#I dont like them as characters and will never defend them' I just like their potential dynamic a lot Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[cairos-wing]

So I've been JRWI posting a lot today, but I was actually thinking abt this and I think JRWI Wonderlust is the first campaign where I genuinely adore all of the characters equally. For context: I only listen to every version of the free campaigns I can get my hands on. I have never listened to Apotheosis, BITB or Prime Defenders. I make no secret that Jay Ferin is the woman of All Time. I am so obsessed with her, I think she's awesome and I have a million Thoughts about her. Now let me talk about MYTHBORNE I fucking LOVE Aster!!!! Shes so fucking cool. Listen Connor has his whole massive emo backstory going on but I think Aster's energy is fucking awesome. The one "Final Episode" Gimmick show?? Yea im sorry I gotta give it to Cherry Blossom here what a mf icon. But I've been thinking right, and I genuinely don't think that I have like,, a Guy in Wonderlust. I made an "I miss Runt" post today but like I dont think I'm missing her more than I would miss the others yk?? I would be equally as devastated over Troy or Blink. I genuinely think the cast of Wonderlust are my favourites from the campaigns I've had access to and they are all just really strong characters for me. I've had Thoughts about all of them yk?? I don't think anything could top the wonder that is Jay Ferin for me, but Wonderlust is like,, wow. The guys have done SUCH a good job with Wonderlust. Bizly is running an excellent campaign and the main party are all just brilliant this campaign. I was thinking about it sm bc this has me tempted to pay for Prime Defenders simply because I love the way Bizly DMs so much! I want more of it!

[qoldenskies]

Okay okay I'll yammer about Rise!Splinter in your ask box because oh my god I cannot STAND people who legitimately villainize him on main. Like, alright, you can call him an emotionally unavailable or even slightly neglectful parent all you want, because even the show itself makes it clear that his parenting style wasn't exactly PERFECT and probably left the boys with at least a SMALL myriad of issues (Raph's parentification and Donnie's constant need for approval come to mind, though I can't say for sure whether those are entirely borne of Splinter's parenting style lmao). But I feel like so many people through trying to villainize his actions deliberately gloss over the fact that he was probably struggling with hardcore PTSD after spending a decade or more basically being forced to fight in a DEATH ARENA, not to mention probably having a good deal of body dysmorphia because he's suddenly been kind of forcefully shoved into a body that he can't even recognize as his own anymore. PTSD is a genuinely crippling condition to struggle with at times. On top of the depression he more than likely had, it'll make you not even want to get out of bed some days, and to struggle with that AND take care of four INFANTS that you've basically suddenly found yourself the sole caretaker of HAD to require a great deal of both mental and physical strength from Splinter. I'm sure he had his hard days, and the show points that out, but he was still trying his damn hardest to be there and be present for these kids, even if he fucked it up at every turn, even if he was far from the BEST parental figure that they could have had.

People can critique his parenting style as they wish (hell, even I do it), but so many depictions of him as an awful parent feel like they're glossing over the legitimate mental issues that he more than likely has, and idk sometimes I just feel like yammering about it on main

yeah like, a parent can seriously fuck you up completely unintentionally and have understandable, sympathetic reasons for it (while still not being in the right! a kid is never in the wrong for being hurt by an adult who failed them! but they're also well within their right to understand and empathize with a complicated parent who loves and changes for them!). generally im sure a lot of people who write abusive parent splinter genuinely had horrendous and abusive parents and are venting, which is why i tend not to be judgemental to people who do. characters are ultimately devices to drive a plot and if they're writing a story where they want to put them through some shit, that's one way to do it. aus are aus and allat

HOWEVER. lord does it frustrate me when people act like his behavior in the show itself is actually like that. i think its really uncharitable and unsympathetic. like if you want to see some of the things he did to them as potentially unforgivable thats fine, because if they're upset with him they dont have to forgive him, but him dealing with crippling ptsd and depression while being someone who goes out of his way to parent and change and grow while handling it just makes it idk nasty to me ,,,,

and also maybe this is just a hot take but esp. when it comes to raph and donnie i think them having more complex feelings about him makes for more compelling angst. its juicier, and i love to read stories that are empathetic towards everyone involved.

i am not a splinter defender but i will still fight splinter haters (not actually. dont fight me i will cry, i dont main tag most things anymore for a reason lmao)

[ultimateloserboy]

(animal abuse tw!!!)

hyperfix hell is something else but especially insane for characters like red and duck who are just suddenly really terrible out of nowhere. like its been a while since ive seen electricity (cuz its one of the episodes that gets me feeling too much) but i somehow gaslit myself into believing i made up the part of them drowning their cat. i thought i was filling in blanks with my memory but NO duck outright BRAGS about explicitly drowning their “boring” pet.

