#and was excellent to think through

[egophiliac]

bring your son to work day

[expelliarmus]

[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 :).

[vaguely-concerned]

the idea this game posits that just as much as or even more so than lucanis is having a demon problem, spite is currently having a lucanis problem. is everything to me. spite voice bitch you live like this???

[fromtheseventhhell]

Arya made a face and hugged the wolfling tight. Nymeria licked her ear, and she giggled. (Arya I, AGoT)

--

“Girls don’t shave,” Arya said. “Maybe they should. Have you ever seen the septa’s legs?” She giggled at him. “It’s so skinny.” (Jon II, AGoT)

--

"Stay away?" Mercy giggled. She was a giggly sort of girl, was Mercy. "No. I've got to get closer." (Mercy, TWoW)

Mercy was a giggly sort of girl...and so was Arya, once upon a time.

[jinxed-sinner]

So we're all in agreement that the end of Full Moon is not Blitz or Stolas's fault, and is the result of years of abuse and neglect Blitz suffered from Cash (probably with trauma from the circus fire mixed in) and years of abuse and neglect Stolas suffered from Paimon and Stella right

[guzhufuren]

i don't have it in me for another thai university bl i can't do this i'm too old and have been in this for too long

[every-ogata]

Since we're finally on his chapter, what do you think about Ogata and what he did to his family? You have a lot of thoughts about him so I'm curious what you think about this?

Oh boy. So I could be funny and make a joke about how we all think about killing our parents and brother and building a complex about it, but I kind of don't want to make light of this? I think what he did is deserving of both disgust and pity.

Ogata is a terrible person. There's no pretending otherwise. He has done some really atrocious things in order to get what he wants. Ultimately, the things he wants all circle back to childhood trauma. All he wants is attention, and proof that he is worth something despite the circumstances of his birth. All I can think about is in the final volume where we get to see the Tome and Hyakunosuke moment and he reaches out for her, wanting her to pay attention to him. It's almost like he's never progressed past who he was as a kid and it's sad.

I could genuinely write a whole dissertation on him, but all I can say is he's an extremely tragic character and I wish things had been better for him. A lot of things could have been avoided if Koujirou Hanazawa hadn't been such a piece of shit.

[starleska]

you do not know the sheer giddy delight i have experienced finally watching Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), emerging with one whole new blorbo and getting to see one of my oldest have such a glow-up!!!! oh my god!!! i love it!!!! 🙈💖

[gelarshiesprofruitboarder]

vaguely sunsetty lighting and complete lack of a background save me

[stellerssong]

IMPORTANT QUESTION.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Hi? Is it okay to ask for Ganondorf's possible anxieties involving having a son?

I mean, it's highly unlikely that Ganon even saw another male until at least 18. Imagine what that would do to someone. No father, no male role model, no male friends, no male associates. No male contact at all.

Like, I can't even imagine what it would've been like to have had no female contact at all until 18.

Just not having a good father in one's life is known to stunt a person substantially. I can't even fathom how othered Ganon must've felt growing up. How utterly pressured he felt to become a pillar of masculinity without any real example to follow. No one to teach him what it actually means to be a good man. No one to explain things to him. No one to show him the subtle little things that seems to almost be universal among men no matter the culture. Especially in how they interact amongst each other. No one to teach him about comradery between men. About the unspoken rules that men seem to have.

And, not to mention the almost commodifying perspective the Gerudo have towards men. One even mentioned that she'd believed that all men were useless except for Ganondorf.

I can't help but think he might've internalized some of that.

So, would Ganon be anxious about setting a good example for his son seeing as he likely didn't have that himself?

Ganondorf had to admit he was still in shock over looking at his children. But the longer he stared at them, the more a new feeling settled into his heart.

Watching his daughter was a blessing; a strong feeling of protectiveness overcame him, and he wondered how such a delicate looking child could grow into a warrior like her mother. But his son…

Ganondorf could fathom having a daughter, could handle raising a girl. But a son…

He’d never felt so simultaneously out-of-depth and excited.

It wasn’t particularly a feeling he enjoyed. Ganondorf despised being out of control. But looking at the little boy made him feel so utterly alone and adrift, wondering how in the world he could possibly raise this child correctly. Yet at the same time, it filled him with eagerness, an excitement to give the boy guidance that he had been sorely lacking in his life.

