on one another they cant need one another they have to Want. they have to Choose" LIKE NO YEAH THIS IS SO TRUE SO REAL THIS IS WHAT BUGS ME ON SOULMATE AUS when it's almost not by choice and they have to work on accepting it like they're forced into needing it's like,.. a very complicated method here in changing their minds toward the other person Because of the cursed bestowed on them- the point of Choice is so fucking important to me especially when it comes to xiao specifically bc in my rendition of his he's unfamiliar with such things for a long time,.. and even in canon he's a lil troubled about deciding things for himself in the presence of higher beings until he's allowed to IT JUST HURTS HE LOST HIS FREE WILL AND THEN UR SOUL BOUND LIKE WHAT (AND FR specific soulmate tropes where the two ARE given the choice for it are. acceptable 2 me)

"lumine handling intensity well and being much better at identifying her emotions suits her SO well imo" yeah like yea!!EVERYTHING ABT THIS and i think it follows up all the traveler's sass in-game bc she's so fuckin hilarious for delivering lines super well despite having Less lines cus aside paimon taking over the talking she does have her moments and i lov her for it I DO WISH THEY HAVE HER TALK MORE EVEN WITH THE USUAL TEXT CHOOSING i just want her sick ass lines conversing

FKSDFHJSKDFJ ENDEARING IS SUCH A GODLIKE WORD TO ME I WILL KEEP USING IT FOR XIAO EVER its the way you can use it like. subtlely. a lil hidden a lil not Much about his cuteness without explicitly calling him cute its Big Word for the small boy!!!!

your thoughts on qpr makes me feel so much better abt thinking this way bout r/s like YEAH its all abt communication and open with boundaries and there really is something stifling about established r/s BUT IT'S COMPLETELY FINE FOR THOSE WHO PREFER THAT ANYHOW!!

AND YES SO MUCH ON LUMINE AND XIAO'S SHOW OF ATTRACTION TO EACH OTHER i wudnt even call it attraction i think anything that indicates a romantic tension between them is something i'm not gonna entertain like 'craving' or 'desire' (this word in particular is used very specific) and stuff like that, and it's a big fact that lumine's attachment feels like its the same to everyone Except aether,... even after she discovers his abyss persona she still begs for them to go back home too. it's unbeatable even to xiao, or at least, xiao has a different treatment to kindness for being so Similar to her (breaks down) "i feel like seeing each other constantly would be a detriment i think it’d make them both feel really weird." like RIGHT????? IT JUST FEELS OFF THIS WAY and it's not a good portrayal of xiao's desperation not wanting to lose someone else anymore. but even then, idt he shows that notion much or at all than his self-sacrifice tendencies, which is an entirely different topic. this thing about xiao's attachments and morals is a complicated thing to tackle altogether...;;,,

"no bc i characterize lumine as LOVING nature so bad" and u are absolute fucking RIGHT to think that, and for me she just likes exploring in general and is a bit of a reckless daredevil so long she has her glider and its the only condition. its stupid it's silly BUT IT MAKES SENSE shes just a constant headache to xiao in looking after her testing through the terrain but /pos

"i am So Grateful to you for sharing your thoughts i am so giddy over us being on such similar wavelengths" AND ME TO YOU TOO IT'S BEEN SO GOOD TO JUST SPILL EVERYTHING I HAVE IN MIND and get comfortable even on stuff im shy to reveal on unpublished asks cus ur reactions even if not agreeing there's still some reassurance anyway and i dont mind that or feel rejected at all when 98% others is what we just. have connected brains on KDJFHSDKJFH AND JEEZ I RLLY DO CAN'T HELP MYSELF WHEN THE BRAINWORMS INVADE WHEN I REPLY UR RESPONSES TOO it takes over my fingers like a parasite i gratefully let em

and ouuouh ur interpretation of the two's development starting in inazuma is so sweet and it makes sense bc of how dangerous the region is bc in my silly lil bran it made sense to have it After the chasm since it's the quests centering his arc AND I STILL CANT BELIEVE HE HAS HIS OWN ARCHON INTERLUDE,.. this made me loving all the peeps of the chasm gang too and i wish they did Something after the quest ended like UEUEUE TRAUMA SHARING SESSION FOR PPL WHO ONLY MET FOR 3 DAYS LETS GO

so like i start from sumeru bc of the points bc of this and bc i love slow development So Much im practically immune to slowburn did u know. all those fics do Not affect me even if i reach its 30th chapter of them being reluctant to opening up. ""zhongli encouraging him to take more time to himself, lumine taking him on little trips guiding him out more and more and more often" is THE CONCEPT EVER YOU HAVE ZHONGLI INVOLVED idk if you dig this but parental zhongli has me on the floor so id like to think he's another important figure in xiao's life aside lumine too he's just that warm hand on his back encouraging Out of his comfort zone and obligations and lumine's the hand that pulls him Along to see the new things of the world. like zhongli is such a dad,.... doing dad things a grandpa to liyue but i also cant help but have him having an attachment to xiao knowing they share a life even as a master-subordinate r/s (cus in my interpretation zhongli never felt that way than thinking he just wants xiao to Live, too,.. sobbing crying shitting)

"taking baby steps in leaving that part of his life, never quite letting go but letting the ties that hold him to liyue loosen, never forgetting his contract and his duty but understanding that there’s no longer an obligation to fulfill it, that he does it out of his own wish instead. i just. idk. idk !!!!!! at the core of it i think im obsessed with them learning how to live again and doing it together" i got no words. i ran out of brain fuel but my body is convulsing folding in on itself liek MY LIEGE YOU ARE!!!!! U R SO,........ LIKE OSBFGKJFGHDKJGH YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA this is THE XIAOLUMI AND METHINKS,....... THE XIAO ARC IN ENTIRETY AS WELL CUS I BELIEVE IN HIS INDEPENDENCY (with a little help and support from ppl who cares bout him) i just akjdhaskejjksfhsdfkjhdsjfhkjdsbvadhvbjhkv

using a read more thingy just for the sake of anyone on mobile

NOT REMEMBERING ASKS IS SO REAL i forget what i say so often even when i Can go back and check how the fuck am i supposed to know what ive said when i Can't

MY BESTIE THAT MENTIONED US >>> SO REAL i think its been more than a few at this point actually which is very funny to me. shan if ur reading this i am holding u so close to me in my little arms. youre insane are you single is the best line ever especially when you are Dating The Person Who Says It my response every time is "no but i could be😏" i find myself far too funny its awful

we are Shaking Hands in terms of being on tumblr experiencing the undertale fandom that's so real of us undertale was the reason i got a tumblr in the first place all those years ago... you should ABSOLUTELY spectate here i literally never see anything i don't want to see i live in my perfect little echo chamber it's so <333

"even in canon he's a lil troubled about deciding things for himself in the presence of higher beings until he's allowed to" GODDD YEAH YEAH YEAH YEA H YEAH YEAHY HEA YEAH !!!!!!!!!!!!! do NOT force this boy into situations he does that enough by himself thank you very much

"even after she discovers his abyss persona she still begs for them to go back home" no bc its just. On Another Level Genuinely. they've been traveling together with no one but each other with god knows how long especially depending on personal headcanons, they're used to going through entire worlds and moving on theyre used to not getting super attached !!! its a little different in teyvat i think because theyve lost most of their power and they're trapped and alone for the foreseeable future but. that still doesnt change the past and their habits yknow ?? its something i try REALLY hard not to think about actually because (with the exception of a very specific au which i am currently writing for) unless they're just. trapped on teyvat Forever i CANNOT imagine lumine staying there once she has the ability to leave and i CANNOT imagine xiao ever leaving. it makes me So Sad genuinely i simply refuse to acknowledge its existence

"xiao's attachments and morals is a complicated thing to tackle altogether" SO REAL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IM SO GLAD U THINK IM RIGHT ABT THE NATURE LOVING it just feels right tbh and "shes just a constant headache to xiao in looking after her testing through the terrain but /pos" also so real <33333333 lumine and her silly little glider. god. i love them both so bad

i do like to think of the chasm as post-inazuma but thats because in my head w/ their development inazuma is like. The Next Step almost, where they're close enough in liyue but the fact that they continue to be close even once lumine has left really hits. and then they've been a bit closer and become familiar with one another in quite a few ways by the time the chasm happens and then i get super self indulgent with the chasm because i am so silly like that <3333 in terms of slowburn and the way you've described their growing closeness it does make SO much sense to swap it tbh i love the thought of the chasm being like the start of things and the way that'd bring them closer before inazuma and. mfgnmhfnmf god. GOD.

