#When you treat him like a monster

[animanytotsllyinsany]

The second you demonize the character, the second you remove the nuance that it needs to be handled with. The second you say the character is a monster, the second you remove the accountability that the subtext held, you destroy the point of the character. No one is 100% good, or 100% evil. Terrible people have done good things. Good people have done something bad in their past. If you say that the character is 100% evil, then you remove the plot point of human nature. Humans cannot be 100% good or evil. Humans change, adapt, they’re irrational. Removing a characters humanity removes their accountability. It removes their ability to show something real. Their ability to spread a message.

[puppppppppy]

i like him

[lord-squiggletits]

Speaking of Tarn, I know it's a meme to make fun of him and it's kind of justified bc he is deeply cringe and sad and pathetic, but I also think ppl spend way too much time shitting on Tarn for being weird/creepy and not enough time shitting on Megatron for deliberately singling him out and targeting him for brainwashing so that he would BECOME that weird and creepy. Like. Everyone wants to call Tarn horrible and weird but no one wants to acknowledge that Megatron is the person who made him that way. Not even from just an indirect sense of "oh he liked Megatron's writings" no.

Literally Megatron converted Damus/Tarn and personally groomed him as a protege (that he ultimately didn't actually care about at all) as a deliberate action just to spite Optimus. There was no "oh Damus/Glitch was already kind of suspicious and weird and evil" TARN LITERALLY WAS NOT THAT WAY UNTIL MEGATRON MADE HIM THAT WAY like come on y'all

[brionysea]

I'm trying really hard not to just be The Complainer because that's an energy I don't want to bring here when I love (present tense; I rewatch it like 5 times a day) arcane season 1 so much but does anyone remember when powder was taken in by silco and being raised by this very utilitarian merciless 'the ends justify the means' type character made jinx turn out violent and merciless as well. and vi was horrified by her and the lanes were terrified of her and piltover was falling over itself trying to scapegoat her as the one bad apple of the undercity to kid themselves into believing that everyone else was perfectly fine with being treated as less than. and that contrasts vi after vander etc. died because she was raised by him and internalised the idea that no one wins in war and fighting back against systemic oppression isn't worth the damage it causes to your own community which is why she ended up working with cait and the council like vander worked with grayson. the people who raised them shaped them into who they are today but then in season 2 jinx has a daughter and she's suddenly completely normal and well adjusted and her attachment style isn't digging her nails in until she draws blood at all. like What. what happened. didn't things used to mean something

[alexiethymia]

just watched beetlejuice beetlejuice at the theaters, and can I just say, I loved it! it definitely didn’t disappoint and was a zany adventure, just like the first one.

and it kinda added layers to betelgeuse in a way. because spoilers I definitely thought they would go the same route for astrid and jeremy, the same way they did for lydia and betelgeuse in that what jeremy wanted was for astrid to marry him so that he could get out. instead it was a more sinister method, and it makes me wonder why betelgeuse never tried it. it can’t be because he doesn’t know about it, because he’s the type of ghost to read the handbook backwards and forwards just so he can find every loophole to exploit. like my head keeps going in circles. especially for the first movie where lydia had initially wanted ‘in’ while he wanted ‘out’, the switcheroo method that jeremy tried with astrid would’ve been perfect then. even in this movie where he already has experience of lydia backing out of their deal, he could have had lydia promise to exchange her soul for his. with how much she wanted to save astrid, I’m sure lydia would have agreed. instead, he just wanted to remarry her. it’s interesting because it means betelgeuse, as putrid, crass, disgusting, and opportunistic as he is, actually seems like he has lines he won’t cross.

