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simon tam being younger in firefly is such an interesting concept i need to think on. in the flashback scene in 1x5 (safe) their age gap seems to be 6-ish years. i’d say shorten that to about three years, making simon around 20. adjusting the timeline a bit, he’d be two or three years into an abandoned medical degree and spent the last year looking for river.

i enjoy the idea of him being much more out of his element with regard to medical expertise and experience. he would have to learn more battlefield medicine/improvisational healthcare in the moment and supplement his missed learning with folk medicine & techniques he studies from border planets. walk with me. dried herbs and flowers strung up all over the medbay.

he feels less secure about his place on serenity without the stability of being a doctor; he’s a medical professional, but only technically. while he may be the most qualified person there, he’s a fraud, a runaway medical student. he would posture a lot more when he first bargains to save kaylee, and i think that would complicate his relationship with mal initially when he realizes that not only did he exert authority over mal to stay on the ship, simon also exaggerated his ability to actually help kaylee to do so.

one of the best aspects of the show is the complex interpersonal dynamics. simon steps completely into the caretaking role for river, but now he’s barely older than she is. so he flounders. overcompensates. he’s used to being derided for his age, especially as his family denounces him, so he’s colder and more formal at first than he is in the show. no longer is he an adult man, secure in his medical expertise and the choices he’s made. would his old life be easier to give up for her? he’d still do everything to protect her, yes, but would he still make the same choices to do that?

i also think that this would affect his dynamic with his father. simon is abandoned by his family, his father especially, and he loses more. he has nothing to fall back on: no home, no money, no stability. and he’s young! he hasn’t settled into a career or a life! basically to say he has even worse authority issues. while mal might be gentler with a younger simon, i do think they would clash more frequently than they already do with simon’s authority issues and mal’s mistrust of him over dobson and endangering the crew.

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i hate hate hate when non-lantern characters get a ring for any reason. no theyr not worthy they js handed those things out on a whim during a crisis…! this oversaturation, especially coupled with very little effort devoted to character work, weakens the concepts of the corps a lot — i think its lazy writing that disregards the actual lantern corps and their history shoutout geoff johns

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wait this is overtly critical perhaps but if you genuinely say you dont like guy gardners bowl cut then idk if you can say youre a fan of him like im sorry it’s integral to his character. what do you know about ernie the battlin’ boy. i dont care if its ugly…..have a tasteful appreciation for it

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pete wisdom is making me so nauseous. i told you i didnt want to hurt anybody, and now look at you. it needed doing. everyone you ever had in your care is safe, and can never be harmed. you talk to me — you dare talk to me — about what you deserve?

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they’re reunited ( ˆ𐃷ˆ) .ᐟ.ᐟ

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half of angst/whump culture is just rebranded fetish tropes cuz why r u guys so intent on getting into the nitty gritty of bucky barnes gang rape idk u guys have to know u r lowk crying over disturbingly graphic bdsm level torture porn except its not even sexual, ur just snotting all over urself. and its worse when they think theyr being radically empathetic bcuz theyr making the choice to daydream about ptsd symptoms 😭😭 ur not an empath ur lowk jus spiraling and i think u needa take a walk thru a meadow and see the sunlight through tree canopies.

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breaking my silence today.

tired of seeing the same comic panels of queen-never-cry bucky barnes mogging at the viewer with a perfectly structured beard. show me that obnoxious teenage sidekick w his little blue boots. reject modernity, embrace tradition.

hes so fucking annoying u guys need to HEAR me.

