Honestly, I feel like she’d never want to go (even though she sure could use some) and probably wouldn’t unless her friends (who are also basically all avoiding therapy) pushed her into it… but still, if she did go, what would that look like for her?
I’m thinking about writing a fanfiction exploring the concept of Raven being immortal, and I was wondering what other superheroes would be in the same boat.
(Piggybacking off the discourse from earlier in the day... lol, sorry. Also, obviously, TW for discussions of sexual assault in this post.)
It kind of drives me crazy that there's so little discussion of Raven's history of abuse when that's such an important part of her character, especially in the early days. I think that surviving abuse is one of the strongest themes in her story. Also, I think having such a popular and mainstream character who's an incest survivor is really meaningful. But it's pretty rare for people to even know that that happened to Raven.
I don't have a lot to say today, but it made me sad to see a post that I thought would be about Raven's trauma and instead was just more ship discourse. This fandom has enough ship discourse. So I just wanted to bring a much less explored aspect of her character to the light.
It's just really sad. Presumably she was freed after Trigon is defeated at the end of the issue, but still. Her whole planet was destroyed. Everyone she ever knew is dead.
Honestly, I can't imagine things went great for Trigon's dimension after the Titans defeated him. That is a massive power vacuum. They probably got stuck with some tyrannical underlings until Trigon destroyed the whole dimension a few years later.
The one thing that unifies nearly all Raven fans is that we don't like how DC treats her. Some would say she hasn't been treated well since 2011. Some would even go as far as to say she hasn't been treated well since 2003. Regardless of your exact opinion, we're all disappointed she's not in any current comics. We all miss her.
There is a solution!
Fanfiction is free and more accessible than ever. Fanfiction has no rules. Your favorite ship that DC is unlikely to ever make official? It can be endgame right now in your fanfic. Dying to see Raven fight some cool new villains? Make them up and let her at them! Maybe you like some elements of a comic, but keep thinking that it could be so much better executed, if only the writer had done xyz? Do your own version where it goes exactly your way! The possibilities are limitless.
You don't have to be a professional writer to write a fanfiction. Fanfiction is much more forgiving than original work. Your audience already loves Raven and wants to see her in stories. Give a creative idea your best shot, and you're bound to attract some fans.
You may be reading this and still not feeling convinced that you could write a fanfiction. That's fine. You can still do the other vital part of this proposal: reading! Readers are the lifeblood of the fanfiction community. Writing is much more fun and rewarding when you've got people to read your work. Just reading fanfiction and leaving comments thanking the writer helps new fanfiction be created.
Archive of our Own's Raven tag has nearly 8k works, but when you filter to exclude adaptations, the number goes down by more than half. Exclude the ones actually focused on other characters like Nightwing and the numbers go down even more. I think it's a real shame that there's so many creative comic Raven fans with great ideas for her character, but not many fans actually writing those ideas into stories.
If you've never read a Raven fanfiction before, try it out. There's a lack of comic Raven fanfiction, but there definitely isn't none, and ao3's tags are great for helping you find what you want. If you are a reader, kudos and comment! And if you have an idea, write it! The world needs more Raven stories, and we have the power to create them.
The way he’s standing over her with her legs spread 💀
I was talking to a friend about how him showing up to bother her in her room happens more times than you'd think, and I tried to remember every single time it happened. Not sure if I missed some?
Multiple designs in the past few years have depicted Raven wearing a pentagram as part of her goth aesthetic. This has been criticized (in my opinion, rightly) as out of character due to Raven's unwillingness to do anything that leans into her demonic heritage. Why would a character who's ashamed of being a demon and hates her demon father call attention to her heritage by wearing satanic symbolism?
Thinking about this problem, it occurred to me that there IS a way to make it make sense for Raven to wear a pentagram--if Trigon forced her to wear one as a way of marking her as his daughter.
It feels very on brand for Trigon to force Raven to wear some kind of jewelry/ornamentation that she's not comfortable with. Maybe a choker/collar with some kind of pentagram pendant. He could do something to enchant it so that Raven wouldn't be able to remove it. It could also have some kind of negative effect on Raven, like making it harder for her to control her powers and use them safely. Her finally managing to rip it off could be a cool moment of her asserting her own power over herself once again.
Idk, just a thought I had, but I think the concept is fun. In my opinion, something like this would be way better than her just randomly wearing a pentagram because modern writers don't know anything about her other than demon + goth girl.
Edit: oh my god I was not expecting this many people to miss the point of my post. I think the Raven wearing a pentagram designs are badly done but I made this post because I ship Trigon and Raven and I think the idea of him forcing her to wear a collar is hot. Next time I’ll just say that instead of trying to have an actual discussion about her character.
I feel like the main discussion I see about this scene is how ugly Raven's outfit is (and don't get me wrong, it is ugly), but that completely ignores the context that Raven is wearing an extremely revealing outfit solely because Trigon forced her into it for his own amusement. It's then made even worse by the fact that he projected memories of himself raping the mothers of his other children into her mind. While he was strangling her.
Poor Raven...
I feel like the main discussion I see about this scene is how ugly Raven's outfit is (and don't get me wrong, it is ugly), but that completely ignores the context that Raven is wearing an extremely revealing outfit solely because Trigon forced her into it for his own amusement. It's then made even worse by the fact that he projected memories of himself raping the mothers of his other children into her mind. While he was strangling her.
Poor Raven...