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zahri-melitor · 4 months

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In terms of trying to transplant how Dick’s generation grew up to independent adult heroes onto Tim’s generation, one of the significant issues is that the two groups have very different backstories.

The Fab Five and their generation were largely cared for children with present guardians during their teen years. Their ‘growing up’ rebellion moments were about wanting to establish their own identities separate to their parent/guardian. Then once NTT occurred and new young adult characters were added to it, you had a bunch who were escaping overbearing guardians with expectations the young adult didn’t want to fulfil, and leaving trauma behind.

The Core Four and other 90s heroes, in contrast, were mostly latchkey kids. They had loving but absent parents and parental figures. They were largely expected to grow up and show they were independent in their early teens. The arcs of their stories were not about growing up and finding themselves and ‘be your own person’, but about learning to trust others and interdependency and working together.

Like the shape of a Fab Five story is ‘in my preteens or earlier a Disaster Happened and I was taken in by a hero who cared for me and taught me the business as their sidekick. Then around 18-20 I moved out to live in a sharehouse with my friends as I wanted to find who I was outside of the shadow of being a sidekick’.

While…Tim’s generation largely aren’t sidekicks in the same sense. The shape of THEIR stories are of ‘teenager with largely absent adults is expected to grow up and show emotional maturity too early’. It’s actually notable that Tim, Kon and Bart all have long term story arcs that involve gaining a stable household right near the end.

Kon’s entire solo is the story of how he is neglected and exploited by every adult around him. He doesn’t have parents. He’s Peter Pan, the little boy who cannot grow up, who lives without parental expectation. He’s a celebrity kid exploited by Rex Leech and by CADMUS, who’s expected by those around him to act in an adult manner and held to that standard while simultaneously specifically being underage and not having the right to make his own decisions. His final arc in Superboy is about being so abandoned he doesn’t even have CADMUS to depend on anymore so he has to find an apartment and a job (the building superintendent) and is expected to act and function like an adult in that position. Superboy #59 (FIFTY NINE) is when Kon finally gets his own name. Superboy #100 is ABOUT Kon moving in with Jonathan and Martha Kent and finally having a stable home environment where he can be a child. Heck Kon’s already had a story where he’s ‘married’ and responsible for a kid. He’s had solo space adventures.

Bart’s solo is about Bart and Max learning to be a family together, but also: Bart’s childhood didn’t contain parents. Meloni turns up occasionally through his solo and loves him but also has to disappear away back to the 30th century at the end of each appearance. The final arc of Bart’s solo is about him moving in with Jay and Joan Garrick for more stability, because Max has disappeared (and stays disappeared). And then, post his solo, Bart even already has HAD an arc where he had to grow up and assume the Flash mantle (which went horribly wrong and led to his death).

Tim? Tim’s entire solo is about upheaval and change. The first time he’s expected to behave as an independent hero, not a sidekick, is literally Robin #1 when Azbats kicks him out of the Cave. Jack threatens to send him away to boarding school on multiple occasions and DOES for the Brentwood arc. He loses Jack, he loses Dana, he moves out to be a hero caring for his own city at 16, in Bludhaven post War Games. Bruce’s adoption of Tim was all about giving him back that sense of stability and support so that Tim had people backing him up again in his personal life and not only as a hero. And then he does the ‘leave and get a new identity’ thing during Red Robin.

And Cassie? Cassie starts with a loving mother and her story arc over becoming a hero is about periods of operating on her own. She moves away from her mum to go to Elias School. Due to operating as a hero under her own name she eventually has to come up with the alias of Drusilla Priam to give herself a non-public identity to retreat to (and isn’t living with Helena Sandsmark but renting on her own during this period to protect Helena).

This is a set of characters for whom it makes no narrative sense to tell a story of them growing up by ‘moving out and finding their own identity as separate heroes’ because their entire PAST is about being alone and looking for connections and people to rely upon. They haven’t been looking for their mentors to accept them as independent adults, they’ve been looking to their mentors to be present and work with them.

They have already all BEEN through the steps of moving out (while underage) and learning to look after themselves as nobody else was there to support them. Growing up for them is about learning to trust and be respected for the skills they already have and trusted to know what they’re doing, rather than leaving to show they can operate independently.

And that’s a harder narrative to show, because it’s a less common growth story in our culture. But in the Core Four’s case, I’d argue a lot of the traditional signifiers of adulthood (moving out; moving away for education; taking responsibility for a city on their own; travelling for quests) are things they were already expected to do while still significantly underage, and so sending them through that plot again isn’t showing anything new to allow them growth. What they need is the adults around them to treat them as adults for the things they already can and do do.

#dc meta #core four v fab five

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armed-with-a-waffle-iron · 8 months

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Stephanie Brown ACTUALLY having the character arc that fanon pretends Jason Todd had (plus a defence of canon Jason)

What I'm really saying is that Stephanie Brown is underappreciated, Jason Todd is often misinterpreted, and, though it should go without saying, ignoring canon is poor media literacy. So let's actually analyse canon and get to the bottom of what the stories are trying to say and how they use their characters to tell this, as opposed to just which character should we stan.

