#being declared Gifted Children throughout the show. i'm including becky in those three. and so they were the only characters

[fromtheplanethexagon]

VICTORIA......... my underrated fave. Hope you don’t mind if i weigh in on this for a second? Because it was definitely misogyny. I remember once writing a oneshot from her perspective (in 2016?) and getting a comment from a Tobecky shipper saying ‘wow, this is the first time I’ve been able to empathize with her’ and I just... what? The heck?

(I am so sorry for the essay. I’ve missed this show and fandom a lot.)

Victoria is literally just S1-2 Tobey with different powers. Like - they took the ‘competitive in school’ trait from him, and gave it to her when she was introduced, and made his hinted-at backstory her canon backstory. Looking at it objectively, the big reasons for liking Tobey over Victoria are: Tobey’s been around longer, Tobey’s fundamentally a more ridiculous and funny character, and Tobey’s in the big fandom ship (which I’ll cover last).

The first one can’t be helped, but the second is partially due to the show’s own choice in where to put its efforts, and partially due to the fact that even just a few years ago people were really Not Aware of how differently they perceived both comedic and villainous male characters vs female characters. Tobey has a superiority complex, it’s funny because he’s 10 and annoying. Victoria has a superiority complex, she’s being mean and needs to get over herself.

And this difference in ability to empathize with each character’s flaws absolutely carries through to interpreting their overall character. If we are more willing to engage with Tobey, we notice how his actions and lashing out are often due to loneliness and a desire to prove himself. If we are less willing to engage with Victoria, we skim over the scenes with her parents and then wonder why she can’t just chill out or tell them off. (TBH even her backstory is a bit vague here. Her parents threaten her several times, but IIRC we are never told why exactly she’s so afraid of them. There’s a lot of room for... very sad headcanons here, but that requires caring enough about her to create them.)

Getting to Tobecky: I think one of the lowkey reasons for Tobecky fans to dismiss/dislike her is that she has some canon moments that could be taken as ‘getting in the way’ of the ship. It’s not great! It’s misogynistic! But I think it’s one of the reasons for her to be sidelined, completely ignored, or - if she’s actually used in the story - she’s used as an obstacle to Tobecky, or someone who accidentally furthers it.

Another, larger reason I think is that to ship Tobecky in any way that isn’t just straight-up terrible requires redeeming his character to at least some degree. And redemption requires work, which requires engaging with his character and searching for anything that can be used to explain his actions and make you root for him to get better as a person. (It’s out of misguided love for Wordgirl! He has no friends/no father/a strict mother! If only someone could show him that he doesn’t have to be like this!)

On the other hand, there’s no reason for fandom to redeem Victoria; her canon role is a villain, and if she’s thought of at all, having her stay a villain works just fine for Tobecky (etc, I know there’s more ships) shippers.

A couple of final thoughts on that - first, because Victoria’s villainy is usually sliiightly more realistic, I wonder if people see her and remember someone like her that they knew and disliked IRL, while nobody had a fellow fifth-grade classmate that built giant robots and destroyed buildings. Second, I wonder if the fact that Tobey’s age was emphasized for comedy more than Victoria’s was affected anything? Like his schtick is that he’s an evil robot creator, but also he’s 10 and tries to get out of parent-teacher conferences and whines when he doesn’t get his way. Victoria’s age in contrast with her actions/villain status isn’t brought up nearly as often, and definitely isn’t used for comedy, so we’re not reminded of it as often. That would also tie into the redemption thing, as Tobey being 10 is very often used as a reason for hoping that he’ll improve, while... I haven’t seen anyone point out how terrible it is that a 10-year-old is so terrified of her parents that she steals Nobel prizes.

And a final thought on misogyny - this definitely extended beyond Victoria. Like, compare the amount of attention (both from the showrunners and the fandom) that the male villains generally got vs the female villains. Hell, even Becky sometimes didn’t get as much attention as the ship she was in, and she was the main character of the show.

And as a final comment on Tobecky, as someone who was VERY active in the ship. Yeah. Looking back at it after six years, it’s troubling how popular it was, the reasons why it was popular, and how uncritical us fans were of the dynamic. I still love a lot of the canon moments and think the relationship had potential, but personally I wish I’d been a lot less lenient on Tobey and content that forgave him quickly. I could honestly write a whole essay on my thoughts on the ship & fandom, but this is way too long as it is.

So what’s you least favorite Wordgirl villain and why?

I’ve never been a huge fan of Mr. Big. This just being from my healthy dislike for greedy corporations. Leslie however, over the years has grown more and more appealing. She’s just done with everything and it’s very very relatable.

There’s another villain who I, in the past, did not like at all, and I just don’t understand why. I used to hate Victoria, I just saw her as a brat. But what I find odd looking back on this is that I have, and still do love Tobey, and he’s a little brat too. And I always would say to myself “oh I like Tobey even though he’s a brat because he’s a complex character and I understand why he’s acting the way he is.” But like, that logic can be applied equally to Victoria? If anything, that logic is more applicable to Victoria. It’s fun to get deep into Tobey’s psychology and try to connect to his home life, but most of the fandoms assumptions as to why Tobey is the way he is are just that, assumptions. We are guessing based on what we know and have observed. Victoria, on the other hand, we know EXACTLY why she is the way she is. We know how her psychology is connected to her home life, it’s spelled out for us multiple times in The show. It’s made painfully clear repeatedly that Victoria is put under tremendous pressure by her parents, in a way that in some cases seems to cross the line from bad parenting to full on emotional/mental abuse.

So I really don’t understand why I was so much more quicker to cut Tobey some slack than Victoria, when Victoria had much clearer psychological reasoning for her actions than Tobey. Was is misogyny? My ToBecky shipping brain wanting to forgive Tobey (which is arguably also misogynistic). Was it because Tobey was my first favorite villain and Victoria came in later? Was it because Victoria’s was shown point blank and Tobey required theorizing which is fun? I honestly don’t know.

I like Victoria now though, and I just gotta say that poor girl and her brother need to have CPS come save them.