#i used to bend to the will of fanon fun fact

[necrotic-nephilim]

@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.

so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.

a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.

and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.

so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.

beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.

because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.

and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.

and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.

and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.

people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.

it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.

[hrghhhhhhhhh]

i was heavily into cryptage until the season 20 launch and tae liking elliott felt really natural to me. now im struggling hard even imagining it knowing that hes canonically in love and its not elliott. suddenly his annoyed behavior just feels annoyed, no longer flustered, and the relationship he has with elliott doesnt feel light-hearted anymore just sorta hostile idk the whole confirmation of his romantic interest in someone else erased my perception that was built on the s3 trailer and their (what i interpreted as) flirting. i cant seem to do anything about it, it's just gone it's all gone and respawn visibly disliking cryptage makes me feel guilty it feels like we're not supposed to ship it in the first place

IM SO SORRY FOR THIS ACCIDENTAL DISSERTATION:

tldr: i fully understand you, however, putting too much stock in canon / wishing your ship become canon causes a lot of stress. Canon is not the end all be all, and frankly i think canon kills my interest in ships the fastest. Using canon to make stuff you actually like will always be more fun and better for mental health!!! <3

OKay . so . i COMPLETELY understand where you're coming from, I think of all games with such a robust cast, this one has so many potentials. S3 trailer ignited my love for them, and the way they navigated each other (from Cryp0 bending Mirage's arm back in self defense, to then Crypto saving him by pulling him off the train) I am so blessed to have my expectations Very early on be set, knowing that the early writers had absolutely no intent to make Mirage and Crypto romantic.

From that trailer i took really important things about their character, but i felt like i KNEW the intent, and the intent Never felt flirty or even romantic to me. I knew i could spin it that way, i knew i loved their dynamic when viewed through that heart shaped lens! But I never ever assumed that's where their stories led. and because if that i was never let down. I have no idea how to heal from the canon vs not canon stuff, it can feel like a betrayal, and i totally get the guilt. BUT canon and your personal interpretation dont have to match. Like at all. As long as, you know, noones being a total asshole about it. On Crypto being annoyed:

My favorite thing about mirage. is that. he is in fact SO ANNOYING. hes is mouthy and so jokey, and cocky, and insecure. Meeting him in real life would be a cHALLENGE LMAO. So crypto's line sounding more and more annoyed is genuinely so real of him. He has a short fuse, and gets annoyed easily with EVERYONE (source: his impatient crafting lines, his getting into ring lines, etc.) Crypto is so particular about his time and personal space, i think his annoyance lines are TOP TIER with Mirage, even if they edge into mean territory ( I mean mirage literally calls him "paranoid weirdo", makes light of his mannerisms) . Because its just his character, hes not a people person, while mirage IS! The fanon becomes so fun when you start to imagine HOW they could make that work! On Making Lemonade:

Crypto getting a love interest i dont see as a negative at all, because matching canon is not interesting to me. I am in the minority here i know. Something i love about canon is that it tells you things about your fav character that you can go off of!!! Crypto and wattson having a rapport, even Mila hinting that she thinks Crypto has a crush on her- THIS IS GOLD, FOR YOUR FAVVY CHARACTERS. This tells me that YEAH even if he had a crush, even if its, like killing him inside - HE IS NOT THE FIRST CONFESSOR, He will NEver say a WORD. That is characteristic no. 1 you can put in your arsenal. Like that is so TASTEY. he'd rather go his whole life yearning than confess. SO GOOD, DELICIOUS. Point no 2. He still puts his mission to find and save Mila above things like romance. I think that's so interesting, like, he has this intense mental block to letting himself indulge!

NOW: how to use that info, is up to you! Think about crypto dying of Crush on Mirage, only for mirage to "turn the charm up to 11" for the cameras. Great anguish, Tae Joon. Alternatively, making crypto confess to mirage hints that he MUST have really been dYING. Its only added to my imagination of them ^^

THE BEST PART ABOUT MAKING FAN CONTENT. IS PLAYING WITH THE CHARACTERS LIKE BARBIES!!! The second best part is finding pieces of canon to support your barbie playdate. On Canon Writing:

I will say, i feel like i can sense that the writers are only human in regards to how crypto and mirage appear together lately; Their last interactions being mirage distraught that Crypto wasnt RSVP-ing to his party, only for Crypto to show up the second he knew about said party (AND ASK FOR SOME BUMPIN MUSIC, SO CUTE). They are obviously a dynamic they break out when they need some fun pair to play up (an appropriate) story.

But the writers are just human. When the fandom as a whole picks up a ship you never intended, misinterpreting their words; i can see purposefully writing them shallowly, taking away some dimension- because they have this other story to tell. I think its very regular-person of them to be like "Oh theyre looking at this wrong let me make it clear!". I will go on record saying i don think they "visibly dislike" cryptage, it feels more like there's a bit of railroading of their current plotline, and some side flavor of people interacting is lost lately. That does make me sad, i think- at the very least- they have a great rivals to friends dynamic. And in my eyes there's always room for romance somewhere in there (or a fwb situation :3d ) I'd love to see more of their interactions, however, they have A LOT to go off of. Between the s3 trailer, their lines, the mirage forgot about his party, the UGLY OVERTIME COMIC.

Theres soooo much i can say about this, and them in particular, but i want to just say, PLEASE don't dispair. Theres still so much about them that still stands! Make your own stuff, don't wallow in canon, and most of all (and i say this so respectfully) Try to distance your happiness from 'winning canon'. Its a losing battle. a ship should be more of a hobby than a career - it can alter your mental SO much unless you step back.

Damn i have never needed to shut the fuck up more! TY FOR THIS ASK!!!!

[sassybluee]

For the LBFaD Asks: 13, 12 and 10 🎄

Thank you!

10. What fanon fact/s did you make your mind up on while writing for LBFaD?

I'm very fond of the idea that the Moon Queen is a rare thing and that previous Moon Supremes mostly had concubines. I'll get into it more in my fic An Orchid of the Moon once the time comes to reveal more about my headcanons 😉. But I've seen others mention/explore this idea as well, so I'm glad I'm not alone! I think, just like with Moon Supreme, becoming Moon Queen is not a simple thing!

I also like the idea that DFQC (and XLH) were not aware of the Glazed Fire manifesting in DFQC in the final showdown with Tai Sui. Too much was going on! The drama that can cause later is fun.

12. Favourite tropes in your fic/s and why.

Oooh. Well, I like porn for plot reasons (a la medicinal purposes). I think it's fun to put these characters in situations where they have to have sex, especially when DFQC and XLH are at such odds with one another at first.

I also like playing with role reversals, which I haven't had a chance to do much yet with the fics I've published, but I have a couple ideas in mind where DFQC is the one with less "power" than XLH. I think it's fun to see how their dynamic would change and how it'd stay the same. In a similar vein, I like giving characters new origins from their canon counterparts (like making XLH a Moon Tribe flower spirit in An Orchid of the Moon) and seeing how things would change. I have another fic planned that also swaps a character's origin (but I won't say who yet 🤭)

13. Favourite song/s that inspired you?

Begin Again by Purity Ring reminds me of Canglan. Also "Bends" by Carly Rae Jepsen inspired my fic the year of drowning (but I didn't end up using it as a title inspo bc i couldn't find a good line to use)

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK! this was fun to answer 🥰

LBFAD fic writers ask meme

[roughentumble]

also like yen should clearly be lois but im an incurable geraskier-head so jaskier is lois. i even think journalist is a fun future-career for a traveling bard, because a traveling bard is taking information they learn about the world and synthesizing it into stories and songs that captivate their audience, especially jaskier who in fanon is often portrayed as getting most of his inspiration from geralt's hunts and is therefore chronicling the exploits of the white wolf, while a journalist is taking information about the world and distilling it down into core truths and facts to tell a story that gets information out to the people, especially in continuities where lois is The Superman Reporter. i love the idea of jaskier with a youtube channel who uses song to report the news, to get younger/a broader range of viewers engaged with the material. he starts his career willing to bend the truth for a good story("truth rarely makes history") and it actually hurts him and gets him passed over professionally, until he starts growing a sense of right and wrong and ups his journalistic ethics, slowly building a diehard group of supporters for his honest takes and flowing style. he's chasing pulitzers and sticking his nose in everyone's business to do it, and while he genuinely likes superman and is compelled by him and maybe even thinks of them as friends, he also thinks of superman as his ticket. his ticket to fame, and a good story, hard-hitting journalism that will get his name remembered. and then he learns superman's name and he does something he never thought he'd do-- he keeps it a secret.

[qprstobin]

I thought I was the only person who felt uncomfortable with the overfeminization of Steve and how he’s always “mom” to them in fics, I’m glad I’m not! It’s worse when you remember that Joe Keery doesn’t really like that joke either. And while the occasional joke is fine, when it’s emphasized in a fic and the kids actually call Steve mom purposely, it just feels sorta weird?

You are far from the only one who dislikes it!! Unfortunately it's caught on so strongly in popular fanon :( It's worse because I actually like genderqueer and transfem Steve!! But not like the way some of the fandom overly feminizes him.

Steve's such a fun character, because he is very traditionally masculine in a lot of ways, and part of his character journey is (while not done explicitly because I don't think the Duffers did this on purpose) him kind of accepting the ways in which he isn't traditionally masculine (the hair products, the "babysitting", the fact that he's often the emotionally vulnerable one in relationships - wanting the emotional connection when the girls come to him for sex).

(It's because of this that I think he's a fun character to explore the possibility of him being transfem or genderqueer!)

But all of this doesn't stop him from being masculine. He's a jock, he has an interest in cars, he can be a little overprotective not even in a parental way but in the "I'm the man so I've got to take care of my partner" sort of way. The dude will bitch about being a babysitter and then get an action movie sequence of him ripping apart a monster with his teeth and bare hands. The dichotomy of these two things is what makes him fun!!!

Like you said, the mom jokes can be fun on occasion. (I've mentioned before that I think it's funny when it's contrasted with Robin as the dad, because it's exactly the type of fun gender bending bit that they would drive into the ground.) But when they are constantly being said, all the time, no trace of irony, and it's reflected on Steve's character too (like to the point where he's extremely out of character?)? It's just weird.

Part of it is that honestly Steve is much more of an older sibling in all honesty in canon - he's actually a pretty classic sci-fi/fantasy older sibling, who teases the younger sibling and then constantly does self sacrificing moves against whatever monster is trying to attack his siblings, all while cursing out his siblings for getting him into this mess.

The other part is, if you're going with parental Steve, what is so wrong with him being jokingly referred to as Dad? Like, I'm sorry if some people have never had a father who cooks, cleans, helps with laundry, takes the kid with them while they do the errands. This is an issue in our society of gender norms and societal expectations. But that doesn't mean you have to perpetuate these same gender roles in your gay fanfiction lol. I think it would honestly make him uncomfortable after a point to constantly be called a mom when he's pretty much said that he used to fantasize constantly about being a father. (Ooh, now that's a fun idea to explore.)

Anyway, fandom can like, do what they want but I'm... not a fan of that trend lol.

[riorangedeezguts]

"Listen up, bastards!"

