all the rise boys get done dirty on characterization by fandom in different ways i think. (not ALL the time every fanwork etc etc these are just like, trends i tend to notice?) every fandom suffers from losing character nuance.
- leo i’ve talked about plenty on this blog, how some of his canon traits (genuine belief in his skill and cockiness, capacity for joy, his manipulativeness whether for good or ill) seem to get watered down or wiped off the board and supplemented with generic sad boy. his struggles with purpose and identity and not wanting to fail somehow morph into “he hates and completely holds no value for himself”
- donnie’s canon personality gets blurred out and largely replaced with whatever list of Neurodivergent Traits. and i think there’s such a fine line to walk between exploring a character that’s been word of god confirmed as on the spectrum and overwriting what’s canonically there. it’s a hard needle to thread. it also feels like a lot of his canon emotiveness gets left off the table for some reason. bc he does have his moments of flat/deadpan delivery, but a lot of the time he’s honestly very emotive. he has the passion of a theatre kid and the vindictiveness of... also a theatre kid. and the mind of a scientist.
- raph loses so much of his rowdy teen boy energy it’s kind of wild? like interpretations sand off that he’s also impulsive and can be reckless and dumb and LOVES fighting and roughhousing and isn’t the most eloquent person. suddenly there’s this pitch perfect soft boy big bro who would never hurt a fly and always says the exact right supportive thing and singlehandedly raised his 3 brothers (which simultaneously sands off all the nuance of splinter’s issues emotionally connecting with his sons and how that affected all of them). and like i LOVE raph, he’s so full of love and care and anxiety, he clearly has learned to put a lot of work into being aware of his strength and size. but there’s a difference you know?
- mikey is like. where raph gets overparentified by fanon, mikey gets over “family therapist”-ed IMO. the impulsiveness, the goofiness, the powerful emotions including a VERY powerful temper, the flat-out dumb teen boy choices... they get ignored. suddenly there’s this only very sweet and earnest boy who has read a hundred psychology books and runs group family therapy weekly or something. he is crying in his room bc leo and raph are arguing about something. which is so. he IS very sweet and can be very earnest and is full of love! he HAS come in with his opinions and unsolicited advice a couple of times and life coached for the greater good. but there’s a difference between what he does in canon and the role he gets in fanon.
2K notes
·
View notes
I'm not usually the audience for most kid fic content HOWEVER the idea of Eddie falling into a circumstance where he becomes the Uncle Wayne to some other kid who has nowhere else to go has me by the throat today
like. circular narratives.... hear me out....
maybe Eddie did have a sibling, a sister ten years older than him who was out of the house and as far away as she could manage before he even ended up in Hawkins with Wayne. maybe he and his sister didn't keep in touch because by the time she had her footing in the world well enough to come back and see him, Eddie was long gone already.
maybe she ends up in worse situations than he does by nature of not having a Wayne of her own to teach her what it feels like to have someone stick around for you and maybe one of those situations is ending up with a kid she's not equipped to take care of, no matter how much she tries.
she needs help, needs backup, needs someone to take this 10-year-old in and give her safety while her mother gets healthy and tries to learn what it means to be stable.
And hey, listen, Eddie Munson is 27 at this point, he's had seven years to heal from the bullshit Hawkins put him through and he's still working hard every day to keep that momentum going, but a child?
he's not a father, not an uncle, take her to Wayne for fuck's sake, he begs of his sister even though he knows deep down he doesn't mean it, not when Wayne has finally retired, finally has some stability of his own.
what other option do I have? I need you, Ed, is begged of him in return, and he hears her, he does, but what does he have to offer in this situation?
he's a mechanic with PTSD and a one-bedroom in Bloomington who's been pining for his best friend the former jock-turned-part time student for the past two years.
he's a wreck and a half who has nothing but lateral moves to make in his future and has to set three different alarm clocks to wake himself up in time for work every morning and he's just-- Eddie. That's all he is. That's all he has to offer.
It can't possibly be enough.
What's her name? he asks despite himself, out here on the sidewalk in front of his place of work where he'd been ambushed, where he knows Steve will be pulling into the spot across the street to pick him up any minute.
Naomi, is the answer, and she will be, even if Eddie doesn't see it yet.
There's no part of Eddie Munson which has ever dreamed of trips to the park and helping with homework and drives to the mall to buy presents for birthday parties.
There's no part of him which has ever sought out parenthood to anything other than the stray cat who likes to beg for treats at his back door.
There's no part of him which is built for this, Eddie knows, as he sees the familiar shape of a familiar car parking across the street and idling.
Naomi, he breathes anyway, looks down at the photograph being pressed into his hand, the untamed curls and missing front teeth.
She's sitting on the front steps of a trailer, sun shining down on her and pinking up the bridge of her nose and it's him for a moment. It's him, loved unequivocally by a guy who never planned to have kids, never wanted them, and loved Eddie with everything he had to offer despite it.
It's him, the little boy that still lives in Eddie's chest, just asking not to be forgotten.
You're all she's got right now, Eddie.
Well, shit.
He's gonna need to put a call into Wayne, isn't he?
1K notes
·
View notes