#but also I think having a comic where she’s just like any other teen would really help people that think she’s heartless

[roseandgold137]

when will my queen return from the war…

#back on my bullshit #talia al ghul #spent last night imagining a comic that’s abt young her being dorky and a teenager… #she must’ve been such a nightmare to raise and like fuck yeah give ra’s hell #but also I think having a comic where she’s just like any other teen would really help people that think she’s heartless #pretty difficult to argue that the teen girl with Polaroids of her and her crush on her wall is the worst mother on the planet ever #but yeah #it’s in my ideas folder now <3

[sleepyconfusedpotato]

Do Ghost and Jade's kids don't know about their careers (or in Jade's case, former career)? Cause the comic you made of Andrew seeing Ghost in the middle of the night sorta implies they don't know about their parents' military background.

HMMM HM HM Good catch right there 👀👀

So this is also a part of what I've been thinking inside the Riley family after they have kids.

- I feel like the kids would definitely know about Simon's career as a soldier. BUT, as they are still in their early teens, I'd imagine that Andrew, Gracie, and later Orion know that their dad is a soldier, but that's the extent of their knowledge. They do know about Simon's nickname "Ghost", but they don't know how Simon operates inside the Task Force, they're not aware that their dad is an officer of one of the most elite and dangerous task force in the world. As far as they know, their dad only has edgy hobbies that involves black outfits and skull/skeleton themed. Heck, they even made fun of his preferences in outfits.

- But dear God, they never saw him in a full-on combat gear, in the dark of the night.

- Ghost is an officer, so day by day, he'd left the house with open face, and only wears the mask inside the car. After work day, he'd take off the mask before entering the house. If he's too tired, he'd try to sneak in in the deep of the night without making a sound. He'd sworn to himself that 'Ghost' will never enter his family and children's house/lives. They do not need trouble and his dangerous line of work to enter the one thing he cherishes the most.

- However, once you have kids, you can't hide anything forever. They'll find out by themselves (in this case, Andrew is entering his puberty and needs some midnight munchies). Simon and Lottie knows this, so they already have everything figured out. What would Andrew's reaction be, what would Gracie's reaction be, what would Orion's reaction be. They've discussed what they'd reveal, and what they'd still keep a secret, again, until they're old enough to know. They tread VERY carefully about it.

- About their mother though, that's a whole different story. After their marriage, Jade has strictly commited to be a mother for her kids, and opened a branch of The Garden in Herefordshire. She's an ✨ entrepreneur ✨. She's not that active to be called into deployment as before she had kids. If she's used to be 60% florist and 40% TF141 ally, after she had kids she'd be 98% Mum and Florist, and 2% TF141 Ally. Her kids literally only knows her as a florist, and that's it. Up until their late teens, Andrew, Gracie, and Orion would have no clue nor idea about her past with MI6. She didn't lie, she's just holding the truth until they're big enough to understand.

- In fact, Ghost BEGGED and asked Jade to not be active inside the TF141 or any conflicts anymore, considering Ghost would be deployed a lot (and how he's promoted to Captain and above), he'd want his wife to be with her kids. Jade herself also agreed, but she also told Ghost to not die and do stupid stuff. Even though married and less involved in the TF141 business, her resolve stayed the same. If he's missing, she'd pick up the guns in a heartbeat.

- Now, back to the kids. I'd imagine that because of how eventful each of Simon and Lottie's lives are, it sort of like become a game to the family. Each birthdays of the kids, Simon has established a "3 Question" rule game, where the kids can ask their parents anything about their lives. From Andrew and Orion, it's usually trivial and simple stuffs like "What's the naughtiest things you've ever done" "What's your favorite bla bla bla". HOWEVER, with Gracie, its always "What's your favourite mission?" "What's the worst condition of a dead body you've ever find?" "Who's the most difficult bad man you've ever encountered?" "Where is he now?"

- Ghost and Jade would answer with only two sentences. Looking at each other for approval. Gracie is most definitely Simon's daughter with that line of questioning. BUT, again, with every birthdays, and with their increasing age and they become more mature, they'll reveal everything bit after bit.

- By the time they finally know everything about their parents, they'd be in college years, probably, and Simon would no longer be the Ghost (he might be one of the higher ranked officer at this point), and Lottie would be completely out of the Task Force 141 game, becoming a regular civilian. Still, it'd be a legendary story to tell.

WOOHOO I kinda yapped a bit there, but hope that answer your question!

#call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #cod #cod mw #simon ghost riley #sleepy answers #charlotte jade le jardin #call of duty oc #Ghost x oc #ghost x jade #ghostjade #riley family #married life #ghostjade kids #call of duty hc #call of duty headcanons #headcanons #domestic ghost #domestic fluff

[joyfuladorable]

Any headcanons about peni and miles and Gwen.

A few!

I have a fondness for young characters who end up gaining a bunch of surrogate older siblings, so Peni now holds that honor as well!

I think the events that (further) traumatized Peni are the incident with Addy Brock and VE#m and the death of her Aunt May. The comic issue didn’t really have the time to dig into that, but I’d love if Spider-Verse changes it so that Addy and Peni get to be friends before the disaster with VE#m happens. And then after all that, it’d be like the end of that story where she’s talking with her Uncle Ben before Spider-Ham portals to her to invite her into the Society.

At some point she learns about Canon Events and is Devastated. Like, she really Couldn’t have saved her aunt and Addy even if she’d Tried? Her dad was Meant to Die?? She gets comfort from the older Spideys; but I think especially Gwen, who’s absolutely avoiding thinking about her own dad and what him being a Police Captain means. Once things have (hopefully) settled in Beyond, I like to imagine Miles also gaining the older sibling status.

Anyways, headcanons!!

- Peni Canonically Loves Music, even going so far as playing it while she fights crime, so her and Gwen and Miles (and obviously Hobie and Pavitr and Margo) enthusiastically share their musical tastes with each other

- In the same vein, I just want them to hangout as friends so they have like weekly game nights sharing different card and board games and Pavitr keeps trying to convince everyone to let him run a ttrpg he really likes

- Peni and Margo figure out how to make inter-dimensional Wi-Fi so the teens also play MMOs together even when they’re in their respective universes

- Peni watches Hobie and Gwen play a gig and is enamored by the drums so she asks Gwen to teach her and oh Wow what a great outlet she should’ve tried this Sooner (please imagine Spider hanging from a cymbal as Peni plays and doing that cartoon zaggy vibration whenever it’s hit)

- Lots of hopping between each other’s universes cuz I want them to spend even More time together and have like cultural exchanges and stuff

- When Peni eventually divulges how she got her powers and what happened to her dad and the whole Oscorp technically being her employer thing, the protective older siblings instincts come out and one day her Uncle Ben looks up from his work to see his niece flanked by several angry looking teens

- I know this is supposed to be a Peni Gwen Miles friendship dynamic ask but Peni would get along so well with the other teens like if you’ve seen Peni’s room in the comics she’s a big fan of punk rock and would absolutely be besties with Hobie. Then there’s Pavitr and their sunshine personalities would elevate each other! And, as I’ve mentioned before Peni and Margo are Tech Buddies!!!

- A sign of trust from Peni is if she lets you hold Spider. A high honor! Miles doesn’t get it when she just drops em on his shoulder one day when she goes to do something, so when Gwen tells him he tears up a little bit (a lotta bit)

- okay, and finally, if you’ve read the Spider-Verse Unlimited: Infinity story with Peni, you know she wants to be Normal very Badly and does the usual awkward kid thing of trying to fit in with the Popular Kids’ interests while keeping her secret identity safe during the inevitable calls to hero duty interrupting her time with friends. She doesn’t have to do that with her Spidey buds/siblings!! An alert of trouble while hanging with them means some epic team-up fights!!! Chosen family, My Beloved…

#spiderverse #atsv #across the spiderverse #still spoilers I think so #atsv spoilers #across the spider verse spoilers #peni parker #not tagging the other kids since this is Peni-centric #took me a bit to answer cuz I work a full-time job lol #sea rambles

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

First off, don't watch the Ahsoka show and even if you do, it's immensely anti-Jedi so none of it should be considered worthwhile content in figuring out how relationships work between the Jedi normally, especially since Ahsoka herself doesn't consider herself OR Sabine Jedi (she doesn't even WANT Sabine to be a Jedi). The only other Master/Padawan relationship in the Ahsoka show is Baylan and Shin who also don't consider themselves to be Jedi.

Here's the thing with "found family" as a concept. A lot of people like putting people into certain labels and going for a basic nuclear family mom/dad/kids kind of set up. But it does not HAVE to be that way. A "found family" can be a bunch of people who consider each other friends, with no familial feelings at all. It can be literally anything.

Rebels does go for more of a sort-of mom/dad/kids deal, particularly with Kanan, Hera, Sabine, and Ezra. Zeb however lives in a somewhat more nebulous gray area where you COULD see him as a fellow "child" in the dynamic, but he doesn't really care for being considered a child during the episode where he and the other Lasat find Lira San and he's clearly older and more experienced than either Ezra or Sabine, so he could just as easily be considered an "uncle" of sorts if you wanted to, or an older cousin or something maybe.

The other thing to consider with Rebels is that, while the group does include two Jedi, none of these relationships would necessarily be typical representations of how Prequels Jedi relationships would have looked or how they would've thought of each other. Kanan and Ezra's relationships to the rest of Ghost crew is impacted by that difference, especially since Ezra specifically did not grow up in the Temple among other Jedi and spent most of his childhood and early teens in a very different situation. And Kanan, by Rebels, would've spent more time WITHOUT any relationships with other Jedi than he would've had WITH them.

So with all of that in mind, I think that the Jedi's relationships aren't NEARLY as clear cut as people seem to want them to be. They're a family, yes, but they're a family that is 10,000 strong at least. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time keeping like less than 50 members of my family straight, what their names are and who they're related to, much less ten thousand people. I think it's very likely that all Jedi would feel a kinship to fellow Jedi, but that they probably don't personally know every single Jedi. In TCW, Ahsoka seems to need to be introduced to Tera Sinube for the first time when she's 14 years old. So while she might see someone like Plo Koon as a closer parental figure, she's not going to feel the same way about Tera Sinube who she barely knows.

