Stone by day, lurker by night...

Stumbled over a really interesting thread inviting people to share their own unpopular opinions about the show Gargoyles. I'm not in the fandom, even though it is something I like checking out fic and fan art for. 

Though there are one or two things mentioned there that I either don't really care about or disagree with, the vast majority of things people are saying is stuff I've thought myself for a long time. For one, the fandom's fixation with strictly sticking to the ideas Greg Weisman lays out on his Station 8 site, such as the Timedancer stuff. People in general have different ideas on exactly what constitutes canon versus non-canon, myself included. Since the concepts Weisman discusses were never actually featured in the show, I personally do not really consider them canon. I think the best Gargoyles fanfics I've read were the ones that just did their own thing instead of clinging to his ideas, some of which... *sigh* aren't really the greatest. I also just enjoy seeing fan creativity in action, but this rigid "make everything fit into what Greg said" mentality more often then not clamps down on fan theories and other fun stuff.

Several people in that thread also bring up how fandom and even canon seems to gloss over the fact that Xanatos did a lot of super-messed up stuff in the series, like experimenting on the poor and minorities, and never paid for it.

But I wasn't too shocked to discover yet another fandom where certain opinions and thoughts get held up as The Law, and anybody who doesn't want to tow the party line gets ostracized or worse. Sad.

February 2024 status report

• I've been working on New Dogs when able to, and I've regained a little bit of inspiration for A Brush With Danger, so I'll try to work on that one ASAP.

• There are still a few more character analysis posts I plan on bringing over -- the ones for Exile, Blitz, and Professor Callaghan.

Imposter Syndrome commentary & notes

REFERENCES: 

- Imposter syndrome refers to a real psychological condition where a person feels anxiety and self-doubt because they basically believe themselves to be frauds and worry about being exposed as such, even though their skills, success, relationships, etc are genuine. I thought it was a fitting title.

GENERAL:

- If you've watched Trollhunters then you'll know why TK reacted so strongly to Otto calling Patamon a cat. XD

- Trollhunters is one of those things that has some cool ideas, but gets bogged down by a lot of goofy writing and cringe/or childish humor, among other issues. I'm actually glad I didn't get any further into the Tales Of Arcadia spinoffs, because it sounds like the whole thing drops even further in quality (IE: the one show with the two aliens and the infamous finale movie).

The Changelings are one of the most interesting elements in the series. I do think they're... well, stupid in terms of their capacity for self-preservation though. They seem perfectly content in following a leader who cares nothing for or respects them, and is openly blatant with his disregard for them, to the point of following him to their own literal destruction in the end. 

Better the devil you know, I guess. I feel this is the sort of environment Changeling!T.K. would look at, then look over at the Chosen Children, and decide he'd much rather give his loyalty to the latter. Also, if you're a Changeling and you fail some sort of mission you're given, the boss will literally eat you. Strickler was the only Changeling who was not okay with any of this (something I think should've been explored further), and even he did a lot of stupid things (though that was more tied to his antics as a villain).

Actually, upon further reflection, I feel like the Changelings both as characters and concepts were wasted. Many of them get killed off the end of the first season.

- I do like that air of mystery that the Changelings still have about them to this day. All we really know about them is that they are trolls the Gumm-Gumms and Morgana La Fay took and altered somehow (it's never stated exactly how). They're linked to a human infant who's been previously abducted, and they take on that human's form and proceed to live their life. I know troll!Enrique wasn't a character that we the audience were meant to really take seriously, but his presence just raises more questions. I assume the Changeling would have grown in size as he grew up as Enrique, but do trolls not have an infant stage, or the infants already able to speak and have adult cognizance? Or is that just something limited to Changelings? Were the trolls that were experimented on young ones, or adults? 

But yeah, I admit to enjoying having some mystery about certain canon elements in a work of fiction. It is cool to see canon explore some things (Godfather II delving into Vito Corleone's backstory, for example), but not so much when it feels like they're just shoveling mounds of crap at viewers. Like I think Ixis Naugus's backstory in the original Archie Sonic comics is hella goofy and just kinda lame. It added nothing to his character and he might as well have just retained his mysterious past.

- The idea of doing a Trollhunters crossover where some good guy actually turns out to be a Changeling in disguise has always floated around in my mind after reading this story. ETA: My bad, I didn't actually share the link. Initially I was going to do a Disney/Trollhunters crossover, but none of the Disney properties I looked at really worked for me. Then one day, Digimon just popped into my head as a good candidate for the other fandom. It just came down to picking which season to use. My top two choices were either the Adventure continuity or Frontier (which is flawed, yeah, but I still really like it. Might be a nostalgia thing).

- I'm going to hold off on doing a character analysis for T.K. for now. I haven't really seen the entirety of Adventure or Adventure 02 in years. I did rewatch some of both seasons on Hulu recently (more Adventure then 02 though). I will say that I quite enjoy the character as he is in Adventure, but in 02 the now older T.K. often radiates this smug golden boy vibe that kind of puts me off him. And the show just kind of leans into it too. When it came to IS, my thought process went to "wouldn't it be funny if somebody that perfect was hiding something?" Looking at both seasons of Digimon through the lens of "what if TK was a Changeling the entire time?" adds a interesting element to things.

The story isn't really about Patamon per se, but looks at both his and T.K.'s relationship, so I don't know if I should do an analysis on him as well, or if I do, just combine his with TK's.

- I would love to see the Gumm-Gumms' reactions to the partner Digimon (especially Gatomon) and seeing them digivolve. Actually, I'd like to see how Jim and co would react as well. 

FUN FACTS:

N/A

Who are these two?

 

Found this image at a Sonic The Hedgehog club on Amino. Grimer and Rouge I recognize, but who's the character next to Rouge? And that robot on the end (that is a robot, isn't it?)?

Oh, and I guess it's 2024 now, so Happy New Year's. :-) A couple of my resolutions is to try get more writing done (especially for stories), as well as continue improving at drawing. 

BTW, the notes for Imposter Syndrome are still being worked on. Other then that I don't have much of anything else to report. Until next time!

Where I'm posting my art at now:

If you're curious, here's my gallery. I'll be uploading some new stuff soon.

People who've harassed me in the past over pairings, how my characters look, etc are not welcome, and will be blocked and reported if you try it again. This new site isn't like deviantART where you can just repeatedly get away with going after people.

ETA: That account is no longer being updated and will be deleted in the near future.

New story up!

It's a one-shot merging Digimon Adventure 02 with the Netflix series Trollhunters. You can find it it at both my FF.net and A03 accounts.

October 2023 status report

New Dogs, New Tricks And A Brush With Danger are still being worked on, in addition to a one-shot idea I've had for a few years now. People who've heard me say stuff like this before may be rolling their eyes right about now, because I tend to struggle with one-shots, but the thing is 80% finished. It's more minimalist in terms of description and detail, while on the flip-side there's a lot of dialogue. Hopefully the story won't read like an info dump. I'll discuss it more when it's finished and posted, which'll probably be sometime this month. 

Working on it made me realize I didn't like my writing style for New Dogs, so I decided to rewrite its scenes but keep the dialogue. I can say that the beginning and the conclusion are mostly done.

Also I deleted Into The Spotlight off my FF.net account, and Gold With Envy will more then likely be following shortly. Both are extremely old and do not fit the current look of my AU, plus my OCs in the former fic have evolved significantly. 

Lastly, I'm looking at doing some "just shooting the breeze" type posts for this blog, like talking about my present stance on romance and the whole "shipping" scene.