I'm arguing that Stephanie Brown's story actually features a redemption arc that sees her transform from a violent, almost murderous teenager into the most unwaveringly hopeful of heroes and that Jason's story is about a villain who we're meant to empathise with to expose the cracks in the Batman's heroic facade; a Frankenstein's monster if you will. Here's a numbered list:

Part 1: Outgrowing Violence, Anger and Murder

A big part of Stephanie Brown's growth in canon is her learning not to kill or use excessive force. But it's not as simple as just killing is wrong, don't question it.

Let's begin with the narrative's relationship to violence, anger and murder. Why doesn't Batman kill? Because "[those] who [fight] with monsters might take care lest [they] thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you". If he kills, he's playing god, choosing who gets to live and die. No one deserves that kind of absolute power and absolute power also corrupts. Batman doesn't want to lose sight of himself or his cause. Deliberate murder is treated VERY negatively in the Batman mythos.

Enter Stephanie Brown.

Stephanie was a working class latchkey kid who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. She had an abusive, criminal father, who was in and out of jail, and a mother struggling with addiction, who Steph became a carer for at just 15. Steph also became pregnant with the child of her horrible ex. At 16, she gave birth to that child and had to give her up for adoption. Steph is also a survivor.

The world was never kind to Steph and left this teenager with a hell of a lot of bitterness and rage which her vigilante career became an outlet for. You can tell by the way she fights since Steph fights DIRTY; she'll tug hair and spit in your eyes and strike below the belt and catch a kick to twist your ankle and dislodge your already broken nose. On the one hand; the narrative tells us Steph is resourceful. She's 5'5", 130 lb and has zero powers, but can always find an opening even when going up against Gotham's grizzliest. It's telling that quick thinking, savviness and spontaneity become her thing when she becomes Batgirl; Steph is the wild card. On the other hand, she was a real diamond in the rough and a complete loose canon. In her first arc, it's Batman who stops her from making the biggest mistake of her life; killing her dad. To deliberately kill; to play god, is to lose yourself, remember. Her first arc is about not being defined by who your parents are and about not giving up on yourself. Batman basically tells her, there's hope for you yet Stephanie Brown, by getting her to spare her dad. And she does. And so began her superhero career.

Nonetheless, it's never that simple. Steph is still a bitter, angry teenager, no matter how many jokes she cracks. It becomes a personal crusade when she, now Robin, discovers that The Penguin is using children as runners. It takes Cassandra Cain to stop her from inflicting anything she may regret.

The narrative wants to show us how cruel the world can be and that it isn't black and white, either. The story ends with an angry Stephanie lamenting "why". It's a "why" she is asking herself too. Why does she do what she does? And it informs us that she, and maybe us the reader too, still have a lot to learn. Murder's not the answer but what is?

Stephanie later saves Bruce by almost murdering serial killer Victor Zsasz. Bruce reprimands her and she cries, quite honestly, "I don't get it, I really don't", following on from where we left off in Batgirl. "There are always other options than to kill" asserts Bruce, forget not being on the same page, they're reading different books. The thesis of the story is what Bruce should have told Steph when she was an angry 15 year old about to murder her dad; "[those] who [fight] with monsters might take care lest [they] thereby become a monster". The world's cruel, Steph, but that doesn't mean you have to be too. "Are you firing me?" "No, I'm teaching you".

Over 2 years down the line, an around 19 year old Stephanie, establishing herself as the new, hoping-inspiring Batgirl, is now teaching a brash Damian Wayne what she's learned.

"To murder or not to murder" is just a plot device to the themes of overcoming your own anger at the world's cruelty to contribute good, coming to terms with shades of grey, not giving up on yourself and staying hopeful in the face of adversity and horror. These are Stephanie's arcs and as a consequence, she goes from would-be-murderer to Gotham's cheeriest caped crusader.

Part 2: Double Standards and Second Chances

Another huge part of Stephanie's story is her overcoming double standards and doubters, to earn her own second chances. Her resurrection and rise to the role of Batgirl were choices made to hammer home this theme; it's never too late to turn things around.

There's some juicy metatext to analyse here too. DC editorial's treatment of Stephanie during War Games was horrific and panned by both fans and writers. To reperate for these harms, Steph was retconned back to life and then made Batgirl during Batman: Reborn. Here's a quote by Batgirl (2009) author Bryan Q. Miller on what his run aimed to bring out of Steph:

The whole point of Stephanie's resurrection and take over of the Batgirl title was to give her a redemption arc.

