#and especially morally questionable characters

[somewhereincairparavel]

What do you think of Piper's character? I started pjo because of Jason but I can't finish it because I got spoiled :(

aww nooo I'm so sorry you got spoiled! i hope you are able to continue the books one day despite the spoiler :< I was unfortunately, spoiled of jason's you-know-what long before I finished pjo and was about to start hoo aswell :(

anyways, I'll be honest, i initially never felt much towards piper while reading hoo? i wasn't a huge fan, but I never found her boring either, just a little shallow but in an understandable way since she was just a growing teen, it was realistic. I did like the fact that we got lots of insight on jason through her though, but overall she didn't deserve the fandom slander at all, that something i heavily agree on.

Also, something i DON'T understand is how much slander she got for calling percy 'unimpressive' compared to jason?? jason was her BOYFRIEND whom she was in love with at the time, and the fandom seemingly hates everyone who doesn't kiss the ground percy walks on. i found it VERY authentic that atleast one character didn't simp over him like the long list of simps he had throughout the series lol. no, she doesn't have bad taste just because percy wasn't romantically her cup of tea. Yet i feel like if annabeth said something along the lines of 'xx character is very unimpressive compared to percy' i don't ANYONE would've slandered her, because it's percy. they would've just called her a 'loyal queen' or something. piper truly is one of the punching bags unfortunately.

her platonic connection with leo and jason is also SUPER underrated, they were a family who cared about eachother till the very end even though they were put together under false pretenses :( i hate it when people compare them with grover, percy and annabeth saying that the lost hero trio wasn't 'true friendship' because of the fake memories, no. they are TRUE friends BECAUSE of how well they blended DESPITE the fake memories. They connected so well with ease and never really had any awkward moments together either.

[TOA spoilers] I'll be honest, i still have some lingering petty resentment towards piper because of how standoffish she was to jason after the break up, especially when she let coach hedge and mellie think that jason broke her heart, which alludes that she never explained to them who broke up with who and just vaguely said that they broke up, but then again, there are too little details about the break up for me to make out what exactly happened, so there's that. and I'll admit, her moving on with so quickly also rubs me off in a VERY wrong way, not just because of jason or anything, but because of how unhealthy it is for her mental health aswell, I just feel like she needed to take a break before jumping into a new relationship right after she faced PTSD witnessing her ex boyfriend/best friend's death, but i won't get into that.

I've seen some people getting upset about rick making piper queer, calling it 'queer baiting' but i HEAVILY disagree. i think piper questioning her sexuality was very realistic and makes so much sense for her character, since she always seemed to have internal misogyny that she needed to work on and also she faced the pressure of being the 'perfect aphrodite child with a perfect boyfriend' as her mom's favourite daughter. piper moving out of chb to go live in oklahoma is also very in character. I personally never felt like she truly enjoyed being in chb tbh, not as much as leo or jason did.

I do love how she gave out so much reassurance and moral support to the other characters like annabeth, leo and jason, because it's very sweet and she's also a very underrated fighter in the battlefield too.

[wow-an-unfunny-joke]

My English teacher asked me ‘do you think the antoganist can be a hero’ and I don’t think she was prepared for the ESSAY (like two paragraphs) I wrote

[silverspleen]

STUPID SHIP MEME DRAWINGS.

I just think they should kiss maybe?

Obsessed (positive??) with the dynamic of guy who betrays his country so he can run off with the militia he's been working with because he gets a case of loyalty feelings so bad he goes and blows himself up X morally upstanding traumatic backstory woman having the worst fucking time of her life (again) who really just needs someone to be as fanatically loyal as possible to her, as a person who is really into the inherent eroticism of the hierarchical military power dynamic focus on loyalty and the use of "yes ma'am" as I love you.

