I think as we grow up, we have to be really conscious of romanticizing the world we grew up in in order to scorn how the next generations are growing up.

Nostalgia isn't inherently bad, but especially in political spaces, be very wary of this idea that there is an Ideal Past we must Harken Back To.

It sucks to feel left behind, but such is the human condition. It isn't bad to feel nostalgic, but that doesn't mean that these new generations are inherently "lost" and "need to be saved (by you)", and I think that is very important to remember and try to be conscious of.

For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

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Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

Thoughts on Deltarune Chapter 2

I wasn't even intending to write a Deltarune post, but here we are!

Have some extended ramblings/theorizing about Undertale, Deltarune, and the role of the "Player" vs character agency.

[Warning: full spoilers for ALL routes in both Undertale and Deltarune!]

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Frisk’s Agency in Undertale

So I'm not sure how common this is nowadays (I haven't been following Undertale theories for a while), but I personally prefer the interpretation that there is no "Player" as an in-universe force in Undertale. I think it's a far more elegant story if the fourth wall isn't broken.

I'm also fond of the Narrator Chara and "Chara isn't pure evil until Murder Route teaches them to be" interpretations too.

And, of course, the third plank bridging those two is that I don't see Frisk as a just a pure, innocent cinnamon roll.

Because I like the story best when it's Frisk who chooses mercy or murder. It gives Frisk a much more complex character, if they are allowed to have the capacity for both immense kindness and immense cruelty. It even gives them an interesting implied character arc, if you take the natural progression path of True Pacifist > Murder Fun Times > Soulless Pacifist.

Just like Flowey, Frisk first tried to use their powers of Determination for good, but eventually they also grew curious and began to see the world as a game. And then they went too far and ultimately regretted it. Regretted it so much, in fact, that they were willing to sell their soul for just a chance to fix it.

After all, it's not you, the "Player," whose SOUL Chara wants. It's you, Frisk.

I also dislike the idea of an in-universe "Player" because that implies that "Frisk" is nothing but an empty shell - on ALL routes. All of those heartwarming moments in the True Pacifist route? All of the silly Flirt actions? Yeah, that's not Frisk, that's just as much the "Player" puppeting some poor kid's body as the events of the Bad Times.

Who knows what Frisk is truly like if their every action - good or ill - is controlled by some unseen, eldritch force? Now Frisk no longer has any characterization.

And given that said force overrides Frisk's agency, then isn't the "Player" evil no matter which route you take? It's become a story where they only "moral" choice is never to pick up the game at all. Hrm.

Anyway, but that's all Undertale. Which brings me to...

What the heck is going on in Deltarune?

Unlike Frisk=the Red SOUL in Undertale, we don't seem to control Kris=the Red SOUL in Deltarune. The game repeatedly underlines that the player only controls the Red SOUL, not Kris.

(Though, with stuff like the sound of the bathroom faucet only being audible when Kris's actual body is nearby - it seems like even when separated, the Red SOUL may still be perceiving through Kris's other senses besides sight...?)

With Spamton's dialogue and Kris's reaction after the non-Weird NEO fight, there's also a lot more emphasis in Deltarune of Kris (and the rest of the party!) being puppeted by some other force. And that's on top of all the stuff in the first chapter highlighting Kris/the Red SOUL's lack of agency.

Because of all those hints, Deltarune seems to be much more explicitly pointing toward that dark interpretation of Undertale - that the "Player"/Red SOUL is removing Kris's agency, regardless of route.

Indeed, I'm somewhat intrigued by the possibility that we/the Red SOUL might be forcing Kris to act nice just as much as we force them to act cruel. The way that Kris deliberately removes the Red SOUL in order to do some very suspicious actions might support that. As do some comments in Chapter 1, like characters in the post-Dark World walkaround noting how Kris is being less weird and more inquisitive than usual. Maybe Kris is the Knight and the Red SOUL is possessing them to undo their evil actions. Maybe the real Kris doesn't want to be friends with Susie and Ralsei at all!

But taking that interpretation to such an extreme also doesn't quite fit. Why does Kris slash the tires on Toriel's car? The only reason I can think of is that they want to keep Susie at their house. And why does Kris create the Dark World in their house? Is Kris creating the fountains because they want to have fun with friends? Especially right after the chapter emphasized how great the Dark World adventures were, that seems very likely.

There are also some smaller details too, of Kris interpreting the Red SOUL's input with their own spin (like saying things sarcastically), or of Kris chatting in a friendly way with Ralsei which the player/SOUL can't influence.

So, I'm pretty sure that even outside of the Red SOUL's control, Kris genuinely does like their friends.

Meanwhile, there were a lot of hints this chapter that Something Bad happened to Kris, Noelle, Dess, and Asriel when they went exploring in the forest by the graveyard. Most likely, they went into that ominous bunker south of the town. Is that incident related to Kris’s current strangeness?

And then, and THEN, there's the Snow Mercy route. That route seems to imply that the Red SOUL is both evil, and very much not Kris. Noelle says Kris isn't like themself, that their voice changes strangely, and she can still hear the creepy voice even when Kris is downed.

How to make sense of this all?

A Theory on Kris and the Red SOUL

One idea is that as scary and zombie-like as Kris looks without the SOUL, they're probably a nice, if lonely kid who desperately wants friends after their big brother went to college. (And possibly after something traumatic happened to them/their neighbor.) They're creating the Dark Worlds for the sake of fun and escapism.

But the Red SOUL puts an end to Kris's happy fantasies. Indeed, if the Red SOUL gives up, "the world is covered in darkness." So without the Red SOUL, would Kris simply keep creating fountains...? (What ARE the fountains, why can Kris and theoretically any Lightener create them?)

Maybe in the normal route, the Red SOUL is trying to gently help Kris move on and accept reality in some way. At the very least, I suspect Ralsei is working toward this goal.

But in that case... that's a pretty strange way for the Red SOUL to go about it, forcibly taking control of Kris to the point that the kid notices and seems to greatly resent it.

But what if the Red SOUL didn't have a choice about this arrangement either?

After all, the Red SOUL's customized vessel was discarded at the start of Chapter 1... and it was placed into Kris instead.

Here's a question: will Kris die if they're without a SOUL for too long?

