#all the content from the comic con literally makes me so damn happy

[fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy]

Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

#tales of arcadia #rise of the titans #trollhunters #rott #rise of the titans spoilers #rott spoilers #toa #3 below #athena's own original post! #jim lake jr #claire nuñez #toby domzalski

[bigskydreaming]

Also if people instinctively reaching for their “its just my interpretation” arguments as a rebuttal to that post about issue #416 could just not, I’d super appreciate it, thaaaaaanks.

See, the problem I have with that is like....no its not. Its really really not. If your fic or your meta is otherwise DIRECTLY referencing specific story beats of that specific ISSUE, like Dick not having talked to Bruce in over a year, or Dick not knowing Jason even existed until he saw it on the news, or Dick leaving Jason his phone number, or anything of the like.....it is not at all unreasonable for me to expect you to acknowledge the story beats of that very same issue that all of those things are written IN RESPONSE TO. 

You can yell at me about how the firing is just a retcon til the cows come home, but y’know what? It was a retcon that was reiterated IN THAT VERY SAME ISSUE. In it, Dick reiterated what the firing looked like from his perspective, how he waited around for two weeks for Bruce to change his mind before packing up and leaving with opportunities for Bruce to say something every step of the way....THAT is the SPECIFIC sequence of events that Dick’s anger about all of this comes from.

So its extremely disingenuous to try and pair that anger with the pre-Crisis ‘better version’ of events where Dick gives up being Robin all on his own and becomes Nightwing while still on good terms with Bruce...because that version of events has its OWN corresponding aftermath that was written in direct response to THOSE character choices. Like the aftermath where right after becoming Nightwing, Dick turns around and offers Robin to Jason himself, as he of course is already well acquainted with Jason by then. See, that’s kinda part of why Dick and Bruce are on such better terms in that version of events. It has a lot to do with Bruce not adopting a whole other son without so much as a phone call to let Dick know his family had expanded.

Now you can mix and match to your heart’s content, that has NEVER been in question. Especially since as so often said, its a fandom past time to take a match to canon and watch it burn. You don’t have to adhere to aaaaaanything you don’t want to.

BUT.

If you want to talk about INTERPRETING the canon? That is subject to a different set of standards. Because you’re acknowledging that the source material exists as a point of RELEVANCE to you.....and the fact is....the source material is the SAME for everyone discussing it. Now, people can and do have different interpretations of that same material, this is obviously true. But ACTUAL. GENUINE. DISCUSSION of it.....requires that all parties at least discuss those interpretations in good faith, and make an honest attempt to address the material as it is.

And that is not what happens in this fandom. Because you damn well KNOW that for all your talk of the firing just being a retcon......its still the specific version of events the “Dick being mad about Bruce giving Robin to Jason” thing is directly meant to reference and BUILD off of. Retcon or not, it is indisputably the FOUNDATION upon which the other character choices of that very same issue are built atop of.

Because there is another version of events, yes. The pre-Crisis version where Dick gives up Robin. But as I said, that version DOES NOT HAVE Dick angry or resentful....because a key component of it is that all three of them, Bruce, Dick and Jason, are already a family in spirit. There’s a true succession of Robin from Dick passing it down to Jason.

And a lot of you guys know this too. Especially the ones most likely to reach for that “let us have our interpretation!” arguments. Because the Dick Grayson corner of fandom has posted about it a LOT. In fact, we kinda churn out a crap ton of content for this fandom. Headcanons, ficlets, informative posts, etc. And there’s a very curious phenomenon that exists.....

Literally anything I or certain other DG fans post that is inclusive of the whole family, or does not reference any specific event that’s infamous within fandom for pitting Dick against another Batfam member in a ‘who was right, discuss” kinda way.....that tends to circulate WIDELY in fandom. We’re talking upwards of a thousand notes, regularly.

In comparison.....the informative posts that are chock full of panels pointing out how canon actually goes in these specific instances.....tend to top out at a couple hundred max. Its pretty much just fellow DG stans who reblog them. Everyone else, despite them going through the same initial routes of circulation....are very good at pretending they don’t see them.

Because see, misinformation - and make no mistake, that is what we’re talking about here - RELIES on a lack of like.....actual information provided to the contrary to thrive. 

For instance, if it were as common knowledge that in the pre-Crisis version of Dick becoming Nightwing, he makes Jason Robin himself, as it is say.....that the firing Dick as Robin story is ‘just a shitty retcon’......people might start to ask in greater numbers, like, okay, so why DON’T more people write Dick making Jason into Robin after giving it up himself? Why have Dick so bitter at Bruce and/or Jason, if in the only version where Dick gives up Robin, Dick passes it on himself? If you’re gonna go with the one, why not the other?

Because we all know damn well that’s not a difference in interpretation. That’s a conscious CHOICE to TRANSFORM the source material by stitching together two different sides of a cause and effect chasm. The events transpiring after Dick finds out Bruce made Jason Robin himself ARE NOT MEANT to reference the inciting event of Dick giving up Robin himself. You can make that happen, sure. But you have to MAKE it happen. There is no point in the comics where you can honestly, genuinely point to the comics and say this right here shows Dick being mad about this, where ‘this’ is Bruce giving Robin to Jason SPECIFICALLY after Dick gave Robin up, rather than being fired.

A choice has to be made there, for that to happen, if one has the ACTUAL information about how that really played out in the comics rather than just misinformation. And not everyone in fandom trusts everyone else to make the choices they would like them to make with the source material, do they?

After all, isn’t that the REAL root of all this?

See.....its no secret to any of us that nobody’s been all that happy with the actual comics aka source material in years. Meaning most of fandom, myself included, is here for meta and fics based on previously written comics, or our own adaptations of the material.

And fandom, being interactive, unlike canon.....is something that CAN be influenced by other fans.

So why don’t we all just stop fucking pretending that we’re not all trying to influence what the overarching fandom narratives are, shall we?

Oh, you can say this is just me projecting, but I’ve got plenty of instances of hypocrisy to point to that say otherwise. And THAT is the true source of my hostility in so many posts in this fandom.

Because its the very same people who loudly cry “let people have their headcanons” and “let people have their interpretations” and “stop trying to tell people there’s only one true version of canon to go off of” who NEVER. EVER. fail to show up on posts like that last one, the SECOND they start to circulate ‘too widely’ throughout fandom. There is ALWAYS someone waiting in the wings the minute a post like that starts to top a couple hundred notes, ready and raring to shoot it down with some kind of derailment or condescending reminders to everyone who might see it that ‘that’s just a bad retcon for people obsessed with misery porn’ or something like that.

