#and because i can't be bothered to retcon things

[symerr]

i just downloaded so many gameplay mods. this game is going to crash hard as hell. can't wait.

[verosikastrikerstellaexcuser]

Soooo. The new Helluva Boss pride thing and that comment about Striker and Stella not being there. I am genuinely more and more irritated by this "Strikers Straight" horse shit as time goes on.

Really? This guy is your no-pride straight homophobe? -_-

How in any way was this scene not homosexual in nature. Like am I just stupid or what? Striker was specifically latching onto how Blitz is strong and impressive for making his own business and gassing him up over it even before there was a need to to still carry out his assassination "Not many imps start businesses on their own... thats pretty impressive sir". There's clear admiration there. He suggests Stolas dying would be good because it would end "the one who treats you like a plaything" he implies he'd like to see Stolas dead not only for his own sake and for his hate of royals, but for Blitz's sake too. Like, HELLO!?

I'm sorry but the more I look back on it, the whole Striker's straight thing does feel like a retcon. He wasn't originally. I believe that he was changed, because he's mean about Stolas and "good ones" rich people, and we can't have that. He's an antagonist to Stolitz AND a potential "shipped with Blitz" character so he's not a pet/favoured villain or morally grey character. No, instead hes just full on MEANIE BAD!!!! Who's only purpose is creating Stolitz drama. Making him straight is a way of trying to make him boring and more laughable to the yaoi obsessed audience (if you like gay male ships YOU ARE FINE I DO TOO I'm specifically talking about the ones who take it to a fetishistic degree and are raging misogynists). The less Striker is able to be paired up with other male characters in this show, the less value he has outside of being a joke and the less interest in exploring relationships with him there will be since so often do only gay male relationships get to have any interesting depth. Note how other male characters who aren't in gay relationships are treated by this show, COUGH MOXXIE.

And you know what the saddest part of this is to me? In this one single Striker and Blitz scene, they literally had more chemistry and were a more interesting dynamic than Stolitz despite several episodes of that god awful ship. Think about it. They both have clear admiration and respect for each other, interest in each other. They've both been mistreated by royals and had rough pasts so understand each other on that level. They've both had to claw their way to success at the cost of great struggle. So now, they're conflicted. Because they're both obstacles to each other as much as they are love interests. Striker does not want to compromise slaughtering royals and wants to do his job. Blitz wants to preserve his business. They are competing over their goals in life while also attracted to each other. They are a "toxic" or complicated ship without there having to be a creepy unaddressed power dynamic and without the empowered one constantly needing to be portrayed as victimized by the narrative to try and make the relationship seem more even and less creepy.

This is so much more interesting as a kind of "relationship that never could be", to me, than "OMG my daddy bought me that imp for a day as a child then he randomly reappeared into my life again and stole from me, so now I will hold his business over his head to get sex from him and constantly demean him. All while he clearly indicates that he is repulsed by me. Then I will proceed to cry he doesn't like me romantically!"

But no. Striker doesn't get to be bi or gay. However, pan IS slapped onto several female characters... THAT NEVER GET ANY SCENES WITH WOMEN LIKE STRIKER GOT WITH BLITZ. Good fucking God man! If you're gonna make all these supposed women that like women, WHY DO NONE OF THEM BARELY EVER EXPRESS INTEREST IN WOMEN THAT WE GET TO SEE!?

Only the men's sexualities are actively shown. The women, we need to be told what their sexuality is. Because Viv hardly ever bothers with pairing them with anyone or letting them express sexual behaviors. Tiring.

[stormandforge]

And just like that, Forge has a name.

I almost choked when I heard it. I use captions, so I could see I hadn't imagined it, and I was in absolute shock. I repeated "DANIEL?" in disbelief about 10 times, my hand on my mouth and my eyes wide. I looked at my husband to confirm I wasn't going insane. Then I stared into space for the rest of the episode.

X-Men '97 using Forge's real name was the last thing I expected. And the way they did it, too, so casually, in conversation. I'D BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR 30 YEARS.

You might think it's a small thing, but before X-Men '97 episode 10, so before yesterday, Forge didn't have a real name. He was introduced in 1984. Let that sink in: that's 40 years without a single Marvel writer bothering to give him a name.

The fans, myself included, came up with headcanon to justify the decision and sometimes made up names for him in fanfic (Jonathan Silvercloud being the most famous one - no it's not an alt reality name, it comes from fic), but no Marvel writer took the time to explain or rectify.

This was frankly insulting of them, especially when you consider Forge's constant presence in the comics, and the ridiculous number of names some other characters have. Also, and perhaps most importantly, Chris Claremont had already planned a name for him:

All Marvel needed to do was use this name to make it canon. Or perhaps ask Claremont if they could use it. (And if they didn't want to speak to Claremont, they could still just...make up another name. You know, that thing writers do all the time.) But no, even after the name was announced on Twitter, it still was never used, on panel or elsewhere.

Enter a simple piece of dialogue in X-Men '97, and boom, Forge has a name. It wasn't that difficult, was it? Such a small move, but it shook me like a bomb. It's a historic moment for the character, and for the people who love him as much as I do. It's like he was finally given an identity, and with it the basic dignity he deserves.

I had imagined all sorts of scenarios in which his name would be revealed - all quite dramatic or emotional. But I guess the best way to retcon something that doesn't make sense is to pretend it never happened. So revealing his long-withheld name in conversation, natural like, is absolutely perfect. I love that Forge doesn't even react, because, you know, it's just his name, no big deal.

(I'm a bit sad that Ororo wasn't the first one to call him by his first name, but hey, you can't have it all.)

As far as I'm concerned, the name is canon now. '97 isn't the comics, but it's still Marvel, and that's good enough for me. I've waited long enough. And if the first name Claremont wrote is canon, then so is the last.

Which means: Forge has a full name. *SQUEEEEEEE*

I don't know who made the decision to use Forge's name or why, but I want to thank them. They righted a major wrong.

Now catch up, Marvel Comics. Everyone deserves a name. Even the monkey wrench repairman with non-flashy powers.

Everyone, meet Daniel Lone Eagle.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Honestly why even bother making Jason afrolatino if you're not gonna write him as he is in canon when that's what actually'd make him work good rep for us.What i mean by this is

His ego is huge,he's super tough and an edgelord,has anger issues and brutal ass tactics and is a morally gray vigilante but he's ALSO a huge woman respecter to the point he thinks they're better than men,is extremely kind with a huge soft side and his exterior attitude and Red Hood are trauma responses that're framed as valid on his end so he's not the 'Scary Black Man' stereotype and with the exception of the vigilante part this is actually a pretty common personality type for irl black men-Important note that i don't fall under the attitude but i AM a black man(and woman)

He's been a huge nerd since he's debut in both meanings of it-He's a genius who was a star student in school and loves classical literature,theater and speaking articulately and poetically but just happens not to 24/7 since he's a comic book character,not a Shakespearen one

And his soft sunshine boy with hidden depths Robin self is a critical part of making him as black latino work-You can't go with the retcon of him as a mini thug because it's extremely dangerous stereotyping

Duke as his favorite brother-It's erasure with white gringo Jason but even worse and just stupid because both of them being black would it EVEN BETTER writing they're eachother's number one Batboy pick.Ain't no nigga picking Tim when the only other black guy in the factor is Right There and fuck ya aus,keep Jason white in them and leave afrolatino Jason out of your mess