[itsdefinitely]

i wanna know more about the jerries/jeris

do you want to know the most horrific thing about them?

the lords did nothing to make them the way they are.

yes, the jerry jr was turned into the axeman because of the witchwood, which does what it does because of the lords, but everything leading up to that is just human nature. i see the "girl jeri is nibbly" or "they were influenced by a lord to do the thngs they do" and i need people to understand that that's just. not true. they're just like that. they were taught to be like that by their parents and, more accurately, their church. it's horrifyingly accurate how religion has shaped them into non-functional human beings, who would rather potentially lose their child to the many, many dangers of the literal woods than admit that they had sex outside of marriage.

it's only because it's hatchetfield that jerry jr grew the way he did. there was no lord's intervention in their decision to keep the baby, or to drop out of school to care for him, or to keep him seperated from any other people, or to revolve their lives around the idea that they'd committed a sin and needed to pay by pushing celibacy rather than. i don't know. properly raising their child. it was the way they were taught. the toxic pushing of overexaggerated christian ideals is what molded them. can you imagine being in their place? being a scared teenager and knowing that if you told any of the people you care about most your secret that they would shun you and disown you?

the only people they felt any kind of safe around were each other; of course they're going to be codependent. and even then, they're disgusted by each other for leading them to sin. they're stuck together unwillingly, because without the other, they're alone.

[spacedace]

Fuck whatever DC is doing with the al Ghul's characterizations and story lines, I've decided that from now on the al Ghul's are gonna be DC's version of the Addams Family instead.

Now I don't mean just give the various al Ghul's the exact personalities of the various Addams and call it a day. That's boring, that erases all the interesting parts of the al Ghuls, that's just using "find & replace" and not actually adding anything. I mean give them the vibes of the Addams Family.

Keep the al Ghul's as the al Ghul's with all their scheming and machinations and world domination attempts but give them all the unhinged energy, the casually insane view of the world, the deranged levels of love and devotion for family. Make them that group where objectively they are batshit insane but also you cannot argue with the fact that they are indisputably the most stable and functional family in the entire universe.

They're creepy, they're kooky, they're mysterious and spooky. Ra's many opulent homes and impenetrable fortresses are a museum and the al Ghul's really are a screa-um whenever people come to see-um (or when they lay waste upon their enemies in a surprise attack that has been planned for months and is just the first domino in a series that will ultimately lead to achieving a far greater goal).

They all love each other and want each other to be happy, they express this primarily with stabbing and murder attempts (its fine, death is a thing that happens to other people).

And forget the League of Assassins being a cult. Just make the whole vast globe spanning organization a collection of cousins/aunts/uncles/dear old friends ect. No one (not even the al Ghuls, if they cared to keep track of such things) is sure who is actually related to them and who just got absorbed into the ever expanding family tree based on their vibes being right.

(Is Sensei Ra's father you ask? Well he's certainly someone's father - probably.

Anyway have you heard about Cousin Cheshire? Despicable poisoner of a young woman, capable of the most horrific things imaginable - yes she is the sweetest dear. Like I was saying though, she just had a baby!

Everyone in the family is just so excited to throw a baby shower to celebrate! Ubu has really gone all out with the spike traps, he does so love getting to welcome a new addition to the family.

Talia of course has cultivated a brand new strain of the most toxic plants imaginable to make a brand new kind of necrotizing poison. You know, as a nice little romantic gift for Cousin Cheshire and that young man of hers. It really is so important to make sure you take time for you and your partner to go on dates and have a few pitched battles to the death on dark rooftops in the pounding rain when you have children.

Now there is some to-do about it all of course, you know how family get together can be. Everyone is arguing over who should get to give little Lian her first weapon and what it should be. Nyssa is pushing for grenades but Ra's is insisting on a sword - he's traditional like that you know - but Dusan has the vote so far on throwing knives. You know the kind that have the little divots along the edges of the blades them to make it easier to get the poison you dip them in to stick.)

I'm just saying that the al Ghuls should be a delightful cross between the Bond Villains they were originally conceived as and the lovingly unhinged Addams Family. It just feels correct in my heart.

(Again keep the interesting aspects of the characters and the nuances of who each of them are like their drive to save the world through destroying humanity and their strong environmentalist leanings and their constantly playing 5D chess and everything, but like, take away the racism and the cartoonishly evil for no reason bullshit and give them some fun feral energy to go along with it).

[tubapun]

Marcille would still be doing all this for Laios if he and Falin had switched places btw. It'd be a little less romantic but like. That's her bestie. She'd do dark magic for him.