Here's some blog ground rules (may edit them over time) 🤩

There will definitely be some triggering topics here! I'll try to put trigger warnings where I see fit, but they may slip my mind so please be careful! 🥺

I've actually made what I call The Ranger Severity Scale that you can look at for reference here so that I won't answer asks with anything you're uncomfortable with! Please use it! 😵

Nothing explicitly sexual please! Dirty jokes are fine, smut is not (I mean, do you see my url?) 😬

Ships are allowed, just be mindful of who we're talking about (obviously no underage) 🧐

Biggest rule: Do not ask if you should harm yourself in any way. You all know Rio would encourage it 😔 and I am not here to harm anyone, only to have fun 🥳

Lastly, you better have fun! Yes, that's a rule. If you don't follow it, I will find you 🙃

Oh, and this will not be a spoiler free blog! I recommend playing Your Turn To Die all the way through at least once before interacting here! (and also viewing the Kai minisode tbh, there will def be spoilers for that! I'll be sure to tag 'em with "yttd mini episode spoilers" or "kai minisode spoilers" though! Something of that nature)

P.S. If you ask me anything we don't have an answer to in the game itself yet, I'll try my best to answer it! Just know it's all fanon at that point lmao

(also can someone please find me a better url, I can't take myself seriously with this one but "ask Rio Ranger" is too boring for my (and his too probably) taste)

(spoilers under cut btw ^^)

Last chance to turn back if you haven't played yttd!

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Did they leave?

Okay, good.

So I have a proposition. Let's pretend Rio lived for a hot minute. And lets pretend we live in a world where he and all the others (mostly) made it out of the death game. That being said, you guys can also address asks to Laizer :3

We support bending canon to fit our needs here. In fact, we encourage it!

So yeah! Just specify who you're talking to in your ask and I'll answer it as either Ranger or Laizer. You can also ask for both of them to answer your question, or I could always surprise you if you don't care which!

[shihalyfie]

Re: Ryo, i like the idea of some original Akiyama Ryo existing at some point and something happening to him get fragmented into pieces, sais pieces going to different universes and timelines, resulting in the phenomenon where there's not just original one anymore but fragments of him.

I love space-time stuff (i mean, i have a whole story about Advverse and its different timelines + other worlds lol) so this is catching my attention 👀👌

I think that's one way to handle it! The last post probably made me come off as harsher on the games than I really intended to be (it's mostly that I know too well Bandai hasn't really had a good track record of being prudent about issues like these), but from a fanfic writer's perspective, sometimes the fun itself comes from taking difficult-to-figure out parts of canon and using it as a challenge of sorts.

If you do want to take Ryou being the same character in 02 and Tamers at "absolute" face value (that is to say, about as closely as the way the games obviously want you to take it, in its most literal form), the challenge becomes a question of how an amnesiac Ryou ends up adapting himself to the Tamers universe. Then you have concepts like the one you mentioned where the universe explosion at the end of D-1 Tamers scattered "fragments" of Ryou across the multiverse that integrated themselves into them, like Tamers' or V-Tamer's timelines. Or you can just take the games' plotlines as a "suggestion" and do whatever you want with the rest of it. Even if you're taking the games at the most face value as possible, you're probably still making concessions here and there to make it integrate with anime timeline, so the question is really just going to be about how much.

Personally, I haven't really settled on a definitive personal headcanon on what's going on with Ryou because I have multiple ideas and haven't been able to make a decision about which one(s) I want to commit to or develop further in my head, but the part I do end up no-compromise is that I'm really not a huge fan of any aspects of the games that derail anime characters' characterization (Ken and Wormmon in Tag Tamers and D-1 Tamers, the Adventure kids' characterization in D-1 Tamers, et cetera), so those are the aspects I tend to ignore or do away with the most. Likewise, a lot of the fanon that Ryou left the Adventure universe for the Tamers one because he was jaded and bitter has to do with interpretations of the fallout from the D-1 tournament, and since that's the part that I have the most discomfort with I tend to not really favor that line of thought (I don't begrudge anyone else who likes that, angst is very juicy after all, I'm just not personally comfortable with it).

The other big question is the fact Ryou is part of 02's media mix, and 02 canonically aired in the Tamers universe (that 02 is involved is confirmed by staff notes and later Digimon crossover works) but nobody in the Tamers world seems to know or care about the fact a popular fictional character is real, but the easiest way around this is that the "Adventure and 02" and Digimon franchise in the Tamers universe already has obvious differences from the real one, so the WonderSwan games and 02 tie-ins presumably didn't happen in the Tamers world's version of the franchise. That said, Millenniummon being a time-and-space distorting entity makes it very easy to come up with other reality-bending shenanigans or explanations, so you really have a lot of options.

[sketching-shark]

LMK fandom: Oh, what do we do about this guy who has nothing but hurt Xiaotian, tried to replace Sun Wukong and his crew, hurt Tripitaka and ordered servants to cannibalize a monkey? Oh I know! We’ll turn him into our little meow meow~ he’s so innocent and Sun Wukong is obviously the villain!

What doesn’t help is this idea is perpetuated by multiple fan fic writers and artists for some reason. Especially some aus they make that turn SWK into a bastard for the sake of the story rather than considering cultural context and thinking they should be respectful.

And almost everyone lets them get away with it just because the art or fanfic is good and they get so popular that no one can point what is actually wrong without feeling like they’re going to get attacked.

I'm starting to feel like my blog is the one anons go to specifically to vent their frustrations about the Six Eared Macaque in his lego monkey show form & the associated fandom lmao. But I guess this makes sense, as I’ve had fun quasi-dragging him before & will in fact use this anon submission as an opportunity to have my own, to put it academically, bitch fest about not just this fandom's favorite protagonist-traumatizing meow meow, but about the way villains are often treated in not just fanon, but increasingly in canon works as well. But same policy as with the last anon; I'll post my opinions below the cut, and as fandoms love to say, don’t like don't read if you don't want to see me dunking on the six eared simian & common fandom tendencies towards villains.

Oh man I would say where would you even begin with this but anon you’ve pretty much started yourself with my main gripe with a lot of ways that the Six-Eared Macaque is portrayed in fandom; there seems to be this unspoken agreement that his acts of violence towards Sun Wukong, Qi Xioatian, and Qi Xioatian’s loved ones are either to be framed as somewhat or totally justified, to be immediately forgiven/excused, or to simply & completely be ignored. Like friends maybe this is just me not seeing the proper posts but while the fandom is inundated with art and fanfics of Macaque as a generally decent individual & a true member of team good guy, I have yet to see one person address the fact that this monkey literally kidnapped & mind-controlled Xiaotian’s best friend and father figures & forced them to brutalize Xiaotian while ol’ Six Ear looked on and laughed (X_X). Like this kind of fandom villain treatment is definitely not something that’s solely at work for Monkie Kid, but it is kind of nutty how fandoms will swing between yelling that people should be allowed to like villains without even mild critique, and then will just flat-out not address the villainous behavior, and will even bend over backwards to frame even characters who committed genocide as just poor innocent widdle victims who need a hug. At its worst, I’ve even seen tons of people in a fandom get really angry at other people who don’t like a villain, and will even start accusing those people of hating real-life mentally disabled or abused individuals all because they don’t like the fandom’s favorite literal war criminal. The Monkie Kid fandom is FAR more chill & better than a lot of other fandoms I’ve come across in that regard, but that is an exceedingly low bar, & the tendency to woobify certain kinds of villains-- as with Macaque and the extreme emphasis on his bad boy/sad boy thing--is very much at work.  

 I’ve also talked before about a kind of monoculturalization of certain character interpretations and story beats in fandoms, and one of the more popular ones that seems to be applied to Macaque a lot is the “hero actually bad, villain actually good” cliche, as observable from the general fandom assumption that Mr. Six-Ears he wasn’t even slightly lying or remembering things through a rose-tinted or skewed lens when he gave his version of his and Sun Wukong’s past. Like at this point it seems the possibility that people WILL NOT even consider is that Sun Wukong never did & still doesn't care that much about the Six Eared Macaque (in JTTW they weren’t sworn brothers & in Monkie Kid the only thing the monkey king really said to Macaque before attacking him was a pretty contemptuous "Aren't you ever going to get sick of living under my shadow?," & responds to his "beloved friend" getting blown up with "You did good, bud" to Qi Xiaotian, who did the exploding), or that their original fight may in fact have mostly been instigated by Macaque. After all, to repeat what this anon summarized & what I've said before about their original JTTW context (& in an example of the things that do feel like it's often lost in translation) is that the Six Ear Macaque was a villain not just because he beat up the Tang Monk, but because he wanted to take over Sun Wukong's entire life and identity so he could have all that glory, prestige, and power for himself. To quote the macaque himself from the Anthony C. Yu translation, "I struck the T'ang monk and I took the luggage...precisely because I want to go to the West all by myself to ask Buddha for the scriptures. When I deliver them to the Land of the East, it will be my success and no one else's. Those people of the South Jambudvipa Continent will honor me then as their patriarch and my fame will last for all posterity." And in order to do this, the Six Eared Macaque had apparently made Sun Wukong's "little ones," his monkey family, his captives through either trickery or force, and gotten a number of them to take on the appearance of Tang Sanzang and the other pilgrims. It's also made clear that in very direct contrast to Sun Wukong, he doesn't care about these monkeys beyond how they might serve him. In fact, after Sha Wujing kills the monkey posing as him the Six Eared Macaque not only all but immediately replaces him with another, but also "told his little ones to have the dead monkey skinned. Then his meat was taken to be fried and served as food along with coconut and grape wines." So this monkey is not only willing to risk the lives of a lot of other monkeys for his own personal benefit, but is also a literal cannibal. And yes yes, I know a lot of people have argued that Monkie Kid shouldn't be considered a direct sequel to JTTW & that's fair enough (for example, Sun Wukong probably shouldn't be smashing anyone into a meat patty in a children's cartoon lol). And of course, it needs to be noted that there are a buttload of really out there & really cursed pieces of media based on JTTW & that were created in China. Yet the above description is the oft-ignored in the west original facet of the Six Eared Macaque's character. And it is this selfishness, entitlement, and treatment of other individuals as tools for his own self-serving ends  that is, from where I’m standing, still very much present in Monkie Kid. Like besides repeatedly going out of his way to physically and psychologically traumatize Xioatian, with the last episode Macaque seemed to be going right back to his manipulative ways. I’ve seen people frame their last conversation as Macaque softening to Xioatian a little bit, but personally that read a lot more like that common tactic among abusers where even after they’ve hurt you they’ll dangle something you want or need over your head (in Macaque’s case, the promise of desperately needed training and information about a serious looming threat), with the implication that you’ll only get it if you do what they want you to, such as, in this case, Xioatian going back to Macaque as his student even after having been so terribly hurt by this monkey, which would give Macaque power over Xiaotian and probably Sun Wukong as a result. And it is this violence and manipulation that it seems the fandom at large has tacitly decided shouldn’t even be addressed, instead leaning more towards a (and this is an exaggeration) “Six-Eared Macaque my poor meow meow Sun Wukong has always been bad & has always been wrong about literally everything” reading. 