"i wish they did Something after the quest ended" no bc in my little brain they get together once every month or two just to have a meal together and talk and keep up with each other they are Friends Now

"parental zhongli has me on the floor so id like to think he's another important figure in xiao's life aside lumine too he's just that warm hand on his back encouraging Out of his comfort zone and obligations and lumine's the hand that pulls him Along to see the new things of the world" this is the most perfect accurate thing i have read in my entire life for starters i LOVE parental zhongli like. idk not FULL parental not too much but def him being a more parental figure in xiao's life especially compared to other interpretations of their dynamic i just. god. it is So Important to me that zhongli cares for him and looks after him just in those little ways. the warm encouraging hand on his back vs the hand pulling him along is PERFECT thats such a fucking amazing way of putting it i love everything abotu that the image is so clear in my head

o(-(

^^^ me dead on the floor thinking about zhongli and lumine being such important figures in xiao's life... i like to think that a Lot of the characters in liyue are important to him in different, small little ways i just don't know their characters well enough to fully describe how but like. idk baizhu qiqi yanfei ganyu yknow ?? i know next to nothing about yanfei but i might have to try and write her for this honestly we'll see how it goes but i REALLY want there to be at least one character other than the few i have now who he ends up talking to even if its just smth rly simple... if nothing else the chasm crew is getting an honorable mention on god

idk i just. xiao has done so much for liyue for so long i really love to think of those very few who know him trying to do little supporting things for him, too it's so important to me

okay and now !!!

i am also gonna answer the Other Ask but without publishing it naturally it will simply live comfy cozy in my inbox <333

THAT ONE SHIP "it mischaracterizes Both characters in the pair altogether for the sake of romance" you're so real for this idk i dont MIND seeing it but it has never felt in character to me and i feel like this describes exactly why ?? idk maybe its just the xiaolumi brainworms eating away at me but like. i Get It

what you said about like. your personal hcs for him in regards to that trauma and how he processes it that is SO fucking valid, i def understand getting anxious about certain self-indulgent hcs im the same way both with the sillier ones and heavier ones but i can promise you that if nothing else i will Never judge you for even the most self indulgent ridiculous shit EVER. like the way you described it all is so valid and so easy to picture and a really good way to interpret/believe he'd deal with everything but even if you were to have the most ooc headcanon or anything ever just for fun just for the sake of it i simply would never judge having fun is the Most Important with these things im so srs

we have diff interpretations of how he'd deal with things like the yaksha's deaths and zhongli dying but i think a lot of the points we both have are still pretty similar, ESPECIALLY with him not knowing how to handle it and ESPECIALLY especially with the shock factor. the way i write him or would write his reaction to that would definitely be him just sort of Shutting Down emotionally because its too much and too overwhelming and so he kicks into like. i cant call it work mode its not really a job. but he fully focuses on fighting and finding out who couldve killed rex lapis and like. he turns his attention to things that are familiar and easier to deal with and he buries himself in them the way one would bury themselves in their work to ignore emotions yknow? and then there'd be the shock factor of "oh he Is alive" and then there's this massive pit of grief with nowhere to go because logically, reasonably, rex lapis is alive, there's nothing left to grieve. he shouldn't still be upset <- man who refuses to let himself process and feel his emotions when the emotions dont stop existing just bc he ignores them

that being said that's definitely a Pattern With Me Specifically like in the barbara fic ive been working its built off of canon but i take it SO far just bc i can :sob: and i enjoy it way too much to want to Not do that yknow? girls who struggle to process and Actually Feel their emotions writing characters strugglign to process and Actually Feel their emotions so that she can process and feel them vicariously through them <3 or something along those lines idk at this point its less that and more "wow this is really fun to write and its smth im familiar with so its easier to write as well"

my cat meowed and i stepped away for like 2 seconds to pet her and immediately lost every train of thought ive ever had in my life hopefully i wasnt gonna say anything else LMAO but no yeah self indulgent hcs and ways of interpreting characters >>>>>>>

i keep reading and rereading the way you described xiao's response to grief i am OBSESSED its so easy to imagine its so easy to see like oh my god. ohhhh my god. based as hell it suits him so well

i cannot think of anythign else to say back to the trenches i go <- finding scenes where i started in the middle or left out the endings and filling those parts in now that i dont know what else to write. its been really nice actually ive gotten a lot done just with that LMAO

[abigailspinach]

F: I would not describe this as a good show. The first two episodes are bizarrely confusing, and have some kind of dubious acting choices, the plot is extremely full of holes, you could use it to drain pasta, the CGI is dodgy. But—

A: Sssh, shhh. It’s fine, it’s fine.

F: It’ll make you feel every fucking one of your feelings and we highly recommend it regardless.

M: They, they needed a corpse budget of ten million and instead had a hair budget of ten million.

F: Yes.

A: Here’s what I’m gonna say. I have two things to say. First of all, the first two episodes, yes, extremely confusing, you’re going to feel like you have started with, accidentally, book six of a fantasy series. But then at the end—

M: Or possibly that you’re on acid.

A: Or possibly that you’re— no, I feel more like, you’re just, it’s that sensation of being lost, and, like, there’s so many established characters with so much backstory, and you’re like, “I have no idea who any of these people are or what’s going on.”

F: Macey and I spent the first episode and a half convinced that Jiang Cheng was his ex-boyfriend.

M: Yeah, yup.

F: That was like, we were like, is he the childhood love—

A: Wait, I did not know this.

M: We were very confused!

F: That was the point at which—we were very confused! That was the point at which I had to open a character wiki for the novel, spoiled myself instantly for every single plot twist—

M: Oh no.

……

R: So the novel in Chinese is 魔道祖师, and that’s the thing that translates to the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. I don’t know why I almost said “continent” there. But it is explicitly queer, in the source material, but in the adaptation there are some real censorship challenges that come with anything coming out of mainland China. So the adaptation cannot depict the explicit queerness. However, the people who made the show have clearly made the decision to make it as horny as humanly possible.

[Serpents laugh delightedly]

R: And to use every cinematography trick up their sleeves to make us almost hallucinate the kissing. So we do want to be up front about that. That is sort of a barrier and a situation that it’s in. But there is… it’s barely subtext. Just barely.

F: Yeah, and the fact that they can’t actually make out on screen means that every time they take each other gently by the wrist—

A: Or the burning glances.

F: —or exchange a very intense glance.

M: Exchange three bows before Wei Wuxian’s ancestors.

A: Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

R: They get married like six times. On screen!

M, giggling: They get married so many times. They adopt a child together.

A: There’s a plot-relevant—They adopt a child together. Literally, they adopt a child together. There’s a plot-relevant love song. Yeah. It’s as gay as it could poss—

M: Episode 14 includes a music video of their love story.

A: Jesus Christ.

M: Like, just canonically on-screen, in the episode.

A: It’s right there.

F: Which is, essentially, Lan Wangji flashing back to every single time Wei Wuxian has ever smiled.

R: It is a music video devoted to his smile from the point of view of Lan Wangji and it’s beautiful.

F: —and was like, “Oh well, at least now I know who’s related and who’s not.”

every day people tell me that the untamed is good, i’ve seen the first episode, stop gaslighting me

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi Raven! I just saw your new masterlist (the one with the analysises) and I noticed the whole section about how canon characters would realistically handle romance which I though was funny considering how much fan content revolves around having perfect romances XD I think a lot of people also thought twst was an otome game when it was first being marketed and someone's even working on a twst otome fan game right now. Wondering if you have any thoughts on that?

[Referencing this masterlist!]

Before I comment on the concept of TWST as an otome game, I want to preface this post with the disclaimer that, in sharing my thoughts, I do NOT mean to invalidate anyone that enjoys otome games, anyone that likes the idea of TWST as an otome game, or anyone that likes making and/or consuming romantic TWST content.

This response is meant to be a critical analysis of the otome genre and how well or not well it fits with the lore and the characters presented to us in TWST.

As someone who has admittedly played a number of otome games and dating sims in their lifetime, I think TWST would function poorly as one. This ultimately comes down to two major concerns: the story and the characters.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that the writing for all otome games is bad, but it’s certainly difficult to find a well-written one, even in today’s highly saturated market. I think the issue with otomes is that, by virtue of being a genre that focuses on developing an explicitly romantic relationship with a character of your choosing, it limits what the story can do and where the story can end. You can anticipate some bumps here and there, but you also expect the guy to be head-over-heels for you and you expect a happy ending where you kiss and live happily ever after with him by the end of it. There are only so many times you can follow this formula without it getting stale.

There are also a lot of tropes (as well as subversions) commonly associated with otome games, and it is extremely difficult to avoid them or to put a fresh spin on them when writing. This can make routes entirely predictable so long as you know the basic archetype that a certain character falls into. For example, how many celebrity characters have storylines which involve obsessive fans bullying the poor main character out of jealousy, or the paparazzi getting involved and blasting a secret relationship all over the news? I can almost guarantee you that this would also happen if someone like Vil got an otome game route. In fact, I could sit here and rattle off tropes I can expect to be in every TWST boy’s route, simply by virtue of how ingrained some of them are in otome culture. (It’s not even that I’ve played a lot of otome games, but I’ve certainly seen enough to notice the patterns with little to no changes across various titles.)

The other big problem is that otomes tend to focus on the protagonist--on making them feel loved and important. What usually ends up happening in order to achieve this is that all character development for the potential love interests hinges on their involvement and interactions with the protagonist. Not only does it create this unrealistic expectation for romantic love (ie your S/O will come into your life and fix all your problems), but it creates the weirdly codependent implication that you cannot improve or be a better person without romantic love. It also downplays the significance of platonic relationships with family and friends in favor of propping up romance. It’s not uncommon in otome games where literally no one but the main guys and the protagonist get unique artwork, signifying that the only important people are the ones involved in the romance. No one else matters. Sometimes the parents are just written out entirely, or the friends are jealous, or the family and friends exist SOLELY just to push the romance (“when do I get to see you marry”/“wow, why are you still single, do you need my help?”) Nothing else matters but figuring out how these faceless blobs can be stepping stones for the route. What would become of companion characters like Grim? He would lose his importance in the story. What about Ortho, who is considered too young to date? He’d be made nothing more than a wingman for Idia.