[cas-poisoning]

The way people write John in fic bothers me so much sometimes. Not to judge other people’s writing specifically, just the general fanon characterization of John Winchester. Yes he’s bad a father. Horrible. So much to unpack there. Yet I find it so disappointing when I go to read a fic and he’s like. Cartoonishly villainous. Excluding the fans that actually like John (which is even more crazy), it feels like everyone treats him as like this big bad one dimensional monster which imo is a disservice to the complex relationship Sam and Dean have with them. It’s also a symptom of a broader pattern in media, or even real world events. It’s so much easier to flatly paint anyone bad as inhuman, one dimensional, and just plain evil. Monstrous. But the reality is, every horrible person is still a person. Humans are capable of the evil we do, not monsters.

So when it comes to John, like yes, he is deeply deeply flawed. He really hurt his kids. But often when people write him, it feels like he makes all of his terrible decisions for the sake of being mean and terrible and abusive, which undermines the dynamic because the reality is people can be abusive or neglectful or toxic without being a complete monster 100% of time. It would almost be easier for Sam and Dean if John had actually been like that. But he was their father, who did what he thought was best, and loved them even if he didn’t show it. They have fond memories with him. He’s their father. Which is what makes it so hard for them to actually unpack the trauma they have, because it is so so difficult to realize a person you love is actually actively hurting you. Harder than realizing a villain in your life is just being a villain.

[bitchthefuck1]

you know what, I actually will talk about this because it's bothering me. The issue with focussing so heavily on syd and carmy's potential for a romantic relationship isn't that there's something inherently unintellectual about romance or whatever, it's that a lot of people seem incapable of doing that without immediately flattening the story and ignoring or intentionally misreading any and all nuance for the sake of that romance. Every scene suddenly becomes about how it impacts their relationship, every analysis is done through a romantic lens, every frame or line of dialogue becomes about finding some easter egg or hint that "proves" these people should start dating. Their dynamic is absolutely a fundamental part of this show, but if you can only see it as a will-they-won't-they, you miss so much of what the story is actually trying to say with these two.

There are good versions of this story where their relationship is romantic and there are good versions of this story where it isn't, but as soon as you decide them being together is "the point," you lose the ability to actually judge the story for what it is, not what you want it to be.

[everysongineverykey]

i dunno it kinda bothers me sometimes to see characters who are referred to with they/them pronouns in games described as "ambiguously gendered" or "gender left unclear" or "gender unstated" by fans and stuff like. yeah absolutely they are sometimes that. sometimes the creator had a gender in mind for them while creating them and just didn't think to talk about it in the game. but also, like. sometimes characters can just be nonbinary? and it makes me kinda sad that everyone's first reaction to they/them pronouns in games is "oh, they have a binary gender, it's just up to the player/not stated in-game".

[oceanwithouthermoon]

unpopular opinion for this area of tumblr, beware+also abuse talk warning

admittedly, all the super casual bashing of saikis dad makes me really uncomfortable, like i dont totally disagree but i wish we didnt just all do it in the middle of other completely innocent headcanoning 😭 its never tagged or warned..

my personal opinions on kuniharu are not as extreme as some are on here, like i think he sucks but i dont think hes a genuinely bad person, he was just thrown into a situation he didnt know how to handle.. he reminds me of those parents who prepare to have a baby and get pregnant on purpose, but then the baby has a disability and suddenly, everything changes.. because they didnt prepare for this unlikely scenario, but it happened anyway, and now they have to figure out where to go from here.. kurumi and kuniharu BOTH made mistakes and didnt handle their genius/psychic kids in ways they shouldve, but its because they werent prepared for it

[loderlied]

truly it’s so funny how shana is one of my most well-adjusted characters. leads a genuinely happy and fulfilling life. very cruel lmao