I think any Master/Padawan relationship is going to sort-of vary depending on the individuals involved. Some of them might be quite close, some might be more professional. Some might be pretty close in age and so their dynamic leans closer to friends and siblings than it would parent and child. Others might have a larger age gap and so the dynamic could lead closer to parent/child or even grandparent/grandchild. Some of them might shift over time, too, or have layers of more than one of these dynamics. For example, Anakin calls Obi-Wan "the closest thing he's ever had to a father" in AOTC, but Obi-Wan calls him a brother twice in ROTS. So their relationship may have had shades of both dynamics given the age difference, the relationship dynamic could have shifted over time from a more parent/child relationship to a more sibling relationship, or they each may have seen the relationship slightly differently with Anakin looking more for a parental dynamic while Obi-Wan is perhaps going more for a relationship of equals (at least by ROTS). It could be any of these three things combined, too.

There's a comic where Obi-Wan is asked whether Anakin is his son and Obi-Wan responds that no, Anakin is his Padawan, his student. While this isn't strictly canon, I think it fits quite nicely into my interpretation that the Master/Padawan relationship is its own specific kind of dynamic and while it can be SIMILAR to other kinds of relationships, it is very much its own thing. It's not a static relationship, it's not just the Jedi version of parents and children, it is a distinct relationship that changes and grows with the individuals. There is no 1:1 comparison for all Master/Padawan relationships.

As for Ezra and Jacen, you could apply a similar concept. Kanan, much like Obi-Wan with Anakin, fills a parental role for Ezra, but he's also growing and developing ALONGSIDE Ezra and could be considered a younger brother of sorts, too. Jacen is family to Ezra, but I don't think you HAVE to place a particular label on what that dynamic is, whether they'd consider each other like brothers or whether Ezra would be more of an uncle. And it doesn't even have to specifically be defined by their respective relationships to KANAN, either. Jacen and Ezra might come up with their own dynamic that has nothing to do with how they each feel about Kanan and is specific to their own relationship. I don't think you have to be super specific about saying that because Kanan was Ezra's Master, this automatically makes Ezra basically his son and so Ezra and Jacen should consider themselves like brothers and never have an uncle/nephew dynamic. I think Ezra and Jacen can be whatever you want them to be to each other.

#star wars #star wars rebels #rebels #ezra bridger #jacen syndulla #kanan jarrus #jedi #jedi culture

[sporkberries]

Hello! Do you have any recommendations for Roy Harper reading? I'm not bothered about which continuity or where, just if you had a suggestion for where you think he's best 👀

If you wanna go back to some older stuff you can check out the silver age green arrow comics and Teen Titans 1966, I'm not the BIGGEST fan of TT 1966 but it does have some cute and funny moments. I mainly read Bronze Age to Modern age so we'll go with that moving forward. Green Lantern(1960) #85-86 This is Snow Birds don't fly and Roy's most iconic story, It introdcues Roy's struggle with heroin and is pretty sympathetic to addicts which was QUITE the big deal at the time. I also think its important for to me say Ollie is not the best parent in this one, he reacts out of anger and is incredibly upset with both Roy and himself for Roy's addiction. OLLIE DOES LOVE ROY AND IS USUALLY QUITE A GOOD PARENT, THIS IS ONE MOMENT THAT DOES NOT DEFINE HIM OR HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH ROY. MUST READ not just for Roy but for comic book history in general Action Comics(1939) #32 This one is a small one shot thats post snowbirds. Roy is on his own but it shows that he and Ollie still care about eachother and that Ollie really misses Roy. The New Titans(1984) #20-21 THE REVEAL OF LIAN'S EXISTENCE !!!!! ALSO JADEROY!! also itty bitty robin Jason is in this story. ABSOLUTE MUST READ Action Comics(1938) #613-618 I LOVE THIS STORY I LOVE THIS STORY I LOVE THIS STORY. It hurts me but i love it... Jade and Roy and Lian... It also shows how Roy ended up getting Lian. other than that I will say no more... ABSOLUTE MUST READ Titans(1999) #1-2 Lot's of Cute content with Roy and Lian here. I wouldn't consider it an absolute must read but again its fucking adorable so i recommend it. Titans(1999) #6 Donna Kyle and Roy beat up a Nazi with a tragic backstory or whatever, meanwhile Lian is being babysit by someone her mom has personally affected.

Titans(1999) #8-13 JADEROY!!! JADEROY!!!! LIAN!!!! Deals with the aftermath of the previous rec. Also some DonnaRoy which is admittedly cute. This story kinda covers all the moral complications of Roy and Jade and Lian. How Jade's crimes affect them all, as well as how Roy feels about Jade. I would consider this one a must read. Titans(1999) #21-22 Aftermath of previous rec, Chesire is being held to be tried. I realize a lot of these recs are relate to JadeRoy and Lian but they are so important to his character. If you enjoyed the previous story read this one, but i wouldn't recommend it in a vacuum. Titans(1999) #30 More JadeRoy, I am predictable. This is Jade's trial. If you like the previous two storylines read this. It makes me sad it makes me emo I love Jade so much and she went through so much and it doesnt excuse here actions but it still hurts. Roy makes a decision. Roy appears prominently in The Outsiders but i haven't read it all yet so i can't speak on it. Green Arrow(2001) 1-10 This is an ArrowFam MUST READ. Ollie returns from the dead, mia is introduced, Ollie and Connor, and Ollie reuinites with Roy and Dinah. It's very good. Green Arrow(2001) #16-21 General ArrowFam goodness. Ollie and Roy Goodness. Just,,, emotions.... Ollie is Roy''s dad... I weep...

Justice Leauge of America(2006) #1 Roy and his Uncle Hal :). Also Roy joins the JLA

There's more probably but this list is getting pretty full. These are also all in chronological order so :333. as a sort of anti- recommendation if you want to read an absolutely awful roy that is horrible in every way and want to be mad about it read rhato. its awful!

#spork says stuff #reading recs #roy harper #jade nguyen #jaderoy #lian harper #arrowfam

[muffinmonstah-art]

I was wondering how you got into some of the Barbara Gordon ships you like because I feel like she's a very unpopular character to ship with others and most people don't really bother having fun shipping with her.

I have this nsfw hc about Barbara where I feel like because she is someone who always has to be in control of situations that when she is sharing intimacy with a partner she likes to be controlled/dominated. Which is ironic because I have a nsfw hc about Jason Todd where I feel like because he didn't have control of situations in his life that he needs control and would seek out control in intimate situations with partners and would need to dominate.

I'm just an observant viewer who pays attention to character dynamics I think are interesting and the ship grows in me naturally. I don't give two cents about what other people on this fandom think it should be banned, cancelled or not allowed to ship for dumb idiotic reasons.

"But Barbra should date other people outside batboyes!!11111" "But the Arkham games aren't allowed to create an AU with an adult Tim Drake and pair him up with Barbra they're cancelled now!11111" "But Bruce and Barbra are like father and daugther I command everyone to cancel this ship and Bruce Timm is pro-incest weirdo who should be banished from the industry for daring to ship them together!!1111"

All background annoying noise in my ears. Weak reasons crafted by childish people not worth obeying. They're also hypocritical. Like, many of them would love to see a gangbang between Dick and the batboys. Hell, they headcanon Dick as a slut who likes to get banged by every older man on this universe and that's ok (I'm not judging. I'm ok with those headcanons as well, since I ship JayDick, SlaDick and BruDick with passion), but for Barbara to headcanon her the same way is morally wrong? Screw them.

Don't they realize the problem is DC putting mediocre writters to write Barbara into fucking DickBabs of all things and not the fans who dream about their own stories featuring this character? All the problems they try to inject into BruBabs, JayBabs, TimBabs, etc are already present on canon DickBabs lol.

-She got deaged and her personality got reduced into forever hormonal silly teen girl so she could be paired up with Dick and fullfill the trope of the americanized shoujo-like romance in comics.

-She changed from being Batman's love interest and an indepentent hero to be "like a daughter" to Bruce and subjugated to the Bat-family so she can be a pretty accesory to Dick.

-When she isn't dating Dick, she has to be thinking about him, mentioning him, comparing him to her current love interest. She also needs to be thinking about him and talking about him when she's working.

-She doesn't have any agenda of her own anymore, she only exists to be Dick's love interest and get comicbros horny by fullfilling the rol of being a female Batman with tits and ass.

All those problems are DickBabs problems, not JayBabs'. Not BruBabs'. Not TimBabs'. When BruBabs was a thing, Barbara was not a deaged insufferable idiot. She was independent. She was an equal comrade in arms to Bruce. When JayBabs got a few issues back in Batman Ethernal (I'm not counting Three Jokers because that's a whole other can of worms), she helped Jason go into a little arc and their bond progressed naturally from working together on screen. When TimBabs was a thing in the Arkham games, she was the best version of herself there's around, period. She was professional, a computer genius as Oracle, who was focused on the mission and being Tim's love interest was just a small part of her, not her defining core. And also OH. LOOK. Those devs proved you can cut DickBabs from the equation and have Barbara and Dick be themselves and their core character traits remain untouched LMAO. GET REKT YOU PIECE OF SHIT PAIRING.

So yeah, considering alll those points I just expanded upon, I say I'm in my right to ship JayBabs and TimBabs. And BardBabs too. Jason Bard also got disrespected and fucked over DickBabs and I don't fogive nor forget.

"But age difference!!!1111 you pedo shit1111"

That hyprocritical argument FOR SOME REASON does not apply to JayTemis I guess. Shipping JayTemis is ok while that bitch is like +200 years older than Jason, but with Babs is morally wrong because of her being like 11 years older than him? Fuck this logic. I don't care. At least I'm not deaging her. I'm respecting she is an experienced woman who went through tons of dark stuff and Jason admires that. Hell, in my headcanon, with Jason being a crimelord who has traveled all around the world learning assassin training, he would be bored as hell with some 20 years old girl. Lmao. What would they even talk about?

And I love Arkham Tim Drake and I think every creator is on their right to create their own AU story. The Arkham devs created their own thing and I love it. I ship the hell out of Arkham TimBabs, pair that also allowed me to have single Nightwing dancing his pretty ass over my face on his purest expression. 10/10. Antis go cry me a river.

"But you don't want Babs to date anyone outside the bat-family111!!!"