I knew they killed their cat 100% but i guess im so deep into my own head and been in the fandom for so long i thought i made a chunk of it up somehow 😭???

its still very crazy to me, its probably the cruelest thing i think theyve done proudly. and the worst part is that its NOT their bigger counterparts, its just THEM. base level THEM. THAT is who they are. maybe my brain tried to suppress that cuz its the only time in the series where i DEEPLY disagree about what theyve done. the rest of their cruelty upsets me, but this just disgusts me i guess. not only because of the animal but because they picked a slow and painful method. Every other instance of gore or general shittyness from those two i either laugh at or maybe get a little angry at them for a second like im their mom and move on. but this disturbs me. its genuinely evil to me and i hate the thought of it. the bigger boys torturing that blob thing is terrible, but theyre not the base-level guys, they act strange and disturbing intentionally. the guys on the lowest floor are just THEM. Them without any filters or add ons, thats literally just THE boys. I guess i still cant wrap my head around it even years later.

ten minutes later theyre confessing to each other… like… do they not remember anymore? was it that quick? or have they learned by now that their actions have no real consequences?

thats the thing that makes this the most uncomfortable to me, i think. theyre the way they are because anything can happen to them, and they can do anything to others, and they know they wont get any repercussions. Drowning a pet, crashing a car through your house, literally dying, getting your organs removed… none of it lasts. and they KNOW that now. but instead of being scared or freaking out like fanon always saw it, they see it as not only normal, but as an opportunity to do whatever they want. i dont think theyre aware of it enough to be articulately malicious with it, but thats whats terrifying. they NATURALLY have absolutely zero remorse and you cant expect them to. why would they? nothing really happened, did it? even when they remember doing it, whys it matter? clearly they can just change their mind, or wait it out. If death isnt for them, theyll just decide to come back. do actions mean anything in a world like that?

[shiikiyun]

my honest opinion about the "futa was guilt tripping es and only regrets what he did because hes in pain now" crowd, and by proxy, any criticism on the other prisoners' display of remorse or general attitude around their actions

Didnt feel like copypasting this as a post the screenshots will have to do

[13eyond13]

Can't stress enough how much I appreciate that many fans of this series are fine with pointing out and acknowledging the flaws in their faves and seeing those flaws as part of the essential flavoring rather than something to erase or constantly get offended about people noticing

[theghostofwilburtheworm]

every so often i remember that the carmen sandiego netflix show exists and i start pacing around my room like a madman thinking about it

[technikki]

i will literally never understand when a character gets hate for being ‘overdramatic’ or highly emotional because like. i live for that shit. i fucking love when a character has a strong emotional response to a relatively ‘minor’ thing i love when characters cry easily and frequently i love when characters are loud and ‘annoying’ i live for drama. if a character is frequently hated on by fans for being annoying there is a 9/10 chance that character is one of my faves. no i dont think my neurodivergence has anything to do with this

[supahstarrr]

as a dr fan we need to acknowledge that some of the danganronpa characters suffer through chronic liners for bad humor by out-of-touch old guy writers syndrome

[shig4dabi]

♪♪ 'Your kiss was Sunday sweet, and I'd never tasted love before'

[desperatecheesecubes]

Every time I see a post making fun of people being afraid to get into comics I think about how when I was first getting into comics I thought it would be fun to read Infinite Crisis because it was a HUGE event and it would give me an idea of what a whole slew of runs and characters were like. I made a post about some panel pretty early into the event (I think it was a build up comic that wasn't even officially part of the Road To Infinite Crisis so EARLY early) and some blog I didn't know made fun of me for not knowing the greater context of the panel I was commenting on. And while I was naively typing up a quick little 'ah sorry I'm new to comics and didn't know that. Thanks for the context!' they had gone through my blog and started doing the same for a bunch of other comics I'd read, and then mocked me for reading IC when I clearly new so little about comics.

Now, obviously, that behavior is ridiculous, and I just blocked them, but it did stick with me. It was one of my earliest interactions with comic fandom and I never forgot it. Most of the people I've intereacted with have been lovely. Even when I have gotten comic cannon wrong corrections are normally very kind. But not all of them are, and the ones who aren't are so vocal about it.

So i actually don't think it's the comics themselves that make getting into comics an unappealing prospect.