Obsessed (negative) with the propaganda implications that we seem to have ignored of the fact that the three most important people in an arabic woman's life are 2 (two) white guys and her brother, who betrays her and becomes a villain in the later games, and the fucking insidious-ass narrative choice of placing one of said white guys in said militia as like, the tacit fact that this organization is ok only because the western white guys are cool with it. Stop introducing more ULF people just to kill them!!! I SEE YOU WRITERS!!! YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM ME!!!!!!

because, once again, the character dynamic? I am sick for it. He dropped a building on himself for her and then came back???? He came back???? He could have gone anywhere but he came back to her???? I'm unwell. I think I have covid. I need to go lie down.

Anyway my city now my characters now smashing them together like barbies watching that .gif of them staring at each other eighty times reading all the fanfiction goodbye

you shouldn't blow yourself up in the furnace I want to blow myself up in the furnace for you as my own personal choice and you should order me to do it because you're such a good leader what is wrong with youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh *gnaws on furniture*

WE DON'T EVEN GET TO SEE HIM COME BACK TO HER. THANK YOU FIC WRITERS YOU KNOW THAT REUNION MUST BE SO ANGST THE COMPLEX DYNAMIC OF SACRIFICING YOURSELF FOR SOMEONE AND MAKING IT OUT AND BACK TO THEM AGAIN!!!!!!! THE GUILT! THE YEARNING! THE LOYALTY! I AM GOING TO EXPLODE.

[shorthaltsjester]

i contain multitudes and can say that i am a little :( about vex and percy being teammates with benefits because i think there’s something particularly heartbreaking about the dynamic that was neither of them ever said a thing even though they both were aware of it and it took losing percy for vex to finally admit it and Even Then, she couldn’t say it to percy’s face when they got him back, percy was the one who had to make the first move (that they were both alive for at least) and he was only able to do that because he’d heard her confession, because he never would’ve thought otherwise. to be clear, i also very much enjoy the story being told, i think i just wish they’d maybe committed more significantly to This Is A Campaign-Inspired Story Rather Than A Retelling sooner in the show so that maybe there would be a bit more grounding or set-up for the storylines the narrative is focusing on (and i understand why they wouldn’t), because i think they’re doing very well with percy’s arc for example, because they started with focusing on his and keeping his beats mostly the same and that seems to be much the same case as some of his second wave of meaty character stuff has arrived. but with vex they’ve aimed for the same character beats but it doesn’t always feel as earned or really feel like much character at all; i think saundor particularly was a bit of an :/, since in the campaign it was really a catalyst for vex interrogating her role in the party and her morality and something she struggled to get over and that haunted her far beyond the walls of that tree, but in the show it hasn’t really had a clear impact on vex beyond the scope of the episode itself — syldor certainly has, but the challenge that saundor presented didn’t really have much weight beyond its moment. and obviously a large part of that’s also probably just, 7 protagonists and wanting to expand the perspectives to antagonists and give more room for side characters is a lot of things to cover. and, i say with love, perhaps a bit too ambitious for a 12 episode per season, ~22 minute runtime show if they want their characters to have the kind of depth that really makes campaign 1 shine the way it does.

[luna-sheep]

I'm really sick and tired of Yue Qingyuan hate and mis-characterization in the svsss fandom.

So many times I'll read an otherwise fine piece of meta or fanfic, and suddenly BOOM, here comes this disgustingly OOC Yue Qingyuan to serve the role as a "villain" in contrast to either bingqiu or liushen.

It's really so ridiculous?? He's an important yet unobtrusive side character outside of the Shen Jiu extra chapters, and the creepy, possessive, "can't-take-no-for-an-answer" fanon bastardization version of him has near nothing in common with his canon personality and actions.

He's so mild mannered, kind, and respectful in canon, and his story with Shen Jiu is outright tragic.

Shen Yuan is never even that uncomfortable around him, he likes the guy!! Views him as an affectionate, doting, reliable older-brother type! He's just uncomfortable because he feels guilty he accidentally body-snatched this poor man's childhood friend/lost love/source of guilt.

His worst flaws are his self flagellation, his permissiveness with Shen Jiu's abuse of Binghe, and his communication issues with Shen Jiu. And two of those things are also Shen Jiu's fault!