And what exactly should we be calling that? When people show up every single time I make a post about the importance of Robin as a name to Dick, in order to make a big stink about how it being his mother’s name for him is just a retcon? Even though....did I say it wasn’t? Does it being a retcon mean it doesn’t exist? Am I not allowed MY interpretation of a story that very much does exist in canon, am I not allowed to reference other stories where that specific retcon is specifically linked to?

Or how about if I say, post a headcanon about Alfred getting snippy with Bruce about not reaching out to Dick after he leaves home, where within the headcanon itself I specifically reference a clear version of the story where Dick is fired and its eighteen months before he and Bruce speak again? Does this story not exist in canon? Am I not allowed to base stuff of it? It would seem not, given the way people jumped to derail that one by adding in additions about Dick being upset with Bruce about college, which is an entirely different continuity that in no way intersects with the specific events I reference, where they’re estranged for a clear reason that is directly raised within the headcanon itself. People even acknowledge “OP is entitled to any version of continuity they want” in that one, but are like....this one is wrong though, and true fans prefer the one that isn’t just misery porn meant to validate Dick’s teenage angst. With people all too happy to reblog that one while gleefully pointing out the tags that completely derail the post about a clear point in canon by making it entirely about another unrelated point in a different continuity in order to invalidate the initial headcanon or whatever.

Don’t even get me started on when we dare reference stories where Bruce is actually physically abusive to Dick, or when we link Dick’s actions in stories that acknowledge the emotional abuse or neglect of certain key moments in his life TO those inciting moments directly and say “hey its kinda shitty to act like Dick was just being a standoffish brat here when Dick’s attitude is actually directly based on the last time he and Bruce interacted being when Bruce told him to get out and leave his keys.” LOLOL nooooo, that’s not allowed to stand, because see, the ONLY possible reason we could have for even CONSIDERING those stories in character or in continuity, is because of the aforementioned addiction to misery porn or else because we’re just trying to smear Bruce to make our own fave look better.

Never mind that another popular refrain for a lot of the people I’m talking about here is “you don’t know what people are thinking or why they like the things that they like” so, y’know. It is a tad irritating to see that double standard applied, like I mean. Just speaking personally, I’m a survivor of childhood physical and sexual abuse with a lifetime’s worth of C-PTSD and permanent estrangement from my abusive family, so like....those stories where Dick is abused by a figure he never thought would hurt him and now has to reconcile that with still loving and admiring that very same person and still wanting to be family.....like, hey guess what, those themes are part of why his character resonates for me in particular and so they’re kiiiiiinda key for me to explore for a lot of reasons. And given that this fandom looooooves to talk about some people writing dark shit to cope, I find it veeeeeery curious that people are so willing to shut the fuck up and say nothing about incest, rape and pedophilia fics even if they don’t like them themselves......but will still come out of the woodwork to condescend about there being absolutely no valid reason for anyone to ever engage with content where Bruce is abusive even just in one singular instance.....nah. Its literally just cuz of the misery porn addiction.

But see.....the thing at the heart of all this is the simple fact that this hypocrisy doesn’t exist just for the sake of hypocrisy. It exists because we actually all DO know how much power and influence fans can have in an interactive environment like fandom.

After all, the entire reason that Dick Grayson fans are so often posting informative panel-filled posts about what ACTUALLY happens in canon stories that are DIRECTLY cited in many meta, fanfics and headcanons, just.....in a totally backwards way that just so happens to fail to mention that its not intended to be an accurate depiction of the canon its definitely mentioning its in reference to....

The entire reason for this is because of how thoroughly fandom has crafted a specific narrative for Dick Grayson’s character that is based PURELY on their own characterization wants and needs and has very little to do with the actual canon of the character.

Its not a coincidence that so many fans just so happen to genuinely, truly believe that Dick was a grade A asshole to Jason while he was Robin, and there’s a wealth of canon out there somewhere to back it up. No, this happened because of fanFIC narratives where this is the case, and these catching on, and being encouraged by the initial writers of this trope and its fans and so on and so forth until it became the overarching fandom narrative and not only didn’t require any canon basis to be so....it barely ALLOWED for any talk of the contrary. Dick Grayson stans had to yell and churn out posts like that last one for YEARS to make a DENT in this fanon conviction, and do NOT even approach me about it being an issue of tone and ‘if we’d only asked politely’ because lol. No. We did. You can find the clear shift in the tone of my posts from when I first re-entered the fandom years ago to when I just got frustrated with the willful avoidance of WHY so many fans like myself are so annoyed by certain fandom convictions......and even then, it was about the hypocrisy. It was about how loudly other people crow about letting them have their headcanons while literally shouting down ANY post we made about wanting space to just have our CANON-canon.

Pro-tip: that thing where if you just ignore someone long enough on a certain point, they’ll inevitably start to get frustrated and then you can point to their tone as being the problem and claim that was the issue all along? Yeah. Its not slick. This fandom didn’t invent it. Its always very transparent, and very obnoxious. 

But the point is.....fandom absolutely has the ability to override canon narratives with their own version that’s then formative for new entrants to the fandom who never even BOTHER with the source material and just are here for the fic. And so its dishonest as FUCK for people to not only MAKE no distinction between what’s genuinely their interpretation of the canon and what’s their transformation of it, with INTENT......but to weaponize fandom’s aversion to content-criticism to shout down even ATTEMPTS to introduce discussion of the actual source material by claiming oh you’re just trying force your preferred narrative on everyone else. Aka that thing THEY’RE actually doing themselves by once attaining a fandom wide narrative they like, maintaining a stranglehold on it and doing their best to dissuade any narratives to the contrary staking a claim alongside that.

Because again, it all comes back to the fic. See, as a Dick Grayson fan, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I turn to fic for what I can’t get from canon...and its frustrating as hell to see writers that loudly talk of being BETTER than canon and “RIP to canon but my Batfam loves each other” in a lot of cases DELIBERATELY make Dick in particular look WORSE.....and then act like they have no idea what we’re talking about when we try and tell fans who take these narratives at face value that uh, they’re lacking some extremely relevant context and nuance. Or in some cases, outright facts.

