#and fanon has warped my perception of characters as well so if i say something wrong call me out

[danny-chase]

Comics I’ve read, so I can actually keep track of things, don’t assume it’s good if it’s on here - aka this isn’t a list of recommendations, but do feel free to ask about any of the titles on here

Edit: A lot of these need warnings before you read if you don’t want to be surprised by racism, sexism, rape, child abuse, suicidal ideation, etc., etc. before reading, i didn’t include specific warnings in this, because it’s been a while since i read many of them, please ask before reading things you’re unsure about 💀, i’ll start adding warnings from what i remember

Team Books:

- JLA/Titans (1998)

- New Teen Titans (1980)

----pedophilia (not addressed as such), Gar sexually harasses woman sm, Terry Long - my detested (prof dating a student), racism and so much more

- The New Titans (1984) (until Dick left the team)

----rape (which isn’t addressed as such) and slut shaming, to avoid skip over issues with mirage, multiple major character deaths, there’s also bad dad Bruce kicking Dick out a few times, Terry Long - my detested

- Young Justice (1998)

----the writing around Anita is racist

- The Titans (1999)

---- a weird arc where they thought a character was autistic but turns out there         was a man in her head idk what to even tag that as

- JLA: The Obsidian Age (2002)

----been too long for me to remember but i think someone said it’s racist

- Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day (2003)

---- major character deaths

- Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files (2003)

- Teen Titans: Year One (2008)

- Outsiders (2003)

- The Return of Donna Troy

---- brainwashed mentors hitting their sidekicks

- Titans (2008) (until Dick left the team)

- Young Justice (2011) - have also watched the show (all 3 seasons)

- Red Hood and the Outlaws (2011)

---- Roy and Kory’s characterizations are obliterated by new 52

- Convergence: The Titans (2015)

- Convergence: The New Teen Titans (2015)

- Titans Hunt New 52 (2015)

----ugly as heck art

- Titans Rebirth (2016)

- Batman & The Outsiders (2018)

- Titans: Titans Together (2020)

- Titans: Titans United (2021) (ongoing)

Nightwing Titles:

- Nightwing (1995)

- Nightwing (1996)

----rape (again not being addressed as such) to avoid skip over issues with Tarantula and Liu, and copoganda (Dixon’s run it’s been a while but prolly has     more bad takes), Bruce hits Dick in the Officer Down crossover, also uh Devin     destroys Dick’s life, mischaracterizes Babs, and his entire city is nuked (i’m literally not exaggerating), passive suicide attempt, Bruce’s F- parenting

- Nightwing: The Target (2001)

- Nightwing (2011)

----domestic abuse (Bruce to Dick), skip Nightwing #30

- Grayson (2014)

----old lady being a creeper, Dick being examined naked, girls thirsting after him, Bruce’s F+ parenting (leaves Dick stranded in the middle of the mission), sibling on sibling violence

- Nightwing (2016) (up to Ric sorry i can’t do it guys, i do check in on tt stuff to rag on it)

Robin Titles:

----warnings for Dixon’s weird beliefs of how the world works (Steph’s pregnancy arc, Tim yells at an alcoholic roommate an he’s cured, ‘boys will         look’, girls kissing Tim without permission is fine apparently), major character death, sexism everywhere, Tim's personality taking a 180 after the one year later event

- Robin (1991) Volumes I and II

- Robin (1993)

- Robin: Year One (2000)

----Neglectful Bruce, enabler Alfred RIP Dick Grayson’s childhood

- Batman and Robin (2009)

----obliterates Talia’s characterization

- Red Robin (ongoing)

----I've read the first four issues ngl it kinda sucks imo

- Batman and Robin (2011)

----Bruce is literally a terrible parent for the first part of the run, regresses Damian’s character development from the 2009 run, sibling on sibling violence

- Batman & Robin Eternal (2015)

----obliterates Cass's character

- Super Sons (2017)

Batgirl Titles:

- Batgirl (2000)

----disability is magically cured, Bruce is a shotgun dad, gets Cass high to fight him to “talk to her in a way she can understand” i classify it as abuse, but absolutely a must-read despite this, made me love Cass

- Batgirl (2009)

----pushes Cass out of the role for *checks note* absolutely no reason, but is enjoyable all the same and made me really like Steph

- Batgirls (2021)

----I read the first issue and will not be continuing because it sucks ass

Birds of Prey

- Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey (1995) #1

- Birds of Prey: Revolution (1997) #1

- Birds of Prey: Wolves (1997) #1

- Birds of Prey: Batgirl (1997) #1

- Birds of Prey: The Ravens (1998) #1

- Birds of Prey (1998) - ongoing

Batman Titles:

