#and the expressions aren’t even that varied imo but I TRIED
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Making an additional post to respond to @fuyunoakegata’s response to @fiyaerrigan’s post here without derailing or going too far afield from the OP:
I think an additional thing to consider that the other kids had by benefit of Dick being the eldest is......every single one of them to varying degrees had Dick to look to as a precedent for like.....reassuring themselves that their presence in Bruce’s life wasn’t a temporary thing. Dick’s constant or recurring presence was an affirmation of permanence - that no matter how bad things got between Bruce and one of his kids, since things HAD been very dicey between Dick and Bruce for awhile - Dick still was there, at the end of the day.
Now, the obvious sorta exception to this is in Jason’s POV, with it being a sorta exception cuz there’s a couple different ways you can play this. By emphasizing how much Bruce and Dick were on the outs from Jason’s POV while he was living with Bruce, you CAN cast doubt on the idea that Dick was proof things would never get so bad with Bruce that he would just stop being part of their lives. And then this in turn can be used as a sort of explanation for why Jason was so convinced that there was no coming back from a lot of what he’d done by his return to Gotham, even without the events of UTRH....like, you can make the case that this is why Jason escalated things to that extent period. He thought reconciliation was never truly ever an option.
But by the same token, you can also use the fact that Dick IS reconciled with Bruce by the time of UTRH to seed doubts about this in Jason’s head, because he DOES remember just how bad things were between Bruce and Dick when he was younger....and if they could come back from that, maybe it WASN’T just wishful naivete to think that there could be a future for Bruce and Jason’s relationship as well, y’know?
To cycle back to the beginning though....it should be acknowledged imo that Dick never had the benefit of this proof of permanence, this security blanket of knowing that no matter how bad things got with Bruce, there wasn’t truly a point of no return. That WAS in doubt for him a lot of the time. Which gives him all the more motivation to see what we so often see evidence of in the comics - Dick going above and beyond to stress to his siblings that they aren’t temporary in his eyes, and their connection is not just limited to being via Bruce. They’re his siblings with or without Bruce in the picture.
Now to respond more directly to what @fuyunoakegata had to say in that last reblog addition, I think the fact that Dick is so good at translating what Bruce leaves unspoken is actually a key part of the conflict between Dick and Bruce at so many points. Because the thing is....Dick should never have HAD to become that good at it. He became good at it by necessity, because Bruce does leave a lot unspoken and taken for granted, and at a certain point Dick realized he’d just have to fill in the blanks himself.
But given that Dick was the traumatized kid that Bruce chose to take in as an adult - no matter how young of an adult he was - there’s an inherent disservice in not recognizing that it should never have been on that kid to feel HE had to be the one to bridge the communication divide between himself and his guardian when said communication felt lacking. That is the responsibility of the guardian or parent, its literally a key part of the sense of security its their job to offer the traumatized orphan in their care.
That’s not to say, however, that its not realistic for this to happen this way - and for reasons that actually have nothing whatsoever to do with Bruce, and everything to do with Dick. Because it is possible that Bruce just never quite clued into just how much Dick was assuming the burden of translating Bruce’s intentions into actual communication and filling in the gaps where Bruce was leaving stuff unsaid.....because as I’ve said before, for all their similarities and parallel tragedies, a key part of Dick’s tragedy that Bruce simply couldn’t relate to, was the abandonment fear of being sent away for not being good enough or being too much of a burden. Bruce has HUGE abandonment issues due to his own tragic loss of his parents - but his abandonment issues tend to be more geared around losing people to tragedy or death.
Now from a parental standpoint, he does have fears of driving his kids away by not being good enough for them or by hurting them in various ways, true.....BUT the specific overlap he lacks is that he’s never really identified from the perspective of a child, with that fear of a parent or guardian not wanting to deal with him or be burdened by him anymore. When he was raised by Alfred, he feared losing Alfred in a variety of ways, but not really so much by driving Alfred away or making him sick of him....because there has always been at least an implicit awareness, even while acknowledging that Alfred basically raised him, that Alfred still technically worked for the Wayne family, and Bruce simply wasn’t ever in a position to feel quite as dependent on Alfred and say...his ‘whims’ or whatever, as other children might in regards to their own parents. Alfred’s loyalty is readily apparent and of a more....fundamental sort than most others can claim, y’know?
So I think one of the key divides between Dick and Bruce, a NATURAL area of oversight for Bruce, who tends to take for granted at times how much he and Dick are alike in certain ways.....is that it wouldn’t necessarily ever occur to Bruce just how much Dick feared being a burden who could and might be sent away at any time he became too difficult to be worth putting up with anymore. And by not realizing how big a role this played in Dick’s thoughts as he grew up, its natural that Bruce wouldn’t necessarily notice just how almost....eager Dick was to jump at filling in gaps in communication himself rather than risk having to insist Bruce clarify himself or his intentions in order to be understood instead. Dick didn’t want to give his guardian any reason to send him packing - so he voluntarily took up the role of Bruce-translator early on, before ever even alerting to Bruce that there was anything about his communication tendencies that might be lacking and left Dick occasionally grasping for assumptions to fill in the blanks.
But see, the problem that naturally arises from this sort of inherent miscommunication or oversight, no matter how understandable it is....is that it over time builds in an expectation or even reliance on Dick doing the majority of the work and emotional labor when it comes to understanding each other. And the precise problem this creates lies in when Dick for whatever reason - such as believing Bruce has already as good as cast him aside and no longer wants to be burdened with him - like, if for whatever reason Dick STOPS doing the majority share of their communication, if he no longer sees a reason to translate Bruce’s thoughts into actual words of affirmation and read approval into his actions or assume the best of Bruce’s intentions......if Dick basically just stops TRYING here, because he’s convinced there’s no longer any reason to try and the worst has already happened, the very thing he was going above and beyond in filling in Bruce’s gaps in communicating himself in order to avoid happening in the first place....
Then Bruce is going to flounder, naturally, because all of a sudden its going to seem like nothing he says or does in the ways he’s always been used to communicating himself like, seem to be getting through to Dick or leaving him with the same understanding or awareness of Bruce’s true feelings that he’s grown used to Dick having, based just on whatever Bruce DOES actually do or say.
So from Bruce’s perspective, its going to be like nothing he says seems to make any impact on Dick or convey to him that Bruce does in fact still love him and care....BECAUSE Bruce hasn’t quite realized yet just how much Dick has HAD to fill in those blanks for himself, because Bruce’s actual communicating of them has not actually involved ever FULLY expressing those sentiments.
Hence, their complete communication breakdown after Dick was fired and/or Jason was made Robin and adopted without consulting or even alerting Dick to the fact beforehand, or reassuring him that this didn’t actually say anything about Bruce’s feelings for his eldest. As well as Bruce’s seeming obliviousness as to why.
And another thing I want to add here is that I always tend to push back a lot against people bringing up how young Bruce was when he took Dick in, and how that explains his lapses in parenting....
Because the thing this fails to take into account IMO is that like.....by and large, and with obvious occasional exceptions like Robin: Year One.....its almost unanimously agreed that Bruce was at his BEST as a parent to Dick - whether thinking of himself as his father yet or not - in their early years together. So I don’t see how Bruce’s young age can excuse his later lapses in parenting Dick, when it was at his YOUNGEST, that Bruce was at his BEST in parenting Dick. To me, his age has nothing to do with it. The difference in Bruce’s effectiveness in being a parent to Dick at various stages in my mind lies entirely in the fact that in those early years, Bruce was most consistently putting in his most effort into being there for Dick, being the person Dick needed him to be, etc.
Basically, those early years were so good between them, compared to other periods, because even with Dick assuming more responsibilities than he ever should have had to - but for completely understandable reasons ie Bruce simply not REALIZING Dick was so desperate to not be a burden he was making sure Bruce never realized there was a problem here at all - the bottom line was it was in those earliest years that Bruce most consistently TRIED. He put his best foot forward. He did the WORK.
And thus the problem in the later years of Dick’s youth, IMO, had nothing to do with Bruce’s own relative youth - it was that I think Bruce had just gotten comfortable with their dynamic and lost sight of how much of that was due to his own EFFORT. He started to take Dick for granted, and thus defaulted more towards frustration when he didn’t understand why Dick did something or where he was coming from....where previously, he would have been more patient as he applied his intellect towards trying to figure out for himself WHY Dick was acting the way he was or what it might signify.
BUT. The point of all this digression is like.....me working my way around to how there’s not JUST an opportunity for Dick to buttress Bruce’s lapses in parenting for his younger siblings, and for them to benefit from him having gone first.....BUT, if people WANT there to be....there’s also every bit as much to fix or address a lot of the flaws in Bruce and Dick’s relationship via Bruce learning from things with his younger children like....an awareness of WHY he and Dick grew apart and how it can be addressed.
For an example.....with Jason. I’ve commented before on how a lot of authors doing revisitations of Bruce and Jason’s early years together in fic actually do a GREAT job of showcasing how patient Bruce is with him, and understanding of his history and why he behaves in various ways or reacts to things differently than Bruce would or expects.
And a lot of focus is put on how in the comics, when Bruce talks to Dick about why he took Jason in, he describes himself as having seen Jason as being a lot like him, and thus thought he could help him with his anger, etc.
See, I have always, ALWAYS, called bullshit on this point. (And that’s aimed at the comics canon btw, not fic writers).
Because uh, I just don’t see it at all. First off, Jason has always had even less in common with Bruce than Dick did, and second like, the only thing that Bruce has ever pointed to as feeling similar to Jason in....is Jason’s anger.
And like....early Jason, even after the post-Crisis origin retcon, like...wasn’t that angry! His supposed anger issues come from all of like, two different stories and that’s it. And I don’t buy that Jason was the first kid in all the time Bruce had been Batman by that point, that like, Bruce saw as a kindred spirit due to just being ANGRY. Umm, no. Sorry. That doesn’t track for me.
Especially because like....when Bruce first encountered Jason? When he first MADE the decision to take Jason in? First when meeting him stealing his tires, at which point he took him to Ma Gunn, and then after finding out that was a criminal front and deciding to take Jason in himself? Jason was like....literally not even angry in any of those encounters, lol. He just wasn’t.
Jason was scared. He was defiant. He was stubborn. He was proud. He was vulnerable. He was doing his damnedest not to show it. He was a lot of things.
What he wasn’t.....was...angry.
And so I truly don’t believe that Bruce took Jason in for reasons that had anything to do with identifying with him and seeing himself in Jason.
I think Bruce looked at that tiny young vulnerable but proud, spirited and defiant kid before him, utterly unrepentant about stealing Bruce’s tires and then hitting him with a tire iron and then with the Ma Gunn storyline....
And Bruce saw a young Dick Grayson reflected in the boy before him.
Bruce missed Dick and took Jason in as a kind of do-over, a chance to fix the mistakes he barely understood making with Dick to lose him from his life or drive him away in the first place....and just resolved to do BETTER this time. To not make the same mistakes. To be patient, understanding, to try and get why Jason did and thought the things he did instead of just making his own assumptions.
And the painful irony is that despite Bruce’s best intentions in the comics, history DID repeat himself. He and Jason became estranged, even before Jason’s death - by Bruce projecting himself and his own issues and viewpoints onto Jason rather than see Jason as an entirely different person from him. He grew to take Jason and their dynamic for granted the same way he did with Dick. A significant element of the Garzonas story that never gets talked about is that after they captured Garzonas the second time, after Gloria’s suicide and before taking him into the police where Garzonas ended up just walking again....