Speaking of the characters, it’s not just the side characters and NPCs that would be watered down; I feel that the TWST boys themselves would also be done a disservice. Since the nature of otome games is to endear you to a character and have them fall in love with the player/protagonist by the end, it would force a lot of the boys (most notably the “nastier” ones) to forego their wrongdoings by the end to shower the player/protagonist with love. Like... you can’t really write the TWST boys being assholes the entire time through because it would harm the player’s enjoyment of the story even if it would be true to the boy’s character. For example, let’s look at Ace. He is the only boy to have canonically been romantically involved with someone. He ghosted his ex-girlfriend. It’s possible he may do the same again--but even if that’s something Ace could very well do, a TWST otome game would probably avoid it altogether because being ghosted in a game doesn’t make the player feel good. In TWST as it is now, the characters are allowed to freely be assholes because their personalities aren’t constrained to being nice to the protagonist all the time or by the end of a chapter. The boys still maintain a lot of their rough edges in spite of gaining some new epiphany, and other boys won’t have changed at all. But in an otome, a lot of the less savory aspects of the boys’ personalities would have to be significantly sanded down to entertain the player’s fantasies. Alternatively, those unsavory aspects could still be included, but it’s more likely that they would be written in such a way that they would be completely gone or not even an issue by the end of a route, OR they would be written such that the nastiness is ONLY directed at anyone that ISN’T their love interest. It’s just kind of odd, and it hampers the boys’ characters, as well as limits how they are able to change throughout their routes.

I believe that character development that relies on being in love with the protagonist fundamentally clashes with what TWST is. In Twisted Wonderland, characters don’t grow only because of Yuu, they grow because of the intervention of many other characters, as well as them coming to realize the faults of their own actions, learning to take responsibility, and making a conscious, active decision to better themselves. What’s more, characters take ample time to recover and learn from their errors, and even 6 episodes into the main story, we still don’t have concise or clear conclusions to anyone’s character arcs--because the characters are continuously changing, and there technically is no end to their development. They help each other out. They feel organic, they feel real--but it wouldn’t hold true for an otome game.

As an example, in episode 1, it was Ace and Deuce that challenged Riddle to a duel because they couldn’t stand his tyranny, then it was Ace that decked Riddle and called him out, and Trey who negated Riddle’s magic with his own when the dorm leader was on a rampage. Riddle eventually realizes that he was being unreasonable and breaks down post-OB, confessing to all the normal things he wants to do instead of so strictly following the rules. Yuu didn’t do much of anything. Even late in the main story, characters are helping each other develop, and some scenes exclude Yuu entirely. Deuce got his unique magic after a compelling conversation with Epel on the beach--and Yuu wasn’t even there to overhear that talk. In episode 6, Riddle-Azul and Leona-Jamil had major moments of growth through their clashing characters AFTER they had split up from MC and Pomefiore.

If TWST were an otome, Overblot battles would be resolved with the power of the protagonist hugging the boy and confessing their love, or the OB boy snapping back to their senses when he realizes he had hurt his S/O. Deuce’s character development and even his unique magic development would be walled off until the protagonist meets all of the requirements to get to the proper happy ending. The same would go for Azul, Riddle, Leona, Jamil, Vil, Idia, and Malleus’s growth. Other characters would not be given as much spotlight or screen time, because the focus would be squarely on the protagonist and their developing relationship with the boy of their choice. The flexibility of the story would be greatly hindered, inorganically railroading all progression and locking it behind one fact and one factor only: the protagonist’s presence, their love. In an otome, all the growth that a character goes through only happens because they found a S/O.

For characters who have particularly sad backstories, it can be difficult to write their route in such a way as to not come off as... insensitive? There’s really no other way for me to put it. Like... especially for the OB boys, a lot of the issues they have cannot be solved with a smooch and positive affirmation. You cannot just tell Riddle’s mom she’s awful, tell Leona it’s okay that he’ll never be king because at least he’ll always be “king of your heart”, tell Azul that you think his octopus form is cute and he should have more confidence in it, free Jamil from his service to the Asims, tell Vil that he’s fairest of all to you, bring back Ortho for Idia, etc. That will not solve their issues. A lot of these traumas are deep-seated (to the point where it has obviously had a major impact on their current personality), or extend to systems a single person cannot influence, or even society itself. The characters would have to realistically work through their issues over a large span of time, and with the proper therapy and other professional resources. People don’t just change overnight or the instant they get a romantic partner, they need time to process and to heal, sometimes by themselves if necessary. To think that “true love can conquer all” can easily oversimplify very complex issues and can do a great disservice to the characters going through these problems. Sometimes it can feel like the main issue is tossed aside in favor of addressing the more “important” thing: the romance--and that can honestly hurt.

Of course, it’s great to have a positive and loyal support system there to help you! But at the same time, it is NEVER someone’s responsibility to be a therapist for their partner, and nor are they responsible for the wellbeing of their partner. This then circles back to the concerns I expressed earlier about the implications that otome games tend to perpetuate (that a S/O can come in and fix all of the problems).

One last thing I want to make note of is that by nature of “otome” games being directed at “maidens”/females (usually straight and cis females; the word “otome” literally MEANS “maiden”), it... alienates a lot of their potential audience pool. Males, nonbinaries, non-straight people, etc.--none of them would be able to enjoy TWST if it were an otome, because most otome already assign and assume a sexuality and gender before you’ve even booted up the game. They cannot readily identify as the protagonist, and they cannot easily self-insert because of that. It’s not fair, and it’s not as inclusive as the TWST we currently have, know, and love. We also need to consider that a lot of TWST’s current fans aren’t into the game to romance the boys; a lot of people also find value in friendships with them, or being able to relate to them on a platonic level. If TWST were an otome, they would be shoehorned into intimacy they didn’t ask for, and it might make them feel uncomfortable or not able to enjoy the game at all. Otome games appeal to a certain audience, and the opposite also holds true: it repels a different audience, thus dividing the current TWST fanbase.

At the end of the day, otome is often set up for that immediate payoff, that happily ever after, because otome is generally not concerned with telling a deep, complex, or thought-provoking story. Its primary goal is to satisfy and to indulge the player, even if it means sacrificing other things, like character complexity or plot, in order to achieve that. The structure of otome is best for guilty pleasure, wish fulfillment, and escapism, which, again, I don’t think that vibes well with the friendship and character growth driven nature of TWST. TWST is allowed to explore mature themes and it is allowed to have all of its characters be equally as important because it is not restricted by the expectations imposed by the otome genre. There’s definitely still some bones thrown at the players in terms of a few main story and home screen lines, but that’s where the fanservice stops. TWST’s aim isn’t fanservice, it’s telling compelling stories with its wonderful cast of characters.

It would have to take an extremely skillful team of writers to pull off a TWST otome game that avoids all the pitfalls I previously mentioned (if the goal is to preserve the charming characters and their development despite the genre shift). You can’t just copy paste TWST’s current main story plot and add dialogue choices that increase affection with various boys and call it a day; you’d seriously need to reconstruct and rewrite literally everything to make it cohesive.

[stxleslyds]

What do you think about the theories that Jason was sexually abused as a child? Or even possibly while he was comatose after his resurrection?

Implications of this theory include his conversation with Mia (Speedy) and Bruce's message (Battle for the Cowl). In addition, when he was Robin he expressed what was then considered uncharacteristic rage towards the perpetrators of sex crimes.

Garzonas - unrepentant rapist who got no consequences

When a woman killed her sister's rapist and murderer (because Batman's evidence was not admissible in court), Batman said that she went too far with murder. Jason's disagreed with "Good riddance". Good for you, Jason.

His recklessness when dealing with a child sex trafficking ring.

I highly doubt that DC would ever confirm this theory. I would rather they leave it ambiguous because I don't trust them to not botch Jason... much less respectfully address the subject matter.

I have read so many thoughts on Jason that they're starting to blend together. So I apologize if you've already answered this before.

Hello friend! Aside from the fact that I took way too much time to answer your ask, this was also a hard question to come up with an answer to, I wanted to remain respectful of the subjects at hand even though I don’t second this headcanon. But before we keep going, let me put some trigger warnings in this post.

trigger warning: mentions of sexual abuse, child abuse, rape.

First, I would like to bring up these two concepts because I oftentimes mix them up when talking about these “ideas”.

Theory: a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something; an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action.

Headcanon: Headcanon generally refers to ideas held by fans of series that are not explicitly supported by sanctioned text or other media. Fans maintain the ideas in their heads, outside of the accepted canon.

I think the idea of Jason having been sexually abused at any point in his lifetime is a mix between a theory and a headcanon. Why I am saying this? Because as you have put in the ask, there has been instances where fandom has found pieces of information that they have considered the base of this idea.

So, if we say that there is a piece of text that might support that idea and they build from that to justify a course of action we would be looking at a theory. In this case Jason having been abused would the reason as to why he acts in that strong and violent way towards cases of sexual abuse/harassment.

In the other hand those pieces of text might not support that idea so fandom headcanons that idea in order to build another layer to a character, in this case Jason having been abused would also justify his actions towards certain criminals.

The “text” (panels, issues, mentions) are most of the time ambiguous, which makes readers have different perspectives in what is being written and what then is made into a theory or headcanon.

Personally, I don’t like this theory or headcanon for various reasons (which I will explain later in the post), and I have read and understood those moments mentioned as Jason just having survived Crime Alley as something general, I don’t think he suffered that kind of abuse but I think he was made aware of that type of behaviour every day that he spent alone in the streets and that why we saw Jason in Batman #408 saying that he had “graduated a long time ago from the streets of crime alley”.

Having said that, I do understand that some of the moments mentioned can be seen as ambiguous and that’s what leads people to theorize/headcanon that idea, because of that I would like to show the panels mentioned in your ask so everyone can read them and make up their own conclusions and then I will talk about the reasons why I don’t like this particular theory/headcanon.

As Robin:

Batman (1940) #422

In these panels we can see Jason as Robin jumping in to defend a woman that was being attacked by a man. There I only see Jason acting like a vigilante would, maybe he was hitting too hard or whatever but Batman has hit people as much as Jason was doing it this time around, plus I, personally, don’t see any kind of problem with Jason beating a man that was harassing and threatening a woman with death.

Right beside we have Jason being on the side of the woman that killed her sister’s attacker. He didn’t see any problem with that woman seeking justice for her sister on her own when the police, Batman and himself couldn’t get the job done.

