#i might be using the term Anti-Hero wrong

[starppleb]

I need more Danny ‘No more hero’ Phantom, so here I will be reasoning why he’s an Anti-Hero (in Dp x Dc prompt)

Danny doesn't see Death as the worst thing. He's too familiar with it (He is Death).

Sometimes it's better than 'living'. It's like a 'new beginning', a chance to let go like he tried to he did.

He left hero things with everything in his hometown. Where no matter what, he's been The Villain, The ghost, the menace. 

People Humans only see in him what he did while being mind-controlled or forced to. Not that he saves them every day. They are afraid of him, of his power. 

Just how are people still like Superman and other heroes who are more powerful than regular humans? They get mind-controlled and forced to be evil sometimes too.

That isn't fair. 

And while They chose to save other people's asses because they wanted to, Danny didn't have a choice, if he didn't step in, the town would be destroyed in days. 

He hoped that his parents Fentons would finally realize why ghosts were coming into town, but they just blamed Ghost Boy for all of the wrongdoings and never considered they were wrong. 

So after 2 and a half years of hope, he burned out and just destroyed the portal, cleared out all of the ectoplasm, and left.

Now if ghosts wanted to 'visit' living they needed to go to Danny and personally ask.

This means no more Technus 'I will take over the world' and Emder 'I will make everyone love my music by mind-control', and just Technus 'I'll only check new tech stuff' and Ember 'I'll hang out with Kitty in the park and play some guitar', of course in more human form.

Danny himself decided to stick around Gotham because one - Bats are interesting, and two - ectoplasm (which he tries to clear out, at least a little bit). 

So now he messes with Bats and humans while he's Anti-Hero - Phantom.

And gets yelled at by people at Batburger while he's a regular worker - Danny Nightingale. 

But what will the Justice League do when Phantom will save the world from some big bad ghost with impressive ease, and just leave…

That powerful being is not just some generic troublemaker in the streets of Gotham.

He's the end and sawing of the world (and Infinite Realms). 

[goodqueenaly]

How do you think Melisandre will react when she discovers that Stannis isn't actually Azor Ahai reborn? What about the Queen's Men?

Perhaps the better question to ask - although it might amount to about the same thing - is what Melisandre and the Queen’s men (not to mention Selyse herself, and Shireen) will do as TWOW opens - namely, in light of both the bombshell news (or purported news) from the pink letter that Stannis is (again, supposedly) dead, as well as the assassination of Jon. If, as Ramsay’s letter to Jon so bluntly asserted, Ramsay had slain Stannis after seven days of battle, then the hopes of both Melisandre and the Queen’s men might seem, perhaps to use an apt turn of phrase, snuffed out: Stannis obviously could not be the hero chosen by R’hllor to save the world if he was already dead, and at the hands of so mundane and temporal an enemy as Roose Bolton’s bastard son. That Stannis isn’t in fact dead, as I very much believe is the case, does not really matter; so far as anyone at the Wall knows, the would-be apocalyptic champion of the Lord of Light is currently lying dead in the snows around Winterfell.

Melisandre, in her sole chapter, had already faced the trouble of vague portentous guidance on Stannis as Azor Ahai. More to the point, Melisandre had also already received at least some indication via her fiery visions that the identity of Azor Ahai was indisputably linked to Jon Snow. Consequently, I think she may realize or believe she now understands, as TWOW opens, that she had been focusing on the wrong person as Azor Ahai. Stannis was clearly not “the Lord’s chosen, the warrior of fire”, as she put it to Davos, since the apocalypse was still nigh; clearly, what R’hllor was trying to tell her was that the person to look for was Jon. Now, the fact that Jon had also recently been killed may not seem as big a stumbling block to Melisandre as it might objectively, in terms of the identity of a universal savior; Melisandre may not have ever brought anyone back from the dead (so far as we know), but as Thoros and Moqorro demonstrate, the ability of R’hllor’s priests (and presumably priestesses) to defy even death in the name of their god is a substantial power indeed. I have a feeling Melisandre is going to move quickly to return Jon to the land of the living via her fire magic (with the unconscious bonus, perhaps, of having Jon’s “soul” still be preserved in his wolf in the interim).

As far as the queen’s men go, the death of Stannis may seem more like a political tragedy than a cosmic one. The true devotion of the queen’s men to R’hllor is a mixed bag: some truly converts to the new religion (like young Devan Seaworth), some devoted only for the cruelty the exercise of that religion allows (like Clayton Suggs), and some converts only in name (like the late Alester Florent). However, whether or not any given pro-Stannis aristocrat at the Wall feels a sense of cosmological devastation at the news of Stannis’ (supposed) death, all of them would know that their political prospects were now far from certain. In the patriarchal, misogynistic world of Westerosi politics generally, a preteen girl might have a very hard time asserting herself as queen in her own right; as a result, the queen’s men at the Wall might be pretty uncertain about what to do without the strong male warrior-king figure of Stannis behind whom they could rally.

And of course, that’s without the immediate problems at the Wall overtaking them all as well. Jon’s assassination was the acme of a chaotic day at the Wall: not only had Jon dropped his bombshell news regarding the letter from Ramsay, his planned march on Winterfell, and the planned mission to Hardhome, but Ser Patrek had taken the opportunity to challenge Wun Wun the giant to seize Val - which ended about as much as anyone might have expected. With Jon murdered out in the open, the Wall is going to be, to put it bluntly, a mess: anti-Jon conspirators with his blood quite literally still on their hands, pro-Jon brothers potentially retaliating against those conspirators, queen’s men rushing about to rescue and/or avenge Ser Patrek from Wun Wun, free folk realizing that their pseudo-leader at the Wall is now dead. Any questions of Stannis’ death, and the apparent failure of him to be Azor Ahai, may be subsumed in something like a miniature civil war breaking out at the Wall, and them being caught in it.

[velvetvexations]

This is an edited version of something I posted to r/DaystromInstitute, a Star Trek sub. I'm proud of it and, having deleted my account, want to preserve it here.

Dukat is a fantastic example of Narcissitic Personality Disorder

I'm an individual with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It's very, extremely frustrating to see people claim everyone from Dolores Umbridge to Donald Trump also have NPD because they're like, just the worst. NPD doesn't mean "selfish", or "controlling", or even "self-absorbed", and certainly is not a synonym for abusive, despite all the self-help books that say sniping a narcissist who came within eight hundred yards of you is legally permissible under Stand Your Ground laws.

You might expect me to not be so appreciative of Dukat, who is, after all, a pretty horrible person. I actually have a worse opinion of Dukat's supposed nobility than many, as fairly often the fandom prefers to back the idea that he really was a misguided anti-villain who only succumbed to devil-worshipping when the writers assassinated his character.

Well, unfortunately, it's harder to recognize authentic NPD traits in heroes, and "recognize" is a term I use loosely, since most writers certainly didn't have NPD in mind at all. Nonetheless, I love Dukat because he exemplifies a nuanced, if not overly flattering, portrayal of a personality disorder that actual human beings deal with, and 99% of the time is just flattened into a thing you call people you don't like.

As a child, one thing that did a lot to mitigate the more negative social aspects of NPD was having it imprinted on my brain by anime and video games that being a Hero and as good as possible was the best thing to be. While praise and attention in general does scratch a powerful itch too, once my child-self internalized the values of the media I consumed - helped along by also being autistic - the standard for which I judged myself was set. I would literally cry if I accidentally picked up dark side points in a Star Wars game.

I think Dukat went through a similar process. Not all narcissists cling to a model centering morality, but Dukat, for one reason or another, did. He sincerely believes everything he does is altruistic and fair, and more than that, he wants to be altruistic and fair, having misidentified the origin of his cravings.

Another thing that helped me a lot growing up was a book called The Screwtape Letters. If you're unfamiliar, it's by CS Lewis and is presented as a series of letters from a high-ranked demon to his nephew, who works as essentially a shoulder devil attempting to guide his patient into sin and disconnection from God. I feel like Lewis would probably be annoyed with me not getting anything properly Christian out of it, but it is an amazing manual for teaching you how to examine your own thinking and subconscious impulses. It started me down a path of being very self-aware, which made it easier to navigate NPD, because I'm incapable of tolerating the flaws in my internal logic that I'm able to catch. If I may be excused for saying so, I think I do a decent job on that count, with the downside that I'm often far too hyper-critical and it results in regular anxiety.