Bruce stood back and literally encouraged Jason to take out his anger and frustration on the man. The same way Bruce sometimes did with criminals himself. He literally stood there and watched as Jason vented his anger by beating up Garzonas further.
And THIS is the heart of why Bruce reacted the way he did with Garzonas’ death, I think. Especially when you couple it with how much of Bruce’s reactions in UTRH are based around how HIS entire reason for being unwilling to kill the Joker is because he doesn’t think he could just stop there, couldn’t pull himself back from doing it again. I think Bruce just ASSUMED that Jason had pushed Felipe to his death, because he projected himself into Jason’s shoes, and saw that moment playing out from how he feared HE HIMSELF would have reacted in that moment, if he were say as young as Jason still was at the time, and frustrated by how futile everything felt. He assumed the worst of Jason, because he identified with Jason, and in that moment, was projecting his own worst assumptions of himself in a parallel moment of intense emotional frustration and anger.
Like I said.....he drove Jason away by making the same mistakes he’d made with Dick in essence - he projected too strongly on identifying with them and thus viewing their actions or choices through the lens of how he would behave in similar circumstances and WHY....and he stopped doing the WORK of keeping in mind that they were very different people from him with very different reasons for choosing the things they choose, different histories, different priorities, different contexts.
So the point is like.....instead of letting things play out like that, since fic IS an opportunity to improve upon canon, you can draw upon literally ANY of these ideas, and like.....examine what happens if not only Dick helps his siblings in their relationships with Bruce by drawing from his own experiences with him and the mistakes there.....
But you can also examine what happens if Bruce is helped in his relationship with Dick by drawing from his experiences with his younger children and using those to identify mistakes he made with Dick specifically, and address them even now....instead of just writing off his relationship with Dick as the best it’ll ever be now and damaged beyond further repair and so instead devoting himself to trying to just do better with his younger kids.
Because see what happens then, if you use Bruce’s patience and understanding while raising a young Jason, and awareness of just how different Jason is from him....to glean for HIMSELF, without having to be told by others....an awareness that no, maybe he took in Jason for reasons that had far more to do with regrets having to do with Dick than because of identifying with Jason just himself. And from there.....a simple examination of his relationships with Dick and Jason respectively, like, even just to wonder what’s so different about his differing dynamics with the two and why is so much better now than the other...that’s literally all that’s needed for Bruce to become AWARE of how patient he is with Jason and his seeming idiosyncracies, to acknowledge the work and EFFORT he puts into building and maintaining his relationship with a young Jason....and from there....the realization that....holy shit, he’d taken Dick for granted, and THAT’S why things broke down between them. He’d stopped TRYING to understand Dick the way he was working so hard now to understand Jason, and instead just started getting frustrated with the fact that he so often DIDN’T understand Dick, period.
And once you have Bruce HAVE that epiphany, GAIN that awareness....
Its the easiest thing in the world to just write him GOING to Dick and just like...acknowledging this. Owning his faults. Admitting that he took Dick for granted and put too much reliance on Dick doing most of their communicating, fell back on it being easier that way and stopped placing importance on being the one to take the LEAD in their relationship and addressing its flaws, as the PARENT.
And just saying.....its not too late to fix this. If I can do it with Jason, if I could do it with you in the first place, I can do it again. All I need is for you to give me the opportunity to try to do just that, to do better, and instead of demanding that or expecting it from you or even just hoping for it but never actually voicing it....here is me asking for it, but letting you know I understand if you don’t trust me with that or want to risk yourself like that again.
And whammo zammo, you’ve got yourself a road to a healthier, happier Batfam, and it doesn’t require actually vilifying anyone or expecting anyone but the patriarch of the family to like....take the actual wheel.
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Is there a direction that CRWBY could go to make u say "fuck it, I'm done"? I'm still watching for fanfiction purposes and bc I'm in to deep to quit without feeling like i wasted my time, but if Cinder is redeemed, like full-on redeemed without her death (that's the only justifiable redemption for her imo), I'll likely tap out if it's not the end of the series.
Honestly, at this point probably not. If I've stuck around for plotlines I thoroughly disagreed with (Ozpin), the destruction of characters I enjoyed (Ironwood), while simultaneously redeeming others I have no interest in (Hazel), and including aspects that I found to be straight up offensive (Penny)... RWBY has already hit all the "Fuck it, I'm done" possibilities for me, generally speaking. It's more likely that rather than doing something specific that turns me off, RWBY may just wear me down over time. I'm still interested in watching it despite the problems now, but after two, three, even four more years of potential problems? Who can say.
I'd like to briefly comment on that "I'm in too deep to quit without feeling like I wasted my time" aspect though, simply because I'm seeing it pop up more and more. Fans, specifically fans who have expressed varying amounts of criticism, say something to that effect of not wanting to drop RWBY when they've already put in years of emotional investment, to which others, usually fans still greatly enjoying RWBY, respond, "That's just the sunk cost fallacy. At this point you're being illogical for not dropping it."
For any who may not be aware, the sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to avoid cutting one's losses once you've already invested something in an endeavor: time, money, emotion, etc. The argument is to avoid such biased thinking because you can't get that investment back and all you're doing is prolonging a lack of enjoyment. An easy example would be a movie you payed for. You realize twenty minutes in that you hate this film, but you can't get your ticket money back. Many people would employ the sunk cost fallacy by claiming they need to stick around because otherwise that money is "wasted." The counter argument is that the money is wasted either way, so better to leave the theater and spend that hour and forty minutes doing something you like. That's becoming the latest argument trend in the RWBY fandom: it doesn't matter how many years you spent investing in this show, they're lost, you clearly hate it now, so just drop it already. To do otherwise is philosophically foolish.
However, I've personally always found the sunk cost fallacy to be a weird thing to apply to media. Not because countering it is entirely without merit — we all should practice dropping things if we want to: books, movies, podcasts, whatever — but rather because there's so much to be gained from media outside of enjoying 100% of the time. For me, finishing things is a kind of enjoyment. I'm rather bad at it (lol), but that doesn't erase the fact that I have an intellectual itch to complete any series I fell in love with, particularly when I loved it for 3+ years. Managing that provides a different kind of enjoyment from the enjoyment of being totally happy with the show's writing, but it's an enjoyment nonetheless. If I'm critical of something, I like being able to say honestly that I completed it so that can't be used as a catch-all dismissal for why any arguments I make are unfounded. I enjoy seeing what missteps a show goes through so that I can try to avoid them in my own writing and, hopefully, I enjoy watching the show come back from them. I like keeping up with a community that I'm a part of, one where I chat with both friends and strangers specifically about RWBY. If I were to drop it, I'd also be dropping the connection I have with a lot of people. I likewise enjoy keeping up with the show for the creativity potential — "for fanfiction purposes," as you say, anon. I may not like how the show handled the Hound, but I like the Hound as a concept and now, having watched Volume 8, I can play with that idea in my own way. And none of this even touches on the enjoyment of details throughout an episode (or season) that I think is otherwise failing: a particularly cool idea, a nicely delivered exchange, animation that I find to be beautiful, spending time with characters whose original concepts I still enjoy, etc.
The critical side of the fandom has discussed extensively the non-critical side's tendency to view RWBY as perfect. It's not that many fans disagree on what problems RWBY has, but rather it's refusing to admit that there are any problems. This new desire to bring up the sunk cost fallacy feels like it's built on that, the idea that if you're not enjoying all of RWBY all the time then you need to cut it out of your life completely. There is no middle ground. You either adore it without reservation or you drop it and, as is so often said, leave the "real" fans alone. Stop ruining the community and all that because the expectation is that the community is allowed to be composed of praise and praise only. It's a familiar argument wrapped up in a very disingenuous sense of concern. When one fan insists that another should drop RWBY because they're just hurting themselves, they're acting like they really care about the others' well being when, in reality, they just want them gone. It's a trend that I'm coming to dislike because it tries to paint the fan as the logical, level-headed one who is only trying to get the critic to drop RWBY out of a sense of logical inevitability and, sometimes, even concern for this stranger's mental health... because there's definitely no other motivation there.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying, "Me too, anon." As of right now, I still feel like I'm in too deep to just drop RWBY. I'd rather see it through, for a number of different reasons, and all the "it's illogical/unhealthy to keep watching" arguments aren't going to dissuade me from that.
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I always wondered why is Alec always the one to make the first move? And why magnus is suprised by that? Is he waiting for Alec to reach out first?
imo? yes. or rather he's not waiting because he kinda doesn't expect displays of affection. but yes i do think magnus is holding himself back
there are many reasons i believe that. first one, magnus canonically thinks that he's too much to handle, he's said so himself, both as a joke and in seriousness when he told alec that he knows he's a lot to deal with. second one, alec was in the closet five seconds ago and he is a shadowhunter, which makes magnus second-guess himself regarding touch and PDA because it feels like it's not going to be welcomed. this reason has two subsections as well: one, we know that magnus pretty much never touches people without permission and hates being touched without permission (think the way he wouldn't even touch alec's lips when he was flirting with him and how he never ever touched alec or even flirted with him with others around once he witnessed the demon fiasco, as well as the way he glared at jace when jace touched his shoulder). two, magnus has good reason to be wary of getting close to shadowhunters. those are the people who kill his people. and even though he knows alec is not going to like, try to murder him for no reason, it's still hard to ignore all that trauma and not fear initiating contact in that way, you know, especially when you know in shadowhunter culture they aren't very big on touch.