It's some really weird character assassination that I normally see reserved for female love interests that fandoms feel "get in the way" of their gay ship.

[peachdues]

why do you only write damsels in distress

fair question. I try not to, but I can see how that comes across. I don’t always think a female character needs to be a warrior to be strong.

That said, I have two fics on my phone where the FMC is not a damsel — but she’s also not good. Extremely morally gray/borderline a villain by circumstance.

The problem is that I write reader inserts. I don’t think morally questionable readers will go over well with the general audience.

[beaulesbian]

I'm seeing a lot of trigun stampede stuff on my dash, and only have one question... is it gay?

how do i answer this,..

i dont have the full knowledge of the story/the full manga yet, and stampede is reboot so i guess anything is possible, but

there are the themes, you know, so many themes.

even if some stuff is not canon, there are things you take away from it, how they present it, how the relationships work, and what remains.

...and it sure is pretty gay, even if its not explicitly said - and in this way i feel it works better for the whole story.

(i got into trigun thanks to the stampede anime, but the more i watch the og anime, i like it more and more?

look at this shit

and they're always just like that, what's not to love.

Hope this helped ✨️💜

[elina-sakura]

I’m just going say it although the book of death/Shinigami’s powers is cool also the big idea of the gameplay;in a way is kinda useless mostly on the fact the culprit dies,i mean HOW ARE YOU GONNA GET A CLEAR TRUTH WITHOUT A CLEAR CONFESSION!!!,also it just made it worse now that there now a person mysteriously dies out of nowhere,but they managed to put it in storyline sooooooo

Yeah something to think about

I think maybe it has to do with since Shinigami is the God of Death, her power is going to have a connection over on death. But you bring up a good point that it isn’t exactly useful considering it makes exposing the criminals harder.

Until I remember in Chapter 0 after the first Mystery Labyrinth from a YouTube gameplay I watched, where Shinigami comments how Yuma is now free since the culprit is dead, which the YouTuber comments that wasn’t going to work because Zilch was meant to be dead from the start and they only ended up reaffirming that narrative the Peacekeepers were painting to begin with. And I was thinking to myself, ‘didn’t they already figured out that the Peacekeepers were in on the plan in the Mystery Labyrinth? So why did she think the Peacekeepers would let him go if they were planning to frame him anyway?’ And that led me to think really hard about this.

We know Shinigami has the flaws of lacking empathy and not understanding humans at times, since she is an immortal god. I think in her mind, since the culprit is gone, there would be no reason for the Peacekeepers to keep framing him. Plus, again thinking into Shinigami’s mind, I think she believed since the culprit was a murderer would mean they would probably kill more people in the future, so the real goal was to stop a growing threat from claiming more victims like before.

And the killing thing? I think it’s a way to deal the justice in the holder’s own hands, to off the culprits so they don’t keep harming people from the mysteries they made, or claiming anymore victims from their deeds. In Chapter 1, one of the culprit was a serial killer, who would have gone off to kill more people. And the other culprit could have technically become a serial killer himself since he admired the Nail Man so much. Plus, an innocent man was going to get framed and executed for the Nail Man’s crimes to keep up appearances, and seeing how the Priest was going along with the lie, basically implied he was okay letting an actual, innocent man die in his place. Then in Chapter 2, Kurumi gets framed for the crime, and since execution seems to be a thing, she could have been executed herself, all so the Peacekeepers can keep their lies and appearance in place.

Plus, we have seen that the Peacekeepers don’t necessarily care about justice unless it serves them (or the higher-ups like Yomi in this case). They are willing to cover up the mysteries to convenient themselves and get what they want. And considering they are the police force, therefore the handlers of justice in Kanai Ward, they are the only ones in power that can lock away the criminals in hand and bring justice. But because they are so corrupt and self-indulgent, they are more willing to let criminals go or turn a blind eye or fail to solve the case thoroughly. So the Book of Death is the only way to ensure not only are the criminals are properly dealt with, but also cut away the Mystery Labyrinths as well. Since Shinigami has noted that if the Mystery Labyrinth grew and remain, they would influence other people into becoming murderers or criminals that would create more Mystery Labyrinths as well. As it was theorized by Yakool-Foolio that Kanai Ward’s Ultimate Secret’s own Mystery Labyrinth is what most likely led to the city becoming more crime-filled and creating their own Mystery Labyrinths as well.