My favourite strawman argument. I debunked it the moment I declared myself to be a Jason Bard simp and a BardBabs shipper.

End of my rant/insight post.

Now it's my turn to tell you to get into SasoSaku, anon. SasoSaku is life. (Joking, joking)

#asks #anti dickbabs #JayBabs #TimBabs

[thesharktanksdriver]

Any thoughts or ideas of DC Comics!magical girl reader in the Teen Titans (2003 version)?

Bro I love 2003 teen titans sooo muchhhhhh. It was so good.

In dc magical girls timeline Dick is already grown up but meeting 2003 Dick would definitely interesting! I imagine in this some dimensional shenanigans happened leading to the 2003 cast ending up in their universe.

She’d get along with them like a house on fire, it’s honestly kinda funny how the moment the crew of teens spit her she somehow integrates with them seamlessly.

I imagine magical girl y/n as kinda deadpan most times and somewhat stoic. It’s kinda a product of her childhood (or lack thereof one) and being slightly jaded with the world due to her duties to protect it. So having kids her age who are shackled with something similar yet are more optimistic (hell even Raven seems more happy than her sometimes) kinda lifts her mood.

I’d say within the group she’d find them all to be uplifting but would especially like how they try their best to make her feel like her age again.

Starfire takes to try and engage with “girly” stuff the Tamaranian girl had seen in tv shows and magazines. Having “girls nights” where Starfire, along with Raven and the batgirls force y/n to enjoy things they once never had the time nor privilege to experience. Things like painting her nails or even just the simplicity of having another girl to talk to about things like dealing with societal pressures and the influx of weird creepy guys despite being literal children. Along with this Starfire would absolutely be obsessed with y/n’s ability to change their magical girl outfits and Rigel. Y/n would most definitely at one point twin with Starfire and the two would be a dynamic duo.

With Raven there would be a kinda camaraderie in both being magic users that have to deal with larger and more complicated threats. Raven didn’t exactly have the best childhood and neither did y/n, the both of them having to grow up faster than everyone to protect not only themselves but others as well. Along with this the two of them are more of a quiet force, though for different reasons. While no one sees the two of them openly talking much they’d definitely have a deep and quiet kinda friendship. One where in the middle of the night they sit atop Wayne manor and just kinda enjoy the silence or speak their minds.

For Cyborg he kinda just took one look at them and being the extrovert that he is adopted them. Not in the literal way but in the way an extrovert spots an introvert and someone absorbs them into their friend group kinda way. Either or he acts as y/n’s voice in some situations and makes sure they’re included. He’s a bright and inspirational pillar to y/n, someone who’s not only strong and intelligent but also is able to balance being a kind and loving person. Though he can be serious when he needs to he’s can also struck a balance between that and cracking jokes. I’d like to think that when seeing y/n’s more stoic composure he makes a challenge with the others in who can make her smile more. Like he’s tallying everything down, small barely visible smiles are 1 point, a somewhat clear one is 2, ones where it’s a full on one is 3 points and a laugh/giggle is 4 points.

You’d best bet beast boy is acting like a hyperactive ball of sunshine who doing as many cheesy puns as possible. It’s kinda like how he is with Raven but with less threat of being sent to the shadow realm and more just blank face stoicism with a small shimmer of amusement he can see in their very tired eyes. Though he can loud and a bit childish y/n would really enjoy his presence even if they don’t outwardly say it. If he’s smiles and sunshine then their the calm peaceful presence looming beside him as he drags them away to go and play video games. He’d definitely at some point shapeshift into a ferret to look like Rigel, the “real” ferret giving a small sound that seemed like a chuckle as it curled around your neck. At some point Damien is probably dragged into a weird friendship with him, cyborg and y/n. Two extroverts and two introverts on all ends of the scale.

Robin/Dick would definitely be the most interesting of the bunch especially considering how there’s an older version of himself and the Robin currently is Bruce’s biological kid who’s wielding a sword at everyone. Either way Robin being ever resourceful adapts with his team and strikes a friendship with the relative oddball in the Wayne manor. Both 2003 Robin and y/n in a lot of ways are similar due to the responsibility on their shoulders and having to be at the forefront of it. But unlike y/n Dick is able to better cope and handle it which he sees y/n still somewhat struggle with. Both he and the alternate older version of himself kinda team up together in dragging y/n away from tirelessly working or going on patrols alone. Along with that he’s kinda able to see when he himself is pushing himself too far and how that hurts not only himself but others through y/n.

Sorry this took so long to answer and how lengthy it is lol

#answers #magical girl y/n

[trollprincess]

So my hometown is building a community center, and some people are livid there’s going to be an LGBTQ+ presence. Since I’m not sure I trust my hometown newspaper to publish the letter to the editor I just wrote, I’m going to post it here with some names and whatnot redacted.

*

Dear Editor,

I am writing this letter in regards to the proposed community center, and the response which appeared in your newspaper.

My name is Jennifer. Many of you know me well. You went to school with me, you’ve worked with me, you know my parents or my brother. You know me as the bookworm who learned to cross the street just to get to the library, the bundled-up woman walking her barky beagle mix down Main Street, the friendly girl with the colorful hair who tries to smile at everyone she meets.

I grew up here. I remember buying penny candy and comic books in a store which burned down years ago, picking up groceries for my grandmother in another store which is now just a public eyesore, and writing my self-published novel in a cafe which changes hands only to fail every oher year. I have spent the vast majority of my life living in [this town].

I’m also bisexual.

The proper term may be more like pansexual. As described by a character on a certain sitcom, “I like the wine and not the label.” It’s the person I love, not the body parts. And in part, that might make me demisexual as well, meaning that I am only attracted to people after I get to know them well.

That last paragraph might be confusing to some of you. It’s not hard. I don’t like everybody, but I keep my options open. Better?

I questioned for years whether or not I was bisexual or pansexual or straight, but I was never - not once in my entire life - afraid that if I told my parents I was not straight they would hate me or reject me. I’ve got great parents. My mom and dad love me more than any words I could summon up can describe. And what’s upsetting for me right now is how many people in this town I thought felt the same about me, or about their own children, don’t.

I don’t remember when the people here became so cruel. Am I just seeing the past through rose-colored glasses? Probably. I don’t think I remember anyone here being so cruel and filled with hate, and then I recall my high school years in the 90s, when “gay” was the worst slur you could call someone. I don’t want to think that people I’ve known since I was in kindergarten have been bigoted all this time, but then a memory will slip through of some racist comment or grumbled slur someone I thought was a nice person I could trust said.

Now, sometimes, I’m afraid in my own hometown.

I shouldn’t have to be. No one should have to be. Hence, the community center.

Putting aside the LGBTQ+ community, this town needs somewhere where kids and teens can go. I grew up here and every time we came close to having somewhere to go, it would be snatched away in a heartbeat, only for the adults to wonder why teens were out kicking out the slats in the gazebo or burning the playground equipment. Go outside and play! Just don’t hang out here, or there, and definitely not downtown, and nowhere around people. And God forbid, not in groups.

A community center is something this town has desperately needed for decades. Decades. A place where we can go in the rain, where kids can go to hang out safely with our friends, and where we can learn about each other’s differences.

I’m sick of the cruelty I’ve seen in this town - from older folks, from people with inflammatory bumper stickers on their car, even from members of the town council. I’m sick of that cruelty not being called out by others around them because those people “grew up in a different time” or “are my friends, I can’t tell them not to say that.” I’m sick of living in fear of the cruelty of my own neighbors. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Why is it important that LGBTQ+ people be included in the community center? For the same reason non-Christians should be included, and people of color, and others who are different. Because some of you are so ill-informed you think gay people are recruiting (we’re really not, although we appreciate you think we can agree on a grocery list, much less an agenda), that we’re grooming children to molest them (oh, if anything cut down the possibility kids in this town would get molested, it was tearing down most of the churches), and that transgender people are going to go around forcing people to be a different gender and cutting off people’s genitals (please stop thinking about other people’s genitals, it’s rude and gross).

Talk to us. Listen to us. We’re actually pretty nice. And not just us, but other people who have different life experiences than you. That’s the whole point of a community center - to learn, and to grow, and to become a better person by correcting the harmful beliefs you carry with you.

I’m going to close my letter with a quote from Waymond Wang, a character from “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” He said, "The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind. Especially when we don't know what's going on.”

Thank you.

[Yours truly, fuckos.]

#lgbtqia #lgbtqia+

[celaenaeiln]

I don't wanna complain about what other people love to them but I ended up reading New Order yesterday after seeing your recommendations and... Honestly, I didn't vibe with it and I wanted to see what you think? The entire premise seems flawed to use Dick of all people for (and his attitude through it is just... way beyond regular asshole Grayson), I'm tired of DC giving Kory children but taking her away from them, yet another "let's ruin Dick and Kory" adventure is going on and it's just... Rushed. Especially the ending where it pulls a teen movie that's like "DAVE ENDED UP MAJORING IN LAW AFTER HIGH SCHOOL AND BECAME A JUDGE" and seems to just skip over so, so much interesting stuff that way.

HOWEVER. I also want to say I can't entirely hate the comic because the dialogue is pretty solid at most points and Jake really is an amazing character with such a great heart. I honestly like him more than Jon Kent.

Valid!

Honestly I really loved the comic but a couple points you brought up are hitting me hard. The first being Kori. It's getting on my nerves how DC for some reason keeps breaking up Dick and Kori after they've been married and for what? I get why here but in Mar'i's comic? There's literally no reason!!

Secondly I don't believe Kori would just abandon her kid. She gave birth to him, she loves him. Why on earth would she just leave him? Maybe it's because it's DC and they really need to break up Dick and Kori because "dick and barbara are the dream team." Puh-lease.

However I did think it made sense for Dick to be at the center of it all. Dick has always been accepting of superpowers and he even said "I like a woman who break a battleship with her bare hands" when talking about Kori. Which says a lot about what he thinks. But I also believe he would he would eradicate them for one reason - superpowers killed Bruce. And he loves his father.

He also did it to save the world and it's unarguable that he did and the people loved him for it. He has the capability to both destroy the league and rebuild the world and this comic is just proving that which is why I don't think there's anything wrong with Dick.