third reason, which i think is the most important one: magnus has been abused
both by his father and camille, so at least twice, and that's a very powerful thing. i have no doubt in my mind that camille's abuse rethoric in particular was very focused on him being needy (think her telling him that he doesn't do well losing those he loves, think her telling him that he would choose her because she could be with him forever. a lot of her rethoric relies on the idea that magnus needs her because he's too demanding and she's the only one that can give him what he needs, for one reason or another. and while she at the time was using it mostly to convince him to stay with her/take her side, abusers usually use their rethoric both to prove to make you stay and put you down. in my experience, abusers often paint their partners as needy, both to say "no one else would put up with you" and "i don't even know why i put up with you". only they will love you, but also, you are never fully deserving of their love, it's never enough, and you need to do better) and so planting this idea that he needed too much, asked for too much, was a lot to deal with. and - albeit in a different way, especially due to the different nature of that relationship - asmodeus wasn't much different. who else would love magnus, with his demonic eyes? anyone else would call him a monster and want nothing to do with him. he needs asmodeus, so he better be grateful for whatever asmodeus throws at him
that's another important point: abusers teach you that wanting anything at all out of a relationship is bad. either because it will be met with violence or because it proves that you are selfish, demanding, insecure, dependent, self absorbed, disrespectful, childish... take your pick. the reasons/rethoric vary, but the point they drive towards is always the same. that's what characterizes abuse: making you put aside your own needs/wants in the name of the other person's
so i think in general magnus was just kind of untaught to ask for what he wants or initiate that for himself. it's a trope we've seen many times in the show. when magnus is sad, he hides away. when he has a problem, he tries to deal with it on his own. he never asks for help, not once. he never initiates contact. he never admits he needs help. he never even asks for company. and he consistently puts other people's needs before his own, sacrificing himself way more than would ever be healthy, etc etc etc
and we gotta remember this is magnus' first serious relationship after he broke up with camille. he had been very deliberately avoiding opening his heart to anyone else, he said so himself. and seeing him with alec, it's pretty clear why. like, don't get me wrong, i think he's ready for a relationship, and you can't really start to learn to build better relationships post-abuse without having some problems and false starts and that's okay. but like you can see the way that he is always putting alec's needs before his own, assuming that that's how it would be, not expecting it in return - remember his genuine shock when alec came to rescue him in hell? after magnus had gone to hell for him and his family without thinking twice so many times? like bro... - being afraid of telling him about his history and even who his father was, canonically because he was scared alec would think less of him
it's pretty clear to me that magnus has that feeling in the back of his mind that he's going to get to be too much and at the same time he's not really enough. i also think he's a little scared of giving him weapons to use against him - like letting him know of asmodeus or his past. like, of course he is scared of being judged for the obvious reasons, but if you tell me that camille never used that against him... i have to laugh. and of course magnus knows that alec is not camille, but this isn't really about alec, it's about what camille has taught him, because one thing about abuse that i think people who haven't been abused downplay the importance of is that abusers make you think that abuse is normal. and it takes years of building better relationships to unlearn certain things. after i broke up with my first abuser, i was genuinely shocked every time my partners realized i was in pain without me having to say anything or ask them to stop. and i know they weren't anything like my first abuser who either didn't care or was too self absorbed to notice. but my experience with my abuser made me think that my partners not realizing or not caring that they hurt me was normal, when it obviously wasn't. and it's not that different with magnus and alec. magnus knows alec isn't camille. magnus knows alec wouldn't use his past abuse history against him. magnus knows alec isn't just playing with his feelings. but that doesn't matter, because his mind is just set to believe that he needs to hide his feelings, be afraid of vulnerability, and never, ever ask for anything if he can avoid it
so yeah that's why i think magnus doesn't go for kisses and love declarations or anything of the sort. it's not that he doesn't want it or feel it, cuz we know he does, but i think he feels like he's imposing on alec, that he's gonna scare him off, that he's too much, that he's just setting himself up for disappointment when alec inevitably doesn't feel for magnus as strongly as magnus does, etc etc. there are like, so many elements, honestly
i think he's learning and growing tho! i mean he has been for a long while, of course, it's why he was ready to start a new relationship in the first place. but like by the end of the seasons we got to be magnus being genuinely surprised that alec would dump him just like that, initiating more kisses, proposing (granted he already knew alec was gonna do it, but still), and even breaking down in front of him, although it wasn't really by choice djahdsah
but like either way i think he's slowly realizing that everything he's come to think of as just facts (like him being unlovable or too much or whatever) were really not. and i'd like to see him growing more confident in that sense, although i just love and am so glad that he gets to be with someone who feels just as intensely as him and isn't afraid to express it at all and who just... is right with him at every step, you know? i just really love that about them, even if obviously magnus needs to learn to express himself and be as emotionally open with alec as alec is with him
#sh#malec#magnus bane#meta#magnus bane meta#abuse tw#bit of oversharing lmao rip#shadowhunters#ask#anonymous#long post#anti fanon alec#not directly but u know#camille belcourt is an abuser#camille's trash party
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Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 10 Notes
I’m extremely not an expert in birds, but I tried to look these up to see if they were a species native to New York (since they’re similar to the sparrows we usually see around Kobayashi’s place). Apparently there are few similar-looking species in New York? My totally uninformed guess is that they may be house sparrows.
The sun sets in Japan relatively early (probably around 6:30pm when this episode takes place), which would make it entirely plausible that if she just flew east (with a slight northward angle) she’d find herself over New York in the early morning while most of the rest of the country is still dark.
These bumpy grey pads at the pedestrian part of the intersection here are known as (among other things) tactile paving; they’re to assist people who can’t fully rely on eyesight to get around.
Interestingly (imo), they were actually invented in Japan in the 60s (by a Miyake Seiichi), where today they’re extremely ubiquitous. They even show up later this episode!
They’re often referred to in Japan as 点字ブロック, tenji (Braille) blocks, and they tend to come in two types: the “dot” design, which indicates a place to stop (or an angle change, or more generally “caution”), and the “line” design which indicates you can safely keep going. They’re generally colored yellow in Japan, ideally making them stand out more to help people with impaired vision find them, and are mandated by law in most places public transport can be found (among others).
Not really a translation note, but “deer cola” felt especially funny in the context of all the horse medicine stuff.
I guess “[animal] [drink]” is a common branding device in-universe, given the crab beer Kobayashi’s always drinking.
Also not really a translation note, but the difference between how “hard” Kanna and Chloe are running to be at the same speed was a nice animation touch.
遊んだ遊んだ！ asonda asonda!
One feature of the Japanese language is a very heavy use of repetition. This includes “reduplication,” a linguistic term for creating words by repeating a root (e.g. a “boo-boo” in English or the dara-dara example below in Japanese), but also just like… saying the same word multiple times, as Chloe does here.
Typically this is done for emphasis or to help increase clarity: if you’ve worked in a Japanese office, you’ve likely heard someone in a phone conversation say desu desu in response to someone asking for confirmation.
This acceptance of repetition sort of extends beyond the obvious uses like this as well: for example, personal pronouns are much less common; instead (if the subject isn’t dropped) you’ll often just use the person’s name again. You’ll notice similar trends with other types of words as well.
Not to mention the ubiquity of things like otsukare.
This often ends up being a challenge for translators, because reusing words in English (when it’s not for an obvious reason) tends to stick out rather unflatteringly, even if they aren’t that close together.
(Like when I overuse “hence” in these notes.)
This “Christ” in the Japanese was “ったく” (short for 全く mattaku, but just used as a semi-generic exclamation). I mostly bring this up because it’s a good example of a word that doesn’t work out of its cultural context; e.g. it wouldn’t make any sense for a fantasy character to say “Christ,” but since this is an American speaker it works just fine (and helps distinguish that fact, even).
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but English uses a lot of “explicit reference” words like this, that can break immersion if put in the mouths of characters who wouldn’t have exposure to said reference—which can be annoyingly limiting when trying to write dialogue sometimes.
As a bit of a culture shock for a lot of Americans I’ve met, most Japanese homes tend to have wall mounted air conditioning units, like this one, that are only for heating/cooling the one room they’re in. (Many also have a “Dry” setting that makes them act kind of like a dehumidifier as well.) It’s common to not have them in every room, like bedrooms, however.
This is in contrast to the central air conditioning system used by a majority of homes in the US (though type/use of AC in the US varies a lot by region; less common in the north for example)—and places like the UK where apparently residential AC units of any kind are quite rare.
You may have noticed that the doors between rooms always seem closed in Kobayashi’s apartment. That’s not just to make the backgrounds simpler, it’s also a good habit to keep if you’re going to be running the AC!
“Kobayashi, are you お休み today?”
“Yeah, お休み.”
お休み o-yasumi, is a noun form of the 休む yasumu, to rest. The word has a variety of applications, as we see here. A day off work/school, i.e. a rest day? お休み. Want to say “good night” to someone before bed? Also お休み.
In this case, it’s not even necessarily clear it’s being said as a pun; as mentioned earlier, repetition is a common feature of the language, so despite the yawn there wouldn’t really be any reason for Kanna to think Kobayashi was about to go to nap or anything.
“Laze about” here is だらだら dara-dara, another phenomime (擬態語 gitaigo in Japanese)—one of those words that mimics the “sound” of an idea/concept/state, which don’t actually make a sound per se.
These phrases aren’t necessarily childish or anything (overuse of them can be, but you can find them even in news articles and political speeches for example). They are, however, used frequently by children, and by adults talking to children, as they’re very “easy” words: they’re expressive, they capture useful daily-life concepts, and they usually roll off the tongue. You’ll notice, for example, that Kanna uses them a lot.
Kanna has a very interesting way of talking actually, which I’ll touch on a bit more later.
Kobayashi’s “bean jam” here is あんみつ anmitsu, a traditional Japanese dessert (technically a spinoff of mitsumame). It typically is a mix of red beans (and/or red peas), agar (an algae-based gelatin equivalent), some fruit, some variety of rice flour product (shiratama in this case, similar to mochi), and a syrup (often black sugar based).
You can find it year-round, but it has a strong summer association and is even used as a summer season word. (It’s typically chilled and you can often get it with ice cream as an ingredient.)
It’s also sometimes paired with a green-tea flavored something as well (e.g. ice cream, agar, or syrup). The trinity of green tea, red beans (aka azuki), and shiratama makes what I like to think of as the “Japanese S’mores Flavor (for Adults)”. No I will not elaborate on this.
I will though point out the shaved ice flavor Kobayashi ordered later in the episode:
え？今スイカ様子あった？
A word of note here for language learners is 様子 yousu, which has a lot of definitions, but in cases like this where it’s attached to a noun or phrase means roughly “the appearance of __” or “an indication of ___” etc. In actual use, it typically means something that makes you think of whatever ___ is—or the lack of something that would make you think ___.
For example here, it’s like “Watermelon? Where’d that come from?” (since the TV was talking about a different dessert-y food entirely).
Or an unrelated example: “I think that guy is hiding something” → “Really? I haven’t seen any yousu of that.” In other words, it can be a lot like “sign,” as in “I’ve seen no sign of ___.”
These color-bordered envelopes (originally colored based on the flag of the country of origin) used to be the standard for air mail, domestic or international, though they haven’t been required for several decades.
That said, they’re still popular for that “ooh, international mail!” feel (at least in Japan) and you can buy them at most places that sell stuff like envelopes. As here, they’re often used in media to immediately convey that a letter came from outside Japan.
Kanna (and Kobayashi) says エアメール, lit. “air mail” in English, which is used colloquially for international mail specifically, rather than “mail sent by plane.”
They’re having what’s called 冷やし��うめん hiyashi soumen, chilled/cold soumen for lunch here. (Soumen being a thin wheat noodle; udon but thinner.) As Kanna says, it’s very easy to make!
Basically you just boil it, wash it in cold water, add ice, get some sort of sauce to dip it in, and you’re done! It’s a popular quick meal in summer, and much easier than the more involved nagashi soumen setups you may have seen elsewhere, where they slide the noodles down a chute for you to try to grab and eat. (It’s basically the same meal aside from that though.)
(You can of course add more to it, but as we see here, you don’t really have to.)
The type of tea here, for the curious, is 麦茶 mugicha, barley tea. Mugi is the general name for cereals/grains including wheat (komugi), barley (oomugi), rye (kuromugi or rye mugi), and oats (enbaku or oat mugi). It’s incredibly common in Japan (and much of East Asia), where it's the household summer drink.
It has no caffeine like many other teas, and has a bunch of various nutritional benefits, so it’s considered a good way to stay hydrated as you’re sweating buckets in the muggy Japanese summer weather.
帽子した？ boushi shita?
した！ shita!
I thought this was a cute way of phrasing this question/answer, and a good example of the “parent and their young child” way these two talk.
The suru (past tense shita) verb used here is the ultimate in “generic verb,” and it basically doesn’t get any simpler grammar-wise to phrase something as “noun+suru” like Kobayashi does here (even the particles are dropped).
Kanna, for her part, doesn’t respond with a “yes” or etc, but instead just repeats back the verb itself in confirmation.
Just to note another one of those words like dara-dara: bura-bura, used for things like wandering around, doing something (or nothing) casually/aimlessly, or (with one bura) for something dangling/swinging in a more literal sense, like a spider, slack yo-yo, or wind chime.
These booklets are a common homework assignment for practicing kanji; you can see along the left side there it shows the stroke order, with the first block giving an example to trace over & showing where to start each stroke.
Each character is made up of radicals (e.g. “hot” above: 日 and 耂), which each have a standard way to write them. There’s 214 such radicals (though many are pretty niche; only about ~50 of them are needed to make most characters), and once you get a hang of them it makes learning new characters much easier (not too different from learning word spellings in English imo).
Kanna is repeating out loud the reading for the “hot” character as she writes it.