In text, Stephanie was unfairly treated too, notwithstanding that she was brash and had a massive violent streak in her Spoiler and Robin days. Tim Drake constantly condescends her and tells her to give up vigilante life, even though she was ALWAYS a match for Tim according to Convergence: Batgirl. Cassandra Cain constantly underestimates Steph. Bruce Wayne tells his allies to cut off ties with Steph and then later fires her as Robin for DISOBEYING HIM as if that's not the first thing Dick Grayson ever did as Robin. Barbara Gordon tells Steph she has a death wish. Dick deems Steph too reckless (moments before he resurrects a zombie Batman). And Damian is an entitled brat who gives her a hard time for no reason. Everyone doubts Stephanie and it generally says more about the doubter than it does Stephanie.

Stephanie was never great with authority or criticism so she still went out there and earned her second chance. And it felt rewarding when her doubters came around too.

Stephanie was brought back from the dead to be redeemed and man did she take that chance!

Part 3: What is Jason Todd's Story Meant to Tell Us and My Defence of Canon Jason

Jason Todd returns from the dead as a ghost of Batman's past; he is the living embodiment of Batman's greatest mistake who couldn't stay buried and is back to haunt him. He's a character we are meant to empathise with but he's a villain nonetheless. He's not irredeemable but for the most part his story is not really about redemption. Succinctly, it revolves around the idea that "we are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell” to quote Oscar Wilde.

When we first meet the resurrected Jason, he's a cold-blooded murderer who's slinging guns and using The Joker's old moniker. These choices are made to emphasise that he went down the wrong path; he's breaking Batman's "don't play god" rule and his actions become eerily closer to those of the Clown Prince of Crime than Batman's. In fact Nightwing and Batman spend some quality time together in the next two issues because Nightwing is the foil to the Red Hood; he's what Bruce considers his greatest success. Remember that thing about "those who [fight] with monsters might take care lest [they] thereby become a monster"? Well Jason DID become a monster. And if he's the monster, then Bruce Wayne is Frankenstein.

We're not supposed to think "yes, kill the The Joker, Jason", we're supposed to think "good god, please Jason, it's not too late to turn your life around". Here's Dick and Jason being the exact opposite of each other, an issue apart.

So what was Jason's villainous return trying to say? For one, that people are the products of their circumstance, lest we forget Jason was once an eager and studious Robin who just wanted to be part of something greater when life, but specifically Bruce, sent him awry. This is also a story about Bruce which tells us says that our mistakes have consequences that don't stay buried, and that we will always be forced to reckon with our histories or it becomes everyone's problem. This next panel shows this best. All of Jason's killing and torture and fear-spreading and chaos does not come down to some "murder or not to murder" debate, it comes down to his relationship with Bruce. He is the monster that Frankenstein created who's back to haunt him and no one is safe.

Jason's initial Red Hood arcs were never supposed to pose the question "should Batman kill The Joker or not?". The answer is no and always has been. They are supposed to show us how Bruce's poor fatherhood of and partnership with Jason Todd led to all this horror. And Bruce can't turn back the clock, he has to reckon with the consequences of his actions in the present or more people will get hurt. It's significant that these first arcs don't end with Jason returning to the manor and seeking help surrounded by family.

We then see Jason and his issues with Bruce threaten the lives of others like when he beat Tim half to death twice, tried to blow up Mia Dearden and then tried to become a murderous, gun-touting Batman after Bruce's "death".

Once Dick Grayson becomes Batman, the narrative sheds a bit more light on how Bruce's Frankenstein created a monster in Jason; Bruce wanted Jason to be another Dick Grayson.

The red hair is a perfect metaphor. Jason is naturally red-haired and he is now balding because Bruce made him dye his hair black so he'd look like Dick as Robin. That sums it up for me. Bruce really created his own demon here and Dick, as the new Batman, is trying to make amends with the sins of the Batman's past. Jason's a great choice for a Dick Grayson villain because of their histories, considering Dick Grayson is the legacy Batman.

"I tried really hard to be what batman wanted me to be...which is you." Jason tells Dick.

That line is so painful and way more recognisable and relatable than anything fanon has produced.

"But this world...this dirty, twisted, cruel and ugly dungheap had...other plans for me."

Look no further, this is who Jason Todd is.

That's a powerful story if you ask me, and this is why I like Jason Todd as a character; a villain I pity deeply, who is portrayed as a product of their circumstances without diminishing their agency and who makes me see the cracks in the hero's facade because they are the monster our "hero" created. He's also a very nuanced foil to the ever-shining light that is Dick Grayson. The appeal to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein isn't that the monster murdered people. I also would never swap canon Jason out for, I dunno, Wayne Family Adventures Jason who's the amalgamation of 3 or 4 common fanon tropes. This is my two cents.

#stephanie brown that ball of anger and vengeance that we saw grow into one of the most well-rounded capable and cheerful bats around #stephanie brown #vengeance is purple #fanon vs canon #jason tood #robin #batgirl #the spoiler #red hood #batman and robin #dc comics #comics #metas #batman #batfam #wayne family adventures #bruce wayne #dick grayson

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just-an-alligator · 2 years

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BNHA - Villain!Mic AU : Aizawa the preschool teacher

Put Your Hands Up!