As for his stubbornness, maybe! Honestly at this point I'll accept anything about any character unless it's wildly inaccurate. I don't know if Dick is a jerk or not because my impression of his jerk levels have been obliterated by the Cassandra Batgirl comics. After reading that literally everything else seems normal. I am struggling so hard to understand what's going on with Dick in those comics. Is it bad writing? Is it the writer? What was he facing during that time that made his act like that? What am I missing? I'm still reeling from that so I'm completely out of it lol. Still too flabbergasted to comprehend so you may be right but my mind has just accepted almost every version of Dick now as long as he stays true to his motivations and acts reasonably.

I really did like the ending but totally understand what you mean. I guess it's because the author didn't want to drag it out and turn it into a whole 500 issue comic so he skipped to the end.

I love, love, LOVE the comic for Jake! Jake and Dick's relationship?? I-I'm ENTHUSED!!! They have the best father and son relationship ever and I'm never getting over the two of them. I like him better than Jon too and Jon's amazing! Jake's just absolutely fantastic!! The best, best, BEST kid ever.

So generally I love the comic but my biggest point of contention is separating Dick and Kori for no reason. Also whatever's going on with Kate was far more distracting than Dick for me lol. But I liked the art and dialogue too and overall I really enjoyed it. Liking comics is just a matter of preference after all ;)

#dick grayson #nightwing #jake grayson #koriand'r #starfire #cl lurkinginmyboots asks #thanks for the ask!

[linkspooky]

Hi! I saw your tags about Tara in Teen Titans comics--I'm only familiar with the cartoon series. How do your feelings about Tara compare in the show vs. the comics? I ask since I noticed you mentioned that Tara never really cared about BB, which I think is obviously changed in the show, and I wonder how you feel about that.

They're both good? They're both good! I think one thing people forget about comic book characters vs. adaptations of comic book characters, is that comic books were always intended to be a collaborative medium that builds on itself through the work of multiple authors and interpretations. Thus, you can have multiple versions of the same character who have the same core but don't really have to be exactly the same. This is why it is kind of silly when people get upset animated adaptations make changes from the original source material because that's kind of the point, in a collaborative medium, you're going to get another author's take on the same character.

Since you asked I can give you an analysis on the core ideas of Teen Cartoon Terra vs. Comics Terra, and also her relationship with Beast Boy in both versions.

1. GWEN STACY

So, I once talked about how Terra was always intended by her creators to die, but that's not necessarily offensive or fridging her character because Terra's still a character with a lot of narrative agency. Terra is the main character of her story, it's just her story happens to be a tragedy. That is true for both versions.

Before the start of the story her fate is sealed. This is what you call doomed by the narrative. George Wolfram and Glen Murakami have both given interviews explaining as such. Albeit, for different reasons.

Comics Terra was essentially made to deconstruct a lot of comic book tropes. I lovingly call her "Asshole Kitty Pryde." From conception she was going to be the spunky new kid with mutant powers who joined the titans at fifteen and immediately became friends with everyone... except she was evil all along.

George’s strength was he also understood the characters 100 percent as I did so there was never any question. He knew. We had talked enough about the characters to know we were exactly on the same page with them. So I said, “Everyone keeps complaining that we’re like the X-Men” and the X-Men had just gotten Kitty Pryde. I said, “Why don’t we really screw around with them completely?” — this is the fans — “…and make them think we’re stealing Kitty Pryde only she’s gonna be bad from Day One.”

Of course this is where authorial intent differs from like, what actually ended up happening in the story. Worlfram's intent was to always make Terra have no reason for her actions, the tragic backstory she feeds the teen titans is kind of embellished and made up, she decided to become a mercenary all on her own, she wants to work with Slade and is even trying to seduce him. However, Terra still comes off as horribly tragic despite their intentions and other authors have since then picked up on their subtext.

Like, I genuienly think the intention was to just write her as pure evil, but instead what they got was writing her as a bad victim. That is, the kind of victim that presents incredibly unsavory and unlikable reactions to their abuse instead of either being kinder than their abusers, remaining pure and chaste like Cinderella or just waiting to be saved. Terra's not a passive victim nor is she waiting for sympathy, she hurts people the way she has been hurt, she maipulates the way she has been manipulated. Terra's been beaten down and now her goal is to come out on top. I believe the reason why she came out this way has a lot to do with Perez and Wolfram sticking to their guns and never giving her a redemption arc.

The very first time we see her, she’s trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty. It’s just that all the fans assumed because we went out of our way to make her cute — but not too cute, with the buck teeth and everything — everyone would assume that she was gonna become good by the end and that was never the case.

First thing, we made a promise that day that we would never renege on our view that she’d never become good. It’s sometimes hard to do that with characters you like. You want them to become good or something like that. But we never liked the character enough—because we knew what we were doing with her—we never allowed ourselves to fall for the character. Because that’s bad. That’s bad storytelling. You’re doing what you want as a fan at that particular point, not as the creators. The fans had to accept what we were doing and not do the same stories that they had read 14,000 times before. You know, at Marvel, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were villains who became good guys and I could go through a whole list of ’em.

Their commitment to the bit meant that Terra’s story became what was essentially Greek tragedy at that point. Terra was always fall and because of that, Wolfram and Perez dedicate a lot of time in the story showing the audience exactly what all of her flaws are and why those flaws are the reason for that fall. They committed to their creative decisions when writing this character, which is why Terra ends up being such a strong character, especially for the time. Of course there were female villains, but they weren’t really allowed to be complex victims to the degree that Terra is, have her entire range of negative traits, have her flaws fully on display and then still have it be a tragic ending when she does not get saved. 

Gwen Stacy was always going to die, and Terra was never going to be redeemed. I do not believe either of those cases are fridging because sometimes characters die in fiction, and sometimes they contribute more ot the story dead than they do alive. Terra’s the first real loss for the Teen Titans, it also came on the cusp of a time in DC where teenage superheroes and sidekicks started to die (Cough, Cough, Jason Todd). Under the Red Hood and Judas Contract are such effective and lasting comic book storylines because they are such tightly written tragedies  yes... both of them depict a bad victim who does not get saved (even though that is the whole point of both arcs). 

Terra is in fact, probably more comparable to Under the Red Hood Jason than she is Gwen Stacy because she is number one a teenager with problems who probably should not have been made a superhero in the first place, and two a trauma victim who copes by manipulation and violence to try to reclaim control of their lives. But, to bring the Gwen Stacy comparison back. Gwen Stacy was always going to die, Terra was always going to die, but unlike Gwen Stacy Terra is not anyone’s love interest she is the protagonist. Peter Parker fails to save Gwen because the Green Goblin attacked her, she was killed to hurt Peter Parker. Terra pulls the arena down on herself and buries herself alive in Samson and Delilah-esque fashion at the end of her own personal tragic arc. 

To get to the real differences between the two characters though, characterization wise, I think both versions start with the same central concept, this is a troubled teenager who should never have been made a hero. 

Terra is a deeply troubled teen, however the way she copes in both versions are wildly different, almost opposite. I like to say cartoon Terra has like, at any moment five different personalities, while comics Terra has no personality. 

2. Runaway Girl

To elaborate on this, cartoon Terra’s entire character revolves around how unstable her sense of self is, due to never having any stability in her life. The cartoon is actually very purposeful in showing in both imagery and metaphor Terra’s splintered sense of self. The first few lines of dialogue introducing her are this. 

“She’s not in trouble, she was leading it into a trap.”  “Question is, who is she?” Slade: “Don’t get too attached my young friend, I saw her first.” 

Said by the Titans and then Slade. Even in the first lines introducing her, not only is the question of who she is asked, but Slade immediately tries to claim her from the titans. Later on in the show, the way Terra acts around the Teen Titans as a group, the way Terra acts when she is with Slade, the way Terra acts when alone with Beast Boy, the way Terra acts when alone with Raven are all wildly different versions of herself, to the point where it’s hard to believe she’s the same girl sometimes. 

This is even apparent in the first episode before Slade even gets to her. Terra insists that she enjoys sleeping outside, she enjoys running from place to place, she doesn’t really want a place to stay for the night, she’s presenting herself as some sort of self-reliant and worldly traveler instead of what she really is, a homeless runaway kid. Terra is attempting to appear calm, cool, and responsible and she is absolutely none of these things, and she’s pretty transparent about it too. She cool girls herself so people will like her. The second she is alone in Beast Boy and loses control of her powers for 30 seconds, she immediately crashes, starts berating herself and her self esteem sinks to the bottom of the ocean. 

Trust, is something constantly brought up again and again with Terra’s character though I would say Terra despite literally being the main character of an arc called the Judas Contract, despite betrayal being the one thing she is known for... always sees herself as getting betrayed first. Which is why she overreacts to the perception that Beast Boy broke a promise to keep her powers safe in the first episode. Terra doesn’t trust people at all. Though, to trust people and form healthy relationships with them, you actually have to be a fully developed and well-rounded person which Terra is not. Terra is basically a foster kid who has been through several families before this, waiting for her current one to dump her. She has interanlized the idea that there is something wrong with her that makes this rejection happen, but she doesn’t know how to fix it, or how to be better the kind of person that can have those healthy friendships so she dedicates herself into hiding those flaws instead. 

Terra: You don’t belong with the Titans. Terra: You don’t know anything about you. Slade: On the contrary Terra, I know everything about you. I’ve been watching you for some time. I know why you’re always running away. I know your secret, little girl.

This is also why she runs from the Titans to Slade. It’s a question I see commonly asked about cartoon Terra, if she’s meant to be more sympathetic than comic books Terra why does she willingly go to Slade instead of staying with the Titans? Which is a silly question, because you might as well be asking why do grooming victims get groomed? Why don’t they just know that groomers are bad people?

Teenagers are not grownups. Especially not Terra, a bastard child rejected by her parents who has been on the run for however many years. Terra is a teenager and a severely underdeveloped teenager at that, and she has learned to survive on the streets yes, but that’s not really the same as learning to be a functional person, who can have healthy relationships with people, and control their emotions. Children actually require parents to nurture and teach them and raise them up to be more functional adults, and they also require the stability adults in their lives provide them. 

Terra goes to Slade because he is an adult who is promising to be there for her, and give her control and stability which are things adults in her life have failed to give her. She can’t trust the Titans to give her these things because they are children one as Slade needles her into believing they cannot understand or help her, and two the way Terra has lived her life up to this point a transactional relationship with Slade makes more sense to her head than the found family the Teen Titans have based on love and trust because Terra is a stranger to both of those concepts. 