In addition to the above workbooks (which usually involve both kanji and math problems at Kanna’s grade), elementary school summer homework in Japan typically involves doing an illustrated diary (not a daily one necessarily) and some sort of research project about a subject of your choice. (Think kind of like a small science fair project).
The “research” project part is pretty expansive, and you can typically even do something more arts & craftsy for it.
Manhole covers in a lot of Japanese municipalities feature art representative of the area. For example, the city of Chofu, where the author of GeGeGe no Kitaro lived most of his life, has several with art of that series.
(Photo from https://www.gotokyo.org/jp/spot/1734/index.html)
I mentioned earlier that Kanna has an interesting way of speaking. Probably a better way to put it is that she has a pretty convincingly childish way of speaking (despite the monotone). That is, she uses simple grammar and “easy” words most of the time, but then throws out random big words and fancy idioms from time to time that make you go “...where did you learn that?”
In this case, the phrase she uses is 巷で人気 chimata de ninki. Chimata originally means like a fork (in the road), and since those are often places with lots of people passing through, it expanded to mean “the undefined place where people talk about ~stuff~.” So it’s used for “many people are saying~” or “word on the street is~” types of situations (or “talk of the town,” as here).
It’s kind of an “adult” word though; for example the character for it isn’t included in the jouyou kanji (the 2000+ that are taught in elementary through high school). Hence Kobayashi’s reaction here.
The word she uses for “protected” here is 死守 shishu. The word is the combination of the characters for “death” and “protect,” ~meaning to protect something even at risk to one’s life (to the death, as it were).
It's a word that you learn in third grade in the Japanese education system—the same grade Kanna is in!
Both of these types of signs are common sights in residential areas like this: depending on where you live, it can feel like there’s always some sort of construction project going on, and Japan’s many family/individually-owned businesses like this tend to be closed on various extra days during the summer (and certain other times) to allow for time off.
In this case, them being closed August 12th~16th implies they’re taking off for Obon (and probably leaving town to visit family).
The word Kobayashi uses here is 風物詩 fuubutsu-shi. Fuubutsu refers to something that makes up part of the “scenery” of a place or season, in a pretty broad sense. This shi typically means “poem.”
So fuubutsu-shi is originally a type of poem celebrating a season or a scene of natural beauty, that sort of thing. From that, it’s also now (more popularly) used to describe things that are representative of a season; the kind of stuff you say “it’s not winter until…” about, or “you know it’s summer when…” (It can also be used for places + seasons, like the ice sculptures of Hokkaido winters, or even summer Comiket in Tokyo.)
They’re very similar to the season words I’ve mentioned previously, though they’re far less strict about what counts as one. Here, Kobayashi’s could be referring to the whole package experience of “having to take cover and wait out a sudden heavy rain, despite it being mostly clear skies a few minutes ago,” which you could call fuubutsu-shi (summed up probably as like 夏の雨宿り etc.)
In contrast the relevant season word here would probably be yuudachi (or niwaka-ame), a word referring to the short, sudden bouts of rain that tend to fall (from cumulonimbus clouds, the makings of which are noticeable in the backgrounds before this) on summer evenings.
Feels like in season one she woulda eaten it. Three cheers for character growth!
The parentheticals there are just the “English” in hiragana/katakana.
Kobayashi’s comment (nihongo de ok, roughly “you can just use Japanese”) is an internet-born term people originally would use to reply to someone who said something that didn’t make any sense, had terrible grammar, or was so full of katakana loanwords it was hard to read etc.
Kanna says this line in English, and while I have no proof at all, my guess is that the specific choice of “wicked” was taken from the translation of “maji yabakune?” used in season one.
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i found out the reason why jae and mc fight, it’s cuz jae was disappointed about not being able to do some of the things he normally does on his birthday so mc tries to cheer him up but that ends up backfiring. so jae got upset cuz he ended up spending the majority of his birthday helping them put things right and cuz they didn’t even ask him if he wanted their help in the first place. i think that’s a reasonable reaction from him honestly, like I know mc didn’t mean to ruin things that badly but i understand his frustration. also it wasn’t even really a huge fight considering, like they make up the next time they see each other. jae says sorry for being harsh but i get where he was coming from, him getting annoyed at mc is understandable imo. i liked seeing more emotions from him instead of just him being laid back and mischievous even though most of them were negative.
...you know, having so recently come off the Torvus TLSQ, I'm finding this plot to be...interesting to discuss. I don't know, I guess what it comes down to is the writers coming up with reasons for why MC is involved in the plot and why there is conflict. The reasons vary and sometimes they work, sometimes not. Like, it was reaching the point where MC getting involved when they didn't need to had become a meme - I'm pretty sure this is lampshaded in the Quibbler TLSQ - so I can understand trying to find new reasons to force MC's interaction that aren't just "they wanted to help." But sometimes, if it's their friend who's in need, that really is good enough. (Had Torvus just nicely asked MC for help rebalancing the Forest, I have no doubt they would have said yes.)
As for Jae, he is also MC's friend. He's a good friend and has been since Year 5. He's a romance option, even. Oh god I hadn't even thought of that. How much would that change the story if your MC is dating him? Would there be exclusive dialogue for it? I feel like there should be. Anyway, MC trying to help Jae makes sense. I'll have to wait and see how I feel when I watch the scenes, about who's right or wrong, but if the argument only lasts for one scene then I suppose it's not a very big deal anyway. Sometimes the game has other characters bite the hand that feeds them (MC) to manufacture conflict. But sometimes MC's seemingly obsessive need to be involved in everything can create conflict for those around them. They drove Talbott and Chiara away (at first) by refusing to give them space in their reflective Friendship Quests. But I'm still angry that they took the blame for the blizzard in Christmas II when in all likelihood, it was just a natural storm.
I'm always glad to see other sides of characters as well, and depending on the situation, I am genuinely glad to see them calling MC out. Sometimes, that's just what MC needs. I like that Andre eventually reminds MC that he never got his broom back, if MC borrowed it. And I like seeing Jae's more expressive, emotional side. You're right, he wouldn't be laidback all the time. Sometimes he'd act differently especially if something pushed him on a sensitive issue. I don't know why his birthday of all things would be, unless this has something to do with his past and life at home. Oh, I hope we learn more about his mother in this quest. I so sincerely hope that we do....
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another prompt saga
April 8th: Talk about friendship. How important are friends to you? Do you find it hard to make and maintain friendships? Are your friends generally supportive? Is there anything about having friends that confuses you?
another big question for me to go on plenty of tangents lol
well i haven't often had friends Really, there's like, being amicable with classmates, being friends with people While We're At School Together, being friendly acquaintances lmfao, or like, the occasional "yeah ig we're sort of friends, not exactly very close tho" lol and then rarely where yeah i'd call someone a close friend, although naturally, it's not like i completely discount those other, less close relationships. and, even more so, not like overall i'm like "oh friendship? yeah that's pretty frivolous and unimportant and it's just something mildly entertaining vs the Real Shit & True Emotional Support & Love of your biological family and romantic soulmate" lol, Friends Are Important and it's entirely serious 2 me
also natch i Do find it hard to make and maintain friendships lol. goes back to like, preschool and being around a bunch of age peers regularly for the first time, where my "best friend" defaulted to this one person who sought out interacting with me when i was otherwise doing my own thing during preschool recess, and i was pretty enthused about getting invited to a bday party one kid invited a bunch of us to, because that was like, a Friend thing, and a fun social thing, and i was included.....that i Do remember just feeling like, socially, everyone else was playing a game i didn't know the rules to and so couldn't expect to participate and, furthermore, i ought to stay out of the way of whatever everyone else was doing, where i Did often choose to do stuff by myself, but it's like, you know, the way "autistic" is even used figuratively (which. i have a lot of disdain for) because it's like oh the defining thing really is that telltale "doesn't want to interact with other people or form relationships, probably because also they have no feelings / normal and intrinsic qualities of Humanity" but it's like, if you pay any attention or god forbid ask autistic people about their own experiences, sure everyone has their own varying social approach and anyone might not always be raring to be the center of the party or Not want to do their own thing, but it's not that oh all autistic people aren't interested in social connection, but that like even when you are a small child it's like, oh all these other kids are interacting in this way that isn't really my social style and that shuts me out, and/or attempting to interact with people results in this even subtle, quiet rejection / exclusion that can be picked up on. i wasn't making friends and was often keeping to myself / keeping my head down as it were, but it wasn't because i didn't want to have friends or socialize. my mom was insistent i was a Shy Child lmao and i'd always argue that i wasn't Really, without further explanation though lmao, but it's like, again that i felt that sort of emergent exclusion, and there wasn't any space to interact much on my terms at all, and like, yeah i often stayed quiet / didn't want to mingle with other kids / if i was in a Situation i wanted to know the How To of navigating it / what to expect
being friends with people at school was fine, except the drawbacks of stuff like "we're only interacting at school, rarely hanging out outside of that" & "someone in the same grade is in a diff class in elementary school so we just never see each other now" & "for some reason that 2nd grade teacher made a whole giant Example out of me and a friend, god forbid, not paying attention or whatever the fuck, so now i feel like we can't interact at all anymore" & "changing schools entirely between elementary / middle / college" & "not being in school" lmao similar to work friends too, we're At Work, might not see each other outside of that, might change jobs & stop seeing each other, & still overall rare, b/c the Preschool Experience never Really stopped imo, had different versions of it even into college and like, being at jobs with other adults lmao, socializing is still Like That, came up with the Je Ne Hate Quoi where like, people kind of just Know to exclude you / consider you an exception to whatever other social stuff is going on.