He hasn't expressed a particular preference for girls he likes but HAS for the ones he dosen't and it's preppy perfect judgemental ones who try to 'tame' him so rip all y'all's white X Readers LMFAO.Worth noting that his canon girlfriends have been a half cambodian tomboy(Rose),an edgyptian butch(Artemis)and a darkskin black woman(Dana)and that he's actively rejected a white blonde girl on the basis of her being too normal(Isabel)and Kory post deblackification so i think it's obvious where his tastes lie

You CANNOT make him and Roy or Batcest a thing-I don't think i need to explain why pairing up a white man who knew an afrolatino since he was 14 and him grown with a daughter and putting him in incest is violently antiblack

Poverty is not inherently bad in black or latino characters and there was a point in canon where it was used as simply an element in Jason's story instead of demonization so use that edition.But making him a drunkard,a smoker or a sex fiend is 100% perpetuating stereotypes and he's canonically the opposite of all three so again,sometimes things that are canon are better

Him being tall and super jacked and intimidating looking can actually enchance it-He uses it to his advantage to get people he dosen't like to fuck off because they buy into the propaganda and gives him more deepness with the rest of his personality

This includes him being a real gamer and his neapolitan food addiction and your headcanons on his other tastes should follow their lead-His favorite characters should be black and latino ones(His favorite Marvel hero is Miles Morales,it's canon to ME),he should listen to black and latino artists,he should eat black and latino food and know how to make it for that matter,etc

Back to a Duke situation-You also can't make a white woman instead of Talia his adoptive mom for obvious reasons and imo if you're gonna make him and Stephanie besties,she should be black too for that black best friends and found siblings rep(She works as a black woman as much as he does a black man and i'll make a manifesto of that like i did him if asked).This applies to the Team Dad Jason take too in the sense that he should mentoring Damian and Nell and Tiffany since they're Batgirls instead of white kids

In summary what i'm trying to say is:If you're going to see Jason as an afrolatino man,you need to go beyond just the aesthetic and little bits you feel like including because you think they're appealing and actually write him as an afrolatino man,as Jason Todd and not some random guy

@nogender-onlystars @willieoo @mayameanderings @desi-pluto @insomniac-jay @vulnonapixes-dc-corner

[getvalentined]

I thought I posted this here ages ago, but I couldn't find it to link in another post I'm working on, so I'm posting it now!

Regardless of everything else surrounding the First SOLDIER battle royale game, I'm always going to be delighted that the timeline established in its opening cutscene indicates that Hojo and Lucrecia were experimenting on Vincent for around seven years before Lucy ran off and Hojo put him in the box.

See, the thing that's always bothered me about the known timeline of Vincent's life as it existed up until this cutscene dropped is that it kind of implied that Hojo did all his scientific body horror work in about two months, and then Lucrecia took over and spent a couple months on her part. This is...utterly ridiculous, for so many reasons, not the least of which is Shalua being aware of Lucrecia's work with Chaos having subjects, which it didn't prior to Grimoire's death—this project wouldn't have been ongoing long enough for Shalua to refer to "subjects" in Dirge if it was only a couple months of work.

The implication with the timeline shown in the FF7FS opening is that Lucrecia and Hojo both moved to Project 0 after their part of Project S was complete, presumably leaving Gast with Sephiroth while they tried to make superhumans that would be deployable sooner than a literal baby. We know it's post-Jenova Project, because Hollander is there but Gillian isn't, so she's already in Banora with baby Angeal. The team is shown working on Project 0 until around 1984, with Lucrecia present.

Hojo working on Vincent for a year or two while Lucrecia first gives birth to Sephiroth and then recovers from that whole ordeal makes sense. Him going back and forth between Midgar and Nibelheim trying shit on Vincent that he thinks might work on Project 0 also makes sense, given that we know Hojo's work on Vincent was eventually repurposed for a couple of the Tsviets, who are the current iteration of what Project 0 originally was.

When Vincent's body finally gives out, Hojo just kinda leaves him there, changing his focus entirely to Project 0, while Gast still has Sephiroth. Lucrecia comes back to Nibelheim at that point, for whatever reason, and picks up where Hojo left off, trying desperately to do something to keep from being responsible for killing both Valentines.

Gast leaves the company in 1984, whereupon Sephiroth is moved into Hojo's care—not Lucrecia's—and we can assume that Project 0 as a whole is shuffled.

This is the point where Lucrecia reaches the end of her rope. She's never going to get to meet her son, she's never going to get anywhere in this damn company, she's still so sick from the Jenova infection she contracted during her pregnancy. She can't do this anymore. So she dresses Vincent up like his dad (because his eyes look just like his father's), puts on a wedding dress she never got to wear, and leaves forever.

Hojo comes back to Nibelheim, possibly looking for Lucrecia—he either finds her "dead," or he only finds Vincent. Either way, Lucrecia ends up in the Nibel Mountains and Vincent ends up in the basement. With nothing left to lose and nothing holding him back, Hojo proceeds to track across the planet to find Gast and shoot him in the face.

This is a much better story.

This also explains why the official Dirge guide says that Vincent was asleep in the basement for, very specifically, 23 years, and why all Ultimania material cites that he was in the coffin for "over 20 years" even though he was shot to death 30 years ago. It's not a retcon. It never was. It's a clarification.

Vincent was killed in 1977, 30 years before Cloud found him during the Crisis. But he was under the knife and in the tubes for seven years after that, until the two equally brilliant psychopaths trying for opposing reasons to make him into Something Else finally gave up and put him in a box.

That's fantastic.

[genericpuff]

Wait, what's this about the retconning of Minthe's BPD?

There's a lot you can find on it online as it is (I've talked about it plenty in previous posts as well) so I'm gonna try and keep the explanation brief if that's ok!

Basically it was confirmed ages back that Minthe was initially written with BPD, but that was later retconned and removed. While there's no definitive reason as to why she retconned it, I think it's fairly obvious it's because it wasn't a good look for her to write the character with a very stigmatized and severely misunderstood mental illness who would be 1.) an abuser and 2.) inevitably turned into a plant.

But there's still proof of Minthe having BPD evident in S1 of LO, particularly with Episode 76 which was literally called Splitting.

"Splitting" is a very BPD-specific term, in which an individual with BPD experiences severe mood swings, impulsivity, and difficulty in viewing things outside of a black and white perspective. We actually see Minthe experience splitting, hence the episode title, it's all very intentional.

Minthe is viewing this entire problem as her vs. Hades. And it's not entirely owed to her being self-centered, she shows through her inner monologue that she's very self-aware of the fact that she's being harsh, that much of what happened was due to her own actions, and even blames herself for acting the way that she is but not knowing why. This is very much what splitting can feel like for individuals with BPD (especially undiagnosed BPD!) experiencing splitting - an inability to connect inner rationalizations to outward actions and vice versa, even if you're aware of it and trying to draw that connection.

When this was retconned, it was done specifically by Rachel's mods within her Discord. No other clarification through her socials or through the comic itself was done.

It already wasn't a great look to write a character who was doomed to be villainized with a highly stigmatized mental disorder. It comes across that Rachel only gave her BPD in the first place because she herself had fallen for those misconceptions and went "well if we give her BPD that'll be the reason why she's so mean and nasty all the time, it's the perfect way to make her the obvious bad guy!" But it makes it an even worse look when Rachel bent under the pressure of people discussing how problematic it was (and hoping Minthe would get some kind of redemption which Rachel never planned to give her) and reversed the decision. It really only really made it worse because 1.) you can't retcon out what you clearly intended in the beginning when it's so visibly there (such as through Ep 76) and 2.) it just goes to show that she was never planning on giving Minthe any sort of redemption arc or chance to learn from her actions/heal from her mistakes, she just wanted to use a mental illness she didn't bother to understand or empathize with to make an abuser.