And I will happily laugh loudly in the face of anyone who tries to claim that they don’t feel similarly about fics that characterize their own faves in ways they don’t like.

Yeah, try telling me that after years of some of you writing fics that specifically exclude all reference to the events of Nightwing #30 when talking about Dick’s death or Spyral.....while still including every in canon instance of people bagging on Dick for what he only did in canon because of Bruce’s abusive writing. There’s kinda a vested interest in keeping fandom relatively free of talk of Nightwing #30 then.....because weirdly, people who write about a DIFFERENT take that’s not hostile to Dick seem to end up putting the blame on Bruce for that situation. Bizarre, I know. People attributing blame to the character who was actually abusive in the canon and being cranky that the victim of said abuse is held up as the sacrificial lamb in everyone else’s fics? Whodathunkit.

(Also a point of irritation - it never had to be just one or the other. This is where the whole ‘maybe its YOU guys who were projecting all along when you said the only reason we could have for talking about Bruce’s abuse was an intent to smear the character’ bit is a thing. See, fun fact: if you were going to ignore an issue or two in order to completely flip the narrative of what really happened with Spyral and dominate the fandom landscape for a couple of years....it never had to be Nightwing #30 that was the ONLY issue you could leave out in order to not make Bruce look like an abusive asshat. Like, there was always another option right there in front of you. You could have instead chosen to also leave out Grayson #12, aka the one where Dick informs everyone else he’s alive.....then you could very easily just sliiiiiide in reference to Bruce and Dick quietly informing the whole family of his status and his mission while insisting on keeping it quiet for his safety. Voila. NOBODY has to be an asshole then, and the whole family gets to be in the know. But see, most people didn’t actually have a problem with someone being an asshole in that story. They just didn’t want it to be Bruce, and didn’t mind it being his actual victim. 

Even though, lol, just another FYI.....abuse victims having things flipped on them so it looks like they’re the true problem and their abusers are completely innocent is a HUGE thing that happens a lot in real life, so FYI about that FYI.....anyone who does say, gravitate towards Dick Grayson specifically because of how he’s impacted or might be impacted by abuse from his father, like.....is proooooobably not going to have a super fun time with diehard commitment to making this particular fictional character the true mastermind of his family’s misery and abusive instead of the abused. Weird huh.)

And round and round it goes. Where it ends, nobody knows.....because it doesn’t. fucking. stop. The number of ways in which fandom has willfully flipped the narrative so that Dick is the aggressor instead of the aggrieved is just absolutely ridiculous. This guy has been punched by every member of his family except Duke and Alfred, and somehow he’s the one characterized as uncomfy to be around because of how volatile he is. This guy is the only one who has actually been KICKED OUT of the manor, and somehow that gets glossed over and considered out of character while he apparently definitely did very much do this exact specific thing to Tim, I hear.

And like broken records, people squawk ‘let us have our interpretations/headcanons/etc’ any time we try and make a stink about how no, actually, that’s NOT HOW IT WENT....and at the EXACT SAME TIME....most of these exact same people show up on every post that uses ACTUAL information to make Bruce or Jason or Tim or whomever look like the actual problem in a story where they were actually problematic, like, the SECOND a post gets popular enough....to derail, to condescend, to shout it down with how its just a retcon or its out of character or its just a bad take or how fans with taste know better than to take it seriously.

And why do you care? Like, if we’re all supposed to just live and let live and everyone’s allowed their own interpretations, why this everpresent need to show up all the time with a superior, patronizing ‘oof, this is just not good’ the second one of YOUR faves is in the hotseat, while condescendingly boxing out any posts informing people of how no, actually, Dick and Kory’s breakup WAS linked to Mirage and Dick and Donna’s infamous fight WASN’T the way its commonly talked about and oh yeah there was brainwashing there too and etc, etc....see, when WE do that, we’re just overacting stans who can’t stand others not liking our fave. Instead of just....trying to correct misinformation so more fans can at least engage with the character from a starting point of zero instead of a negative integer. 

So why this hypocrisy? Oh yeah, because you don’t WANT the misinformation corrected. Because see, when the misinformation IS corrected, fic writers en masse....make different choices. And that’s why ever since more people started picking up the refrain of “well no actually Dick DIDN’T hate Jason, here’s the proof”.....there’s a lot more stories out there where...shockingly....Dick doesn’t hate Jason. Which bizarrely, does not really work well for the people who WANTED Dick to hate Jason and made a point to SHAPE the narrative to make him hate Jason.....because it wasn’t about that just being their interpretation, and it never was. Because the CHOICE to cut out Dick’s ‘justification for feeling slighted’ by being fired as Robin and pair that specifically WITH Dick resenting Jason for Bruce still making him Robin instead of Dick doing it....that has a narrative cause and effect within a lot of the fics that go with this. It gives Jason eternal underdog status that makes it easy to root for him while positioning someone specifically to blame for that underdog status and unfair playing field, and it also keeps focus off Bruce as the cause of any issues between his sons due to choices HE made, thus one singular figure is positioned as the obstacle to family unity....and that figure isn’t Bruce.

And no canon to the contrary will be acknowledged as legitimate.

Convenient huh?

Especially paired with the ‘thou shalt not con crit on another’s fic’ fandom commandment. Because when you can’t complain about any fanfic depictions whatsoever without immediately and inherently being cast as the rabble-rouser by default.....the ability to shape and dominate a specific fandom narrative becomes veeeeery key. After all, another popular fandom phrase is ‘we’re not the DC writers, complain to them about canon.’ But when there’s no canon complaint to be made to DC specifically, because its not canon we’re actually upset about, and we’re not ‘allowed’ to criticize fandom depictions because people are allowed to have their interpretations......all you have to do is stand your ground and insist that the fandom depictions of Dick are nothing BUT ‘interpretations’ and not acknowledge aaaaaaany of the places where you consciously make the decision to transform canon choices and behavior around him.....and voila. You’ve wrapped everything up in a neat little logic trap. Quite the fait accompli. There’s really no way for anyone to say or do anything ABOUT this little situation here without being ‘disruptive,’ ‘divisive’ and ‘having a negative impact on fandom harmony.’

Its just always gonna be a little weird to me, how much your positivity culture looks a lot like plausible deniability culture instead.