Here I see Jason having a big problem with authorities and justice system, which is not something new, in Batman #408, Jason says very clearly that he doesn’t trust the system in Gotham (the police, social workers and such), and he was also shown in that comic talking very fondly about his mother and about how much he cared for her when she was at her worst. Let’s remember that Jason loved his mother, he took care of her and resented his father for being abusive towards her and even introducing her to drugs.

Instead understanding these panels as Jason having been abused himself, I see it more as Jason having a humongous understanding of how much women and others suffer in Gotham due to the justice system’s lack of action. I also see Jason as the kind of boy that respected all women and could not sit and do nothing when people were hitting and abusing women just like his father did to his mother.

Batman (1940) #424

This issue starts by saying that Jason jumps into action as soon as he hears someone scream but that he wasn’t going to be prepared to see what was happening. This is the issue where all of us meet Felipe Garzonas, the abuser and rapist of many women. At first Jason doesn’t know what Felipe was doing but after he and Batman “defeat” Felipe, he goes to the room where he finds Gloria in a bed badly hurt and scared. Jason is shocked when he first finds her and after hearing her story in the police station, he becomes more and more happy about the fact that by having caught Felipe, he and Batman would be able to offer some peace and justice to Gloria after he goes to jail, but that doesn’t happen.

They had all the evidence to put Felipe in jail and the police could easily see that Gloria was the victim but because Felipe had someone to back his made-up story up, he was able to not be arrested and jailed.

Jason once again is baffled at the lack of action by the police or simply justice not being able to be made in favour of the true victim. Batman even says that he has noticed that Jason “had become to emotionally invested with the case” which could favour either idea (Jason having suffered sexual abuse or not), in my case I see this once again as Jason not being able to remain calm after doing everything to keep that woman safe and the justice system not being able to do it themselves in a more permanent way (jail time, or whatever).

But that’s not all because Jason being too emotional with that case was brought up as a way to show that Jason couldn’t see that Felipe had been under the influence of drugs, which is something that Jason can see in people very well (do to experience with his mother and his training with Batman). So, Felipe is now a rapist, an abuser, he does drugs and he also has a market for it.

Because Felipe was allowed to go back to his “normal” life he had Gloria be killed, and he kept abusing drugs and women, when Jason finds Gloria’s dead body and that Batman still seems to abide the justice system he snaps. He goes alone to see Felipe and that’s were this iconic panel comes from. The moments before Jason made his first kill and felt no remorse about it. I know this is kinda soft topic because Jason was a teenager, but good for him, kill that bitch. Gotham doesn’t need more people like him.

Batman (1940) #226

This is the issue where Jason attacks the men that were involved with some very nasty stuff involving children. Batman narrates and says that him and Jason had been working on this case for three weeks. Jason jumps into action suddenly and “recklessly” even though Batman considered their investigation wasn’t over, he also says that he thinks that Jason had been “acting oddly” and that he was very “moody, resentful and reckless” and that that attitude could “get him killed”.

This could be used as to add more proof of the abuse idea but I actually see it as build up to Jason’s death, that happened two issues later. Let’s remember that Jason found out of his birth mother and was desperate to find and save her from Joker, because he was a good son but also because he didn’t feel like Bruce loved, cared or appreciated him anymore. Ever since Jason made it clear that he didn’t see the world and justice in the same way that Batman did back in issue #422, Jason and Bruce’s relationship suffered, they just couldn’t see eye to eye on some subjects and Bruce’s neglect or lack of care for what Jason believed in drove Jason to act the way he did in the case involving his mother and the Joker.

Jason obviously has major issues with kids being abused and put in dangerous situations, he as the Red Hood (Winick’s Red Hood) is the same, he really wants kids to be taken far away from drugs so they cannot be manipulated, used and abused by Gotham’s Drug Lords. Here I can see some of the same thing, Jason being protective of those kids and getting fed up with how much time he and Batman had to wait to do anything about the subject, along side it I bet Jason wasn’t seeing the police or the justice system doing anything about the whole thing so that could have probably fuelled his desperate attack of those horrible people.

As Batman/Red Hood:

Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3

Battle for the Cowl… yeah I am going to be brutally honest about this, if anyone thinks that this is someway or somehow proof that Jason had been abused in the past then I think we have very different ways of thinking how survivors must be treated or written in comics and other media.

This to me is pure bad writing, this is some of the worst things I have seen being written in comics. Whether or not this implies Jason being abused or not, Bruce’s message is absolutely disgusting and not at all helpful, it is even worse when you realise that Dick, a canon sexual assault survivor, is the one playing the message to Jason even though Jason explicitly said that he didn’t want to hear it again. That Book, issue, page and panel are extremely badly written and is one of the most terrible Jason and Dick characterizations ever.

So, I don’t really care if this panel is supposed to offer support to that theory or headcanon, I really dislike that speech and if it is actually referencing Jason as being a survivor of child abuse, then Tony S. Daniel needs to make an apology from today to the day he dies.

“Of all my failures, you have been my biggest” “You were broken and I thought I could put the pieces back together. I thought I could do for you what could never be done for me. Make you whole” “What happened to you as a child… the terror, the pain, the horrors” “You needed repair and instead I gave you an outlet to act out on”

Absolute garbage writing. Me, as Bruce is number one hater, know that that speech is even out of character for Bruce. Listen, if Jason had been a victim of sexual assault or just being a kid living alone in Crime Alley, no one should leave a message like that, telling a victim that they were broken and needed fixing, what the hell? No, thank you, this issue proves nothing except that Battle for the Cowl was a mistake as a whole.

Green Arrow (2001) #72

Judd Winick is clever I will always say that, and while I do see why people think that Jason is making the “child abuse idea” canon I still think that the way that he talks is still fairly ambiguous if not just him playing mind games with Mia.

I know it sounds wrong, but hear me out, Winick, in this arc makes Batman say that Jason distracted him and Oliver just to take Mia as a “hostage” because that was Jason’s way to mess with him. This arc happens right after UtRH and Jason is a bit more unhinged than ever. But he doesn’t harm Mia, he just talks to her, he tries to make her see why he acts the way he does and to do that he talks about how much he sees of himself in her. Do I believe that Jason suffered the same things Mia did? No. Do I think that their past is similar? Yes.

But Jason doesn’t only use the fact that they have similar pasts to make Mia rebel against her “no killing ways” and Oliver like he did with Bruce, but he also brings up the fact that their past is incredibly different to the lives of Bruce and Oliver, and that those differences are of importance.

Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t see Jason bringing Mia’s past for anything other than manipulating her and kinda make her see Oliver in a negative light the way that he does Batman and Bruce. Jason was at a point in his life where all he wanted to do was deliver the same pain that he had gone through but he didn’t do it by physically harming anyone (Mia was left unscratched), he was just out there trying to play mind games so he could break more havoc in Batman’s name.

Mia’s past is just way too different to whatever we have seen in canon from Jason’s past. Maybe I am wrong, after all, I only read about Mia in that arc.

-

With all that having been said I think it’s pretty obvious that I just don’t think that Jason’ having been sexually abused as a child actually happened, and I also don’t like to think about his past in that way. His canon suffering could have made him act that violently against criminals involved with sexual attacks and drug-related crimes, but I also think that’s just how Jason was, he really disliked the justice system in Gotham and saw how much it failed to protect victims, so now that he had the training to help those who couldn’t do it for themselves, he tried his best to bring criminals to justice.

And when that didn’t work, he grew more and more frustrated with Batman’s methods which led him to be more unforgiving and violent.

I also don’t like the theory/headcanon as a whole because I think its one of those things that Fandom comes up with just for that extra angst factor in their favourite character’s story so they can make him suffer more and because of that no other Robin or character as a whole can ever understand his pain or whatever. In this fandom there is a lot of “competitive trauma” going on and I honestly dislike it a lot.

About Jason having been assaulted while he was in a coma, I don't really know, he was at a hospital for what I believe were six moths, maybe that idea comes from real life happenings but I have never thought of that happening in Jason's life and I would rather not give it much more thought.

Also, I believe that DC just like fandom would have never been able to handle the subject of Jason having been a sexual assault survivor with the respect and care that it actually needs. We have seen DC treat sexual harassment and abuse as nothing but a side plot or bringing it up in an extremely disturbing way. In Fandom some (very few) people end up glamorising or romanticising these subjects so, I don’t believe the comic world was or is ready to treat a backstory like this with the respect it needs.

Maybe I haven’t even treated the subject with the respect and care that it needs and if that’s the case then I am truly sorry.

I had never answered a question regarding this subject before and I really appreciate all the questions you send my way; they do make my brain happy. I am really sorry it took me this long to write an answer to you but I hope the post is good enough for all the time I made you wait!

I hope you have an amazing week!

[crowtwink]

I'm so tired of people using the word "fanon" in the DC fandom. 99% of "fanon" is just canon that the person using the term hasn't encountered.

The "no metas in Gotham" rule is based in (as far as my memory serves) two things, one of which is definitely mainline canon and I have a source for and one of which I admittedly do not have a source for but I think is canon and is at the very least a reasonable extrapolation from mainline canon. I literally have no clue which Elseworlds you think it's based on, but if the Elseworlds in question was published after 2011 I can tell you for a fact that this is older than that.

First things first, you need to understand that this started showing up based on 90s/early 00s Batman. Duke didn't exist at that time, so the Bats were 100% human. It's also worth noting that 90s Bats were very different from their current counterparts and this was peak dark and gritty comics era. For example, the Bats were canonically urban legends whose existence had never been proven. Yes, this is after years of openly working with the police in mainline canon. Yes, Bruce was still canonically a founding member of the Justice League over in that comic. Yes, this was all 100% explicitly stated in the text canon. With me so far?