And while it is the case that I am not Chinese and feel that as such it would be best left to someone who actually comes from that background to provide more context into how common interpretations of the Six Eared Macaque from China may clash really badly with the stuff the western fandom creates, it also must be noted that, as much as we all want to have fun in fandom & in spite of all the out-there versions of JTTW from China, we westerners should recognize that there is a very long and very ugly history of western countries stripping other cultures’ important religious and literary works for parts & mashing them into their own thing while implying or even insisting that what they present provides a true understanding of the original piece. And while I trust most individuals in regards to Monkie Kid are able to step back and think “this is a lego cartoon and not a set guide for how I should understand JTTW” (especially given the insistence that JTTW and Monkie Kid should be considered there own separate works) there does nevertheless seem to be something of a tendency to take the conclusions people come to, for example, about Sun Wukong’s characteristic in his lego form & then assume that’s just reflective to Sun Wukong as a totality. I imagine a good portion of this is due to people not reading JTTW & especially to not having easy access to solid information or answers about JTTW’s many different facets (like geez awhile ago I was trying to get a clear answer on what is considered the most accurate translation of the names of Sun Wukong’s six sworn brothers & got like 5 different responses lmao), but that tendency to take a western fandom interpretation & run with it instead of doing any background research or questioning said interpretation is still very much at play. As such, & as made prominent in the way people have been interpreting the dynamic between Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque in the lego monkey show, tbh it does seem kind of shitty for western creators & audience to sometimes go really out of their way to ignore all of this original cultural & narrative context for the sake of Angst (TM) in Macaque's favor, demonizing Sun Wukong, and shipping the monkey king with his evil twin (X_X).

And speaking of which, even beyond the potential inherent creepiness & revulsion that can be inspired by this specific ship given common interpretations of the og classic's original meaning (again, it's my understanding, given both summaries of translated Chinese academic texts I've been kindly provided with, my own reading of the Anthony C. Yu translation of JTTW, & vents from a number of Chinese people I've seen on this site, that the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China as having originated from Sun Wukong himself as a living embodiment of his worst traits, hence why only Buddha can tell the difference between them & why the monkey king is much more slow to violence after he kills the macaque), I'd argue that in the face of all the uwu poor widdle meow meow portrayals lego show Macaque is, especially if you include JTTW's events, still in the role of “Sun Wukong but worse” as he is very much a violent & selfish creep. Like he was basically running around in JTTW wearing a Sun Wukong fursuit, but there he had the sole reason of wanting to replace Sun Wukong wholesale so he could have all the good things in the monkey king's life without actually having to work as hard for them. But if you combine that with Macaque now claiming that he used to be best friend with Sun Wukong in his pre-journey days (something that's made funny from a JTTW context given that that status actually belongs to the Demon Bull King lol), his original violence has now blown into this centuries long and really unhealthy obsession with the monkey king. Like he's apparently gone from wanting to literally be Sun Wukong to being so obsessed with getting revenge on Sun Wukong that he's got basically nothing else going on in his life. Like he's only appeared in two episodes but...does he have any friends? Any family? A career or even a hobby that DOESN'T center the monkey king? Anything at all outside of his "get revenge on and/or kill Sun Wukong/use his successor as my personal punching bag” thing? Like dude! That is extremely creepy and extremely bad for everyone all around! As I’ve said before, this seeming refusal to see beyond the past or to do something that doesn’t involve Sun Wukong in some capacity is a trait that makes Macaque an interesting and somewhat tragic villain--he even seems to be working as Sun Wukong’s reflection in a mirror darkly, with lego show Sun Wukong pretty clearly not being able to heal from his own past which is hinted to be defined by one loss after another, and with Monkie Kid even kind of having these two characters somewhat follow their JTTW characterizations in that in the latter half of the journey Sun Wukong often gets sad & starts crying in the face of what seems insurmountable odds (& Monkie Kid Sun Wukong does seem to be hiding some serious depression behind a cheerful facade), whereas the Six-Eared Macaque retains a worse version of Sun Wukong’s pre-journey characteristic of getting pissed and lashing out if things don’t go his way--but it’s also what would make any current friendship or romantic relationship between these monkeys horrific. Although to be fair even the fandom seems to recognize this in an unconscious way, in that a lot of the art & fanfic seems to swing erratically between them kissing & screaming at each other in yet another example of bog-standard fandom adulation of romanticized toxic relationships lol.  

At the end of the day, of course, this is nothing new. You'll find versions of this dynamic across a ton of fandoms and now even canonical work. And as such, I can only look at this kind of popularized relationship dynamic with a kind of resigned weariness whenever it pops up, & my frustrated question with the popularity of this kind of pairing is the exact same one that I have for a multitude of blatantly toxic villain/hero ships, given common fandom discourse & the tendency to either ignore or justify the villain's actions & demonize the hero: if you're THAT convinced that everything is the hero's fault, if you believe THAT much that the hero is the one in the wrong for the villain's pain and their subsequent actions, then why are you so set on them not only becoming a romantic pair, but framing this get-together as a good thing? Like I know we contain multitudes but that's waaay too many contradictions for me to wrap my head around. And it definitely doesn’t help that one branch of underlying reasoning behind this kind of pairing seems to be the ever-present “you break it, you fix it” mentality, where the assumption is that if you’re in a failing, abusive, and/or generally toxic relationship (platonically or romantically), if you put in enough time and effort & attempts to compromise, you’ll be able to restore/have the relationship you dreamed of, even with someone who hurt you really badly. And this assumption isn’t limited to fandom: I’d even argue that it’s everywhere in the culture, hence why a lot of people feel like they “failed” if they have to get a divorce or make the choice to leave an unhealthy friendship. Personally, I feel like people could really benefit from more stories about how it is not only the case that the people you hurt don’t owe you their forgiveness & you can still become a better and happier person without the one you hurt in your life, & that while it can be really hard it can also be a good thing to leave a relationship, even if it’s one that once meant a lot to you. 

  But in all honestly, from my own perspective this kind of pairing is starting to read far less like enemies to lovers and far more like a horrible fantasy where you can pull whatever shit you want, even on the people you "love," & never be held accountable for your terrible behavior or even have to consider that maybe you were in the wrong. It's another facet that makes me larf every time I see people insist that fandom is an inherently "transformative" or "progressive" form of storytelling like friends you are literally just taking status quo toxic monogamy & rebranding it as somehow beneficial & romantic (X_X).

But as to anon’s last frustration, it is hard to know what is the appropriate response with this kind of thing...like for my own part I’m keeping my frustrations to my blog & now increasingly to posts that you would have to click on the “read more” button to see what I have to say, but I totally get the hesitation to give even a mild critique to big names in a fandom. Like I've now seen it happen repeatedly where someone who has a big name in a fandom will make something that's kind of shitty for one reason or another, someone will message them with some version of "hey, that's kind of shitty, you shouldn't do that," and the typical response is either to blatantly ignore the issue completely, or more popularly to make a giant crying circus that seems deliberately geared towards stoking emotions on both sides of the, for example, fiction does/doesn't affect reality issue so that something that didn't even have to be that big a deal gets blown out of all proportion, with the big name often framing what often started out as a very mild critique into a long crying jag about how the initial response to their kind of shitty thing was so mean/cruel and they're just a poor innocent & that YOU'RE the true racist/sexist/bigot etc. if you don't agree with their opinion. It must of course be noted that there have also been numerous instances of people taking it too far the other way & sending not just big names but smaller creators literal deaths threats over stuff like innocuous ships which like holy hell bells people that’s a horrible thing to do. But for the big names at least, the end result of all this fighting is usually that once the dust has settled they have more attention/fame/money/power in the fandom than before, and with anyone who might have a problem with their stuff feeling afraid to voice their opinion lest they be swarmed by that person's fans. In that way fandom does often seem to increasingly be geared towards presenting an “official” fandom perspective about various facets of a piece of media instead of allowing for a multitude of interpretations, and with criticism, no matter its shape or form or how genuinely warranted it may be, being hounded out of existence. I feel like a lot of this could be made less bad if there wasn’t this constant assumption & even drive to think that a different interpretation of or criticism of your favorite work of fiction or your fanwork isn’t a direct claim that you are a thoroughly loathsome individual (& maybe also if people cultivated an enjoyment of learning things about important works from a culture outside their own, even if what you learn clashes with your own initial understandings), but I guess we’ll see if that ever happens. 

So these are my general thinks about the Six Eared Macaque’s current fandom meow meow status & some of my bigger gripes with fandom tendencies as a whole. I stand by my idea that the most interesting & beneficial route for Macaque moving forward would be a kind of “redemption without forgiveness from the ones you hurt” arc--as I think was done pretty excellently with the character Grace in Infinity Train--and if for no other reason than gosh dern this monkey really needs to cultivate some sort of identity beyond his “Sun Wukong but worse” persona. 

[thevictorianghost]

If you could rewrite legend of korra and make it your own(or just in general better) how would you do it? The villains would stay the same and korra and crew are the same(personalities you can definitely tweak a bit. I would definitely not have any love triangles and make korra and asami happen in the beginning) how would you do it with your ships being canon as well?

Okay so I’ve never actually watched LOK. I’ve heard A LOT about it through watching countless video essays on Youtube and reading Tumblr posts about it. I know the who, the what and the how, I just haven’t wanted to watch it because, even though it looks cinematically gorgeous, the story was written by Bry/ke and there’s a LOT of it, worldbuilding and storywise, that I just can’t bare to watch.

So here goes. This got long. Enjoy!

1) Remove the Decopunk world. 

A Decopunk world is a world where technology is 1920s-ish, but very advanced. We have cars, tanks, radio, bobs and faux bobs, cloche hats, short skirts, nice suits, etc. I adore Decopunk. The 1920s are one of my favourite eras. An optimistic way of looking at the world, partying, illegal alcohol, the remnants of the Great War... I love it. I really do. But it doesn’t work in the pre-established world of Avatar. It brings elements that are far too imperialistic and colonial in nature (which prompted the comics to be imperialistic and colonial in nature, with the Northern and Southern Water Tribe, you can find many posts about that), which came along hand in hand with the Industrial Revolution, as this article puts it so well. Please read it, it’s awesome.

Why did they feel they had to denature Avatar’s world? They already had everything they could possibly want. 

The Fire Nation could be more Steampunk, which is a little less advanced than Decopunk (First Industrial Revolution vs Second Industrial Revolution) because there were elements of Steampunk in the Fire Nation Army (such as the tanks, the navy and the dirigibles). But it could be for them only. It could show us how Zuko transformed the Fire Nation from a war industry to a steam-powered country. This could be the new way to channel firebending (and please, no more “anyone can do lightning bending”, you don’t need lightning bending to get electricity and it makes  Zuko, Iroh, Ozai and Azula weak in the show!). 

We’ve seen waterbending used in clever ways in the Northern Water Tribe. How could Katara’s waterbending and Sokka’s engineering influence the Southern Water Tribe to make them use waterbending more? Canals, waterfalls, waterways, etc.? In new and different ways? Could the Southern Water Tribe use hydroelectricity, but in a clean, sustainable way? Why does the Southern Water Tribe port look so... mundane? 

The Earth Kingdom already had a working train system in Ba Sing Se. And the postal system in Omashu. Toph could have taught earthbenders how to follow the Badgermoles way and dug tunnels throughout a nation in peace. Then boom. Subways. But instead of machines pushing the people along, you can have benders do it. Instead of messenger hawks, the postal system could run through the entire kingdom instead of just Omashu and be much more efficient. The Earth Kingdom could be praised for its fast postal system that could, maybe, work as telegrams.