But Dukat never learned that skill. As a result, his attempted nobility clashes with his other competing impulses, and all his actions are reinforced, rather than rejected, by his conscious, which his NPD assures him is being followed to the letter. As Lewis said:

The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the Inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.

Dukat's inner struggle is fueled by the need to be a revered benefactor while also having served at the head of the bastard offspring of the Iraq War and Holocaust. His solution at the time was to make it more like the Second Boer War, the conflict that originally popularized the term "concentration camp" despite the fact that those concentration camps weren't even meant to eliminate the thousands that were killed in them.

DUKAT: So in my first official act as Prefect, I ordered all labour camp commanders to reduce their output quotas by fifty percent. Then I reorganized the camps themselves. Child labour was abolished. Medical care was improved. Food rations were increased. At the end of one month of my administration, the death rate had dropped by twenty percent. Now how did the Bajorans react to all this? On my one month anniversary they blew up an orbital dry-dock, killing over two hundred Cardassian soldiers and workers. "KIRA": We didn't want a reconciliation. We wanted to destroy you. DUKAT: So I had to order a response. But even then it was a carefully tempered one. I ordered two hundred suspected members of the Resistance rounded up and executed. Two hundred lives for two hundred lives. That's justice, not malevolence. Justice.

Throughout the episode the Kira hallucination embodies the disrespected and ingratitude he feels he gets for being "nice". Cardassian values, attitudes, and objectives came first. Dukat, however, was smart enough to understand some of what was being done to Bajor was wrong, but not quite able to tear himself away from his own identity as a Cardassian and the protagonist of the universe. That was just too much to totally upend, as would be required to fully comprehend the reality of the situation.

So he tries, in his own way. Because he wants to be a good guy, the hero, the main character, and he truly believes that he is. Unfortunately, it remains pointed solidly in the direction of his own ego. He's unable to recognize that to err is Cardassian, but repentance divine, because he's already invested in so much. His identity as a Cardassian, his own past actions, his impulsive grabs for power, and being convinced he's such a good man shields him from thinking critically because it would necessarily mean criticizing himself. Dukat can only truly appreciate that he's made mistakes when it makes him feel like he's being the bigger man willing to compromise and graciously admit fault, but he was in charge of the Occupation for twenty years. It's hard to walk back from that.

And I should know, because even understanding I'm the one at fault, it's pulling teeth to force myself through accepting I did wrong, much less admitting it to someone else. I don't want to be someone who fucked up, no matter how minor. Pulling teeth. Quite a lot of NPD can be described that way, in fact. While half-brained wannabee psychologists present narcissists as being sociopathic manipulators who skillfully terrorize those around them, most of NPD is horrible, chest-thumping anxiety. It's not fun at all to want to break my controller in half every single time I get got in a game of Splatoon, even when the round is far from over.

Most Cardassians involved with the Occupation seemed to be either outright monsters or falling under the "banality of evil", like Damar. They considered the Bajorans as, at best, a bunch of backwards hicks who needed to shut up and listen to their betters. Dukat, though, fetishized Bajor and the Bajorans themselves, as quite creepily seen in his string of Bajoran lovers and his dogged pursuit of Kira throughout the show (which horrifically took Nana Visitor putting her foot down to keep from being canon!). He pursed his tenure as head of the Occupation with the zeal of someone who truly wanted his subjects to see he was doing all this for their own good.

The Dominion and most other Cardassians don't give a fuck if your subjects like you except insofar as it's convenient and makes them less likely to rebel. That's the Dominion's whole thing, they just want control, and if the carrot doesn't work they'll shrug and without a hint of emotion give you the stick. It doesn't matter to them how they're in charge as long as they are. When Dukat makes his point about having only executed two-hundred (suspected!) members of the Resistance, the Weyoun hallucination comments:

"WEYOUN": The Dominion would never have been so generous.

It's telling that Dukat is fixated on the contrast between him and the people he allied with enough for it to show up in his breakdown. Just a little before that, Dukat says:

DUKAT: Major Kira knows full well I made every effort to heal the wounds between Cardassia and Bajor. Since the very beginning it was my intention to rectify the mistakes of the past and begin a new chapter in our relations.

Dukat is capable of saying, vaguely, abstractly, "mistakes were made", but it infuriates and honestly baffles him that it's not enough for him to be recognized as the most brilliant and loving extraterrestrial patriarch the Bajorans could ever wish for. In an earlier episode, he has this conversation with (the real) Weyoun:

WEYOUN: If you ask me, the key to holding the Federation is Earth. If there's going to be an organized resistance against us, its birthplace will be there. DUKAT: You could be right. WEYOUN: Then our first step is be to eradicate its population. It's the only way. DUKAT: You can't do that. WEYOUN: Why not? DUKAT: Because! A true victory is to make your enemy see they were wrong to oppose you in the first place. To force them to acknowledge your greatness. WEYOUN: Then you kill them? DUKAT: Only if it's necessary. WEYOUN: I had no idea. DUKAT: Perhaps the biggest disappointment in my life is that the Bajoran people still refuse to appreciate how lucky they were to have me as their liberator. I protected them in so many ways, cared for them as if they were my own children. But to this day, is there a single statue of me on Bajor? WEYOUN: I would guess not. DUKAT: And you'd be right. Take Captain Sisko, an otherwise intelligent, perceptive man. Even he refuses to grant me the respect I deserve.

Weyoun ends the scene laughing at Dukat. Because he was just advocating they exterminate all life on Earth, and yet he's amazed, truly stunned by how crackers Dukat is. The sheer depths of Dukat's psychological need for validation is as clinically fascinating to Weyoun as it is to the audience.

As it is to me, anyway. Like Narcissus and his pool, I peer into Dukat and see myself. Unsurprisingly, he's one of my favorite characters.

[chickenleafs-world]

Rewatching the original animated X-men series in preparation for 97, so of course I’ve also been seeing a lot of X-men posts. And, as always, I have strong opinions on what people on the internet say. Most of the time those opinions are “how did these people read/watch X-men growing up and not get that they’re the villains” because people are being bigots and are upset that their favorite heroes aren’t. But sometimes I’m stuck being frustratingly close to agreeing and my strong opinions are much harder to voice. In part because you don’t want to walk into the Discourse Landmine, but also in part because there’s so much to go over on the take.

Case in point: the “Magneto is right, Xavier is wrong” take, where my main problem with people is more the lack of nuance than the base take. And I know most of the people saying it are also doing it in part as a joke and get the nuance is there, but it still irks me.

Let’s be clear, in general, Magneto is not right, but he isn’t wrong either. Xavier isn’t wrong, but he isn’t right either. Obviously it’s partly dependent on whoever is writing at the moment, but also depending on which individual take of Magneto’s or Xavier’s you’re talking about. Yes, sometimes Xavier is frustratingly, harmfully liberal. Yes, sometimes Erik is doing the best possible for mutant well being. But there’s a lot of wiggle room with individual portrayals, and I think Xavier deserves justice for it. I’m not saying Magneto is just a villain, Stan Lee himself didn’t see him as such, but depending on the writers he can certainly be wrong.

Xavier is wrong when he focuses just on mutants with “useful” powers or conventionally attractive and human looks. He’s wrong when he puts the safety of bigots over the safety of the mutants they’re oppressing. He’s wrong when his only way of helping mutants is through the system. He’s wrong when he’s sending the X-men out to fight mutants more than bigots. He’s wrong when he hides he’s a mutant to avoid the stigma, even when the reveal would help solidarity and public trust. He’s wrong a lot.