It’s also important to note that there are other corrupt officials out in the world like the Unified Government who wants to keep their own secrets hidden away to keep up appearances. So it wouldn’t be far-fetched if there were other corrupt forces like the Unified Government and the Peacekeepers who would keep things secrets for their own benefits. Plus, we learned in chapter five that Number One of the World Detective Organization that he is actually in charge of issuing criminals to be sent to the death penalties, as noted here by Shiut, so I think executions and death penalties are uncommon in the Master Detective Archives world. So it wouldn’t be such a big deal for criminals to just die, even if it is inhumane and cruel.

In conclusion, I think the Book of Death is really a tool used in order to bring about the end of the criminals that threatens peace for everybody and could potentially hurt people (people getting framed, the killers killing future victims, exploiting people, etc). Since there is the chance of corrupt police forces not willing to indulge justice as they should and will let the mysteries remain and therefore the criminals free, the Book of Death is a mean to make sure the criminals and mysteries are gone. It’s a morally grey story where it may not be morally right, but it is not morally wrong either with the circumstances at hand. I think that’s what the Book of Death’s intention are, and why Shinigami thinks the way she thinks.

[theprinceandthewitch]

Okay... now it's time to go back to my silly little game...

[always-a-joyful-note]

As I have somehow become entangled in the Ensemble Stars fandom (I hate it here. Don't follow me to these waters, you guys) and am slowly reading the stories after the main one of music (and after watching the anime), I have come to the conclusion that Nito Nazuna is (probably unintentionally) Velveteen Rabbit coded.

If you don't know the story (spoilers for it ahead, you can read the short story here), it's basically about how a stuffed rabbit given to a boy as a Christmas present gets neglected in favour of newer mechanical toys. During his neglect, an older toy tells him a story about how the love of children to their toys can make them real, which the rabbit desperately wants but has little hope for. But by chance, a nanny gives the boy the rabbit to sleep with, cementing it as the boy's favourite toy. Sure, it gets more worn and other rabbits point out how it can't hop, but at least its loved...until the boy contracts scarlet fever and, for disinfecting reasons, the rabbit has to be taken out to be burned. Yeah, messed up...but as it waits for its fate, the stuffed rabbit sheds a tear where a flower with a fairy grows. The fairy proceeds to tell him that the boy's love made him real and takes him to the forest where he's able to finally hop away with the other rabbits.

I know it's a stretch. But a former toy/doll, incredibly loved but not really seen as real and that destroying him even if he's fine with it...then neglected when his "owner" contracts a sickness...then finding a spark of life that frees him from his inability to move...a transformation from loved doll to a real something that learns to love himself. Tell me that isn't Nazuna, and the rabbit imagery even fits. He breaks free from his constraints not to be alone but to be with others of his kind, to move of his own will with others! It's just so...we are all human and our relationships are so complex and someone else's tragedy that also makes you hurt for them can also be the reason you find your own self -

Honestly, I'm not sure if this is actually Velveteen Rabbit coded since I've only seen that story in the anime, but like...if you squint, it fits?

[musical-chick-13]

Again, always very confusing to me when people suffering from The Obsessive Compulsives are Antis™, like these people will not protect you. They believe thought crimes are real. They inherently hate you and WILL throw you to the wolves if they ever come to know about anything related to your intrusive thoughts or the """""weird""""" things they ask you to do in therapy to manage/cope with them.