It really just further stigmatizes BPD as a whole because now we only see the absolute nastiest parts often affiliated with BPD (with what remains in the comic pre-retcon) with no closure or resolution or hope for people who either have BPD or want to understand it more.

[professorspork]

Okay so something's been bothering me. And maybe it's just a continuity error, but... I'm willing to bet not.

Last episode, when Neo's Jabberwalker copies came to the market and everyone scattered in terror, the Curious Cat said this was VERY BAD. To which Blake, jumping into action, asked:

Which is really weird!

Sure, Blake would have no reason to know the lore the Cat then drops-- that if the Jabberwalker eats you, you can't Ascend-- but she's supposed to have heard of them. She brought them up in episode 2! It was among the things she listed that Alyx did:

This stuck in my craw last week and I didn't know what to make of it. Is it just sloppy phrasing? We're supposed to think Blake didn't realize the thing they'd encountered WAS a Jabberwalker? Why would that matter, if it was being referred to by name?

But now we've met Jaune, and he's the Rusted Knight. And one of his greatest concerns is...

This volume is having a real ball with fiction, and narratives, and what it means to be in a story or live up to a legacy or like. Be a person.

Undoubtedly, the reality of what's happening in the Ever After (and what's happened before, and will happen again) has deviated wildly from the book The Girl Who Fell Through The World, and most of that is because of whoever wrote it.

But if Blake's losing knowledge she should already have, what if the story is somehow getting retconned in real time?

How can you escape a story if it keeps changing on you?

[queenvhagar]

One of the things that bothers me about how Rhaenyra is portrayed in the show is that it doesn’t really capture how deeply her daughter’s and Luke’s deaths affect her. Aside from the first episode, where she does look exhausted, the rest of the season makes it seem as though their deaths haven’t deeply affected her. If the writers wanted to keep the focus away from constantly mentioning her losses, they should have made sure the weight of those events hung over her in a more subtle way. But instead, Rhaenyra often seems too well put together. While Emma looks absolutely stunning this season, Rhaenyra doesn't come across as a grieving mother. Even when she’s poring over scrolls, searching for Targaryen connections in other royal families, or dealing with members of her council, she appears too well put together, even in moments of anger and stress (that slap feels like it came out of nowhere). After the traumatic birth of her daughter and the way Luke died, you’d expect her to look physically and emotionally worn out. I understand that the show wants to present her as a powerful figure, but it’s reached a point where she’s not relatable. Take the scene where she wakes up to talk to Alicent; Rhaenyra looks almost ethereal. Her braid is flawless, her face looks well-rested, and she’s far too put together for someone who’s been woken up so early. I’m not saying she shouldn’t take care of herself, but it would be more believable if we could see that she’s going through something really tough.

I still can't get over the fact that Rhaenyra goes through an absurdly traumatic stillbirth of her daughter... this trauma to her body and her recovery from this birth being a reason in the books for why she was physically unable to engage in battle early on... only for the show to have her, literally a day or two after pushing a baby out, decide to hop on her dragon, fly out to meet an enemy emissary, and then easily and quickly dismount. Like for a lack of a better term... ma'am your hoo ha? Imagine riding a horse after giving birth but the ride has way more rough movement and a landing on the ground to experience. Afterbirth recovery is painful and uncomfortable and it would be especially so for such an awful experience as the one Rhaenyra went through, yet it's completely disregarded for an unnecessary girlboss moment that just breaks immersion.

And it continues when they retcon her look of war at the end of season 1 and have her forget all about her stillbirth and the death of Lucerys after a couple of episodes. Her grief and bodily trauma should have been an easy way for the writers to explain Rhaenyra's inaction in this part of the story and the ways her council *could* have tried to take advantage of her in this state. But then they just... never used it... and instead she instantly recovers from birth and has completed the grieving process on speedrun and her inaction is solely due to her desire for *peace* in a war she is actively pursuing to win a throne because her father said it was hers...

It really makes such little sense.

[theglidingbat]

Ghostbat headcanons because I'm in no-minhkhoa content hell

Bruce loves giving minhkhoa forehead kisses and nose kisses, during tender moments or when he's feeling sentimental, minhkhoa always grumbles about it but it's one of the little things he enjoys

Adding onto the previous one, minhkhoa rarely kisses bruce tenderly his kiss more fierce and filled with passion and hidden emotions he refuses to reveal.

Minhkhoa will make fun of Bruce's clothes and fashion choices but yet can be seen with wearing his turtleneck, bruce will narrow his eyes as Minhkhoa pretends to be ignorant, he never returns the clothes by the way.

But if bruce ever decided to take minhkhoa's clothes he has to hear multiple snarky remarks, only to be tackled when he tries to take of Minhkhoa's green hoodie , ghostmaker would rather die then admit he likes his boyfriend in his clothes.

So they definitely got married at some point right?

I feel like bruce knows how to cook but pretends to be shitty at it around minhkhoa just so he gets to see minhkhoa cook, minhkhoa knows this and indulges him anyway

Listen, I think the "minhkhoa can't feel love" thing is bullshit because he does care a lot, even if he's terrible at it, he's not even trying per se but bruce is one of the very few people he actually cares for, Bruce thinks that's how minhkhoa just is, he doesn't realise he has special treatment expect the name thing.

But a fun alternative is that he knows that he gets special treatment from minhkhoa and loves it, and gets extremely possessive and bratty about it too.

I know it's retconned or whatever but Rhea being minhkhoa's first love and after everything minhkhoa still likes to distance himself, bruce who's probably witnessed atleast half of their relationship will always feel like and know that he won't ever have the same place in minhkhoa's stone cold heart like Rhea did and it kind of hurts him

Minhkhoa doesn't even deny it, why bother lying to a man as smart as Bruce? Bruce should be able to handle the truth, he still cares for Bruce but he's sure (scared) of the fact that bruce would die or disappear, or worse forget him because of his own stupidity (empathy)

Okay enough angsty from me I swore I would be an account without much angsty shit but here we are.

Minhkhoa loves grilled cheese. It's a headcanon me and my irl friend thought of as an old inside joke but yeah that's the only American food this mother fucker tolerates, with tomato soup and everything. Specifically if Bruce makes it with the crust cut.

The grilled cheese is more of a crack headcanon but eh.

Someone make a fic of Minhkhoa teaching Bruce's white ass how to make rotis (I've been leaning into minhkhoa being half Tamil or of Tamil origins loads lately and it's my favourite fanon hc of him)

Bruce can't get it in a perfect Circle and it pisses him off, minhkhoa laughs at his face.

One very silly thing I love to think is that during a chase scene in their past minhkhoa would pick bruce up and make a run for it and sticks through their adulthood, an explosion is about to go off and before bruce can do anything minhkhoa has him in a carry as he runs away with him.

Them Falling back into old habits, bruce latching onto minhkhoa and pulling his hair during a immature argument, minhkhoa screaming and trying to shake him off as Talia tiredly sips her tea, they're all 40 and the batkids finally see where exactly Damian gets it from.

