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sisterdivinium · 6 months

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You know, for a show with so many female characters that so many of us love given how they all get time in the spotlight one way or another and they fill that time up rather wonderfully since they are deeper and more developed than what we're used to seeing in general media, it is peculiar (to say the least) to see so few "alternative" ships to the main one.

I'm not saying the canon ship doesn't deserve its attention -- I'm wondering instead why the canon ship and it alone seem to guide the WN fans who just so happen to enjoy writing/reading fic or fanart or whatever.

You'd think all these cool women would inspire more ships or combinations thereof, but those of us who aren't invested in avatrice just... Float along, around one another, ignored (and, yes, mostly undisturbed too; being unpopular does have its advantages and that includes a lot less weirdos leaving you strange or awkward messages -- it does not, however, shield us from people flooding our goddamn tags on AO3 with fic that has nothing to do with our little ships and I do wish such negligence of the pairing itself meant we didn't have to deal with this spam...)

I am also not saying that fandom activity should be based solely on shipping (and recently someone on Reddit was rather confused by the fact that a lot of it is, which is quite an interesting topic to discuss in itself -- after all, there is more to fan creativity than shippy fic... Or there used to be), merely that, here, it appears that a canon relationship can outshine interest in the other, non-canon ones. It's already there and it was doubtless well-done by the show, so it's natural that it should claim people's attention, sure. It's just that being canon was never the parameter for whether people were interested in these or those two (or more) characters maybe being involved and trying to explore what that could mean through fanwork.

There has always been a complaint haunting fandom spaces concerning the minuscule amounts of f/f fic, art, discussion, w/e based on how few (interesting or sympathetic or relatable) female characters there are in media at large. So what I'm curious about is why fan creations made around WN -- a show that finally gives us a whole cast of female characters that are what we have been craving for decades -- don't also reflect its diversity.

There are alternative ships (I'm here, all happy in my tiny Doctor Superion bubble, and I know there are Camila/Lilith, Ava/Lilith, Mary/Shannon, Mary/Lilith shippers out there, so a warm hello to you if you're reading this), but go on AO3 and compare the numbers of things tagged with these proper pairings to the grand total of WN stories. Better (or worse) still, do so with the "otp: true" trick or simply by excluding avatrice from the search to see how many are left.

It's... A considerable difference. And a mystery, at least to me.

#tagging this as #warrior nun #simply because i'd like to talk about this and maybe some of you have thoughts or theories about it #i just ask you engage in good faith if you do. i'm not pointing fingers at avatrice people i think they're fine and dandy #i'm just -- to reiterate -- surprised at how little interest there is in other ships when the potential is all there #(is it because they're nuns? that never stopped avatrice so why should it stop others...)#(besides lilith is hardly still a nun after s2. bea left. mary didn't really take vows did she? you really thought i was a nun she says...)#meta fandom talk i guess #then again about the nun thing... i have noticed a lot of people just go for aus. i can't recall ever being in a fandom with SO many aus #is the religious aspect an issue by any chance? i also recall someone commenting on how little a part religion played in these aus #curious. very curious.#i imagine some of you are wondering why i care when i don't even read fic but --#-- to quote jillian salvius herself i am a curious person and well you are a curiosity lol

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covertblizzard · 2 years

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how would you rewrite gl rebirth

I haven't actually thought about how I would rewrite GL:Rebirth much because the whole storyline just makes me uncomfortable and grumpy. I have thought about how I would rewrite the last arc of Kyle's run after Black Circle: Urban Knights (Green Lantern 1990 #165-181), but I'll try my best to answer this. I typed out an ENTIRE essay but accidentally deleted it, so I'm crying right now but I'll try to recall all that I wrote sldfgjshdfg

It depends on what you mean by rewrite it as well, it could be changing some aspects of the story but keeping most of the plotlines (minor changes) or keeping to the idea of trying to resurrect Hal Jordan and start up the corps but with a completely different storyline (major changes). Unlike Geoff Johns, I don’t think Hal needs another redemption arc when he already has multiple others and it’s more about what he continue to do for me, so it would more be about the resurrection of Hal as opposed to the redemption of Hal. I'll split my answers into two parts under the cut (because spoilers) - Keeping the Main Plot and Revamping.

Keeping the Main Plot

Changes to the plot

This idea is something I talked about with @fantajoseph where instead of having Parallax be there from the beginning (some parts of the story even seem to imply that Parallax had been there since Hard Traveling Heroes maybe which is ????), Parallax was only unleashed and took over when he absorbs the power battery. This doesn't absolve him of everything (which is boring), keeping some of his actions including killing Kilowog, but doesn't have him literally going for world destruction. It also could fit with the changing of motives from initially being bring back Coast City to literally going back to the Big Bang and starting the universe over with him in-charge and deciding how things go. It also puts the release of Parallax squarely on his shoulder for attempting the power grab (even if he did it unknowingly), instead of having it be a "it was always going to happen" thing where he is portrayed as "sad boy poor victim uwu" or whatever which takes away so much of his agency.