and then like, the difficulties even when socializing / interactions Are happening, where like, it's always funny like. i'm very Verbose / Chatty and very opinionated but like, this will surprise people, that i Talk actually and have a ton of takes, b/c i was keeping to myself / not sharing that with them and so it's like well, that must of course be the realest version of me, no way i was filtering myself, i just must have Not Wanted to talk, and/or had nothing to say & hence no thoughts or feelings i might wanna share lol, of course....and tbh like, it sure Can be true that i don't wanna talk lmao like. i wanna talk About Stuff that isn't really "personal" generally, which can be like, yeah i wanna talk about this book, or about birds, or about this trivia topic, or whatever, whereas idk so much how to do like small talk about your day or otherwise share Casual things about Yourself, like, idk, being aware my interests are things about Myself but also aware that it's Weird / wasn't the kind of stuff you were supposed to talk about, and i felt that things about my life were otherwise Not The Right Stuff, or too boring (never hanging out, not doing much except being at home reading / doing shit by myself or w/siblings) or too Unfun (able to pick up the sense that At Home Shittiness was a private matter lol......) and it'd be like, idk what to say, things about myself don't seem to fit..........but also it can be that i do not enjoy the Vibe of an interaction lmfaoooo like, i truly do not want to talk to you people. like that i can sometimes vibe with someone inebriated people better lmfao because then, idk, they have some sense of humor and can muster some enthusiasm for anything, but also i'm not really a fan of knowing that someone isn't sober lmfao like. ppl will be like "omg were you drunk" like no, that was just my personality, whereas i am not Heartened to know other ppl Will have to have been drunk to get on my level, for example, don't understand when people cannot muster being even a little silly. it's goofaround hours. but then you have like, being around a bunch of cishet people when they're drunk, and their humor is as nonexistent and boring as ever but they're even louder / more insistent about it, nightmare. and, yknow, just people talking and i'm like "i'm not interested in this at all, whether re: conversational Style or Subject, i would not want to participate" and times when it's like. i know if i was gonna chime in with what i Would say you would not be able to handle me here lmfaoooo so. i truly would prefer examining the wall and thinking about my own shit or texting with someone i do like talking with
but that yknow, in groups / conversations i would be at least someone interested in, i can still be like, idk, Hesitant To Talk b/c of all the instances you've been taught like oh you're socializing Wrong and everyone hated that, sorta like the post about making a comment about salsa that brings the gc to a halt and you're wondering how you fucked up and if salsa killed someone's parents and forgot or whatever, i've been Disheartened re: hanging out when it's like, well, nice to be included, but i'm a friendship third wheel here, not being included in the entire convo and nobody misses it, there's been instances where it's like, two people talking, i chime in, i am completely ignored multiple times, this is frustrating lmao. or there's been times i've tried to put myself out there in a way, like yeah sure i'll hang out with this group, but also i'm anxious and it's like, if people are doing homework i'm also bringing this thing i'm working on as this parallel task, only to find out down the line like people then regarded you as a joke or something b/c it was Rude or Wrong when you know, actually that was you reading some weird shit that didn't exist into the situation, and just like, idk it's wild how people will have like "graciously" declined to express something to your face, and you either can pick up on shit at the time but not be able to say anything which just reads to people like "oh they didn't notice this / that means you can push it a little further next time even" or like, figure out later that something that seemed positive or decent actually ft. people not liking you / not wanting to include you Yet Again, and as a bonus you're left with you know, having to always worry about if people Seemingly being amicable & accepting is actually them wishing you weren't there or solidifying some Interpretations of you that they're then gonna Talk About or Act On behind the scenes, like, beautiful thank you, always very touching, so glad you were so Considerate of someone's feelings and Nice about this where it just ends up being this whole letdown / feeling like even more of a rejection if there was this weird like stringing along lmao like. can allistic people be normal for five minutes
anyways and tied to that sort of, it's also like, simultaneously Cagey About Things and always worried about like, i could tell this person this thing and maybe it'd be Incorrect for the interaction and they won't care, whether because it's too mundane and boring a thing about you or because it's too #Real, i think i glimpsed something a month or so ago about like "do other autistic people have trouble where like, you can be friends with someone a long time but not get particular Close to them" or whatever lol, where like, well i have to hold everyone at arm's length and often Then Some because there's just matter of fact stuff about me that i nonetheless think i can't or shouldn't share, if i talked about something it might be out of the blue b/c i just was hardly confiding in people about it, or it's boring, or it's like, i don't actually feel like i'm close enough with this person that saying this isn't gonna be like "whoa overshare!! i just feel awkward & weird!" lmfao like. there were people i hung out with in person the year i lived out of my car and i did not mention this at all to them / kept it a secret b/c it's like, not out of like ohh this is a secret b/c No One Can Know, some people Could know lmao (shoutout to the person i Did confide in about these problems and who talked with me at what must've been like 3am in that timezone when i was like "well the rich people around here made sure to get cops to harass an unhoused person, e.g. me, would you believe it, it sucked" lmfao) it's that i knew idk, it would be pointless, they'd just feel weird about it and switch into that "for some reason, this is being Nice" where everyone will go into full Putting On A Front mode to be Polite like, that really sucks actually lmao could you Not. but it's like, idk, all this stuff where it's like "this thing about me / my life would be too Boring or too Awkward or Depressing or Etc Etc" turns out to be isolating / alienating b/c like, of course it would be. and idk nobody i ever made friends with in person i was Confiding in, not a ton of them re: me either, because you know. being cagey and wary, on top of like ohhh this person is Standoffish if they're hesitant to interact with people generally or do their own thing or i don't think they're socializing Right / have incorrectly inferred their feelings/motivations/intentions or whatever
and furthermore on that lmao it's also like, again, while i'm Verbose & Opinionated people will think i'm quiet & have no takes to provide because it's also like, even when it comes to stuff i sure feel i Could talk freely about, it's like, if i have a different opinion here will that just be a conversational Interruption ruining things for the real participants, probably nobody wants to hear me talk about this Subject, probably nobody wants to / would let me talk about it at much length without interrupting, even Online lmao i can be just going all out in terms of [how much i can talk about something] and while people can be Into that at that time it's like, people aren't into that beyond that one back and forth on one day, shoutout when people do enjoy the extensive discussing and/or have patience for it other times lol.
then supposing i Am talking to people lmao it's like, idk i'm an acquired taste or what have you, like, on top of the Talking A Ton it's like, the being opinionated and argumentative and sometimes pedantic or whatever on top of being irritable, could stand to be a bit more patient lmao, The Hater Friend to use the figure of speech lmao i have hardly been in a Group to be The [Any] Friend lol, also if my sense of humor doesn't fit it's like well how am i supposed to be silly, if being sometimes Enthused doesn't fit, again kinda an issue......have described myself as A Bit Much, humorously, but already not doing that as Much b/c it's like, i think i'm still too much like considering other people's opinions too "objective" here when like, first of all that's never accurate lmao, second of all i can easily forget that idk, i can at least in theory expect people to just regularly Like me and Enjoy interacting with me lol so. an acquired taste few can sample..........like hey even if other people don't vibe with me, it can just as much be the case that i'm not vibing with other people, don't worry lmao. and yknow, kinda parallel to Masking to seem acceptable in any casual social situation it's like, if i feel i'm suppressing my whole personality here / putting up a front / like i have to Get Through what should be a friendly interaction rather than be able to enjoy it myself, it's not exactly that rewarding. and plenty of times it's like, i like to be around people, but it can be strangers, i don't feel like "oh i wanna go out to eat / see a movie / go to this event, but if i can't get any friends to go, guess i can't!" like get out of the way i'm readily doing shit alone, it can even feel Better that way if otherwise it's like, now this occasion is about performing peak Agreeability for this other person/people, and like, not like i have ever been like "yes i have people i can readily ask to hang out and they'll be like Ya" anyways lol so. used to operating solo, where you can't be like "aha this is because this person has no Human Interest in Human Connection" when it's like. well it was never all up to me was it
well and so also it helped when i was 14 and able to be Online consistently, vs at home lmao. time for online friendship, which i don't think is like, oh that's not Real, like what sorry have you never known about people who have Remote friendships before, phones & letters & telegrams and also [nowadays when many ppl are Remote even if they usually lived near enough to hang out with] where it's like, you have this different format for socializing that can sure play out differently than Real Time, In Person interactions, and ever since i'll be posting mostly to myself lmfao but able to thusly talk about Interests and like, people will come along who want to talk more about it, then we do. i suppose also it can sure help that i'll draw (and Only draw, lol) for said interests, although tbh i think most of the time it's the extensive text posts that do it? really and great litmus test or whatever lmfao like, well already this person must not hate the verbosity. and then you can end up vibing with these people further, or not, but it's like, again, there's this chance for From The Start like, oh this person Likes that i have this niche interest, they like &/or don't mind talking A Lot about it lmao, vs in person introductions where that can sure happen but it's like, that's gonna be chance & spontaneous, whereas ppl might have the opportunity to Seek Out this interaction / content of yours......even online though, i'm still like, not as inclined to reach out or make the first interaction move or whatever lmao so. and then it's like, people make galaxy brain remarks like "ohh people who are very Online don't have friends, irl, they aren't Personable, irl," like yes congratulations i'm autistic and i don't have many In Person friends generally, sometimes maybe not any, don't really know where people think they'll land their argument here. like, follow it through, are you just calling people losers. is it "social media makes peopel Not social" like nobody is Doing Anything when they're online or everyone is embracing strangers and having heart to hearts every weekday morning with whoever is nearby if only they weren't on twitter? plus the fact that like, if i don't have access to people i interact with online, that doesn't like, force me to become neurotypical so that i then have a thriving in person social circle, it just means i'm more isolated? meanwhile, turns out it helps a lot if it's like, yeah i can Expect to interact with people
and then still like, all the time it might be like i still can feel Confused as it were about How To Talk To People lmfao like. there's not much "Just Be Yourself" when being yourself has meant filtering yourself, actually, and being v self conscious about trying (and often failing) to appeal to other people (which, then if you do succeed, it's like oops this person likes me but if i've been putting up a front the whole time, not super Validating) and not exactly a ton of practice getting to do Otherwise, and it can again be like. is this too boring to talk about, or just somewhat arbitrarily like "oh i'd better Not talk / say whatever" for no real reason lmfao, i Can just get like. Real Time Chatty as it were, but it's difficult actually lmfao like i need a lot of momentum, and it's easy for that to be Not the case.......and just like, again that it's easy to forget you don't have to be in "nobody wants to hear you talk" mode, or think like, okay, i can't just say anything, i have to say something Good, aka of interest or funny or whatever lmao but then it's like well i guess i Can just say anything. don't much know how to do that tho
(also, sidenote from "wtf is thinking being friends w/someone online is faker than when you're friends with someone sort of from being in the same building every weekday, what is the conclusion of 'what a loser geek whatever if you care about connecting Online who can't be popular Offline'" where it's always funny when someone is also like "wow even in person Fandom is, like social media, something that only people who suck at socializing Normally are into" lmfao like. not very relevant b/c nobody wants to really be in a broader fanbase rather than find particular kindred spirits through it, and who actually wants to go to comic con or whatever, sounds like a nightmare, but it's still such a faux analytical perspective lmfao like, again, first of all, what's the Conclusion to your argument here? and secondly honestly like. all versions of Small Talk are kinda gonna be bullshit, even amongst say, nt people, there's nothing Universal, and people can certainly be inconsiderate / preclude any genuine connection via what they might consider to be this neutral part of the ritual, and yknow, i find it kinda exhausting like it's peak Time To Mask and then i'm hardly in the mood to Really talk further, like yknow what. idk i'd be annoyed if someone demanded i Correctly Complete some sort of fandom reference by way of greeting, but i'm also annoyed when someone demands i Correctly Complete whatever maneuvers you're supposed to do with a rhetorical "how are you :)" lmfao like. you're a cringe nerd in the rigid social ritual of pleasantries fandom)
anyways and uhh yeah i also yknow, hashtag alana beck, it's like, glad to pretend Friendly Acquaintances makes sense, i guess it can, but it's great when it's like, oh i Don't have to only expect to be really peripheral in people's lives, or to only be friends with people i don't feel like i vibe with That much or also talk to that much about anything, when i can definitely feel like Yes this person is a Friend, no "are they actually closer to an acquaintance at this point" disclaimers needed, again, taking it back to the fact that friendship sure is Significant to me and when i have it that's v important thanks
so it's like uhhhh yeah difficult to make friends, don't have general appeal or whatever lol, ppl aren't on my wavelength or i'm not on theirs, hard to talk to people even though it's not because i don't/can't talk plenty lmfao.......and re: being Supportive it's like well, i don't really tell people In Person i'm autistic but naturally if you follow me Online here i am talking about it lol, and not like anyone who already knew me & was friends with me was like "oh nvm don't like interacting with you now" and i also gotta mention the like Handshake Lgbtq lifehack, where plenty of times it can be like, oh if we vibe on That wavelength it can be easier to befriend people, and/or that people will at least be more like, amicable / supportive based on Knowing you're handshake on that lol. b/c really it's like, i'd also like to just be allowed to talk and/or simply be around people even if we are not Personal Friends, aka that you can expect to be treated decently with some basic respect / consideration and like you're generally allowed to exist and be present and interact with people where you're not only guaranteed to Not be punished / excluded for it if someone's your individual friend and allows you to be here, so. once again it's like, can allistic ppl be normal for 5 min
#still behind on this naturally lmao but when it's now 1am and i've chosen to do a whole essay#it's like whew time to make dark dinner for now#30daysofautismacceptance#2021
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Nen and Characters: Nanika
I think Nanika is nothing more than a child who is asking for love and that her power and its rules can be used to underline exactly this.