(tossing the rest under a readmore because it got long)

I'll start with the maybe-not-fully canon thing, which is Bruce asking metas not to do their hero thing in "his" city. This is usually portrayed as less of a meta-phobic stance and more of a practical stance (although Bruce has canonically been anti-meta in a phobic way and we'll get to that). Bruce - aside from being in his peak angsty I must carry this burden alone era - didn't want to put an even bigger target on Gotham by having superpowered heroes show up there and potentially lure in their superpowered villains. This is mainly a Watsonian excuse for why Superman doesn't just show up and trounce the Joker, or Flash doesn't come in and just find the hidden bomb by looking everywhere. The implication is usually not that metas cannot exist in Gotham but simply that they have to, like, not be in costume and not openly act as superheroes. I really think I've run into this in canon more than once, but I don't have an issue on hand so I admit it could just be a really well established fan theory that took on a life of its own. But it is at the very least a reasonable extrapolation from the fact that Bruce doesn't ever call Wonder Woman to borrow her lasso for interrogations.

Okay, so, the source I do have. The main source here is Superboy #85.

So, uh, explicit anti-meta sentiment from Bruce in canon? Check. Explicitly wanting a meta escorted out of the city and telling him to stay away from Batgirl (who operates in Gotham) in canon? Check. Worth noting that neither Tim nor Cass here tells Kon he's wrong about Bruce having an "anti-meta" agenda. (This was around the time that DC was trying to do with metas what Marvel does with mutants. It didn't really work out and was dropped for the most part but it still happened.) There are a couple other times Tim tells Kon and/or Bart to get out of Gotham because of Bruce. I'm not going searching for exact issues, but I can think of at least two instances. Now, whether that's because they're metas or because they're.... Kon and Bart... is up for debate (Bruce was not a huge fan of Tim's friends), but it's still right there in mainline canon. It doesn't come from nowhere. And even if it DID come from an Elseworlds, that wouldn't make it non-canon. It's just canon in an Elseworlds. Which is different from Post-Crisis Canon. Which is different from Nu52 Canon. Which is different from Rebirth Canon. All of which are different from the canons of various TV shows and movies and games which are still canon.

Which brings me to my actual point. "Canon" in comics does not function like canon in most fandoms. Everything that is officially put out by DC is canon. Yes, even that stupid video game tie-in comic you hate. Canon actively and often contradicts itself. Yes, even "mainline canon" which is the term I've been using here for all comics that were set in the main comics universe at the time of their publication. You cannot even define with certainty what color a Lazurus Pit is in mainline canon (it's been green or gold most commonly, and I believe a few other colors as well). Why do so many people think they can look at a concept in fanfiction and say with certainty that it is has never appeared at any point in 80 years of canon and is fully fan invented? (And that's not even getting into the fanon elements that have become canon due to the fact that the overlap between fandom and official creator is extremely high)

Can it be worth it to articulate "hey this element doesn't match up with other aspects of canon that this person claims to be following and I find the contrast jarring?" Sure. You can even say "I don't like this particular element and I don't want to acknowledge it" or "I've never encountered this particular element outside of fanfiction and I think maybe its oversaturation in fandom is giving people an unrealistic view of what most/current canon is like which kind of bothers me" but unless you have a link to a specific post in which a fan says they are inventing a thing based on absolutely zero comic evidence, it's probably not entirely fanon. And even then I wouldn't be surprised if some nerd pulls up an issue from the 50s like "Well, actually..."

You don't get to decide that something another fan is using isn't canon because it doesn't match up to your personal taste. It's the same rhetoric that's been around ever since I got into comics in 2012 but now instead of calling people "try-hard fake geek girl" for dressing up as "steampunk genderswapped Joker" (an actual thing someone said referring to a cosplay of canonical character Duela Dent), we call things "fanon" and insist that certain stories or ideas are too OOC to "count" as canon. Sorry, but Red Hood and the Outlaws is just as canon as Under the Red Hood. Just because you don't know where in canon something came from doesn't mean that the people using it made it up. Just because you have evidence in canon that contradicts something doesn't mean that thing cannot also be equally canon. (Bruce is canonically a very good father in some comics. He is also canonically an abusive father in other comics. A lot of people have trouble with that one in particular.)

Everyone makes sense of DC's canon in their own way. And that's okay. That's awesome even. But as a fandom we have to get better at acknowledging this and realizing that our own understanding of canon is not an immutable fact but an interpretation. Other people will have different interpretations. And unfortunately some of those interpretations are going to be insufferable. But that does not mean those interpretations aren't valid and looking down on people for having them isn't cool.

Lots of fanon concepts haunt me but none do it more like "no metas in Gotham" bc this is not only 1.) false 2.) it was a concept for an elseworld's comic 3.) Bruce didn't say it 4.) do you really really think Batman has the authority to outright BAN an entire people from a city? and 5.) Duke.

[cardentist]

I haven’t been in the star trek fandom for very long (I’ve only just started binging the series in the last couple months), so it’s been pretty surprising to find out just how negative the perception of the reboot movies are.

this isn’t coming from the perspective of someone who grew up with the series, so it hit different for me than it might for people with a different relationship to TOS, but I thought it was genuinely clever and Respectful with how it was handled.

To quote leonard nimoy: “Well the alternative timeline gives them license to escape from canon concerns. I can’t see people saying ‘they shouldn’t do that because…’ or ‘that doesn’t tie in to such and such’ because it is a different time and place. Am I right about that?” [Link]

the entire Premise is that the original series happened as it was presented in TOS, but an event late in Spock’s life caused the creation of a parallel universe in which everyone’s lives were significantly altered through two key changes to the timeline. this gives them the freedom to Both revel in fanservice And explore different facets of the characters and their relationships. 

the destruction of vulcan Vastly impacts the characters and the plot moving forward, and its a detail that a lot of people take issue with. but the emotional impact of sarek admitting Directly to spock that there is value in his humanity, that his feelings Aren’t wrong, that sarek married amanda because he Loved her cannot be understated. you can read all of these things into sarek as he was in the original series, but he Never had an open conversation about these things with spock. this creates a Believable and Rewarding change in their relationship, where we get to see a different facet of them Because of the changes made. and that’s exactly the appeal. showing us pieces of these characters that we never got in TOS that are nevertheless undeniably Them.

everyone is Different yes, but they’re also fundamentally the same people at their core and that matters.

kirk’s personality obviously takes the biggest change, with him experiencing trauma at a young age, losing his father, and having an implied abusive father figure after that point. he has a harsher personality in reaction to harsher conditions, he’s spikier and harder to love. but he’s also still fundamentally a Good person whose willing to risk everything to help people. he still has what made kirk prime a good captain and a good friend.

I’m not gonna say that it’s the most nuanced story in the world, but it explores a version of kirk that was born from even Less fortunate circumstances than kirk prime, exploring a kirk brimming with potential who learned to bite back after he was kicked down. exploring those themes of trauma and loss, of insecurity and growth, and coming to the conclusion that Fundamentally He Is Capable Of Good isn’t a Bad thing. you don’t have to like it, but his growth into a better person is The Point. they deepened his flaws (all of which were present in a less exaggerated form in TOS) To Show That Growth.

and then of course there’s his relationship with spock.

people are totally justified in not liking that they had a rough start to their relationship, I usually don’t like to see that kind of thing in reboots or hollywood adaptations either, but the way people talk about it is just unfair.

Yes kirk and spock and bones have a very strong relationship in TOS, they also already know each other by the time the show starts. to look at them having to learn to get to know and trust each other when they first meet and say that it’s Bad because they were already full on ride or die for each other in the og series is silly. TOS kirk and spock had to meet and fall in love with each other too, it didn’t just happen over night kings.

secondly, the entire point of the first movie is that Even With reality itself being altered to pull them apart they are fundamentally compatible people that are Bound to each other. they meet each other on bad terms because of circumstances outside of their control, and yet they’re still pulled into each other’s orbit and find the other slotting into place next to them as if they always belonged. one of the first things that spock prime says in the movie is “I am and always will be your friend,” spock and jim are Meant for each other and the movie goes out of its way to explain that. which is what makes it so Weird to see people complaining about how they don’t like each other.

it’s a Different relationship, but it’s absolutely no less steeped in yearning or queer subtext. 

speaking of queer subtext ! some people are Very unhappy with spock’s relationship with uhura.

first thing I wanna say is that making the argument that they’re doing anything that the original series hasn’t done is just, completely untrue. kirk has fallen in love with more girls in the og series than he knew what to do with, leonard nimoy was a heartthrob in his time (and he deserves it, awooga) and spock reflects that ! Spock usually turns the women who come onto him down (or when he doesn’t it’s because a plant has literally altered his mind), but there are exceptions to even that. all of three of the main boys have plenty of romance subplots, it happens. if that takes the possibility of them being queer off the table for you (which it shouldn’t, m-spec people exist) then I’m sorry to say that TOS is not exempt.

now, I can understand why Specifically This Relationship could rub people the wrong way or being disappointed that they didn’t outright depict kirk and spock as having a relationship (if not in the first movie then in the following ones after they’ve gotten to know each other), but even in that context the way I’ve seen people talk about it comes off as insensitive.

no, the relationship did not come out of nowhere. they considered having spock and uhura date each other in the original show (and you can see signs of this in the earlier episodes, where uhura very obviously flirts with him and they spend time together in their down time) before they decided against it, and spock was originally going to kiss uhura until shatner insisted that he wanted to do it (because it was the first interracial kiss on tv). [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3]

nichelle nichols was asked about this exact thing (spock and uhura’s relationship in the movie), you can read the interview in full here [Link] but I’d like to highlight this paragraph in particular:

“Now, go back to my participation in Star Trek as Uhura and Leonard (Nimoy) as Spock. There was always a connection between Uhura and Spock. It was the early 60’s, so you couldn’t do what you can do now, but if you will remember, Uhura related to Spock. When she saw the captain lost in space out there in her mirror, it was Spock who consoled her when she went screaming out of her room. When Spock needed an expert to help save the ship, you remember that Uhura put something together and related back to him the famous words, “I don’t know if I can do this. I’m afraid.” And Uhura was the only one who could do a spoof on Spock. Remember the song (in “Charlie X”)? Those were the hints, as far as I’m concerned.”

the film makers looked at the fact there were Hints for uhura and spock, that they were Interested in exploring an interracial couple for the first time (both before and immediately after interracial couples won the right to legally get married) but Couldn’t because of the circumstances of the times and decided to Make that depiction. you don’t have to Like their relationship just because of that fact, but it’s Incredibly reductive to play down it’s significance as just a No Homo cop out. explicitly queer relationships are not the only progressive or culturally important relationships in fiction.

moreover, if you can’t imagine polyamory in the communist utopian future that’s on you.

moreover, this perception that this was a soulless cash grab is just, unfounded.

leonard nimoy returned to the role as spock for the first time in 16 years (since 1991) and this was Entirely because of the respect they had for nimoy, spock as a character, and the franchise as a whole. 