But Xavier is right when he focuses on teaching mutants to love themselves and teaches them to control their powers and use them for good. He’s right when he says mutants and non-mutants can live in harmony. He’s right when he send the X-men out to destroy government/private property that’s being used to hurt mutants. He’s right when he takes out all his students, “attractive” or not, to speak up for mutant rights. He’s right when he sends the X-men to break innocent mutants out of prison/jail/unlawful containment. He’s right when he opens his institute to all mutants, so they have a safe place to go to. He’s right when he gives X-men choice and training for hard experiences, be it the choice to hide their powers or be open with them, to break out of jail/avoid arrest, or wait and go through an unfair trial for the sake of mutant visibility and legal precedent. He’s right when he finds places like the institute around the world. He’s right when he himself is on good terms with Magneto and works with him when it’s necessary for mutant good.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of writers put Professor X as a filthy liberal. It sucks. Focuses on performative acts, letting fascists take ground for the sake of “civility,” and putting minorities at risk for the sake of optics, those are all bad. But sometimes liberal acts can be tools in the tool box. Voting isn’t gonna solve shit, but it can make it go downhill slower. Putting gay people in media isn’t going to end homophobia, but it will normalize gay people. Testifying before Congress for mutant rights might not be the flashiest or most effective way to get mutants’ rights, but it is a way to advance public opinion and slow anti-mutant laws. Just that isn’t good enough to beat the liberal accusations, but combined with the actions of some incarnations it genuinely changes their context. We can’t ignore all the times that Xavier has actively sent the X-men out to break laws and destroy government property for the sake of mutant well being. As much as we joke about the X-men being liberals, they usually aren’t afraid to break laws, break property, and raise hell for the sake of their people. And don’t forget that lot’s of “peaceful” acts of protest still cause disruption and still make a difference, even when it seems liberal on the surface, and can be organized by genuinely leftist people. Lots of Professor X’s portrayals could be genuinely leftist.

Likewise, Magneto is right a lot. He’s right when he says mutants shouldn’t be forced to stay in places where they’re being violently persecuted. He’s right when he advocates mutants fight back when bigots attack instead of just taking it. He’s right when he takes in mutants despite how palatable or useful they are. He’s right to actively fight fascists rising to exterminate his people. He’s right when he gives no fucks about the law when it comes to protecting minorities. He’s right when he creates a safe haven for mutants.

But boy, Magneto is also wrong a lot. He’s wrong when he says mutants and non-mutants can’t live together. He’s wrong when he says non-mutants are inferior. He’s wrong when he gets upset at mutants for wanting to live in harmony with humans. He’s wrong when he invalidates mutants who are upset with where being a mutant has gotten them, without helping them through the complicated feelings it brings. He’s wrong when he frames the X-men, a fellow mutant group, for his crimes. He’s wrong when he says mutants should exterminate non-mutants. He’s wrong when he thinks a mutant ethnostate is the end-all-be-all of mutant rights.

Erik is the kind of antagonist you get. He’s right on a lot of things. He has a lot of emotional appeal. As a (let’s be honest, gay) Jewish holocaust survivor, you know he’s coming from experience with his tactics. He genuinely doesn’t hate Xavier in most incarnations. But that doesn’t mean that in the incarnations where he literally calls for genocide, he should be let off the hook. Violence and resistance are important to most leftists movements, or even just mildly progressive ones. Be it a civil war to end US slavery, the riots at Stonewall, slave rebellions, or any number of revolutionary wars, sometimes active violence is necessary to stop the passive violence that minorities go through while oppressed. At the same time, it’s a fundamentally leftist ideal to believe in rehabilitation and the importance of people changing. And it’s also important to remember that genocide is bad no matter who’s doing it. Letting the genocidal versions of Magneto off the hook because it was “for mutants” is the same logic that lets Israel get away with how it treats Palestine.

I know that’s a lot of rambling to say something a lot of people already know, but as much as I love the “magneto was right” memes and the posts making fun of liberal X-men, I don’t want the genuinely leftists parts of the X-men to go unappreciated, nor the genuinely harmful parts of Magneto’s ideology excused.

[glade-constellation]

October Takeover is finally over again, an it’t time for me to give my take on the video.

First, I’m gonna talk about LAES real quick. I like that Castor and Pollux seem to be slowly going to Lunar and Earth’s side. Castor is actually helping Lunar with his powers, which is really going to help Lunar get in control of them. I’m suspecting there might actually be a fight between the Celestials in the future over if they’re going to keep Lunar alive or not. Some of the Celestials don’t actually seem like they hate Lunar, they just hate that Lunar has powers like them.

Next, the Eclipses. I’m actually really happy Nice Eclipse is choosing another name. There are way too many Eclipses in this show. I feel bad that he decided to do it because he feels the name is tainted, but it’s going to help differentiate him as a character now. I’m probably still going to stick with calling Ruin Eclipse Ruin to help differentiate him. I love him, and I’m so very much hoping that this isn’t an act on his part. I really hope this is the real Ruin. I just wanna like, hold him lmao. He’s so confused but he’s trying his best, and he’s so nice. I do wonder about the monitor though, and if Ruin can decipher what the Virus left on it. I’m wondering if something on it may help with the Stitchwraith situation. I’d feel like whatever was left on it was still important, as the show took the time to point out that Ruin can still see and understand it.

Last, I’m going to start with Bloodmoon, because I’m going to go into some heavier topics when talking about them. I’m really hoping they redeem them. Not even add him to the “good guys”, just give them a redemption arc. Maybe an anti-hero role. Don’t kill them off. I’m so tired of the narrative of “this trauma survivor came out ‘wrong’ so they have to die”. Do you see how fucking messed up that is? To say that someone couldn’t “heal correctly” from trauma and the only “cure” is death? Fuck no. It’s disgusting. I already had to watch it happen with Eclipse and I’m going to be fucking livid if I have to watch it happen again. Bloodmoon, since first coming online, has been used as a tool to farther other people’s goals. No one has actually cared for those two except for themselves. Coming to terms with that shit will absolutely fuck up your brain. This is coming from someone who went through something similar. When Bloodmoon screamed “FREEDOM” and ran from the situation? I understood what they were feeling in that moment. I’m really, truly hoping that Nice Eclipse continues to help them past what he already did. Bloodmoon deserves a chance to know what the words “freedom” and “family” actually mean.

[saintsenara]

What do you like about Voldemort/Tom Riddle as a character? What elements of the character do you find fascinating?

thank you so much for this ask, @sarafina-sincerity

i have received a flurry of asks about my main boy, lord voldemort, which form a neat triad, so this is part one of a three part meta on him:

1. what is interesting about voldemort's role in the series? 2. how do i write voldemort in my own work, and why? [here] 3. what does dumbledore get wrong about voldemort? [here]

so here we go!

what is interesting about voldemort's role in the series?

let's dive in under the cut:

my general principle as a reader, both in fanfiction and original fiction, is that villains are more interesting than heroes.

i prefer the complexity of characters the audience isn't supposed to root for, and i enjoy the confrontation of realising that people who are capable of astonishing brutality and evil are also simultaneously capable of beauty.

[one of the most heart-breaking passages in literature, in my opinion, is humbert humbert’s final encounter with lolita, in which the reader is forced to sit with the fact that a violent, sadistic, and dangerous paedophile is also a creature hollowed by grief and loss, and that they feel nauseatingly sorry for him.]

the canonical voldemort’s complexity in these aspects isn’t entirely drawn out in the narrative - although voldemort’s own struggle with anger, grief, and loss is discussed in detail in the third part of this series of meta - but thinking of him in these terms provides something that i think is of considerable value to me as an author.

as might be hinted at by the nabokov, my favourite subgenre of original fiction is undoubtedly the american literature of the mid-twentieth century, for its portrayal of the sinister ennui which lurks under the quaint picture-postcard of the american dream life. the authors i feel speak most profoundly to this apart from nabokov are shirley jackson and - and i recommend this enormously not as pulp fiction but as a sincerely raw look at the america of the 1940s and 1950s - jacqueline susann’s valley of the dolls. voldemort has a lot in common with jackson and susann’s famous anti-heroines - he has the jealous, isolated relationship with family and lineage of merricat blackwood; and the childhood trauma leading to obsession, manipulation, and greed of neely o’hara.

all of which is to say, he's a character whose complexity can be used to challenge the reader, to force them to have to sit uncomfortably with their own views and biases [the fact that he’s a self-hating sectarian terrorist has always hit me like a body-blow, given that i live in northern ireland…], and to provide a window into the broader commentary on the world of the story [and the world of the author].

voldemort as a narrative tool

indeed, voldemort is the character who most interestingly straddles the harry potter series’ various different genres and their subtypes - no mean feat, given that the difficulty of reconciling these separate genres is what drives many fans’ complaints about plot-holes in the series.