Terra is also someone who has little control over her life in general, which is why cartoon Terra is so passive in comparison to comic book Terra. In the episode Betrayal itself, Terra keeps her foot in the door about the actual betrayal the whole way, and seems to change her mind on what she wants several time. Because Terra has five different personalities. Ginger Terra, Sporty Terra, Posh Terra, Scary Terra, and Baby Terra. Terra doesn't have a cohesive sense of self so she's entirely reactive, she just does what she thinks will keep her safe in the moment. Terra wants safety and control of her powers so she goes to Slade. Terra feels guilty about what she does for the Titans so she tries to run away from Slade for the moment. Beast Boy asks her out on a date, but because Terra's betraying the Titans that night Terra says no. Five minutes later, Terra says yes. She is constantly changing her mind and contradicting herself like this.

Which is where we get to the greatest contradiction this episode, Terra betrays the titans and clearly feels guilty about it,b ut instead of say telling the Titans what she did or coming clean she just runs away. Which is where we get to the extremely subtle imagery of Terra in a house of mirrors.

Terra can't face her reflection over and over again, because she can't face herself, because she has no sense of self. She doesn't know why she does these things, but she's done them now, and she's stuck with those choices.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember?

This is also Terra's most honest display of remorse, and the exact moment Terra gets rejected, crying and begging for forgiveness for what she's done and after that is the point where she goes full villain. Terra goes from baby Terra, to Scary Terra. A lot of who cartoon Terra is born from fear of moments like this where she is rejected. Terra was the one who tricked Beast Boy and Beast Boy is rightfully upset of course, but in Terra's mind only able to see her own hurt feelings Beast Boy is the one who broke the promise to her. Terra internalizes the fact she cannot be forgiven at that point and seeing no other recourse goes full villain and insists she feels no guilt, she wanted to destroy the titans to begin with, it was all a lie. The complete inversion of how she acted in the betrayal episode. Terra is manipulative, spiteful, hungry for power and yes she's capable of being all of those things but one important thing is.

The second, the second Slade starts mistreating her and beating her Terra immediately wants out. It turns out it's not power or control Terra wanted at all with Slade, but the idea of safety he provided her. The moment it becomes unsafe for her she tries to leave again, because Terra is a child desperately seeking safety in a world that feels unsafe for her, and she'll find it by crushing people she perceives to be a threat if she has to.

That is Terra in a nutshell, she doesn't feel safe anywhere, or with anybody. She has no stable foundation. She is the human embodiment of the tower card in Tarot. No matter how hard she tries to trust others and trust in return, because those are basic human urges we all have, she ends up falling down. It's interesting for a character who is so famous for betrayal, how much of her arc shows she clearly wants to be accepted and trusted by others, and gets hurt at the idea of their rejection. Even the day she literally betrayed Beast Boy before taking him out on a date she asks him this.

Terra: Do you trust me? Beast Boy: More than anyone I've ever met.

I would say Terra's inability to trust doesn't come from the fact she's a bad person or a bad victim, but because she doesn't have the tools to form healthy relationships because of how seriously neglected a child she is. A part of the tragedy of Terra is because Terra cannot save herself, because she is a child. Just like how the Titans have such difficulty saving her, because they are children too and they're not really emotionally prepared to save a person as morally grey and as in need as Terra, and the only adult in the situation is Slade who is there to take advantage.

Transitioning too. Comics Terra, while cartoon Terra has too much personality, Comics Terra has too little. She was written to be a sociopath, and that's not really my term that's how the writers describe her though I can dig up evidence she shows clear signs of being capable of having attachment to people. I'd say rather than a sociopath she's more written as an enigma. Terra's motives are spurious, her actions are inconsistent, she seems to be driven by spite. She is an incredibly angry kid with a chip on her shoulder who seems to be capable of anything.

Cartoon Terra is trying to play along with other peopel's expectations to her, while comics Terra rejects everyone's expectations. She loathes cute teenage girl superheroes. She finds dressing up in costumes and fighting crime to be ridiculous in the first place. Though, I would say despite saying she clearly hates the titans, literally the next panel she displays some affection for Kid Flash.

Comics Terra isn't completely unfeeling, she's capable of forming connections to people, she has a fondness for Geo-Force her brother, Kid Flash, and sort of for Beast Boy she just never fully forms relationships with them.

Terra's not really even maintaining much of a cover with the Titans, because both with Slade and the Titans she is a rude, belligerent raunchy kid who is trying to constantly get into other people's faces. Terra is all of those things, she just when she is alone with Slade also pretends she is an adult, in an adult relationship with him. (Cough, cough, grooming victim. A victim of sexual grooming in this sense too).

Terra's written to be a sociopath yeah, or at least her writers tried too but I'd say she's more a character who the audience has little to no idea what is going on in her head. A lot of her is left ambiguous. Considering her backstory though, the rejected bastard of a king, someone who is working as a mercenary at fifteen, she clearly has not had a good life. Just like cartoon Terra she is lacking a sense of self.

However, instead of eschewing her agency, Terra takes her agency from other people. Cartoon Terra is good at manipulating when she wants to be, but Comics Terra sees the world in terms of every relatonship is transactional and based on manipulation, the world is winners and losers, the world is about who is on top and who is on the bottom. Terra lacks no real goal, or purpose, no friend, no home no loved ones she really only wants to crawl up on top of others if she has to.

Which is exactly why she gets into a relationship with Slade. Comics Terra seems to think her and Slade are equals, and that she is manipulating and using him as much as he is using her. The tragedy in this case arises from the fact that you know, Terra is a fifteen year old girl and Slade is three times her age.

There's an entire chapter where we follow around Terra montiofring people with contacts, and she's going about the titans daily lives just, telling Slade how much she hates them the whole time, but then she stops to ask Garfield why he's constantly being rude to other people and seems genuinely interested in listening to him talk about his feelings.

Terra's only out for herself, she is out to define herself and not let anyone else tell her who she is and who she should be. Terra's selfishness makes sense though considering the situation she is, she's either made to feel nothing like how she was with her family, or she is being sexually groomed by a guy three times her age. Her response to that, her extreme self interest and only caring about her own survival really is her way of fighting back against a world that she sees as trying to wear her down.

And that's a key part of her character Terra is a grooming victim who is also a bad victim. She's being groomed and her way of reclaiming her agency is to insist she wants sex, she wants to hurt people, that actually she's the one manipulating Slade. It's all Terra trying to assert control in a situation where she has none. I don't know if you know this, but a fifteen year old can't manipulate a guy in his fifties who has been doing this for years. Terra also, projects a lot of her hate for her situation and her lot at life at the Titans.

They did not do anything wrong to her, but at the same time she's pretty cosntantly unhappy with them, she complains none of them like her, she complains about their lack of trust, I believe that's less Terra trying to infiltrate them and more Terra herself either believing she cannot fit in anyhwere or as a person who only believes in transactional relationships and manipulation just not understanding how family works.

Terra also acts like dangerously unstable at all times, there's a point in the comics where Beast Boy gets way too aggressive with his flriting, that he full on triggers what resembles a PTSD response in her and she tries to bury him alive.

At times like this when Terra is made to feel she's either not the one with the power here, or being looked down upon she asserts herself with violence to desperately try to regain control. It is not healthy by any means, but it is still the behavior of someone who is coping incredibly poorly. Terra relies on fear and control to make herself feel safe at times like this, because she's not been shown love early on in her life and by this point she genuinely does not understand it. And also I cannot emphasize this enough as a victim of sexual grooming, Terra is pretty much not ever safe, or in a situation where she has bodily agency or control.

Terra in the cartoon dies in a heroic sacrifice, whereas Terra in the comics dies because she loses control of her power and essentially suicides. If anything the tragedy here is that Terra is someone who never learned to be a girl properly, nor was she appreciated as a human being and because of that she formed her entire sense of self around her powers. She is a child, and never having been allowed to be one, and not knowing how to live in this world, form relationships with people, trust and be trusted she dies as a child. Terra once again has nothing solid to build herself on, and because of that the tower falls down.

3. Terra and Beast Boy

In the cartoon Terra and Beast Boy are clearly meant to be in a relatoinship, in the comics Terra claims to have hated him all along, but arguably she could have been fond of him.

In both versions the relationship is entirely wrong headed from the start. A lot of it has to do with Beast Boy's flaws as a character. I wrote on and on how immature of an individual Terra is, and Beast Boy as the youngest on the team shares many of those immature and selfish traits. IN the comic itself that seems to be the reason why Beast Boy and Terra are paired together, they are the closest in age, she is the new girl and the trope Terra is made to deconstruct is the cute comic book love interest.

Comic book Garfield is almost more immature than cartoon Garfield, and on top of that is a full blown male chauvinist. A lot of people do not like Wolfram/Perez Beast Boy, I kind of love him because he doesn't understand woman's boundaries and thinks he desperately needs to get into a relationship and makes them uncomfortable because he sees his flriting as harmless to them... you know like a teenage boy. Unlike most characters like this that appear in media, this quality of Beast Boy's is something that gets called out on all the time.

Terra and Beast Boy do have something in common in that they are both outsiders to the group, they are the youngest so no one takes them seriously, they are almost always stuck together, there's a scene where they're both getting tutored by a tutor Garfield's rich father hired and they're both such ADD kids no one wants to be there. She does have at least one genuine moment of connection like this one.

Their immaturity is what makes them the most similiar, but they go about the inferiority they feel towards other people in opposite ways, Terra sets out to try to prove that she is better than other people by asserting herself, while Beast Boy tries to bend over backwards to win their love.

Terra sympathizes with Beast Boy because they share the same root cause of the issue, but they cope in opposite ways and because of that she looks down on him as just another kid. Which is something Terra is desperately trying to prove she is not. Terra genuinely does go out of her way to kiss him which shows this conversation at least affected her, she has moments of being genuine around Beast Boy, but I think this and every version of Beast Boy is too immature to ever reach her. Because to return to the male chauvinist aspect of Beast Boy's character, not long after this scene he full on triggers Terra by coming on way too hard to her.