Lets look at some quotes from nimoy in interviews regarding the film:

Leonard Nimoy: When I first read the script (...) I immediately contacted J.J. and said “I think it is terrific…I think you guys have done a wonderful job. There is still work to be done, but it is very clear that you and your writers know what you are doing and you know how to do this movie and know what it should be about….and I am very interested.” Then as time went by we worked things out with Paramount, but the most important things were J.J. and the script. (...) I am very pleased about that and I am very comfortable with where this is going. I think the writers have done a terrific job. They have a real sense of the characters and the heart of Star Trek and what it is really all about.

(...)

TrekMovie.com: Now in the case of the new movie you have been retired from acting for years. What was it about this one that made you want to act again and go through the make up again? What was it that made you say ‘I really want to do this?’

Leonard Nimoy: You are right, this is a special situation. First it is Star Trek and so I have to pay attention. I owe that to Star Trek. Second place is that it is J.J. Abrams who I think very highly of, he is a very talented guy. Then came the script and it was very clear that I could make a contribution here. The Spock character that I am playing, the original Spock character, is essential and important to the script. So on the basis of those three elements it was easy to make the decision. So those three things: Star Trek, J.J. Abrams, and an interesting Spock role.

[Link]

Praising the cast playing younger versions of characters from the original 1960s TV series, he [Leonard Nimoy] said: “Let me take the opportunity to say this. Everybody at this table [the cast] are very, very talented and intelligent people.”

“They found their own way to bring that talent and intelligence to this movie, and I think it shows. (...)  When Karl Urban introduced himself as Leonard McCoy and shook hands with Chris Pine, I burst into tears. That performance of his is so moving, so touching and so powerful as Doctor McCoy, that I think D. Kelley would be smiling, and maybe in tears as well.”

“The makers of this film reawakened the passion in me that I had when we made the original film and series. I was put back in touch with what I cared about and liked about Star Trek, and why I enjoyed being involved with Star Trek. So, it was an easy way to come on home.”

“[In this Star Trek] they said things and showed me things, and demonstrated the sensibility that I felt very comfortable with, and I think that shows in the movie. I like it.”

[Link 1, Link 2]

again, you don’t have to like it just because leonard nimoy did, you don’t have to Agree. but the idea that nobody working on the film Cared is provably false. near everyone working on the project was already a fan of the series or were excited to be involved and did their homework. it’s genuinely a Miracle just how much of a labor of love this was, and in my opinion you can feel that through the movie itself. I’d highly recommend looking into interviews and behind the scenes details about the movies. they had a respect not just for the source material, but for leonard nimoy as a person.

there’s definitely more I Could say about this, but it’s 4 am now so I’m gonna shelve it jklfdsa

that said! it’s Fine to not like the movie, not everything is going to be suited to everyone’s taste, but the specific criticisms I’ve seen feel very off base

[applejackofalltrades]

Why Do I Like AppleDash So Much?

Literally nobody has ever asked me this but I'm going to answer this question anyway.

Intro: How I Got Into My Little Pony

Imma be real. The reason I started watching the show is because some of my old Twitter mutuals were interacting with posts about the Friendship Is Magic 10th anniversary. Some of them were talking about Rarijack and how it was a good ship, and others were discussing the implied canonicity of Appledash.

I had, at the time, just finished catching up on The Owl House that had recently been in the process of finishing up season one or had just gone into hiatus (can't remember which) and I was losing interest in my old hyperfixations fast.

See, I do this thing where I get really REALLY invested in a show and then as soon as it ends or as soon as I absorb every bit of media in it, I lose some of the interest or it fades. I don't usually lose full interest. For example, I still love She-Ra (my last big fandom) and I'm obviously still invested in The Owl House, but ever since both of those shows ended/stalled, I was desperately needing something to distract me from the trials and tribulations of my will to live that my daily life often forced upon me.

As you can guess, ponies was my solution.

I went into the show with a Rarijack mindset, but knowing that Appledash existed. I guess my mutuals just really liked Rarijack. I decided to give season one a chance. Actually, I felt quite silly for even deciding to watch the show. You see, back in 2018, I was still quite... trivial about watching anything that was seen as "girly". I didn't really have any problems with watching cartoons (ie. V*ltron, Steven Universe, Avatar, Pokemon etc.) but it was the fact that a show was "girly" that made me iffy. I had a very fragile masculinity, okay?

Anyway, so I actually was really afraid to watch She-Ra, even though the teaser images and trailer looked good. But I did and I decided that even "girly" shows could be good and that I was silly.

But, oh boy, cringe culture really messed with me. In mid/late 2020, I was ashamed to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I said I'd watch one season just so I could laugh at it. I wanted to watch it as a joke, and who knows, maybe I found a guilty pleasure to watch while I waited for The Owl House to come back?

I loaded up Netflix and I hit play. Instantly, I was cringing at myself. Can you blame me? Early season MLP was obviously meant for kids. Not that it was immature or bad, but it was definitely a kid's show, especially considering the iconic storybook opening of episode one.

I watched the episodes, but they mostly were just background noise as I did other things. I remember watching them, but I was indifferent, although frustrated that I found myself chuckling at a few of the jokes and quips. I wasn't that invested, though. I thought Twilight was boring, Rarity obnoxious, Pinkie annoying, Fluttershy frustrating, and Rainbow Dash infuriating. I didn't really mind Applejack, I mostly kinda just thought she was the best one. (Nothing's changed, eh?)

And then....

Fall Weather Friends

Season One Episode Thirteen rolled around.

It starts (as y'all know) with Rainbow Dash and Applejack throwing horseshoes.

I don't know why, but this caught my attention. Of course, being only a few episodes after Look Before You Sleep, I had Rarijack on the mind. But I did think that Applejack and Rainbow Dash were probably good friends and would make for an interesting pairing, and a more interesting episode given their similarities, but also their differences.

I found myself fully watching this episode, and I dare say, it's the episode that dragged me fully into the show.

Maybe it's because I see myself in both of them in a way. Maybe that's why I connect so much with the pair, but them having an episode together? That was really good for me. I wasn't in the best state of mind, and something about seeing two characters that were in some ways reminiscent of myself interact and argue and have an endearing episode together made me smile.

It was then that I discovered the simple amazingness of AppleDash.

I mean, who doesn't love obnoxious, competitive girlfriends that are both prideful and headstrong?

I know I love it.

Anyway, so at that point, my mind kinda just clicked and I decided that my OTP was AppleDash. However, poly rights and Applejack has two front hooves *cough* Rarijackdash *cough*

But yeah so that's how I got into AppleDash. Fall Weather Friends, which was kinda the episode that made me love MLP.

How That Progressed

Well, obviously, I still love that ship I mean I live for it. If I could have any one single ship it'd be them. It just kept getting better and better as the show progressed, I mean their dynamic is great whether you want to see it platonically or romantically. They have a lot in common right off the bat (example, they are both incredibly stubborn, though AJ would take the cake for that) and seem to be close (I mean right from episode one they appear to already have a pre-established friendship), but they're also different. Applejack is a hard worker all of the time with anything she does, while Dash tends to be lazy but can be extremely driven when she is motivated (for example, when she wants to achieve her Wonderbolts dream). Applejack is immensely caring and family-oriented and does things for the good of everypony, while Rainbow Dash can be kind of a jerk and not mindful of her actions when she's wrapped up in the stuff she's doing for herself (not to say she isn't caring, but she tends to be kind of an ass, even to Fluttershy sometimes).

Their growth was immensely fun to watch and as time went on, they shared more and more screentime together. Even if it's not an episode that revolves around them, whenever one of them is in frame, most of the time the other is close by, and they often stand next to each other.

Now, in terms of why they work in the show's canon (in my opinion, either romantically or platonically, they do make a great pairing):

They are both competitive and enjoy competing with each other, though they know (especially after FWF when they've taken it too far)

They watch out for each other (AJ often holds Rainbow Dash back when she's about to rush into danger, especially in early seasons, and Dash always lifts AJ out of danger first [the two examples I can think of off the top of my head are in Best Gift Ever and My Little Pony: The Movie])

Their personalities even each other out. (AJ is a lot more calm than RD, and while they can both get worked up, Applejack is usually the calm one)

Their colour schemes are literally complementary. (AJ's coat is orange while Rainbow's is blue. AJ's eyes are green while RD's are pink/red).

They share a lot of cute moments. (You can just look these up)

THEY'RE HECCING CUTE.