My personal headcanon is that during btk era bruce had freckles, minhkhoa won't admit it but he misses them,as Bruce grew his freckles faded.

And that's it for my latest Ghostbat headcanons, do note that these are extremely self indulgent and may be occ but eh who gives a fuck

[diamondcitydarlin]

i think probably the worst part of the whole thing is that I just don't really care anymore, the investment I had at the end of season 1 just straight up no longer exists. no, it's not just bc a blorbo got killed off (and there's a lot of reasons to be angry about that), it's mainly bc most of the characters at this point feel like hollow shells of who they were a season ago, including the stede x ed pairing as a whole (which I really just don't care about anymore at all, sorry). and no it's not bc 'Izzy got all the development and there was no time for anyone else' like of course there was time for everyone else, provided that they hadn't opened the season on all those characters making 180 character changes with no real explanation, provided they hadn't overloaded the damn season with nonsense that goes nowhere. JimxOlu was my OTP after StedexEd in season one, both of them were some of my faves, and not only did neither of them even really resemble who they were in s1, their relationship which was of such great importance in the former just suddenly...is something else now. Not people in love, but 'friends who have fucked once lol' and are wingmen for each other now because...??? Oh but Jim's dating Archie who...*checks notes* was in a Snake Cult? I think? That's about all we get on her, apart from the fact that she likes making out with Jim I guess. And I guess Zheng can't just be a powerful woman character that exists in this narrative without a romance of her own, so let's just toss her together with Olu and never explore or explain that with any kind of depth. Jim has neither trust issues anymore nor do they have ANY interest or investment in their revenge scheme or the Siete Gallos (REMEMBER THAT PLOTLINE?? REMEMBER?? APPARENTLY THE WRITERS DON'T) they're just kind of goofy all the time now for no reason. Olu's leadership arc? His being a confidant to Stede? Where the fuck did any of that go? Are they all a polycule or are they all just separate couple friends? IDK WHO CARES THIS IS HOW IT IS NOW I GUESS. Like, why am I supposed to care about any of that? It doesn't even feel like the characters I watched before.

And StedexEd. Jfc there's so much to say that other people have said better but the constant bringing up of conflicts, breakups, and then immediately resolving those issues with heartfelt reunions/kissing as if that's supposed to be sufficient got really old for me after awhile. The lack of explaining how their 'whim-prone' romance to this point was bad, the lack of explaining how they reconcile their different goals was also bad, but oh they can just go RUN AN INN NOW! Yay happily ever after! ????? "Ed, you've got family" which he immediately leaves to go try another life path he's probably going to suck at and hate WOW so romance. Like either figure it out or break up for good, it just makes them an obnoxious toxic couple who never seem to communicate or bother to try but are supposed to be the one we love the most and are rooting for. And that sucks, because I loved them once! GARBAGE!

There's only so much blame one can put on external factors for this. I worked in production once, I edited scripts and was a go-between for notes and writers, and this is the exact kind of thing I would've felt compelled to point out; we only have x amount of time and x amount of episodes to properly tell these stories, we know this, so maybe lets be realistic about what we can fit in here and do justice and what we can't. Maybe let's not just throw every fucking thing we think of at the wall to see what sticks while completely ignoring/retconning character traits and stories we set up in season 1. But nah, that's what happened!

Like, what is there to watch for at this point if s3 gets greenlit? I fail to find anything that I'd care about seeing continued, even the peripheral characters like Frenchie and Wee John and Roach, whom I also loved before and still do but barely did anything, so I guess I can tune in to watch them do more of nothing? Idk man it sucks when it's not just 'wow that was bad I hope next season is better' but instead 'wow that was so boring and incohesive I have no more interest or emotional investment in this to continue'

[verosikastrikerstellaexcuser]

Stolas n Stella Anon again, but I just realized something...

Octavia is a plot device isn't she? She's going to be the reason that Blitz n Stolas end up together isn't she? Let's think about that for a moment, Stolas is going to end up all sad again as Via calls him out, cry, cry, cry, hugs and blah, blah.

Swing into S3 and now Blitz feels obligated to help Stolas with his relationship with Octavia and help repair it, because he's a dad too and he sees how much Stolas loves his daughter(...even though he only seems to notice her due to plot writing, we never see them together otherwise in any other scenes). So then this actually has them spending time and actually getting to know one another.

...Starting to think this show has been half n half, in which the first half is a dumpster fire but then the second half is just building from the ground up.

Which might work...if not for the fact that Blitz still is being treated like complete shit by Stolas and doesn't seem to really care about his own feelings(as indicated where he didn't really answer Blitz' question and instead just said "I want SOMEONE to love me!" Which that could mean anyone...not specifically Blitz).

So instead of Stolas' character doing the work, it's going to be Octavia who's going to do it, isn't it?

Did I just predict how the writing is going? If I did I really am going to hate myself..

Yeup... it sucks. Shes not like Fizz and Blitz, shes more like Verosika and Blitz - in that her character exists just to be a thing in the background of her father's story and so her father has drama and is the dad to a teenage goth just like Blitz. Its tiring as hell how frequently female characters end up like this. They're Blitz's adopted daughter, St*las' daughter, Moxxie's wife, Blitz's ex, feels like they're always way more known for how they relate to the male characters, instead of being known as individuals first. Fizz we got to see the life hes made for himself in depth, he gets to be far more than just an ex childhood friend of Blitz's. He's still that, but also more on top. Feels like Blitz was his ex friend as much as he was Blitz's. And he's a side character unlike characters like Millie and Loona!!!! I just want to see deeper into the female characters lives argh 😭

Don't even get me started on how nervous I am to see Stella and Octavia portrayed together if they ever even bother to given how bad the S2 writing is... You just know they'll make it black and white abusive. They'd never dare to show us a loving (even if with unhealthier parts) relationship between Stella and Octavia. That would make things too complex and gray. The fact we get so little female-female character interactions and exploration of female relationships be they romantic or platonic or familial or something else, its all more proof imo that the female characters are treated unfairly. All these daddy issues but no no mother/daughter content. No mother/son either even. Like I really can't get over that they've still not ever actually shown us Stella and Octavia interacting at all, as much as I dread it now we're in S2. Not a single time 17 episodes in (and remember how fast this show goes). And thats all despite the constant St*las-and-St*las'-family focus HB has despite it supposedly being the IMP show. Its ridiculous. I do wonder if part of it is because of Viv changing her mind about this show's plot and what she wants the characters to be, so she just left it, because its less to retcon later. Just can't help but suspect it...

I do agree as well about Ocatvia ending up being the one who needs to "do the work", I really wouldn't be surprised if it goes that way and the plot forces her to "stop being a moody teen" and accept her dad's new relationship. I always thought S1 was great in how the initial cheating was portrayed in a more nuanced and understandable way for every character. Like, upon being propositioned for the book St*las was head over heels after living a life stifled in a relationship he didn't want for his wife's sake. But this sudden cheating threw everything into discord and upset Stella which in turn upset Octavia as her home life became constant chaotic screaming and arguments, repressed resentment boiling to the surface now St*las had broken whatever fake relationship they had. It was great in that you understood why a heavily repressed lonely St*las would cheat, but that still didn't make it okay. He needed to get his life in order and the proper way to do things would have been to break up with Stella first, get that in order, then only when that was sorted to go and find another partner. All while being open and up front about the situation to Octavia as he did so. But obviously this show was originally about people who were flawed but not irredeemable. A better show would have St*las realize this and then explain that hes realized it to Octavia, and would have him being the one to work to make amends. His work in turn would make Octavia forgive and accept him over time.