- Birds of Prey: Batgirl (1997) #1

- Birds of Prey: Ravens (1998) #1

- Batman: A Death in the Family (1988)

----major character death

- Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying (1989)

- The Long Halloween (1996)

- Dark Victory (2011)

- Batman: Legacy (1996)

- Bruce Wayne Murderer/Fugitive (2002)

----Bruce Wayne C+ parenting, physical fight between Bruce and Dick

- Batman: War Games (2004)

----major character death, sexism

- All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder (2005)

----terrible, child abuse, r-word used, don’t read

- Batman: Battle for the Cowl (2009)

----Jason as a villain idk skip if you don't like him being an antagonist, sibling on       sibling violence

- Batman: Streets of Gotham (2009) (up to #12)

- Batman: Batman & Son (2010) 

----probably also obliterates Talia (haven't read it in forever), siblings on sibling violence

- The Black Mirror (2010)

- Batman: Gates of Gotham (2011)

- Batman (1940) #687-707 (aka Dick!bats era)

- Batman (2011) #1-17

----Bruce punches Dick in the face in one of the first issues

- Batman Eternal (2014)

----Barbara x Jason, i hate that pairing (idk for sure it's been a while)

- Detective Comics Rebirth (2016) #934-981 (plus Night of the Monster Men crossover) and #983-987

- All-Star Batman Rebirth (2016)

- Batman & The Signal (2018)

Assorted:

- Joker’s Last Laugh (2001)

----hee hee major character death but it’s a good thing <3

- Heroes in Crisis (2018) 

----tries to de-stigmatize mental health by making a depressed person a killer,           basically don’t read this it was horrid, i hate it, it’s stupid and bad

- Impulse (1995) - literally just the first 3 issues but it’s great

- Tempest (1996)

----sad, made me sad, but also you should read it because Garth <3

- Future State: Wonder Woman (2021) - just the first issue so far

- Harley Quinn: The Animated Series - The Eat. Bang. Kill Tour (2021) - just the first issue, have watched the show

- Some Dark Nights Metal stuff that i don’t really understand what was happening uh Bat is door 👍 very cool 👍

- Scooby-Doo Team-Up (ongoing)

- Huntress: Cry for Blood

[wc-confessions]

Who is your favoriate villain? I liked Darktail! His story and goal was entertaining and different from the other villains.

i would say sol, scourge, or mapleshade because they’re pretty interesting and cool. but i feel like in fanon they are well written and depicted in a more impressive way. it’s like the erins came up with an outline for these characters, and fans just molded and added on to them.

however, tigerstar is my favorite. maybe it’s the nostalgia surrounding his character, but i’ll always be more fond of him compared to the other antagonists.

i definitely believe he’s well written in warriors standards, however ngl he does decline as the series continues to take advantage of him. the erins don’t have the best writing skills basically, yet his character is written in such an enthralling way. for instance, he has a very plausible background, convincing behaviors, a unique goal and drive, and flaws that make him almost natural.

he’s literally just one of the most perfect and unique villains to come out of the series. despite not being the center of everything, he was inadvertently written in an interesting way and explored aptly. but when the erins took note of his popularity among readers, i feel that they exploited the integrity of his character in hopes that it would increase acclaim. but unfortunately, it just led to his downfall. you can even tell, as they have literally stated before that they had no intentions to make use of him and had scourge kill him to create new conflict for firestar near the end of tpb.

anyway, i definitely think his character diverges from other wc antagonists. i like how his background isn’t entirely tragic, but you still manage to feel some sort of sympathy for him and his situation. he wasn’t born evil, rather, sculpted into something cruel by those he idolized and trusted. beliefs and notions were embedded into his intellect, and he allowed these things to alter his conceptualization. 

he’s basically a victim to the influence and pressurising the code and clan life heavily enforced onto kits growing up. it’s not entirely his fault that this behavior and way of thinking has warped his perception, rather the carelessness of the leaders and the way they effectuate these edicts.

i just love how delightfully evil tigerstar is. and i believe what truly makes him such a good villain his how he fails to acknowledge how evil he is, believing all of his actions should be excused on account that everything he does is by the will of starclan. he believes that the clans have lapsed into disorder and that he is the messiah, the one sole savior to deliver the four clans. 

he genuinely believes he is purifying the clans and enforcing the intent of his ancestors. and he is willing to bend his own beliefs just to attain his goal, building the clans up into what he believes starclan desires, which i think makes him such a believable character. he will exploit circumstances in order to gain an advantage towards that goal.

i also do believe that he acknowledges many of his actions are undesirable. similar to brokenstar, it’s evident that he is aware that “killing is bad” and “lying is bad”. but he’s so willing to make it towards his goal and work himself to power, that he allows himself to disregard these when he needs to seek an opportunity.

and i definitely think this mindset and his desire to ‘help’ the clans in unpleasant ways formed his unhealthy behaviors. just the more he continued to do these sorts of things, the more he was unable to stop himself. basically this just became an terrible habit that developed into something he found pleasurable.

tigerstar is literally just an awful cat. and he’s just terrible in a delicious, enjoyable way. he has his flaws and isn’t evil just for the sake of being evil. rather, a being misguided by these beliefs fed to him. as much as i love characters like scourge and sol, they can’t top a character like tigerstar. and many of their evil qualities stem from his own, making them unoriginal in some way. 

had he not been milked of all his brilliance, i think he would have came out the most interesting and well written villains.