after all, the series literally wouldn’t function as children’s literature without him - in the first two books, he provides that scooby-doo villain-turns-up-in-disguise-at-the-end flavour which drives the narrative and allows harry to conform to his own children’s lit archetype of the wise-cracking everyman hero who's constantly getting into wacky mysteries.

but voldemort is, of course, at his most interesting after the books undergo their tonal shift following the conclusion of prisoner of azkaban:

he's the series’ most significant and most complex character within the genre conventions it borrows from noir and political thrillers. in goblet of fire, we get the hint of him as a paramilitary kingpin, whose supporters wished to incite terror among any members of the wizarding population who didn't support blood-supremacy and who targeted state institutions and political figureheads who stood in their way. voldemort’s own hypocrisy - he's a supposed pureblood champion despite not being pureblood himself, although his anti-muggle views are undoubtedly sincere - serves as a concentrated metaphor for the ministry’s corruption, which harry uncovers throughout this book.

he's the series’ most interesting folkloric archetype - the fate-driven hunter-villain, whose belief in the mystical value of the prophecy [within a series in which all the other characters - except harry, who we’ll come to below - are surprisingly rational... for people who can do magic] drives the series towards its conclusion. it's impossible for harry to go on his hero’s journey without voldemort - and given that many of the other characters fit more obliquely into their folkloric archetypes [ron is very different from many folkloric sidekicks - the boy is no samwise gamgee - and hermione’s folkloric archetype is closest to the non-human gift given to the hero by a donor-figure], this aspect of the narrative depends on voldemort entirely.

he is, perhaps, one of the less interesting characters within the series’ purpose as christian allegory [the award for the character this applies to most interestingly, for me at least, is either dumbledore - the word of god revealed in a twist to be the john the baptist - or snape - the paul who thinks he’s a judas], since he's the satan allegory. the catholic-coded nature of many of his behaviours, however, does fascinate me, and contribute to my headcanon - discussed in the next meta - that he's raised in a church orphanage.

and voldemort's usefulness within these narrative confines changes many of the other characters, in ways which move them beyond genre archetypes which might otherwise not allow them to grow as the narrative tonally shifts [a fate which befalls hagrid, who cannot stand up to the nuancing of harry’s character as he goes on his hero’s journey]. dumbledore’s similarities to voldemort, for example, hint at the reversal of his omniscience and infallibility before deathly hallows hits; snape’s relationship with voldemort as a terrorist leader, and particularly what voldemort’s terror says about the social structure of the wizarding world, provides an explanation for his actions which is more complex than "tee hee, mudblood", and which gives the reader a space to think about how deprivation drives radicalisation in our own communities.

above all, voldemort’s narrative relationship with harry is fascinating - and not simply for shipping reasons - since, within a story which ends with harry in the guise of the resurrected christ and voldemort-as-satan dead and buried, they are never actually portrayed as black-and-white enemies. indeed, they're the only pair of narrative mirrors in the series whose relationship is portrayed not as diametric, but relational - the only two whose relationship is described as fraternal [something made explicit in their "brother" wand cores]; and the only two whose relationship is described - by a figure no less powerful than the prophecy itself - as equal.

that their shared backgrounds, their views of their own orphanhood, their relationship with their fathers, and their physical appearances are similar is lampshaded by several characters - not least both of them themselves. but the narrative actually goes deeper, drawing out ways in which their differences appear stark, but then loop back to become another similarity they share - their mothers come from opposing blood classes, but both form the key to understanding their characters; their wand woods are both associated with death and resurrection, albeit with different folkloric values of luck and purity attached to them; and voldemort is the series’ "true slytherin" and harry the series’ "true gryffindor", but they both have numerous personality traits connected to the other house.

in contrast, if we take the narrative mirrors of ron and draco malfoy, we find a pairing whose differences stem from similar attitudes and insecurities, but manifest themselves in ways which are polar - both serve the crucial narrative purpose of explaining the wizarding world to harry and, therefore, the reader, but ron exclusively shows its positive aspects and malfoy its more negative ones; their material circumstances are opposites; they both heavily physically resemble the rest of their family, but ron is one of many siblings and strains against that and malfoy is an only child and strains against that; and they are defined in the text by the diametrically opposed nature of their relationship with harry.

harry and voldemort, on the other hand, are defined by the divergence of their similarities - like their wands, they have the same core, but their choices affect them profoundly - and they are, therefore, the series’ clearest examples of the value of choice.

voldemort as a social mirror

i also think that voldemort’s childhood and background is one of the series’ most interesting looks at britain and its social dynamics, which i think many readers miss.

how i prefer to write voldemort’s childhood is discussed in the second part of this series of meta, but he provides - like hermione - a look at the profound irony of the class system [after all he's an aristocrat in both worlds - and an example of both types of aristocrat, the rich and snooty in their luxury manor and the impoverished clinging to a name and a lineage - who has no access to the social advantages this should bring because he was born in an orphanage in the muggle world and he has a muggle name and face in the wizarding one].

above all, voldemort spends the first six books of the series as the best cipher for how state brutality and corruption only begets more violence. his unusual tolerance of non-human magical creatures is at odds with the ministry’s benign oppression. his rejection of the patronage networks which sustain wizarding society [he rejects slughorn’s offer to set him up in the ministry because he wants a job he got himself, and good for him] only serves to emphasise that these still exist [the fact that voldemort would not want to rely on patronage canonically never occurs to dumbledore] - while his use of patronage networks for his own ends shows how easily structures considered to be "right" or "normal" can turn malign. his brilliance, but the fact that his name and background would clearly constrain him in an ordinary career, underlines the fate which befalls many characters, from snape to the weasleys. he has a complex relationship with gender in a series which otherwise doesn’t. the ministry’s reaction to him - particularly the suspension of due process in the trials of death eaters [a reference to operation demetrius, one of the british government’s most degrading extra-judicial decisions during the troubles] - deepens anti-government resentment, which - since the wizarding world is clearly not a democracy - has nowhere else to go but revolution.

voldemort causes himself, obviously, but the ministry enables him to exist, and this provides so many avenues in fanfiction to explore.

why we need fanon voldemort

this said, there are things which frustrate me about the canonical voldemort - and this drives many of the traits in my own writing of him which i'm completely aware do deviate from canon [my preferred characterisation of voldemort is addressed in the second part of this series of meta].

i dislike the portrayal of the canonical voldemort - or, at least, the canonical adult voldemort, the canonical teenage voldemort is more layered - as a sociopath, largely because i think it’s quite lazy writing to have a villain whose evil is caused by a [very rare] disorder, which is widely considered to be untreatable. in particular, this absolves the reader from noticing our own similarities to voldemort and considering how that challenges our own views and biases - as the enormous amount of "the class system is good, actually" in death-eater-centric writing shows...

above all, i loathe the argument that voldemort can’t feel love [i'm hopelessly wedded to the idea that he does love bellatrix, in his own little way], not least because it's an extremely cruel interpretation of what is clearly enormous childhood trauma [although the series’ weaknesses in its approach to that topic go far beyond voldemort], and because it fails to open space for a critical look at dumbledore’s own idea of love - that is, not as something which can be luxurious, pampering, and restorative to the self, but as something which depends on sorrow and sacrifice. i detest the fanon - which, i think it’s important to note, is based in something jkr never actually said - that voldemort’s conception is the cause of his attitude to love. i also think the way the text treats both tom riddle sr. - who is never acknowledged as a rape victim - and merope - who, if we take dumbledore’s implication that she could have survived voldemort’s birth at face value, directly justifies voldemort’s view on death by not bothering to stay alive for him - is horrifying.

i think the voldemort of deathly hallows is the weakest, not least because the fact that he's never shown in the previous six books to have an interest in running a government [he spends most of the early books as a paramilitary leader, not a dictator in waiting] means that he has to be shunted off in other directions when he takes control of one. 

and, with the greatest of respect to the wonderful ralph fiennes, who i’ve just paid a huge amount of money to go see in macbeth, the film version of voldemort is terrible. indeed, film!voldemort is the source of so many of the worst fanon readings of the character - especially the idea that he only knows one spell, that he’s insane [the statement of canon is that the creation of the horcruxes does nothing to damage his mental capacity, since the soul exists independently of our free will and rational thought], that he loves to shriek, that he isn’t very scary, and that he doesn’t come spectacularly close to winning.

up next, then, how do i write voldemort?