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of the things that make my tummy hurt, child soldier bucky barnes might b top of the list

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trying to sort out my issues w gail simone’s portrayal of a trans woman in batgirl 2011… i think it boils down to, for me, how tired and trope-y it feels. alysia as a trans woman acting like her identity is a secret she’s obligated to share with people close to her, and her only actual sort-of storyline is her getting hit on by a creepy man and then. dating him?

like okay obviously i get wanting to share your identity with someone you care about, that’s not weird. but. but. “if we’re telling big time secrets, i have one.” it’s weird. i get the intended perspective, i guess, but coming from a cis woman it comes off very… odd. it seems like the only story she knows how to tell is from her point of view, which isn’t always inherently bad, but it’s the dominant perspective of every single goddamn story. dude cmon wake up they’re hegemonizing transness! look, it’s another person with a “secret” (>ᴗ•) !! can no one think of a better idea than the deceptive transsexual? it ends up feeling like your aunt is pointing someone out to you at a party and saying “this is joseph, who used to be joan! :)”. okay. maybe it’s well meaning, but it sucks.

and then. it’s the middle of the night, and alysia is approached out of nowhere by a man who follows her after she walks away from him. here’s where one would assume he is a fucking creep stalking and harassing her. so then she goes on a date with him? in what world is this normal or plausible in any way. girl stand up!!!! he talks like a superiority complex freak!!!! knowing who he is, this plot is terrifying, especially when it’s about a trans woman of color.

like yes i’d argue that representation should be every type of story under the sun, but i’d expect the person who introduced the concept of fridging to understand that the exact same things happening to different people do not have the same social contexts.

and people treat this like she threw the first brick at stonewall. maybe i’m being too critical, but holy shit, how are you gonna deadass say it’s meaningful to the story and pretend like it’s not mentioned twice and then just swept under the rug. alysia doesn’t have to be defined by it, but still maybe the real issue here is how fucking boring it is. it feels so… marketable, like it’s designed for an audience of cisgender liberals. i really enjoy this cáel keegan quote in that respect: “these programs allow audiences to feel good about transness specifically because it is presented as a value-adding augmentation to prior, less “good” texts.”

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hm why the fuck did mercury not get to keep churchill. she needs a bigass vicious dog to incessantly snore and drool all over her bunk & also bite people. it is imperative that john hates him

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i love you wendy the werewolf stalker

awesome guide, etc, etc

yj98 #33 & #34 / wtws textual & visual refs

what is it? :°

wendy the werewolf stalker is a dc comics tv show parody of buffy the vampire slayer, appearing mainly in young justice (1998). the tv show centers around a girl named wendy who hunts werewolves and assumedly follows the same basic concept as btvs, where she is the one girl chosen with powers to fight werewolves and assorted monsters. the first mention of it is in yj98 #8, when kon complains about potentially missing the new episode (which would've likely been doppelgangland equivalent based on the date). best issues to read are yj98 #33 & #34, which is where it appears as an actual tv show. it's referenced frequently in dialogue and visual appearances.

characters

wendy the werewolf stalker - played by: terri jewel jackson (t.j.). the wtws equivalent to buffy summers. she is an experienced hunter and fighter, who stalks and kills werewolves. she fights with a crossbow (loaded with red-fletched arrows, which i assume is for her visibility as well as wolves not seeing red) and a silver stake as well as hand-to-hand. shown to be physically strong enough to grapple with a werewolf. likely has preternatural powers giving her enhanced strength, speed, and reflexes.

paulo - played by: javier sanchez. the wtws equivalent to xander harris. a close friend of wendy. shown to help wendy seemingly unarmed, is physically strong enough to partially restrain a werewolf.

unknown name - played by: melody [last name unknown] (mel). the wtws equivalent to willow rosenberg. a close friend of wendy. there's like no character information at all, but she might be a witch like willow? shown hanging onto luella after a fight and has a "romantic fixation" on luella.

cherub - played by: unknown. the wtws equivalent to angel. star of his new spinoff, cherub. one of the love interests for wendy. the character is described by t.j. as a "brooding hunk". (since he's based off angel what would his ""evil name"" like angelus be. cherubic?? cherubim?? lmfao).

luella - played by: cissie king-jones. the wtws equivalent (very very vaguely) to tara maclay based on her romance with melody's character and the shift from guest star to recurring character. shown to be proficient with a bow (looks like a recurve bow?), seems to have some experience with the supernatural based on her easy acceptance of wendy being the werewolf stalker. melody's character has a "romantic fixation" on her, which is likely requited.