But whatever. That’s just a me problem I guess. Definitely not something anyone else in fandom has anything to do with. Just like they have nothing to do with derailments or condescension or counter arguments to so many of the canon-based Dick Grayson posts I make, and this is also all my doing...wait...hang on. I think I got mixed up again somewhere. Dang it.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

dick grayson fic rec post

i’ve read a fair amount of dick grayson/nightwing-related fic over the last few months–and have so many favourites that i revisit frequently!–that i thought it was about damn time that i made a rec post. feel free to add on any gems that you think i’ve missed.

s/o to @cautiousamber who actually inadvertently got this ball rolling, and who is just awesome in general.

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these fics are listed in no particular order. almost all of them are sourced from ao3 and a lot of them feature dark themes, blood and violence. i’ll put fic-specific warnings next to each title, but make sure to check out the tags on the fic itself before reading in case i missed something that you’d rather not read.

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like a rubber band until you pull too hard by @perissologist Summary:  Morgaine le Fey curses Dick Grayson to absorb the pain of everyone he loves.

Warnings: Violence, blood & gore, whump, some swearing. Also, it’s Jason Todd/Dick Grayson, tho that’s not the focus and more or less subtext until the last few paragraphs of the fic.

this is a gloriously simple h/c premise that packs in so much potential that i’m still kicking myself for not thinking of it before. the writing is wonderful, the interactions between dick and his family are heartfelt without being sappy, and the writer treads a fine, fine line between jason’s general standoffishness and the aching core of his love for his family so damn well. 

Half Lost, Half Found by takadainmate Summary:  Driven underground, Batman fights to keep Nightwing alive.

Warnings: Violence, blood & gore, graphic descriptions of injury, some swearing. And it’s, uh, incomplete, and likely to remain that way.

this… THIS is the fic that truly inspired me to make this post, because everyone needs to read it. rich in detail and full of glorious h/c, it manages to give us a nuanced, dynamic portrayal of bruce and dick’s relationship even while ratcheting up the tension as batman struggles to keep a gravely injured nightwing alive and save them both from Peril. it lacks the final chapter where (presumably) they are rescued and finally get a chance to recover, but i would 100% recommend reading what’s there even if you aren’t a fan of incomplete fics.

Black and Red by Eboni_A Summary:  Jason Todd is the Boy Terror to Dick Grayson’s Boy Wonder and proud of it. Where Dick is graceful, Jason is brutal, but they work together like clockwork. When a serious illness takes Dick down, Jason makes it his duty to watch over him. Jason loves his adopted brother and will kill to protect him.

Warnings: Violence, chronic illness, blood and gore, swearing, dick is fourteen and jason is twelve and they go through a lot of Shit. first person perspective.

this is nominally set in the young justice universe but there are a lot of changes–with jason todd adopted far earlier than he has been in other batman media and working as a batman sidekick of a different name while dick is still robin. given i’m not a big fan of reading robin-era fics (literal children in Peril makes me squirm) or first-person perspective, this fic still managed to win me over with how well-rounded and sympathetic it made an angry and prickly jason todd feel. dick also has to deal with a fairly serious medical issue, but despite spending most of the fic in hospital, his humour and charm and bravery shine through.

Collar Me (Don’t Collar Me) by CaramelMachete and spread_my_wings Summary:  A basic patrol ends in a common injury. However, complications may turn a simple broken arm into something potentially career-ending. Dick copes as best as he can. Until he doesn’t. His family tries to help.

Warnings: blood and injury, serious complications of said injury, descriptions of surgical procedures and discussion of permanent disability. some swearing. a work in progress.

i am obsessed with this fic. spoiler: the complication is compartment syndrome, and the way the fic approaches not just dick’s ways to cope with this, but other members of the batfam and several of dick’s friends ring very true to their characters. it’s emotional without being melodramatic and wonderfully written. an update on this fic ranks among the highlights of my day, honestly.

through sandstorms and hazy dawns by Makalaure Summary: “Robin,” Bruce grinds out, “stop talking. You need to stay sharp.”

Dick knows he is walking a fine, fine line. “Aw, come on, B,” he says, going for cheerful but feeling like something in him, something he has kept carefully in check till now, is about to snap.

Warnings:  mature themes, mentions of forced prostitution, homophobic language, implied paedophilia, implied past abuse, and exoticisation. panic attacks.

this is a beautiful fic, dealing with all the highs and lows of the earliest stages of bruce and dick’s relationship–both of them utterly out of their comfort zones but learning all the same. being batman’s first robin is so much more of a struggle than dick ever lets on later in his life, and in spite of everything, their growing love for and wonderment at each other shine through like a beacon.

Yellow Submarines by jerseydevious Summary: A collection of Batfam prompt-fics.

Warnings: there’s some swearing, violence and blood in some fics, but mostly harmless, i think.

not all of these are dick-related, but each and every one of these 52 fics have made me cry like a lost child. i love this author’s batfam–they’re softer, more open, and utterly unafraid to love each other with all their heart. it helps that the writing flows so well, too–there are some phrases here that will stay with me for a very, very long time.

Atropa Belladonna by Embleer_Firth0323 Summary:  A routine traffic stop sets off a domino effect that will forever shatter Officer!Grayson’s entire world–transforming a once temperate existence into a lurid nightmare of obsession, deceit, violence, and finally murder.

Warnings: Rape/non-con, abuse, suicide. suicidal thoughts, violence, blood and gore, multiple character deaths (none of the batfam), discussions of pregnancy and miscarriage, swearing, first person perspective. i’m sure i’m missing some warnings; please check the tags for the fic. there are also chapter-specific warnings in the notes that precede the chapters.

HOKAY. this is a VERY long, very soap-opera-y retelling of the infamous tarantula arc from the comics. somehow, it is even darker, but hopeful in that all of the damage it inflicts on dick and those close to him is actually acknowledged and addressed. the world around this particular version of dick is rather nicely fleshed out and full of likeable people… bar catalina, of course. catalina flores plumbs the depths of awfulness and digs even further when it comes to her relationship with dick, but even at her worst, her anguish and trauma is always palpable. it’s a long, difficult, but extremely engrossing read. 

i would recommend reading this author’s other novel-length fics as well, but beware that they deal with very, very heavy topics, and not always with the deftest or most sensitive hand.

Come One, Come All and The Only Thing To Say by incogneat_oh

both of these are really cute fics where members of the batfam care for/spend time with an injured!dick. they are sweet, rich in detail, and honestly a delight to read. warnings-wise, i can’t think of anything beyond the odd swear-word.