First of all, it is clear as day that Nanika is characterized as a child and i is obvious in how she acts and talks. Actually her way of speaking is even more childish than Alluka’s. What is more, I think there is a rule which clearly shows us how childish she is:
Killua uses this rule to argue about Nanika’s kind nature. According to him the reason why Nanika won’t ask for compensation in case of a wish used to healing/fixing is because said wish is considered selfless. However, a vision of the world where destroying/transforming something is synonymous of bad and fixing something is sysonymous of good is extremely simplicistic. I mean, would asking Nanika to cure a person who may end up killing a lot of other people be better than asking her for a lot of money in order to be able to study medicine and cure people for free? I think it is debatable. My point is simply that such a black and white vision of good and bad may be exactly what a child may come up with.
Another interesting aspect of Nanika’s ability which is directly linked to love is the way in which her victims are selected in case of a failure in granting her requests:
This is extremely interesting because we can say that love is used as a criteria of choice for the lives asked as compensation for Nanika’s ability. Both criteria, thus, are bound to include in the payment a certain number of people who are either loved by the person interacting with Nanika or have still a high chance to have meaningful relationships with them (we usually spend the majority of our time with people who are linked to us in a meaningful way). In short we can say that in a certain sense love (or at least personal relationships) is what is asked as a form of compensation by Nanika when her requests aren’t fulfilled.
However, if what Nanika asks as payment for her wish when the person fails to fulfill her requests is love in an indirect and twisted way (the people loved by the person) and if love is what she genuinely desires then why do we have her asking people such cruel things in the first place?
This line is extremely important imo. If we consider the requests Nanika makes when she is in a normal state (so when she is not influenced by a previous wish), we can see they are mostly games or interactions with people. They are exactly the kind of requests a child who craves attention and wants to play would make. She starts asking cruel things only after a particular great wish has been asked of her. Why is that so? The answer lies hidden in the fact that Nanika is a child and children do imitate how the adults around them act. After she is granted 3 requests Nanika will grant a wish and I think this ability is born from Nanika’s desire to make other people happy, so that then they can give her more love. However, let’s look at the kind of wishes those around her have asked her: money, a computer, to kill others. All these requests are either materialistic or straight up cruel and dismissive towards others. The problem is that if a child sees the adults around her being happy for such things, she, in an attempt to be happy herself, will start asking for something similar. This is the hidden meaning of Nanika’s powers: her ability is probably born from her wish to make others happy and to be loved, but it becomes twisted if the adults around her teach her that being happy means damaging others and having things.
Actually Nanika’s whole mentality (which is expressed through her nen ability) of having to be a good girl to receive love is wrong because it is an idea of love which is conditional while love should be unconditional. However, Nanika even in her interactions with Killua shows this tendency. She asks him if she is a good girl and when he tries to make her disappear she starts repeating to him that she loves him in an attempt to gain his love back.
Killua is the only one who gives her what she truly wants i.e. love. It is said that Killua does not pay for Nanika’s powers, but he actually does since after she obeys an order she demands to be patted and to be praised. In Killua’s case the order of things is simply inverted: Nanika grants Killua’s request and later asks for her prize which is always the same because Nanika knows perfectly what she wants from Killua. There are two things which are interesting in Nanika and Killua’s relationship:
1. It is not as strictly structured by rules like Nanika’s interactions with other people are (her using her powers is after all Nanika’s way to interact with the world).
2. The requests Killua asks Nanika are usually of a different kind than the ones the others ask.
To be more precise these two points are intertwined since the reason why Nanika’s relationship and interactions with Killua are more fluid and do vary is because Killua treats Nanika as a person to begin with and this is clearly shown in the kind of things he asks her to do.
1. To kiss him on the chick
2. To cure Gon
3. To wake up
4. To make Illumi go home
5. To disappear
6. Not to listen to others’ wishes anymore
All of these things with the exception of curing Gon and of making Illumi go home are things for which Nanika’s powers are not required and they are things you would ask a person and not a thing. What is more, curing Gon is considered a good wish according to Killua and Nanika’s standards. Even when Tsubone lets Killua have her wish Killua asks Nanika a good wish (to cure Tsubone) which would not require any cruel payment. It is not by chance that Killua tells Tsubone and Amane he does not want to use Nanika after he has used her power to avoid a confrontation with Illumi, so after the only time he used his privilege to give orders to ask a selfish wish. As a matter of fact Killua avoids asking such things if he can help it and the fact he did it in such circumstances simply proves how deeply scared of Illumi and of his family he truly is.
I saw people wondering why Killua didn’t use Nanika’s power to arrive faster to where Gon was or to do other things. It’s because Killua sees using Nanika’s power as using her. At the same time, though, Nanika interacts with the world through said power. This is the paradox Killua faces in his interactions with Nanika and is the one he will probably try to solve in the progression of their relationship. To understand this paradox we can use a popular theory according to which Nanika is an Ai, a creature from the Dark Continent also known as the Desire of Codependence. I think this description fits Nanika since the way she tries to approach her relationships is to make others dependent on her powers, or at least willing to use her abilities, so that in exchange she can depend on them too and be loved and desired. Her relationship with Killua risks to become codependent as well since right now he is the only person who can use her ability and he may be tempted to use those same abilities to protect both himself and Alluka/Nanika. However, I think Killua will eventually defy this risk and teach Nanika to interact with others in a different and healthier way.
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One big issue with tv shows is that unlike with books, the message is incomplete. So they might temporarily put out the opposite message of what they will be saying in the end. Or not. Which is the issue. We don't know. What does your tv Utopia look like in regards to this issue? How do we combine accountability with artistic integrity and freedom? What framing should there be? What would it look like for Once Upon a Time?
Oo-kay. Forstarters, there’s a world of difference between message being incomplete (whichcan indicate less than adequate narrative development, to put it mildly) or if itis left to interpretation (which can vary between being clever, thoughtprovoking–even subversive) so I guess we can approach appraisal of OUaTfrom radically different angles–depending on our individual assessment of that starting point? So, I assume youalready know ours. It just cannot not start from the need to rationalizetheir ‘origins’ into the continuity, and it being–the accolades (or criticism,depending who you ask) they got for Lost. Because as we know, they have been praisedfor it–for all those explorations of that notion of multiplicity(alternative timeline/versions, etc) so we must take into account thepossibility of that affecting theirarrogance to start with–and that we have (possibly? probably? maybe?) giventhem undeserved ‘headstart’ so they took themselves too seriously–and approachedtheir new project (and their attitude/response to audience feedback, or lack thereof) in suchway? Also, more importantly–that they have naturally attracted the ‘intelligent’ followingfor it to begin with (because participatory culture surpasses basic passiveconsumerism, offers enriched dynamic, more lifelike experience–all thatjazz) thus ‘burdening’ themselves with a significantly more demanding audience, andit–affecting a more resounding feeling of our general discontent now?
Eitherway, that could explain the game of one-upmanship, of them striving to (andaround S3 starting to fail miserably, IMO) to stay two steps ahead of the audience.Hence the tactics of opposite message of what they will probably be saying in the end that you mention–so yes of course, false clues, red herrings, logicalfallacies or any other devices that lead audiences towards misleadingconclusions. Because it’s really hard to know anything in the middle? Andwhich now reminds me, I remember reading when someone was talking about Lost (perhapsJenkins, I think I also talked about it here, or somewhere–but just can’t go around diggingfor references, the archives became overwhelming, so–I just might repeatmyself, for which I apologise in advance :) and them trying to account for the things they invented in earlierseasons without too much thought of what they actually might mean and/or wherethey might lead (which sounds WAY too familiar now?) Dickens was mentioned. As in, how his works are nowseen as really well-structured novels because we read them in a bounded form,but in fact–he sometimes radically rewrote his ‘vision’ (which, retconning?) ofthe characters. So if the middle point is supposedly the most ‘productive’ space(because universally, fans also generate alternative versions of the narrativeas they theorize about what’s going on, versions which are very generative,very rich and interesting–like say, what you have been doing?) and while theyare exploring all the alternatives (which alas, usually manifest as randomness/retconningin their writing, these days?) shouldn’t it be, well–the most productive part?Instead of this… disastrous mash of pacing/contrivance, riddled with alarminglyhorrible messages–basically a pile of stinking heterosexist, racist, misogynistand homophobic shite? And all after that beginning that was so staggeringlypromising–and/or dangerously misleading?
Which brings me to, yes, fundamentally–the media industry (broadly defined) and the TV entertainmentindustry in particular, need to be far more accountable when it comes to themessage they create, both in the content itself, and the ways in which it is distributed.But if we try to combine accountability and artistic integrity and freedom–wecannot but question what IS Brothers Dim’s primary drive here? Free expression,pursuit of a vision, consistent and brilliant narrative (the ‘modern’re-envisioning of fairytales, subverting the old dogmatic tropes and all that)or are they driven purely by commerce, designed to build a brand that will multiplyrevenue streams or drive eyes toward a central moneymaking mothership? Because that’s the crux of the problem here.
And sinceyou asked, yes–my personal TV Utopia is of course all about the former. I do believe infree expression and I do believe that the showrunners have the right to createwhatever content they want–no creative limits or boundaries whatsoever. Hell,at one point I did believe that theory, that they were actually giving us twoparallel narratives, an obvious/direct one for the casual/superficialviewership (showing the cautionary tale of what’s not supposed to bea well-accepted normative) and the ‘hidden’ and yet obvious multi-layered onethat challenged the hegemony–and developed that ‘subversive’modern fairtytale about two mothers sharing a son, sense of understanding, acceptanceand ultimately, love. But as a rule, the issue becomes problematic when the show is aired–how it’s distributed and to which audiences. Because while the industry shouldbe far more vigilant, oftentimes they aren’t–because they go for pandering, asit is what (they think) sells. So inevitably the question arises,where does the ‘vision’ start being altered, twisted and is eventuallycompletely forgone–in favour of a product served/tailored by market target (whose age was drastically reduced in S4 with Frozen, in this case)audience? Inthe end leaving it to us, the more demanding crowds–tobelieve that we’ve either been misled (they tried, tested, enticed, and well–queerbaiting’s all we got left with?) or it was where they wereheading, but–they got yanked back by the PTB? And now basically giving way tothe biggest disagreement we might have here now: have we given WAY too much depthand meaning to this product than it really deserves (or was originally meant tohave, anyway) and thus credit to its authors, or are they (or well, were they–before PTBs trimmed theirwings) really intrepid and brave show runners with a brilliant vision?
You can guess what we here believe. Because sixyears later, the result is schizophrenic to say the least. For instance,sure–Hood might be a ‘prop’ for Regina but it looks like they keep hiring the idiot back (andthe story goes on and on and on?) and sure, Hook might just be a commentary oneverything that is screwed up about fairytale sexist dogma… but again, they’redragging it all way past the point of logic, no? So as a result we have here now is anintense, even toxic part of the audience (online fandom) while a whole other partof it is just as immersed in the story–but the story they think is being toldis far less subversive and actually far more dangerous. And the real problem has been the marketing of that kindof story–the story that tells you that Hook is your dream lad, 50 Shades of Rapecultureis the best romance ever written, and lesbians are mean and angry people whoshould just go away. Because bottom line: to go there by sacrificing your twostrongest female characters when the context you’re writing stories within–neithernecessitates nor justifies the undermining (or defiling) of these ‘strong women’, and… well. Onetruth is being told at the expense of the other?