AND FINALLY

I mean fuck, the finale. They're literally canon, you cannot tell me otherwise. It was absolutely intended and you cannot prove otherwise. (read the script notes l o l "we actually could do sort of a subtle wink to the idea that they are now a couple???" < RE Appledash). They live together, they have domestic arguments about chores, they are always giving each other fond looks throughout the episode, always standing next to or near each other, and well we all know Rainbow's iconic hoof on AJ's head in the last shot of the show.

Ashleigh Ball really was the OG shipper and fuck it, she was right. We all know they are in love, she knows they are in love. The only reason they couldn't explicitly state it in the show is probably bc Hasbro would have been against that at the time (I mean, Lyrabon had to be very subtle but hey we gottem).

Oh and, I know this isn't exactly canon canon, but it is an official game: The My Little Pony Magic Princess app. Future AJ and RD's descriptions allude to them being together.

You could negate this and say that this is just them being friends but I mean... come on. Come on. Sweet Apple Acres is Apple family land, and the only people who live there as of The Last Problem are Apples. (AJ, Sugar Belle and Big Mac and their foal, and you guessed it... Rainbow Dash).

You cannot tell me that they aren't canon. You'd really have to be grasping at straws because all the signs are there. They had build up, development, and it just makes sense.

If you don't think it makes sense... did we watch the same show??? It absolutely makes sense.

Anyway, AppleDash is canon. :)

[chaostified]

Wohoooo, leggo, here I come baby:

Ink is enby/agender and uses they/them pronouns cause I wanted to make myself suffer by projecting onto them to the point where if they suffer, I suffer too.

Ink, being an enthusiast of all forms of art is a major bookworm. Doesn't seem like it but they love to chill and read sometimes because art isn't just painting. Homie enjoys everything from making statues out of scrap metal to music to fighting styles/martial arts to poems.

Though it is canon that Ink cannot knit for shit, I think that Ink would be dedicated enough to learn sewing.

Ink likes to run away from their responsibilities and go hide wherever even the gods don't know, for the abyss doesn't even know how long. They usually entertain themselves with good old stalking hah, watching over their friends. ^^''

Broomie is mostly for show and something they use to practice and limit their magic. They would much prefer to kick ass in close combat or use martial art techniques to guide their magic flow, even though their magic doesn't need physical guidance, just mental.

Ink and Dream are on friendly terms and Dream considers them to be a parent figure because 1. Nim is a garbage mother, and 2. Fuck Dreamtale lore tbh, my lore is better. xD

Ink is well acquainted with Nightmare as well. Their relationship may not be as close as Dream and Ink but Ink had made Nightmare promise that in great despair he will call them.

This is pretty anticlimactic but Ink and Killer are very close, to the point where they have matching daggers with special engravings that have their holsters also specially decorized.

Ink's magic is sentient. You heard me right, that thing is alive, and it will eat you alive if Ink even had a single thought of it. Hope and pray you won't fall victim to it, though you don't have to do it much considering that Ink's interest in anything really might just start and end at "Oh this creation is pretty cool".

Considering that Ink's magic has a mind of its own it can talk inside Ink's head. Sometimes Ink allows it to form into small animals or a small ink blob flying around Ink's body, usually hovering near Ink's shoulder.

Ink promptly calls their magic "my child", which is hilarious to everybody, making Ink cry and die inside in embarrassment. The magic itself enjoys being referred to as such.

Ink ADORES kids. Every child within the range of a kilometre gets a hug and a present.

Continuation to the previous headcanon: Kids ADORE Ink. Sometimes children with their parents around explicitly say that they want Ink to take them home instead of the parents and Ink is deadly embarrassed by this, says sorry, gives the kid a gift and dips to hell.

From the previous headcanons, you may have already guessed that Ink is prone to the "accidental parent" troupe. Which is probably me projecting once again. Now let me continue with the other headcanons as I swiftly adopt even more people to be my children.

Ink can shape-shift. Do they do it often? Not at all, and not even Ink's closest folk know about it. Though there have been times where Ink used this ability to prank people.

No matter how chaotic and weird they may be, they give actual useful advice. They lived enough and can live even more so there is no point for them to be so careful about life but others who aren't so fortunate/unfortunate (depending on Ink's mood) to have immortality need the advice, and oh the benevolent long-living deity that Ink is, they give the advice.

Ink is well acquainted with Dust as well. They were the person who taugh him and others ASL so that Dust could communicate without speaking (this stems from another headcanon I have: Dust is selectively mute due to trauma).

For now this is all you get as it is getting late and my brain is giving up on me.

Bai ^^★★★

Ok, i want all of your Ink hdcs now, NOW

[raymondebidochonlifechoices]

All fans are equal but some are more equal than others. NOT.

There’s been quite a few people in the fandom lately getting very stressed, feeling they’re obligated to constantly be on the defensive re: their fandom choices.

Apparently, whoever has a different opinion about a character or a ship must be said character’s/ship’s stan i.e. overzealous and/or obsessive, i.e. not an objective viewer. Even worse, they must be a dreadful person, who condones a number of moral offences that said character/ship perpetrated (or is thought to have perpetrated). Because, of course, the only acceptable reason for appreciating/enjoying a fictional character or dynamic is their morality. And, by that reasoning, fans who support the correct character/ship must be better fans and better people.

Nothing is more ridiculous than the notion of the objective fan. An “objective” fan is called a “viewer”. You and I, Riverdale friends, we are not just viewers. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have created blogs and dedicated hours of our lives to a fictional couple from an extremely mediocre show. We are still undoubtedly capable of critical thought and objective analysis but we are also aware of our own emotional investment in the show. (Or, at least, one hopes). As a fandom, we engage in activities that exist independently of the show. Fandom is a space of free expression. No one gets to play the higher moral card here. Needing to loudly tell everybody how wrong they are? That’s not the sign of an objective viewer. That’s the sign of a viewer who is also extremely invested, just for different reasons than I am.

Are we seriously holding the morality card over people’s heads for a show that used a poc woman’s pregnancy (Toni) as the means to retroactively establish trauma for a white male (Kevin), all the while touting it in every media possible as a woke response to the BLM movement?!

Are we seriously holding the canon card over people’s heads for a show that treats its 5th(!) season as a tabula rasa?! If the Lodges new backstory in 5x12 shows anything, it’s that s5 is not a time-jump. It’s a reboot.

There are so many people “enlightening” others on their inability to understand canon …

Seriously? That’s the hill you’re willing to die on? Canon Riverdale? You think that people don’t understand what they’re watching? That they’re interpreting canon incorrectly?

No, but seriously: canon for a TV show consists of what the characters say, what the characters do and how the actors portray them. Does this really apply to Riverdale?

Let’s take Donna for example.

Canon explicitly tells us Donna did what she did to avenge her grandmother. At the same time none of her canon actions were against the people who were actually responsible. So, riddle me this, fandom friends: why did Donna do what she did, as per canon?

Let’s try this another way:

Donna is a psycho bitch. Both in terms of Riverdale’s canon (the writers’ intention) and real-life criteria. To create a tag that reads “Bonna for ever uwu!” is deranged.

On the other hand, her character is (like a lot of Riverdale’s characters) an inconsistent caricature. Canon uses ridiculous dialogue and a lot of the Bonna scenes are cartoonishly enemies-to-lovers tropey. To create a tag that reads “Bonna for ever uwu!” is hilarious.

This doesn’t mean that Bonna is a canon couple. It does mean, however, that a Bonna crackship is based on Riverdale’s campy and over-the-top canonic writing.

A viewer who thinks Bonna is disgusting is not more “objective” or more “correct” or more “true to canon” than a viewer who thinks Bonna is funny. Nor are they a better person for it, and this cannot be stressed enough.

Similarly, who is canon Cheryl?

1. Cheryl is an absolute bitch: if a privileged student was calling an actual homeless boy a hobo in your real-life school, you would neither think her a queen nor use “hobo” affectionately in your tags, comments etc.

2. Cheryl is a deeply traumatized person: her father killed her brother, her mother killed half the town and forced her in conversion therapy, she attempted suicide and more.

(Note #1: this more does not mean more than the other Riverdale characters).

(Note #2: nor is it an excuse for her rudeness, affectionately called “mood for chaos” by the writers).

3. Cheryl is also a caricature of the archetypal mean girl who’s there for laughs and meta comments. She’s not to be taken seriously.

4. Cheryl is lgbtq+ representation …

5. … who canonically shits on other lgbtq+ characters.

6. Cheryl is one half of Choni, who are canonically presented as an uber couple.

7. Choni is also, as per canon, a couple with an acute power imbalance (cough!gaslighting!cough) that visually very clearly panders to the male gaze.

But most importantly:

8. Cheryl canonically is not the sum of her parts. The different facets of her character do not intermingle in any meaningful way.

Was Betty kissing Archie specifically a sore spot for Jughead?

Canonically no [2x14]. But, also, canonically yes [5x03, 5x10].

Are there seriously fans that are astonished that Betty is making some highly questionable choices while investigating?! Did they just discover Dark™Betty/Killer Genes Betty? That is canon Betty! Was it ok before because she was then smooching Jughead instead of giving him the cold shoulder? Honestly, the only newly outrageous part of s5Dark™Betty is the fact that she still believes in “killer genes” despite having spent 4 years at Yale …

As for liking/disliking Betty and morality …

Look, I’m going to be very honest: I am NOT particularly enjoying s5 Betty. And it’s not because of b*rchie.

S5 Betty has 99 problems but the sexcapades ain’t one.

For me, it’s the fact that she’s turned into s1 Alice 2.0. But surely that’s not news either? Ever since the first info about the time jump, everyone and their mother have been speculating about the teens becoming their parents …

Just because Jughead is better written (and written to be more likable), it doesn’t make him more worthy of redemption. Just because the writers are keeping Betty’s redemption “secret” (insert eye roll) for their big reveal in the season’s penultimate episode, it doesn’t mean she won’t have one.  