But yeah, we're no longer in S1, so I really don't think they're gonna pull something like that anymore. Instead, it'll be more bs like Loona lecturing Octavia that her dads still so totally trying so stop being mean to him he can't help needing to act extremely sexually in front of you his daughter omg!!!1111 He was still trying so why are you so mean about him saying Blitz is big dicked in front of you!!!!11 It really fucking annoys me. Octavia hasn't done anything wrong and the idea of them pulling some bullshit to make St*las a victim of her or something, I'm really hoping they don't pull it. But given the downward spiral of woobification of St*las... yeah :(

[pixiecaps]

i hope you're already asleep it's so late for you but on the topic of the finale ending honestly i understand why people are so upset by it, i think it royally sucks, but imo it was created entirely because they really needed some way to wrap things up and i think almost everyone would agree that it shouldn't have and wouldn't have ended that way had things been different and had the server not needed to end so abruptly.

like idk you KNOW i'm a canon compliant guy but for this thing specifically i genuinely don't consider it canon and think it should fully be ignored, and i think basically everyone involved would be fine with that. also honestly in my mind everything purgatory and after is non-canonical in that it shouldn't have happened either and the reset is definitely not canon so that makes it easier for me to ignore it completely. i think what players and admins stated about their characters is canonical within reason and otherwise i don't think any of it matters all that much because of how the server ended. like to me i know the reality is that that is how it ended and we don't have any other ending to go off of but because of the circumstances there's just no way i could consider it canon and i already spend all my time dreaming up ways to rewrite all the shit that happened before then, nevermind a garbage hastily written ending that only wrapped up one plot thread (the eggs) and didn't even do that correctly (it completely retconned so much about the eggs and i know a lot of lore got retconned and changed over time but it's particularly agregious).

idk where i'm going with this insane rant in your inbox i really don't i just wanted to give my thoughts on that ending and how i take it as a fandom creator because i often see people treating it like it was a legitimate ending even though they hated it and i'm like this is fandom!!! we can ignore it entirely!!! in fact many characters' endings explicitly defy that ending, that was just the way to wrap up the idea of the egg event in some way that made sense. i totally get people being upset by it, i was too, but i was also upset by the previous. five months? of stuff so i kind of can't be bothered to be annoyed by this particular thing.

again this is nonsensical i'm just saying i think we should all ignore it and i've been saying that since the day of bc it was just so obviously not the kind of ending that would've been written under different circumstances. let's all make up better endings forever and ever amen.

anyway hi pix if you're reading this in the morning i hope you got beautiful sleep and dreamt of snoopy and roier all night

hiii 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶 i was in fact asleep by the time you sent this:3

that was another point i discussed with someone els where yeah it sucked because they had to wrap it up and “tie everything together” so i agree on that. everything with the qsmp ending wouldve been different under different circumstances.

you’re incredibly real for not considering canon up to a certain point where everything got messy. i think since we’re both very canon compliant people you can understand where im coming from with that frustration and being irked by how everything played out. it was going so well and then 📉📉📉. and heres the thing you know how much i love purgatory okay cause i do but god its truly one of those events where it shouldve been explicitly uncanon i feeeeel. so much of the lore it introduced and everything clashed with everything we had already established and not informing the creators of anything was such a poor choice. but anyways you already know the whole rant.

i do appreciate the reminder of its fandom who cares. i live by that i just get Even More emotional when sleep deprived and was like wow fuck everything and this stupid fucking ending so thats why i made those posts kkkkkkkk. but ye GOOD REMINDERS ITS FANDOM ENDINGS ARE OPEN TO REWRITES AND OUR OWN INTERPRETATIONS!!!!!!!

i did get beautiful sleep ty bell<3333 i hope you got beautiful sleep as well<3333

[cybercasket]

Sally Williams headcanons

(CW for discussion of coping with death + trauma. I go in-depth into Sally's mentality towards what happened, but I don't talk about the trauma itself.)

To start things off, this is based off of Sally's official character sheets (2017/most recent sheet) (2013) and what I remember from the story more than they are the fandom's perception of her. These headcanons might make more sense if you check those out first!

🧸 According to her creator La-Mishi-Mish, her body's age can change. She's chronologically in her 60s, mentally + spiritually 12 (her age at death), and typically appears 8. She used to have the ability to turn any age she wanted, but it got retconned because La-Mishi-Mish kept getting called out for being irresponsible and creepy with it.

So, I think that Sally's form can shift ages to some extent, though it's mostly subconscious and based on her state of mind. It's a little bit like the early Steven Universe episode "So Many Birthdays" except a bit more stable.

🎀 Sally is actually deathly afraid of becoming older, and does everything she can to maintain the persona of an innocent 8 year old girl.

To her, 8 was one of the last few good years of her short life--afterwards is when everything became bad and wrong, and she was subject to so much judgement, criticism, responsibility, and predatory behavior from the people around her that she couldn't handle at the time.

She's afraid that being much older than 8 will make her a target.

🎠 Sally romanticizes being younger a lot, though she also likes the way it makes other people perceive her. By behaving more incompetent, temperamental, and oblivious than she really is, she can make people believe that she's cute, innocent, and incapable of wrong. She has a strong internalized belief that being older is dangerous, while being younger is safe.

🧸 She age regresses intentionally (from 12 to 8) by heavily focusing on her more childish interests (eg. Dolls, girl toys, and princesses) and by pushing away/repressing parts of her that she seems too mature or grown-up (eg. Certain words, ways of speaking, and knowledge/awareness she has).

🎀 According to her creator, Sally spends a lot of time in the woods near her house playing with kids at the local playground.

I think she is absolutely DEDICATED to the act of being a completely normal 8 year old girl. She'll bandage the bleeding from her head, watch all their shows, learn all their games and slang, and even collect the toys they like so she can fit in and play with them.

🎠 Lately though, she's been having to tell kids that her parents don't let her use her iPad much. There's always a bit of an adjustment period for her between each new generation of kids, but she really struggles to wrap her head around Gen Alpha's modern technology.

🧸 Speaking of technology... She's not good at it. For a long time she didn't really bother to learn since stuff like computers and phones were associated with older people, and her not knowing how to use them fed into an image of her being cute and childlike. However, it's genuinely bewildering and confusing to her.

🎀 Do NOT play Roblox with her, it will take 20 minutes for her to join your game and she won't know the first thing about how to play it 😭😭😭. Though with enough patience, you could probably get her hooked on something like Adopt Me.

She's not good at other games either, though she usually doesn't try in competitive video games (eg. Mario Kart) on purpose because she doesn't really understand them, and likes seeing how happy the people she's playing with get when they win :-).

🎠 She has a ton of excuses memorized for why her parents are never there with her at the playground, and why the parents of other kids can't meet her parents.

Sometimes it doesn't work out so well, and she has to spend a few hours trying to find a way to wiggle out of a missing person's report... She usually hangs out farther away from where the adults are to avoid ending up in awkward situations like that.

🧸 Over time, her perception of her years from 0-8 and her years from 9-12 became really polarized--in her mind, her younger years were all really good, happy, and romanticized, and her older years were completely terrible and miserable.

Like, in her head 1st and 2nd grade were happy and peaceful, meanwhile 4th and 5th grade were completely miserable and that's when her life became terrible. Realistically there was good and bad in both, but she isn't able to see it that way.