[9w1ft]

Being a gaylor/kaylor is hard. You speak the closest to truth and then Taylor proves you wrong by doing something opposite to please the hetties. Then you are called losers and liars. One thing for sure that Taylor doesn't care about Gaylors/Kaylors at all. She CONDONES the homophobia and bully towards us. Always has been. After the 1989 prologue, Travlor stunt, always in the past. And will do in future. Sometimes I feel like she hates us so bad and always throws us under the bus. I wonder why we are still here. There is nothing positive about being a gaylor. If she wants to stay extremely closeted and parade her bf as the straightest women alive, then what is the purpose of flagging just to prove us fool on a larger scale. Does our existence bother her?? It doesn't seem that she like us. I just wanted to know from someone experienced.

hm, i dunno. i’ve felt very loved by taylor and karlie!

i think so much of how one might feel is based upon self-imposed rules. if you change the way you expect taylor to act, or how you vocalize how you expect her to act, maybe 75% of the frustration one might have is resolved.

i think condone is a pretty strong word to impress upon taylor. i think people have all gone through enough cycles to see what taylor does and doesn’t do in reaction to fandom behavior but i think a lot of people refuse to ask themselves why she always acts the way that she does, and people also refuse to change the way they comport themselves, but still act the same way while expecting a change to come from taylor.

even in the way you wrote your anon, you’re making a lot of assumptions about why taylor does things, and i don’t mean it as a criticism of you personally. i understand why you write it out like that because i think it’s a popular way of thinking. but i think you’re setting yourself up here. for example, you describe a dynamic of taylor flagging and then taylor bearding. maybe she’s not queer flagging for us, maybe she’s just being herself! and bearding to compensate for that, because for some reason she doesn’t want to be out right now. i think a lot of people say taylor doing gay things is flagging because they’re trying to prove that she’s gay (umbrella term) or that she’s trying to tell everyone that she’s gay. that’s voluntarily setting a test up for people who have hate in their hearts to knock down.

i’m not talking in ideals here. in a vacuum, in an ideal scenario, there are things that would be more “right” or “just” or “fair” for taylor to do — i am just not so sure if it’s wise for people to keep trying the same things and expect different results. especially after songs like anti hero and dear reader were put out in the world. so i dunno, maybe try different things, or change the conditions of your own environment, etc. you have the power to tinker with your own experience of what is going on.

i don’t think this is kind advice for a perfect world and im sorry if i sound cold or heartless. sometimes it pains me to see people set themselves up to be angry so i’m just trying to be a little more practical with my response. i still think there are ways to make this all work for you or anyone personally, but i think it requires you the individual and not taylor to make changes. that’s a choice that’s ultimately up to you the individual to make.

i hope everyone can find a balance that works for them, or a pastime that is a better net positive for their life!

[seriousbrat]

hi this may be long so sorry in advance but

i always loved hp and when i got into the marauders i started caring about sirius, remus, and james more (peter hater till i die unfortunately i can’t get behind him) and like every marauders stan i despised despised severus, i thought that since he was in a known death eaters friend group and called muggle borns mudblood he was unredeemable. but then i saw more and more pro snape content and it made me feel bad for him, james bullied him (which i’m still not even sure if it was classified as bullying because james didnt have any power over him and it wasn’t even 1 vs 4 it was 1 vs 2 so i’d like to know your opinion on that as well) and he had an abusive parent, but then i saw snily shippers (i am a major jily shipper fyi) saying how james basically manipulated lily into marrying him by not telling her he still bullied snape, how the prank was the best thing to happen to james because their “fights” wouldn’t be seen as bullying but as a teen rivalry, how james was the rich boy who got everything he wanted and he got the poor girl as well, how it was him constantly asking lily out and her always saying no etcc, so ik this may sound stupid but i love ur takes like ur always sooooo fucking real so if u want to share your opinions on these like if u think any of these things are wrong 🙈 id be glad bc i dont know how to feel about severus and idk how to feel about jily either which is just making my small world inside of my head crumble bc i used to love them so much

Of course and thank you! First of all as I've been saying I don't think it's necessary or even really a good idea for us to base our preferences or interests in fiction with our moral beliefs. so we can accept that snape or james did bad things and still like them. Fiction gives us that freedom to delve into aspects of humanity that in real life we might try to avoid. So I don't think you should feel bad for liking james or severus or jily or whatever. Ok, that being said let's get into it:

First it's normal to feel sympathy for Severus, he's a sympathetic character in many respects! That's what makes a good anti-hero (or even villain. we're even supposed to feel sympathy for voldemort and barty crouch jr at certain points)

what james and the marauders did was definitely bullying. there's no way around that. you say james didn't have any power over him but he did; social power. You touched on economic class, which is a big factor, but James was a popular student and Sev was deeply unpopular. whether it was 1v4 or 1v2 or 1v1 doesn't really matter in terms of whether it was bullying, though tbh it was really 1vthe whole school because the spectators also participated in Sev's humiliation.

However, in my mind there's almost no way that Snape wasn't instigating just as much, possibly more, in seventh year. Like you think he was just going to sit around and accept that his worst enemy was dating Lily? lol. I tend to believe Sirius when he says that Sev "never lost an opportunity to curse James" like good for him get his ass. But I think it was definitely a different dynamic in 7th year than in 5th. there's this tendency to portray Sev as being a meek little helpless victim his whole life but personally I feel that's a disservice to his character-- this is the guy who invented sectumsempra 'for enemies' like three guesses who 'enemies' was.

re: jily, I really doubt that James manipulated Lily into anything, I think that's such an overdramatic reading lol. We don't know much about the way they got together-- although many fic writers have taken it upon themselves to fill in the gaps-- but everything points to them having been happy and in love, that clearly was the intention by the author. If James didn't tell her about duelling Snape that isn't great, but there are a lot of things that can be imperfect in a relationship without jumping to manipulation and abuse which require a specific pattern of behaviour that we have no evidence for. We also only have the external perspective of Sirius and Remus, which is likely incomplete.

(also James 'always asking Lily out' is fanon, we see him ask her out ONCE albeit spectacularly badly. it seems more likely to me that lily 'you make me SICK' evans simply saw james grow into someone she rly liked rather than gave in and gave in so fully that she married him bcause he was pressuring her. idk she didn't read like a pushover to me.)

So no need for world crumblage! It doesn't sound stupid at all, but I think it's important to keep in mind that we can enjoy fictional characters/relationships that aren't perfect, in fact those are the ones that I find more enjoyable. It's totally possible to be a fan of snape and james and jily and snily all at the same time, fandom tends to create conflicts or 'shipping wars' or whatever lol but idk if that's necessary. I don't see it as a moral debate or an either/or, I just find all the characters and the dynamics between them interesting.

For instance, you mentioned the class differences between Lily and James, and I always thought that was probably a point of contention in the relationship; but to me it's one that makes it more compelling to explore. Relationships irl are rarely perfect and evenly-matched from the start, they take work. Similarly people are never perfect- they learn and change and grow. James did, Snape definitely did. otherwise they would be boring and unrealistic as characters.

[anxresi]

GOD am I sick of this. (Watch Out, MAJOR Rant Ahead)

Why do Chloe haters (nearly) ALWAYS insist on using this tired old line to ‘win’ an argument?!

No-one (at least anyone I’M paying attention to) is saying Chloe should get away with her bullying because of her shitty parents.

We’re saying poor Chloe has been a victim of character assassination, sabotage, purposeful vandalism, ruination etc by the very person who created her! No... not her fictional dad or mom... but a certain real-life Frenchman by the name of Mr Thomas Astruc.

If you want a somewhat over-exaggerated parallel, it would be like Da Vinci painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa, Michaelangelo chopping David’s ‘bits’ off or Geppetto making Pinocchio into firewood (I say this because there’s been TWO movies about the lying puppet in the last year. Hint: don’t watch the Disney one).

It’s like... I can’t even debate these people, because they haven’t just got the wrong end of the stick, we’re not even in the same forest!