I’ll straight up remove John trying to reintegrate Spectre!Hal back to regular human society. I don’t understand what was up with that and I really dislike it. I enjoy Spectre as a mystical spiritual entity that can’t quite interact on the same plane back with regular humans and all that. The vibe of the longing and tragedy of how he is there but not quite there. With all this time between, they should’ve come to terms with this situation and not do whatever is going on, because it doesn’t make sense. Hypothetically, if this rebirth stuff didn’t happen, he would just be doing his Spectre stuff, atone for what he feels like he’s done wrong, find peace, and then go to Heaven. Hal is dead then, the whole baseball scene just takes away from that.

I would change Parallax’s control of people to be much more like Alexander Nero with the uncontrolled, wild, unpredictable, messy elements due to fear as opposed to the very controlled attack the Justice League stuff that was going on. I think fear should be more messy and dangerous, not whatever was going on. I think there should be a difference between Sinestro controlling / using fear for power and being controlled by a literal fear entity (having fear dictate your moves because it overwhelmed you).

I wouldn’t have all three of Kilowog, John, and Guy be controlled by Parallax, and I definitely would not have Ganthet controlled by Parallax. In the original apparently, Batman gets controlled too and shoots Robin (????) and as much as that kind of cracks me up, I probably won’t do that either. I’d maybe have 1-2 of them be controlled by Parallax, but I’d definitely have Kilowog, because he was just plagued by fears very recently in the most recent GL run and it would be interesting to bring back and haunt him with the Xadai. Most importantly though, whoever gets possessed by Parallax should break free and overcome it themselves, I don’t like the Ganthet cop out.

I’d also include Tom. I mean just a bit before this, Ganthet even acknowledges that Oa has 2 saviors - Tom who recreates Oa and reignites the central battery, and Kyle who brings back the Guardians. It just isn’t a proper rebirth story without him, especially since it’s Hal’s rebirth. Additionally, in the Green Lantern Legacy: The Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan, they even said that if Hal had spoken to Tom, he might not have been able to carry out all the Parallax stuff, so who better to be there to bring Hal back and maybe force Parallax to GTFO once and for all?

I’d straight up remove Sinestro from the storyline, he was unnecessary in my opinion, and ends up making Parallax bug much less scarier than it could have been. Eldritch fear entity coming back into the world? Scary. Eldritch fear entity that is kind of manipulated and utilised by some dude (tm)? Kind of lame. Parallax is like the equivalent of Ion, right? Plus he’s LITERALLY the embodiment of fear, he should be WAY scarier. Having his first appearance be in some way influenced by Sinestro undermines the bug a little imo. At most, I’d have Sinestro’s presence with the yellow ring maybe awaken Parallax from his slumber, but he should be unaware of it. (Sort of unrelated, but I think Sinestro can totally try to control or utilise Parallax in future, but I think it should be difficult and he should maybe have to try multiple times and there should be unforeseen devastating consequences and have it perhaps even backfire a little.)

Instead of the battle with Sinestro, I think they should bring back some of the other GLs and perhaps some of them who disagrees with the resurrection of Hal, resulting in a bit of a stand off. There would be the faction that think he should stay dead and the corps should have a fresh start, and the faction that think he should be forgiven. It would also tie in very well with The Last Will and Testament and Kyle’s very recent run surrounding Black Circle, and have Hal face the grief and issue he’s caused personally instead of Tom and Kyle dealing with the repercussions. Parallax can enter the scene and take control over some of GL’s by amplifying their fears from what Hal has done and what he could do again and all that, causing havoc in general. It doesn’t have to be resolved straight away, but I think the decision to resurrect Hal could be decided based on “Parallax is the bigger villain and what we’d have to deal with first and Hal is both an extremely powerful GL and also the one person to really know Parallax which could help with his defeat".

I would change it so Spectre didn’t know about Parallax. I just feel like the literal embodiment of fear from time immemorial should be a little more mysterious and scary and not so easily identifiable. Maybe Spectre didn’t even exist when Parallax had been imprisoned. (But maybe not, I don’t know enough about Spectre.)