lupus - played by: rover [full name unknown]. a recurring (i'm guessing that the wolf shown in filming is the same one every time based on his design) werewolf antagonist who fights with wendy several times, once seemingly after escaping captivity based on his broken chain.

unknown - (will be) played by: jake ketchum. the wtws equivalent of spike (i think. it makes sense with the whole werewolf love interest thing and spike. broods? sometimes? i guess. but i like spike so i miiiight be biased! he also seems like riley finn with the "hiding a big secret about who they are" plot and the season 4 equivalency). a non-antagonistic werewolf who is one of wendy's love interests, who she discovers is secretly a werewolf. the character is described as a "serious, brooding hunk".

the creator of wtws appears as (a vampire) joe/josh westin, the equivalent to joss whedon (barf)

btvs equivalency sort of i guess

even though season 5 of btvs had fully aired by the time of yj98 #33 & #34 it seems like the season taking place that cissie guest stars in is btvs season 4. the cherub spinoff places it after btvs season 3, while luella's introduction aligns with tara's introduction in season 4. joe westin also makes a reference to the ratings being down, and season 4 was pretty badly received comparatively.

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wendy the werewolf stalker all textual & visual references, great job me

young justice (1998) #8

young justice (1998) #16

young justice (1998) #19

young justice (1998) #31

superboy (1994) #65

young justice (1998) #35

young justice (1998) #50

detective comics (1937) #976

speed force (2023) #2 & #6

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wendy the werewolf stalker directly in yj98, also a great job me

young justice (1998) #33

young justice (1998) #34

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eek first of all i love discussions esp about firefly! mostly my issue is whedon has a long and varied history of being Weird. just Odd. about consent in his work so that makes me real suspicious & kind of sets it on its way towards ruining that whole scene for me if ykwim. it’s disturbing to see especially the way it’s baked in.

you so raise a good point that i hadnt considered - inara admitting that she lied about what happened. oh fuck yes she was so ready to confess that moment is so tense. that’s so good. ur inspiring me to do my annual rewatch rn i can feel it biting at my heels. that doesnt, however, negate the grossness for me its still a mess lowk.

god and yes mal’s complicated relationship w feelings and his posturing is my shitttt. in my heart there’s a second season and it delves into his character like crazy metaphorical rending his flesh apart breaking ribs levels of character analysis.

inara kissing mal in our mrs. reynolds is my enemy forever and forever. like creepy and bad writing? pick a struggle. it’s just so odd to have in there.

inara places a lot of importance on consent and consistently establishes boundaries in both her work & her personal life so her kissing mal when he’s unconscious is very out of character for her, imo? it seems like just a vehicle for the subsequent scenes between them in that ep and to lay the groundwork for mal/inara. it feels like they needed a way to show that inara cares about mal but without a big reveal & confession. they show her kissing him without him knowing ( :| ) so that the audience knows inara cares about mal but mal doesnt. but it ends up very… jarring and derivative because a) he’s unconscious. that’s disgusting. she wouldnt do that. and b) we already know inara cares about mal, it doesnt need to be spoon fed to the audience. even just in that ep, it’s so so so so obvious that she cares for him deeply. inara realized saffron was dangerous and had done something to serenity or the crew to warrant escaping, but as soon as saffron told her that mal was dead inara let her go and ran straight to find mal. she was so clearly worried about him and relieved when she found him alive.

inara did not need to kiss mal when he’s unconscious and changing the scene would not affect the episode at all. if inara had just fell and hit her head like she pretended to bc she had been so worried about mal she wasnt careful, it couldve played out the exact same. she would still be embarrassed about falling bc she’s usually much more graceful, and esp embarrassed about WHY she fell (concern over mal). mal wouldve still assumed that she had kissed saffron and inara would still not admit how she feels about him. its dumb and i hate it. who wrote this lame shit i could do sm better🐥

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i just know bruce gets pissed the fuck off waiting for damian to lace up his vintage 1970s knee high lace up green frye boots every night

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does anyone else see so many of those posts like “when he says he’s literally batman but he cant name any of the robins🙄🙄” theyre so needlessly pretentious and cornyyyy. do you want them to name three songs next? can they name two albums? do they even know the band on their tshirt? youre actually not better than anyone cus u know about carrie kelley.

