I know that, as of right now, Lucy and Maximus are the canon relationship in the show (and I like them together)... But I can't help but think that the show has the perfect opportunity to use Dane and Maximus as commentary on the way queer people in the military were treated in that era (40s-50s) and what their lives were like, if they decide to make Dane and Maximus have at least a little thing together...

i know ive said before in the past that i don’t particularly want jondami/damijon to become canon because i feel like the writers would ruin it but how would YOU guys want jondami to be handled if it were up to you how they become canon?

ill go first.

First thing, we would have to have young jon question his sexuality in a authentic, nice way. be able to get into his head and him display like “i think girls are cute but… guys as well… is this normal?” just HAVE him be pathetically bisexual, i know that in a comic book that i cant remember a girl touched his hand and he accidentally used his super strength and broke the thing he was sitting on due to his hand clenching in reaction, basically i want there to be some sort of build up. THAT would be super nice bisexual representation. i wouldnt want their relationship to be rushed or spontaneous at all. maybe have it be mostly about jon and him trying to keep his feelings to himself because he doesn’t want to weird out damian, not wanna ruin their friendship etc etc. kind of sad but also itd be nice representation of the queer experience, since the supers are normal people, jon having a cliche and simple story would make sense for him. perhaps as jon is growing up as a hero, he experiences some thing that maybe will go into his feelings, like i know one time where he thought damian had died and he freaked out and rushed to find him, it could be like that, like having jon have moments in his heroism that makes him feel like “maybe i should confront this before its too late” - having jon think about how human damian is scare him in a way to the point he wants to be protective and his agency of needing to protect him be the thing that makes him confront and deconstruct his feelings… between jon and damion - jon would confess first, and for their confession, don’t let it be on a bloody battlefield, let it be in a safe controlled environment. im tired of the adrenaline pumping and passionate kiss trope, let the characters just talk it out so it feels genuine.

on damians side thats where itd be a little harder because i feel like damian would have to go through some stories and be in a place where hes fleshed out enough to start feeling normal human emotions, yknow? since he was raised as a weapon. he could just see jon as one of the few genuine friends that hes had and thats stuck with him. damian could also have a nice moment where he starts feeling simple emotions for jon like, comfort, adoration, missing him or jealousy but he doesn’t understand them so he acts out in a way that makes more sense to him, like the violence and rebellion pent up inside him. in my confession - if there would be a confession though, itd have to be in a safe setting for the both of then where they are just talking like i said. i feel like itd make sense for damian to even reject him at first, thinking his responsibility to the mantle is more important/ he doesnt have time for something like that. and he feels like he couldnt give jon emotionally what he deserves. then they could grow up (and in most people’s opinions i actually dont want jon or damian to become superman or batman, i want them to be their own thing. its the most boring part of their character and would be the biggest reason for the writers to not allow them to be in a relationship because that would mean superman and batman dated at one point or somethting) then after they grow up (it doesnt even need to be a long time after the confession, can be like months or so) and damian confronts himself he can go back and damian could be like “im not good at this type of thing, but i want to try” and then they could be together happily. because out of everything their mantles is the thing that pults them together but at the same time rips them apart. i ship them because they are polar opposites that have the same destiny but their paths are what damages the both of them the most and what holds together their relationship. theyd have to be friends or lovers more on normal terms, hang out outside of robin and superboy which we havent seen yet… at least not in comics where theyre hanging out JUST to hang out. then after they get together they can just be jon and damian, doing normal civilian things, perhaps they could also find different titles to bear as heroes like how dick became nightwing or something.

i also don’t want damian to lose his general, teasing and snide remarks to jon or anyone, keeping their dynamic the way it was as they were friends would be more fun but yeah thats me.