Beast Boy wants a girlfriend, to validate his feelings, to make him feel special when he feels like he is the only kid, and the one most often left behind in a group of adults. He tries to make Terra into his love interest and Terra does not want to play that role at all. There are moments where Terra is genuine with Beast Boy, and he might have been able to reach her, but Beast Boy is so obssessed with the image of Terra he has built in his head and the idea of having her he's never able to even come close to her.

Beast Boy cannot understand Terra with any sort of nuance whatsoever, because she's a woman who doesn't really want to play along with any image of her in his mind.

Their cartoon relationship is much less destructive, but really suffers from the same fundamental problem. Both the episode "Terra" and the episode "Betrayal" feature Beast Boy trying to make Terra a promise that he cannot keep. The first time he promises to keep her powers a secret, he actually keeps that one but the perception that he's betrayed her is what makes Terra run. The second time Beast Boy promises to accept her no matter what she does, only to reject her when she is openly weeping and apologizing at his feet out of remorse.

Like, if you wanted to save Terra. To convince her to turn back to the side of good there was never a time more ideal than that but Beast Boy spits in her face. Because while he's a hero he's also a fifteen year old boy feeling hurt and betrayed. This is Beast Boy's Orpheus turning back to look at Eurydice moment.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember? Beast Boy: Slade was right, you don't have any friends.

Beast Boy's attraction to Terra is sort of instant and a kiddie crush, but any relationship they might have had is broken by the time Terra runs away at the end of their first episode together. Afterwards Terra has already betrayed the Titans, and Beast Boy is clinging to the girl Terra appeared to be the first time they met.

Beast Boy doesn't really fully comprehend Terra, which is why the literal last episode of the series is Beast Boy stalking Terra all day long and insisting that he knows her best, and he knows certain things about her and acting confused when she tells him that she was never that way, she never liked sleeping outside, she wasn't the girl he thought she was.

I went to great length to show how Terra's emotional immaturity results in her constant flip-flopping and contradiction, but Beast Boy shows the exact same behavior. Beast Boy in the cartoon tries to play roles to Terra that he is not emotionally mature enough to play. While at the same time. The first is he tries to be the one protecting her, the one guaranteeing her stability. In the first episode he is the one who stays with Terra and calms her down after Slade triggers her into nearly causing an earthquake.

At the same time by the end of that episode he's unable to make Terra stay because she's so hurt at the idea he betrayed one secret. Beast Boy is also the same person who one episode ago told Terra that she didn't have any friends to her face when she was crying and apologizing and just left her there, and the very next episode gets angry when the titans say Terra is irredeemable. Beast Boy that was you. You said that, to her face.

Beast Boy: Terra, you're our friend. Terra: I don't have any friends, remember?

Beast Boy wants to act like a hero saving Terra, but he's not that great of a hero, nor is he emotionally mature enough to do that. Which is why we get this behavior of Beast Boy, first reaching out to save her, and then resorting to victim blaming when he feels like he can't save her. He jumps between I am Terra's best friend, I know she was there all along, to just Terra doesn't have any friends. Terra you wanted to do these things, it was your choice. There's no consistency in Beast Boy's actions, because Beast Boy doesn't really know what to do he is vulnerable and desperate, because a person who he cares about has hurt him, and is also hurting.

Beast Boy is once again trying to put Terra into a simple and easy to understand box. He is acting like the hero of the story, and she flips between his villain and his love interest when that's not the case. Terra's more focused on Terra herself, she cares about Beast Boy but she's also just trying to survive. Beast Boy is a little bit too focused on his relationship with Terra, and like the validation he wants to get from her that he can't look at Terra as a whole person, or realize from an outsider's perspective she's a kid in dire need of saving. Well he does at times, but like I said he flips between advocating for never giving up on her, and victim blaming her because Terra is not easy to understand and he cannot make up his mind.

Terra is the main character of her own story and Beast Boy doesn't know how to comprehend her that way, or set himself aside to look at things from Terra's perspective because he's fifteen and stuck inside his own head with all those adolescent feelings and hormones.

In both versions, I think Beast Boy mistakes what could have been a strong friendship for romance because he is obsessed with getting into a relationship without really understanding what that entails. Beast Boy not being a good boyfriend at fifteen is actually perfectly understandable, the whole tragedy of the Judas Contract in general is that just like Terra is too immature to save herself from her situation, the Titans also just being kids are too young to save her.

They also both try to jump into a relationship without building a solid friendship first, because they both need love and stability and have no idea how relationships are supposed to work. It's like they both fell in love with the people they were when they first met and the relationship never evolved. They are similar and there is a connection, but rather than the things they have in common bringing them together, it drives them apart.

#beast boy #tara markov #terra #teen titans #teen titans meta #tt meta #new teen titans #terra markov #terra teen titans #garfield logan #bbterra #beast boy x terra #judas contract #metasks

[fishfingersalad]

big post of all my random rvb au ideas and some hcs, decided this was more reasonable than making like 20 different posts.

Hc the freelancers who die are like submarines that go missing, officially still out on patrol. Florida is the only freelancer that is officially gone from the program. A rumor starts that the freelancers suits are in some way connected to the us states so people think that when florida (state) blew up, so did Agent Florida's armour killing him in the process

 (I'm an ace Tucker believer) Y'know how Tucker gets charged child support for a bunch of kids post chorus? I don't think he has any kids outside of Junior. I think a bunch of people who got pregnant post temple of procreation were like shit idk the kids other parent. Uhhhh. Let's just say it was the rich famous planetary hero guy who claims to have slept with everyone. He probably doesn't even remember the people he's slept with. And then Tucker, asexual who has had sex one (1) time and realised he didnt like it very much, is stuck between revealing to the whole goddamn planet that he doesnt actually fuck, and paying a billion dollars of child support.

In an everyone lives no one dies type au I think Donut gets Maine, Locus, South, and Wash to come to his wine and cheese hour and he does their makeup and their nails.

Au where Sigma is just so fucking invested in getting Maine and Wash to date that he doesnt do anything evil. "Agent Maine, I think you will find this course I have signed you up for quite informative" Sigma this is a couples wine and pottery class "Oh look, is that Agent Washington over there? you should go say hi."

Au where Wash and Epsilon bond. It still fucks Wash up and shit, cause yknow. Epsilon issues. But Wash goes like "I am going to fucking kill the director he fucked you ai over so much" And Epsilon is so taken aback bc of Alphas view of Wash from an outside, heavily filtered perspective made him seem happy go lucky, innocent, and a bit naive.

Au where the freelancers find out that the director is Linas dad and behind her back they're all like "hey is she okay? why does he talk to her like that?" but then whenever she's around they just accuse her of nepotism. Gamma and Sigma team up to hack the leaderboard and change her name to nepotism baby.

I love South. I wish she existed more. I wish her and North and Theta could have gotten along. I wish Theta could suit jump like Omega and Alpha. I wish Theta could spend time with South. Like yeah South wouldn't like having to share an ai with her brother but like. He's their littlest brother.

Junior and Theta could autism bond. I think they'd both like comics. Also Junior teaches Theta basketball and Theta teaches Junior to skate. Skateboard kid plus scooter kid. I think Palomo would like to skateboard too. Wash and Palomo both helped teach Theta to skateboard. Wash bc he's friends w North, Palomo bc he's at the skatepark frequently. Jensen roller skates, she's... okay at it. not good. but okay. She broke her tailbone trying to impress Palomo. Andersmith would work at a youth center that the teens hang out at. Matthews works at a movie theatre, Bitters watches a movie there every week, maybe just to see Matthews.

Sarge werebear. Simmons vampire. Grif faun. Donut Light Elemental. Lopez is a ghost that got stuck in a shitty robot Sarge built. Church and the ai are ghosts, Tex is a vampire, Caboose is a werewolf (big doggy :3). Siren Tucker. Deep sea mermaid Junior (glowing octopus type stuff). Faun Kai (same as Grif). Carolina’s a Phoenix. Wash some kind of big cat thing. Florida Shapeshifter (he prefers being reptiles). The twins are demons. 479er is a harpy. York poltergeist (throws stuff at people). Wyoming's some kind of “answer my riddles three” type of imp. Ct is also a shapeshifter. Maine’s just a regular guy with a lot of weird friends. Felix and Locus are a fire elemental and a dryad respectively. Siris is a water elemental. In my au Donut’s a light elemental which makes it so fucking funny if Church pops up and says "boo" Donut just fucking decks him. and through Church being a ghost (a form of light) and Donut being a light elemental, Donut’s fist connects. South is the demon people are more likely to fear, but North is the one you really need to look out for. When South loses her temper people get frightened, when North loses his temper people die. If there's like. a group of kids exploring or something North’ll hold South back from doing anything more than scaring them. If there's a priest attempting an exorcism or someone with a cross threatening South, their organs will be found separately from their bodies. 

It's kinda funny when people make Church and Lina siblings and then Tex is just some random girl that Church likes. Like I fully understand why and the only other alternative i can think of is like. Church is the director's younger brother who was raised alongside his daughter after their parents died. and Tex is Allison's younger sister. Only way I could put together Church kinda being the director and Tex kinda being Allison but also Church and Lina being siblings without there being any relation between Tex and Church.

Florida and Ct have a coworker friends relationship i think. When they first met I think Florida said something vague and threatening to her so she pulled a knife on him. They've been sort of friends ever since.

