#fanon interpretations of a thing/character

[curioussubjects]

i’m a langdon fan and do want to see him get better and do well but i do think it’s a little shortsighted to say langdon is definitely never high around his kids or wasn’t high enough to effect his patients or put them in danger. all we have right now regarding his addiction is his own words which were all said when he was defending himself because he knew he would lose his job. as someone who has spent years in 12 step programs and knows lots of addicts - they lie. a lot. everyone who works with addicts will tell you this. it’s extremely likely he was high around his children and i think the character of langdon is much more interesting to deal with when being honest about his flaws and afflictions

Hey, anon, so I actually do appreciate this ask. I don't know if you've seen the posts I've written about this, but I've talked at length about why exactly I don't think Langdon was high:

This post about the mental gymnastics around his cognitive dissonance (and I briefly raise the possibility that the back injury is fairly recent because of how Langdon talks about it with Robby). I think his frame of mind is important, and relevant, because he's very concerned with distancing himself from the stereotype of what an addict behaves like.

And this post specifically about him not getting high because the information we can glean from the show suggests he's taking benzos with a therapeutic logic and with doses that seem to be on the lower end.

Of course, you're right in that I can't argue he for sure 100% has never been high around his kids or at work. But what I can argue, and do argue, is that the evidence provided by the show suggests that he has not. I'm not just taking Langdon's dialogue at face value either, but evaluating it against everything else we learn about Langdon. The show simply hasn't given me any reason to doubt him, especially since we do see him trying to lie about being addicted at all.

It matters, too, that Langdon wasn't doing drugs to chase a high. He was using painkillers as prescribed to him by a doctor, and using benzos to treat withdrawal. He wasn't chasing a high, or trying to self-medicate by getting high specifically. He didn't need to. If anything, the risk Langdon was actually running wasn't being impaired by being high, but becoming resistant to benzos and having to increase his dosage, which increases his risk of overdose (and other side effects of course). Addiction, we know, is a complex condition with physiological, psychological and environmental factors. The mere fact of Langdon having a drug addiction doesn't in and of itself tell us everything we need to know; it's important to look at the context of his substance use.

Thing is, as I've also said in one of the posts above, Langdon didn't need to be high to make foolish decisions. Between the shame, stigma, and the ADHD aggravating the whole thing, he had enough motivation to do what he did.

Is that me being dishonest about his addiction or his flaws? I don't think so. I'm looking at what the show gave me and coming up with an interpretation based on it. Conversely, I haven't really seen very compelling arguments that present good evidence that Langdon was getting high either at work or at home. Mostly, people seem to be drawing from stereotypical ideas and narratives about addiction or very specific experiences, rather than the show itself. Or, I guess, by focusing too much on what fanon has going on. I don't mean to dunk on anybody here, it's just what I've noticed.

Also, on a final note, just in general for everyone following at home: I am not by any means making a value judgement about getting high vs not getting high. I have zero interest in playing morality olympics with chronically ill folks.

[gayofthefae]

Something I've learned in my time being constantly right about things:

Writers do not take digs at ships. That is something made up by antis. Let alone these famously good writers - and this episode was written by AYO AND LIONEL BTW - to speak directly to the audience. It also financially stupid to tell a part of your fandom to stop being a fan of that part of the show in that way if it's harmless. Writers do not give a shit about ships enough to do anti-fan service and invalidate fanon.

Writers do not deny ships in their scripts. What does happen, though, is characters denying their feelings.

The only reason to have a line referencing a ship is to give audience the idea TO ship it. (Trying to shut it down actually risks an increase from the people who had yet to think of it and may interpret that shut down as a feelings denial)

Every "ship dig" I've seen accused so far has either gotten together or taken serious steps toward it since. Writers don't do that. It's simply not a thing.

But yeah I loved how she was watching Syd this whole convo like "mhmm"

Right after TJ said Carmy was a crush.

No but really how could people say this was a dig at the ship, when Sydney clearly is nervous and trying to scramble when she has to explain further who Carmy is at the first house.

TJ is smart. She's not falling for it.

[elainsgirl]

https://www.tumblr.com/azrielsdefenseattorney/787729007608233984/so-my-one-little-post-about-e-riels-and-their?source=share

atleast try to pretend that it isn't you get a life

I wish it was me, that anon ATE with their response:

So basically, going only by what was sent to me elriels are “insecure” as they dont…partake in other ships…? Have no idea which sample of elriels this was taken from because I know many elriels that ship other ships, I ship both Azris and Elain x Eris and write one shots on them over on TikTok. But also, why does it matter if someone only wants to ship elriel? How does that lead to insecurity? Istg, are antis fighting for the award of who can come up with the most, I say this from the bottom of my heart; idiotic, dumbest takes? Because this definitely is a runner up.