I’ll come back to the Air Nomads.

Those are just examples from the top of my head. I don’t mean “never allow technology to “””progress””” (I use that word veeeeery loosely because it has huge imperialistic undertones). I mean instead of trashing the fun parts of bending to make way for Decopunk technology that doesn’t need bending, work with it! Get creative! This worldbuilding feels... too easy. When Avatar: The Last Airbender was praised for its worldbuilding.

I adore Decopunk. I enjoy it far more than Dieselpunk and it’s much less known that Steampunk. But it has no place in the Avatar world.

2) That doesn’t mean “remove Republic City”.

First of all, it should honestly have a better name. It’s kind of like naming a city “Democracy City”. Which is way too on the nose. Harmony City sounds better, and that’s the first thing that came to mind. Anyway.

I really like the idea of a city being built in the spirit of Iroh and the White Lotus. To allow the Four Nations to live together in harmony in one city. But why is Republic City literally New York City with an “““Asian””” flair? What is up with that? I know New York is the MOST Decopunk city ever (you can’t encounter anything Decopunk without seeing New York, with its Art Deco buildings, the Harlem Renaissance, the Prohibition, etc.). But they do NOTHING with it! They just take New York, change some names, add some Asian flair, and call it a day. 

I don’t want 1920s New York for Republic City. I want Zootopia.

What happens in a city where all the Four Nations are represented? How does Water, Earth, Fire and Air work together? Big cities tend to be quartered in neighborhoods, so each neighborhood could be a smaller version of their nation. We could have a Northern Water Tribe next to an Earth Kingdom next to... you know what I mean? Each neighborhood could be a small-scale introduction to the nation for Korra first, then you can send her to that nation afterwards!

Which leads us to this.

3) Have Korra follow a traditional Avatar’s journey. 

I really don’t know why they decided that Korra would learn three elements before the age of sixteen (when that’s the age Avatars usually START their journeys) and then only have her learn Airbending during the entire show. Wasn’t the structure of each Book being about Aang learning one element at a time a good structure? Why go out of their way to NOT do that? Why was it the White Lotus’ prerogative to train the Avatar in the first place, too?  

So let’s have Korra know waterbending first (and show Katara teaching her, please!), then she can learn Earth, Fire and Air. By going to the Earth Kingdom, to the Fire Nation, and to the Air Temples. This could help develop each nation and show us how they have grown through the years. And it could lead Korra and the audience to figure out that there’s not only Aang who has had children to represent the Air Nomads, but there were other Air Nomads who survived the genocide and we can actually see the Air Nomads as a thriving culture.

So about Republic City. As I said, we could keep it. But now that Korra is going on a traditional Avatar journey, you could have, say, one episode at the beginning and one episode at the end of each season taking place in Republic City. To show us how each Nation’s neighborhood works and as an introduction to Korra before she actually takes the plunge to travel to that nation. 

Please! Build upon the Avatar world at large more! Come on!

4) Stop it with the love triangles. 

Many have talked about the Mako, Korra, Bolin and Asami love triangles. I’ve read once that they don’t exactly feel like friends, they’re only colleagues who share the fact they all dated Korra at one point. Which is sad. Knowing that the Gaang is so beloved because they’re such GOOD FRIENDS first!

So work to build strong, healthy friendships first, THEN start thinking about romance if you have to. And please, if you want a ship to be endgame, don’t have it so you have to confirm it on Twitter. 

Don’t.

Oh! And also. Bolin and Eska’s relationship was unhealthy as all hell and treated as “funny” and “comic relief” because a woman was being emotionally abusive to a man. That’s terrible. Please don’t do that.

5) Don’t let Katara fall to the side like she did. 

Many, MANY before me have talked about how Katara got the short end of the stick in LOK. Where’s her statue? Where’s her recognition as the Greatest Waterbender in the World? Why is she day in and day out in the healing hut, when she said “I don’t want to heal, I want to FIGHT”? Does she even have a waterbending school? Or is that completely fanon? Why does she allow Aang to take one of their children on life-changing field trips while leaving their other kids behind? Aren’t they also Air Nomads by birth??

It’s okay to worship the old Gaang because, well, we all love them! I do love Aang, even if I give him a hard time a lot, but I love the character. I just don’t like the way Book 3 Aang was written. But some characters shouldn’t have everything while others have nothing. Aang is LITERALLY THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. But where was Katara’s statue? And also, what happened to Suki?? What happened to Mai or Ty Lee, too?? Or even Sokka?? He died some time ago and... that’s it??

Which brings us to this.

6) Zutara, Taang, Sukka and Mailee.

I’ve seen that picture of Toph, Aang, Sokka and Katara being edited with Zuko and Katara next to each other, Toph and Aang next to each other, and a (suddenly alive!) Suki next to Sokka. I think that’s so good! It feels so healthy!

Not all relationships that started when people were kids work out. Sokka and Suki seem the strongest relationship at the end of the show and they’re probably the only ones I could see working out in the end. Sokka could become the Southern Water Tribe Chief and Suki could become his Queen when she’s retired from the Kyoshi Warriors.

Katara and Aang would be lifelong friends, of course they would be, but I don’t really see them lasting. Aang was twelve when they started dating. They’d date a few years, then they’d decide they want other things. That’s a good thing to show kids!

I’ve written many metas about Zutara, but Ambassador then Fire Lady Katara would show a changing world, where the Fire Nation, now no longer a war industry but a Steampunk country, is moving forward, with Zuko literally marrying a woman the Fire Nation tried to wipe out. They would be equals and leave an equal mark upon the world. Together.

Toph and Aang would be amazing together. They’d be a great team, working in the Earth Kindom, helping rebuild the old Temples when the Air Nomads came out of hiding, and bringing peace around the world. I don’t think they’d be a conventional relationship. They’d do their own thing for a while, find each other for a while, work together on some projects, then continue doing their own thing. Aang being the Avatar who travels the world and Toph teaching metalbenders and working with the King in Ba Sing Se and Bumi in Omashu and wherever she’s needed. I think Toph would be much more fulfilled than what we’ve seen of elderly Katara. She doesn’t have Katara’s abandonment issues (I’ve talked about them here) and she’s more independent, I believe.

I know I haven’t talked about them much yet, but I want Mai and Ty Lee together in the end. Badass ladies challenging their respective stereotypes and create a new world for themselves. Mai could find herself away from the Fire Nation court (I don’t know what she’d do, but circuses love people who throw knives, don’t they? She could be a circus performer for a while), and I think Ty Lee, in this version, could work at the circus and with Aang to rebuild the Air Nomads. I love the idea of Ty Lee being a descendant of the Air Nomads.

All of them should be shown creating Zootopia-like Republic City. Because of course they should be! They’re the Gaang!

So yeah, that’s how I would see the world of Avatar grow beyond the borders of the original show! :)

[thoughtsbynyx]

Part 2 of Why I Ship Zutara

(and why Kataang took the short way out)

*this time with pictures* (it’s longer than the previous but worth the read, bare with me)

part 1

GAang Dynamics 

(see Katara and Zuko’s portions I couldn’t figure out a way to incorporate them fluidly)

RoyalTeaLovingKookiness explains the GAang’s dynamic as well 

Katara is (the G)Aang’s Mother/Older Sister Cont. (and character develpment)

In the GAang. Katara “adopts” Aang almost as soon as she bends him out of the ice

She almost always looks after Aang, keeping him on task, helping him learn, being the rational voice they all need to hear sometimes

With Toph she’s less of a mother and more of an older sister that tries to steer their junior in the right direction (they bud heads and have a couple fights, but manage to have fun together and help with what the GAang needs)

She has to unlearn how to be a kid/teen because she learned to be a mom first

She bears a lot of the emotional work and trauma for the GAang, even before Zuko appears in Book 3

In Book 2 & 3 (mainly) she learns that she is allowed to be fun, immature, and selfish with what she needs/desires (which was something she’s been made fun of & had to apologize for)

She realizes and embraces the fact in Book 3 that she can be an individual person that follows what she wants without having to worry or care about what the others thing she should do (this also happens in the NWT, Ba Sing Se, and various places in the Earth Kingdom) (she becomes more assertive in what she needs/wants)

Zuko: the dad the gAang needed

He’s obviously educated (both in & out of banishment)

(Leadership skillz) He’s commanded a ship at 13

Has worked for a living wage at 16 (as seen by Jet, he can (barely) handle customer service)

When he was accepted into the group, he channels the only responsible adult he knows-- Iroh

making tea, reckless outings to help others, thinking ahead of oppnents and obsticles, letting them vent, providing shelter when they needed cover, dad jokes (”leaf me alone!”), and being a human shield

Look at FrostGaurdian’s post for more

Zuko’s Nature

In the Zuko Alone episode we can epsically see that he’s been in the shadow of his younger sister Azula

Throughout Book 1 he threw tantrums left and right

With his obession (read: hyperfixation) on honor, he was stuck in his “failure” against Ozai when he was 13

/\ \/ he relapses into this thinking when he joins Azula in Book 3

He took advantage of Iroh before they separeted, and even then he searched for his approval and validation

The Warped perception of Love and each other

It may not be obvious but Aang has an idea of Katara in is head that is not like her in the SLIGHEST (see Southern Raiders section)

He even points it out in the comics 

Image description: 

*13 and 12 year old Aang and Toph are discussing what it’s like having a crush* 

Aang: “Believe me, Toph, I know what it’s like to have a crush on someone, it can blind--” *Toph is unamused*

Aang: “ Yeesh, Sorry. What i’m trying to say is, sometimes you can like somebody so much that it affects your perception of them.”

Toph: “Kind of like how your perception is affected by your fuddy-duddy traditions”

With Katara in the comics it points out the “right kind of love” but referencing Zuko’s sacrifice in protecting Katara

Image Description: 

*Hakoda talking with Katara about love*

“So you know that the right kind of love-- the kind that’s real, that sacirfices--that kind of love doesn’t blind you. It actually helps you see“

In both instances it shows that Aang is putting Katara in a pedestal and doesn’t see her for who she is because of the crush he has on her.

The Fortuneteller

*Also even though Aunt Wu tells Katara she’s to marry a powerful bender it could’ve been anyone, not just Aang. Zuko, Azula, or Toph (maybe even be single forever and reject it all together because she’s a master bender) were also candidates. She didn’t get any more specific besides powerful bender*

a lot of the information that I gathered is from wednesdaywildheart’s post

This episode shows how Aang’s crush is just a crush, using Meng as an example

Meng points out how both their names rhyme “that rhymes with Meng!”