Little By Little by paramountie Summary:  Six times Tiger found himself stuck in Bludhaven.

Warnings: swearing, blood and injury, mind control, violence. Tiger/Dick. 

this fic builds on all the the strengths of the Grayson comic series–a breezy tone, spy/thriller content, and tiger and dick’s fun dynamic. this fic is very funny and kind of heartbreaking in turns. my only caveat is that this dick tends very much towards the happy-go-lucky, quippy, emotional, a-bit-of-a-disaster characterisation that tends to plague him in fanon–but to be fair, that is the persona he put up while at Spyral in Grayson.

O Clouds Unfold by lowflyingfruit Summary:  Over the years, Alfred tries to introduce the younger members of the Batfamily to the noble sport of cricket.

Warnings: none that i can think of, really.

THIS FIC DELIGHTS ME ON SO MANY LEVELS. little snippets of alfred bonding with bruce’s adopted kids over the years by trying to introduce them to cricket–alfred’s voice is consistently amazing, and it is charming af from beginning to finish. 

i’d recommend all of this author’s batfam fic tbh.

Tectonic Doom by paganpunk2 Summary:  Dick and Tim head out for a week of brotherly bonding in the wilderness only to find themselves caught up in a scheme to put humanity on the ‘extinct’ list.

Warnings: violence, blood, injury and gore, minor character death

this is a lovely, long, plotty fic–with a wonderfully imaginative premise that’s brought out in rich detail, with so much glorious, glorious Dick/Tim bonding. there are way, way too few fics that focus on these two.

Ducklings on the Freeway by pentapus Summary: Jason worries about the younger Robins. He doesn’t worry about Dick – Dick’s untouchable, and even if he wasn’t Jason wouldn’t care.

(Or Dick gets hurt, and it freaks Jason out more than he expected.)

Warnings: swearing, injury. Jason/Dick, but more subtext than anything.

jason’s voice in this fic is so perfect–the tentative ways in which he reconnects with his family, and especially dick, while still dealing with a fuckton of trauma and resentment ring very, very true. and tired-but-knowing!dick is a delight as always.

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this is maybe ~33% of the recs i had in mind, but this post has gotten long and i’m tired, so. i’ll add more later. if you have anything that i’ve missed, please feel free to add it to this post!

#batman #batfam #dick grayson #nightwing #robin #fic rec

[colewald]

I MET JENNA COLEMAN ON SUNDAY THE 24TH OF SEPTEMBER 2017 AND HERE IS HOW IT WENT DOWN

I don’t even know where to begin so I’m just gonna pick a spot.

So I woke up this morning, put on a face mask, had a real nice shower, did my face, put on my Clara cosplay,

had my sister take a few pictures of me (the ones you see here are the only good ones she took asdijkdas) then we left for Comic-con! I had been fine all morning but the car ride there was...mESSY. It didn’t really hit me that I was SERIOUSLY about to meet Jenna until that moment. I started crying and breathing really heavily and my lovely mum was like “STOP CRYIGN YOU’RE GONNA RUIN YOUR MAKEUP YOU HAVEN’T EVEN MET HER YET” but I just kept on freaking out like...I was SO nervous, I think I actually could’ve vomited in that moment. I’d been planning what I wanted to say to her for forever but I was worried that I would be too nervous to say anything to her and just end up making a fool of myself :( 

Anyway, we eventually arrived in the convention centre, got our tickets scanned, went in, looked for the autograph area AND GUYS.

JENNA WAS SITTING RIGHT THERE. RIGHT FUCKING THERE. There was no line where she was because one of her autograph sessions had just ended or was about to. I just started CRYING and literally as soon as I saw her, I walked away. Like, I couldn’t. My brother and my sister were like “oh my god!!!!!!” but I was like “nonononono I can’t, I can’t look at her, I’m not okay”. 

After a few minutes of dying, I realised people going up to Jenna and getting things signed so I was like “oH she must still be signing things” and my sister told me that I should go up now and meet her while the line was short af instead of go to her next session which was an hour later (which was my original plan). I just kept saying I couldn’t do it bUT THEN I JUST DECIDED “FUCK IT I’M DOING IT”. 

And....................................

I think my soul actually LEFT MY BODY. This was UNREAL. 

I went up to the table where she was doing autographs, picked the photo I wanted her to sign thEN WALKED IN FRONT OF HER. I WAS IN FRONT OF MS JENNA LOUISE COLEMAN, LOOKING RIGHT AT HER. AND THE VERY FIRST THING SHE SAID TO ME WAS “love your outfit!”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WAS FREAKING TF OUT ON THE INSIDE. I just said “thank you so much!!!!!” then she started signing my photo (I can’t believe I witnessed her write my name like bitchhhh). As she was signing, I was losing my mind. None of it felt real. Here’s how the whole conversation went:

Jenna: Love your outfit! (she did the cutest little point at me and smiled GOD)  Me: Thank you so much!!!!! Jenna: So what’s going on out there? What are we missing? Me: I honestly have no clue ahhaha (I’m actually such an embarrassment wow)  She was finishing up signing my photo then I finally worked up the courage to say something.

Me: I just wanted to say thank you so much for all that you do...because Clara Oswald means so much to me and she’s helped me through some really difficult times in my life and just thank you so much.(It took me like 9032328 years to get this all out though lmfao I was so nervous) Jenna: Thank you!!! (When I started talking, she LOOKED UP AND INTO MY EYES LIKE I SWEAR SHE WAS STARING INTO MY SOUL I WANTED TO DIE SHE WAS REALLY LISTENING TO ME BE A COMPLETE NERD AND HAD THE BIGGEST SMILE ON HER FACE, IT KILLED ME) Me: And I’ve also been completely obsessed with Victoria, you’re so talented I love you so much. Jenna: Aww, thank you. Thank you. (gUYS HER SMILE HAD ME DEAD. IT WAS SO GENUINE AND UGHHHHHHHHH I MISS IT)

Then I took my photo and thanked her again, started walking toward my brother and sister who watched the entire thing happen from afar, and I just started BAWLING. I was literally SHAKING. I couldn’t even speak properly. We were walking away and my sister was asking me what I said to her and everytime I started saying “I thanked her for-” I just cRIED EVEN MORE. IT WAS SO HARD FOR ME TO FUNCTION. 