[takaraphoenix]

I recently noticed that I have less patience for assholes than I do for villains. That’s actually nothing new and I have a track-record of it, but I only noticed a couple days ago.

I mean, villains who are assholes taken out of the equation because obviously I do have negative amounts of patience for those.

But generally, a well-written villain where we get, from the get-go, where they come from. Why they do the things they do. You know, a fleshed-out character, if possible with actually reasonable motivations. Those are amazing and this very hellsite is like... the pit to prove that, I think.

Those are cool. Those make me want to see a redemption arc - whether in canon or in fanon. I love those.

And then there’s assholes. And assholes don’t necessarily have to be villains. More often than not, they are part of the main cast and supposedly part of the good guys. But they’re just... deeply seated assholes who do asshole things. Bullies and creeps and, well in lack of a better word, assholes.

And I just genuinely do not care for those kind of characters.

Like, even the best of characters can have an asshole day where they do something dickish and okay. That’s something different.

But if a character continuously and repeatedly only displays an asshole attitude and asshole behavior, for multiple seasons even, then I just... nope out of giving a fuck.

And legit the worst writing decision a show can make, in my opinion, is trying to shoehorn in that “Oh no! This asshole has Reasons!!”. And I do mean really retconned in, all of a sudden they come with a teary-eyed background story that’s supposed to make you care.

And at its base, I do think you could argue that “But Phoe, isn’t that the same thing? A character doing Bad Stuff because of Bad Past and having a reason for being that way!”. But actually no.

For one, the kind of villains that I do like are the ones were you essentially from the get-go know where they come from. Like, say, Erik Lehnsherr. Before you meet villain!Erik, you meet child!Erik seeing the literal worst of humanity and you just... you get it. You are repeatly shown why he does what he does. You knew from the beginning why he is the way he is. If all I’d met was... say... X-Men: Evolution Erik Lehnsherr, I would not care for him because aside from never doing the background story, this show also never dove too deep into the “Humans are scum and yeah the mutants are right” thing - they did cover it, but not to the same all-consuming extend as the movies.

And with the asshole characters that is the norm.

Either you don’t get the reasoning for why they are the way they are at all, or you only get it after up to multiple seasons. At a point where it becomes plot-convenient that asshole character now gets some compassion from the viewers and might even turn to become a Good Guy (like, actually a good guy now, as in changing their behavior).

But... that’s just too little too late.

If I spent weeks, months, even up to years watching this character mistreat others and be a petty bitch, then you can try to force your tear-jerker all you want, the deeds of their own doing outweight whatever others might have done to them.

If you give me the background and reasoning early on - it does not have to be straight-up from the beginning, but, you know, not wait years - then that might be a different issue.

And another reason for why it doesn’t work for me with the asshole characters is that they believe they’re good. Villains? They own it. They know what they have turned into. But most asshole characters actually believe they are good and that is just... very disturbing for me.

Heck, some of my favorite characters are asshole characters worthy of redemption, because the franchise showed from the get-go where their assholery came from and then, gradually and slowly unveiled layers of issues and had the characters opening up more. That’s deserving. When you make it clear from the start that the asshole behavior is a front to cover up insecurities and issues. When you establish that right away.

But when all we get is a character who for long instances behaves like an asshole, pushes others around, does not show an ounce of care or friendliness, then you can’t just suddenly decide “Oh no, the asshole act was just a cover-up! They were Nice And Kind All Along!”. That just... does not work for me. If anything, it makes me even more angry.

And nearly worse than those who were openly and deliberately written as asshole characters are the ones where I am unsure if it might have happened accidentally. Those are generally female characters. Where in a very warped perception abusive, pushy and bullying behavior are seen as Progressive And Strong and you just know, for a fact, that if the roles were reversed and this character would be male and would display this behavior toward a female character, so many people would be outraged and disgusted. I don’t know, I think this trope was born in the late 90s when they were trying to break the Barbie stereotype but weren’t quite sure how to write strong women and many of today’s writers still channel that energy and many of today’s readers/viewers were raised with it and just do not recognize the signs because they were trained that “If a woman does this thing, then it’s cute and funny and hilarious!”, or at the bare minimum “understandable”. Those types of characters just make me plain uncomfortable and angry.

