#WHY IS THIS LESS POPULAR

[operafish]

I love musical numbers featuring men going insane ❤️

[mogamingthe1st]

Just found this absolute gem going through my saved photos from 2020

[lylahammar]

if I may say something controversial yet brave it's actually crazy and suspect to me that Shane stardew valley is so popular but Penny is like one of the most hated 🤨

[mohntilyet]

Personal headcanon about the "you picked the wrong dellamorte" line, I don't think illario actually likes rook outside the context of them being someone close to lucanis. Like rook on their own isn't much to him, but when they meet it's yet another person talking about his cousin (why isn't he good enough for whatever job they're hiring for?) and on top of that they somehow bring him back from the dead (another whole can of worms for illario). Now he starts turning on the charm, but whether he's actually interested or this is just one more thing his cousin has that he doesn't and it gets under his skin, who knows. Either way, rook ignores illario, the guy who lives off his charm, and is instead interested in the guy who's never even dated before and thinks giving someone a knife is how to flirt. Infuriating

NO THANK YOU !! i am genuinely sorry if i have ever implied illario is into rook like i see some takes about it and unless it like ties into your rook's personal backstory i don't seriously think he's romantically jealous. at all. my enjoyment of that line stems from illario's pathological need to make it about himself and not see his strengths but what lucanis has, and therefore what he doesn't. he's annoyed enough to try and goad you in the middle of a fight about the 'wrong' dellamorte and completely blind to the fact that the venatori are at best, a stupid fucking alliance, and at worst, a cult that will devour the crows from the inside out and illario would have been the one to give them the keys. he sees lucanis make allies, needs his own, and instead of charming the other talons/houses as he should, he (probably spitefully) picks the venatori. or maybe he just thought it would be easier. ugh he makes me want to telekenetically throw him around

[skitskatdacat63]

I've decided to do myself what the cowards at Aston won't. Behold.

[casscainmainly]

This is a copy/paste of a reply I did to this post. I'm putting it in its own post because I genuinely need people to understand that saying Duke is unpopular because he's 'new' or unknown only furthers the racism Black characters face in fandom. This extends to the sexism Babs and Steph face, and the double racism/sexism that Cass faces.

For everyone in [this post's] notes saying [Duke's unpopularity in fanfiction] is because Duke is new, that's part of it, but absolving fandom of responsibility is misguided and sweeping both racism and sexism under the rug. The newness argument doesn't explain why Damian has more fics than Cass, Stephanie, and Babs, who all predate him.

More importantly: Jon Kent, who was introduced one year after Duke in 2015, has a total of 3,144 works under 'Jonathan Samuel Kent' and 9,280 works under 'Jon Kent'. That is 12,424 fics - around 5,000 more than Duke, despite debuting at roughly the same time.

The adaptation argument (that the ones who are more adapted are more likely to be written about) is also flawed - Tim has 3 major TV show appearances (The New Batman Adventures, Young Justice, and Titans). He cameos in Superman: The Animated Series, Static Shock, and an episode of Justice League. For films, he appears in two DCAU movies, Batman Unlimited, Gotham by Gaslight, Batman Ninja, and Death in the Family. That's 12 total appearances in film and TV.

By comparison, Barbara has an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to adaptations of her. She appears in 8 animated films, 6 animated Lego films, and has 5 animated film cameos. This is already more adaptations than Tim. Add to that 60s Batman, the Birds of Prey show, Titans, Gotham, DC Super Hero Girls, BTAS, Batman Beyond, Gotham Girls, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, Beware the Batman, Teen Titans Go!, Harley Quinn, Batman: Caped Crusader, and the live action Batman & Robin, that's 35 total appearances across film and TV.

Barbara Gordon as Batgirl is undeniably more popular to the general public than Tim Drake as Robin, and her film and TV adaptations also outnumber Jason's (13, with 90% of those being pictures of him because he's dead) and Damian's (15). So if she should be more popular than Tim in every supposed metric (longevity, adaptations, even name recognition), you have to ask yourself: why is she less popular in fandom?

To return to Duke Thomas, if you're even a casual Batman fanfic reader you would know that most of his tagged fics are not about him. Duke has 7,042 tagged fics, and of those, 242 works are tagged as Duke Thomas-centric. By contrast, Tim Drake has 62,704 total works, with 3,809 tagged Tim Drake-centric. That means 3.4% of Duke fics are tagged as Duke-centric, whereas 6% of Tim fics - almost twice as much - are Tim-centric. This is not a perfect metric by any means (for example, Dick actually has less than Duke with 2%, though this is due to him having a bonkers amount of fics), but it is illustrative of the trend that literally anyone who's skimmed AO3 could tell you.

More comparisons: Jason Todd (2,990/76,427 = 3.9%), Damian Wayne (1,870/45,635 = 4%), Cassandra Cain (200/17,060 = 1.1%), Barbara Gordon (54/16,729 = 0.3%). Keep in mind not everyone uses the -centric tag, but this is generally useful to see broad trends.

If debut date, adaptations, popularity among the public, amount of canon content, or presence in major Batman events were truly the deciding factor, Barbara would be the second most popular character in fandom (behind Dick). However, she isn't. Even Dick isn't the most popular - Tim, despite his lack of adaptations, is clearly the Batboy centred most in fanfiction and fandom. Therefore, the treatment of Babs, Steph, Cass, and Duke in fandom cannot be attributed purely to lack of knowledge.