Listen, I swear I’m not crazy. It just… in a parallel universe it makes sense!

In Vigilantes young Shota Aizawa is shown to be good a working with/caring for young children. He even seems to find it rewarding. So it’s not to far a stretch to say that in a parallel universe he might have skipped the hero route (or aggressively abandoned it after the violent death of his best friend).

He also respects and enforces the sacred nap time. No one ever misses nap time in Mr. Aizawa’s class.

His quirk also makes him uniquely qualified for dealing with young children who have limited control of their own. In a world where a playground squabble could result in fireballs and lightning being thrown around like confetti having someone who could shut that shit down fast would be ideal.

So in this strange AU, Aizawa was interning at a preschool in Aldera when these two dorks were there. So he was present for Kacchan’s quirk manifestation and Izuku’s ‘diagnosis.’ And you better believe that he nips both of those complexes in the bud.

He has the wonder duo in his preschool group until they’re six and by the they’ve imprinted on him for life. It’s made worse because Katsuki and Izuku are a couple of trouble magnet latchkey kids and nine times out of ten Aizawa is the only adult within 10 miles who can deal with their shit. They are a headache and a half, but he can't just ignore the fact that he just watched his two five-year-old students walk through a villain incident to get their limited edition All Might Merch.

Fast forward to when he and Mic are nemesis/dating/quietly causing the HPSC to implode though their city spanning battles of nonsense in the darkness of the night.

One day Mic will be bugging Aizawa in his civilian persona and suddenly these two middle school brats will yell, "HEY!" and without thinking Aizaws's parent switch gets turned on and he turns to Mic and is like, "....my kids don't know about any of this please be normal for five seconds.'

And we get Mic blue-screen. And then, 'ah, yes, kids. I am obviously a step-father now.' While furiously, mentally going through every person his darling Eraserhead could have possibly had children with and thinking of the many ways he could have them exiled to a desert island.

Because, hey, he is a villain.

#bnha #mha #bnha fanfiction #erasermic #aizawa shouta #eraserhead #villain mic au #present mic #yamada hizashi #bnha fanfic idea #midoriya izuku #dadzawa #bakugo katsuki #this au is getting out of control #but it's fun to imagine #i might even write it one day

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scarletlizzard · 29 days

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oooh I literally have only watched a playthrough and never watched the second one sooo—what’s ur opinion on clickers are they terrifying?? What genre of zombies would make you realize ur absolutely fucked during the apocalypse?? How long do you think you could last during such an apocalypse??? Actually how long do you think each of ur anons could survive????🎤🎤🎤🎤

on god I was a latchkey kid with unsupervised access to the internet and cable so I definitely was not supposed to be watching shit like Hostel or the motherfucking human centipede when I was a child but here we are, I turned out fine…yeah I turned out just fine lmfao😌

-🧊

Oh my god, I love this.

1) Clickers are fucking terrifying

2) If there's an apocalypse, humans are only surviving if it's the Walking Dead slow ass zombies. If they can run? Screwed. If they have any type of special, enhance abilities? Double screwed

3) I live in the South, where there are guns EVERYWHERE. I'm a 7-minute walk from a Bay that leads into the Gulf of Mexico, and I work with boats. I'm OWNING that apocalypse, I don't care.

Anons In An apocalypse:

🎀 - Would probably do really well, survivor

🐈 - Ends up trying to be the hero, rip

🫦 - Aouths off to a group of survivors, rip

🧊 - All that L4D and cod zombies pays off, survivor

🫖 - So well traveled & has connections I feel like, survivor

🐶 - Actually feel like would do well too, has a hockey stick, survivor

🎵 - Would just watch, rip

🦈 - Maybe too aggressive, another group would see you as a threat, rip

🐨 - I fear you're too innocent unless you teamed up with a strong group, rip

🦝 - Feel as though you could scurry around, survivor

🥃- Finds the first bar they see and stays there, survivor

(If I didn't put you it's only because I don't know much about you!)

#scarletlizzard asks #🧊 anon #anons ranked

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mighty-ant · 1 year

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Thank you for all the content you’ve provided to us Launchpad angst enjoyers🙏

as a Launchpad angst enjoyer myself, you're very welcome!!