Because there are an awful lot of moments in these games where characters break free of something they are bound to, but it doesn't end well: -Spamton collapses when his strings are cut. -The Darkeners can move freely outside their origin world for a while, but eventually turn to statues if they stay in another world. -Regardless of whether Berdly removes the Queen’s wires himself, he's exhausted and unable to fight any more after being under her control. -And when Kris takes the Red SOUL out of their body, their movements become slow and clumsy. Like it's a struggle for them to move at all.

Meanwhile in Undertale, post-Pacifist Asriel could maintain his form to say goodbye, but without SOUL(s), he inevitably returns to being Flowey.

So here's a theory: Kris died and/or lost their original soul. Perhaps due to some action/inaction on Noelle's part in the exploration incident. And as a last-ditch resort to keep them alive, the Red SOUL was somehow implanted in Kris.

(Also maybe Dess died/went missing at the same time...?)

And now, the Red SOUL the only thing keeping Kris around. 

But just like in Undertale, it seems like Deltarune SOULs have wills of their own.

Which means Kris's current state is similar to the Chara-Asriel fusion, or Omega Flowey, or even Frisk-Chara. Control of the body is shared. The difference is that instead of the SOUL we play representing the original owner/will of the body, this time the SOUL we're playing as is the intruder.

Essentially, this time around we are playing the role of the Chara-equivalent instead of the Frisk-equivalent!

(Though whether Kris themself is more of Chara or Frisk I’ll leave to other theorists...)

Anyway, while Kris likely wishes to be rid of the SOUL and dislikes this whole body sharing arrangement, they know they can't survive without it. And perhaps Kris being in a partially soulless state might explain why they do questionable stuff like creating Dark Worlds and slashing their mom's car tires in order to play with their friends. (Again, see also: Asriel/Flowey.)

But when the Red SOUL and Kris are in alignment, things go okay. The Red SOUL suggests commands, but Kris is willing to follow and seems to enjoy being with Susie and Ralsei.  

Let’s Talk About Snow Mercy

It's when the Red SOUL and Kris aren't in alignment... well. That seems to be what's happening in the Snow Mercy route. That kind of situation sure didn't go so hot with Frisk and Chara in Undertale, so I doubt this will end nicely for Kris and the Red SOUL either. At the very least, Kris seems to have been visibly upset after what happened with Noelle in this route.

(By the way, there are two other moments in Chapter 2 when Susie asks if Kris is okay - first after the normal Spamton NEO fight and subsequent discussion of what it meant and second after she and Kris approach the bunker.

Three different moments, but Kris appears to react similarly. Are all of these things related? The bunker, Kris being puppeted, and the events of the Snow Mercy route?)

Meanwhile, here’s a contrast. Undertale's Murder Route seemed to exist for the sake of curiosity and power - either the "Player" or Frisk's desires, whichever interpretation you subscribe to. And the changes to the world were all logical consequences of that - because of the Fallen Child's rampage, friendly NPCs disappear, major characters fight you more seriously, etc.

But the actions in Snow Mercy are... weirdly specific, weirdly unpredictable. It doesn't come across as a simple power trip. Instead, Snow Mercy is a bunch of really bizarre actions that feel even more mysterious to the player as they are to Noelle and Kris. I sure wouldn't have guessed that backtracking to the trash heap and freezing a bunch of enemies would lead to new items spontaneously appearing and then giving Noelle access to a scary new spell. It's like something straight out of a creepypasta!

The overall tone that comes across to me is that the Red SOUL seems to know what it's doing, even while the player is kept in the dark. And given Noelle's responses, it almost seems like the SOUL is trying to remind her of events/actions from her past, events which are obviously unknown to the player. All of which leads me to think that the Red SOUL has motives and goals of its own... so just like Undertale, this probably isn't a situation of the "Player" being a fourth wall-breaking force either.

The Red SOUL is its own character.

And I'm certainly curious to find out more about them!

What in the heckin' heck is Hanji's backstory? -- A Meta

At this rate, Yams is never going to tell us.

I guess it may not be all that important to the story, but then again, knowing his writing style, he really enjoys leaving mysteries, and it won't surprise me in the slightest if this series ends with a lot of the mysteries being unsolved.  Hanji's backstory will likely be one of them.

As a disclaimer, I use she/her pronouns for Hanji, but Isayama specifically has stated that Hanji's gender is irrelevant, so please feel free to use whatever pronouns you'd like. If Hanji was real, I don't think she'd care, either...

Anyway, I want to start this meta laying out the facts we already know about Hanji BEFORE the year 845.

--Hanji had joined the Corps for ??? reason, and had a thirst to kill the Titans mercilessly, just like Eren at the start of the story.  She was “fueled by insecurity and hate.”  However, she kicked a Titan's head and was fascinated by how light it was, which began her obsession with the Titans from a scientific standpoint.

--Hanji does not bathe regularly and doesn't care about hygiene.  Apparently Levi has to knock her out to get her to bathe.

--Hanji doesn't care about gender.  Or at least, Isayama said it doesn't matter to the story.  In a very early interview, he stated that Hanji was female but had moments of masculinity, which means she's gender-fluid or nonbinary.

--Hanji was in the Corps before Levi, Isabel, and Farlan joined.

--Hanji has known Erwin, Mike, and others for a little while--it's a quick little thing, but in episode one of season one, Hanji is shown to be in the same squad as Erwin when Shardis was the Commander.

--Hanji has anger issues.  Isayama has stated that she is the scariest character when angered, and is also a different person with and without her glasses/goggles.

Aaaaand that's it.

Thanks, Yams.

Well, if the Wings of Counterattack game is to be believed, Hanji was also a super cute kid who was always kind of androgynous and messy-haired and had bad vision. Super cute.  I love.

But that's really it.  Hanji didn't even get a character song, despite Romi Park having the singing voice of a fallen angel that's going to drag me straight into hell where there are hot jazz musicians and Satan serves us all whiskey on the rocks.  Did y'all know she released a jazz/pop album?  It's fire and you can't stop me from thinking about Hanji being able to sing like that.

...I'm getting off track.

ANYWAY.

Compared to many other recurring characters in the series, Hanji has a very limited amount of backstory.  She's never even drawn as younger, even in the panel we get of her kicking the Titan's head--if you recall, it's just a dark scribble with a scary-looking grin.

That being said, Isayama has indeed been dropping bread crumbs here and there with clues throughout the series that can lead us to a conclusion about Hanji's past.

Where was Hanji born and raised?

