#i do think one-dimensional fanfic characterizations of him are to blame for a lot of this

[soft-pine]

i saw a post on here a while ago which was like "i think it's more interesting if john wasn't just abusive. like if sometimes he was nice and fun. took them to movies and stuff. it's more complex. it's more real."

but the thing is - that's still abuse. in fact, the abuse is all of it. it's abandoning them for weeks alone in motels, it's taking them to wrestling matches, it's making them call him sir, it's taking dean fishing, it's teaching them to hustle pool for money, it's sharing a beer with pre-teen dean, it's angrily throwing away food dean cooked, it's stealing them a christmas wreath made out of beer cans, it's teaching a six-grader to make a sawed-off shotgun, it's teaching dean how to fix up the car, it's leaving dean in a boys home for stealing bread and peanut butter.

i'm worried about the way fandom sometimes loses the fact that, of course, john was sometimes fun, sometimes kind, sometimes present. very few people are wholly one way all the time. and it's clear from the ways dean talks about john (and the way john talks) that one of the main ways john's abuse worked was hope. hope that things would get better. yes, that once they found what killed mary, they could go back to having a life. but also on a smaller scale, don't you think each time john came home dean hoped he wouldn't leave again? don't you think each time john sent dean away, john said if dean did better it wouldn't happen again. don't you think that there were moments rolling down some two lane with the windows down and the radio on and them all singing along and dean hoped it could feel like that forever?

abuse really rarely is tonally consistent.

john winchester is a fascinating, complex, sometimes even sympathetic character. i don't think he had evil intentions. i think he wanted things to be better for his kids than he felt like he could make them. i hate him with my whole soul. and there is no argument based on canon that can reasonably conclude he was anything but abusive.

[kebriones]

it is entirely out of character for alcibiades to say "i hate myself" given that he is literally the Best at everything he does. if the ancient aristocrats like plato or alcibiades failed, then they would just get better by sheer resource of their genius; they would never even express self-pity bc it would be shameful. alcibiades' exceptional traits and ability to adapt to any situation stem from supreme self-confidence, never self-doubt or self-hatred

For anyone reading this, this is in reference to my fanfic which is a modern university AU which is heavily out of character for everyone involved anyways, and which I wrote on a whim while waiting for painkillers to kick in, in my bed. So please forgive any out of characterness, it's all just for fun. However, I don't think that particular bit was out of character for him, so here comes the essay.

I take a lot of how I characterize alcibiades in my fics from plato. If you read plato's symposium, the self-hatred, self-pity and self-deprication is very much there in alcibiades' speech. When he's with socrates, he says he feels like he can't stand his own life because he sees his deficiences and his mistakes. He understands that if he's to stay with socrates he must let go of many other things he wants and he can't do that, and he's saying outright how ashamed he is of himself when he meets socrates and has to admit certain things. In the Alcibiades 1, he is even more humbled by his shortcomings, expresses opn self-doubt and confusion.

This is what makes alcibiades so interesting and multi dimensional. He's at once extremely aware of his shortcomings AND extremely confident in himself, ashamed of himseld BUT ALSO has a bloated sense of ego. This conflict is very obvious in how plato writes him. And, for plato to write these things, he must also have some knowledge of such internal conflicts. If socrates was as he's presented, associating with him would make going through this humbling necessary.

Both in Plutarch and in Xenophon, we have alcibiades showing fear and uncertainty (when he's afraid to disembark immediately after returning to peiraius, even though he had been recalled to ahtens for a couple years at that point and had won her many victories)

This might be my subjective reading of his speeches, but I feel that in terms of expressing self-pity, he does so in thucydides, xeonophon and plutarch. He often laments the injustices done to him in his public speeches. For the speech he gives upon returning to athens, plutarch says "He lamented and bewailed his own lot, but had only little and moderate blame to lay upon the people. The entire mischief he ascribed to a certain evil fortune and envious genius of his own."

We must understand that alcibiades' ego didn't stop him from being a master manipulator. Andocides wrote that alcibiades has no problem with using tears and begging when it comes to gaining something for himself.

anyways yeah I feel kind of strongly about this because it's such a core conflict of his character, especially in plato's writtings, and a very interesting one at that. You have someone who's behaving as if he's so much better and above everyone else, and probably believes it most of the time, but when he's with socrates, he is forced to see that this isn't true. In the Alcibiades 1, this is exactly what socrates uses to make alcibiades see that he needs socrates if he is to become great. Because it's only socrates that can show him his deficiences, and again in plutarch it's said explicitly that this is why alcibiades respected and loved socrates above everyone else, because he humbled him and he was smart enough and self-aware enough to understand, at least sometimes, that this was necessary if he was to become as good as possible.

[13eyond13]

Well, that's the thing, he established a contrast between L and all the other characters, even though he said he could never have created the other characters either, and only said of L that he didn't feel real for him. That's why it never sat well for me, despite it being a good opinion at first glance.