LP has been a favorite character of mine since I first watched ducktales 87 over ten years ago, but the character hasn't really been done justice until DT17. he doesn't realize it, but he's a hero who inspires other people to become heroes too, and his struggle with his self-worth is done so sincerely, it gets me every time (and inspires me to write haha)

in the artbook (which I highly recommend buying!!) the DT crew revealed that they wrote Launchpad with the idea in mind that he grew up as a "latchkey kid from the wrong side of the tracks" who would come home and watch darkwing duck - it really highlights the idea of Launchpad as this lonely kid whose one bright spot at home was a show about this hero, that became both companion and inspiration for the rest of his life

#ant asks #launchpad mcquack #i've got a lot of launchpad feelings if it wasn't already clear from the amount of fics i've written about him lol #darkwing duck

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hamofjustice · 8 months

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it's nice that we're getting anything i guess, but, i'm gonna be what may come off as a little petty and whiny here; it'd be cool if either iteration of the gen 9 anime so far was actually about gen 9's characters instead of using them as cameos to promote original stories we have no investment in yet

it's like, i dunno, like the bait and switch with sonic appearing in wreck it ralph ads, except if wreck it ralph existing meant there would never be a sonic movie, and if you were invested in those characters and recognized they weren't generic platformer mascots, sucks for you, nobody cares

maybe they're just giving the DLC space to do its thing with them first (if they do anything at all...) but idk, i was cautiously optimistic about nemona in horizons, only for her to be a character of the day that the episode wasn't about, and pretty excited by "gen 9 prequel anime" only to find out it's going to be like, four short stories about OCs who have quick brushes with them. these are like the lacroix hint of what an anime about the game could've been like and you're left to imagine the rest yourself

i shouldn't be that surprised if the gen 8 anime reduced hero of galar hop to a character of the day with a level 5 wooloo in order to let the galaxy revolve around ash battling his brother because epic charizards, but man. what if it wasn't like that that now that ash is gone.

we haven't seen penny and team star at all because they're the hardest to talk about without bringing up the trauma of school bullying and the fear of being yourself at school when you're way too young to be dealing with all that drama responsibly. she's still learning to love and forgive herself and feel wanted.

arven's story is about, like, being a latchkey kid to a self-absorbed parent, being unsure how to feel about repairing the relationship or how seriously to take them saying they love him, and struggling to make friends due to misdirected resentment toward people he's jealous of for having apparently normal families and the stubborn self-reliance he was forced into. he's still trying to process things, find himself, and let people in.

nemona is supposed to have been a directionless lonely and depressed kid who hated being called gifted when everything was hard for her, until she met the player character and gained a peer who understood and appreciated she was a little different and she didn't have to mask her true self to have friends anymore. she's happy for now, but may still be under a little too much pressure to be perfect at the expense of her own personality, and probably won't deal well with being abandoned.

as much as they resonate with adults and are a little darker than usual pokemon fare, they're also smaller scale and realer. they are all stories that are explicitly about and meant to be relatable to kids going to school! y'know, your audience! you don't need to paint over them with 3-4 new characters and new stories every time like there was nothing there, or something shameful you need to sanitize and cover up! you can just use the game the way it is!

this got a little more heated than i intended, i just feel a little ridiculous waiting anxiously for loose scraps of a sign that this story isn't over and in the trash already and nemona's life-changing attachment to the player character isn't going to go totally ignored, as we are bombarded with what is supposed to be followup material that almost all seems eager to talk about literally anything else like they think the main story was a mistake they need to run away from

now, i'm not one to complain about original stories being told, but this was already a story that had room to grow. imagine a world where the gen 9 anime was actually about nemona, arven, penny, and the friend who brought them together. or what their lives were like before that friend came along. every episode. that would get me to watch the anime again and whatever movie came out for it. ask yourself why we don't have that, or even the traditional, like, 1-2 characters tagging along with the MCs per region thing that would leave us knowing them better than we know some irl friends

how was starting over with 100% original characters and new lore that might conflict hard with the upcoming DLC the safer bet? why is a 44 minute miniseries specifically for fans of the game making up OCs for them to get invested in and scrambling to tell their stories as quickly as possible before throwing them in the trash instead of being about the damn game?

sigh. i shouldn't get invested in a series that's about selling monster plushies just because it had one story that stuck with me

#paldean winds seems to mostly be making fun of the infodumping fat pokemon nerd character until he gets his own episode #y'know. the one that represents a lot of their viewers #while nemona is right there outside the window hyping up little kids about battles as usual because they don't hate her like her peers #honestly her overhearing the conversation and looking a little uncomfortable about it would've been a good touch #confirmation that the subtext i noticed is actually considered part of the canon and not a happy accident they'll never talk about again #something i have only gotten from pokemon masters so far #pokemon sv #pokemon #nemonaposting #pokemon scarvi #pokemon scarlet and violet #yada yada ten million other tags #'well at least there's the manga' the manga that inserted its own wacky main character that will probably also revolve around him #idk that one could still be good but it's also an AU and not the versions of the characters i'm invested in if that makes sense #i've been begging for pokemon to feel in touch with its audience forever and as soon as it is they treat it like a hot potato #i feel fucking obsessed because of how long this tease has been stretching on for no good reason #they could've just let us ACTUALLY hang out with the friend trio in vanilla postgame and shown them in the DLC a single time #and i could have had a normal social media presence for the past 3-6 months #instead of dreaming about a pokemon npc last night because of how little faith i have in her getting any justice outside of a fucking gacha #i am so sorry that this is who i am now except for the 2-3 of you who follow me specifically because i post these things #pennyposting #arvenposting