And... that’s it. There is literally no point I wanted to get at with this. I’m just really fucking tired of shoehorned in redemption arcs for asshole characters - either it was planned from the get-go to be “just a front” and you could have actually worked with that, or you just... don’t. I mean, seriously, not every human being is nice. Assholes are a thing that exists and it is perfectly okay to have some hateable disgusting pieces of shit on your show or in your book, because quite frankly it is intensely unrealistic to only have nice, kind cinnamon rolls in your cast. You are allowed to just keep the asshole an asshole and not try to force your audience to like them. Because not every character has to be liked.

[balsamina]

i’m feeling whiny and want to complain about common fanon not aligning with my own headcanons/interpretation, soooooo here’s some True Facts About The Lusamine(TM) that seem really obvious to me but (no shade to anyone in particular) apparently aren’t as obvious to other people

- Lusamine is manipulative, and highly, highly preoccupied with maintaining a good reputation. she is emotionally distant and awful in reality, but outwardly very kind, warm, polite, and approachable. mid-game, she will generally conceal her ulterior motives completely (so definitely no talk about the Type: Full project, her ice dungeon, her obsession with the Ultra Beasts, etc. with the average person), but if she must reveal them, she will twist them to make them seem like Good Things. she’s a pro at selling herself as a saint, and unless your character is A) very perceptive/mistrusting, B) close enough to her that they’ve seen proof of the fucked up things she’s capable of, or C) otherwise has a good reason to be suspicious of her, chances are they will think she’s super cool and be none the wiser to her bullshit. there are times that the mask slips and she’ll say something sinister or otherwise accidentally reveal the terrible monster lurking beneath the surface, but those times are rare

- the Aether Foundation does do honest conservation work; it is not all horribly unethical science experiments and forced cryogenics. the majority of the Pokemon housed there do get treated and released back into the wild, as advertised, and the Foundation’s preservation efforts have been genuinely helpful to stabilizing wild populations of Pokemon (if they didn’t, i’m sure Interpol or N would’ve shut them down ages ago lmao). it’s an organization that’s been around since Lusamine was a kid, and is HUGE and highly respected. this, of course, does not erase the horrible stuff Lusamine herself spearheaded after she hurtled off the deep end, but there are good people working under her (most of which are oblivious to the Foundation’s dark underbelly), and even she herself does good things sometimes, even if only in the interest of polishing her reputation. basically what i’m trying to say is that she’s not constantly abusing kids and Pokemon and twirling her villain mustache lmao...gotta be lowkey about your supervillainy

- Lusamine is a cynic, a pathological liar, and kind of just a Bad Person, but she is not homophobic or transphobic. i understand why a lot of the fandom tends to portray her that way, buuuuut yeah my Lusamine is....Not, so please don’t assume OOC that she is. i’ve had a few people do this and it drives me up the wall so lmao don’t do it

- Lusamine was a good person and a good mother once, and a great deal of her horrible horribleness stems from warped expressions of love. it’s actually rare for her to do cruel things out of pure maliciousness/some kind of sadism, because that’s just a plain waste of her time; she’s definitely the “convinced they’re a nice person who doesn’t deserve this” kind of villain.....though she is petty and mentally unstable enough that she’ll do cruel things occasionally as revenge for some perceived betrayal. she’s just not going to attack/abuse your character unless she thinks she’ll get something out of it

- she has always been self-absorbed, overbearing, and prone to some very unhealthy habits and unreasonable trains of thought, but, at the risk of prompting The Discourse(TM), i’m of the belief that she would not AT ALL have gone to the awful lengths she did without the influence of the neurotoxin (the Nihilego who stung her, however, Did Nothing Wrong; they were just trying to protect themselves, and she just happened to have some truly rotten feelings at her core). i’m also in camp “Lusamine can get better and learn to be an Okay Person/Mother again.” does she deserve that second chance? mm well prrrrrobably not hAHHA, but i do accept/respect Lillie’s canonical decision to help her get to that point, and enjoy exploring the idea of Lusamine as a recovering addict. soooo if that makes you uncomfortable for any reason, you probably shouldn’t follow this blog

- her being stung by Nihilego for the first time was more or less a freak accident (headcanon is that she attacked the Nihilego in a fit of Mohn-related rage, prompting it to sting her in self-defense), and she was completely unaware of the venom’s effects. she doesn’t have like.....a secret stash of Nihilego venom lying around in Aether Paradise that she’s slipping to her employees??? i actually have no idea where this idea came from, but it is startling how many people believe it to be canon.........like did i miss a line of very important dialogue in my playthrough or what??? someone please explain