After we sat down and I calmed down a little bit, I asked my sister if she could see us talking and she said yeah so I asked her what she looked like and she told me she was sMILING SO HARD and I CRIED AGAIN. Then I asked my brother if he could see us and he said YEP I SAW HE SMILING A LOT. It was just so much to take in.

My mum and my sister kept asking me to tell them exactly what I said to her but it’s 392092347 hours later and I still can’t tell them without crying lmaoooo. I just can’t say it out loud. It wasn’t everything I wanted to say (I have PLENTY I want to tell her but we don’t have all the time in the world, sadly). But you know what? I’m SO fucking proud of myself for getting even that much out. I was sooo emotional and nervous and I was so close to just keeping my mouth shut, collecting my photo, then saying thank you and walking away. But I thought ‘nope. I’m going to make the most of this moment’ and bam. I said that. I’m really really really happy I did. Maybe it doesn’t seem like I said much at all to some of you but I honestly think that I got the most important thing out.

ANYWAY, NEXT MY PHOTO WITH HER.

I started lining up an hour early for the photo session so I was pretty close to the front. I was dying but wHATEVER. There were A LOT of people lining up for her. I think it was such a massive line because (other than the fact that she’s Jenna Coleman, of course) she was only doing ONE photo op session and was only in Brisbane for ONE day (and is in Sydney for two, how could she do me this dirty). As soon as her session started, the line started moving VERY QUICKLY. Like, I was shocked at how quickly it was moving. It was incredibly rushed, I think because they tried to make sure everyone got their photo in the little time Jenna had.

I finally reached the photobooth and the poor, poor thing looked sooo exhausted, I wanted to give her a hug. 

There were a few people in front of me in line and at one point I saw the photographer signalling people to hurry up and walk up next to Jenna for the photo. It was like a “hi!” “hi” *pose* “bye!” thing I was liKE DAMN because I wanted to talk to her more. When it was finally my turn, idk what came over me but I pretty much screamed “HI!!!” with the biggest idiot smile on my face but I saw her eyes light up (I’m not delusional I swear to you) and she said “hi!” with that beautiful smile once again. I put my arm around her and SMILED SO BIG (as you can see in the photos above) IT’S EMBARRASSING. I walked away and said “thank you so much!!!!!!” and once I exited the booth, I was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy like I felt so warm inside. Even though I only had two seconds with her, I didn’t care. ANY TIME I GET WITH HER IS GOOD FOR ME. 

Then about half an hour later, I went to collect my photo.................I......................strongly dislike how it turned out........................I’m not even kidding, I hate my smile and and even though I knew I’d look like a giant next to this smol bean, I was still so !?@#>@?!1!!!!!!!! when I saw it for the first time. I was kinda upset over it but SHUT UP ELYSE YOU MET JENNA COLEMAN AND THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS. 

BUT SHE REALLY POINTED AT ME IN OUR PHOTO. A FEW MONTHS AGO I LITERALLY TWEETED THAT IF I EVER GOT THE CHANCE TO MEET HER I’D WANT HER TO DO DO THE ICONIC POINT. 

I’m honestly still so overwhelmed that that happened. Ughhh I love her.

NEXT WAS HER PANEL. 

SHE

IS

THE

CUTEST

THING

EVER

Y’ALL DON’T UNDERSTAND.

I’m not gonna go into details about what she said because she was asked a lot of questions she’d already answered in past cons (YES SHE REALLY TOLD THE STORY OF PETER’S ACCIDENTAL SHOWER AGAIN. IT WAS GLORIOUS) but shE’S TRULY DOWN-TO-EARTH AND LOVELY AND PRECIOUS. She was being so funny and kept making cute faces. I was laughing, dying, and almost cried at one point. It was such a fun little panel and she was talking and talking and I could have listened to her for days. Then the panel ended and I was just so content. 

I’m about to be such an overdramatic bi thc right now but seriously.....I’m not exaggerating when I say that meeting Jenna has been my DREAM for sooooo long. Meeting Jenna in Clara cosplay has been my ultimate dream. And that happened today. I told her what Clara Oswald meant to me (in short) and she listened to me and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. She really means the world to me and I’m so grateful for her and Clara Oswald. I still remember going through some really dark shit a few years ago then putting on Doctor Who and feeling so connected to Clara that I forgot about every bad thing in my life at that moment. I remember the first time I started doing a lil “research” on Jenna and seeing how smol, awkward, sweet, and hella stylish she was and she quickly became MY QUEEN. I adore everything about this woman. I adore her talent, her personality, her entire existence....my heart is just so full. 

Anyway, that’s my summary of today. It was such a good day. I really hope she comes again soon.

She’s also way prettier irl. I didn’t think that was possible buT

#none of you will read this entire novel #but oh well it's here for me to look back on and i'm so happy #text #jenna coleman #my queen #i'm not even gonna read and edit this rn i'm emotionally drained i'm exhausted i'm gonna watch a bunch of cheesy romance movies tonight #and sleep like a baby #:') #my face #story time

[amorremanet]

wait so why do you have a problem with "A/B shippers feeling like you're judging them" if the ship you're talking about is keith and shiro aka an underage teenager with an adult???

First off, full disclosure: I could see Keith having a crush on Shiro, but ultimately, I see the whole thing as loving and very intensely devoted on both sides, but still ultimately familial or platonic. I can also see Lance and Keith having crushes on each other, I agree that they have a fun dynamic, and I could see them maybe working out as a romantic couple, but… eh, they’re just not my favorite VLD ship.

I’m also in favor of things like tagging, trigger/content warnings, trying to be more responsible and aware of ourselves as content-creators, and so on — but part of this means that you also have to be okay with the fact that people are going to make things that you don’t like, personally, and may even be triggered by or find abhorrent because people are not always going to be at the same place on the learning curve, people won’t always have the same opinions about what does or doesn’t constitute something, “hurtful” or offensive, and different people get different things out of the same fanworks

(e.g., most people apparently feel heartwarmed and happy when reading domestic fic about their OTPS, and that’s fine…… but for the most part, those fics do nothing for me, at best, and at worst, make me feel like there is just something wrong with me because I understand why other people want that life, but I don’t see myself ever having anything like that, and then I end up feeling like maybe I should just not even bother trying to go be part of LGBTQ spaces — not just in fandom but any and all LGBTQ spaces — because I’m probably ruining everything for everyone else).