My point is to those somewhat disingenuous individuals, and let me be VERY blunt here, because I ain’t repeating myself... (clears throat): 

Chloe’s Character Writing Has Been The Worst I’ve Ever Seen In A Professional Cartoon Show. The Fact They Utterly Destroyed One Of The Few People In Miraculous With Any Potential For Serious Development For Growth And Basically Replaced Her With Another Girl Who’s Just As Blandly ‘Perfect’ As Most Of The Other Females Demonstrates How Utterly Lacking In Ambition, Creativity And Talent The Makers Truly Are. (As If The Glaring Lack Of Other Positive Attributes To The Show Isn’t Evidence Enough) The Only Reason You Use A Completely Manufactured And Different Scenario Than The Case I Put Forward As Your Lone Defence Proves You KNOW I’m 100% Right. THAT’S Why So Many People Are Defending Her... Not Because They Think She Should Get Away With Her Progressively More Ridiculous Misdemeanors Inserted Into The Scripts To Convince The Audience To Hate Her More And More, But Because We Recognize The Less-Than-Subtle Route The Writers Have Taken In The Last Few Seasons To DESTROY Her Character, Her Role, Her Agency And Any Hidden Depths Or Layers She Might Have. This Is A Girl Who LOVED Her Daddy, (Occasionally) Valued Her Best Friend, Adored Adrikins, Confessed How Inadequate She Felt In Front Of Her Idol Ladybug, Made A Heartfelt Apology To Her Teacher In An Emotional Hug (It Made Me Cry :,/ ), Made REAL STRIDES With Her Behavior In terms Of Being More Independent Towards The End Of S2, Had An Intriguing Relationship With Her Favorite Stuffed Bear Which Acted As Her Conscience, Was Setting Herself Up To Be An Efficient Anti-Hero With Questionable Loyalties... And All This Fascinating Narrative Was Left To ROT In Favor Of Turning Her Into The Most Boringly Generic Baddie In The Entire History Of The Show. WELL DONE, EVERYONE. Then To Add Insult To Injury, They Claim This Was The Plan All Along And Her Rapid Deterioration Into A Teenage Psycho From A Standard School Bully Is Some Kind Of Bizarre Statement On ‘How Some People Can Never Change’ Rather Than The Obnoxiously Terrible Piece Of Hackneyed Writing It Actually Was. Damnation Arc? A Fancy Title For Utter Bullsh*t That’s An Insult To Miraculous Ladybug Fans’ Intelligence Everywhere, I Say. I Don’t Know About You Guys, But I Feel Cheated, Swindled, Bamboozled... You Name It, Or Just Thorughly P*ssed Off Should Suffice. Want Some Evidence For My Claims? Okay, Here Goes: Get Comfortable... Removing ALL Of Chloe’s Positive Traits And Redemptive Moments Overnight After S3. Pretending They Never Existed Or Happened In The First Place. Turning Her Into A Villainous One-Dimensional Sociopathic Object Of Ridicule. Giving Us Zoe Who’s Goodie-Two-Shoes Non-Personality Is No Substitute Whatsoever For The True Queen. Cynically Producing AN ENTIRE EPISODE in S5 For The Sake Of Retroactively Making CHLOE Solely Responsible For Adrinette Not Happening Sooner. (Thus Purposefully Exposing Her To More Vitriol From Obsessive Shippers) Pretending That She Had ‘Plenty Of Help’ To Change When The Truth Is No-One Seriously Attempted At All. (Even Saint Marinette ‘Encouraged’ Her And Good Ol’ Toxic Audrey To Bond By Being Awful To Each Other Instead Of Getting To The Heart Of Chloe’s REAL Issues), Breaking Up All Her Closest Relationships One By One Until The Only Person Left Is With Her Is Her Tyrannical Mother Who Promises To “Take Control’ Of Her Life Now In A Different Country That Her Father Has Disowned Her. (So I Guess Letting Chloe Get Further Traumatized By Her Main Abuser is Thomas’s Idea Of ‘Punishing’ Her... Great Message There For Children!) This Means Adrien Wants Nothing To Do With Her, Sabrina Has Been Unceremoniously Dumped And Even Butler Jean Has Been Fired With Little Fanfare. (Not That Chloe’s Had Any Interesting Interactions With Adrien Since S2... What Was The Point In Making Them Childhood Friends Again?! Her Dad Is Basically An Enabler Who Got Off Scot-Free Now He’s Resigned As Mayor And Looks To Have A Fresh Start With His ‘Perfect’ Adopted New Daughter, Sabrina Has Been MIA For YEARS And Only Gets Acknowledged This Once To Further Isolate And Damage Chloe And As For Butler Jean... Who?!) What It Boils Down To Is That Thomas Doesn’t Just Want To Strip Chloe Of The Bee Miraculous Permanently And Write Her Out Of The Show, Oh No! He Wanted To Transform Her Into The WORST Possible Version Of Herself To Try And Forcibly Extract Away The Last Few Fans She Has, And Then Give Her The WORST Possible Ending In The S5 Finale Despite Other Characters (E.g Gabriel) Doing FAR Worse And Yet Either Ending Up Getting ‘Redeemed’ Or Thought Of As Heroes(!). Oh, And Lila Has Multiple Moms Now(!), A Completely New Identity(!!) And Is The Main Antagonist From Now On(!!!)... I Think Her Superpower Is Dumbing Down Everyone Else So They’ll Believe Her Obvious Untruths. GREAT STORYTELLING, GUYS. Mr Astruc Is A Pathetic, Petty, Spiteful, Talentless Excuse For A Showrunner Who’s So Problematic To Discuss His Many And Numerous Controversies Would Take Another Post Probably Five Times As Big As This Already Overlong Wall Of Text, So We’ll Save That For Another Day. Good To See Though, That His ‘Brilliant” Scheme Appears To Be Failing And The More He Sticks Pins In Chloe’s Likeness The More Support She Gets Online And The More ‘Very Sweet’ Zoe Gets Hyped Up Into Something She’s Not, She’s Recognized As The Shallow Shill She Truly Is. I Just Hope Little Kids Aren’t Taken In By His Obvious Crusade To Make Chloe The Most Hated Teenager Since Joffrey. Why Couldn’t The Idea For Miraculous Have Fallen To A Guy Who Had Some Semblance Of Ability, Instead Of This Mediocre Hack Who’s Happy To Wallow In Stale Romantic Cliches, Underwhelming Superhero Fights, Uninteresting Lore, Non-Existent Continuity, Bbaadd Dialogue, Filler, Filler And More Filler, An Overabundance Of Characters = No Development For Them, ‘Special’ Episodes Abroad That Are Anything But, Prioritizing The Merchandise Above The Show ALWAYS, Allowing SO Many Spoilerific Leaks To Spread Under His Watch, Blocking Fans Left, Right And Center When They DARE To Question ANY Part Of His Writing (Because Apparently We’re Too Dumb To See The GENIUS)... And... rreesstt.

I am well aware that this post started out as one thing and ended up rather more convoluted than I hoped for, but Tumblr has always been a great source of therapy for me... so what better to get all my major bugbears out in one word soup of a paragraph that nobody will ever read if they know what’s good for them, before slouching back in my spinning chair with a glazed yet satisfied look on my face?

Nothing, that’s what.

[impossible3girl]

Some groups in the Harry Potter fandom really get some of their most common used terms wrong.

For example:

Slander: the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation. (Just a friendly reminder to everyone doing their #snapeslander, that with that hashtag you are admitting everything you say is false.)

Villain: Snape (and I would also say Dumbledore) is an Anti Hero not a Villain. He may be cruel and sometimes uses villainous methods but in the overall story he has good intentions, very similar to the one of the main character/hero and gave his live to achive them. Actually James Potter is more arrogant, cruel and selfish when he bullies Snape (and other students) just because he can and harasses Lily just to get her to date him. He might have done some heroic things as part of the order but him sneeking out while he was in hiding and therefor risking not only his but also his wifes and sons life was still very selfish and arrogant.

Here you have a comparison of the two terms:

I just wonder if that is pure ignorance or if they are really that dumb.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

This is a more political type question about Greece, so I know you might not want to answer. But I was wondering about something. What are some warning signs/red flags to suggest that someone might be a far-right Greek nationalist?

