#fanwank

Proverbially speaking. Specifically, I refer to the string of posts I have often seen regarding Sheena, Monty’s wife, and Shane by proxy. So often going on about “what could’ve been” with loose concepts that Monty tossed out about Raven in V3 or Ren‘s backstory or… pirates.

And it’s like… how does this apply to now?

We’re well past when those story beats could be implemented unless they use the pirate idea for Vacuo in a Mad Max sort of way. Maaaaybe a flashback could do it as a kind of twist but that’s just the operative word: “maybe.”

These all sound like first draft ideas, throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. Which is what drafts are for but often times what seems cool in your head will turn out vastly different when put to paper in applying it to a narrative.

Lest we forget how Monty would animate a lot of fights before we see how the final draft implements them. Miles and Kerry often had to write around it like Power Rangers adapting Super Sentai footage.

Yes, Monty likely spitballed ideas with his wife and other friends but trusted Miles and Kerry to implement the ideas as they saw fit. Monty might be a writer but knew that where his weaknesses laid, believing in the collaboration of art like in the CRWBY.

Jay Nakamura is an Asian man. His last name is one of the most common Japanese last names... ever. His first name is extremely common in Asian communities and is likely a romanization or shortening of the many many asian names that start with the syllable 'jay'. From a (fictional, but created BY ASIAN MEN specifically as a commentary on japan/korea) Asian country that is historically exploited by the United States. His entire story focuses on the fact that he does not have white privilege and is often exploited by white people. He LOOKS LIKE THIS.

The fact that Jay is nonwhite and is marginalized for being nonwhite is something that has been acknowledged multiple times by multiple authors. Namely Nicole Maines, his current main writer, who has retweeted analysis threads and made comments about how his development and radicalization is informed by this lack of privilege.

Yet numerous people have approached me, specifically when I am actively talking about how important it is that Jay is a man of color, and gone, well, isn't he white?

I cannot even BEGIN to FATHOM why this happens. You have to be a certain kind of dumb to look at JUST HIS NAME and go, ah, a white man. Do people think Nakamura is a French name or something?

But I can guess it comes down to a few things:

People just don't see Asian folk as people of color, I guess, outside of when they can be fetishized. This actually has been a problem in DC fandom specifically for a long time; I've noticed it particularly with Cass Cain and Damian Wayne, where their heritage will either be erased in favor of their white halves, or they'll be sexualized in the context of their cultures being orientalized.

In this same vein, race is often treated by fandom as purely cosmetic, and not something that could impact how a character is meant to be read or thought about in the story. This is part of how you get headcanons that end up leaning into racial stereotypes.

Jay is very obviously visibly queer. White people tend to assume we are the arbiters of queerness. Therefore, whenever a character has queer signifiers (dyed hair, piercings, etc), is queer, they are presumed to be white. It's the goddamn pink hair again, people can never be normal about it!

People who don't want to look racist online, but who also don't like Jay (and haven't read his stuff), are trying to convince themselves and others that they aren't actually putting down a character of color.

What kind of Gilmore Girls, You Belong With Me kind of series this is?

Claire is a confident and capable woman and if she wanted Leon she would have done something about it by now. Leon doesn’t like plucky younger women. He likes aloof powerful types: shown by his actual interests over the series.

Maybe they don’t actually want white picket fences! Maybe that’s why they don’t have one?

When Leon gripes about what he wants in his life it’s usually Ada, breakfast, or vacation. He adopts blonde girls because he doesn’t want a fucking baby.

Claire is the head of an NGO who was having an ill-advised fling with a coworker. She spent more of her last two appearances in canon (Rev2 and DI) with women than she did with Leon. They had literally no romantic or sexual tension in Death Island.

I get the fantasy of identifying with Claire and wanting the hot boy to notice you instead of the spy who wears short shorts and grappling hooks. But, it’s fucking insulting to my friend Claire Redfield that you think she’d let anyone string her along like that.

“B-but Sherry! She said they could adopt her at the end of RE2 and they all walked off into the sunrise together!”

Sherry was 12 and had just lost her parents in some of the worst ways possible, including being tentacle raped by her own father. Maybe she was in need of a safer healthier relationship in that moment!

Furthermore, you can raise/mentor a child (at no point did these three live together in a domestic way btw) without having a romantic relationship. People can mean the world to you without you wanting to kiss them.

The second half of that hot take is that just because the ending focuses on the wedding and Shane's future playing for Ottawa with a team and city that actually appreciate him doesn't mean that the bad stuff that happened has magically been resolved.

What if the Enemy is the inevitable decay and decline of Gallifrey?

What if the Great Houses foresaw what they considered the worst possible future? The Homeworld weak, broken and humiliated at the hands of "lesser" races.

What if, in an attempt to avert this, they launched an attack against their own future, knowing that the Homeworld of the future would be forced to militarise to defend themselves? That they would be forced to dedicate all their time and resources to developing new weapons capable of beating the greatest foe imaginable: themselves at the height of their powers? Would this prevent the foreseen decline? And if not, would it not better to die at the hands of the greatest of the Temporal Powers than at the plunger of "a bunch of mindless biomechanoids with speech impediments?"

What if this was utter madness and completely unsustainable?

What if the War burns itself from existence and the prophesied calamity comes to pass. The Gods of the War in Heaven reduced to just another technologically advanced civilization poncing around the fourth dimension in silly hats and collars. The Time Lords battle the Daleks to a humiliating stalemate. The survivors reduced to hiding, first, in a bubble universe and then at the end of time, before finally succumbing to the indignity of cyber conversion?