[dykedvonte]

you make really good points, I think I used the term karmic wrong sorry. I think of it more as not how I personally think he deserved all that happened to him (which thinking back os exactly what karma means, I messed up sorry), but as his fate being directly tied/parallel to anyas. I handnt noticed the toxicity of jimmy and curlys relationship, from the first playthrough I watched and the first interactions I had w fandom I saw so many ppl just. dismiss the terror Anya went through and focus too much on him as the "ultimate victim" and that just didn't sit well w me. I really dislike seeing ppl go "oh well nothing could've been done" I think it's much more complex than that. also I forgot to mention in the last ask that I really appreciate you bringing the point that this game isn't just about the harm of patriarchy but also very very critical to capitalism, I haven't seen too many ppl touch on this. I hadn't thought too deeply about how it makes "he deserved to become disabled as punishment" come up and I agree that's really messed up. I'll try watching a playthrough again with all of this in mind. but either way thanks! I really appreciate your answer 🫶🏼

I guess this is just part of being in a fandom like this. I've noticed a lot of people don't actually see posts outside of their curated view. So some people only get like anya posting or jimmy or curly and it can make it seem like that is what is saturating the conversation.

I mainly just follow the general tags and look for anything new because I'm like obsessed but I know some are only looking for what they want or believe to be the case and can get weird about other ideas.

Sorry if I came off mean its just a last few of the asks have been like circular conversations like this and its not draining per say but seeing all the nuance and details get overlooked to fit a straightforward and basic narrative really sucks cause there's a lot to explore character and theme wise.

[iattachtooeasilytocartoons]

currently crying over the minotaur again he could've been raised right PLEASE

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

holy fuck, this gives the zenin so much more lore than what we got in the manga. like the potential is right there to have this great inter-clan generational dispute and cold war but gege just breezes past it and then gets rid of it completely.

with all this cool new shut we’re getting about them, im almost glad that megumi was born a boy. like could you imagine just how much worse the zenin would have been to him if he was a girl? they already have the whole misogyny thing going for them and then their version of jesus pops up and it turns out that it’s a girl who wields their prized technique?

god, i can’t imagine just how much more controlling they would be towards megs, although im still not sure if the whole training until ur bones fall off would still happen. i feel like naoya would be different towards megs but we also know that the zenin are totally okay with incest so i hate where that would go.

It would have been bad.

See, I think the entire training until your bones fall off thing would still happen, but there would be an added layer of cruelty towards it. Because megumi was a little boy who was being trained in a way that even adults couldn’t have handled, so of course he spent a lot of time getting hit and a lot of time crumpling under the pressure and exhaustion. There are very, very few instances where he remembers actually leaving the training room on his own two feet. He usually was pushed until he collapsed and woke up later in the room they kept for him. But if he was a little girl in the same circumstances? They’d make every “failing” about her sex. They’d blame her being a girl for it and constantly use it as a source of sneering superiority.

It would also be bad because she would very much be seen as a source of descendants. Boy Megumi wouldn’t necessarily be exempt from that, but it would happen sooner for girl Megumi.

Bloodline is very important to the Zenin. Inheriting power, techniques—they want to continue the flow of power through the generations. And most of the Zenin clan (and the wider jujutsu world) believe that Megumi is the most powerful Zenin alive right now, if not Gojo’s equal, and the only reason why hes being graded as a Grade Two sorcerer is because gojo’s purposefully sabotaging his development. Like. Mindset is a huge amount of jujutsu ability. Yuuta went from getting beaten up by normal high schoolers to having some combat ability but needing inumaki to handle a semi grade one to being the second most powerful person alive in the span of a few months. He absolutely blitzed the previous second most powerful person alive when he would have lost that same fight a few hours previous. There’s a lot of people convinced Megumi’s on Gojo’s level but he’s been keeping him on a leash since childhood. But the powers still there in his blood.

That’s power the Zenin want to pass on, regardless of gender. But as a boy, Megumi’s got a little bit more leeway—men are accepted as warriors first in the clan, and age won’t affect his ability to procreate. If megumi was a girl? She’s got that goddamn biological clock ticking down. As the ten shadows, I think the Zenin would still expect her as a warrior, but they’d also have a fucking quota she needs to fill before the clock hits zero. And they’d have some very proprietary concerns about making sure no one outside of the clan has a chance to become involved with her. They’d want her to stay within the clan with her partners. And they’d be absolutely creepy and weird about how they went about it. It’s a little bit of a mercy that Megumi’s a boy.