🎀 Everything past 9 for her is a blur until she has to connect with people closer to her death age, which then makes her shift her physical appearance back to where it'd normally sit. Her older years become a little bit easier to process in that state.

She tries to act a bit more like a "big kid" to fit in, but she's extremely out of practice since she's almost always acting 8, so she ends up coming off a bit immature.

🎠 She misremembers herself dying younger often.

🧸 She doesn't like throwing temper-tantrums (especially around strangers) because it's difficult to tell how people will react to them, however she plans them out strategically and WILL have them if it means she gets what she wants. She represses a lot of her emotions and releases them during these (Though she does have plenty of genuine breakdowns as well, since she's mentally 12 and has been suffering from PTSD and depression for the past 50 or so years.)

🎀 Maintaining her appearance as a young girl takes stamina/energy, though being 12 takes the least because it's more authentic to her.

🎠 According to Sally's creator, she also haunts her childhood home. I think her house is her safe space where she can be herself without worrying about how she's perceived by others.

It's really messy (she's a bit of a hoarder and only cleans when the mess becomes inconvenient to her,) and she has a huge collection of toys and books.

🧸 Her toy collection spans multiple decades, and she even still has some toys from back when she was alive deep in her collection somewhere in terrible condition. She doesn't usually have whole sets, just a few pieces here and there she decided to keep from the people she plays with (whether they left them at the playground or she decides to pocket something small she likes but the other kid doesn't seem to care about while they're playing) or from CVS or something.

🎀 Sally really likes reading, but she's a little self-conscious about it because she likes to read books that are far above the reading level and outside of the interests of the average 8 year old, like Pride and Prejudice. She also likes watching old movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and has a secret obsession with Marilyn Monroe.

She also likes reading romance, but sex scenes trigger the hell out of her so when she comes across one, she gets out a giant black crayon (because black covers the words the best,) and just starts madly scribbling over it.

🎠 Sally likes horror a little bit too, because darker stories and themes often reflect how miserable she feels deep down. However, since she's 12 and doesn't have a large capacity for tolerating the heavier stuff, she usually keeps it light.

Most of it isn't worth much, but there's probably a couple things that are like $200 or something and she has no idea because she barely uses the internet.

🧸 When she runs out of stamina or gets too triggered, her body morphs into a very pale, bony, frail old woman with sunken cheeks. It's terrifying for both her and whoever witnesses it.

🎀 She doesn't kill, but I feel like it's less of a morality thing and more because she's too squeamish and also terrified of the consequences of getting aggressive/violent with someone who ends up attacking her back. Rapists in particular make her angry enough to almost want to kill.

🎠 She's emotionally attached to and chases Ben, but he doesn't reciprocate it. They're both technically the same age (both being dead at 12), but while Sally embraces her childishness and immaturity almost to a fault, Ben is deeply ashamed of and uncomfortable with his which leads to him feeling easily annoyed or disgusted by Sally. Basically, Ben is too much of an "Ew, that's for babies" type of kid to enjoy playing with Sally 😭😭.

[blackbatcass]

I really really wanna know more about Donna Troyyy, so far I love her so much but I don't wanna be the type of person who claims they love a character then can't name 5 things about them. I wanna do her justice and really understand her character and purpose. I also don't wanna read something that completely mischaracterizes her because I'm aware that there's a LOT of that these days. I was hoping you could give me some recommendations to read after my tests?

Thank you so much if you do, and have a wonderful day! <3

I think I can help with that! Luckily donna's characterization is pretty solid & consistent in any comic up to around 2006. i would be wary of more modern interpretations of her but for most of her older appearances you don't really have to worry about bad writing.

The number 1 rec for donna is always New Teen Titans, that's where pretty much the majority of her appearances and character development take place in the 80s and 90s. The whole series is very long though so if you want more specific recommendations that focus on her I would definitely read ntt vol 1 #38, vol 2 #7-9, #18-21, #47, and #50-55. Issues 18-21 especially are probably my number one rec for donna if you're interested in seeing her flaws and struggles; those four issues took place when the titans were kind of falling apart, donna had to step up and call the shots, and it's a really neat insight into her character that i don't think gets quite as much attention as arcs like her origin stories. You'll probably honestly get a good feel for her if you pick any couple of arcs from NTT and read them through.

Wonder Woman (1987) #126-136 is a very important arc that reiterates donna's borderline horror dimension-bending origin weirdness. Titans '99 is a must-read for her, and jumping off that the Return of Donna Troy miniseries is like... Thee donna comic of all time so i would definitely recommend that. In between ntt and titans 99 she was in things like green lantern and darkstars but honestly the biggest things for her character you have to know from that time are that she and terry got divorced, she was dating kyle rayner, terry tried to take custody away from her, and terry & robbie died in a car accident.

There are way more detailed and comprehensive rec lists you can find in my donna tag if you're interested- I left out arcs like total chaos which are narratively very important for her but i don't think are quite as good a showcase for her as a character- but I think if you just want to get a feel for her character these are a good place to start. if you want like a primer on some of her major character traits i can definitely provide that lol:

donna is an incredibly emotionally intelligent and kind person who is a very good listener and always ready to help, which is why she's pretty much the #1 trusted person every single titan goes to when they need to vent. unfortunately being the appointed Fixer of All Problems Mom Friend when you're like barely an adult gets pretty overwhelming and is a very unfair weight to put a person; you can see this start to grate on her in titans 99 especially. something I like about donna is how open and honest she is with people about her struggles. most characters in the superhero genre would rather die than admit they need help and will never ever talk about their problems without being forced to, but donna isn't like that. if you ask her what's wrong she's going to be honest and tell you what's bothering her. she struggles a LOT with trying to appear 'perfect' in everyone else's eyes, and is really motivated by seeming to have it all together even when she doesn't. this is fueled a lot by her not being born an amazon and not knowing where she came from; the fact that for a lot of ntt she doesn't know her own history really gets under her skin. donna's identity issues are a HUGE part of her character especially later on as retcons and reboots get folded into her story. her past doesn't make sense. she has like nine competing backstories. she's one of the only people to remember the world pre-crisis on infinite earths and has literally been been forced out of existence and remade through pure memories, not to mention all the times dark angel forced her to live different lives until she reached rock bottom as a punishment for diana lol. in one origin she literally is not a real person and was just a mirror twin of diana. the main tagline associated with her is 'who is donna troy?' lol. which i think is fascinating and a very fucked up existence.

Anyway! I can talk about my girl all day. I hope this was at least a little bit helpful!