I think it's fair to say that Hanji was not raised with wealth.

It's hard to draw conclusions about her exact family, but considering her being totally chill with not bathing for weeks and being a little bit of a...gremlin, she probably grew up somewhere in Maria, or in the slums of someplace in Rose. However, I tend to lean more toward Maria.  

For me, it's not really an issue of just her hygiene--it's also her social skills.  Again, we know ZILCH about her parents/guardians, so they could have been weirdos, but I think also that Hanji just didn't have the proper upbringing to gain boundaries like normal people.  She gets up in people's faces, she can be very physical/grabby, and she can be argumentative and stubborn to a fault.  I think it's fair to sometimes call her actions childish, though some of them also are symptoms of something like ADHD.

I want to argue, however, that she is just eccentric.  I think it's part of who she is and was raised to be--or perhaps it's from a lack of attention.  

She also just doesn't care about a lot of things that people raised in high-status upbringings would care about.  She literally throws on her uniform jacket over her pajamas when called out to see Pastor Nick's death scene.  Showering/bathing every day is not a priority,but it's also not something that bothers her.  For instance, I'm incredibly busy, but I shower every day because anxiety dictates it to be so, but I also just enjoy being clean.  Hanji is super busy and could make time to shower/bathe more than she doesn't, but she doesn't see it as a priority and never once is it mentioned that she pays any mind to it.  

Regarding her gender, I wonder if she was an only child.  It's possible that there were expectations put on her to be more of a “lady,” but she was much more concerned with studying and learning.  

That's just speculation, of course.  Some people just are the way that they are.

However, I think she was an only child for a couple of other reasons, too.

First, I think that economically, if she did grow up in Maria, one child was all that her parents could afford. There are also just not a lot of people in the walled world with siblings; it's just not very convenient to add to an already-starving population, I suppose.  

But also, I think her love for studying might be connected to this.  I know that, as a kid growing up with older brothers MUCH older than me and not a lot of friends, I loved to read to the point that I owned my own encyclopedias and actually read them. A lot of kids who grow up lonely/isolated tend to do the same.  

Especially if she was already such an extroverted kid, I think she'd need the stimulation.

Why did Hanji hate the Titans?

It's possible to think about this from a couple of different angles, but there's one that I prefer over the other.

First, we could consider that Hanji perhaps lost someone she cared about to the Titans.  Maybe her parents joined the military and were killed.  Maybe her sibling, or aunt or uncle, or grandparents.  

Second, we could consider that she valued freedom and independence, and that she considered the Titans to be something that stood in the way of that.

Personally, I think the second one is more likely.  Of course, it's possible that both happened!  We really don't know.  

However, I lean toward the second option because of Hanji's personality, and the little we know about her when she joined the Corps.  She was a bit unhinged (as all interesting characters are), and she was very violent.  This tends to be a characteristic of people who are forced to keep everything in for a long amount of time.

In psychology, there are two categories of people:  externalizers and internalizers.  For instance, if a child endures trauma, and their reaction is to lash out violently (physically or verbally), or to become selfish and attention-seeking, that is considered externalizing.  On the other hand, if the child endures the trauma and then keeps it locked up, considers the abuser to be the “real” victim, learns self-blame, etc., then that is internalizing.  

For instance, Erwin is probably an internalizer, when we take into account his father's death and the trauma he endured because of it.  Armin is also an internalizer.

Hanji, however, is probably an externalizer.  She shows a lot of the signs of someone who has perhaps undergone something traumatic/repeated traumatic events and has lashed out as a sign of “dealing with it.”  It's a sign of emotional immaturity, so it makes sense that that's what Hanji was doing as a young'n.  She's also quite empathetic, which could add fuel to any flames, and she's also proven to be a skilled manipulator.

What was the trauma?  I think it was the feeling of isolation.

One thing that really is evident to me is how goddamned EXTROVERTED Hanji is.  If we have the scale E to I, Hanji is probably one of the farthest if not THE farthest over on the E side of ALL of the characters in this story.  She likes to talk, she verbalizes everything, she enjoys people, and she clearly gains energy from social situations.

I have a feeling that Hanji has always been a bright kid, and that perhaps she was understimulated as a result of growing up not only in a poor community, but being surrounded by this big-ass walls and constantly being told, “No, you can't go outside.  You'll be eaten alive by Titans.”

She would very naturally turn into this teenager/young adult with a thirst for absolutely destroying the things that kept her locked up in the first place.

Again, I think either situation is likely, but I have the feeling that it goes deeper than just getting revenge for someone's death. Something tells me that Hanji has been looking for answers to deep questions for a long time.

So, Hanji joins the military.  Then what?

Well, from the hints that Yams has dropped, Hanji met Erwin, Mike, Nile, and perhaps others at some point.  I don't think that Hanji was in the same class as them, save for maybe Moblit, but I think she probably knew them. This part is a bit hazy, considering that we don't know what age Erwin and company were when they joined the military.  Mike is canonically older than them all, pushing 40 years old (like a fine wine) at around 850.  Erwin is supposedly in his late 30's, and I believe even Levi is older than Hanji, which would put her around 30 at in the year 850.  

Now, if we think about when Levi entered the Survey Corps, which I believe was in the year 846...

Hanji was not a new recruit that year, and she already seemed to have a pretty close friendship with Moblit.  She was also more emotionally mature.

In other words, Hanji had probably already kicked the head of that Titan by the time Maria fell.

That means, it had to have been before Shiganshina/Maria fell that she had a change of heart.  

During all of this, Mike and Erwin were also in the Corps, and they probably witnessed this change.

However, despite it being explicitly mentioned in the manga, this is the hardest part to flesh out about Hanji's backstory.

We at least know the details of her becoming a Squad Leader specifically focused on the science of Titans, thanks to the OVA for Ilse's Journal.  It was thanks to her curiosity, emotional maturity, and a bit of dumb luck that it happened.  

But before this, we don't know much else about her time in the military, and it's hard to discern anything without knowing details about the others, too.  

I know that there are snippets of details in smartpasses (is that what they're called?) that reveal that she, Mike, and Erwin were friends, etc., but that really doesn't give us much to go on. Much of it, unfortunately, remains a mystery.

However, there is one last thing I want to point out:

In the first episode of season two, after Hanji lets Nick down instead of yeeting him off of the wall, she mentions “I haven't felt this way since I first went outside of the walls.  Talk about scary.”

