“It is an everlasting challenge to your writers to make your characters interesting. If you can’t face up to that problem, then you have the problem. Originality is hard to come by in anything today. We don’t have to avoid ideas because they have been touched upon previously. It is a challenge to you to make an old idea work for new readers. It is a very worthwhile cause to generate new life into old or used concepts…Development and rejuvenation are better than destruction.”
I couldn’t resist sharing this excerpt from a fan letter that was published in The Flash volume 1 #288 in 1980. This letter was written specifically in response to the shocking murder of Iris West, but I also love it for how it speaks more generally to the unending discussions surrounding innovation, unrealized potential, and character deaths in long-form superhero comics.
I’ve been thinking this since watching the movie, and idk if it’s intended at all, but… We all agree there’s basically two kinds of demons in KPDH, right? The more monstrous-looking ones, and the human-looking ones like the Saja Boys and Rumi. They can all transform to look like normal humans, but it seems like the humanoid ones are distinct — the Saja boys still have their humanoid demon form when they “transform back” in the demon world. And although the monstrous-type demons seem to have personalities, there’s no positive response from one when Rumi asks if Gwi-ma is forcing them to hurt people.
So. My theory is. The humanoid-type demons are the ones that still retain their memories. They still have shame for Gwi-ma to manipulate, they still know they were once human. Now, we do only ever see Gwi-ma make a deal with Jinu to erase his memories, but that doesn’t mean he’s never made that deal with anyone. Maybe that’s where all the monstrous-type demons came from. They ended up giving in and begging Gwi-ma to erase their memories, their guilt, their humanity. They don’t remember being human anymore, so he doesn’t need to manipulate them into hurting humans or doing his bidding. It’s also not super clear if those demons are eating souls on their own or if they’re just sending them to Gwi-ma, but if they eat them then maybe that hunger only presents itself when they fully lose their humanity? We don’t see any of the Saja Boys preying on humans that way, for example.
I see posts go by periodically about how modern audiences are impatient or unwilling to trust the creator. And I agree that that’s true. What the posts almost never mention, though, is that this didn’t happen in a vacuum. Audiences have had their patience and trust beaten out of them by the popular media of the past few decades.
J J Abrams is famous for making stories that raise questions he never figures out how to answer. He’s also the guy with some weird story about a present he never opened and how that’s better than presents you open–failing to see that there’s a difference between choosing not to open a present and being forbidden from opening one.
You’ve got lengthy media franchises where installments undo character development or satisfying resolutions from previous installments. Worse, there are media franchises with “trilogies” that are weird slap fights between the makers of each installment.
You’ve got wildly popular TV shows that end so poorly and unsatisfyingly that no one speaks of them again.
On top of that, a lot of the media actively punishes people for engaging thoughtfully with it. Creators panic and change their stories if the audience properly reacts to foreshadowing. Emotional parts of storytelling are trampled by jokes. Shocking the audience has become the go to, rather than providing a solid story.
Of course audiences have gotten cynical and untrusting! Of course they’re unwilling to form their own expectations of what’s coming! Of course they make the worst assumptions based on what’s in front of them! The media they’ve been consuming has trained them well.
obviously magical friendly fire is more canon-compliant and suited to how magic is portrayed by the worldbuilding but a) i am not going to turn that setting on because i love myself and b) i think stuff like having your mage summon a roaring wall of fire and trusting in their skill and their control so deeply that you charge through it knowing the flames won’t hurt you even as they lick over your exposed skin is just too sexy to miss out on
KPDH fandom, I’m begging you, someone needs to do a redraw of the “AND YOU… ARE WEARING… HIS MERCHANDISE!!!” scene from Hercules with Gwi-ma as Hades and the Saja Boys wearing Huntrix gear.
“Would you punch your best friend for a date with your celebrity crush?” seems like a humorous enough hypothetical on the surface. But the thing is, Matt Murdock is Foggy’s best friend, and his celebrity crush well… That would be Daredevil. Too bad he doesn’t know they’re the same guy. (No Matts were harmed in the making of this fic)
i think everyone should program at least once just so you realise just how fucking stupid computers are. because theyre so fucking stupid. a computer wants to be told what to do and exactly that and if you make one typo or forget one detail it starts crying uncontrollably
there’s a p common attitude in fandom spaces (fandom in general, not a specific one) that’s like “why care about canon, or the characters being ooc? we’re here to play with the dolls any way we like” and as much as i obviously am a person who thinks about canon a lot in theory i’m into that. in practice though when popular fanon takes things in a wildly different direction from canon so often it’s in the service of taking something that was originally canonically weird and interesting and making it blander. it’s flattening a complex character into a broad archetype i’ve seen a million times before, it’s taking two characters with a complicated canonical relationship and writing them in a way where you could find-and-replace the names with any other popular migratory slash fandom pairing and the fic would make as much if not more sense. if you’re going to break away from canon at least do something interesting? don’t make it less weird? i feel like i’m watching someone take a really beautiful expensive cut of wagyu steak and grind it into hamburger to cook it well done and cover it in ketchup
netflix daredevil is great. they really said matt is so intimately familiar with foggy that he can hear the exact way his breathing patterns change before he says something. and then they just moved on
Do you like Daredevil, The Defenders, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, the Punisher, and/or Team Red, in their comics or TV (or, in some cases, cinema!) versions?
Works revealed on AO3 on September 19, and submissions posted on Tumblr from that day onwards.
Still with the Remix Option: ou can say you’re open to getting a gift created from one of your own fanworks!!
How? Sign up here! You will be able to give several prompts (different types of prompts, too! Music, scenarios, one word prompts) and you will, of course, receive several prompts.
Your job? Use at least one of these prompts to create at least one fanwork! You can combine several prompts in one work, use the same prompt for several works… The one hard and fast rule is to respect your giftee’s squicks!
Please get in touch with your giftee anonymously if only to let them know someone is creating something for them, and of course if you have any question :-)
What types of fanwork? Here’s what you can do: Gifsets (6 gifs min), Fanfic (1,000 words min), Fanmix (6 songs + cover min), Fanvid (1 minute long min), Graphics / Fanart, needle art, podfic.
What’s the timeline? Signups until July 7 (your time zone is fine), prompts sent around a day or two after that (depending on your time zone), fanworks due SEPTEMBER 10 in the AO3 collection if you’re using AO3, and be submitted to Tumblr. If you have a scheduling issue please get in touch with the blog, we can probably work something out. And you will be able to post on the dedicated AO3 collection earlier since it will be kept unrevealed until D-Day !
Where to post? Tumblr, AO3 (Exchange collection name: dde2025 / Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2025)… let us know where you’re posting so we can share it on our two blogs, DWand Tumblr. AO3 can’t host video or graphics, but you can still put them up on the Archive as long as they’re already online somewhere else like Instagram, DeviantArt, YouTube, Squidge hosting, etc. Get in touch if you have questions about posting !
Posting guidelines are here (this link should be opened in a separate browser tab, NOT the app) or here, please take the time to read them! You will find more important information there. If you do not have an AO3 account and want one, please get in touch with the blog.
Spread the word!
A winning banner by @nkeiiin ! Detailed ID under the cut
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