Growing up as a Gerudo male had been so incredibly isolating. Ganondorf had been treated as a king and as some Other, his childhood filled with voids and gaps in understanding, in confusion that had left him stumbling when he’d first entered Hyrule. He’d never felt unwelcome by his fellow Gerudo, but he’d also never felt welcome. His presence was a blessing, a symbol of leadership with no understanding of what that even meant. Somehow it was his responsibility to lead his band of thieves, and the best way he knew how was to be the strongest. His physicality lent to it naturally, so it only seemed the correct path. But when he’d first entered Hyrule, when he’d first seen another man, he had felt wholly inadequate. It had been a group of Hylian soldiers, all strong in their own right, laughing amongst each other, at ease, normal.

He wasn’t normal. He’d never been normal. His body had been strange and cursed, developing in ways no other Gerudo’s had, lacking the gift of life that the women bore, making up for it in sheer power and aggression. It had been his goddess-given right to be a protector, and that had developed into a greater desire when he’d seen Hyrule.

He didn’t have to defend. He could just take as his sisters did, but with greater results. He could live in a land that prospered, he could rule it, as was his birthright.

But all of those thoughts felt empty when looking at his son, because here he held a new gift and opportunity. He could be a father. He could raise a boy to be a man, could show him what that meant when he’d never had that chance.

But what could he possibly do in this role? He knew nothing of fathers, even in his journeys to Hyrule. The closest he’d gotten to interacting with a father was seeing the king, who occasionally was present with the princess, but mostly the girl was elsewhere in the palace. Was being a father not that involved, then, or was it simply because the king of Hyrule had other duties? Ganondorf surely wouldn’t abandon his children nearly so much. They could attend duties with him. How else could they learn to fulfill their roles, anyway?

Was that the correct course of action? Twinrova had done as much with Ganondorf, so it seemed reasonable. He’d been involved in the care and leadership of his people since he was a teenager, perhaps even a little younger.

The worst part of this was that he had no one to turn to for this. Ganondorf hated relying on anything or anyone else but himself, but in this matter… he… almost wished he did have someone. Nabooru, as much as he loved her, was not going to be helpful in this matter. However, in this land that Din had taken him to, the Gerudo here did have a very small amount of men present in their ranks – only those who joined with Gerudo women were allowed. Men from a nearby settlement occasionally interacted with Gerudo, and those who chose to embrace the culture and marry one of the women were allowed. But they were foreigners, and Ganondorf was their ruler through his own birthright and his marriage to Nabooru. He refused to look to them for an example.

Ganondorf took a steadying breath, lifting the child into his arms. It didn’t matter if he had an example or not. He’d forged his own way his entire life, and that wasn’t changing now. He would be a father to these children whether he was ready or not, and so he would strive to be the best father he could be, whatever that meant.

[hanzajesthanza]

when sapkowski is all “i don’t believe in absolute evil” like he didn’t write like vilgefortz and leo bonhart and birkart grellenort likeeee okkkk but those guys were preeeetty evil though

[loosethreadsofyoursoul]

sometimes i think about the oldest sister from that one call in 5x15 (FOMO) where the mom falls through the silo while playing with her 3 daughters.

her story makes me so sad because we all know how it goes. that entire call, she was the only one who really understood what was going on, that they might not see their mom again. the team did their best to protect all of them, but she was old enough to know what their cues meant, and you could see the moment she figured out her mom wasn’t coming back with them. but she kept a brave face so she wouldn’t upset her sisters, who were too young to really get the gravity of the situation, that their mom wasn’t just checking in with them, but she was saying goodbye.

she let her sisters believe everything was fine in the firetruck because she would never burden them with the knowledge that their mom was gone before she absolutely had to, even when she herself is already carrying it. she wants them to have as much time being excited and believing their mom is still with them as possible, so she forces herself to be alone in the most heartbreaking moment of her life rather than ruin it for them, too.

and at the end of the episode when it cuts back to the three of them and their dad saying their last goodbye, it’s even more heartbreaking because this is the beginning of the rest of her life shouldering that burden alone. she has two sisters looking up to her, and we can see her shrug off her own emotions to step up for them.

and she’ll do that forever; as long as she has to. she’ll fill her mother’s shoes in the best way she can and in a way she never should have had to because they’re more important. to her, making sure they’re okay matters more than her own grief. and despite being one small part of this episode, that actress (mirabelle lee) did such a good job of showing us this girl in her worst moments, taking on her sisters’ loss as well as her own so that they might suffer less. because she is the older sister. and she’ll put that role first for the rest of her life.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Tuvok & Seven of Nine should have been overbearing co-parents to the borg children

[reisakumaproducer]

I love the five oddballs and I feel like an underrated part of their character is how they comment upon how society treats talented beings and the dangers of placing someone so talented on a pedestal. The isolation the Oddballs felt from others, especially the OG three oddballs, and their arcs relating to humanity is one of the most intriguing aspects of this game’s writing