[sonknuxadow]

it feels like almost every post i see about dr starline is either woobifying him and pretending he did nothing wrong or saying hes a bad character and their only reasoning for that is that he did bad things. even though hes a villain and hes supposed to do bad things thats the whole point? i dont get it . where am i

[handfulofmuses]

he warned you

[t4tails]

i dont really know how to articulate this but its crazy just how many people dont even realize they dont care about female characters. all their faves are men. they never talk about girls without being led into it. and when you try to point this out to them they try to defend themselves that their faves are just the archetypes they like, despite clearly not caring when that same archetype is a woman. like i feel like at a certain point it is your problem with the common denominator if you cant find a single female character to enjoy

[thrileikur]

if more people in the community these days were able to take in the last paragraph and apply it to their immensely hardened views of their dynamic, i would be a happy camper. the way pb interacts with finn is far more consistent (for the lack of better term so far) than one would think otherwise, particularly in the way she speaks to him throughout the series. it was playful and forebearing at the very start because that was the nature of her in the beginning, and it remained that way until the finale.

then you have to take in all the big events that happen to them, bonnie falling into the well of power for finn to behold in front of her, their interactions after the climax of too young, many of the interactions between that episode and breezy that DONT concern the romance arc (this is especially important imo), her pulling the plug on her cctv system after she watches the screen that records his house, everything during and after the log cabin arc etc etc etc. the general nature of their interactions remain, obviously not without plot and character development to display. with their work-oriented, communal partnership in defending others, including themselves this might seem obvious, then again, its still made clear that they still care a great deal about their interests and each other- how much is shared between them. its truly an emotional one as well, stuff like going off the radar for three months thanks to ricardio will do that

the objective way to see those interactions with the knowledge of her not directly remarking on how she felt about the potential of them in a relationship is maybe that the writers wanted to rightfully move on from that plotline, even so, with her traits alongside the timeline of bonnie and finn together in mind, it isnt off to say that if she had really put it down, it wouldve been shown. i believe that way because theyre the most important relationship in the show, maybe franchise based on story progression. theyre endlessly influenced by each other and theres never a great amount of effort by them to maintain it since it comes very naturally to them. going back to the point, bonnie being candid about the whole thing would totally be a landmark in their lives for them to handle. i do still feel like theres room to explore this in any of the future installments later on

theres also the argument that she speaks to and about him as how an older family member would a younger one, but ive never really liked that interpretation. to me it sort of insulates that pb owes a great deal in finns happiness, and that is already a terribly widespread take because it breaks down the agency of and infantilizes each respective character. you gotta assume that two people are able to live off of more than mutual support.

i think its fair to say that Finn is absolutely an extremely important presence in Bubblegum's life, way more significant than she generally lets on at least earlier in the series, though it is supported when by the time of Pajama Wars she is going out of her way to just hang out with him and he seems to be just about one of the very few people PB is honest with or lets her defenses down around

but another big element of it, ironically, ties back to their relationship becoming unrequited pining on Finn's end. PB ended it by going 'oh, silly boy, that was YEARS ago!' when its unclear how much of that is her fucking around and not taking it seriously, especially when PB is often not entirely honest about her feelings.

It IS clear that at the time, she had been taking it seriously; she genuinely wanted to stay a kid and with Finn, though responsibility demanded otherwise. But it is notable that while she sort of implies its not a romance anymore at the time, she otherwise just sort of leaves it hanging and seems to be ignoring it, or trying not to think about it, and that IS extremely significant in the light of The Suitor.

This episode establishes that PB has no patience or interest in actual suitors of any kind, firmly rebuffing them and refusing any kind of flirtation. If they want to waste their time waiting in line to court her when she makes it clear its not going to happen, that's their problem. But with Finn, she doesn't do this. She doesn't encourage it, but she also doesn't just go 'NOT GONNA HAPPEN' in a direct sense.

Significantly, PB doesn't address it at all, and this is EXTREMELY atypical in her normal characterization. She is blunt and direct to a point that it is the reason she and Marceline originally broke up, and as we see in The Suitor she does not care for anyone courting her.

PB not addressing it at all is a notable outlier in her behavior, and being secretive about her feelings is a recurring motif (as we see with her and Marceline); this suggests that Finn is an extremely important person to her, and that she goes out of her way to avoid addressing them at all when normally she doesn't avoid it at all suggests that its all a huge complicated mess that may frankly concern her a bit.

the complex and uncertain nature of PB's feelings towards/about Finn raise a lot of questions because of how much of an outlier they are compared to the way she normally is; if you compare the way PB acts around Finn (very honest, kind of socially awkward) to the way she acts when acting in an official capacity around everyone else (usually bouncing back and forth between regal granduer and informal wackiness for comic effect, but always feeling in control and self assured) it definitely feels like she's sort of taking the mask off compared to how she acts otherwise.

[preposterousjams]

My opinion on the Latino Jason Todd headcanon

While I do understand ppl's criticism of the latino Jason todd headcanon and how its kind of racist to make the kid with parents with drug problems as the latino one, to me its more of a reclamation BECAUSE of DC's racism.