There are many people who interpret this line as her fear of the Titans, but I think it's fear of her own anger.  She was ready to brutally kill someone who could have otherwise provided valuable information, just because of her pure rage.  

I think this moment, along with a couple of others (kicking down the table and saying “it was a roach,” for instance), drive home some of the assumptions from earlier in this meta.  Consider the torture scene and her actions compared to Levi's.  Levi grew up in an environment where violence was used as a form of communication.  You don't see him saying a lot as he punches Sannes over and over.  He doesn't stick around to talk to the men once they're returned to their jail cells.  

Hanji is, however, a bit too eager to rip the nails and teeth out of this guy (partially as revenge for Pastor Nick's death, I'm certain).  She rips into them verbally as well, as they sit defeated in their jail cell.  Her anger is a terrifying force.

So what's the point?

Well, there's not really one.

I just would like to know more about one of my favorite fictional characters of all time.

Is it important to the story?  Well, not necessarily.

But what if this backstory is more than I wrote here?  What if it's something quite wild or disturbing?  What if it digs further into the fundamentals of humanity?  Was she abused?  Was she bullied?  Is she just psychologically disturbed?  

Like I said, we may never know, and at this point (2019/09), the series seems to be coming to an end.

I personally think it's really too bad.  The story is a character-driven one, so to leave so much mystery around Hanji's past is very curious.  Hanji tends to get shoved to the side a lot (though not as much as some other MCs), so it’s pretty frustrating to see that even the creator isn’t divulging more information...

Then again, I guess it does make writing fics easier, right...?

𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑬𝑻.

repost, don’t reblog

basics !

FULL NAME. August Wesley Wilder NICKNAME. Gus. Gus the Grizzly. GENDER. Cis-Male (He/Him) HEIGHT. 6′9 AGE. unknown, physically appears around 55-60 years old. ZODIAC. taurus sun / libra moon / virgo rising. earth sign dominant chart babey!! SPOKEN LANGUAGES. fluent English, Spanish, and French. has picked up a little Dakota-Siouan from frequent run-ins with the Ghost Nation over the years. he’s not really fluent in it, just knows enough to talk himself out of trouble lmao.

physical characteristics !

HAIR COLOR. salt and pepper grey, with natural black undertones.  EYE COLOR. light hazel that fade to a deep forest green around the edge of the iris (central heterochromia) in both eyes. SKIN TONE. he’s white but he’s very sun-weathered and darkly tanned, with lots of sun spots and freckles all over his body. BODY TYPE. broad, big, bold and bear-ish. just the dictionary definition of a Gentle Giant. well, mostly gentle unless pushed. ACCENT. southern appalachian drawl. VOICE. deep, husky, and gravelly yet nothing short of soothing. his voice claim is Colter Wall. DOMINANT HAND. he’s ambidextrous! POSTURE. Gus is always generally seen standing tall and proud. he’s definitely a man who’s comfortable in his body, and the stark juxtaposition of his formidable physique and utterly gentle nature often catches the townsfolk and westworld guests by surprise.  SCARS. deep, jagged scars that run diagonally across his back and over his biceps. supposedly a bear gave him the scars when he fought one off a young boy. in reality, he fought a guest off one of the teenage hosts in one of his first loops, and said guest struck August down with a searing hot fire poker from his forge while the young android ran for safety. that was the first and last time Gus was ever killed during his loop, and he has rarely been updated since. TATTOOS. he has some beautifully intricate tattoo sleeves on both arms, each image representing one of his favorite western tall tales that he often retells to his forge guests (especially crowds of kids). Gus actually gave himself the tattoos to hide the scars on his arms (the ones he could reach anyway), and the westworld writers never corrected the feature since they found them aesthetically pleasing and appropriate for his host role as both a blacksmith and self-proclaimed cultural mythologist / historian of the town.  MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). we stan a sweet old android with dimples and laugh lines. and those bright eyes of his visibly twinkle when he smiles!

childhood !

PLACE OF BIRTH. Technically? The Westworld Mesa Hub. But for his written backstory, his birthplace is unknown.   HOMETOWN. Hinton, West Virginia. a small railroad and coal town that sits at the edge of the New River in the Appalachian Mountains. when Gus was a boy, the town was essentially split between “trash” and “old money”. Gus came from the run-down side of the tracks, raised as a laboring blacksmith’s son, but he had a happy childhood. FIRST WORDS. “god dammit” after hearing his father shout it when he struck his thumb with a hammer. Almanzo found it hilarious, but also spent days trying to get the baby to say something else, ANYTHING else because the town population at the time was made of a few hundred southern baptists. suffice to say, Almanzo’s efforts were fruitless, and little baby August shouted it to the world in the middle of that sunday’s church service. his hometown community loved him dearly, but he’d always been labeled a little troublemaker ever since. and he was quite the prankster in his youth. all harmless of course. Gus hardly has a cruel bone in his body, but won his peer’s attentions and affections by being a bit of a class clown. SIBLINGS. none that he knows of. PARENTS. Almanzo “Manny” Wilder. should be noted that Almanzo is not August’s biological father. Gus was dropped at the door of his forge as a baby, and the identity of August’s biological family remains a complete mystery to both him and his caretaker. Almanzo played himself off as his biological dad for some time, but once Gus shot up to be about twice his old man’s size at age fifteen, well. he kind of figured it out on his own. he never resented Manny for it, though. in his mind, he is his real father. his only father. since he was the only one who was ever there for him. PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT.  Almanzo was a very attentive surrogate father and loved Gus with everything he had. Gus always had a sharp mind and vivid imagination as a kid, and Manny told him time and time again that his brain was far too big for a place like Hinton, always urging him to apply to those fancy universities along the coast or over in England and become a novelist or engineer. August looked up to his father however, and wanted to grow up to be just like him, and therefore was not only Almanzo’s child, but also his apprentice. He stayed in Hinton until Manny died from lung cancer, and by which August was about 25 years old or so and a freshly professional smith. He took over the family business, sought to pave his own way out west, and has been tending to the needs of the people in Sweetwater ever since.

adult life !