Also yeah while im on the subject

I really hate fantasy settings where magic is limited by biological sex. Because usually its used to enforce some sort of stupid gender stereotype that the writer believes is "biologically innate" rather than predjudice, by making up a world where it actually is biologically innate. Or its like "oh but women cant do those jobs" but again, a made up excuse for it to be LITERALLY TRUE. And usually they either dont even touch on the subject of trans and gay people (since it often conflates heterosexuality with gender...) or else it actually does bring it up and just creates a cavalcade of even more everything-ism...

Like i mean i love the game Jade Coccoon and considering it came out in the early 2000s i can understand it being more sexist, and its supossed to be a dark game anyway and a lot of the societal structures in Syrus Village are meant to be wrong and evil even if the characters act like its the way the world should be. The villain of the game is basically the toxic atmosphere of your shitty town and their paranoia of things they don't understand. Tho that means the player kinda has no motivation to finish it cos the main conflict is also saving those same villagers from dying and theyre all fucks. Anyway i'm going offtopic! What i mena is that i dont think it was a particularly sexist example of the inexplicable gender segregated magic trope. But just cos its a fave game of mine im gonna pick it to talk about anyway. Hope i dont sound too negative on it, cos seriously i love it loads!

Ok so to use Jade Cocoon as an example, here its a thing that only men can be cocoon masters and only women can be nagi. Tho it also gets a bit complicated because nagi is also an ethnicity as well? Its kinda like being romani, they're a race of displaced people who travel the world giving their magical services to other countries while searching for their lost homeland, which you end up finding at the end of the game. So yeah its extra weird cos male children of the nagi race are born with no powers whatsoever and cant even become cocoon masters, yet they get the ruling position in this homeland place? Like thats a better metaphor for how christian societies work, honestly!

Anyway im going offtopic again!

Basically, cocoon master = adventurer dude who catches monsters, nagi = magician who purifies those monsters so you can use them in battle. So when you catch stuff it becomes an inventory item rather than being able to use it on your team right away. And also nagi women can fuse monsters together to make super badass new ones and basically the gameplay system works really well to make you believe your wife is absolutely necessary to your quest and you would die without her, even if she cant fight. And honestly its actually kinda romantic! I just wish it wasnt presented as this weird sacred heterosexuality arranged marriage nonsense where all women are physically unable to go to a dungeon and all men are physically unable to not fight every day. Or at least thats how the powers work and if you try and step out of that role you fuckin die. Like it would be romantic to have a couple of a battle partner and a supporter magician if they actually chose it, yknow?

And whats annoying is that they actually do bring up the subject of people defying gender roles and canonically state that you not omly die but bring a curse upon everyone and are hated forever. They dont mention trans or gay people, instead the excuse is that a man loved his wife so much that he tried to learn nagi magic to lift the burden from her. Cos oh yeaj women get 'punished' by god for doing this magic?? Cursed tattoos all over their body the more they use it, and everyone hates them and eventually they turn into a fairy and forget they were ever human. And in the japanese version you can actually fight other nagi women who met this fate, theyre just another monster that you can fight and capture. They were censored in english cos they looked like really racist stereotypes of black women! Ugh! So yeah anyway nice straight husband is punished by the magic straightness enforcing rules of the universe for loving his straight wife too much. So what is the even point? If a man tries to use nagi magic it creates the "black cocoon" of cursed doomness and blah. Literal punishment for not conforming to gender. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

Anyway this setting always made me wonder about all the stuff it just glosses over with this implication that every one of these relationships worked out fine. Like even before we rub lgbtq topics all over a retro videogame, there's a lot of logical holes! Like seriously how many of these arranged marriages ended up loveless or abusive? How many women just didnt want to stay confined to one room forever and not even have anyone look at them because their magic markings are shameful yet its also shameful not to want to do it?? How many men were terrified of going out on this advebture fighting literal demigods sent by heaven to punish humans? How many of them just had no ability to fight and died immediately because of shitty traditions, while perfectly qualified women had to sit there and watch it happen? What if there werent enough straight men and women of the same age and people were forced into gross pedophilic shit or other horror scenarios just cos there has to be this one magical straight couple or the village dies? Whenever theres this stupid gender magic its ALWAYS portrayed as idyllic and never failing ever, unless *gasp* people dont follow the gendrules...