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robimicry · 6 months

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BEFORE GODOLKIN

robin buckley was born to richard and melissa when the air was still cold in chicago, illinois. it had been easy to name her, a robin having already begun building their nest on the hospital room window. they worked odd jobs, moving around from state to state almost monthly before robin’s birth, and had no form of monetary support through the pregnancy. whilst neither of them were religious, richard’s family were devoted to the church, and reached out to the charity ‘samaritan’s embrace’ upon melissa’s admission to hospital. on her birth, robin was separated from her parents, to be monitored over the next few days in concern of the moderate drug use in the home. it is there that she is injected with the compound v shipped by samaritan’s embrace, under the sponsorship of vought to create supes at random to keep up the charade of genetic leaps. and so robin grew up normal, reuniting with parents who were none the wiser, saw half the country by the time she was three, always on the move and parents chasing the newest thing. at five and upon their entry to schooling, melissa and richard attempted to settle down in a small town in indiana, to create a more stable environment for her to grow and make connections. bills still continue to pile up, and robin is a latchkey kid from ten with parents who are either partying, or working to fund these parties. all robin has ever wanted was to get out of there. an incredibly gifted student, playing three instruments for the school’s band, teaching themselves multiple languages through cassette tapes, and holding down jobs throughout her teens; all they needed was the landscape to match. no one ever really knew robin, they tended to push friendships away in the taste of ‘they don’t understand me’, how they were happy with the lives they had been given was beyond her, they craved freedom and travel and to be something more than ordinary. (for more insight into robin’s relationship with her mother, see here. tw for psychosis and drug abuse)

ONSET OF POWERS

whilst robin inherited their power early in life, it went undetected in a town with a population under 1000. for her eleventh birthday, robin’s grandparents invited her to spend the weekend with them in new york, that there was a supe-con going on that just couldn’t be missed! [what they missed however, is that when robin spoke about ordinary, she didn’t mean she wanted to be super– just wanted a life bigger than they had]. meet and greets booked, autographs signed! little robin buckley leaned in for a picture [stand closer, dear! put your arms around her!] with a lesser hero, cheap but big enough to cause a line to form, who doesn’t love a teleporter! ‘smile for the camera, robin!’ the flash caused robin to blink, and upon reopening, found herself across the convention hall, dizzy, unable to stand upright, having just mimicked the teleporters powers. > abilities: copy and use the powers of others[this does not rob the powers, just replicates] > limitations: physical contact required. limited timeframe in the use of powers but there is no set minute, some powers seem to stick longer than others. depending on the power being mimicked, it can be incredibly painful(any elemental power would be a shock to robin’s system, fire and ice leaving burns etc), prior to training, robin was unable to stack powers on top of another, and overcoming the limitations in doing so took years; the accumulation often causes overload and results in robin being unable to mimic. dangerous in mimicking powers with large learning curves to control.

#about.#heh hi <3

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open-hearth-rpg · 8 months

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Welcome to the weekly Open Hearth Gaming video roundup!

These recorded sessions represent only a portion of the games we play every week, and anyone is welcome to join the fun! If you'd like to play in games like these, join our Playabl community and click on the "Calendar" tab to sign up for upcoming games. To browse our library of videos of past sessions, please visit our YouTube Playlists page.

Open Hearth Gaming Calendar

Delta Green: Impossible Landscapes (Session 4 of 12) Shane runs for Blake Ryan, Brandon Brylawski, Mark (he/they), and Puckett Under pressure from their superiors to wrap up the investigation, the agents consider options from arson to demonology.

Delta Green: Impossible Landscapes (Session 5 of 12) Shane runs for Blake Ryan, Brandon Brylawski, Mark (he/they), and Puckett In 1995, the agents enter the night floors for the last time, experiencing unexpected revelations. Then we learn how the agents spend the next 20 years; relationships, therapy, prison and obsession.

Public Access (Session 2) Mike Ferdinando runs for Brandon Ungar, Kae, and Steven S. The House on Escondido Street, part 1 - The Latchkeys begin their investigation of the disappearance of the Rappaport family at 18 Escondido Street.

Hearts of Wulin: Numberless Secrets: Series II (Session 6) Lowell Francis runs for Ethan Harvey, Patrick Knowles, Sherri, and Tyler Lominack With the mystery solved, the group considers the aftermath. Many puzzles remain: Bad Valley, the missing wulin heroes, the events at Verdant Sword, and the machinations of the leader of the historians. The PCs share information, consult with old NPCs, and cross paths with new ones. But in the background events roll forward, finishing in the revelation of a sudden Imperial visit by the Empress Dowager and one of the Princes.