Remove anything that mixes fear and evil. Obviously fear can lead to evil but fear is NOT evil. As cool as some phrases like “Evil finally escaped Jordan’s sight. It hid inside him.” are, it equated Parallax to EVIL instead of FEAR and I think there should be a distinction. Plus I just don’t really subscribe to the concept of pure evil and all that stuff soooo

Minor things I would add/remove/change:

Kyle not knowing he could translate with his ring. Please he has been doing it since his Titans days and just a while back he went on some alien diplomacy trip, you really think he’s out here learning alien languages from scratch?

If the baseball scene is kept, I’d change the confession stuff where everyone just start falling over their feet to confess their sins to Spectre because it just makes me very EEK. I would have it a bit more supernatural with their sins overwhelming him, maybe the visage of the person committing their sins taking over his senses to the point he could not see or hear the baseball match and maybe even can’t feel John and Guy beside him. Basically a little more horror and a little less confession booth to a priest vibe.

Have John included into statues at the Warrior Bar because there is even a Guardian but not John and that’s ://

Include Helen (unfortunately I haven’t read Spectre 2001 so I don’t know how yet)! Increase Alan, Jen, Roy, Wally’s presence in the storyline, maybe either during the GL fights part or in discussions with Justice League or just other parts.

Remove Hal always having an authority-defying habit

Keep the Guardians as mostly children except for Ganthet. Actually have an equal ratio or maybe even some gender non-conforming guardians and definitely not 2:7 ratio because I don’t know who needs to be told that in DC, but 2:7 is not 1:1. Also, if they were going to make them all old, give the female guardians wrinkles too because apparently this artist decided that even alien ancient beings older than we can imagine cannot have wrinkles if they’re girls :)

Remove the part where they gave them temporary disabilities (John was blind, Kyle was deaf) for like ONE panel and then they fought harder or whatever and it was gone like WHAT??

Things I would keep:

Guy and John’s talks, I enjoyed it

Hikers that found and took care of Kyle, it was cute

Ollie-Kyle scenes, I think they were sweet

Reciting the Oath as they defeated Parallax

Detailing the distinctions between how the GLs used their constructs, I liked that part! I would change / polish a bit of Hal and Kilowog’s (especially Kilowog’s) but I liked the idea.

There’s this thing I read on wiki’s and other people’s comments about how Kyle wasn’t taken over by Parallax because he knew fear and the others didn’t which always never made sense to me because SURELY they all have encountered, dealt with, and know fear. After all, it is something that they all grappled with in their own storyline?? But then when I read the story, it seemed a lot more like it was that Kyle was familiar with fear. That he felt it more regularly, could identify and understand it, and therefore was less likely to be controlled because when Parallax started to try to control him, he recognised it. The advice Hal gave was “Listen for fear. Remember fear.” I really liked that, because sometimes we need to be able to identify our demons and recognise it so that we can deal with it, it’s something that is applicable irl too, even though usually it’s not because a bug demon would take control of us.

There’s this THING that I don’t even know if I want to change or remove or what, but Hector Hammond in this storyline!! What is he doing there?? Why are there multiple panels of him locked up in his facility being oddly creepy, mostly towards Kyle? Like he’s all “Sing for me, Kyle” and then pops up again at the end being all ah I didn’t expect Kyle to be able to do it?? I don’t think he’s even met Kyle? How does he even know what is happening?? This doesn’t even seem to pay off in this storyline, nothing happens?? Do they go somewhere with this in another story?

Revamping

Resurrection stories are sometimes a little EH with me, so I’m not sure how I'd like to go about it best per se, but I do have a few ideas floating around.

Either way, to resurrect Hal, something to think about is how he could have a body. GL:Rebirth went the “his body was somehow preserved and someone (Kyle) brings it back from the sun” route, but there are other options like someone reconstructing his body.

In Kyle’s first run as Ion, he explicitly offers to erase Parallax (no bug demon at this point, just Hal as Parallax). Spectre!Hal tells him that it’s not wise basically and Kyle (a creepy god boy at this point) is like oooh cool, you really can’t lie huh, guess I can do it. But then he doesn’t do anything with that information.

Kyle has ANOTHER Ion run less than 2 years after Rebirth, so one possibility is to just shift forward that Ion run and to have him bring Hal back. I wouldn’t have him retcon Parallax!Hal out of existence, but perhaps being the Spectre was somehow eating into Hal’s soul and his very soul was in danger and could possibly disintegrate for good and to save him, Kyle resurrects him. I don’t know enough about Spectre, but I know Hal tries and fail to turn it into a spirit of redemption as opposed to a spirit of vengence, and some angry evil spirits are loose (?) because of that, so maybe Hal’s potential loss of soul could have to do with that.