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Dc has different continuities. People who like batman don’t usually like Frank Miller’s run. Or any run where batman isn’t batmaning properly. Talia fans aren’t gonna like that one racist depiction of her as a r*pest. Mad hatter fans won’t like that one comic where he’s made out to be a pedo. There will of course be weirdos who do, like those versions of the characters, but that is the case for every character. Some people will always like the worst characterization of said character what one reason or another. But we can not let those people affect how we see the whole group. Even joker. People like the 2004 version. Or even the lego joker. Penguin is problematic in the Arkham series because he talks about “having his way” with Harley, does that make all the rest of his appearances evil or problematic? No, just that one continuity. Slade is the same way, Slade has continuities where he is, and isn’t problematic. If I say, I really like Slade From Deathstroke: knights and dragons, a deathstroke movie where he is completely unproblematic, am I still condoning his problematic behavior in every other media he’s shown up on? No! It’s all separate! I just like how he’s written in THAT specific media. A lot of people like Slade from Arrow, he is not problematic in there either, lego Slade, ect. There are problematic versions of every character in one continuity or the other, we can not let one continuity ruin how someone else wrote it better. Or even if we don’t like that character because of a continuity we saw, who are we to say, to another person, they can not like that character, even if they’re unproblematic in that continuity, that since they were in their first, or whatever continuity, you can’t like them in any? That’s not how it works. Harley, in her first appearance, slept with nightwing, pretty inappropriate. But they changed that! Catwoman has also kissed nightwing! Gross! But that was in one continuity! It means nothing! If someone says: “o, yeah! I like Slade from blah blah!” Why would you assume, even after they specified, they would then mean, they like that character in every continuity and comic they were in, and loved every action. Batman fans don’t even like every action he does! Because its based on writer to writer. I do agree, not all characters have to be likeable, but with something like dc, that has multiverse after multiverse, there will be versions of unlikable characters, who are likeable. Like lego joker, like D&k Slade. It is, just how dc and continuity works, i like is writer, but not this one. I like this continuity, but not this one.

And no, i am not saying Tara was evil. The original writer did her dirty for stupid and petty reasons, and I only hope she gets redeemed by an actual good writer. But not everyone who wants to see Slade’s weirdness reconned, thinks Tara is evil, or wishes for her downfall, in fact, quite the contrary.

most people talk generally abt slade or refuse to acknowledge that he did it even in the media thats showing or alluding to him being a creep. im talking mainly about comic canon, if someone said they were a fan of him in the lego dc comics superhero movies i wouldnt like. bring that up. but i dont think they would deny the comic canon if i did. but i dont rlly think that “what about x villain” is a good argument. they are evil, so they do evil things. that was a major part of my point of slade being evil, as well as the fact that judas contract and ntt as a whole is like. very important to slade’s character and i think erasing his actions in a retcon is odd. but its a fairly different situation from the issue w talia.

theres an interview of christopher priest that i think is rlly interesting for this quote re rebirth slade: “I *am* writing Deathstroke as a villain because that’s what Marv created him to be… He wasn’t some misunderstood anarchist; he deliberately did skeevy things-most notably sleeping with Terra, a presumably underage girl – in his quest to exact revenge against his enemies.”

i’m not saying you cant like or be interested in evil characters (i think slade is a really interesting character personally) i just think both removing a fundamental part of his character and erasing the sa and grooming that happened in canon is kinda fucked up to do, imo. thats what i was getting at w the terra comment but in a bitchier way