OCCUPATION. a blacksmith and self-proclaimed “cultural mythologist”. fancy way of saying he really loves to wow kids with the tall tales of the west. CURRENT RESIDENCE. his forge that sits on the edge of town. CLOSE FRIENDS. well he spends a lot of time with his two pets, Teddy Bear and Sundance Kid. they’re about the closest friends he has. oh he cares about the other hosts of Sweetwater, dearly! and he craves human connection something fierce. but his work (and his emotional walls) keeps him a bit too busy to really... dive deep in any of those friendships. sadly. RELATIONSHIP STATUS. single, although was married to @forgedwest​ in a past loop. FINANCIAL STATUS. he’s definitely not filthy rich, but growing up poor taught him to be good with his money and while he doesn’t have a luxurious life by any means, he has all he needs. lower class but not at all bothered by it.  DRIVER’S LICENSE. N/A. CRIMINAL RECORD. a few bar fights, but he was never guilty of starting them. just ending them.  VICES. if you ask August, he’ll say he sleeps in just a little too long on Sunday mornings, rolling and smoking hashish to unwind. if you ask me, i say don’t buy him more than three amaretto sours if you wanna have a drink with him. he can generally control himself and hold his liquor, but he can get to a point where he won’t stop lmao. luckily, he’s a happy drunk. also enjoys cigars, but smokes them more for celebration of special occasions. 

sex and romance !

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. bisexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION. biromantic  PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE. submissive  |  dominant  |  switch   PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. Submissive  |  dominant  |  switch ( he’s primarily a service top ) LIBIDO. average, i guess? i wouldn’t say his libido is anything insane, otherwise he’d REALLY be suffering being the lonely bachelor he is lmao. but he likes sex! TURN ONS. he loves a good sense of humor and has a weak spot for well-meaning troublemakers  TURN OFFS. people who take advantage of others. that’s a broad category, but it’s a personal thing. LOVE LANGUAGE. gift-giving, physical intimacy, protection and quality time! he’s not so good at expressing his feelings with words, but you will absolutely know if he fancies you because his actions will show it. you will NEVER wonder about his intentions. the old boy wears his heart on his sleeve. RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES. despite how obviously loving he is, August has a tendency to assume people don’t want to be with him. one could argue it’s likely rooted in an abandonment issue of some kind. Almanzo was a plenty attentive and very caring dad, but the knowledge that one was orphaned and dropped off on someone’s front step is would be a little jarring when just about anyone hears it. though it’s likely less so much that, and more so how his peers in school were downright TERRIFIED him just because of his intimidating physique alone (despite his kind nature). he was taken advantage of a lot in his youth due to just how naturally people pleasing he can be to compensate for his scary appearance, and his kindness was therefore mistaken often for stupidity. its a compulsion that he’s gotten better about controlling as he grew older, and is now much more discerning re: who deserves the clothes off his back. but little insecurities regarding it remains, and as such his assumption that no one harbors affections for him has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. August is very sweet and outgoing, plenty handsome, great with kids and would make a very loving husband and lifetime best friend! but he doesn’t exactly make himself romantically available.

miscellaneous !

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG. “ take me home, country roads ” by john denver. shocker, i know. HOBBIES TO PASS TIME. he’s a blacksmith by occupation, but August can make just about anything with any material you can think of. he’s a jack of all trades type, and spends a lot of his rare spare time gardening, sketching while he’s people-watching, writing stories, blowing glass, and creating little animals and character figurines from his stories out of hide / wood/ metal. the latter are gifts that he gives to any young park guests who come to the forge. he also likes playing his guitar or banjo and singing to himself on warm summer nights. MENTAL ILLNESSES. i mean. everything truly traumatic that ever happened to him was basically wiped clean from his slate so u kno. none. for now lmfao.  PHYSICAL ILLNESSES. N/A. LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. right-brained, i guess. he can be plenty logical, but he’s definitely a creative type!  FEARS. there is a Vague Fear that he will die alone but it’s not pertinent enough to cause him a lot of anxiety. because he’s generally pretty independent. more so, it’s just a source of intense longing when he’s got a crush, but then he never actually acts on it. also, he’s got a bit of a fear of vulnerability. mostly because his kindness has been used against him plenty and no, it has not made him any less kind, but he doesn’t want that kindness tied into real emotional potency and then turned against him. vulnerability and intimacy also come with the pre-conceived knowledge of loss, because relationships ( be they romantic, friendships, family etc ) either end in break ups or death. and yes, it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, but that doesn’t make August’s unease re: loss any less real. SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL. hmmm. i’ll say about an 6 or 7 out of 10? he’s plenty sure of himself and his abilities, he just keeps himself humble like the well-mannered mountain boy he is. VULNERABILITIES. best way to hurt him is to strike anyone close to him. cares WAY MORE about others. though on a kind of....emotional note? personal note? idk. he’s quite aware of how he’s perceived to be a bit “simple-minded” all due to his accent. it’s something that Gus will get defensive about if you poke at him for it. not out of pride, but out of love for the people and culture from where he hails. he LOVES Appalachia deeply, and while he admires the west for all of its available adventure and promise, the people of the Blue Ridge Mountains remain the kindest he’s ever known. don’t talk bad about them, he’ll be quick to knock you into next tuesday. 

tagged by: @noiseofthunder​​ thank u grunk u always tag me in the Quality Shit (n this really helped me finally flesh some character basics out) tagging:  @forgedwest​ bc i’m the worst friend n force erin to do every dash game ever. also @copiesofme​​ @defactomatriarch​ @bountyman​ & thieves are valid.

Hello world.

So here we are, we are six weeks in to a covid 19 lockdown in Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

I’m teetering on the edge of - do I actually prefer this? The world is healing itself and life has slowed down so much. My brain says that I should be alarmed at the stand still that the globe has come to, but my actual personal feelings collide with that because despite the fact that I miss my family members very much. I think we as a family unit are built for this situation. It’s not that different to our life previous to this pandemic. My son is so accustomed to being acrophobic that I guess so are we. My children although disturbed by lack of physical contact with other humans, seem to be actually enjoying the whole “stay home” situation.