The Parallels

Like Aang is with Katara, she’s 2 years younger than he is

The “sparkles” show up when they both see their crush and plays the same music

They have tried to flirt the same way with their crush (and were both brushed off when their crush showed disintrest and indifference)

The Differences

Towards the end of the episode, Meng realizes and acknowledges that Aang doesn’t return her feelings and advances. She even tells Aang that she supports his feelings towards Katara

(This doesn’t happen until Book 2) When learning more about the Avatar State, and the Spirit World from Guru Pathik, Aang had to open all 7 chakras, however he couldn’t open the seventh (the Thought Chakra), refusing to let go of is attachment to Katara, blocking himself from the Avaatar State (which bit him in the butt (or back) when he faced Azula) 

(of course this could be because he’s 12, and hasn’t learned the difference between between, lust and Iove, platonic and romantic attraction yet) 

Ember Island Players

Catie-does-things goes in depth with analysis of this episode

You can’t tell me this wasn’t one the most Anti-Kataang, Pro-Zutara, Anti-Zutara, Anti-All three of them episode (besides Fortune Teller and Southern Raiders)

Even though the play is a mockery retailing Books 1 & 2, it does give a possible reason why Katara would choose Zuko instead of Aang, (“the Avatar? He’s like a little brother to me!”) and she even used a similar phrase in Book 1 (“he’s a cute little guy like Momo!”) 

Aang was lowkey OOC here, when it was stated by Actor!Zuko to Actor!Katara “aren’t you the Avatar’s girl?” to which Aang nods, a grim/serious look on his face (because of this he literally confuses canon with fanon, and at the intermission confronts Katara on a statement she never said herself, instead taking to heart what an actress portraying her said)

Literally one of the very few episodes where these two talk about their feelings toward each other (and it ends terribly)

Because Aang is 12 (and frozen for 100 years), he may not (completely) understand romantic and platonic boundries, getting upset at Katara, and not reading her (uncomfortable) body langauge before kissing her

Direct conversation from the episode: 

Aang:“But it's true, isn't it? We kissed at the Invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we're not.” Katara: Aang, “I don't know.” Aang: “Why don’t you know?” Katara: “Because, we're in the middle of a war, and, we have other things to worry about. This isn't the right time.” Aang: “Well, when is the right time?” Katara: “Aang, I’m sorry, but right now I’m a little confused.”

To be continued in Part 3.....

some of what will be featured:

Southern Raiders (supposed to be here but this is wayyyy long)

Parallels

(Blue Spirit & Painted Lady, All Book Endings, Red & Blue ships, Lightning and Blood Bending, Oma & Shu)

[autumn-foxfire]

Take a shot every time a dabihawks artist goes 'whats the point of bj being alive :/ now hawks doesnt have as much depth'. Like holy shit its amazing how much time i saw it on my twitter dash cuz i follow a bunch of dabihawks artist, they really be simply misunderstanding their fav chara. They be like 'i dont want him to be a pure hero' like girl thats your down fault horikoshis been telegraphing hes the goodest boy from the start.

Idk maybe its because a lot of people that ship enemies to lovers are kinda used to both people being as bad but on different sides of the conflict like shizaya or soukoku. But dabihawks is very clear cut good vs evil n that dont fit the ship dynamic so they bend hawks in their head to fit it in. Like ye it harder to find the justification for them to end up together and you have to deal with the fact that ur fav might be objectivly worse but if you cut hawls character down and say its boring if it doesnt fit what you imagined, well that just means that u like hawks more as 'dabis boyfriend' or 'hero turned villain' that u like him more as those ideas then what he actually is in the manga and thats no ones fault but ur own.

Like im just bothered by the fact that so many are now saying this is 'boring'. Like ye corrupted heroes are very fun, 'license to kill' heroes are very fun, heroes that make questionable decisions are very fun. Morally gray characters are very fun.

But hawks doesnt have to be that to be fun and interesting

Hawks started of as a child with inclination to save, with admiration to heroes and a naive wish to be like his personal heroes. A morally gray government organization bought him out and trained him since he was a lil baby boy to give up his name and his identity and to be a perfect little child soldier. He got wise to the corruption and his innocent and pure view of the world was dashed. But he still had that inclination to save people so he stuck by (though having no where else to go and no knowledge of anything else also counts in) and he formed his own image of a hero and he kept his ear to the ground ans he fought and saved without a break. Despite his innocent world views being dashed, he didnt let the same happen to his dreams and he continued pushing from inside the organization that raises him and inspite of it to do good things good way. You could still say he has naive dreams, like wanting to eliminate the need for heroes inside his lifetime, but he pushes for them so strongly and he cares so much and no matter what he always tries to save the maximum number of people he can.

And i dont think thats boring. Hawks is an overwhelmingly good character who often has tough decisions pushed on to him because of the organoization he belongs to. We are used to those kind of characters bending and breaking and corrupting under pressure but hawks so strongly sticks to being good to saving people no mattee what even if it endangers him. Theres nothing boring about wanting to be a good person and working hard to remain a good person despite the entier world pushing you to corruption.

Say it with me kids morally darker doesnt equal more interesting. Being good isnt boring.

If I took a shot everytime I saw a dabihawks artist say that on twitter, I’m pretty sure I would be dead from alcohol poisoning.

As you said, so many of them seem to misunderstand Hawks character or wanted him to be dragged down to Dabi’s level for some bizarre reason. It is possibly because they’re used to enemies to lovers ships that have both the characters be assholes in some way (neither good or bad) and Dabihawks isn’t a ship that fits this mold. Dabi is objectively the bad guy in this ship, not only is he the villain in the manga, he’s also done bad things to Hawks too, meanwhile the worst you could argue Hawks has done to Dabi is threaten him at knife point (though that was for his own protection), killed someone in front of him (whether Dabi was affected by that is still highly debatable) and ruined his plans (which... duh, Hawks is a hero).

But! They could still work as a couple! Any ship can in fanon. However for it to be a plausible relationship, you’re going to either have a fall from grace arc for Hawks (which many for some reason thought was going to happen in canon) or a redemption arc for Dabi. And because many people seem to love the “found family” of the League, they usually go for the fall from grace with Hawks. That’s probably why they were so disappointed that it didn’t become a canon aspect of his character, because they like the idea of him falling from grace (...I don’t get the appeal but to each their own).

I just wish they’d stop it with calling Hawks boring because Horikoshi didn’t write what they personally wanted to see. As you said, their are many, many interesting aspects to Hawks character outside of his brief affiliation to the League and it’s so frustrating to see these people call them boring! There’s nothing boring about being a good person! Especially when we see that good person pushed to the breaking point with their ideals and pushed into corners and made to commit difficult decisions! We get to see Hawks be a complex person and explore morality with him and these people think that’s boring?! And think Hawks becoming morally bankrupt is interesting (haven’t we got enough of those characters with the League?)

They have a dumb definition of boring and interesting if you ask me.

[arrtemisia]

Hey so... If you could redo cannon Makoto what would you do? How would she change? I'm curious cause out of the main cast she was the only one that I just couldn't get a solid interest in (aside from Ann but that's just cause the idea of her being a fashion model confuses me more than anything I think)

God. So much stuff.

There's a couple big things about her that bug me, and none of them really change at all in her canon vs fanon portrayal, which means it's hard for me to enjoy her even in fanworks. In my opinion, I think her biggest flaw is that she's simply miscast, and her character would have worked much better as a confidant instead of a thief, which would've given her a place of her own to shine and avoid the weird dissonance between different aspects of her character (and this was actually their original plan, so Hifumi would have taken her place which. She would've fit in much better imo bc she's actually suffered under another's will like every single one of the others and she's an actual strategist instead of just """smart,""' but that's a topic for another post), but since we're talking about how I'd personally fix Makoto in the role she currently fills, I'm going to list some of the issues I take with her and potential solutions.

First of all, just to get it out of the way, she needs an actual reason to be here. She doesn't have one, full stop.

The big thing tying the thieves together is that they're all victims of abuse and oppression who rebel against their tormentors and want to prevent anyone else from suffering like they did. I'm not saying Makoto has never struggled, because she has, but it's really, really not the same type of struggle.

This leads to weird moments where everything about Makoto's personality and characterization, such as being a stickler for the rules, idolizing the police, etc mean that she has no in-character reason to stick with the thieves after kaneshiro is dealt with and should maybe even be opposing the thieves' way of doing things, but the plot drags her along anyway because the game really wants her to be a party member. And really, what's up with her awakening? She gets threatened once and then bang-boom-kapow she has a persona? It's weak.

Also before anyone says "well all those things about her personality change when she awakens and she sheds her good girl personality and yada yada," no she doesn't, actually, and I'm getting there I promise

The easiest solution here is also the most drastic. Swap when Makoto and Akechi join. This kills two birds with one stone; Makoto gets an actual reason to awaken through Sae, and Akechi's betrayal hits harder because he's pretending to be with you for longer (although admittedly this is much less needed on Akechi's part ever since royal).

Not only does this give Makoto a much stronger reason to awaken and join in the first place (Sae starts twisting into something horrible and Makoto wants to help both stop and save her), but it also gives her an internally consistent reason to stick around. Before, unlike the others (who all at least have "I want to stop others from feeling like I did," or in Futaba's case, "I wanna find the ppl who killed my mom."), once Kaneshiro is done with, Makoto has no real big personal reason to stick around other than "I'm a thief now and the plot says so ig." Now, of COURSE she'd want to go after Shido because he's the one that was manipulating her sister, and after that of COURSE she'd want to help take down mr divine sippy cup in order to get Shido tried and jailed.

However, if we're not going to shuffle around the order of party members bc that'd nuke the canon plot a little, then we need to rework the entire Kaneshiro arc and/or Makoto's backstory and values as a whole. Yeah this is why the first solution was the easy one.

I'm going to go in-depth about how I feel Makoto's personality and values should be reworked later I'M GETTING THERE, so I'll talk about that then. As for reworking Kaneshiro, I... don't have a whole lot of ideas. The palace itself is fine, it has one of the coolest atmospheres in the game (c'mon, there's got to be a fun bank heist in a game like this), but Makoto's connection with him is very weak. Maybe have it be that he was extorting her for years in secret and she never said anything? Maybe have him be the one that ordered the hit on her father? I'm not sure what would be strong enough to match to the other palace leaders, without feeling forced. I'll have to come up with more ideas for this one.

The second big issue I have with her is less of one specific thing and more of a collection of smaller problems that all come from the same source. She waltzes in, takes over, and starts acting like she's the boss of things. She then names herself the "strategist" and yet only ever states the obvious and, to use a word I hate, mansplains things to you that you already learned two palaces ago. She's constantly condescending and passive agressive to the other team members, especially Ann and Ryuji, berates everyone for not being as naturally book smart as her when all the other characters are smart in their own ways and just not good at academia, all the while everyone around her, even characters that normally wouldn't take that (ryuji, ann) or are too prideful to admit to anyone bring better (mona), are constantly like "You're so cool, Makoto!"

It's a classic case of show don't tell, and rhe game is obsessed with telling you that Makoto is "smart" and "cool." Once she joins the team, all the characters that were originally shown to be smart in their own ways are never allowed to say anything meaningful ever again bc Makoto is the "smart" one. She never does anything particularly different compared to the other party members, but the game is constantly insisting she's special.

I'm very hesitant to call her a mary sue, because I don't think she is one, and also I disagree with the use of that term at all as these days it's just meant to devalue powerful characters that happen to be girls, but I definitely think she's emblematic of a common writing flaw that can lead to mary sues. The problem with making a character the "smart" one as a personality trait instead of something that just comes naturally is that you have to dumb down everyone else's characterization to make them look smarter or cooler by comparison. It means that the character you're trying to prop up bends everyone else around them, making them act in ways they normally wouldn't in order to make the one character you're trying to look cool seem better by comparison.