Sooo… purelytextual analysis whilst ignoring all other factors including basic marketing issuesjust isn’t how television works. Because them writing all the negative and harmfulthings is something they SHOULDas showrunners be accounted for, and on a much larger scale. And they should, you know, either justify it or face the consequences far more seriousthan just dwindling ratings of the product they’re now having difficulties tosell. While in the meantime, the ‘mixed’ result of their struggle to balance and pander (they know it can’t be about just Hook, but nothing they wrote about him made people as disgusted as Regina’s stomach-churning shagging scene did–which was a crime against those of us who wantedto see that shirt unbuttoned for any bloody reason–what we can’t stop reiterating) leaves the ultimatequestion, not related to ships/shipping/endgames but rather aboutcharacter journeys–if we as large chunk of theaudience cannot ‘enjoy the ride’ (some of the stuff they wrote was/isdecidedly vile, even more than their collective treatment of an incrediblypersistent/masochistic fanbase that still have hope for Reginaand Emma, who despite what’s been shoved down our throats–stillare the core of this show) then someone please tell me…
What ISthe point? Because I seem to be… missing it.
#anothershadeofgreen#swan queen#ouat#regina mills#emma swan#deserve better#we as an audience#deserved better#but tell that to the two idiots#replies
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canI ask you how you feel the yotsubas characters were changed in the anime? I'm v. curious now
well, in general, it’s not so much that a ton was changed as it is that a lot was cut out… specifically, some moments which i see as some pretty telling moments about each of their characters, so most of their traits end up much more understated than in the manga (for example, shimura comes off as a lot less observational and doesn’t express nearly much discomfort with the situation), so they’re interpreted more as a group of businessmen with a couple differing traits and like two who stand out some, as opposed to in the manga where they’re more like individual characters who are also in a group together. if you get what i’m saying?
(this isn’t super long bc drawn out thoughts aren’t exactly my thing but i’ll put it under the cut anyways jic?)
there are a few things that were just changed, though. the reactions to hatori’s outbursts are very different in the anime – whereas in the manga they seem to have varying reactions (higuchi tells hatori he fucked up, namikawa makes that ‘well at least we know hatori isn’t kira’ comment, ooi argues with namikawa and tells hatori that he’s kind of stuck in the whole kira business, shimura tries to convince everyone else not to kill poor hatori) and end up moving on like nothing happened, in the anime they ignore him like he isn’t there even when he tries to talk and pretty much shun him. it seems to me that this was in attempt to try to make one feel bad for hatori (or, more so than one would without this, i guess…) at the expense of making the others seem like assholes - even shimura, who notably stuck up for hatori in the manga (or, as close as he could come to it, at least).
the scene with higuchi and misa is also a, uh, lot more aggressive on higuchi’s part, what with the pinning her down to the seat and all - it’s definitely more uncomfortable than in the manga and seems kind of rape-y imo (and while manga higuchi was certainly always sleazy and gross, it never escalates to the point where it almost seems reminiscent of physical violence). shimura and hatori also come off as a lot more intimidating and cold when they’re talking to matsuda, where in the manga they just seem kind of confused but not hostile.
as for what was cut out, there’s quite a bit, but there are a few in particular that stick out to me as things that were important to their characters:
pretty much every time shimura tries to speak out in any way to voice his suspicions or try to get kira to unmask himself (his first line in the manga is trying to protest this whole murder thing; that line is entirely cut from the anime and jumps straight to him saying that someone in the room is probably kira, a line that isn’t even specifically contributed to him in the manga, and there are several more line cuts later on)
quite a few of mido’s contributions, while not removed, are given to other characters
most of the phone call between kida and aiber, as well as the entire phone call between kida and ooi (this part says a lot about kida imo)
namikawa’s whole little speech about how kira thinks (rip poor reiji, unable to flaunt his superiority like in the manga :’^( )
the interaction between shimura and ooi near the end of chapter 43 (ties in with the first bullet point, but this also takes away from ooi’s character, imo - i feel like the missile line is pretty telling about him? lmao)
shimura’s ‘that’s all about hatori?’ when they move on from the topic of his death without a second thought - takahashi also seems more upset by hatori’s demise (or, namikawa’s comments about it) in the manga.
those are the biggest ones - there are quite a few more, but they’re smaller differences that i doubt would irk anyone else… of course i think most of these changes / cuts wouldn’t be noticeable to the majority of people but (probably since i’m The Yotsuba Enthusiast lmao) i’ve always felt like they’re extremely detracting? they’re just so much less of individuals in the anime imo, and a lot of the moments for each of the characters that stood out to me (especially for shimura but for pretty much all of them except maybe hatori or higuchi, the latter of which is changed in other ways) are either removed or shortened or handed to another character. the manga also makes it more clear that the majority of them really don’t want to be in this situation, between comments from light and the attitudes of certain members as a whole (shimura and takahashi most notably in the manga, even if takahashi is less verbal and shows it more in expressions and lack of verbosity later on - although i guess that’s more up for interpretation?). in the anime, i feel like the removal of some of that, along with some differences in expressions and the way certain lines are made to sound make them seem a lot more like Stereotypical Evil Money Grabbing Rich Assholes.
yeah. i love my yotsus. i feel like the anime is a lot of the reason most people view them as all the same asshole character so maybe that is why i’m so bitter about it… orz
#............ i love the yotsuba group#i know i am less active here than i used to be but I STILL LOVE THE YOTSUBA GROUP SO MUCH#they just have to share my heart a little now haha#... i actually have a new yotsuba playlist in the making but that's not relevant#anyways!!#asks#Yotsuba#thoughts#casuistor
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Hi! I'm new to your blog but found a few posts that were about a JayTom ship, and I was wondering who Tom was? And also you've mentioned in a couple of posts the idea of Jason having a lineup of Titans in his age range and you talked about the Ray and Damage in one. Do you have a whole lineup in mind for them and if so, is there a post on that somewhere?
LOL man, I really need to start pulling all my posts about JayTom and Jay’s lineup of Titans together for some kind of a masterlist, so thanks for the reminder haha. Like, I saw this ask and thought of various posts to point you towards but ugh, I don’t know where any of them are.
Anyway, so. The Tom of JayTom. Aka my ideal ship for Robin!Jason in the series of one-shots about an AU where Jason doesn’t go to Ethiopia in ADITF and thus never dies, that’s kinda grown out of that of a one-shot I started as a writing commission a couple months ago, if anyone else remembers that….the one that was like ‘what if Jason called Dick after the Garzonas incident and Dick sided with Jason’…that one.
Which then snowballed into ‘well, then I could give Jason his own lineup of Titans who are in the same age range as like a younger gen learning from Dick’s generations of Titans but still older than Tim’s generation of YJ and then eventual Titans.’
Sigh. Oh, me. Right! So! Anyway! Tom in JayTom is Thomas Bronson, the son of JSA member Ted Grant, aka Wildcat.
Tom and Jason have never ever interacted in canon as far as I know, as I don’t think Tom’s ever appeared outside of JSA and Jason never appeared in that book either before or after his death. BUT by the magic of winging it and Canon Has Not Definitively Contradicted Me, I think the two of them are feasibly in the same age range, so I’m going with them both being fifteen when they meet here.
Tom’s a scrappy, street smart, attitude throwing teenager with daddy issues of his own, lol, thanks to Ted’s general non-existence in his life, for most of it….and he’s also tiny, like, 5′6″ and 135 lbs even at the end of his teenage years. LMAO, I honestly don’t remember, but I think that might be the whole basis of this ship for me, or where it originated. Like, I happened across Tom’s stats as listed on one of the DC wiki sites, and was like, lol oh, he and Robin!Jason could be pint-sized punks together! And then from there, I had the inevitable thought “okay but now make them gay” and then from there I fell into my usual trap of “oh no, it was supposed to be a joke but now I’m taking it seriously and seriously pondering how it could seriously work.”
And then from there it consumed my brain and devoured my life. I swear, it was Dick/Kyle all over again. Ugh, my brain is so problematic.
So anyway, this is Tom:
He’s a werepanther, he can shapeshift into a panther form to fight, which brings up an interesting facet of his character and something I think could be really fun to play off Jason and his own issues…because Tom hates fighting. HATES it. Will run from a fight at any given opportunity rather than engage….but its not because he’s a coward, or doesn’t have heroic instincts of his own, and its not even because he’s not GOOD at fighting.
Its that he’s scared of himself, and scared of hurting whoever he’s fighting…at least more than he means to. Because he has trouble controlling his shift when in fights. His panther form just comes out in response to his own amped up levels of aggression. The fight or flight response for him is actually more like “flight or turn into a raging whirlwind of clawed and fanged fury that can’t stop won’t stop until he’s definitively won his fight….which by extension, usually means his opponent is currently bleeding out on the ground from a few dozen deep claw marks because Panther!Tom’s claws and fangs are SHARP.”
Now pair this fear of his own power with Tom’s natural belligerence and problems with authority at certain points in his life, AND his desire to follow in his hero father’s footsteps as well as his resentment and giving himself grief every time he realizes he even has that desire, because he doesn’t owe his deadbeat dad shit and can’t stand that he nevertheless admires him in a lot of ways and still feels a desire to prove himself to him…
Then pair him up with Jason during his Robin years, going through similar issues and emotions as well as a comparable dynamic with Bruce as him not dying in Ethiopia nevertheless changes nothing about the two of them likely clashing more and more over their views on how to deal with criminals and the appropriate levels of aggression when dealing with them….
And that right there, IMO, is super strong potential for a dynamic couple with a lot in common and yet occasional clashes of their own due to different opinions on which direction to go in so as to address those shared issues…but who likely would never hesitate for a second before backing each other up and presenting a united front against anyone else who tried to give one or the other shit for any reason whatsoever.
Also, I have vastly amused myself with the thought (and the occasional post here and there) of Ted and Bruce continually glowering at each other and blaming each other’s son for being a bad influence on their son, who has never done anything wrong in their life ever, CLEARLY (even if Bruce had actually just grounded Jason the day before. Whatever. Ted doesn’t need to know that).
Anyway, so that’s the JayTom I reference now and then. I’ve always maintained that Jason could really benefit from having a stronger support system of friends distinct to him and not sharing similar dynamics with any of his siblings, so then I was like, well if Jay doesn’t die, and I have him and Dick closer in this AU than they’re usually written as being, plausibly Jason would spend a lot of time at the Tower to get away from Bruce and his own fights with him.
With Dick being more than able to relate to trouble dealing with Bruce and thus happy to lend a sympathetic ear….and eventually maybe express to Bruce that it might do them both some good for Jason to make more friends his own age and have some normal routines that took him out of the house and Gotham enough that he and Bruce don’t constantly feel like they’re breathing down each other’s necks and keeping tension a constant thing between them. A little space now and then could benefit them both, give them chances to cool off after their fights and actually MISS each other before readdressing the issues.
So then I could see the Titans kinda sending out invitations/recruiting various teen heroes around Jason’s age that they’d all maybe had their eyes on for awhile as kids who could benefit from the same kind of team unity/group support that helped them so much when they were that age just a few years ago themselves.
Which leads me to where I am now which is….I still haven’t settled on a solid lineup, because I came up with too many choices, lol. Basically, my parameters were I wanted characters who could feasibly be said to be in the same age range as Jason and Tom, and didn’t have super strong associations with any other characters that would create any kind of conflict with them being on a Titans team at this point in the timeline instead. And because I’m all about my thematics, I wanted them all to have certain root issues in common that they could all bond over and actually, y’know, support each other with and through.