[remusawoooo]

anon here, excited to read the essay! i asked you because i really like your takes and i see people in the more canon-adjacent parts of the marauders fanbase to complain about the extremes of the fanon one, though personally ive never really seen anything Too extreme, tho thats probably just tantamount to how well i curate my spaces i suppose (ive seen people say that fanon makes remus really “alpha” or makes sirius “bimbofied” and while ive seen hints of those extremes here and there, mostly it looks like it varies from person to person. ive just seen remus be more assertive than he probably is in canon, or sirius being more dramatic and “fem” than he probably is in canon). from what i know people like exaggerating events (the prank, etc.) or shifting some personality traits, but i dont really think thats a bad thing - i personally enjoy it. as long as they dont completely turn characters into stereotypes (though its a pitfall of every fandom, i fear), then whatever its just camp.

people are allowed to criticize stuff like that though, not taking that away from anyone, i personally just dont really care enough to be totally accurate esp since this hyperfix is kind of the bottom of the barrel for me LMAO. but i ask mostly bc im just curious to see what other peoples opinions are, and bc i think - especially in a fanbase like this - that its incredibly important to be at least a little critical with your media experience and reflect on it. saying “oh fuck canon we’re just having fun” is fine and all, i dont think anyone is stopping you, i think the personalities people have made up for characters that have zero screen time are super fun and the little ships are not everyones tea but like its fine. but even still, people should be way more aware of what characters theyre dealing with and from what franchise, and like reflect on any biases you may have. if youre making shit up for a random DE character, or retconning some sutff, okay, whatever, but be sure to not defend or like suddenly turn to really weird rhetoric. idk i think its the bare minimum in a fanbase like this

i definitely rambled way too much here, super sorry op! i hope this doesnt bother you, feel free to reply or feel free to not. i just really like hearing peoples thoughts on things, and i like your takes and your blog so i hope i didnt catch you by surprise. i really am just an outsider trying to look in LOL

hello anon, I'm sorry I lost your ask. I was writing on my laptop and saved the draft (but apparently had to press on alt, and didn't do it) so I basically lost your question and half of my initial response. Ty for sending in another ask!! Not a bother at all, i find this very lovely :D 

I was mortified to find that someone who isn't really a part of the fandom was perceiving me while I was complaining about fictional characters ahahaha. still, thank you for validating me and asking my thoughts on the mischaracterization of marauders!! I do talk about it daily, unfortunately, and without any prompt too. I'll try to gather all my thoughts here. I don't necessarily come across fanon as much as I did when I reentered the fandom and honestly, I can not be more with you about curating your space !! at the end of the day, I am just here to have fun, and really, pointing out these issues is not a good time at all! But I do post a lot about these, I can't be bothered to bottle up any thoughts lol.

I think the major issue I have with current interpretations is the underlying bigotry that comes along with it. There is a lot of unchecked problematic content that doesn't sit right with me.

Flanderizing characters in fandom interpretations is not limited to marauders fandom obviously. any popular media will face this because so many of us want to interact with one character so their traits are simplified for easier consumption and to find a common ground. this is also not limited to new marauders fandom. even in the older era, leather jacket-wearing, motorbike-driving quintessential bad boy siruis was a thing. so I won't nitpick on silly simplifications.

I just want to say that this isn't about me wanting everyone to have the same interpretations as I do about the canon. I follow so many lovely people and I don't agree with all of their posts. But, we all just simply share the love for these characters in the text and form an imaginary community. So, if we were to remove all the issues I will mention, it is still very well possible to have different personal takes.

Here are some of my issues:

Queerness, Gender roles, and misogyny:

My biggest problem is the representations of queer relationships. the fandom packages these couples in a strange and obvious heteronormative mold where the individuals fit into male and female gender roles. mlm and wlw are now an “f/m”* stereotype and characterization gets affected by the ships. Heterosexual relationships shouldn't have these limitations either, anyway. There is no one way to be a woman or a man. With queer relationships in particular, we have reclaimed the word queer now but it was used to describe the unconventional weirdness in the relationship. We didn't fit into the normal portrayal of a loving relationship. So, it really bothers me, even in fiction, that queer ships are popularly consumed in a way that represents a traditional template. (*this is not about gender itself but the gender roles! f/m can very well be queer!). 

Let's take the biggest victim in this fandom: sirius.

Sirius’ portrayal concerning his gender and sexuality has heavily changed his characterization in the fanon. We have a character who is popularly headcanonned as trans and is it a coincidence that all their traits have changed from the og material? Sirius is suddenly vain, whiny, and dumb. Canon doesn't suggest this interpretation, it has to have stemmed from somewhere. It's the implicit bias. Sirius becomes a caricature of what a woman “should be”. When we focus on sexuality, there is the suddenly short twink sirius who has the same new traits- proving the point of fulfilling gender roles. These characteristics are a stand-in for the “female” role of the traditional relationship and it becomes more clear in the example of new age wolfstar. Remus is now the big alpha stoic manly man- the obvious stand-in for the “male” role. I could go on, it is apparent in the way you can see remus becomes a caretaker and sirius is taken care of.

The point I am trying to make is not to discourage gender/sexuality hc. I love them, keep them coming. But, why is female sirius not tall suddenly? It is not inherently bad at all to have a feminine and masculine pairing! But why do we need to change the constitutions of these characters to consume their relationship?

I'll keep dropping disclaimers because I hate being misinterpreted: I don't obviously mean every single person is doing this or that doing one of the things means doing the other too. 

Race:

It is related to the point above. I was personally so excited to see the popular desi james hc. Even in fanon, I have never seen such a prevalent and encouraged brown rep, it was quite sweet to come back to that. But the problem is the change of characteristics that comes with race hc. Desi james is also a manly dude who is big and buff as opposed to the white petite and delicate regulus within jegulus ship. The melanin is directly proportional to the manliness here. 

This is a propagation of race stereotypes. Maybe jegulus was a bad example because usually there are seen as blank templates. I will raise the argument that this can't be all we can come up with for blank canvases then. Either way, my point about race still stands when you repeatedly design interracial queer relationships so they fall into heteronormative roles. Anyway, same issue with wolfstar when there is a brown remus.

Canon, JKR, and hypocrisy:

Refusing to engage with source material is funny when we are picking characters out of it. the interpretations of the characters will be from their book. otherwise, they are just original characters with the same name. you can add onto the traits and a lot of the time fandom comes to a consensus regarding a few things! This is common in every fandom but I don't think I have seen such reluctance to not only critically engage with media but also shame others who do. We are surely in special circumstances with this fandom but I really do think jkr and how we navigate the fanon should be two different things.

Most of us don't condone jkr or even remotely agree with any nonsense she spews on the daily. Most of us can see the problematic nature of even consuming this media and staying in this fandom. It is one of the reasons I even left the fandom. Most of us are simply doing our best to engage carefully while distancing ourselves from her. So, it is quite laughable when some love to take the moral high ground for rejecting canon while still engaging with the same characters. (the rejection of canon in question being sirius’ height, lol)

(Sirius' height is quite a polarising fact apparently. Unfortunately, the point about height is also discussed so disingenuously. When I talk about sirius’ height, it is not really about him being 6 or 7 feet. It will not really impact my life. It is about what it represents. He is bimbofied as he becomes short. It's an issue of "WHY" again.)

Of course, this isn't an accusation of intentional bigotry from everyone here. The problem with this fandom is that the people in it tell themselves that it is progressive and to run away from the problematic creator as much as possible. We are not progressive if all we do is co-opt queer and racially diverse identities on such a superficial level. The bias manifests in subtle forms. I just wish we check ourselves from time to time, that's all. 

There is a lot of hostility when we try to discuss issues in the fanon. Things are interpreted in the most misguided way to just win the argument. Like I said in the beginning, we all just want to have a good time. That also means creating a welcoming space for vulnerable groups (especially when the same identities are used to pat yourselves on the backs for inclusivity points). I didn't even cover everything btw, I just wrote about the issues that concern me. queer and poc also partake in biased representations, I also probably have some biases that I didn't identify yet. I just think it would be super neat if everyone tried to make an effort to unlearn and engage with media without hurting anyone. 

