#and I don’t agree with all the seemingly agreed upon fanon content

[agoddamnrayofsunshine]

It’s so interesting to me how the DC fandom right now is stuck in this weird time period which has never existed in the comics but seems to exist entirely within fanon. And it exists in an extremely substantial amount of fanon works even though it’s never been an established time period

Its like. Damian is robin, Dick is nightwing and Bruce is Batman, but Tim is still red robin. And even though he’s red robin he’s out as bi, which happened like ten years after his red robin run. And Babs is still oracle and she’s still in a wheelchair and no one is batgirl, but her and Dick are usually not dating even though they’re dating atm in the comics. And Jason exists in this nebulous state where he both is and isn’t an active criminal like some high stakes Schrodingers cat. Steph and Tim usually aren’t dating either. Alfred is somehow still alive, and almost no one in the fandom acknowledges that he’s dead in their fanwork

And Jon and Damian are friends, Jon hasn’t been aged up, but he’s also usually acknowledged as being bisexual (even if it’s not a ship fic). Kon is alive and everyone remembers him. The powers that either of them are able to use are entirely dependent on the whims of the author

It’s anyone’s guess as to whether a fanfic author decides that Barry or Wally is going to be flash in their fic. Bart is always impulse, he never retired at any point, in a few fics he never even died even though Kon did. Roy Harper is Jason’s friend and rarely Dick’s, Lian is a young child, and Kori is Jason’s friend. No mention of the other titans

It’s so weird cause like. It’s not that these events never occurred in canon it’s just that they all occurred at wildly different points in time, not usually overlapping, and somehow the fandom has collectively decided and agreed upon this made up time period which has never existed in the comics. It’s kind of cool honestly but also genuinely bizarre

[jyuanka]

to follow up on the anon’s ask. WALLS OF TEXT AHOY. lacking in punctuation. no read more.

it’s fun to say things like how the universe doesn’t deserve leorio cause i fully agree but also this takes the blame away from the fandom and i know it’s just me and i’m a huge irredeemable snob (also rad as hell and you should totally be my friend) (and also i honestly don’t blame anybody. nobody is responsible for my feelings and i think this should be said) but so much of the leorio content frustrates the fuck out of me especially any headcanons that are like, pondering the most interesting futures for the main four and then you reach leorio at the end its always something like “he becomes a successful doctor etc etc” and that isn’t bad i WANT leorio to be successful but also anything beyond that about emotional fulfillment and wholesome happiness is kinda hard to swallow in the context of the world he lives in and the goal he’s pursuing. it just is. leorio’s world is the enemy, and he has not only entered the club of the 1% but is also basically a high official there and i don’t know how he’s gonna negotiate himself and his goal within that position because whether he likes it or not or is aware of it or not now he’s part of the problem he wants to solve and whatever thing he sets out to do in the world is always gonna be tied to that position and that privilege. GOD i’ve talked about this a lot before but i’m in my feelings about this totally seemingly mundane fictional character who’s literally rarely given justice so! more nonsensical and incomprehensible rambling ahead. accept it i haven’t been on brand for a while:

leorio’s goal is so deeply political and revolutionary. it’s inherent to it. he lives in a world with grotesque levels of inequality where poor populations are quarantined in entire cities. he comes from that. he’s shaped by it. it’s scarring. but also he’s part of the elite. hunters are obscenely wealthy people who come prepackaged with secret superpowers and answer to no one. that’s ugly as fuck. hunters are always just gonna amount to well-intentioned individuals but as a group with such ridiculous privileges they are terrifying. and leorio IS that. he’s become that. intentionally. for a great and noble purpose yeah but even imagining that singlehandedly providing free healthcare is somehow gonna end up with him just a completely well-adjusted man falls flat to me. i mean taking his goal to its extremes there’s no way to just ignore the cost to his mental and physical wellbeing and that’s just the tip of the iceberg and that’s not speculated upon because this fandom has a pathological need to make leorio into a cute reasonable figure whose malleable enough to move around but has enough personality to play backup for the other three but not enough personality to be relevant in any other way. and it pisses me off because leorio honest to god is the character whose future possibilities are literally the fucking coolest and most interesting merely because of how they are intrinsically connected to the state of their world. he’s tied to their world. thinking of him is thinking of all the worldbuilding togashi didn’t do/only partly alluded to. how is he gonna negotiate with the world’s most powerful governments over the healthcare of their populations? the same governments and regimes shored up by the hunter association? what compromises will he make? how many times is he gonna drain himself out in anger in front of ignorant motherfuckers who are fine with the needlessly dying and then weep himself to numbness in some dark equipment room in a place where nobody speaks his language? when does standing your ground become so damn difficult and unreasonable? and most often punching your way through things doesn’t work. how much can he run on guilt before it fizzles out and he realizes that the most he could ever do is only alleviate some suffering.

there is no permanent joy at the end of the path he’s taking. not to him personally, anyway. sometimes it’s beautiful and amazing but often times it’s just a thousand needles under his skin. there is no greatness or glory or upturning of the world order there’s just less pain.

and all this is just so little of the many things that could go wrong or right in his future. so when i say shit like: ah leorio being completely happy and fulfilled in the job doesn’t make much sense. and i understand that this is subjective as hell but this isn’t about personal tastes as it is about trends and how the fandom at large is just really not willing to invest much energy into thinking of him so most content comes out insipid and lackluster (to me anyway). no leorio at all is better than that kind of leorio. again, to me. and like, i understand why he’s not a popular character in that kind of cast; he’s surrounded by cool pretty boy prodigies who naturally progress into fandom darlings. he doesn’t carry his trauma outwardly. he’s not engineered to grab the heart at first sight or even second sight. he’s the kinda character you have to squint at to like, and if someone is just not willing that’s fine (not really you need to drink respect leorio juice).

my frustrations about leorio in fanon are many and i’ve made them pretty clear so many times and i know it’s annoying but i just belong to that insufferable breed of kids who always scream in the playground. well, you can always block me i guess.

FINALLY:

please don’t make your leorios soggy and uninspiring. he’s a really cool tough apple who’s bigger than the narrative that contains him.