And then SERIOUSLY do no queer people exist in this universe?? Man i'd be so interested in their stories! I actually had an oc idea of a self insert version of me as a travelling merchant. Because maybe what if nonbinary people could do both sides of the magic at once and thus adventure alone without being tied to a village's straight marriage system? So i'd just go around purifying monsters and then be a place you could buy new and rare mons from other villages without having to catch them. Maybe an easier way to get the super rare drop fusion materials for tiger pattern and stuff? And like seriously itd be good to have a character to talk to who agrees that your village is made of assholes. I cant say its bad writing cos it was clearly intentional, but they shoulda at least put a bit more incentive to keep playing even if you didnt care about these people. Also it would help plug the plothole of how a village even survives if it doesnt have the required people to form this magical straight marriage. Have some mysterious enby avengers who travel all across the world and save everyone regardless of country! All we ask is you buy some of our lovely souveniers! Maybe a pet patalchu for your family? Seripusly why dont they ever show anyone using the purified monsters for anything other than fighting the unpurified ones? You'd think they'd be really useful in repairing the village and guarding the walls and like..regular industrial jobs. Help the place actually advance and not have to live day to day on scraps,bickering amoungst themselves as the monsters grow ever closer to breaking through. Hell, you could even have them help spin the cocoons for other monsters! If this magic only depends on having a dick or not, then cant we just dress up some animals in the magic straight marriage outfits? XD

And like aaaa man im getting so emotional just imagining a trans woman who's constabtly told she will literally bring about the apocolypse if she tries to fill the female role in this ritual. And then one day she tries to spin the magic silk and she thinks she's committing the ultimate sin and they were all right. But the magic responds to her touch, and she makes a spell more beautiful than any other woman in the village! It would probably be harder for a trans man cos the magic doesnt have so much of an immediate proof like that. Just going out and winning a fight with a monster can be called "dumb luck", and knowing these assholes they'd probably keep calling it dumb luck even after the thousandth time you save their life!

And man, i wonder how gay relationships would work in such an annoyingly strict system of enforced heterosexuality? Would it be like the magic isnt REALLY gender locked at all, and it can just be any couple with either partner taking either role? Or would it be that it is one magic per gender but the bigoted villagers were wrong about it being impossible to do things without both? Like maybe when you're going into battle alone as a single cocoon master you cant fight without catching other monsters. But when two cocoon masters love each other their magic is amplified and they become able to like.. I dunno.. Imbue each other with elemental strength so they can fight the monsters hand to hand? Cos really the elemental system is the only reason you cant do a no monsters run of the game as it is. Maybe since they cant purify monsters but they can still catch them, they equip the monsters as sort of a power rangers transformation? Or socket them like materia on their weapons? Or just if the world was less segregated into tiny sexist racist villages they could simply buy the purification coccoons from another local nagi, and villages without a coccoon master could buy the services of travelling ones. Oh, and maybe two nagi lesbians could be even more badass! Cos if they can only purify and not fight, maybe their double purification is so strong that they can just straight up walk into the forest and monsters don't attack them. They dont even need to do the full spell, they can calm a beastie's rage just by holding out their hand and patting it on the head. So they coukd be infinately more effective and not have to just tenporarily clear single travelling routes of a few monsters, but actually work towards slowly purifying the entire forest and creating a peaceful land again. Tho i mean the game did have a unique atmosphere with the whole 'no hope of ever beating them' aspect. It was unique to see a society formed around the idea of never going into forests or you Die. But magical lesbians and their family of a million pet dragons is honestly better!

And uhhhh ive gone all offtopic now and i camt stop thinking about how much i love magical lesbians with a million pet dragons

The End