Read any 80s/90s batman issue that covers gang violence and drugs, most if not ALL of the criminals are poc; black people and latinos visibly make up the majority in the poorer neighbourhoods in Gotham. Aside from the caricaturist way they r drawn/speak, its not THAT weird cause its a reflection of irl big cities where immigrants and marginalised ppl are often forced to live in such situations, (like most of my dominican family lives in the bronx... it aint racist to say dominicans tend to flock there), BUT...the weird part is when the second a sympathetic character comes from that area, he's white and has a name thats "too fancy for the streets".

Obviously, Jason was created to look like the old robin, so I can't say that the whole "diamond in the rough" situation was purposely a tad bit racist, but its still a lil weird (especially with bruce's comment).

If Jason were a part of the overwhelming demographic in his area, the good-kid-in-a-bad-area trope has less connotations. DC is currently trying to fix this trope is by making crime alley whiter, which isn't bad but they could've just yk... humanised the non-white residents.

I also feel like the messed up way Jason was treated post-death is what makes him so relatable to latino readers. His tragic story of dying while trying to save his only living relative is turned into a lesson for newer vigilantes. Jason's particular disdain for abusers on a few occasions was twisted (by both writers and characters) into him always being dumb, reckless, cocky, angry and disobedient, always violent, never having been able to get over his upbringing. None of those things were true (he was a normal level of reckless and cocky like every other robin, not more), but its an easier narrative to digest compared to how it was in reality; a kid who worked so hard and loved even harder, died to save a woman who couldn't care less about his existence. He was an emotional AND smart kid who wanted so bad to help others get better but was remembered as too emotional (in a bad way).

THIS is the reality for many latino diasporas in day to day life; Theres no question that Latino culture is passionate and emotive, but people from other cultures assume that it is followed by instead of logical. both can coexist. emotion does not mean u have no logic. Emotions can be irrational but they aren't inherently that way, and I wouldn't say that the moments where Jason lashed out as a teenager were irrational (in og runs, not rewrites post red hood), they were mostly done to protect someone (going crazy on abusers, disobeying batman to save sheila, that time he got into a fight at school to defend his friend).

A lot of euro-centric culture is OBSESSED with the idea that rationality is separate from feelings and emotions, but not crying at a funeral doesn't mean you're better than those who do. Emotions are the basis of human ethics and morals, they define the way we interact as a collective and ignoring them does not mean they are not there. Theres no winner to a contest of who can feel the less. And the way Jason's emotions are treated (pre-rh, hes definitely unhinged afterwards lol) is so in line with how white culture tends to punish those who aren't ashamed to feel.

I TOTES UNDERSTAND that some ppl who headcanon Jason as latino are doing it for the complete opposite of reasons, like "oh here some angry emotional guy with druggie parents, haha must be latino". Its weird. I dont like it. And its only brought up so he can swear in spanish in some rlly bad text post where his emotions are getting out. But to me there's so much potential for metanarrative and commentary on how latinos are treated in media that can be exemplified through the way his character is treated. Being latino would add SO MUCH DEPTH to his character and his dynamic with the others.

[uriekukistan]

fr my dislike for this chapter was so strong i awoke from my slumber specifically to rant abt it.

and like if you’ve been here a while yk i’ve been a gege defender and an advocate for letting them take us where they want to take us. but now that we’re so close to the end im like. what was it all for? not just my defending them but also the plot of jjk?

im just sitting here looking at all these characters and themes and plotlines that i liked jjk for and they’ve all fallen short.

at present i don���t like how megumi and yuuta’s characters have ended. their arcs feel so incomplete to me and their endings make everything they’ve been through and done feel so inconsequential. and its not just them, but every character to me feels flat and reading their dialogue, i feel like they sound nothing like themselves.

basically everything post shibuya feels inconsequential too like it led nowhere and in the end, no one’s even like. a little bit burdened by what happened? nothing changes except mei mei gets to kill the new shadow style people that have Never Come Up Before?

and the thing that pisses me off the most is the way the themes have been handled. the themes have been one of the things i’ve loved the most about jjk, especially the ideas of loneliness and burden surrounding strength.

and for a while i’ve been of the mindset that i dont mind gojo dying bc i saw it as necessary in ushering in a new era where sorcerers could rely on each other and share their burdens. and with megumi and yuuji i saw that new future taking form (i won’t discount that, i still see it in them), but in this new chapter, it really shows that nothing has changed. gojo still carries the burden even in death, and now that yuuta’s the strongest, it’s shifted to him too, with much of the blame of things that went wrong being passed onto him now that he’s “The Strongest.” (i fear im giving gege too much credit w that interpretation)

i dont really have anything to say to wrap this together neatly, hope my half asleep rambling made some sense 🤞