Simply put, the writers have made Jughead more likable. He’s still the underdog. He’s the only character in Riverdale actively trying to deal with his trauma, since the very first post-time jump episode (working at Pop’s explicitly to fend off the debt collectors). He has scenes with a new and extremely likable character (Tabitha). He has the only new plot line (the Mothman). Said plotline is narratively already tied to both his unknown past and the town’s destruction by Hiram. His behaviour is explicitly explained, even as his recent trauma remains unknown. He’s transparent.

In comparison, s5 Betty is traumatized but not the underdog. Her trauma (TBK killer) is both known to us and a repetition of previous storylines, which makes it narratively less exciting. She is completely disconnected from any other storylines. She comes out as being judgmental and self-interested: telling Tabitha Jughead’s not her business while previously accepting his help? Berating Polly for lying while not keeping in touch and lying about her own life (TBK)? Please note: I’m not saying there isn’t a reason behind her behaviour, just that it comes out in a negative way.

You don’t like Betty’s current behaviour? You don’t consider trauma a good enough excuse? Cool.

You feel sorry for what she’s going through? You consider trauma to be a valid explanation for her behaviour? Also cool.

Personally, I don’t give a flying fig, either for Betty’s trauma or Jughead’s. Because, even though Trauma™ is s5’s actual mystery plot, narratively speaking, trauma never affected the plot of the past 4 seasons, nor s5 trauma will affect future plots, once revealed. And you know what? That is also cool.

None of the above is better.

And just because I’m not enjoying Betty right now, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want her to overcome her current situation or that I won’t cheer for Bughead like a River Vixen on fizzle rocks, once they reunite.

This thing though, where people are made to feel as if they owed anyone in the fandom an explanation about why they like the things they like, because, somehow, their preferences are a reflection on their character or their cognitive abilities to read a TV show? This is a joke.

There is no “wrong” way to consume any show, let alone Riverdale, with its fractured format, its short-term memory and its see-sawing characters.

Look, everybody’s here for their own reasons. For most people this is a place of escape. No one’s escaping better than the other, because of how they enjoy their teen TV show ... 

[idw-sonic-fan-blog]

The Mandates

Just wanted to share my thoughts on the pro-ported mandates because they cast a shadow on this comic.

“Game characters cannot have relatives unless they were estabilished in the game canon, i.e. Cream and her mother.”

This one is understandable and you can blame Penders for this. Mind you that most licensed comics of gaming franchises don’t actually delve too much in personal family relationships or expand on them. So this is expected and honestly Sega should have put the screws on Archie decades ago about this.

“Game characters can not die. There are workarounds for this, such as being Mistaken for Dying or "Mistaken For Dead”

Again. Yes. Not a big deal.

“Game characters cannot have wardrobe changes unless approved. Chao Races and Badnik Bases has some characters (mainly the female game characters) wear different clothes for extreme conditions. Male characters remain the same.”

This is a useless rule but whatever. I mean Sega, you are the ones putting bad wardrobe choices on the characters so again it’s whatever.

“Sonic can't be shown getting too emotional (i.e;cry)”

This is one that it complained about because it really wouldn’t matter unless it is called attention to. A lot of superheroes don’t cry. But that doesn’t prohibit them from expressing themselves. IDW Sonic has been sad. He has been pissed. He has been furious.

Is this not too emotional?

Is he not expressing himself appropriately?

I don’t even know why this is brought up. When in this comic has Sonic not been expressive or displaying the appropriate amount of emotion? When did Sonic needing to cry be necessary?

“Game characters cannot enter in a relationship.”

Oh GOD YES. Don’t threaten me with a good time.

“All major Character Development must be approved by SEGA.”

Yeah, of course. Let me remind you that Penders and Archie ruined any strand of trust Sega could have in comic media. They played loose at first and all of the sudden, they are involved in a lawsuit about characters in a Sonic comic that they didn’t even know about. They probably lost a video game business relationship because of it. If they want to be involved in the comics, fine. That means that they are now forced to World Build. They have to invest in it now and not just be like Lucas Films and let anybody do anything with their flagship title.

“Much like the post-reboot of the Archie comic, the words "Mobius" is banned—the planet is simply called "Sonic's World". Unlike the Post-Boot, which allowed the names "Mobian" and "Mobini", anything related to Mobius is banned in this comic.”

…Of course but how about you throw the writer’s a bone and I don’t know, name the fucking planet. If it is not Earth, give it a name.

“Sonic must always win at the end. Even if he and his friends are at the losing end in an overarching story (the Metal Virus arc, for example), they must come out on top when it concludes.”

I don’t even get this rule and the knee jerk hatred for it. Why even have it? Why even share the existence of this rule? Archie Sonic didn’t really lose too bad. It’s more on how you frame a victory. The fact of the matter is that Eggman is still actively trying to conquer the planet. Sonic stops him but Eggman still has control of land and has military installations all over.

This rule is offset by this. While Sonic can’t lose, Sonic can’t completely win.

“Characters and material from other licensed properties (Sonic the Comic, Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)', Sonic Underground, the OVA, Sonic X and the Paramount films cannot be used. This rule extends to characters and redesigns done by the current writers. The only exception is Sticks from Sonic Boom, and that's because she was created by SEGA themselves and showed up in non-Boom media, but any ideas regarding her use still need to be okayed by SEGA.”

First off I am glad that Sticks was spared by this rule and I look forward to her eventual inclusion. Second, again, this is not much of a big deal as it was expected. Sorry Freedom Fighter fans but honestly deal.

“Male characters, sans Eggman, can't wear pants, which was also a thing in the Post-Reboot, albeit never explicitly stated. The inverse is also true; female characters have to have some form of lower clothing.”

Okay this is a pedantic rule. It is so weird with how precise it is. Like…huh?

“Classic characters such as Mighty, Ray, Nack/Fang, Bean, and Bark won't appear in non-Classic issues, as Sega doesn't want Classic and Modern Sonic to mix.”

One of the most bullshit mandates fueled by the nostalgia boner fans created. Like this is stupid because Archie Modern Sonic has added more character and depth to all of these mentioned characters than any of the Sega Sonic games they appeared in which only amounts to 1 or 2 at most. Why neuter your own potential stories with this stupid limitation?

“According to Ian Flynn, a specific incident involving Shadow's characterization when he's exposed to the Zombot infection was written in a specific way because of Sega mandating that he be written as an "overconfident asshole rival" character, similar to Vegeta. He later followed up with an explanation that out of every character, Shadow has the most mandates and notes attached to how he's portrayed. According to the podcast, Sega says that Team Dark is no longer a thing. The three members are not a team and they have never worked for G.U.N.; Shadow also doesn't even consider them friends.”

This is my opinion is the worst rule. First it’s contradictory to the character Sega introduced us to. Stop trying to be like Dragon Ball for once and actually be your own thing. It’s one thing if we are changing it because Shadow was unpopular because of his personality. But no one likes this Shadow. People miss the somber but reserved Hedgehog that continued to fight in spite of the world betraying him. Hothead Shadow is a cheap Knuckles. And I don’t even understand why Shadow even has so many mandates when he wasn’t the most egregious offender. Knuckles was.

Also, Team Dark aren’t a thing and Shadow doesn’t even consider them to be his friends. First off that doesn’t even fly in your own games. Who outside of Sonic does Shadow interact the most? Rouge. They have teamed up and were a packaged duo since their inception. When Shadow appeared, Rouge appeared right next to him. If Rouge was in a game, so was Shadow.

Team Dark or just Rouge has fought alongside Shadow in every game they appeared in. Who else does Shadow talk to if not Rouge?

“Sega has stated to Flynn that only male hedgehogs are allowed to go Super with the Chaos Emeralds.”

Except in Sonic Mania.

“Ian isn't allowed to directly reference a game, since the comic is supposed to be its own thing.”

Okay. Not only is this rule stupid. But it’s untrue.

This references the end of Sonic Forces.

The first page of comic.

It has referenced Sonic Adventure, SA2, Sonic Generations , and Sonic Unleashed.

This referencing Shadow the Hedgehog.

I don’t believe this rule exists and even if it did, it is dumbest rule since the whole point of this comic is to base it off the games more. The dumbest rule.

“Knuckles is not allowed to leave Angel Island unless he has a very good reason to.”

For decades, people have complained that Knuckles routinely leaves the island. For decades. Now does this mean Sega is going to 1. Use Knuckles and 2. Amplify the importance of Angel Island and the Master Emerald? No. Again, this criticism should be levied at Sega because they often conveniently forget Knuckles purpose and just hand wave it instead of giving Knuckles more to do on the island like I don’t know, have other entities invested in attacking him.

In summary, here is what I think is going on. Do I think most of these mandates are real? Yes. Given what happened to Archie, I do think Sega is doing some brand alignment. I think they got the clamps on.

But what I think is going on is a Japanese cultural thing called Power Harassment. It is normalized abuse of power. Sega of Japan is normally laxxed about their brands. They don’t mind blatant rip-offs of their mascot nor do they get stiff about fandom creations or mods. The comic division, however, is getting tough love because not only did it cost them a publishing deal, but ruined a relationship with a high end developer. So the IDW writers and staff are being subjected to intentionally hypocritical rules and strict mandates that they know don’t make sense until they’ve shown to be obedient.

A lot of the mandates aren’t strict. But some are so asinine that I don’t think they aren’t aware with how stupid they sound imposing those rules. Like Shadow is the most narratively complete Sonic character and yet, Sega puts this tight mandate as if Archie Shadow was the most egregious thing. Archie Shadow was overpowered. He wasn’t out of character like Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails were. They can’t be that stupid or be that intentionally dense. So they want to see if the writing crew can follow orders. That’s it.

But that’s just my take.