For example, in England where I live I'm cautious when someone is very pro-royal family, complains that nobody celebrates St George's Day, flies a lot of English/union jack flags around their house, likes Nigel Farage, etc.

Are there any similar warning signs of far-right people in Greece? Not definite signs, just things that people associate with them.

hii! I know I delayed this a lot but I needed a quiet weekend and time for myself. It also takes some time to consider how to make an answer short, but as concise as possible. These are both warning signs, and things people associate them with, because we know how to spot them.

As you might know, loving your country and caring for your heritage are very normal things for Greeks. Our national pride is not like the US national pride (to give a very known example). It's mostly healthy - although a person's biases can get in the way of that health :P

The Greek term for nationalist/patriot/co-patriot is πατριώτης and can be used in a very good context ("Ανεμισε την ελληνικη σημαια οταν νικησε! Ειναι πατριωτης!" / "Α, ρε πατριωτισσα, τι κανεις εδω στα ξενα!") but there is also the case of extremists using the term to say "I am just a πατριώτης, you know. Nothing special! That's what a πατριωτης does!" (correct me if the translation of πατριωτης is wrong and I will edit the post)

There are clusters of signs, not individual signs that will make you understand it. Unless the guy dons certain symbols. But they usually hide those.

A pretty good sign is seeing them go into election stands / rooms to support the ΕΛΛΗΝΕΣ ΓΤΠ party (Such spaces are opening now that the elections approach) or anything under Michaloliakos. Or Adonis Georgiadis. OH MY GOD ADONIS IS SUCH A RED FLAG.

I've always met men who are into this stuff. Women either are not too involved, or they are too shy to speak of their views. Also, the far-right favors men a lot, so I find it reasonable for more men to be there.

The biggest red flag is hearing these men talk a lot about traditional values and the place of women in society. Along with misogyny comes the standard package of racism and bigotry for anyone who is not a carbon copy of themselves.

An added bonus is that they usually idealize the police and the army and want to serve there, or have served. They are also quite religious, either in Orthodoxy or Dodekatheism. They easily fall for different conspiracy theories, often anti-semitic ones. And there is of course the idealization of our antiquity and the Greek heroes, whom they see as the ultimate macho men who represent their ideals for a right society.

There are a few people who keep Greek flags in their balconies all year round (not just only on national holidays) but I didn't have the chance to meet some and ask for their views. I mean if I remember correctly one of my pretty chill and definitely non-far-right neighbors had the flag for one year and the next he didn't have it. I think some people are just bored to move them because they are quite large.

It's possible they are extremists but there's also the possibility that they like it here, and maybe they want to keep a sign of their Greekness because their Greek family came as refugees to the mainland after the genocide or the Lausanne treaty. Or the flag was forgotten there or an elderly lives in the house and can't do stuff on the balcony. Idk. People who know, write here your experience.

If I forgot anything, write it in the reblogs and comments!

[catlovergirl676]

Here's proof that modern LGBTQAD+ representation STILL lacks straightfoward representation in most pieces of media outside of shows like Helluva Boss, Hazbin Hotel, and The Owl House:

Most LGBTQAD+ characters represented on-screen are white or western or both. It's a shame honestly.

Canonically disabled/neurodivergent characters are already extremely rare to see in modern media, but canonically QUEER disabled/neurodivergent characters are almost unheard of.

While there are some female characters who are canonically queer, they are less present in media than their male counterparts for some reason.

In media, polyamory & polysexuality are still wrongly associated with cheating and infidelity, even though polyamorous and polysexual relationships are supposed to be about consensual activities between all the people involved. (I'd really appreciate it if someone could help me out with this. I know that a more complex explanation is needed here, but I can't provide one since I'm not poly nor have ever been in a poly relationship.)

Trans and nonbinary characters are rarely given any other role than a side character or background character. (And, as far as I know, Viktor from Umbrella Academy and Rain Whispers from the Owl House are two of the few notable exceptions.)

Over 80% of all the LGBTQAD+ representation I've seen in media is centered around the idea of amatonormativity (meaning that [romantic] love and sex is seen as the standard expectation for everyone in society even though some people might not be interested in either of these things). This contributes to the erasure and rejection of the experiences of ALL arospects, acespects, and aroace people. Which is an ongoing issue because acephobia/aphobia is still commonly "normalized" everywhere.

LGBTQAD+ characters should be allowed to play a central role in more pieces of media. Whether it's as a villain, a "good guy", an anti-hero, an anti-villain, a vigilante, or a neutral force, queer characters can be any of these if you want them to. Overall, "sidekick" and "civilian" shouldn't be the default roles of LGBTQAD+ characters because there is so much potential for better LGBTQAD+ representation in many settings.

In the end, none of us know how cartoons, animes, movies, and series online will handle LGBTQAD+ representation in the future. But, by supporting independent Indie animation projects like Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel we've already started somewhere. Despite all the flaws in the storyline of these 2 shows, we can't deny that they have given us better queer representation than we've ever had before the 2020's. Straightforward LGBTQA+ representation started with The Owl House, and Vivziepop's 2 shows helped to continue what TOW started. So, while there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of LGBTQAD+ representation in media, we mustn't forget how far we've come since the 2000s and the 2010s.

Edit: For the last point of this post, please check the comment that I wrote. It explains that I was wrong about Helluva Boss' and Hazbin Hotel's LGBTQAD+ rep. It was an honest mistake on my part and I'm sorry about that.

[esther-dot]

For a while, until season 5, when I still thought Tyrion was a good man and never considered Jonsa as a couple, I thought Sansa and Tyrion could be a possible couple. A kind of Beauty and the Beast story. I know that parallel was made for Sandor and Sansa but I always found difficult to think of them as such and in political terms made no sense. Before Jonsa, who did you think Sansa would end up with ?

Oh, I think you are quite right to read some Beauty & the Beast into their dynamic, anon! I've gotten some questions about "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" which is his in-world song along those lines and he’s associated that or B&B to a number of relationships. Finding traces or even direct references to it in a certain dynamic doesn't necessarily mean a mutual romance or an endgame couple, it may simply be one of the facets he wants to explore of a certain idea. So to me, it's certainly valid to find it and talk about it there, especially when there's such a contrast between the beautiful prince who abuses Sansa and the man society has tried to dehumanize who stops him. None of my "anti Tyrion" posts are meant to deny that, they're just written to highlight how he too wronged her, even if Sansa wasn't quite fully cognizant of it.

Tyrion may be a villain only slipping further into his villainy, but he has those moments when, like the Hound, he protects Sansa. The fact that he wanted the North so much, but stopped himself from sleeping with Sansa we can read as a moment that defies the expectations for him who has been stigmatized. On the one hand, well, it's the bare minimum, he isn't exactly a hero for not sleeping with a child who was forced into the marriage and is a prisoner in KL, but many times over, we're being shown that he isn't quite the monster his family/society made him out to be. This is not to say he is a good man, he did marry her because he wanted power, but I think it is meant to criticize society's prejudices.

Anyway, I actually didn't ship Sansa with anyone before Jon! I was a very casual fan who wasn't involved in the fandom, and I was simply happy to enjoy the show as it was. It was during the long hiatus that I become very curious about what the ending would be, found Jonsa, and am now a living testament to the power of smart meta writers, wonderful gif makers, talented artists, fabulous fic writers. The damage is immense. Just say no to fandom, kids, or this may be you! 😂

Even though I enjoyed Tyrion, I could never stomach him (or the Hound) with Sansa. Their interest in her while she's so young, the way Tyrion took advantage of her situation for his own benefit and the Hound threatening her....I couldn't be at peace with that. If say, Tyrion had married her and took her away to safety, or if the Hound had offered to help her escape KL without the frequent insults/threats of death/the assault, then you could imagine that Martin might be planning to have these play out in the fairytale way, but he didn't do that. He might be talking about the trope, is certainly referencing bigger ideas here, but it isn't following the path of the og story.