There’s value in being open to critically discussing these things, and it’s true that tags/warnings are not always functional (e.g., a lot of people in the past have written non-con fic and tagged it as dub-con, or just not tagged it at all, because of how rape culture has made it so they don’t understand that some situations are not as consensual as they might think) — but this goes all ways. Everyone needs to be self-reflective and open to critical discussion, not just people who ship certain things or like certain tropes. Everyone needs to recognize that they are capable of doing things that hurt other people, and everyone needs to acknowledge that we are all deeply flawed beings and not always right, no matter how much we feel like we might be.

And part of that self-reflection/self-awareness needs to be accepting a degree of personal responsibility, recognizing that not everyone who likes a ship that you don’t is being irresponsible about it, being aware of things that might trigger you and staying away from them (which is never going to be a perfect system, because things like the, “Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” option are vague, tags are imperfect, blacklisting shit doesn’t always work, etc. — but that doesn’t mean that anyone on any side is right while anyone else is wrong; it means that the situation is more complicated than most of us on all sides want to make it, and that nobody is helping anyone by throwing out ad hominem attacks, reductionistic arguments, and worse)

and (this is going to be a BIG point for me in here, and if it seems like I’m harping on it kind of a lot, that’s because I am) not harassing or suicide-baiting people because they ship a thing that you personally dislike or (gasp, shock, horrors) wrote a fanfic about it.

With the preamble out of the way, now it’s time for the really fun part (which will ideally be all that I have to say on the subject because, as you’ll see in here, this touches on a lot of personal shit for me that I’m much happier NOT shoving my face in all over again)

If you don’t agree with my take on things when I’m done, that’s fine. We don’t have to agree as long as we can respect each other while disagreeing — but you know what would be the best for my mental health, in terms of talking about anything, Voltron-wise? Dealing with these arguments as little as possible because I would rather not relapse into active suicidal ideation again.

Want to talk Voltron with me? Cool. All I ask is that you ask me about, for instance, my dumb college AU headcanons — which have, among other things, Hunk/Keith/Lance, Matt/Shiro, Allura/Shay, a lot of Keith & Shiro brother feels, Pidge being 15 and usually some degree of Done with everybody, and Lotor the preening douchebag fratbro — or my “#someone please help takashi shirogane” tag, or how Keith is autistic as Hell and Lance and Hunk have ADHD, not about the latest round of fans being complete assholes to each other.

Anyway, anon is speaking in reference to this post that I made while I was barely awake last night.

cw for discussion of abuse, harassment, suicide-baiting, and suicidal ideation underneath the read more.

1. Those ages are not actually canon.

Yes, they are a fair interpretation of canon, but until they are actually said in the show itself, they’re not fully fledged canon and you can’t expect everyone in the fandom to agree on them OR to know what you’re talking about when you treat them as if they’re canon

Also, not everyone keeps up with every single panel, every single interview, every single thing that TPTB say or post on social media, etc., and no one should ever *NEED* to keep up with absolutely every single piece of anything that is even remotely related to the thing they like in order to be part of the fandom — especially not when statements made by TPTB are often vague and/or self-contradictory, as statements made by TPTB often are (not specifically VLD’s TPTB, but TPTB for every fandom I have ever been in, even when there was just one creator, like JKR)

Like, if you understand that someone isn’t, “less of a fan” of Marvel or DC just because they haven’t read absolutely every story even remotely involving their faves, can’t tell you everything about the weird period where Wolverine’s backstory involved him being not a mutant in the usual sense but an actual facts wolverine who had been turned into a humanoid shape by “genetic engineering” magic, like [the movies, the Teen Titans cartoon or Young Justice or X-Men: Evolution, or whatever] more than the comics, and so on

—then you should damn well understand that someone is not, “less of a fan” for not keeping up on absolutely every single thing that TPTB say in any context ever, and that someone isn’t “wrong” or a “lesser fan” coming to an interpretation of the characters’ respective ages based solely on the show because that is the only thing they watch related to the fandom

Speaking of JKR, though: frankly, I see this age thing as being a very similar situation to how JKR “confirmed” that Dumbledore is gay…… in a special thing at Carnegie Hall, a few months after DH first came out (she made those statements in October 2007. I was a freshman in college, and everyone in the grindeldore comm on LJ absolutely lost our shit over it).

Sure, it spread like wildfire, but a ton of people at the time decided that it didn’t count as canon because it wasn’t in the books (so they were allowed to keep acting like Dumbledore/McGonagall had been canon when it hadn’t been), and someone who is just reading the books without knowing about that interview would not necessarily know that Dumbledore is gay (which is entirely why JKR does not get Good Ally Cookies™ for just going, “lol he’s gay” only after all the books had been published and she’d inked all the future movie deals)

Likewise: someone who only watches the show would have no way of knowing all of the things that have been said or not about the characters’ ages (I am literally only vaguely aware of it because of having friends on all sides of the debate and hearing about different parts of everything from them)

Until the ages that some people assign to Shiro and Keith (and everyone else, besides) are actual facts, in the show canon, treating them as if they are isn’t fair or accurate, and you can’t hold people accountable for it when it’s not in the show and the extra-canonical statements don’t actually agree with each other

and 2. (way more importantly) Because I have seen the receipts on people harassing, suicide-baiting, abusing, etc. people over shipping Keith/Shiro romantically, and aside from the fact that the ages people are using to justify said behavior are not hard-facts, full truth canon, I don’t believe that it is ever right or acceptable to tell other human beings to kill themselves, that they deserve to die, or similar just because they have a different read on canon and/or like a different ship than you do.

Don’t tell me that nobody does that, because I’ve seen the receipts about how they very much have.

To be fair, I have also seen receipts about bad behavior from the Keith/Shiro shippers and I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen.

I’m saying that I’ve seen a lot more of it from the people bashing the Keith/Shiro shippers and I understand why Keith/Shiro shippers might feel uncomfortable or judged or like I’m going to attack them just because I love the Keith and Shiro relationship as much as they do, I just don’t ship it romantically.

I’m also not saying that there aren’t good points on all sides… but all sides ALSO have a lot of points that are, frankly, full of shit.

Don’t tell me that it’s only a vocal minority who does this, because that might be true (in my experience, it almost certainly is), but until the silent majority stands up and tells said “vocal minority” that suicide-baiting people is not okay, then the relative sizes of their contingents does not fucking matter — because the people doing the suicide-baiting are still allowed to continue doing it.