I have other issues but they are all just super subjective opinions and smth I can ignore when others do. ex: I really don't like giving tragic backstories to bigots in the story. Not every supremacist loser has a trauma that forced them into oppressing people! There is also "tropeyfication" of all major ships. Just an overall issue in the reading world I think, though.

Anon, I didn't mean to make it preachy in any way btw. You probably asked for a silly little rant and I went full lecture mode, so I apologize for the tone shift!! I mentioned these because every other issue can be brought down to these imo. Like you said, I also don't have any fixation on everything being canon-compliant. I only complain by asking about the thought process behind certain kinds of changes, if that makes sense! I hope this wasn't a drag really and you can see where I am coming from. If I misspoke anywhere, pls lmk. Thanks for sharing your opinions too!!

This is a long long rant, anyone who read everything, you are wonderful and patient. Thank you for taking the time. This huge post and the content can make you think, “who cares this much?” or “it's not that serious” and yaa it really isn't that serious. The characters aren't real but we all are. the identities projected are real. so, it does matter to talk about this.

Everything said this is a fun place to be once you find your own corner in the playground.

[thecatundertheladder]

how about fsm's and lloyds first meeting in the fsm lives au?

First of all thank you so much for asking!!! I had a lot of fun writing this even if took ages. Right so I haven't completely figured out when the ninja actually meet Fsm, but I'll get to that later. I do have a rough timeline so probably in between seasons five and six (Possession will obviously get retconned a lot). Garmadon is alive btw.

Lloyd had never really made the connection between his grandfather and the First Spinjitzu Master. Like sure he knew it logically, but there was a real difference between 'my grandfather is the First Spinjitzu Master' and 'the First Spinjitzu Master is my grandfather'. And besides, the guy was dead, as far as he could tell, so it didn't really matter other than 'hey I inherited cool powers and also his arch nemesis'. Honestly, the only things Lloyd knew about his grandfather were that he invented spinjitzu, used the golden weapons to create Ninjago, fought the Overlord, and he had two kids, who happened to be Lloyd's dad and uncle.

So naturally it was quite a shock when one day at breakfast Wu announced that his father was coming to visit in a few days.

What resulted from that statement was a rather long and, uh, productive (not really) conversation (a very loud debate).

Cole: What?! But he’s supposed to be dead! Kai: No no one of my village elders said he just left this realm and would return when we need him most. Morro: Nah grandpa just does whatever he likes. Though he was in another realm last time I checked, at least that's right. Jay: What the fuck does that even mean?!

That ,of course, sparked a whole other debate about why Morro knew that. It got sorted out in the end, eventually, after a few thrown noodle bowls.

But while the others seemed to calm down after that, Lloyd steadily got more anxious. Because this was his grandfather, the man who had created Ninjago itself, and fought the Overlord the first time. Yes, Lloyd had done that as well, but what if he didn’t met his grandfather's expectations? What if he was disappointed in him?

Morro, on the other hand, was pretty excited to see his grandpa again; it had been two years, and despite Morro taking advantage of Fsm's omniscience to inform him about various coming and goings, he hadn’t had an actual conversation, and he had a lot of things to show him as well. But Lloyd had seemed pretty anxious since Wu’s announcement, so, like any good older cousin, Morro cornered him on the way to breakfast.

Morro: What’s up with you? You’ve been anxious ever since dad told us grandpa was coming here. Lloyd, mumbling: What if I don't live up to his expectations? Morro: Huh? Lloyd, louder: What if he's disapointed in me? Morro: As someone who's actually meet him, his expectations are don't die, and don't kill innocent people. Pretty low expectations if you ask me. You'll be fine.

This makes Lloyd feel a bit better, but he's still anxious, and he refuses to talk to anyone else about it because, to him at least, it seems a bit dumb to be anxious about meeting his grandfather when no else is (they are, Lloyd just hasn't noticed).

Anyway fast forward to The Day of The Arrival. Lloyd gets up earlier than usual in order to mentally prepare himself for meeting God. And, since he's expecting to have a few hours before the First Spinjitzu Master arrives, he doesn't really bother to make himself presentable before making his way to the kitchen.

This was a mistake.

Because when lloyd enters the kitchen there's man(?) sitting at the table wearing a black kimono with gold detailing. And Lloyd's first though is 'fuck, its the First Spinjitzu Master' before he realises that the man (? seriously why is it so hard to tell) is in his late thirties at most. So Lloyd's next thought is 'why is this random person in my kitchen?'

Lloyd, suspicious: Who are you and why are you here? Fsm, smiling: I'm your grandfather, and I'm your grandfather. Lloyd: You can't be my grandfather! You're like thirty! Fsm: I am not thirty, I'm a shapeshifter. Fsm, now vaguely concerned: You didn’t know that? Why didn’t you know that?

So, luckily, Fsm, by being themself, manages to almost completely allay Lloyd’s anxiety by getting up, telling Lloyd to follow him, and going to find both his children so they can smack them on the head because come on you two this is Morro all over again (Fsm can't really talk though, his godly domain should really be 'forgetting to tell people important information'). Because he can understand Morro not knowing that Fsm - and subsequently their descendants - isn’t human, but Lloyd is actually related!

Lloyd, meanwhile, is shocked. God, his grandfather, is in his house, looking all of thirty, and stalking through the monastery all while grumbling under his breath about his kids not telling Lloyd something, all while Lloyd trails behind him like a lost fawn.

It’s then Lloyd remembers his pyjamas and bed hair, and he just, internally cringes. Like, c'mon, this is the First Spinjitzu Master, and here he is looking like he just got out of bed (that he actually did just get out of bed is completely pointless in Lloyd’s mind). But something about this thought process must have shown in his face and body language (never mind that Lloyd is behind his grandfather), because suddenly the First Spinjitzu Master (man Lloyd really has to get his name) is turning around, stopping Lloyd in his tracks.

Fsm: Stop that. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I am 25,000 years old, and I have raised two children, I have seen a lot worse than bed hair.

That makes Lloyd blush, but his grandfather is already on the move again, seeking out his children.

Of course, once Fsm does find their children, Lloyd has the pleasure of finding out that his grandfather his half oni, half dragon (“dragoni”, his father says, “easier on the tongue”).

But once Lloyd processes that he’s not fully human (and, like in the show, he’s pretty calm about because it makes a lot of sense when he actually thinks about) he starts to bond with his grandpa and damn the First Spinjitzu Master is not anything like he expected him to be, but honestly, Lloyd is actually kinda relieved about that. He’s a lot more approachable than Lloyd expected, and it seems he’s where Wu and Garmadon got the more, um, eccentric sides of their personalities. Lloyd is still a bit nervous around him, but that slowly goes away over the few weeks that Fsm is staying for.

Throughout those weeks, Lloyd kinda starts to get comfortable around Fsm. Lloyd shows Fsm a bunch of video games (I've decided this includes Minecraft because, listen, Fsm would be great at Minecraft (specifically creative mode) and you can't tell me otherwise), as well as board games, which leads to the interesting revelation that Mystake (Mystake?! Who runs the tea shop?!) banned Fsm from playing uno a few months after it come out because he tackled someone after he had to pick up 16 cards.

Hope you enjoyed!

But yeah I’ll probably do a separate post for the family bonding.

Also I feel like I need to give fsm a proper name at this point. I’ve been calling them imaragami (ih-ma-rah-gar-mi) since I started thing this whole idea up but tbh it’s just a bunch of random syllables put together (I’m kinda attached to it at this point tho). But anyway what do you think?