But that anon? Facts after Facts. Some people dont want to join in on shipping random crackships, they like to stick with one logical choice and thats it, pls what is wrong with that? Like - are you genuinely daft enough to try and make that a bad thing and labelling elriels insecure over it???

anons right. The point of shipping is that you’re enjoying the relationship between two characters. Personally, elriel has everything I could want in a ship. We dont have their book, yet they’ve had so many iconic, romantic and meaningful moments that fill up a novella. As anon said, elriel to me is fullfilling, I dont need to dabble in other ships when elriel gives me all the enjoyment I want.

You can ship a bunch of crackships but still be sure in your ship. Even if you dont ship a bunch of random ships, you can STILL be secure in your ship - I fear, that is common sense.

at this point, its clear Gwynriels are stupidly trying to make arguements out of nothing. You are not insecure if you only ship elriel. People have rlly ruined the fandom with these new requirements.

also, elriels try to undo the damage antis have done with their wrong and fanon interpretations. Gwynriels particularly, blow everything up beyond proportion and exaggerate every single thing Gwyn has done as well as whatever Gwynriel interactions there where in acosf and the bonus - elriels dont do that. We stick to canon and say it how it is which is something that annoys antis as it pops their little delusional bubble they’ve created. Gwynriels are constantly lying about whats in the books, creating up all sorts of takes that dont make sense w canon - elriels are then left to prove them all wrong (which results in blocking by gwynriels, they can dish it out but cant take the truth themselves)

”Elriel shippers dont branch out not because we’re insecure but when you’ve got the real thing, you dont settle for fanon filler”

SAY IT LOUDER. God, it is not insecurity to only want to ship one particular ship. Whoever says otherwise is just standing on some false superiority.

To the anon in that post, you honestly answered so well and OP couldn’t give a good answer back hence the deflection. I love you for this response because I couldnt have said it better.

And to this anon, again. I wish that was me but unfortunately its not. Im too busy on tiktok arguing w the antis on my post so I had no idea someone even made a post calling Elriels insecure for not branching out (genuinely it is such a pathetic attempt at bringing elriels down, this is not a requirement for any other fandom so dont know why someone decided to make it an issue here but whatever, they’re all bored and need to smoke grass) until you’ve just brought it to my attention.

[bereft-of-frogs]

There’s that post that’s like ‘everyone should get into a tiny niche fandom at least once’ fully agree, that was really fun -- but I would like to add that everyone should get into a fandom where their opinions run counter to major fanon because it really teaches you about sticking to your guns and trusting your interpretation of the text without having to rely on peer validation

because WHAT are people talking about sometimes

[tempestmothstorm]

crazy how the sanshee plush is one of the few actual direct confirmations on what a non-act 2 Natsuki’s home life is like because of how cagey she is on literally everything. Like this isn’t anything surprising or something you wouldn’t be able to extrapolate from the games but unlike everything else we know about her the implications are right there on the tin.

They literally did the character bio trope where where all the likes are normal but the dislikes are about their very specific trauma it’s just so funny they did that on the plushie card

[thepixelatedbunny]

So I had just listened to big finish's Master bc haha funny torvic rock murder and now I'm so normal about it (screaming crying foaming at the mouth; doing zoomies around my room rn)

10/10 audio

[sparvverius]

i'm intentionally out of the loop for any and all frevblr beef but it seems just a little bit silly to me to say that there's a "fanon" version of these historical figures and that people should like the REAL version instead. cause like. unfortunately the real version has passed on from this life.... so has every person that knew them....... we think and talk of these people in a speculative and interpretive way not out of preference but because that is the only way that anyone can have any access to them at all anymore! however if you ARE communing with the real saint-just PLEASE let me know

[fantastic-nonsense]

took a peek into Harry Potter fanfic for the first time in years and y'all this is a fundamentally different fandom from the one I read/wrote fic for in the late 2000s and early 2010s. I'm not even talking about the difference in shipping preferences or whatever, the entire understanding of the world, characters, and relationships is sooooooooo different

[ambrosiagourmet]

Take this with a grain of salt but I don’t think Izutsumi necessarily MUST be be viewed as canonically aroace. I do not have a problem with that reading at all, to be clear, but I’ve been mulling this over for a while and with how much self-loathing and neglect informs her character it just doesn’t seem to entirely fair in insist on taking the “I don’t have a type” line at face value.

She’s a traumatized 17-year-old girl who thinks she’s unlovable and has never had the freedom to chose what to do with her life. Of course she doesn’t have a type and longs for a mom to love her unconditionally.