And I agree. I read some similar things about both Near and Mello in the How to read while checking for that information. I'm not too surprised either about what you say about Platinum End, though I have not read it myself. I don't rely much on them either to form my opinion besides what's in the text, I agree it seems like the best choice all things considering. Like the Ryuzaki thing having to do with L and R sounding similar, I see that, but prefer to roll with Another Note here. It works wonderfully with it being Beyond Birthday's real name (I was this 👌 close to start rambling about identity again but goodness what a wonderful messy thing L has going on there). And still the washing machine bugged me, I couldn't help it. I thought for the longest time it was some kind of absurd joke headcanon popular in the DN fandom and I liked it a lot more as such xD

I don't like to dismiss completely File no. 15 though! I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion (pseudo ☕), but I love that L visits museums and likes art, and that he enjoys going to the park at times, and maybe I'm biased due to my background, but I adore and find so thought inspiring that he finished the demonstration in his first case with "Q.E.D."! The message is long again (with the new limitless asks it's easy to get carried away), but I wanted to add some positive things. I didn't mean to sound so bitter and negative in the other messages, sorry about that.

May I ask what are some of your own unpopular opinions? You don't have to reply, of course.

Oh, I didn't know the asks became limitless recently 😆 No worries, you didn't sound bitter! I tend to like being a bit critical or negative as a way of analyzing or attempting to discuss stuff honestly as well, and that's bound to happen in unpopular opinion sharing. I think it's valid to still be bothered by those things in the HTR13. I was just explaining how much I prioritize it or let it affect my feelings personally when it comes to my own interpretations of things.

Oh man, I haven't thought about my own unpopular opinions in a long time! But I think I made a list of them once in an ask I received way back in the day... I'll copy some here and then add some others, too.

I hope I don't offend anyone with these opinions, I'm not saying these are objectively true or anything but my own subjective takes, but

Some Unpopular Opinions:

-I think Misa is a worse person than Light and would rather hang out with him and be friends with him than with her. This is mostly because of how differently he acted upon losing his memories whereas she stayed almost exactly the same.

-I strongly prefer the manga to the anime because I think it's better written, more consistent, funnier, prettier, and more in-depth with all the characters and themes. I love stuff about the anime like the music, but I don't think the changes the anime made to L such as seemingly giving him regretful emotions before his death and little flashbacks to his past were automatically improvements on his manga self. I think he was far more original and complex as a character without that other stuff added in

-I LOVE LIGHT YAGAMI and can’t comprehend not loving him because he’s such a good character. Roasting him is always fun, but just straight up hating on him with no sense of humour about it is boring to me

-L is probably my all-time fave character but at the same time I think he can get a bit boring after a while if he isn’t fleshed out more in shippy fanfics and things. I love it when people give him a backstory and an interesting life in fics that go in-depth, because otherwise he can be left too much of a question mark

-Lawlight is both my favourite ship and also something I find a little overrated in the fandom at times. I think it's a really entertaining ship as an uncertain one full of tension and mind-games, but when it comes to actually putting them into a secure and loving relationship I end up getting easily bored by it

-sometimes I think Wammy's is overrated in the fandom compared to the other interesting characters and stuff in the series as well. I would love to see a little more exploration of the task force and SPK and mafia and such instead

-I think Higuchi was actually pretty nice to Misa on their date and the only thing that was awkward was that he lunged at her a little in the car when he got excited, lol

-I love Kiyomi and think it’s so silly to hate on her just because she killed Mello, he kidnapped her and made her strip at gunpoint first. I also think she gets blamed more harshly for things the guys also do sometimes, both by the characters in the story and by fans

-I don't believe Matsuda is as much of a pure cinnamon roll as some people seem to think, but he's more interesting with that darker side included in his characterization too

-I LOVE NEAR and think he’s so funny, and one of the most three-dimensional characters in the manga

-I think it was a good story choice that L died when he did and that he wasn't the final one in the warehouse showdown (though if I had only watched the anime that probably wouldn't be the case)

-I like that the story says that all the characters go to MU no matter what they do. I don't see it as just an edgy nihilistic thing which we should pretend isn't part of the story due to being too depressing to think about. In my opinion it's important to include it because it forces the audience to draw their own conclusions about the actions we see onscreen, and who we choose to sympathize with or condemn. If there was some sort of afterlife consequences based on the characters' morality it would easily become way too weirdly preachy or annoyingly nonsensical for me. And I respect how permanent the character deaths are because it would weaken the dramatic stakes and lessen the tension a lot if characters could arbitrarily come back from the dead

[gaycey-sketchit]

(Gary anon) For something that has 1000+ episodes and going, it feels like something you have plan and set up goalposts for because you can't binge it in a day or even a week. (Maybe one series, but not the full anime) Trace is just an unfortunate character all around. (Not because bad things happen to him, but just being in Blue's spot meant he had big shoes to follow) It's par for the course, it's very easy to make judgements on things you don't fully understand. But it's a whole

.