This has an easy solution: cut that shit out. Have her slowly find her place on the team naturally instead of forcing her way in as a pseudo-leader. Don't give every single "well, duh" line to her, and cut the scenes where she stands around explaining obvious things you already know in a condescending manner so she looks smarter. Let the other characters actually act like themselves when they're in the same room as her instead of bending around her to prop her up. Have her treat those characters with respect in turn, bc for all intents and purposes when it comes to thief stuff they are her senpai, instead of just having her act like she's better than them, or boss them around, or be passive agressive about the fact that their grades are bad. Show that other characters are smart in other ways instead of acting like Makoto's book smarts are the end-all be-all. And for fuck's sake, stop acting like "smart" and "punches stuff real good" are personality traits, which leads me into my last big point.

Makoto and Queen don't really feel like the same character. Okay, so to explain this, let's walk through her awakening again.

Makoto is a good girl who's a stickler for the rules, sucks up to authority, idolizes the police, is obsessed with her grades and academic performance, and looks down on others who don't do the same. A couple people call her useless and then she gets threatened by a mob boss, after which she decides to live her life for herself and completely shed her good girl lifestyle and rebel against everyone pressuring her.

That is, except for the teensy tiny detail where she doesn't.

Nothing significant about her personality changes all post her awakening and joining the thieves, aside from the part where she sucks up to authority maybe a little less. She's still uptight, her grades (and the grades of those on her team) are still her top priority, she still idolizes the law and those enforcing it.

Y'see, persona has a bit of a common problem with saying one thing about a character, be it making a reveal or saying they're gonna change in some big way, but not fully committing to it. You can see it most in p4 (party members saying they're gonna quit/stop/do whatever and then backtracking in the last two ranks of their social link), but it's rarely so severe that it completely ruins their personality and character arc as a whole. Makoto, I feel, is the main exception.

The writers want Makoto to become this tough, rebellious biker queen who oozes badassery in every move and will never follow anyone's wishes for her ever again, but they also want to keep her old personality of the uptight naive rule-following law-abiding academic. So, instead of altering one to better fit the other, they try to do both... badly.

Instead of integrating the two parts of her personality, it just feels like she swaps between them whenever the plot calls for it which is really, really jarring. She'll be stuttering about following the rules and getting to know her generation one second, and then the next she'll be yelling about mowing down shadows with her motorcyle the next. It feels like Queen and Makoto are two separate uninteresting half-characters, with only a couple personality traits each, instead of one whole well-rounded character.

Either rework Makoto's thief aesthetic to better suit her personality as a whole and give her something other than "I'm totally not a good girl anymore" to make her compelling, or actually commit to Makoto shedding her past life everyone around her had forced on her and change her personality. Have her grades start to slip, have her talk back to Sae, change the way she dresses so it's rougher and less perfect, hell, maybe even have her quit student council. Just, anything to make her more well-rounded as a character.

I have some other nitpicks with her here and there, like the fact that her confidant is actually just Eiko's confidant and doesn't give Makoto herself any development, or the way the game keeps trying to set her up as Joker's waifu or whatever, but those are just that; nitpicks. The three big things I mentioned earlier - her not having a compelling personal reason to be a part of the thieves, the way the writers shove her into the spotlight by putting down everyone around her, and the fact that her characterization is just one badass half and one smart half that don't mesh and have little else in between - are the problems I feel are what's actually holding her character back.

Again, I do think that all of this stems from the fact that she's miscast, but it's too late to fix that now. While I personally really dislike Makoto, I do kind of understand her appeal for others when she's written well, and she's a totally valid character to like. I just wish she was portrayed better.

(Also, if anyone wants to reblog this, feel free I ask that you please don't put this in Makoto's main character tag. I know how much it sucks to get a bunch of negativity in a character's main tags as I am an Edelgard fe3h fan)

[ends-of-the-wayward-storm]

ROTBTD TAG GAME

Technically I was tagged by @ohlooksheswriting-wips​ in a fic rec (thank you for that, by the way. 😊) Soooo I thought it’d be fun to try this one out since I don’t really do these a lot. Also, word of warning this has the possibility of becoming long.

~~---~~

Name/nickname?

On here I guess Storm since my username’s kinda long. 😂

How did you get into ROTBTD?

Ahhh let’s see. I don’t really remember much about that other than it was around 2012-2014 and there was this super cool video I saw on YouTube with my sister which basically blew our minds. (It’s still cool even now.) Pretty sure that had a big influence on me getting into the community.

What made you stay/come back?

I had written at least two fic series about this group around 2012-2014, which I still have. They really just stay dormant in the back of my mind until something comes around and sparks up my memory of their existence. Which would lead to seeing what new content was out in the community and such. Also I love these four.

Out of the four movies, which one is your favorite?

It’s definitely a cross between Brave and ROTG. I love them both so much so it’s kinda hard to pick.

Dreamworks Dragons or Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure?

Ah gee another hard one. Again I like them both, but I guess if I absolutely had to pick I would choose Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure. I haven’t finished the newer seasons of Dragons yet 😕 (don’t spoil anything please). 

Which one do you prefer to be made a sequel of, Brave or Rise of the Guardians?

ROTG for sure. There’s so much lore that could be explored and I would love it if they cracked down onto the book series some time. It’s amazing.

OTP/BrOTP(s)?

Oh boy. I really like the friendships between the four of them and whoever gets thrown into the mix. As for romantic pairings I’m sticking with the respective canon ones (Raps with Eugene and Astrid with Hiccup, for example).

Favorite character(s)?

Again, I love them all, but I have to go with Merida and Jack. Merida really captured my attention with her personality and the fact that she can fight really well (also she’s the reason I decided to do archery 😊). I also really like Jack’s personality too as well as his powers, and I have to admit he is kinda cute.

Favorite AU(s)?

I’m actually very very picky with AUs, and also I don’t really know very many. I do like the concept of the one with the seasons. And the ATLA one because those can be super cool.

Pick one! Favorite B4 house placement in Hogwarts AU? | favorite B4 nation/bending headcanons in ATLA AU?

ATLA AU for sure. Mind you I haven’t really sat down to think about this since I usually just look at other people’s interpretations and go “hey that’s cool!” (On a side note I really like ohlooksheswriting-wips’s interpretations for this.)

Aside from that, I guess I really like the idea of Jack in the Water Tribe (don’t know which one specifically, though) but again I really like the idea of him as an Air Nomad. And (just a thought) I guess we could play with the idea of him out flying when he somehow gets trapped up north and basically pulls an Aang (or Captain America?) with getting himself frozen in ice for a long time until someone finds him.

Now for Raps, I had always had trouble figuring out whether she’d be in the Air Nation or Earth Kingdom because of her personality and such. Ohlooksheswriting-wips’s route actually reminded me of the fact that Waterbenders can heal, so Raps could be a healer if she were in the Water Tribe (maybe Northern Water Tribe since the women there are healers if they can heal/bend).

Merida I guess could be a Firebender. Maybe she could also bend lightning since that takes a lot of concentration and skill, and if done incorrectly it could hurt or kill you. So I think that could be a thing. And she’s very determined which would also tie in with fire.

As for Hiccup I had also had trouble figuring out where to put him, either Earth Kingdom or Air Nation. Again, ohlooksheswriting-wips having him as a non-bender was something I never really thought of so I really like that. Maybe he might still find Toothless since dragons are basically endangered and not completely gone.

I hope I don’t sound like I’m stealing your ideas. I just really liked them and wanted to put in my two cents.

Pick one! Since this is 2020, any hot takes you want to give us? | what old fanon tropes that you still enjoyed to this day?

Ummmm I’m not sure I know any old tropes or how to answer the first question so let’s see. I am intrigued by them having an HQ of sorts, which I’m sure I’ve seen that somewhere here.

Any fic recs? Or if you couldn’t think of any, what was the last ROTBTD fanfiction that you read? (It could be an old work or a recent one, do share!)

I tend to look at art and gif edits more than fics so I kinda don’t really know any.

Also I’m tagging anyone that wants to try this out.

[risoris]

ROTBTD TAG GAME

Answer these questions and tag your rotbtd friends! And please don't reblog this, put your answer in a new post 😊✨

name/nickname? call me zee for short? or just my url is fine

how did you get into rotbtd? had a massive movie crush on Brave and Rise of the Guardians back in middle school, so i lurked around tumblr during 2012/2015 for the animation blogs and was pleasantly surprised

what made you stay/come back? it’s the nostalgia i guess, plus the fact that it’s 2020 and this is still the only crossover that made sense to me.

out of the four movies, which one is your favorite? the nitpick in me would say HTTYD is the most satisfying, narrative coherence and all, but the other three deserve a mention too! RotG is a storybook come to life and it's a great shame that the fantastic animation wasn't more popular in media. Tangled imo is the best fairy tale adaptation of Disney’s revival era so far, and Brave is just pure FUN.

Dreamworks Dragons or Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure? haven’t even finished the first season of both shows so i don’t think i could make any judgement lol

which one do you prefer to be made a sequel of, Brave or Rise of the Guardians? Rise of the Guardians series cause it’s more plausible, plus the studio wouldn’t have to BS a new plot since the source material already have tons of stuff they could flesh out

OTP/BrOTP(s)? brotp, all four of them... just want them to be friends so much... (i don’t mind the crossover-shipping though, they’re all valid!)

favorite character(s)? i really want to say i love them all equally but asdfghjkl Merida is forever my best girl ❤️❤️❤️

favorite AU(s)? any AUs with modern settings!! mostly because they demand less explanations on how these four could be in the same timeline 😅 stuff like college au, high school au, actor au (!!!), coffee shop au... basically every modern tropes under the sun!! i love those

Seasonal Spirits AUs are also interesting but from what i’ve seen there’s this trend to marry them with Guardian AU? which frankly mixes a lot of premises that for me are better explored separately

pick one! favorite B4 house placement in Hogwarts AU? | favorite B4 nation/bending headcanons in ATLA AU? uhh i like the idea of Slytherin Merida, Hufflepuff Jack, and Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff Rapunzel. I honestly have no fixed headcanon for Hiccup, i think he'll do good in any House, but he better be a Hatstall for at least fifteen minutes and the Sorting Hat had to take a breather afterwards

pick one! since this is 2020, any hot takes you want to give us? | what old fanon tropes that you still enjoyed to this day? you know that thing when rotbtd fanartists make the other three play around with rapunzel's blonde hair, not even focusing on its magical properties, just as this 70 ft long comfort blanket??? Good Shit(TM)👌👌👌

Any fic recs? Or if you couldn't think of any, what was the last rotbtd fanfiction that you read? (It could be an old work or a recent one, do share!)  Sorcery and Shenanigans, a platonic B4 Hogwarts AU fic! it’s still a work in progress rn but the story is promising!!

tagging: @iamlongstockings, @ohlooksheswriting-wips, @rosesnvines, @kirkwords, @revive-the-fandom (only if you want to!), my dear followers, and anyone who'd like to try as well!

[akria23]

Queerbaiting is the practice of hinting at, but then not actually depicting, a same-sex romantic relationship between characters in a work of fiction, mainly in film or television. The potential romance may be ignored, explicitly rejected or made fun of.the part left out of this is that it's an perceived act done by writers, showrunners, etc in the hopes to lure in the lgbqt audience.