[aroace-number-eight]

Drawing Five according to his canonical UaO epilogue description is so messy and saddening because there's so much to account for that got him physically fucked up and you know the writers were hammering in this whole disfigurement as punishment thing with him

Because first you have the eye hole where Marina pierced him, and I'm not sure if he's still wearing that gauze eye patch on the island because eventually it'll get dirty and he'll have to toss it

Then you have the scar marks from when Setrákus Ra clawed right through his metal skin "like butter" and it's not mentioned whether those marks are still there or they disappeared when he returned to his flesh skin (and it's doubtful those were healed at all, we don't even know if Marina had a proper visit and talked to him and possibly healed those away)

Then you have the goop that created some patchy spots all over his skin and show up all web-like on him

And then how it's implied he starved on the island because he lost weight so fast and is described to have flaps of skin on his arms and torso and a body so skinny you could see an outline of his ribs and spine

Bro he has so much physical trauma on him, like they did the most on him and left it like that till the very end

[tomwambsmilk]

I feel like I've noticed a weird thing in some movies lately where they sort of feel like watching visual representation of a sparknote. You know how when you read a sparknote, it gives you the beat-by-beat of everything that happens plotwise, but without any of the depth? It might say "Character A goes to a party and argues with Character B, and then they profess their love for each other. The next day Character A goes to work and cries in the copy room because they feel uncertain about the relationship." But if you read the book those two lines are a good 50 pages of narration and dialogue which explore the nuances of Character A's mindset and their relationship with Character B. So if you just read the sparknote, you might know what happens, but you don't necessarily understand the characters and everything they're meant to convey.

And I feel like I've seen a lot of movies lately that feel like a sparknote. They want to convey that Thing Happened so they'll show a scene with two lines of dialogue establishing Thing, and then they'll jump to the next scene with two more lines establishing Next Thing, etc etc through the whole movie. And these movies tend to also be the WORST for on-the-nose dialogue, because the dialogue just exists to Establish Things. For example - I went to see TBOSAS last night, and the whole idea of Snow turning into his father is Established with exactly two scenes - one where Tigris tells him that she remembered seeing hate in his father's eyes, and another at the end of the movie where she says he looks just like his father. Boom! Established! They want to establish Snow's influence on the final form of the games, so they have a scene where Snow stands up and lists all the types of pageantry he thinks would make the Games more appealing. Boom! Established! They want the audience to know that Snow is in love with Lucy Gray, so they have a scene where he visits her and wipes away a tear with his handkerchief. Boom! Established!

But.... where's the exploration? People are complex, and so the most fascinating and interesting characters have multiple facets that need to be explored in a variety of circumstances. What does 'becoming his father' mean to Snow? Probably not just one straightforward thing that can be readily established in two scenes. What does Snow admire about his father? Is there any degree of internal conflict in the idea of becoming his father? There's just so much you can't learn in a movie like this. Why does Snow love pageantry? What does he understand the relationship between pageantry and politics to be, and how does that evolve over the course of the film? What is it that draws Snow to Sejanus when he's so despised by the rest of the Capitol elite that Snow wants so desperately to be a part of? Does Snow really love Lucy Gray, and if so, why? What does she represent that he can't find in the Capitol? The movie doesn't even need to give solid answers - honestly, questions like these hit better when there's enough ambiguity for audience members to have different interpretations - but there needs to be SOMETHING for us to work with.

And I think what drives me most insane is that when a movie like this comes out, if there's a big enough name behind it people will laud it for making its primary character 'inscrutable' ???????????? bitch that's just bad storytelling????????? Look, if you mean 'inscrutable' as in 'can't be put into one simple box' - sure, great, but that's not what these characters are. You straight-up just don't know anything about their interior lives, which is such a major misstep that I can't believe people are celebrating it just because Christopher Nolan did it (yeah I'm still pressed about Oppenheimer, the other great example of sparknotes storytelling that got endlessly celebrated just because Nolan did it. It's crazy to me that Oppenheimer has the higher RT score because at least TBOSAS has redeeming elements)