I guess I’ve tried to be pretty laid back about the whole thing, as not to cause them anymore stress and worry than is necessary. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s presented huge challenges for me, and my husband. Also the children individually. My eldest, my son who is technically an adult, he is nineteen, has autism and adhd with Tourette’s. He had only recently gone back to full time education after a break from it for other reasons.. all be it traumatic and had been a nightmare for us the last couple of years. He has now been thrown into isolation after he had spent a year trying to stop self isolating. He is driven by routine and had only just begun to return to some kind of normal. This has hit him hard because it confuses all he’s been told about what we humans are supposed to do. Go out and be sociable and try to get out into the world and spend time with others while learning life skills. What a gear change. Without any notice we are to stay at home. This has brought anxiety and stress and anger and confusion. My oldest daughter is a bright and academically driven young lady. With a strong sense of purpose and is generally a happy and kind person. She is on the governments shielded list. So this has had a much bigger impact on her. She’s unable to leave the house even for a walk. I think over the last six weeks the realisation of reality has dawned on her slowly. School return if and when it happens, may not apply to her as it may to her friends. That subject has been an emotional rollercoaster. One day the freedom seems such a blessing, sleeping in, working when she feels like it. The next day the loneliness has crept in like a dark force overnight and she wakes up in a panic about her life having been ruined. Doubled with feelings of hopelessness and a sense of being lost. A huge amount of independent learning is required from her to make progress with academic education at home. As we all know, self motivation is not an easy attribute to acquire. It’s become clear that what drives her ambition to do well is the feedback and response she has from teachers and her peers at school. I obviously play a huge role in this too, although I think it’s an amalgamation of all that keeps her cogs turning.

So a new dawn has broken and we are making steps forward in trying to assemble some sort of routine where she can feel accomplished learning at home. I also have a nine year old daughter. She is bright and funny with a an abundance of mischief rolled in! She has significant needs to meet. She is undiagnosed but I’m convinced she has hyperactivity and a host of sensory issues and is completely demand avoidant. This renders home schooling a mine field. She will not play ball. I usually manage her behaviour by trying to facilitate the tasks I need her to do. Instructions are met with absolute stand off and rebellion. So she’s needed 1:1 attention to actually do any set school homework. That’s on the days I successfully get her to attempt any without a meltdown. I then have my bright nearly five year old daughter, she is a slightly feral wildling with a heart of gold. Happy mostly to swerve in and out of learning and I’m happy with that. She is clever and I have no doubt she will be able to catch up on anything we miss. However missing her new friends from school is taking its toll. She is a little lonely. But with the devices we have we manage by FaceTiming a few friends frequently too keep her spirits high. I wonder how many other parents are feeling like me? This comes with its challenges to face, like trying to get out for a walk and being a afraid to be outside. With others carrying on seemingly as normal whilst we follow the rules to the letter. Struggling to get shopping in the online war for delivery slots. Managing income or severe lack of! Trying to keep some normality and a clean home! Also personal relationships and having no time for ourselves or our partners. Leaving us together around the clock with lack of decent sleep as my children are allergic to that. It’s a huge undertaking to manage and stay sane! Crazy times we say, oh yes, but in my home probably not as topsy turvy as one may expect. I was thinking the other day - in my head I remembered that Disney movie Wall E where the humans on a space station who had fled to space from a broken Earth, were just slumped on this kind of hoverboard seat whilst computers did everything for them. I imagined that if this kind of thing were to happen in the future, that is probably exactly how humans would end up. As currently my kids spend 80% of their time online and gaming. Watching life through a lens. The next step would be letting technology take over our physical activities. Isn’t that a scary thought. I have this terrible way of overthinking everything. In these desperate times we as humans have immediately turned to technology to help instead of life skills, teaching outside and being essentially human. That does fill me with worry. The world I grew up in is gone. This one seems to show that we are destined to rely on technology and others than being self sufficient. It’s made me want to teach my kids how to grow their own food and cook good food from natural ingredients. Taking the time to teach them real life skills. I have decided that is my way forward for us. To learn as much about life in this “Gap year” as possible. To enjoy my children while I have them with me. To teach them to embrace the slowing down of life around us. As they’re programmed to move and learn to fast in today’s world. We all need to learn to live in each day we’re blessed with. For now I’m signing off. With a positive and hopeful mood. Picking out the positives and riding the waves of the negatives. Embracing all the stimming and chaos swirling around me -that is my kids!

Check in soon. Stay safe and enjoy each day x

hey so what did you mean by damian and jons "relationship not working" if he was in character?

I just don’t feel like under normal circumstances that Damian and Jon would become friends.

Damian has had friends before, but I never read anything with Colin to vouch for how that’d go, but in the build up to Super Sons, Damian kidnaps and scares the crap out of Jon. He clearly doesn’t like Jon at all, that is the whole dynamic for those first few issues, but then they act like in the first issue of Super Sons that Damian would follow Jon around all day.

The build up was already terribly written. They completely ignore how Jon would most likely absolutely refuse to be near Damian after all of that, but then Superman and Batman make them work together, which feels like such bad parenting. Superman is a good dude, why in the world would Superman let his own son be near someone who just kidnapped him? There’s the idea that they’re going to be Superman and Batman some day so they have to work together, but wouldn’t it make more sense for Damian to work out his personal problems first? It’s not like Jon wouldn’t hang out with Damian if Damian wasn’t a horrifying personality.

They go from hating each other to being okay with each other instantly by the time the first Super Sons issue came out. A bit of fighting, but like, they’re hanging out. That’s such a huge stretch that I have no idea why people considered it good writing.

It’s like the writers knew they wouldn’t work, but they really wanted them to be friends, so they just broke their character to make it happen.

Jon may have super powers to fend off Damian, but as a personality they probably wouldn’t get along for Jon to be okay being near Damian.

Damian stalked him for a whole day and broke into Jon’s house.

Jon already had a possibly traumatizing day when he got kidnapped by Damian. So why would he be okay with Damian stalking him and breaking into his house to confront him in his room?

So the whole relationship makes no sense.

There’s suppose to be this whole “oh Damian’s growing as a person”, but there’s nothing worth-wild to make that happen. It just suddenly happens. Damian goes from hating Jon, and Jon being terrified of him, to them getting along and having adventures.

Damian suddenly getting along with Jon enough to do stuff isn’t what character development is.

It’s ignoring his actual character. It ignores dynamics. It ignores the story. It ignores logic.

Character development has to work and make sense and feel logical for a character for it to function properly.

Suddenly making a character do an out of character thing, that’s out of character because it’s a nicer thing, isn’t what character development is.

It’s what bad writing is.

They forced it because they didn’t want to admit it was a really dumb idea to put these two characters together like they’re good friends.