What some people confuse is the fact that a show can have Queer characters and still be guilty of queerbaiting. Because of the factors of shipping, the writers usually choose to bait with a character the Queer audience can relate to and highly like and bond then with another character who they then never intend to consummate the relationship between but will also play up the romantic implications between. Shipping gets fans to invest more quickly and often more deeply - so this is done often. A great example of this is Teen Wolf who baiting fans with Sterek but gave us a few background Queer characters that had low screen-time, dialogue ques, and sometimes absolutely no story arc other than their sexuality.

No matter if this fandom wants to believe it or not - The Magicians are guilty of the traits that cater to Queerbaiting. We don't see a romantic relationship depicted between Queliot in fact all of that happens off screen. There's a lot implied but not shown, hinted at enough for fandom to come to their own conclusion but shadowed with deniability. In 3x05 we did not see Eliot and Q have a romantic relationship for 50 years. It can and has been argued that what they had was a deep relationship but a friendship and family that doesn't embark on sexuality. In 4x05 we don't see the depiction of a romantic relationship - we actually get a denial of Q's fanon sexuality. Yes the narrative can be read as Eliot's biggest regret is rejecting Quentin on a romantic aspect - if you erase everything else from the episode. Because really the arc is heavily about Eliot causing people he loves pain which is not solidified to romantic relations. There's huge no homo aspects in this episode even as they say things like love and let's give it a try. Theres nothing explicit about Queliot - he'll not even Q's own sexuality.

There's a difference between ship tease and queerbaiting. Ship tease depicts the relationship - it tension is built of the yearning, the want, but the can't go there for whatever reason. All things that Queliot lacks because even when they have a moment - like I said the show mucks it up with a no homo by stressing the 'friends' - verbally and visually. We've seen Q want and yearning and sexual interest (outside of engaging in sex) when it comes to Alice, and yet with Eliot it's alway preluded with some kind of influence - emotional magic, alcohol, no one else possible around, emotional residue - all are which can and do play as deniability to his attraction to Eliot.

You do not have to wait until the end of a project to know if you're being queerbaited or not because it's all in the depiction. These characters, their sexuality, and the relationships they come in contact with are done in such a way to drag lgbqt audience in but to maintain the majority (the heterosexuals) and not upset them. Those there for the lgbqt rep are more invested - they will keep watching as long as there's even a hint of the promise possibly being fulfilled. They will ignore all signs that warn them disappointment. They will fill in holes and complete plot points for the writers of it plays into what they want - it's what the writers bank on. That's why there's so much implication and no follow through. You don't need to follow through on what the audience will complete for you. They know this hunger keeps them emotionally invested and that fandom feeds the individual's hope. It goes on too long and the fandom becomes bitter watchers - but watchers all the same - they want that imagery so bad that the creators and writers and even the actors sometimes can talk down to them, ridicule them for believing in something they should've known they were never gonna get anyway.

Queerbaiting can change into ship tease and then into a canon romantic relationship but that shit never really happens but it's the hope that keeps people there.

I def see the Magicians fandom bending over backwards to ignore the issues and the problems with the show, Queliot, and the entirety of queerbaiting on the show. Y'all will ignore the people who point out those issues and analyze exactly why they are a problem and then hop on the post that simplify and ignore all the bs...

Look at this way - these were the same people telling y'all you had nothing to worry about with the trailers...and we see how wrong they were about that...🤷🏾‍♀️

You can come up with any name - call it any old thing - but at the core there's an issue with how Queliot is depicted, how it is treated in the relation to heterosexual relationships on the show and denying the warning signs don't make you wiser, better, or more positive than those who demand better from a show where this same relationship was used to lure in viewship. We as a community (the lgbqt audience) and the shippers not only deserve to have the promise acknowledged but also have it facilitated in a manner in which is also fair to us and our representation.

[passerby-boy-archive]

Interview from The Furthest Station paperback - properly this time!

So, uh, several months ago I said that at some point I was going to type up the full interview from the back of the paperback edition of The Furthest Station because I find a lot of it super interesting and it kills me they didn’t put it anywhere more accessible. So this is that, finally! Below the cut because damn, is this thing long.

INTERVIEWER: Hello, I’m Paul Stark from Orion’s audio team and I’m delighted to be joined today by Ben Aaronovitch, author of the bestselling Rivers of London PC Peter Grant series, available in hardback, paperback, ebook and audio narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. Ben, welcome, we’re here to talk about London and magic today. How are you doing?

BEN AARONOVITCH: I’m fine, thank you. Very nice to be here.

I: Fantastic. Well, on to a simple question to start with: What drew you to write about London?

BA: I always find this a very strange question. I’m from London. Should I write about Birmingham, you know? I write about London because it’s my home town, and I’m lazy and don’t like to go outside the M25. It’s what I know. I’d love to see more books - urban fantasy books - set in places like Birmingham - especially Birmingham, which I think is a very neglected city - and places like that and learn about those places.But all the people from those places seem to come to London and write books about London. So perhaps maybe the question you should ask is ‘why do you write?’ I write about London for a very simple reason: I’m a Londoner. I’m not sure why Neil Gaiman and David Carey and everyone writes about London, except for they’ve moved here and now they write about it.

I: And it’s an amazing city. Lots of history, wonderful characters and myth that kind of provides a bedrock for fiction. What prompted you to add magic?

BA: It never occurred to me not to add a magic. This is another one of those questions that’s rather like saying to a man that has set out on a long walk ‘What prompted you to use your feet?’ What prompted me to use my feet - I thought: I want to do magic cops. That was the first thing that came into my head. So, really, the magic is built in. Magic cops implies magic right from the start. So, really, the rest of that was kind of detail. So, we’re going to start with the idea that we’re going to have policemen who do magic and then everything else was a question of who they are and what they are doing. Police who do magic in London was the starting point of the series and so I wasn’t prompted to put magic into it, it was there right from the start. There were several things built in right from the start.

I: Given that you’ve also told us you should ‘write what you know’, is this your way of telling us that you can actually do magic?

BA: No, I am, in fact, a total sceptic. However, magic is a lot of fun to write about. So I can’t do magic. Honest.

I: What made you go beyond the magic cops? To make the rivers one of the key bases? Was that something you knew about, something you were passionate about?

BA: No, I didn’t actually know that much about the rivers. I came up with the idea of Mama Thames for a different project and then I incorporated elements of another project in the initial idea and then for the book. And once you have Mama Thames and look at a map of all the tributaries, you just go ‘ooh they must all be stroppy women’. So that’s where they came from. And if you just look at them you can see their personalities; a lot of them you can just see their personalities from looking where their courses are. So, you know Fleet, you know Tyburn, you know what they’re going to be doing.

I: Are there any that you feel you haven’t written yet that you’re really keen to?

BA: Oh, there are tons! There’s the River Rom, who is the goddess of illegal street racing. There’s the Wandle, who, for historical reasons,is the goddess of used clothes shops and schmutter. Basically the goddess of schmutter. That’s the Wandle.

I: Any beer connection? You’ve got a lot of breweries along the Wandle.

BA: Possibly, possibly. The Wandle was a very popular river for industry so you have the Romantics all setting up their factories down there. What are they called? I’ve forgotten their names. That’s terrible. You know the people who believed in fabric for the masses and beautiful - you see this is the trouble. I do all this research and it goes in one ear and out the other. People expect me to remember little details of Fleet’s course, ‘Does the Fleet’s course-?’ I don’t know! I’ve got to look at my map to know these things. ‘Where does Wandle…?’ Anyway, there’s a ton. There’s a place called Black Ditch and I haven’t really worked out where she fits in, and there’s Hackney Brook and there’s all the history of the Lea - a very complicated river as anyone who has ever looked at a map will tell you. And so there’s tons of people. You know I’m going to be writing for millions of years before I get to the end of the rivers and that’s not even counting going upstream and the Ash and all those. So…

I: Lots of scope.

BA: Lots of scope.

I: You mentioned earlier one of the prospects of writing on Birmingham. Now, I realise I’m asking a very geeky question here, but would each canal have an individual spirit?

BA: I don’t know. I’d have to go to Birmingham and find out. I don’t know, I’m trying to avoid the idea that everywhere has a spirit, a genius loci. Really the question is: would it be fun if it had a genius loci? So, Grand Union Canal has a genius loci. I didn’t mean it to have a genius loci and had no plans for it to be a genius loci and then I wrote a short story and it ended up having an orangutan for a genius loci, and it was like, ‘I didn’t plan that!’,but you know…

I: Stories have a life of their own.

BA: They often just go places I’m not expecting. So, yeah, I wouldn’t like to say what would happen if I went to Birmingham because you’re shaped by the environment you’re writing in and therefore you go somewhere and you find things. That’s the whole point of going somewhere is you find interesting things. There’s no point in saying ‘I’m going to do this’ and then you go somewhere and do it, or, at least, there’s no point for me to do that. It’s much more fun to go somewhere and then have a look around and go ‘ah’ - you’ve got to smell the place, really. I always say that you’ve got to smell the streets before you can write about them.

I: Fantastic, fantastic.

BA: Except the countryside, which always just smells the same.

I: There’s a bit of a different smell depending on what the local livestock is, but yes.

BA: Yes, unless you go downwind of a pig farm in which case it smells like ‘Get the f--- out of here’.

I: So, back on to your magic cops. Peter himself isn’t that great at magic, certainly he’s been slow on the uptake somewhat. Do you find--

BA: I love this notion that Peter is slow on the uptake.

I: Well he’s not slow on the uptake in general, but he certainly has perhaps been slower to develop magic.

BA: Than who?

I: Than certainly Lesley, I’d say.

BA: Are you sure about that?

I: I feel like I’m being lead down a blind alley.

BA: No, I mean this is where you get this weird idea from fanon, where fanon says that Peter is slow at magic, slow at picking up magic. I haven’t said if Peter is slow at picking up magic because aside from anything else Nightingale is a terrible teacher that way, with telling people how they’re doing. No, Peter is as good as you would expect him to be - someone who has only been doing it for four or five years you know, under the conditions like that he’s got two jobs. Remember he’s also a police officer also doing all these cases, occasionally having buildings dropped on him, so he’s not devoting his full time to it. So I think he’s doing all right.

I: So, did you always envision that Peter would be a student, but dealing with Nightingale who is a phenomenally adept magician, but is terrible at teaching as you say? Was that always how you saw the dynamic?