#mikeys rvb rambles #rvb #red vs blue #this isnt even including the ones I started writing fics of #the thing about jensen breaking her tailbone skating #is mostly stolen from real life #i broke my tailbone rollerblading in front of my spanish class #also i love the idea of donut befriending every scary person he meets #the joyful whimsy grind never stops #mine

[roseworth]

hi tumblr user roseworth im desperately trying to figure out how old rose and eddie were by the end of their tenures in tt03 / how long they knew each other and it is... difficult especially because sooo much happened dc-event-wise during tt03. do you have any canon sources or noncanon thoughts on their ages beyond eddie being 17 in part of tt03 and rose being 14(?) when lilli dies ^_^

hiiiiii <3 unfortunately i dont have a great answer for this bc. comic timelines. but ill do my very best

so for rose the only time we get anything about her age in tt03 is in issue #0.5 (when she gets taken by slade) when it says that lili and slade met 18 years ago

so i assume that makes rose ~17 when she join slade (since lili would've been pregnant for 9 months after this)

we also get this panel saying that lili died 18 months before rose joins slade, putting her at around 15 or 16 when lili dies. iirc she was 14 when wintergreen sees her for the first time, so we can assume a year went by between wintergreen meeting lili and lili's death (if tt03 is to be believed! but deathstroke 1991 (annual #4) mentions that shes 14 when her mom dies)

anyways this also means that roy hired her as a live-in nanny when she was 16 years old which is really funny to me. but none of that matters; point is she was 17ish at the start of tt03

this is just my personal headcanon but i assume that the time between titans/yj graduation day -> infinite crisis is around a year, and if rose joins up with slade a little after graduation day then shes with him for just under a year

HOWEVER if we go by what slade says in nightwing #112, rose has only been with him for a few months

so based on that, rose is 17 (probably closer to 18) when she leaves slade

then infinite crisis happens and we skip to a year later! so shes 18/19 now. we dont get any specifics on her age but just for funsies we can assume that shes at least 18 since shes smoking and cyborg doesnt have a problem with it (he confiscates her alcohol but not her cigarettes), and the tobacco age in california in 2006 was 18

THEN it gets complicated. i dont have a source for this but i think theres supposed to be a year between oyl -> final crisis, making rose 19/20 by fresh hell (the secret reason she got kicked off the teen titans was because she wasnt a teen #adulthood)

also in fresh hell, she orders alcohol at a bar in canada (in the northwest territories where the drinking age is 19) so theoretically that makes her at least 19. though she never actually gets the drinks because she gets in a fight 2 seconds after this so she doesnt get carded so who knows!

from there. i dont have much. i assume that a full year doesnt go by from fresh hell to the end of the universe (if anyone knows how long bart & kon were dead for that might change things, but i assume we're not given any exact info on how long it was), so i would put rose at ~20 right before the new 52 happens!!

as for eddie, ill use the same tt03 timeline that i used for rose

like you mentioned, hes 17 in tt03 #42 (for reference rose is 18/19 at this time)

he didnt join the teen titans that long before this, we see him asking to join in 52 #51, which is like a week or two before tt03 #34 (the first tt issue after oyl) so its safe to assume that eddie is 17 when he joins the team

anyways after #42, i dont think we get any mention of his age? which is honestly kinda weird since his age is Very Important given that hes selling his soul to neron at 20. we should have an eddie's age tracker at all times

if we assume that hes 17 when he joins the teen titans and oyl -> final crisis is 1 year, then hes right around 18 or 19 when he dies

when he loses his powers then tries to make another contract to get them back in tt03 #68, kid eternity mentions that he'd have "a few years of superheroing," so him being 18 around this time makes sense

then he dies in #74 </3 no mention of his age anywhere but id say hes right around 18 when he dies

take all of this with a grain of salt bc a lot of this is just me making up timelines. but i personally think rose is 15 when her mom dies, 17 when slade takes her, 18 when she leaves slade, and 19 as of tt03 #34 (oyl). and eddie is 17 when he joins the team and 18 when he dies!

#hm.... a 19 year old (rose) talking to a 17 year old (eddie) ???? that age gap is kind of problematic dont you think #to me eddie & rose are that one post like #18 y/o with 'minors dni' in their bio vs 17 y/o with '18+ dni' in their bio #rose wilson #eddie bloomberg #dc #long post

[olderthannetfic]

audience question: what books/movies would you give (or have given) your kids to become their formative media? i'm interested to see what makes the cut 👀

--

I'd let them have access to my library. If it's a book, I'll let them figure out when they're ready to handle it.

(Works fine as long as you're a decent parent and answer questions that come up without being a weirdo about it and freaking them out so they never ask you anything again.)

For films and other things... hmm... it's tricky because all of the formative tings for me were the genre I'd call Weird Art Films About Weird Sex.

If my kid were shaping up to be that kind of weirdo at 14, maybe I'd leave some of these around, but I think it would be pretty intrusive to thrust them upon anybody outside of a film school seminar. Maybe Harold & Maude. My parents rented that when I was a tween. It made An Impression. It's rare for me to see something even two or three times, but Harold and Maude I've seen dozens.

I still think the opening to Harold and Maude is one of the best of any film:

You immediately know what kind of people both of these characters are and that this isn't going to be a simple comedy, dark or otherwise.

The first time I watched it, I knew nothing about the film and was surprised at both this and all of Harold's other antics. It's hilarious until it isn't. It's a movie about zest for life vs. wanting to die, and it walks an interesting line tonally. I remember rewatching it to show it to friends in college... and for the first time understanding that look Harold gets when he sees Maude's arm.

--

There was definitely media I loved pre-puberty, but the things I remember are all like Nancy Drew.

I consumed vast quantities of mystery, and it's probably why I'm a mystery novelist today, but I don't remember anything specific that feels formative in other ways. I wouldn't try to stop a kid from reading trash. I remember how infuriating it was to have adults constantly trying to make me read something "better" than Nancy Drew. But I wouldn't specifically hand my kid those or any of the other formulaic junk series (Sweet Valley High et al.). They'll find whichever ones are popular at the time just fine.

--

There's a very particular feeling of my brain lighting up that I remember mostly from my teen years. Those media made me quiver and have to pause the movie. I felt seen or maybe I felt too much to handle. That's the feeling I associate with formative media for me.

Here are the ones that instantly spring to mind even after all this time:

Velvet Goldmine - Music fan investigates the glam rockers of his youth, meditating on his sexual awakening and trying to solve the mystery of where one of them went. Ewan McGregor's tweet is the sequel. I will accept no other outcome.

Crash - James Spader at the peak of his beauty falls into the world of car crash fetishists who are dealing with the ennui of modern life and the alienation of the big city and technology by becoming perverts. Contains people going down on scars and tattoos, fetishy leg braces, and what teen me assumed was homoerotic subtext. (Spoiler: it was not subtext.)

Matador - A serial killer murders her victims like a bullfighter would; she stalks her favorite retired bullfighter who is also a serial killer. Antonio Banderas plays a dweeb like always in Spain. (The rest of Almodóvar's 80s and 90s movies were also favorites.)

Kissed - The fluffy necrophilia movie

The City of Lost Children - Less horny, but what is up with Miette and One's vibe? Visually a feast. Ten times the movie Amélie is. Sorry, not sorry.

Cemetery Man - Rupert Everett kills zombies in this bizarre Italian horror movie based on a comic book character drawn to look like Rupert Everett. My stepfather thought it looked like something I'd like and rented it for one of my birthday parties in high school. Around the time of the quasi necrophilia sex scene I realized 1. he'd chosen well and 2. he had clearly not read the back too carefully.

The Pillow Book - Japanese-Chinese novelist named after Sei Shonagon has a battle of literary wits with the publisher who blackmailed her father into sex with him. Involves a lot of calligraphy on naked men, including Ewan McGregor.

Sex, Lies & Videotape - Unfulfilled housewife has her world turned upside down when her shitty husband's college best friend comes to visit. This dude has become unable to be with women after a bad breakup and interviews and videotapes women discussing their masturbation habits for his own private use. Contains a famous and stupid quote about men falling in love with the people they sleep with and women becoming more and more attracted to the people they love, but the movie is far less gender normative than the character saying that.

Tesis - Uptight film student who pretends not to like violence decides to do a thesis on violence in Spanish media. Her advisor dies while watching a mysterious tape he got from somewhere. She steals it, finds out it's a snuff film, and investigates with the help of a creepy horror film nerd.

The best scene is when they're watching some violent shit she asked him for ("for her thesis") and she says "What kind of people watch this stuff?"

He answers: "You, for example."

That one I discovered when my roommate in Japan was watching it a couple of years after college. Many of these I saw in high school. That's the range where I remember things being particularly formative. Or maybe it's about what I'm open to at different points in my life: I think weird art films can still make me feel too much, but I don't always like that feeling, and I don't seek them out as much now.

Knife+Heart made me flash back to that era though. It's a neon-drenched period piece about a lesbian director of artsy gay male pornos investigating a serial killer targeting her actors. The sheer levels of meta insanity and horny murder scenes, my god!!!

Running through all of these are themes of ambiguous sexuality, often queer but also non-genitally-focused, massive quantities of voyeurism, meditations on what it means to be a fan, and a boatload of death=sex=death vibes.

--

That's not quite what you asked, but basically, my own formative media isn't something I'd share with just anyone. If people want to watch necrophilia-filled art films of the 90s, I think they need to choose that for themselves.

I guess all that access to Beatrix Potter and watching basically no TV other than Mystery! or Masterpiece Theater (i.e. UK costume dramas catering to a teaboo market and co-funded by the US) during my early childhood had an effect. So did going to schools where we studied Asian American history and read Dragonwings.

None of those media stand out. I'd share them with my kid, but one example is as good as another. Knives Out delivers substantially the same experience as most of them. Watching whatever anime is hot now will be as good as watching the anime I liked when I was young.

[galaxymagitech]

Don’t know if anyone still cares about spoilers for this, but…

SPOILERS FOR TEEN TITANS (2003)

So I finished TT03 season 2. And cried. I was NOT expecting a teenager to die. When Terra defeated Robin, I thought “this can only end in a last-minute heroic sacrifice.” But it still took me by surprise that she was actually just gone. They make her a gravestone and she never comes back as Terra. It was shocking.

I tend to see most characters in the most sympathetic way possible, and that applies to Terra too. She did terrible things and she knows it. She made really bad, perhaps irredeemable, mistakes. But she also didn’t deserve the way her story went. Doing bad things and experiencing bad things don’t cancel each other out. Being hurt doesn’t justify hurting people, although you can certainly experience empathy for someone like that. But also—just because someone, especially a 15/16-year-old teenager, hurts people doesn’t mean it isn’t sad when they get hurt too.

Looking back on Terra’s story, I don’t know what the Teen Titans could have done differently. Fixing one mistake would’ve just delayed the inevitable. Slade was cunning enough to manipulate Terra and unlike Robin she didn’t have an established support system—Slade got to her before she could build one and undermined all her successive efforts. Terra says she’s looking for control, but I don’t think she’s right about herself. If she wanted control then she would’ve left Slade as soon as she got control over her powers. I think she was looking for safety and she considered herself a threat. She wanted to feel protected and secure, after so long on her own, and Slade offered her the opportunity to take the storm inside of her and channel it outwards. He offered her a place she didn’t have to fight him for, and Terra had never had that before. The Teen Titans couldn’t give her what she needed—and neither would Slade, but you can see why she thought he would. And Terra keeps repeating that she’s in control, that she wants this, as if trying to convince herself, and it was honestly horrifying to me.