If I can recall right they had the most forced page and obvious symbolism in existence were they’re like “do you think we’d get along” while in the shape of yin and yang, and right away it just feels wrong. They just hated each other, through out the whole forced adventure they hated each other, and now they’re pretending that maybe deep down they get along when it clearly wasn’t the case before. Damian wouldn’t kidnap Jon if he thought he was okay, and there was nothing to really change his mind, because Damian is a naturally stubborn character regardless. Jon got kidnapped and threatened by Damian, he has no real reason to assume that “yeah I could be friends with this guy”. Damian put Jon through the same experience Jon would go through with a super villain”. Realistically, the kid would be horrified of Damian.

Then they just ignore that moment anyway, because Damian’s still doing scary stuff, but Jon just ignores all of it for plot convenience, cuz realistically these two characters shouldn’t get along at all. If they cared about actually using logic, then they’d realize Jon wouldn’t hang out with a terrifying person that does terrifying things all the time.

Perhaps they were trying to do an opposite attracts thing like Tim and Kon, like how Tim was the orderly, rule-abiding, geek, and Conner was the rebellious, rule breaking, cool dude, but that works a bit more, because when Young Justice happened Tim almost felt obligated to lead the team because compared to them he was the only one that really could. They didn’t become friends immediately, that wouldn’t work at all. Why would Tim hang out with Conner in the beginning? They butted heads all the time. They just actually grew as people and learned to trust each other after trying to work together as a team, it was beautiful.

There could be some kind of similar thing they were trying with the Super Sons. Maybe Damian feels an obligation to keep Jon in-control, but isn’t that what Jon’s dad and mom is for? Jon already has someone to do that for him. Damian isn’t exactly orderly himself. Damian is the rule breaker. That doesn’t work.

So you have a farm boy who was kidnapped and threatened by a borderline anti-social guy. The farm boy has no reason to want to hang out with the borderline anti-social guy. The borderline anti-social guy has made it quite clear he does not want to hang out with the farm boy, and he adamantly dislikes the farm boy.

Their personalities conflict in ways that make it so it doesn’t work.

They have to break their characters to put them together.

Nothing that made Tim and Conner work was there with Damian and Jon. The opposites attract thing isn’t there for Damian and Jon to work. They just shoved them together because they were written by the same writer a lot, and they were around the same age, that’s literally about it.

At a very basic, subatomic level, their whole entire relationship is nothing but contrived, because there’s nothing their that works if they were actually in-character during their interactions.

If they were trying to pull something about how Damian’s secretly lonely and wanted friends, that’s already pretty out of character, but it’s possibly a thing that could work, but Damian has no reason to want Jon as a friend besides Batman wanting him to get along with him. That doesn’t sound like a reason Damian would have. He blatantly could care less about Jon, and then suddenly he does. I’m also pretty dang sure him being lonely is why he reformed the Teen Titans. Further showing he doesn’t have an actual reason to want to hang out with Jon if that’s what that was.

There’s better odds that if Damian was going to get a friend, that he would find someone more similar to him. I can’t imagine Damian wants to fight all the time.

If Damian agreed that he should get along with Jon because he agrees a Batman must get along with their Superman, I could see that working more on a partnership way in the future, but I could not still see Damian wanting to hang out with Jon or Jon hang out with Damian in a buddy-buddy sort of way. They’d work together because by then Damian would hopefully grow to be more professional, most likely fueled by the pride of the ideal of being Batman. Since their personalities clash so much though, they have no reason to become buddy-buddy on a personal level. Especially not after what Damian did to Jon.

Besides that, the way they wrote the beginning, Damian clearly didn’t care about having to work with him. He was upset he had to. To suddenly change that over the course of an issue is rushed.

If they wanted to take the time to allow them to begrudgingly get along on a professional level even though they obviously don’t want to, sure, but as far as on a personal level, their personalities just don’t allow it. I’m not sure if Jon would realistically go along with anything Damian says since Jon’s such a good kid, but I don’t know a lot about how rebellious Jon is to say a lot about that, but he seems to be a loyal, rule abiding, kid.

For them to right away become buddy buddy after two issues just doesn’t work for me. Jon had an experience that was like being kidnapped by a super villain. The second he knew Damian was stalking him all day, Jon would probably do something about it. He wouldn’t be mostly okay with it, let alone go with Damian because Damian broke into his house. That’s insane.

How about headcanons for Elena/Yo-yo in AoS S6? I feel like we haven't given her enough love lately, and she deserves it!

Yayy, thanks for asking!! Totally agree, she always needs a lot more love :D  Here’s the original ask game if anyone’s curious. Haha, this got so long, but I had a lot of time to kill soo: 

Elena/Yoyo, these are more general but can definitely apply to S6

Headcanon A:  realistic: 

(This could apply for B as well!) She uses her powers for chaotic good all the time. “Hey, we’re out of milk!”? She’s already carrying whole and soy milk. SHIELD Field Day? She’s breaking the sprint races. Kid at the park having a bad time? She takes them for a joy ride. SHIELD wants to know what’s going on at the Avengers compound? She’s in and out, and Sam Wilson is just Very Concerned. It drives the Accords mad because they can’t catch her and when they do, how exactly are they gonna tell her no? Sorry you’re no longer allowed to use your powers at the gym to impress your boyfriend?

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Oh she’s absolutely bisexual. Has had one of those spur-of-the-moment-hot-damn-you’re-attractive crushes on just about everyone on the team. She loves Mack, but she loves more to flirt with anyone in her vicinity just to make them flustered.

She and Joey keep in touch and they hang out whenever she’s not with SHIELD. They like to watch Latin American football and drink and go to art museums. She’s his beard whenever necessary and she and his boyfriend absolutely have a ball with it, (Joey: ”Elena, that’s not really necessary” Elena: “Of course it’s necessary I went through all this trouble to buy the ring.” Adam: “Actually I bought that ring, but you should still do the proposal.” Joey: “WHAT”)

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

She still feels incredible guilt over the death of her cousin. Her family at the funeral kept sobbing about why it happened and she had to just sit there silently while her heart shattered. She doesn’t talk much to her friends and family anymore. After losing one of her closest friends due to being Inhuman, she just thought it would be safer to keep a distance from all of them. But the truth is, that rejection was one of the most painful moments of her life and she’s terrified to go through it again. She’d rather love at a distance than be rejected at arms length. 