BA: Ah, well, Nightingale is very limited. I wanted to avoid Dumbledore. I wanted to avoid Gandalf. So, whatever Nightingale is, he’s not Gandalf and he’s not Dumbledore. He’s not a teacher. He’s not a mentor character. He is not, as by his nature, a mentor. He’s not the wise man who tells you what to do. He’s basically Bulldog Drummond with magic. He’s like a magical Bulldog Drummond, he’s possibly the most powerful wizard that the Folly has ever produced in terms of being able to do stuff but ask him how it works and he’s like ‘Uh… you know, I don’t know how it works. I just do it. I learn the formulas and am just good at it and can do these spells that no one else can do.’ And he can do them quietly and he can do them fast and silently and all sorts of things. It’s like he was good at sports except the sports was magic. He’s basically that, he’s one of those. I always imagine him in his cricket whites at Casterbrook: ‘Argh, play the game!’ or playing rugby, or the equivalent of rugby, and just charging through, you know, like ‘rraaaawwgh’ and snoozing through the academic part of the curriculum . So, you see, he’s that guy and part of the reason he has to look things up to teach Peter is he can’t remember what he was taught and he has to go back. But he is very very good. He is excellently good, but in some ways this is almost a story about the limitations of power. So there’s a limit to what you can do. If he got shot in the head from a distance he’s buggered. You know, as he said, ‘Shoot me. If you want to stop someone with my skills, just shoot me from a distance with a rifle.’ There is a limitation. I didn’t want - he can rip up a house by its roots and fling it over a garden fence, but he’s not Superman. He’s not a superhero. He has these limitations and magic has these inherent limitations. It does obey the rules of thermodynamics though it does bend them quite severely occasionally. Ultimately, the power has to come from somewhere and it can get dangerous if you overdo it.

I: Is that one of the reasons you’ve kept the top end of Nightingale’s abilities somewhat under wraps? Ultimately, he needs to be careful how much he exerts himself, how much he keeps from the public.

BA: Well, there is that. There’s also that he hasn’t needed to. And also, the more difficult spells and subtle ones like actually putting Toby to sleep in the first book - that was one of the most powerful spells he’s ever done in front of us, so to speak, in front of us in the book. Actually that’s a very difficult spell. Peter’s not going to learn that spell for like five years. Putting a dog to sleep. And Nightingale could probably put a person to sleep although he’d have to concentrate. You see, that sort of thing is very very hard. I’ve just written a passage in Lies Sleeping which discusses this, where Nightingale is doing something incredibly hard and Peter is astonished and it totally is a very simple thing. It’s not complicated at all. See, in a way smashing things is easier.

I: It’s almost like it’s that much more difficult to accomplish good sleight-of-hand right in front of someone sitting with you than perform a big stage illusion.

BA: Well, it’s also that most of the subtle magic involves affecting people and people are very resistant to being affected. If you want to have a fight with someone you tend to just throw something at them, or you knock them down, or you pick them up and you throw them away. But human beings - in the way my magic is constructed - are very resistant. You can’t reach into them and stop their heart. Magic is very bad at that. So, things like the glamour when you affect someone’s mind - those are all really difficult to do. To make someone pick something up, to take control of their hand - that’s really difficult to do.

I: The other side of that is that you've made magic and technology really incompatible as well. Why did you decide to do that?

BA: Well, you have to explain why no one’s recorded it on their mobile phones, don’t you? Otherwise why aren’t we looking at people, why is there no footage of Covent Garden, why is there no footage of half the things that have happened? Because it melts the chips. That’s the reason I did it. Because you’ve got to explain why it’s secret, otherwise it wouldn’t be secret.

I: Once you’d made that decision and written that in had you thought about taking it further? What would happen if someone tried to do a spell on a flight for example?

BA: You wouldn’t. That would be a very bad thing to do. Unless it’s a DC-3 you don’t want to be doing spells on a plane. I’ve considered doing a scene where you have some of the most powerful wizards assembled and none of them can actually use any magic because they’d all kill themselves if they did. Nightingale probably could. Nightingale is so controlled that he could probably get away with it. But most things about the technology - it’s the chips, not the technology. Microprocessors are particularly vulnerable to magic. So, you’re all right if you’re running valves and stuff. Nineteen-fifties Russian technology would be fine. You could launch a Vostok and you wouldn’t have to worry about doing magic with that, but not anything with a microprocessor, which is everything: your washing machine, your toaster, your cooker. And there’s nothing mystical about it. There’s good, solid world-building reasons why this happens, but we may never find out what that is because the point is Nightingale doesn’t know and I think Abigail, with forty years of study, might be able to explain it to you, although you wouldn’t understand the mathematics of why it affects microprocessors. And I did that on purpose so that I would never have to explain it.

I:  We’ve already touched on Birmingham, but are there any other cultures and their particular brand of magic that you’d like to explore?

BA: I’d like to explore all of them! That’s my big problem in life: that you cannot just do that. It's not really a question of cultural appropriation, which is what you essentially do when you're ignorant or you're knowledgeable but don't care. If you're honest, you can show what a culture is like: What are the Chinese like at magic tied up with Daoism  and stuff like that? But I just don't know enough Daoism to do that. It was quite hard to construct a magic system that was consistent with Anglo-Saxon and post-Norman, Roman Britain let alone one that’s consistent with more than five thousand years of Chinese, of continuous Chinese history, or Indian history for that matter. You have thousands of years of culture in places like Africa and you have to say ‘Can they do magic?’ Everyone does magic, right? What Newton did in my world is he systemised it and created a system that Postmartin calls - ah, I can't remember what he calls it now, but he's got a fancy word for it: syncretism or something like that. He basically took it and systemised it and made it repeatable. He made it a science, basically. He took the things that people were coming up with by accident and he made it a science, because that was what Newton was like, that's basically what Newton did and why I chose him for the guy who did this: because he was interested. We know that. He wrote more about alchemy than he did gravity. We know he was as interested as anyone. As someone once said: if anyone was going to find out if magic was real it was going to be Isaac Newton so I figured, right, he did. That's the whole point. There is a reason why it’s kept secret as well, but I can't talk about that.

I: Something to look forward to in a future book or interview!

BA: Yes, possibly.

I: You said you'd like to explore more. Is there anywhere outside London and the UK that you're currently researching with a view to writing?

BA: Yes, I'm going to do a novella set in Germany. I don't think it's even going to be a Peter Grant book. Because this novella you’re reading now was successful they want another one.  and I thought that if I can't experiment with the novellas what could I experiment with? So rather than taking a risk with a whole novel, I would like to write about Tobi Winter who is essentially Peter's counterpart in Germany.  I don't know why but he kind of turned up and started knocking on the door, like all my characters. I came up with this guy and I like him because he's slightly more lugubrious, he's more laid-back than Peter in some ways. He's kind of fun and also he's German so I've had to do quite a lot of research into how German magic works and all that stuff. And I've tried to stay away from recent history, stay away from the Nazis. Not because I feel like letting the Germans off the hook or anything, but I feel you can ram into the ground a bit. It's a bit like the occult Nazis have been done to death and with ignoring the history and stuff, like the Thirty Years War. Germany is a fascinating place, especially pre-unification Germany, when it's like a collection of states and you sit there going they're all Germans, but they don't think they're all Germans. It’s a lot of fun so I'm looking into that for this story, which is going to be the next novella.

I: And will you be basing it around the rivers again? Will be be seeing the Rhine or the Rhone?

BA: I don't know. Rivers of London is one thing, but I'm not sure you want to constantly go there. It's a bit predictable. ‘Oh, look there's a river. Is someone in it? Oh, yes they are. Oh, it's a Rhine Maiden.’ We've established that the Rhine Maidens come visit the Thames for tips, so we know there are Rhine Maidens. It's not going to be the Rhine anyway, because it's going to be Trier. It's not the Rhine, but I'm going for a research visit soon, so I'll ask. Ask the river who she is, or it might be him. You never know in Germany. Could be a guy. It's right on the border; I like it because it's right on the border with Luxembourg, so it's very liminal. It's one of those German cities that’s changed hands quite a lot of times. It's also one of the oldest cities in Germany because it was established by the Romans and there aren't that many Roman cities in Germany. And wine. It's basically about wine. It's basically an excuse - I don't even like wine, but I can't resist this. I've basically just found a way of making it a claimable expense to get a wine tour of the vineyards of Trier.

I: That sounds like fun. I have a feeling I can predict your answer this one because you touched on it earlier, but is magic purely fictional or do you think there are some elements of magic, or specifically your magic system that could be real?

BA: You know what? I was born sceptical. I'm one of those people who didn’t believe in Father Christmas when he was three and my parents tried, god bless ‘em.But I make no claims of superiority. I've just got that kind of brain; I don't believe in any of it. I believe in coincidences. I believe that things happen by accident. A lot. I don't look down on people much who believe in stuff, but I just don't believe in any of it. I'm just really sceptical. Sorry.

I: Do you think that makes it easier to write magic?

BA: Oh, god, yes! It's much easier to write because I'm not worried about whether it's accurate. I only have to worry about whether it's consistent, which is the classic thing in science fiction and fantasy. It's making what you do consistent. Unless - and this is very important - you deliberately don't. If you look at Jack Vance: He doesn't bother with consistency in his writing at all because he likes his magic wild and  mad. I like consistency because I essentially I'm a science fiction writer writing fantasy. I don't know how I ended up in this position, but it's how I ended up. But I do like a bit of wild magic, which is why I have the rivers. The rivers are my little bits of wild magic and they do wild things and strange things happen in the boundary of things. The fae are there and they're good for weird things happening on the boundary of things, but as for actual magic, no, I don't believe in any of it. I don't believe in any superstitions at all. I just never have. It's not a considered intellectual position. I just never have believed in any of it.

I: How about the more human magic? Do you enjoy watching magicians work in sleight-of-hand and things like that?

BA: Not particularly. I enjoy watching the work, if they're good, but I don't think to myself: ‘Yay, magician’. I like Jonathan Creek. Does that count? I like the early two or three seasons.

I: As Tim Minchin said, Jonathan Creek is a bit like Scooby Doo because no matter how outlandish things get there's always an explanation for everything that makes sense.

BA: Yes, that's part of the fun. It's much better. It's not doing it as old man Granger did it: In a mask, with glowy paint making glowing light.

I: And to go back to London for a little bit for one final question. We've touched a bit already on London's amazing history and the myths that have built up around the city. Is there any particular legend or historical landmark or historical story that you're looking forward to building into a future Peter Grant mystery?

BA: St. Paul's. St. Paul's is featuring very heavily in the book so far. I didn't mean it to, but in the same way the Royal Opera House became more and more important while I was writing the first one, St. Paul's has become more and more important while I'm writing the eighth one - oh god, I’ve lost track, seventh - it's the seventh. Lies Sleeping, anyway. The one after The Hanging Tree. And suddenly St. Paul's. I thought the climax was going to be in one place and now it's going to be somewhere else. And I thought it was going to be about one thing and now it's about something else and I'm sitting there going, ‘Will you make up your mind!?’ Which, of course is futile. I'm arguing with myself. It's very schizophrenic, arguing with yourself. So, yes, I think that St. Paul's is going to get an airing. But there's so much. You know... I haven't even done the Tower of London! It sits there like a big chunky block of history, just there. The Tower of bloody London waiting for me. There's everything from the Bazalgette sewer system - given that it’s about the rivers of London, I didn't even scrape the barrel, the side of a wall, when I did Whispers Under Ground. I did a whole book about the underground and I barely touched on Bazalgette. There's all that kind of stuff. There's so much history. So much stuff, from the Romans to the continuing debate about whether people actually occupied the inside of the city or they didn't. I met a Romanist and they said, ‘No, no. Of course people lived inside the city, we just haven't found the remains yet.’

I: Because we built on top of it.

BA: Yes, we continuously built on it for the last two thousand years and so it's hard to tell. I don't know... when Deloittes or someone needs a new headquarters no doubt we'll find out.

I: Well, Ben, thank you so much for your time today.

BA: That’s all right. It was my pleasure.