Blaming fandom's focus on the White- or White-passing boys on canon is ignoring the signs of racial and gendered biases in the way we latch onto characters. Fandom barely cares about canon - most Titans Tower AUs or family fluff blatantly ignore huge chunks of comics. If we can ignore Gotham War, make up lies about Red Robin (2009), and pretend Tim's allergic to shrimp, why can't we extend that imagination to the POC and female characters? Why are they less worthy of our efforts to make stories about them, whether they have canon/adaptational histories or not?

All this to say, trying to explain away the lack of works for Duke and the girls will not solve anything. Making excuses for the fandom is only perpetuating the racist and sexist erasure of these characters. Instead, read their comics! Here is a list of reading guides for POC characters.

Not interested in comics? Read these Duke fics (compiled by @himejoshiangels)! Also take the time to go through the Barbara Gordon-centric tag and support those creators. Feel free to post any recs of your own as well :).

[nononsensesblog]

Feeling mischievous today, might as well be a nuisance in the fandom 😈

Go ahead, no one will know what you voted for anyway.

[zakuramochi]

After watching the Hetalia english dub, the disparity between the interpretations of the Western and Eastern fandoms suddenly make a lot more sense… a lot of the lines were changed so much to cater to localization to the point that the characters’ personalities became completely warped from the Japanese version. 😯

[glowingkorbat]

wtf did they do to him……. WHY DID THE GIVE THE UC STYLE THE CONVERSION FIST……

[quadrantadvisor]

I think that certain shows having more "crossoverability" than others is really interesting. Like, you want to write a crossover with Supernatural? Gravity Falls? Go for it man, because no matter what weirdness the other series brings to the table, the characters are just gonna be like, "This may as well happen." You wanna do a crossover with Avatar the Last Airbender? Good luck justifying that, making it work tonally, etc etc. Like, you could potentially put any charcters you wanted to into The Good Place (just kill them off lol) but what do they DO there? It's a way more complicated question because the setting and plot are so insular and specific. I think this really affects what kind of works get created, what ends up being FUN to write.

[mushroominaforest]

Hunter wakes up one morning to realize their sister has left the shelter without waking them up. Weird…

[themyscirah]

Complaining abt Suicide Squad yet again but the fact that they have Waller exposing the alien community to space racist attacks and talking abt how she got to her position through deceit and being a terrible person and stuff is just. Ahsfiwueh JUST SAY YOU DONT KNOW WALLER.

Anyways literally the 3rd mission of the Squad ever (and the first framed as smth Waller picked and not orders from above) was the Squad discrediting and stopping a rogue vigilante who was only arresting POC and funneling white people into white supremacy groups (of which he was the most prominent member) in SUICIDE SQUAD #4. and it's explicitly framed as this mission being personal for Waller that she's hiding from the government bc its illegal like. Guys. Please why are we having her incite (space bc comics) racist attacks now

Also the whole "Amanda got her position through deceit and being a terrible person" NO. she KEPT her position through being shitty and playing complicated political games!!! She wasn't always that way like there is a difference and it is IMPORTANT ppl PLEASEEEE. In Secret Origins #14 we learn Amanda's backstory and she used to be a normal, caring person! Like even after she entered into working in government and politics she wasn't automatically morally bankrupt like please people. She was originally given control of the Squad by Reagan (*sigh* 80s comics...) to distract and get rid of her because she was so successful at pushing progressive social policy in Congress. Acting like she's this static pillar of evil is such a waste of her character and so fucking uninteresting and disrespectful to her arc it drives me MAD.

Like I am NOT saying Waller is all sunshine and rainbows, she fucking SUCKS (said w love <3) but like there's a human being there. It's a progression, she has a character arc like please, DC, please!!! They've fucked up Waller so bad and made her so opaque and uninteresting she can't even be the protagonist of her own story for fucks sake!

Like I don't know how many times I have to scream it until DC hears me or remembers but WALLER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF SUICIDE SQUAD. ITS HER BOOK. yet right now she's a cutout to be used as the villain wherever the writers please. Even in her book we get none of her perspective really displayed, no exploration of her thoughts with any kind of understanding of the role she traditionally has played and was made to play in the story.

[tytoalbatross]

god damn i do not post often but can i talk about intentionality for a second?? one second please

i'm gonna be talking about bg3 but this really applies to any fandom space. people will, surface-level, agree that a Black character is not getting enough content compared to their white counterparts because it's. obvious . take wyll, who is several hours behind on voiced lines compared to other origins despite being one of the original five (before they added karlach and whiteified her too but that's another post). it's hard to deny cold hard facts

but then instead of engaging in content that uplifts Black characters and creators, they'll go right back to pumping out more and more content of just their white faves. on its own, it's not actively harmful, but here's what the implication is, whether they acknowledge it or not: yes wyll has less in-game content, yes his writing didn't get the attention it deserved, therefore i don't like him as much. it only perpetuates wyll's lack of content by contributing to his sidelining in fandom spaces

what i would love for fans who claim to be allies to do is to step out of the comfort zone of their initial favorites (which can, in fact, be biased!) and start pursuing content centering Black characters with intentionality. like all things, anti-racism (actively pushing back against racism rather than simply "Not Being Racist") takes practice and effort. you can't really agree with us that wyll needs more content, then in the same breath say that it's because of that that he's not interesting to you . the point was right in front of you doing a jig and you still missed it

[lights-at-night]

i might be shot but tbh i think fiction podcasts have an issue with racial representation

[mistlestripe]

Leafhawk cause people on twitter think corny heterosexual toxic romances are unheard of in warrior cats

[skitskatdacat63]

Can we talk about how in all the 2011 Post-Qualifying pics, Jense and Seb are always gravitating towards each other, and then Mark/Lewis are just🧍‍♂️