I don’t want to take away Terra’s agency here. She was manipulated, but she still chose to betray the Titans. She isn’t a good person. But I don’t think she’s a bad person either. It’s not a dichotomy, it’s a sliding scale. She was just a person and she was trying but it wasn’t enough.

And Terra was a kid. She was a teenager who was lost and confused and scared and made the choices that seemed best to her in the moment. She changed her mind again and again. She gave up the best thing she ever had. In another world, she could’ve been happy. She could’ve even been “good,” maybe not in the profoundly heroic person at heart way, but in the “doing good things” way. If Terra hadn’t had out of control superpowers, if Slade hadn’t noticed her, Terra wouldn’t have turned “bad.” If she’d gotten a normal life, she wouldn’t have been “bad.” Terra was just as deserving of a good life as a normal person.

So I found myself with literal tears in my eyes over an animated TV show, because it just sucked so much that Terra’s story ended up like this and this was way darker and more horrifying than I expected.

Some of this goes for the comics character too. I think she’s genuinely a bad person in the comics, and a lot less sympathetic. But also—without getting into the specifics—her life really sucked. She did bad things and bad things happened to her. Deathstroke manipulated her, and although it was clear that she’d kill people/be evil on her own, the way her story went was really sad. And of course she’s still responsible for her own evil actions, but…any time you’ve got a teenager whose life is like that, whose mind is so messed up that killing people seems like a good idea, it doesn’t matter where the blame is assigned—it’s a tragedy.

I can’t help but have sympathy for Terra, in both forms. Because no matter how awful she was or how many cruel things she did, she was a kid and her story was sad.

(Me: Terra is a kid! 15 or 16 years old! A kid!!

Also Me: I’m…practically an adult.)

#teen titans #teen titans (2003) #cartoons #terra #tara markov #slade wilson #meta #fan analysis #dcu #dc

[llamamicrowave]

Why I ✨Hate✨ Phin Mason

(any racism will be deleted <3)

In the Miles Morales PS5 game, we are introduced to a new version of the Tinkerer. Originally a one-off villain from the original Spiderman comics, the PS5 game developers try (and fail) to elevate the character.

First off, her personality. In most of the scenes, she is in with Miles, she’s just ruthlessly bullying him, this would be fine if it were a mutual thing but Miles just sits back and takes it?? Her entire personality basically dissolves into an ‘asshole that is better than Miles in every way possible’. The developers make her a weird tech genius, implied to be smarter than Miles and even Peter Parker in some scenes. This choice makes sense with her Tinkerer persona but (in my opinion) they kinda give her Ganke’s original personality and reduce him to a social media guru (refer back to the Thanksgiving scene at the beginning of the game).

In her FIRST SCENE (before we know her as the Tinkerer) she and the Underground attack a Roxon plaza where Miles’ mom Rio is campaigning. At this point, Miles doesn’t know Phin is the Tinkerer but Phin knows for a fact that Rio would be there (once again, refer back to the Thanksgiving scene at the beginning of the game). She is KNOWINGLY putting her friend's (and implied crush) mom at risk along with innocent civilians. And the WORST part of this is that this was completely unnecessary to the Underground's actual goals. Their real target was a truck containing Nuform of the COMPLETE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN, and since Phin is the leader of the Underground SHE chose to send a ton of her men to the rally, all while knowing Miles and Rio would be there. She then, out of costume, apologizes to Miles and blames the attack on Spiderman. HUH????

This bitch is dumb. And I mean that literally, her plan doesn’t make any sense. Despite the developer's attempts to make Phin seem like an evil genius, her entire plan falls apart once you think critically. Her goal is to halt the production of Nuform, a new, dangerous energy source developed by her brother, Rick. Nuform was also responsible for the eventual illness. Keep in mind that this illness didn’t kill him. While trying to destroy all the remaining Nuform, he got electrocuted (I think?) by it and then died in front of Phin.

(Apparently, this whole family is dumb ‘cause who takes a teen girl into a highly secured lab?)

Phin’s plan is constantly changing from the minute she is revealed as the Tinkerer to the final act. At one point Miles tries to warn her of Roxon's plan but she doesn;t take his warning and her entire plan falls to shit. And she has the AUDACITY to blame him for that!

And I haven’t even gotten to when she finds out that Miles is spider man! She accuses him of lying to her (which he was) in order to get access to her DOMESTIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATION! Did Miles lie, yes. But did Phin put innocent civilians at risk, including Rio? Yes! Phin needed to be taken down and she wouldn’t listen to anyone else instead of Miles.

The game wants us to believe that Phin is a sympathetic foil to Miles instead of the aggravating dumbass she really is. We see this in almost every interaction the two have. Miles is painted as a liar who doesn’t deserve a friend like Phin and is constantly apologizing to her, despite Phin being the aggressor and often in the wrong. Where ass Phin is depicted as a misguided girl with good intentions.

This is a problem because the plot of the game depends on Miles and Phin’s relationship, and if we don’t care about that relationship the emotional payoff at the end falls flat. Spoiler alert: the bitch dies. (DING DONG).

#miles morales #atsv #itsv #spiderman miles morales #spiderman ps4 #phin mason #phin mason slander #ghostflower

[imagionationstation]

DA BOIS

I SAW THE MOVIE

I WAS INTRODUCED TO THE UTTER NONSENSE THAT IS MM /aff

I HAVE THOUGHTS

NOT, LIKE, ANALYSIS WHICH MAY COME LATER

JUST THOUGHTS

AND SPOILERS

So I’m studying the boys and at first I was just “They really are leaning into this whole teen thing, huh” but then I thought back to every memory I have of my brothers and how they interacted and was just like- OH

OH WAIT

THIS IS ACCURATE

🤣 The bacon and egg scene- literally my brothers in a nutshell. The constant quotes and references- a little on the nose, but accurate.

BUT I SPENT

THE ENTIRE MOVIE

Waiting to see which turtle would spike my patented they need some hurt/comfort and at first I was leaning towards Leo- BUT THEN WHEN THAT BUS/TRUCK (I forget exactly what it was) FLEW STRAIGHT AT DONNIE AND MIKEY’S WATCHING IN HORROR AND DONNIE IS STUMBLING AND HURT AND OBLIVIOUS AND LOOKS ONLY HALF PRESENT-

Hands down. That got me.

I has a favorite and he’s so innocent and bright-eyed and deserves injury and kidnapping. I will make this happen.

The boys as a family were so fluffy and vibrant and relatable.

The boys as individuals…?

Leo has personality and concerns and attachments and a crush and flaws and strengths and he just felt like an person.

The rest seemed kinda… Plain. Raph had the anger thing going for him, but I have a hard time distinguishing Mikey’s and Donnie’s personalities. Mikey was friendly and liked improve, but that was never really touched on at all. In battle or otherwise- Donnie was the one who was thinking fast and taking the lead when talking to the Superfly. And Donnie was the one who Leo described as the best with people.

I’m not exactly sure what Mikey had going for him…

Donnie isn’t much of a techie, other than his headphones and phone, which is only used casually. He can drive and read comics, but that’s not really an abnormal teen thing. Like, any of his brothers couldn’t have driven using game skills? Or come up with a comic/movie solution to defeat Superfly?

That’s more nitpicks than anything tho. I might have missed things as well- it’s only my first watch. You shouldn’t make any firm decisions or judgements based on a first meeting. Hopefully, I’ll spot differences between them later on or they’ll flush out the characters more in the series.

They pushed a LOT into this movie. Everything was happening all at once. Like, they didn’t skip a BEAT when shifting from evil mutants trying to kill the boys to TCRI is locking them up.

And what the heck did Leo expect April to do?? SHE WAS ON A HIGHWAY BRIDGE?? DID HE EXPECT HER TO JUMP DOWN- SHE’S COMMENTED ON HOW CRAZY THEIR ROOFTOP TRAVEL IS! What makes him think she can do that??? 🤣🤣

At the very least she had to bike around and off the bridge to do anything, and he would have been unconscious by then. Boi just like “she abandoned us 🥺” when she could have been trying to help them while they were being loaded before going to get Splinter.

All hypothetical, of course. Would make for a good OneShot tho.

I like how the April betrayal was just a “I guess I was wrong” type of disappointment and not some dramatic heartbreak, because that feels more realistic to me. Relieved the crush wasn’t played off for laughs and all the brothers seemed disappointed.

April was such a good teen. They never played her off as anything but a normal person who didn’t have quite the right amount of self-preservation. Probably where the journalism comes in.

She was also a good representation that you don’t need green skin to not fit in. Life is hard, man, and I hope the series explores that even tho people don’t scream when they see them, that doesn’t mean life will be any less difficult. School is still prey grounds and people are still predators .

OMGEE SUPERFLY THO

DUDE WAS SCARY. BUT THE WHOLE TIME. I WAS WATCHING.

I COULDN’T NOT LIKE HIM FOR BEING EVIL

Dude got his daddy KILLED after daddy talked about raising him and his siblings and being a loving family by a bunch of weapon-using scary humans that also tried to kill them WHILE HE WAS A BABY

TCRI CREATED A FORMATIVE MEMORY THAT WAS STRAIGHT TRAUMA! OF COURSE HE HATES HUMANS-

That poor fly 🥺😔

The parallel between Splinter and Superfly was interesting. Felt a tiny bit forced at the end there, but I can respect it. Can’t dictate a fam’s every choice. That’s not fair. Gotta let your fam be free to grow and make their own mistakes and create their own morals~

I have a couple other thoughts, but I want to formulate them a bit more. See if I can make stuff off of them.

One last thing before I go…

MY SOCIAL ANXIETY HEADCANON STILL STANDS

NOT ONCE IN THE WHOLE MOVIE WERE THEY SEPERATED UNTIL THE SCHOOL

And even then it’s in a controlled environment. They all know where the other is. It seems safe.

But what happens when that illusion is gone…?

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