Would you be willing to like, info dump about your Troll pupating headcanon that appeared in your Between AU? Just elaborate on how it works and such?
YES. Putting this under a cut because it's moderately long
Okay okay so. I don't know why but trolls are like. Little bugs to me. So I want to give them a few small bug traits, make them little creatures.
And pupation seemed like the most fun way to do that. A pupa is an insect's life stage where they undergo metamorphosis between larval and adult forms. In real life, most pupation involves larval structures breaking down while adult structures like wings develop—in that case of caterpillars, the bug sees itself liquified during the process (while still retaining memories of pre-pupation! neat!).
Of course, in canon, we see baby and child trolls all the time, and they're not that different from the main characters. So troll pupation isn't as drastic as it is for most real-life insects in my headcanon; rather, it might be better described as spedrun puberty.
So. The headcanon itself. At about 12 or 13 years of age, a trolling will start to experience a surge in appetite and drop in metabolism. I'm not entirely decided yet on whether the cocoon is something that they build up over time from spun/shed hairs, or if it's something more instantaneous formed directly from their hair—though I'm leaning more towards the latter.
The troll spends most of their pupation asleep. Body structures don't need to break down to the extent seen in real-life insects, so while some semi-drastic changes do happen (genitals develop and become accessible, though they won't be fully functional for a few years yet; hair lengthens and becomes stronger + able to shift color and length; new adult teeth, fur, and claws grow in), the troll remains pretty much intact the entire way through the process.
When they emerge, the troll isn't actually a full adult yet; though most of the major changes have been ticked off, it still takes a few years of regular growth before they can be considered fully mature.
A big thing about pupations is that trolls are adaptable. And I headcanon Pop Trolls to be one of the most adaptable genres (since pop is literally defined as "whatever's popular," though the genre itself has a few defining features), though all trolls pupate regardless of genre. So trolls that are under a lot of stress or caught in unusual conditions may find themselves emerging from their pupations with new features outside of what's normally expected. These adaptations aren't super drastic—for example, a Pop Troll raised by Techno Trolls wouldn't emerge with the exact same structure as a Techno Troll; rather, they'd get webbed paws and bigger lung capacity (maybe bioluminescence if they're lucky) at the most. Lost limbs can occasionally be regrown during pupation if the injury was recent enough, and most scars will fade during pupation.
So why does Branch pupate at fifteen in my headcanons? Simple: he's gray. The lack of color is more than just a signifier of his disposition; it has direct physiological consequences with regards to Branch's growth rate and metabolism. His troll endocrine system released the necessary hormones to induce pupation late as a result. Hormones being what they are, it's possible for a fully-colored troll to have a delayed or even early pupation, but such deviation tends to be rare.
In the Between AU, Branch loses his tail at roughly thirteen years old. When he pupates about two years later, his body adapts to the whole "living with creatures twenty times his size" situation, and instead of regrowing his tail his hips and legs shifted to accommodate the new balance.
tl;dr my troll growth headcanons are a mix of mammalian (human) style puberty and buglike metamorphosis; trolls speedrun their puberty in a hair cocoon
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Genuinely my main thing with the Watcher thing (I watch their stuff but I’d never consider myself a die hard fan) is that I really want to see the back end projections and business plans that went into this. Show me how their math mathed to the point that this seemed not just viable, but an improvement upon YouTube at this moment in time.
I’ve been watching it unfold all day and seeing the comparisons to Dropout, the unfortunate optics of reinstating the “let’s go eat stupidly expensive stuff” show as your first big new thing for the platform while also saying you don’t have money to do the “TV-quality” things you want, all that’s fine and dandy and not incorrect. But I just can’t see how this is financially going to win out.
I wish the boys the best, hope it works out for their sakes, and I hope regardless that one day we get an idea of what the decision making process was. Not the vague “ad revenue ain’t what it used to be” type comments they made in their very not-reading-the-room announcement video, but actual numbers. I’m super interested.
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man, part of me really wants to type out a whole rant about this shit but I feel like if I do there won't really be a central point and it will just be a bunch of disjointed rambling. so all I'll say is I'm so fucking tired of svt being under a giant corporation. like regardless of opinion about pledis by itself/pre-hybe, at least then we a) knew what we were dealing with and b) had /some/ collective power as fans to influence the company (ex. getting closer MV and svt ring as merch incidents)
all the hybe acquisition did was add 10 more layers of politics onto everything. for every one thing you could argue hybe improved or fixed, there's like 100 other pieces of bullshit that got introduced directly or indirectly. and it's not even a situation of hybe trying to sabotage svt or whatever like some ppl try to fearmonger about, it's literally all just capitalism and trying to please shareholders and make a profit and I'm so fucking tired of it
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Not Reverse Robins or Scrambled Birds but a secret third thing: A Step to the Left.
Not Dick > Jason > Tim > Steph > Damian,
but Jason > Tim > Steph > Damian > Dick*.
But not only them. Every sidekick with a legacy name gets shifted one spot. (No I’m not counting the Golden Age because I’m not combing through that ).
This means that Jason’s Titans team is him, Mia (Speedy), Jackson (Aqualad), Cassie (Wonder Girl), and Bart (Impulse but y’know he was KF II in the comics).
The NTT team including Starfire, Changeling, Raven, and Cyborg stays the same since they’re the only ones with those names. Cass gets lumped in here because Jason actually wants to do college/is becoming disillusioned about cape life and the idea of Kori learning Cass's body language is too good to pass up.
Tim gets one (1) cape friend (because Jason only got one) and it’s Zachary Zatara because it has to be a d-lister who deals with that disaster Teen Titans era.
Stephanie gets Jon (Superboy), Yara (Wonder Girl II now), and Irey (Because guess what it’s Impulse on the team and not KF which means we get Impulse II). Secret, Cissie, Anita, Slobo etc. all stay the same.
Damian doesn’t get anyone until he becomes Batgirl.
Duke literally gets Damian’s exact canon team but it’s Kon instead of Jon and probably won’t end with them committing war crimes.
If the character in that placement dies in canon then the new character in that placement also dies (i.e. Jason dies so Tim will die/ Kon dies so Jon will die).
But there will be changes because these are different characters so not all of them would react the same.
For example, Jason and Cass are the first Robin and Batgirl, but Cass becomes Nightwing while Jason becomes Oracle because I feel like Jason generally fits Barbara’s character better than Cass does (which is a fucking shame because Oracle being someone named Cassandra should be a no brainer but yeah).
Or how Barbara should be Batgirl number three, but it’s actually Damian because Cass would see their similarities between them and offer him Batgirl (which he refuses at first but after his disastrous run as Robin he sees how Batgirl would fit his strengths better).
Also I refuse to believe that Jason and Cass would let Dick out as Robin so young so he’s benched until later and his place is taken up by Duke and instead of Leviathan it’s Gnomon.
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