[eclaire-went-bam]

hiii:33!! friendly reminder that someone can enjoy a character that has done heinous things and not support said heinous things

usually when a character does Bad Things in a narrative (espec if they're not the protagonist) it is Portrayed As Bad so people who enjoy the character Likely Know They Are Bad

& either way harassing people over enjoying a fictional character is just really childish

if you don't like the character, that is perfectly valid. but there's never any reason to characterise everyone who likes said character as Evil, and/or imply they condone the character's negative actions.

also sometimes i look at internet discourse and it's like people want morally grey characters but then turn around when "morally grey" is not always "i have my own rules but i still make all the right choices !!" some of y'all just need to admit you just like good characters that's fine not everyone is into the spice it's ok to like that good protagonist energy

;;;not saying every character i'm referring to fits in that "morally grey" category, some are just evil villains, but even then i'm sorry 90% of ur stories wouldn't exist without them. they drive the plot.

[sparky-is-spiders]

Hi! I’m here suffering from lack of good Archivist!Sasha content as well 😭 On that note, do you have any fic on that topic you would recommend? Or just good Sasha fics in general, (or Jonsasha, if that’s your cup of tea)? Thank you in advance 😊

Tragically, I think there is a general dearth of good Archivist!Sasha content (and just about none of it Jonsasha content, as far as I can tell (and not only is Jonsasha my cup of tea, but the ONLY thing standing between it and the #1 OTP spot (currently occupied by JE) is the fact that the Jonsasha that I desperately crave exists in my brain and nowhere else)). Admittedly, I haven't looked very far into her tag yet (I should rectify that at some point tbh) but I've dug around the Jonsasha tag when I first got into it, and I know at least one fic where Sasha drifts towards Beholding through an interest in office gossip.

In terms of Jonsasha Ao3 has:

This very good Sasha lives fic where Jon shows up to Georgie's with an unconscious Sasha and everyone involved is very confused.

These two fics are cute also. The former is by @/suttttton and is them getting together, the latter is established Jonsasha from @/dickwheelie.

Eyevatar Sasha might actually be thinner on the ground (outside of fix-its where she solves everything and her canon reckless curiosity is completely ignored). Ao3 has:

This fic, which is Jongerry with outsider PoV Sasha. Just barely has the implication that she might be shifting towards the Eye (via prying into the lives of her coworkers) but gets a mention through sheer force of Excellent Sasha Characterization. I read this and I feel like I'm reading a fic from a Sasha Understander.

There's also this fic, which looks very promising but which I haven't actually gotten the chance to read yet, so I can't speak to its quality.

Unfortunately I've only gotten into Sasha fairly recently (especially as compared to Jon, who my brain latched onto in a deathgrip from the start), so I haven't gone through her tag yet. A scroll through the Archivist!Sasha or Beholding Avatar!Sasha tags pulls up a lot of fix-it and J//mart, which isn't really what I'm looking for from the concept. I'm sure there's more out there, and if/when I find them I'll come back to this ask probably, but I lucked into Reverse Nighthawks (I was on a Jongerry kick).

But god every day I wish that I could write romance and/or longfic, because about a year ago I read a Jonmichael fic that, when discussing alternate universes (where Jon ended the world) it's revealed that he once did an apocalypse out of love for his Archivist, Sasha James. And it was one (1) single line, but it struck me so hard because god. A perfect concept I think. The potential dynamics of Archivist!Sasha/Assistant!Jon are enthralling to me. Jon destroying the world (or helping her destroy the world? Cute date night I think: bringing about armageddon with your eldritch monster partner) for Sasha... anyway mostly I mentioned that one because My God if I have to live with that tantalizing AU rotating in the background of my mind 24/7 so do the rest of you.

[dallonwrites]

beau is sooo messy i'm obsessed with him. him being happy to see felix seemingly flourishing and being more confident etc but also feeling weird and almost jealous at the fact that it used to be just him that got to see felix that way. that he used to be the only reason for it. and like he KNOWS that's a messy and kind of fucked up way to think about it but he also knows he's in a really weird spot emotionally and can't help it