Hearts of Wulin: Numberless Secrets: Series II (Session 7) Lowell Francis runs for Ethan Harvey, Patrick Knowles, Rae Nedjadi, Sherri, and Tyler Lominack Our heroes dig deeper into the mystery surrounding the Bureau of Legends, deal with the complexities of their own hearts, and find themselves invited to a dinner given by the Empress Dowager.

Public Access: The House on Escondido Street (Session 3) Mike Ferdinando runs for Brandon Ungar, Kae, and Steven S. The Latchkeys continue their investigation of the disappearance of the Rappaport family at 18 Escondido Street.

The Veil Iterations: Nonesuch (Session 3) Lowell Francis runs for Joe F, Jonathan, and Mike Minutillo Still trying to figure out how to approach the Church of Convergent Science and uncover the conspiracy between the building attack, the group talk with friends, family, and rivals--uncovering secrets and creating misunderstandings.

The Veil Iterations: Nonesuch (Session 4) Lowell Francis runs for Cale P, Joe F, Jonathan, and Mike Minutillo Our protagonists decide to lean on one of Trigger's "friends" getting some information but also pursuit by building security. They head to Lark to get treatment for Cora's cyberware damage and share information. With the revelation of a group behind the assault on psychics they move to deal with Black Law and a threat to an Empath ally. But things do not go as planned...

Free from the Shadow: Samurai Fantasy Free from the Yoke (Session 0) Lowell Francis runs for Alun R., David Morrison, and Will H We begin a new short series of Free From the Yoke, a PbtA legacy game of samurai clans surviving in the aftermath of a devastating battle against darkness. In this session we do world creation and clan building for our families. This is a session zero focused on set up and prep.

Star Wars Saturday

Dian Xin (Session 1) Rich Rogers runs for Anders, Cody Eastlick, Greg G., and Steven Watkins The Archor merchants deal with the aftermath and make a risky bargain.

Dian Xin (Session 2) Rich Rogers runs for Anders, Cody Eastlick, Greg G., and Steven Watkins The Archor merchants get out of the drug bidness. But at what cost?

MCU Sunday

Hit the Streets: Defend the Block (Session 7) Rich Rogers runs for Greg G., Kae, Marc Majcher, and Sherri Bushwick's Best hunt for a serial killer and run into...the Spider-Friends?

Hit the Streets: Defend the Block (Session 8) Rich Rogers runs for Greg G., Kae, Marc Majcher, and Sherri Most of the team falls from the highest building in Bushwick!

#ttrpg #rpg #video roundup #actual play ttrpg #ttrpg ap

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tafferling · 11 days

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Found Family Obligation

Kyle Crane and Aiden Caldwell; built to break just like everyone else but too stubborn to comply.

I got a commission slot from @arczism and I AM SO HAPPY. There's a second version of this which I'll share later :D

If you want to read some Kyle Crane and Aiden Caldwell Papa!Crane sorta stuff, you can find them in Monsters, We. on Archive of Our Own.

#Kyle Crane #Aiden Caldwell #Dying Light 2 #Dying Light #Dying Light Fan Fiction #Fan Art #Monsters; We.#Latchkey Hero #Hold Still Babe

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688199 · 7 months

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if i were to rewrite miraculous lore, i’d take marinette’s dad out of the whole equation. cause he was always meant to be a cringe astruc insert one way or another, and he doesn’t do much tbh.

so marinette grew up with a single mom, never knowing who her dad was. her mom’s a lawyer so she tends to work extremely late. this leaves marinette alone a lot of the time, so it makes sense why she would want to hang out at fu’s knick knack store.

i feel like her being a latchkey kid would explain why her capability and responsibility as a hero fares better than most.

it also fits well with felix’s situation. they both have a mutual understanding of how it’s like to only have one parent, yet they both envy one another for having either a mother or father.

just my thoughts.

#pre canon ladybug #marinette cheng

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turbo-toast · 11 months

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I got tagged by @expended-sleeper!

As for people for me to tag who haven't already been... @tafferling, @einsesk, @chronicallyowlish-blog - and of course, if anyone else wants to join in, feel free to^^

1) Describe one creative WIP project you’re planning to work on over the summer.

I've been slowly chopping away at rewriting the first few chapters of my first fic ever, "They Made Their Own Nightmare". I think I can get that done over the summer, although I've been saying that for the last few summers too and life always got in the way. The bit I want to rewrite only has a few chapters left, and I kinda want to finish the fic sometime 😅

2) Rec a book:

Okay, so it's been all over the place, but I've recently listened to Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, and whew, that sure is some writing! I feel like I learned a ton about the craft just listening to it. If you like space operas and the idea of lesbian necromancers then it's definitely worth the read and/or listen.

3) Rec a fic:

"Monsters, We." by Tafferling!

The predecessor, Latchkey Hero, was already amazing, a 350k word love letter to Dying Light with an amazing OC, and in the sequel we get to read about the protagonist duo from Latchkey Hero grown by a bunch of years, taking the protagonist of Dying Light 2 under their wings. It's just about to finish its season 1, and approaching 125k words, and I'm dying (heh) to read more of it!