Growing up she had a lot of insecurities. didn’t think she was the right looks, the right brains, the right sexuality, the right money. But she grew in confidence into her beautiful self today. Her powers made her even stronger. But losing her arms brought back all of those fears of not being the right person the world was looking for. She got back her self-esteem eventually, but for a while it was scary and lonely wallowing in her deepest insecurities.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

How about she doesn’t lose her arms or not in such a gruesome manner? How about she doesn’t have the traumatic experience of meeting her future tortured self. How about she gets some gosh darn therapy!

Also, she and Daisy are considered Avengers. Sorry I don’t make the rules. :D

Life is perfect when you've got money right? #1

I'll be the first to tell you that I was spoiled as a kid, with toys, candy, games (sorta), movies, etc.(...I'm exaggerating but not by much). We always had a bit of money back then (mostly. Usually. We did we just weren't very mature about our purchases. Or they weren't rather, I didn't even get an allowance until I was 15 because, and I quote "We buy you everything you need anyways" which was not true seeing as they stopped buying me stuff when I was 12, and we'll get to that ark of my kinda fucked up life later.) When I was eleven we moved into this really nice house. (It had two master bedrooms, so I the oldest child got one, the yard was huge, but I grew up in Vegas so I preferred hiding inside for obvious reasons.) The house itself was lovely, the kitchen was how, modern, granite, etc. The floors were bamboo, it was awesome, I loved it. I especially loved my cuboard under the stairs, it was big, and spacious, and cool, and I got to be alone. (As a fan of Harry Potter I can see the irony of my situation.) I had all my toys that my little sister who was barely one couldn't play with in there. I had cities built with my Polly Pocket collections, my favorite barbie dolls (I had like 7, but only three were really played with for some reason), my food toys were set up (like a picnic basket, and some stuff for it. I constantly brought my blanket downstairs, and my pillows. I never did get a lot of food toys oddly enough) how I wanted them (I had it set up as though I lived alone, my play food was "real food", my dolls were my friends, my blanket was my bed, my pillows on top of by blanket was my couch, etc. (...This explains a lot of my life honestly... I am such a lonely little shit holy fuck.) So anyways point being why I hate those rooms now. I was playing under there one day minding my business, my little sister was dead to the world aka asleep (I've never seen a child sleep so hard so easily in my life. You'd think it'd ease up with life, but no, not really. I think it might've gotten worse actually) mom was making lunch, stepdouche was playing a game, or so it seemed. *insert dramatic music because dealing with my problems with humor is how I get by in life* Now I'm going to be honest I never really got over the whole "scared of the dark" thing, matter of fact, to this day, I still have a fear of it. (Thanks anxiety, I fucking hate your slimy little guts too, you fucking dic-) Back then though it was because I thought I could see ghosts, and at this age I could watch most horror movies without any real fear. (This is not true. It actually triggered something I'm currently explaining.) Nowadays though, according to my research, I've never been diagnosed (do you know how fucking long it took me to even convince my depressed as shit parents that mental illnesses aren't bullshit? TOO FUCKING LONG! Literally took me 3 fucking years to convince them another year that "oh yeah, she *might* be depressed, but no on the anxiety because of that one time she talked to a stranger (yes because that's exactly how it works you fuckwad.), then another year and a half that "nah bro she's got anxiety and depression for sure." Then another three months to get them to agree that I probably need help, and that's only cause I got drunk and confessed far more then I ever wanted to. I am positive they don't think Schizophrenic disorders are a thing but alas my brain (and me honestly) are, and will always say fuck you to anyone that says that) I've found that it triggers whatever schizophrenic disorder I've had since I was little (as they usually are). So I'm playing with my toys when my stepdouche (I call him as such for reasons you'll understand if I ever get around to telling more of my traumatic childhood stories, one day I might even tell you about the reason I can't even smell hot sauce without the urge to throw up.) Turns off the light and closes the door. I, being the almost Gryffindor, but not really, more of a Slytherin actually, person that I am turned the light back on, and left the door alone after I found that he was holding it closed(it didn't have a lock, and even if it did most locks, in modern houses at least are on the inside anyways.) I went back to my toys(is now a good time to bring up my habit of making safe places in closets because of my subconscious fear of him, and my cunning side subliminally telling me he can't get me because he's to big? I still hide in closets tbh). Now I don't know why I thought that was the end of it. I really don't. But I did. And I regret it. To this day I regret facing that fear. Because from this day forth, I would avoid that closet when he was near (so always), the dark would never be much of a friend, and spiders, and any form of Web (I don't know why that's capitalized but what the fuck ever. Yes, yes I am vulgar) would give me a (at least minor)panic attack (of course I wouldn't find out what anxiety, and panic attacks even where until I'm sixteen or seventeen, and I'm reading All Time Low fanfiction where people keep bringing up anxiety, and this one goes into detail, and suddenly my whole life makes sense. I'm not even joking a little bit right now). Because noticing my bravery he decided to not reward, or silently acknowledge it, but to do the one thing he knew would freak me out. Now it started off simple "Freddy Krueger's gonna get you"(by this time I'd mastered the talent of becoming friends with the scary monsters so I could send them after mean people instead of having them hurt me so that obviously didn't work) I said he's not real etc. Etc. Turned the light on, blah blah blah, he turned the light off and leaned heavily against the door (he was probably getting tired or smth), I heard him. Now he knows my fear of bugs, he constantly brings up my fear of bugs, (there's plenty of stories I could tell you there) (now this wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't just had a poisonous spider on our kitchen counter get taken away by the bug man (thank you pest control people. I owe you a lot of gratitude. Now if we could just have you literally obliviate all mosquitoes, that'd be nice thanks), but he's a dick, it hadn't even been a week, and we did.) He starts talking about how spiders love places like my cuboard, and how there's probably a bunch of poisonous ones in there with me, so, in a very prideful definitely Slytherin way, I walk (mostly leisurely, but with just a touch of absolute terror) to the door, turn the light on, and try to get out. I tell him it's not funny anymore, I ask him to please move, he doesn't he just keeps going on about spiders and blocking the door (I think I got it to move a bit in the ensuing panic), in the end my mom saves me when I'm screaming and banging on the door like my life depends on it, finally coming out of the kitchen or wherever. And that ladies, gentleman, and others are my reasons for hating small cuboards under the stairs. Questions?