The other (and more fun imo) possibility is to have Lianna resurrect Hal. Towards the end of Kyle’s run, he fights and defeats Amon Sur and when he was probably about to murder that guy, Lianna pops up and stabs Kyle and murder Amon instead, citing the reason that “bad stuff will happen otherwise” basically. This confuses me for so many reasons because

The guardians generally have a non-interference policy and don’t personal get involved in stuff which this is VERY involved (although of course, Lianna has kind of been flouting this rule a lot but STILL, murdering 1 or 2 dudes?)

The guardians don’t allow the GLs to kill in general, and while they are for sure more lenient with themselves, Ganthet is in charge at the moment and I can’t see him being very pro-murder

If she was trying to kill Kyle, she most definitely did not succeed, and if she really wanted to kill Kyle, surely she could’ve done a better job as a guardian?

This is because of her “prophecies” but even within the story, quite a few of her prophecies didn’t come through??

Anyway, I propose that Lianna wasn’t trying to KILL Kyle, she was trying to prevent Kyle from killing Amon because she doesn’t want him to walk down a darker path that he had kind of been heading towards. She knew he’d be able to survive (or maybe even gave him a boost that helped him survive), but she chose to interfere to stop him.

With this logic, I think it could be written that instead of straight up disobedience and killing Amon herself, she could decide to bend the rules a little and try to involve Hal so he could stop Kyle and help to capture Amon instead of killing him. From her perspective, this would work well because Hal is a good example of why you shouldn’t do that maybe, and he is powerful enough to deal with Amon! However, I imagine Spectre!Hal would be like “I can’t interfere” and all that and so she frees his soul from the Spectre and resurrects him.

This brings up multiple things that I think would be fun!

This forced resurrection is KIND OF what he did to Ollie in GA 2001, which sets up a fun “should you do this?”

This might not actually be the best thing for Hal, and maybe Lianna even knows it, but she might have done it because Kyle sort of sometimes raised her and she clearly cares about and wants to help Kyle. Before this she’s done a lot from pause planet destruction when she recognised him even while kind of crazy, help him record a message for his friends, personally deliver that message to Earth, help encourage his friends to record a message back, run interference in Jen and Kyle’s relationship, try to stop him from going into a dangerous situation, and intervene with and kind of threatened someone who was hired to kill Kyle. It would fit into the thread of things she’s been doing much more than... stab him.

Powerful Green Lanterns being brought back to the guardians’ service (Kilowog and Hal), this one actually by a guardian, which could bring up the whole “are you going to be a guardians’ puppet again?” and like topics of whether this is the direction the new corps wants to be heading, especially with all the guardians basically being younger than the GLs technically.

Hal fighting Amon Sur would be so interesting because Hal is everything Amon wants to be! Got his father’s (Abin Sur) recognition, got his father’s ring and became GL, destroyed the corps, almost cause a world destruction. Amon would detest him so much and Hal would hate Amon for tarnishing Abin’s name as well and it would be fun to see them interact. I just realised three people relating to Abin Sur (Sinestro, Hal, Amon) have all gone the villain route oh wow

Kind of unrelated, but I also like the idea that Lianna's simply actually far more powerful than Ganthet and that's why Ganthet's powers were unable to limit her powers even when she is a baby.

Rebirth also seem to want to bring Guy and John back into the corps. The easiest way is to have the Amon VS Hal & Kyle fight closer to earth, have the Watchtower notice it, and John is dispatched to check it out. Guy can get involved either because they suspect it has to do with Kyle and he insisted on coming or John dragged him along, or Ollie somehow knows or suspect it has to do with Hal and forced the ring Hal left him on Guy and pushed him to go, or something along those lines.

Alternatively though, John is already a GL again anyway so when the corps start, he would probably be automatically be part of the corps. I don’t know how the arc where he becomes leader of GL happens, but I’d definitely keep that for him.

For Guy, one possibility is to have him join the GL back to train rookies with Kilowog (also something I talked about with @fantajoseph). I’d imagine there could be a lot of recruitment (since they’re starting all over) and so they’d want to have more than one trainer, and perhaps Guy could be a little unwilling at first (his whole “GL is the past for me” thing), but something could make him feel the obligation to join again? (Also, I don’t know why but I haven’t seen much about his Vuldarian heritage thing and I don’t know if they just didn’t let him keep those powers or something or I just haven’t seen it, but I’d definitely keep those because who doesn’t want more superpower. I think it’s fun.)

#callie answers #green lantern #hal jordan #kyle rayner #john stewart #guy gardner #ganthet #lianna #dc thoughts #i would re-read but i did retype this whole thing from memory and probably missed out some stuff and my brain is basically dead #so deal with all the errors i've typed i guess #did i ever mention wanting to rewrite gl:rebirth i don't recall that slfkjsdfgshdfgaflskd #but anyway i had fun thinking about it #me: oh this will be short i haven't even thought much about it #me after: ... T.T

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