4) Rec music:

Ghost's Phantomime EP came out yesterday and it has five really good covers! I definitely recommend checking it out. It has Television, Iron Maiden and fricken Tina Turner.

5) Share one piece of advice.

One thing I've had to learn over the last few years is not to worry too much about things out of my control. There is a healthy amount of worry, of course, but if it becomes incapacitating, it's more of a problem than a healthy response. I don't know if that can be formulated into advice beyond "just don't worry so much", as that can sometimes sound impossible, but yeah.

#tag game

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krakenshaped · 10 months

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Or Judai! I'd be cool with Judai too! (< person who sent manjoume for the character ask game)

Judai too!!! Let's go let's go!!!

First Impression: So like funny story. I first saw Judai when I was 10 and obsessed with 5Ds and god I HATED him LOL I thought he was so arrogant and annoying, I just could not STAND this boy. I don't know if younger me would adore me because I own the core rose dragon deck or slap me across the face for liking Jaden Yuki. "BLUH" younger me cried. "JADEN? I HATE JADEN! JADEN WILL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS YUSEI! YUSEI IS THE BEST PROTAG AND 5DS IS THE BEST SHOW!" I was so goofy when I was a kid.

Impression now: in late 2021, I watched yugioh gx and read the manga. At first I was pissed because I still believed in 5Ds supremacy. I believed in Yusei and Yusei only. But then I got like a couple of episodes in. And man. Watching Judai just have fun was so NICE!! Watching his friendship with Bastion especially and watching his relationship with his friends grow and watching him learn and go on silly adventures in season 1 was just FUN. Judai is fun and that's why I like him, GX could trick you into thinking school is fun because with Judai as a protagonist, everything does feel fun! And it makes me happy. He is also my son!! He's very hard to dislike and very hard to hate and he's a really interesting character to analyse.

[LONG DUMBASS RAMBLE AHEAD]

A lot of GX's subtle storytelling in season 1 foreshadows a lot about Judai's life and its interesting seeing it piece all together in season 3. The fact that Judai doesn't have a lot of memories of his childhood and the fact he doesn't go home at all kind of suggests from the start that he at some point has experienced some kind of trauma and that he's most likely a latchkey kid (which isn't too uncommon in Japan). Additionally, watching his mental health decline and seeing him self destruct while trying to keep up with his hero complex is painful but also feels surprisingly real. I mentioned it briefly in Manjoume's ask but Judai in a way perfectly encapsulates the ups and downs of adolescence - depicted through his complicated relationship with his friend circle, his implied romance with Johan, the build up of all his stress and ultimately his downfall. And that's just why I love him!! He's a tornado of emotions and a ball of energy. He runs into every new adventure, whisking the audience away with him and giving us insight in his wins, his loses, his mistakes and how he rectifies them. A lot of characters do get sidelined in GX but at the end of the day, GX is in a weird way about growing up and its through Jaden we see that happen. It almost makes me emotional seeing him in season 4 because you can tell that the events that have happened have changed him and he's no longer that silly kid that played baseball with his best friends or gambled for sandwiches during lunch. The events in the series have permanently changed him and he's grown up.

You'll never be that kid again, but in the end you're still you. And as long as you find happiness in your own way, you don't ever need to be the same as the way you were. You have to just keep moving forward and do what's best for you.

Judai is wonderfully written and incredibly likable in his own silly way, and that's why he's my favourite protag.

OOF I WROTE TOO MUCH NEXT QUESTION

Favourite moment: I like the episode where he paints Bastion's bedroom :D I also like the scene where he forgives Yubel, made me emotional

Idea for a story: So many. Too many to write here.

Unpopular opinion: Idk if this is unpopular but I don't like when people limit Jaden's personality to being obsessed with duel monsters. He has other hobbies! He plays all sorts of sports, plays video games, likes to fish, browses web forums, etc. (Not aimed at anyone in particular naturally, just a pet peeve of mine)

Favourite relationship: Oughh I like Spiritshipping... but I also like Gx Rivalshipping... But I also like Heroshipping... platonic fiance is my favourite thing too... his relationship with Bastion is also heavily slept on... but also his complex friendship with Syrus and how Hassleberry looks up to him and how codependency (not necessarily romantically) is explored through his relationship with Yubel...

Man Judai ROCKS

Favourite headcanon: That boy has the tism!! He's filled with autism!! I hc he's gay too but tbh it's suggested so hard in the show it might as well be canon. I also hc he collects blu-ray and dvd sets of movies, his favourite cartoons and famous duel matches. Aspec Judai is p rad too

#ygo gx #jaden yuki #kraken rambles #OOPS I GOT CARRIED AWAY WITH THIS ONE #i cant help it!! i love my dead gay son #tbh judai could be a seinen character and he would probably fit right in #his story would just need to be tweaked a little #maybe?#ignore my rambles im insane

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