(Part 2) other thing when you try to be a "information booth" about it. (Will say it's led to the funniest of material) Definitely prefer how this era of Pokemon fandom characterizes game!Red. Even with Blue nearby, pre-Gen 7 Red was hard to get invested in. (We're in a better time where we could get something like now, not just in Pokemon. Always felt that just because a character isn't the most verbal doesn't mean they lack a personality nor can't their feelings be conveyed to the)

(Part 3) (audience. You're missing out on a world not working with this limit) All those traits in the span of 4 episodes was enough make Origins Blue not feel like a 1-dimensional bully and expand how people viewed from the original games. (There's also how the fandom ACTS just mentioning her name; if she is to return, I know there's going to be complaints regardless. And begging for another [unrealistic] appearance) I think it lies more in the execution, plus the 'rules' that the

(Part 4) anime set up in that world. For catching something as big as Suicune [or even a Shiny], I don't blame some for feeling that it felt lackluster. Or less grand than some of his other captures. (Most trainers that used legendaries were adults and were in high-ranking positions or just generally strong battlers. When we're talking that, it's hard to put Goh in that same category) Plus, with Suicune and Eternatus, they were weakened by something else for Goh to capture them;

(Part 5) rather than him pulling most of the weight. (If he is to catch Mew, the PM team all ganging on Mew and Goh doing this again is going to leave a similar effect than Goh doing it by himself [or leading the charge]. That's my 2 cents.) Hopefully Suicune's presence doesn't overshadow Yamper, it hasn't been the focus for a long time. (Yeah, saw some great pieces this week)

Yeah, there is... so much Pokemon. It really brings to mind what TVTropes calls "archive panic". And I only actually missed BW-SM (rewatching everything else would pretty much just be for additional fun), I can't imagine what it would be like to be a person who's actually new to Pokeani and wants to get caught up at this point in time. (It's a good thing it's easy enough to jump into basically wherever that that's optional--and it seems like Journeys in particular was written to be easily accessible for newcomers, especially with its fairly self-contained early episodes before the plot fully kicked into gear.)

Yeah. I mean, he's a sweet kid and I like him, and I can see how they might've intended him to be sort of a foil to Blue, but... Blue is one of the most iconic rivals in the games and a tough act to follow. And a lot of people in this fandom don't exactly like friendly rivals much. (Though I personally think they're fine, except for the criminally boring group of them in XY, and my only real problem with nice rivals is I feel bad for the plot-mandated pummeling them repeatedly.)

Definitely. I do like how at this point nobody really listens to the moral guardians (who are just met with derision) or Farla (whose brutal criticisms of any Pokemon fanfic posted in January are mostly disregarded, and a lot of people seem to find her writing either dull or off-putting).

Same!! The common fanon portrayal of Red is so much more enjoyable now. He's so fun, the fandom not taking him so seriously now (there are so many very funny comics about he and Blue's time in Alola) is great. I am grateful to Game Freak for many things but showing us Red and Blue all grown up and probably on their honeymoon in Alola is a definite standout. (Also I'm fond of how Masters depicts Red as not so stoic; he still speaks in ellipses (except that one time) and all his voice lines are little vocalizations, but he smiles more and it's very nice to see him looking happy.)

Yeah, glad to be living in a slightly less ableist time. I hear The Shape of Water is a movie with a nonverbal protagonist who uses a sign language (I think ASL, but I'm not 100% sure). Been meaning to watch that one for ages because it sounds awesome. I do wish Pokemon had more... clearly deliberate disability representation all around, though. I'd like to hope for that someday. (And also yeah, nonverbal characters can definitely have plenty of personality and communicate it in other ways--most versions of LOZ's Link don't speak much or at all, and at least from Wind Waker onward they all have their own distinct and lovable personalities regardless.)

The fact that Blue being an enjoyable character wasn't even impeded by how short Origins was, that in that short span the writers managed to give him enough moments to make him a more fleshed out and endearing character, is amazing. (Also love that to this day, sometimes you'll see fanfic portrayals of game!Blue where he's afraid of ghosts. That scene really stuck with NamelessShipping enjoyers.)

Yeah, Serena sure is a character people are... very passionate about. It's wild. Whatever happens regarding her return, I am nervous for how the fandom will react. Whatever happens will probably set some portion of the fandom on fire.

Fair, there definitely could've been a better setup/execution regarding the whole situation. I appreciate that it seems like the intention the writers had was for him to earn Suicune's respect by helping defend it from poachers, at least--even if how it was all executed... could've been better. (Though I've only actually watched that episode like once or twice, a pretty long time ago, and I can't say I remember it very well.)

Hopefully the Mew thing will pan out well--the leadup is very exciting and I really want Goh's story to conclude in a satisfying way.

Hopefully, Yamper deserves some spotlight. Love that little guy.

There has been so much good PalletShipping! I need to seek out the stuff that didn't make it onto my Twitter TL. Really need to check AO3, I know fanfic never gets much traction on Twitter.