[witheredgardenparty]

I've been seeing a lot of posts lately in which the op will complain that people are wildly mischaracterizing their favorite characters.

I feel like it bears reminding that "as long as you can back up your arguments with evidence, there can be multiple, and even conflicting, valid interpretations of the same text" and "just because the interpretation is valid, does not mean you have to internalize it into your understanding of the text" coexist.

[scribz-ag24]

Future trio for character bingo (you knew this was coming lol)

hehe of course. ive marked "i have many headcanons" bc i guess by drawing them so much i am technically making headcanons, tho the word is pretty vague imo.

grovyle the guy ever. deservedly popular within fandom and people who vaguely remember playing eotd when rhey were 6. probably best character in the entire franchise. what could i even say. i cant believe people dislike him just bc hes well liked and arguably popular for pmd cast standards.

dusknoir, who should be tied with grovyle for my fav character, except he could be slightly more favoured bc i dont think ive ever felt so passionate about characterization until i saw certain popular headcanons for this guy. Still, i adore and have obsessed over every dialogue he has in the game, what else could i say that isnt patently clear in my fanart and ramblings. Def one of my fixations at the moment and top contender for the Best PMD character ranking. who doesn't love a well done twist villain/antagonist who will do whatever it takes to survive and perfectly contrasts our morally grey lizard hero.

celebi, the most girly girl that ever girled just so the writers could add romance. I cant believe she made me have a character arc where i first couldnt stand her and then ended up loving her thanks to cool fanon content and my belief in fighting the toxic misogynistic 2010s fujoshi that lives within all of us. it took a while for her to grow on me but now shes def part of the trio of all time. its a shame shes still vastly underdeveloped compared to the other two, so its a good thing they have each other to become more interesting through their interactions!

[dadbodbucky]

"tommy is fundamentally a man who is uncomfortable with praise"

This is fanon btw. Half the reason we were all taken by surprise by the breakup is because we kept taking fanon as if it was canon.

it's not fanon. here's tommy on the two separate occasions that we see buck compliment him on something other than physical appearance.

(photo credit @ohithankyou)

[sw33tl1es]

Having genuine ship wars between Saou and Oumo in the big year of 2025 is silly

[oldmannapping]

Realised I have a type when it comes to fictional male characters, and it’s that they would absolutely wear this shirt.

I am a simple soul.

[lord-squiggletits]

A tangent from the tags of my previous Pharma post (and I just thought about this so bear w/ me if it's hastily reasoned) is that the Autobots being generally sanctimonious is actually sort of a reason why I find a lot of IDW Optimus interpretations to miss the mark, specifically the accusations of calling him stuff like self-righteous, caring more about principles than people, etc. And I know that sounds really ironic, but out of every Autobot (and almost every character period), Optimus is one of the few people who has a very forgiving/humanistic perspective on life or at least has a political approach of "if we don't stop fucking fighting we're going to be at war forever and eventually just kill ourselves."

He very explicitly wanted a diplomatic end to the war and not a military victory/conquest. He extended multiple offers to Megatron personally to work together and end the war (Autocracy trilogy, which was pre/early war, and Chaos Theory, which was late/end war, so from this we can assume Optimus' stance was consistent the whole time). When ppl hated him so bad they rioted he removed himself from the planet rather than argue or fight to justify why his actions were the best he could do. Sandstorm starts murdering Decepticons and Optimus solves the murders and then throws Sandstorm in prison bc sparing one of his Autobots the consequences of his actions is less important to Optimus than keeping the peace and making sure anyone who threatens to ignite wartime hostilities is punished for it. There are multiple characters throughout the series that other people give up on as too far gone or too cowardly/evil/damaged to be worth helping where Optimus alone is the person who says "I think they can get better/they did bad things but they're still people" such as the Dynobots, Blurr, Prowl (despite how OP's patience with him hung by a thread by the end of it), Shockwave, and, yknow, fucking Megatron of all people.

And on top of that Optimus' internal thoughts most of the time revolve around feelings of guilt, responsibility, anger, hopelessness/barely hanging on to his ideals, and so on. Bro regularly has thoughts about how the entire Autobot-Decepticon war was his fault and is depressed to the point the thought of dying/martyring himself makes him feel relieved. So like. Idk guys I don't think those are the personality traits/actions of a self-righteous person who thinks he's correct about everything and everyone who opposes him or fails his moral standards is just evil or whatever.

[beeceit]

[guy who's about to suggest the farthest thing from what you actually want voice] ermmm actually if you like that specific interpretation of these characters you're WRONG, here's what you REALLY wanna be reading