(The same way I think Dick’s generation of Titans actually has certain distinct themes and issues that almost all of them share and can relate to in varying ways, which I think has a lot to do with how quickly and fully they all bonded and why they created such lasting friendships and teams between them. But that’s a whole other post, lol.)
So the central shared issues I decided to focus on for Jason’s age group of Titans were: teen/young heroes from abusive homes or runaways, ones with issues and fears stemming from and regarding their own powers or tempers, etc, and misfits who were regarded warily by other or older heroes and considered potentially able to end up on either side of the hero/villain line in the sand.
Which Dick’s generation of Titans, which of course includes Raven, Kory, etc, would not be in agreement with that last part, and thus be all the more likely to recruit these specific teen heroes and be like nyah, nyah, watch how with our help and oh yeah, SUPPORT, they all become the best damn heroes that ever did heroically hero. Suck it, JLA-holes!
(And then Donna would be like, not you Diana, you know we’re cool, its just I gotta do the team solidarity thing and Dick, Garth and Roy are still being Displeased with their mentors/dads at the moment, and also we’re all kinda ticked you guys stole Wally. Btw, we’re stealing the new Green Lantern kid, because Revenge and stuff. He’s ours now, you snooze, you lose).
So, Jason’s lineup of Titans will consist of some of the following, I’m just not 100% sure which yet, because I have to whittle down the list.
1) Jason (nominally mentored by Dick, but the latter just calls it an excuse for brother bonding time and neither of them make much reference ever to having any kind of actual mentor/protégé relationship like I see the rest of Jay’s lineup having. Plus, Jason unique from the rest already has a mentor in Bruce anyway, so his situation and reasons for being part of this team aren’t quite the same from the others, especially as one of my reasons for this AU was always addressing the issues I have with Bruce’s parenting before the canon event point of Jason’s death, and like…..so like, Bruce does get better once Dick calls out some of his shit with Jason based on his own experiences with Bruce and then later Jason returns the favor by calling out Bruce for taking Dick for granted and no longer putting in the same effort connecting with his eldest and being an actual PARENT to him like he used to).
2) Tom Bronson/Tomcat (who else would act as his personal mentor other than Gar aka Beast Boy aka Changeling, the shapeshifter extraordinaire?)
3) Grant Emerson/Damage (recruited by Roy and his personal protégéand likely BFFs with Jason IMO, as I think their temperaments are complete opposites but Grant’s the kind of kid who would roll his eyes and dolefully follow his troublemaking best friend Jay into likely danger, because his power to blow things up really comes in handy with the kind of scrapes Jason gets himself into and this in turn is a really handy thing to point out in the aftermath of pulling Jason’s butt out of a scrape and then gloating but in the totally mature and “I’m much too nice to actually be gloating, you must be mistaken about what’s happening here” manner in which I see that going down. And in terms of the parameters I mentioned, Grant grew up bounced around abusive foster homes, is watched like a hawk by various groups and heroes because of the huge catastrophic potential of his powers, which he has his own fears about, and also he has no idea who his parents are either, and I imagine him and Jason going on a ‘find out who our real parents are roadtrip’ after graduation or something).
4) Ray Terrill/The Ray (potentially recruited by Kory and her personal protégé. He was briefly a member of Tim’s Young Justice team, but part of the reason he was never that close with the other members was he was a little bit older, just a couple years or so, but enough to put him squarely in Jason’s age range. Also comes from an abusive home, and spent the majority of his childhood living in complete darkness because his asshole uncle told him he had the same powers as his father which meant sunlight would be harmful to him and make him dangerous to be around. When in reality, like his dad, Ray’s powers are fueled by sunlight and he’s like a living solar battery, keeping him afraid to leave the dark was just meant to keep him passive and powerless. Even knowing his uncle lied now, Ray still has long had fears about his own powers, unable to totally shake the fears his uncle instilled in him).
5) Todd Rice/Obsidian (potentially recruited by Raven and her personal protégé. He and his twin sister Jenny-Lynn Hayden are probably a bit older than the rest of this team, but their ages aren’t definitively linked to any points in the DC timeline, so there’s no real conflict between handwaving them as aged down to be right around the same ages as the others. Todd and Jenny-Lynn are the twin children of original Green Lantern Alan Scott aka Sentinel, and the DC villainness Thorn. They grew up in separate foster homes though with Alan unaware of their existence for most of their childhoods. Todd’s childhood was notoriously rough, with him having several abusive foster parents. He’s canonically gay and mentally ill/neurodivergent, which several of his foster homes targeted him for. In addition, his shadow powers are tied to a dark dimension that’s said to prey on his mental state and led to occasional times where he’s been a villain briefly, and at all times his powers are regarded fearfully by most people and with him shunned and avoided because of them. All of which I think makes Raven an ideal mentor for him).
6) Jenny-Lynn Hayden/Jade (Todd’s twin sister, even though they didn’t grow up together for the most part. Honestly, she doesn’t share in a lot of the issues the rest of the team prospects do, and had a relatively good childhood before her powers developed and she found her brother and they started operating as heroes together. But upon learning who her brother and dad are, she’s always been committed to growing closer with them, so I think anywhere Todd goes in this AU, she’d definitely follow, and its not like the team can’t benefit from a heavy hitter like her, let alone more girls. Not totally sure who I picture as most mentoring her in specific, probably because I don’t see her as being recruited per se, so much as just going with Todd when recruited….but I’m thinking maybe Garth, actually. Garth has a lot of range and versatility with his powers and magic, which makes him ideal for mentoring someone who not only has the same powers as a Green Lantern, limited only by her imagination…..but who also might benefit from being mentored by someone who ISN’T a Green Lantern because she doesn’t share their traditional weaknesses and thus she’d be best off training with someone whose own techniques and instincts aren’t geared around weaknesses that are literally irrelevant to her powerset).
7) Courtney Mason/Anima (A metahuman runaway who was almost sacrificed by a cult before her powers kicked in….she’s also right in the same age range as Ray, Grant and Jason, and has briefly been a member of a couple Titans lineups but never for long and usually only for big event stories. But she fits the runaway/rough home environment parameter as well as fear of her own powers….she absorbs life energy from people and animals and can potentially kill them by draining too much. She also has a separate power that’s basically a connection to an other-dimensional spirit called the Animus that she can summon forth and unleash on her enemies. I’m thinking she’d make a good recruit/protégé for Jericho actually, for a number of reasons).
8) Cynthia Reynolds/Fantasia (? Maybe? Not sure yet. Not her actual codename, but her actual codename is a slur, so I’m def gonna make up a new one, I just haven’t 100% settled on what it is yet. Suck it, DC. She’s most known for being a member of Justice League Detroit along with Steel, Vibe and the Ray, but she’s the right age range to end up recruited to be a Titan here instead, like Ray. Also is a runaway from an abusive home, and often deals with mistrust and suspicion due to her illusion powers. Perfect recruit/protégé for Lilith, IMO).
9) Cisco Ramone/Vibe (Also created as a teenage hero to be part of the Justice League Detroit lineup, which makes him the right age range and he’s another runaway. The nature of his powers makes him a good fit to be a recruit/protégéof Mal Duncan/Herald).
10) Amy Allen/Bombshell (Totally self-indulgent on my part given that I basically would ignore the vast majority of her storylines and writing, which I think suck. She was in the Titans stories revolving around Tim’s generation of the team, but she was always stated to be a few years older than the rest, like in her late teens when the majority were probably sixteen, so I think she’s a good fit for this age range. Also had a crappy home life and parents, and her powers are hugely destructive in certain applications…she basically has the same powerset as Captain Atom, though she’s never had any kind of official mentor or sidekick relationship with him. Also, I think Captain Atom is an asshat and a dillhole and he sucks, but I do like his powers, so reinterpreting Amy as a character who doesn’t suck and playing around with her powers instead is solid decision making on my part and renders Captain Atom irrelevant now. I think I shall kill him. Because I can do that. Anyway, I think she doesn’t need him as a mentor but could make a good recruit/protégé for Leonid/Red Star).
11) Carla Moretti/Cinder (Odd choice, given that she’s only ever really been used as a villainous member of Deathstroke’s anti-Titans team and was easily in her twenties at the time. Pyrokinetic who happily makes bonfires out of her enemies but written with zero attempts at nuance, like a total one note villain framed as having long since abandoned her own humanity….which bugged the crap out of me, as she was given a super angsty backstory of childhood sexual abuse and that’s just ‘why she’s like this’ and I have a deep seeded loathing for asshole writers writing survivors as villains and just blaming their casual homicidal ways on their abuse while serving up said villains to just be punching bags or dominoes for the heroes to knock down on their way to the Boss Fight. So I do have inclinations towards making an actual Titan out of her, like with Amy, because surprise surprise, both these characters being written shittily and one note was the work of the same writer, shocking. So I’d just handwave her down to the right age range and have her recruited/mentored by Donna, probably…more due to me thinking Donna would be the best person to help her deal with stuff because she’s mastered the art of avoiding avoidance via having Dick Grayson as a BFF. So with them its not really because Carla needs mentoring with her powers specifically. Idk, Carla anyway you slice it I think has a lot of rage, and Donna knows what to do with that. Written right, Donna’s not a character who judges or shames a victim or survivor for being angry…she gets angry with them, and helps them find options for what to do with that now.)
12) Hero Cruz (Lesser known Titan, has a device called the Dial H device that lets him turn into a different hero with different powers depending on the setting he puts it on. Basically Ben 10, but Hero came first. Doesn’t really fit most of the parameters, other than being around the right age range, and not even sure who would make a good mentor for him though I wanna say Vic, but not totally decided yet. Mostly I just like him and think he’s underused, so whatever).
There’s also a few other candidates that I have mostly ruled out but not totally. I thought about using the aged up version of Chris Kent, and just introduce him earlier than he showed up in canon. And then Kara/Supergirl could be his mentor because I kinda handwave her into Dick’s generation of Titans anyway, even though it was the alien Matrix version of Linda Danvers that was the only Supergirl ever on the team. Whatever. She should have been a Titan all along anyway. But also Chris would fit the team well as he had an abusive childhood as well, at his dad General Zod’s hands, and again, I just like the character.
Thought of including Virgil Hawkins/Static too, even though I think he’s closer to Tim’s age range. And again, just another character I’m a fan of and think is underused, but he would definitely be an odd man out in this group because like….he comes from a happy, healthy, loving home and family, and he loves his powers. So he would constantly be just like nodding his head along while his teammates talk and like ugh that sucks, but 10/10 absolutely can not relate, my parents are awesome. Same with Natasha Irons/Steel, who really would have to be handwaved to even be in the right age range, and again has a happy loving home environment and a superhero uncle of her own so its not like she needs a Titan mentor…..but I kinda wanna see Karen Beecher/Bumblebee take her under her wing anyway, and have them be science nerds together.
Also pretty much the only reason I ruled out Connor Hawke too, as he doesn’t really match the rest of the team in any of the parameters except for feasibly being right at the upper edge of the same age range. But again, I just love the character.
So I’m probably gonna end up throwing at least one of these other characters in there anyway, lol. I do know myself).
Anyway. So that’s Jason’s lineup of Titans, or at least the candidates as they exist bouncing around in my head now. Also, they’re pretty much Team “Everyone is Gay Except For When They’re Bi.” Which, granted, is basically how I view Dick’s generation of Titans, but with them I have to be like Make It So, in my brain, whereas with this group like….canon’s actually done the work for me for the most part lol. Ray is gay, Todd Rice is gay, Courtney is bi, Hero is gay. And I can’t actually find anything confirmed Tom was stated to be gay somewhere in canon, but I SWEAR he was, like, ugh this is bugging me.
But anyway. That’s that about all of that.
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