Look. On one hand, I am sensitive to this, because I have personally been harassed, cyberstalked, suicide-baited, and worse in other fandoms — all because I didn’t ship one thing, I did ship others, and I tried to go, “Hey, the way that you guys are treating other fans isn’t cool and you really shouldn’t do that” when some fans treated others like shit for not liking their OTP and wanting to have some kind of space in the fandom where they could like their faves and ship their ships without every single thing being turned into S//terek some other ship

Maybe it’s just me? But as someone who has found themself needing to get put on new anxiety meds and a higher dose of their antidepressants because of people on the Internet refusing to give me peace and telling me to kill myself (or similar) over not shipping their ship and saying that they shouldn’t harass other fans — and then still found myself, at one point, counting out my anxiety meds to figure out if I could overdose on what I had, and only realized how bad this was because my head was too muddled to do the fucking math?

Yeah, you could say that I have a bias in favor of, “Don’t fucking suicide-bait people” and can understand why the behavior of some people who bash Keith/Shiro might make the people who ship it romantically feel like they’d be in danger of bashing or personal attacks from me just because I don’t personally read their relationship as one that is or could be romantic

On the other hand: I’m sensitive to this because I have also done a lot of shit that I’m not proud of while trying to go, “Hey, guys, this pattern or this behavior in the fandom is pretty racist, ableist, misogynistic, abusive, or whatever, otherwise gross; it’s not cool and we should stop enabling it.”

I understand where a lot of the intensity comes from, on the parts of the people who believe that they’re trying to make their fandoms of choice into better and/or safer spaces, more accessible to more people and more fun for more people — and in theory, I support the move to make fandoms safer…… but I can’t support a practice of doing this that repeats so many of the same mistakes that have hurt people before, have hurt me personally before, and/or that I personally did that hurt other people before.

Also? Because I have been there, done that, and gotten approximately twenty-seven t-shirts, I know how easy it is to lose sight of what you think you are doing, how easy it is to lose perspective on what you’re doing, and how easy it is to start doing shit that actively hurts people (and not to any constructive end), while you are nominally trying not to hurt people

So, I’m not unsympathetic to the people who’ve been bashing Keith/Shiro shippers and I don’t think that most of them are bad people — but I still know, from having been on both sides of this, that what I have seen of a lot of their behavior is doing more harm than good (and fun fact, it was the biggest reason why I didn’t watch VLD at all until my goddaughters [who are 12 and 14] watched it, fell in love, and I wanted to know what they were talking about)

TL;DR: I’m concerned about the feelings and comfort of Keith/Shiro shippers, and not making them feel uncomfortable or like they are going to be attacked if I want to venture out into their fan-spaces, because I understand that they have been targeted and hurt before, in ways that I consider to be completely unacceptable because I’ve hurt people in the same ways before and been hurt by similar behaviors

—and if you can understand that someone might not feel comfortable being friends with someone because they romantically ship a couple that you interpret as being an adult and a teenager, despite the fact that this IS NOT hard-facts canon? then you should damn well understand why someone might not feel entirely safe or comfortable being friends with someone who doesn’t romo-ship their OTP, when not romo-shipping their OTP tends to be directly correlated to shit like stalking, harassment, abusive anon comments, and fucking suicide-baiting

—and I really cannot stress enough how much the suicide-baiting point shits me, okay.

Like, I have dealt with suicidal ideation and attempts since I was eight years old. I hate and am deeply ashamed of the fact that I have ever made other people feel as low as I have when I’ve wanted to die. I still struggle a LOT with blaming myself for, “letting other people [online and offline] make me feel like that,” despite knowing that I shouldn’t blame myself and despite the fact that I have told other people NOT to blame themselves for this kind of thing before.

If I’m an irredeemably terrible person for feeling like nobody ever deserves to be suicide-baited over what they ship or don’t ship, and that, even if they don’t tag as responsibly as they could, they deserve to be treated with the bare minimum of interpersonal decency and not attacked until such point as they start actively attacking someone else in the same ways that everyone who sends harassment, suicide-baiting, etc. has done and continues to do?

—then fine, I guess I’ll be an irredeemably terrible person.

I’d rather need to have difficult discussions, try to have them in the most constructive way possible for as many people as possible, accept a flawed system in the hopes of making it better, accept that (unfortunately) there is no such thing as a perfectly safe space for everyone and that trying to make any given space safer is always going to be an incredibly difficult task that involves some degree of compromise and some kind of Choices by all involved, and try my best to treat people with empathy, compassion, and understanding

It’s not an easy solution, it’s not always a particularly comforting way to approach things, and in my experience, it will demand a LOT from anyone who wants to go this route

But I’ve made people feel terrible over things that were not nearly as “pure” or ideologically righteous or important as I thought they were, and I have been suicide-baited more than enough for one lifetime (I’ve been suicide-baited by my own mother more than enough for one lifetime, never mind having it happen in fandom spaces too), and I hope that you’ll understand if I have no desire to go back to either of those places — especially not the one where I make people feel like shit, and especially when I’m trying to be a better person and not do things like that to people

This is rambling and repetitive and has really stopped being a TL;DR summary

I’m sorry, I stand by what I’ve said but I haven’t gotten more than 5 hours of sleep a night in the past three days and it’s doing a number on my attention span

I’m done talking now

Here’s a picture of my family’s dog as a reward for making it this far (unless you’ve decided to flame me while reading, in which case this is still a picture of our dog but it’s not a reward for you, I just can’t stop you from looking at it)

(okay, I couldn’t pick just one picture of our dog, so here she is being lazy and dressed as a lobster for Halloween, respectively)

#tangentially since i brought it up: happy 10th birthday to harry potter & the deathly hallows #but in all seriousness: i would appreciate it if this is all that i need to say on this subject #there's a reason why i generally don't talk about this shit in public anymore #and the reason is that i don't like being in a suicidal headspace #so i'm taking personal responsibility and trying to stop doing things that put me there #like for instance engaging with debates where people have been suicide baited #when man i just want to have sad headcanons & know how i'm supposed to tag them #so that i don't end up unwittingly hurting someone else (and preferably do not get suicide-baited again but in a new fandom) #ask box tag #opinions for ts #wank for ts #fandom shenanigans #mine: fandom blah blah blah #kassie hush #kassie watches netflix voltron #suicide baiting cw #suicidal ideation cw #Anonymous