Also, I don't think Tyrion's choice to marry Sansa is defensible. She was a child bride. She was going to be forced to marry someone. She couldn't really say no, so her agreeing to it isn't meaningful. It's good Tyrion felt bad, but Sansa didn't have good options. I was very disturbed that D&D wanted us to think Tyrion was a great guy in s8 even though he was angry with Sansa for abandoning him and also wanted to reestablish his relationship with his child bride. Creepy AF.

Let’s see….I do think Sansa x Pod is a cute idea, Sansa x Jeyne is sweet, I think you could write aged up Sansa x Willas fics, lots of fans fell in love with the unnamed Prince of Dorne from the finale and started listing the benefits of long distance relationships...but even if Jon didn't exist, I don't think there is a canon option for Sansa that has both the potential of happening and would be good for her which is why a lot of people believe she'll marry a rando post canon. And I could be happy with that if the rando has a long face, a very large dog, and a surprising familiarity with Winterfell!

[hannigramislife]

First of, I would like to tell my dear friend @mattmurrock that I personally blame them for my descend into madness, because I was fine without watching Vincenzo, and my deteriorating mental health is their fault ❤️

Now, I need to get some things off my chest about this show, because I am getting tired of seeing these weird as fuck takes on tumblr and tiktok and twt, like, are y'all asleep???

Idc if the entire fandom comes after me, I will fight each and every single one of you.

Hot take number 1: Han Seo's writing was atrocious in general, but him becoming this lighthearted little brother figure to Vincenzo in the second part, practically glowing, becoming a "better person" and all that, is a disservice at its finest. Han Seo's "real self" isn't him projecting his inner child trauma onto Vincenzo; this man had a person throw up blood on him and he wanted to call an ambulance for himself, like come on. He deserved to be morally grey, and I'm done with this fandom infantilizing him.

Hot take number 2: Cha Young and Vincenzo's love subplot was hilarious, there was not a drop of chemistry between them, Cha Young looked like she wouldn't spare Vincenzo a second glance during the entire show 😭 This is a personal subjective opinion, so I'm fine with people disagreeing with me on this one.

Hot take number 3: Jang Han Seok was smarter, stronger, and a better strategist than Vincenzo Cassano, on every level. He was more connected, more brutal, made moves more similar to the Mafia than Vincenzo himself did, and the only reason he lost, consistently, is because the plot was centered on Vincenzo, and gave him the wins. If this show was evenly written, Han Seok would have won within the first five episodes. Him begging Vincenzo to let him live was also our of character for the guy who stared Vincenzo dead in the eye and told him to shoot. Running away while he had a hockey stick at hand, Cha Young injured, bodyguards at the door and Vincenzo unarmed is also out of character.

Hot take number 4: Vincenzo Cassano, who might I add, doesn't have a drop of Italian upbringing in him, is a romantic lead, and he should get the credit for that only. Vincenzo, as a show, is a dark romcom, and I use the term dark loosely. I have seen many act like he is the end all be all kdrama lead, as though his character is a perfectly written depiction of the anti-hero, scumbag who takes care of worse scumbags, morally ambiguous, flawed-but-not-really main character. And that's laughable. He has walked straight out of Wattpad.

Conclusion to my thoughts and ranting: Han Seo deserved his own storyline, and to not be treated as a prop for Vincenzo. Cha Young was a better lead than Vincenzo by miles, and she shouldn't have been taken out of commission in the showdown. Han Seok was able to win in the finale. If they wanted me to believe he lost, they should have written it better. Vincenzo as a show has a 7/10 rating at its highest, while Vincenzo as a character is 5/10 at best, 6/10 if you take my bias against him away. Enjoying such shows is fine, I had a blast watching this thing, but I am tired of people pretending this show has quality. It has good points, like cinematography and cast, but its writing, characters, and plot is weak.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, yes I will take comments and criticism, and if people want to debate me, I will show them they are ✨️wrong✨️

[thelivewireoracle]

Weekly Tarot 8/27/23 - 9/2/23

4 of Potions (Cups), The Fool, Strength, + Anti-Hero

Hello everyone! This week may shake up your connections and the way that you relate to yourself, others, and situations. With the 4 of Cups, you may see yourself unbottling some old emotions and perhaps cleaning out expired connections in your metaphorical cupboard. The behaviors in yourself and others that you once enabled or accepted are no longer tolerable. Perhaps you’re done drinking from the cup of apathy and are now seeking something new and fortifying. Whatever it may be, the Full Moon this week offers a moment to reflect before you begin this new chapter. You are taking with you what you have learned and perhaps embracing your true nature - or at least the nature that best serves you at this time. Many of you may find that new guides will appear to assist you along the way. And for others, you might be stepping into completely new roles that will allow you to fully embrace your gifts and strengths. 

With the Anti-Hero card, some of you may be asked to embrace a side of yourself that you’ve repressed for a long time. Whether it was out of fear of being perceived in the wrong light, fear of rejection, or simply fear of meeting your whole authentic self. This week will give you opportunities to allow yourself to fully be seen. And if you feel as if you don’t know where to begin, ask yourself “What parts of myself have I bottled up in order to make someone else feel safe?” “What part of me have I recently seen in another, but have rejected because I was told that it was wrong to be different?” “Is being perceived as the villain in someone else’s story while being the hero in another really all that bad?” “How am I trying to control someone else’s experience by projecting only the parts of myself that I feel are appropriate to be seen?” “How can I better show up for myself and my loved ones in a way that allows others the space to be seen fully as well?”

In terms of crystals, Obsidian works in a way that allows us to reflect on energies that can be hindering our progress and serves as a tool that gives us strength to create compassionate boundaries with ourselves and others. Silver Moonstone allows us to connect our rational mind with our intuition which then works as a vehicle to aid our discernment. Better discernment and healthy boundaries are some of the most important tools to have no matter where you are on your journey. (For more information on crystals and minerals, please see our store favorite Crystal Basics and Crystal Basics Pocket Encyclopedia by Nicholas Pearson.) -Lilith Jane

Decks Used

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Tarot by Minerva Siegel, Artwork by Abigail Larson

Les Vampires Oracle by Lucy Cavendish, Artwork by Jasmine Becket-Griffith

[gaywineauntsstuff]

But also my favorite thing to do is incorporate Dicks fanon character into his canon one

Because he would

Dick, despite being one of the most competent, well known and respected members of the hero community

He Is famously easy to underestimate

Like cartoonishly so to the point where the people who do feel like idiots to us

He’s so easy to underestimate that people who are aware of his skill either by direct combat or receiving a file on it will proceed to violently underestimate his abilities.

The first 2 instances that come to mind are

-the fact that deathstroke let him train Rose because slade knows how good Dick is but somehow doesn’t clock that the man that he’s been fighting for I believe it was at least 4 years (depending on timelines and when you believe the blockbuster storyline happened in relation to Judas contract) would be capable of manipulating his daughter into turning against him

Spryal. There is literally a scene where Dick collects DNA evidence in front of Helena because he’s cracking jokes and using a lollipop to do it. Not only is it in front of Helena it’s also INFRONT OF MINOS.

he’s canonically so good and making you see things that aren’t there and not see things right in front of you that he was a prodigy with the Hypnos facial tech.

There are more I’m sure but those are the most memorable ones in my brain.

But it’s also pretty prominent in his dialogue vs internal monologue

Where is dialogue is very wise-cracking and punny (let’s not talk about the term nightwinging it) his internal monologue is far more analytical and if it isn’t it falls more along self critical or caustic sarcasm.

Dick Grayson is the character who is most likely to play into that fanon characterization of him anytime he is not in a position where he needs to be in charge.

Like Dick does use the fact that he has a pretty face and a nice smile and a strong moral viewing of right and wrong to trick people into thinking he’s naive and not definitelyyyy not outwitting them.

He’s talked about how he’s the nice bat and the friendly one who will stop for a chat but when he puts his foot down it better not be in your neck.

And he absolutely would play up technical incompetence and being poor at life skills if it made him easier to talk to giving him more access to information.

Especially among the more anti hero and broader hero communities.

I mean Dick is canonically talked about as the one you go to with your problems when he literally told people he has files on how to take them down and then proceeded to SHARE the files.

That’s how much trust he’s built up in his community.

Anyway that’s not the reason that the fanon characterization exists but it’s a reason I find it very interesting in general.

Like there is a TikTok series where the canon and fanon bats meet and I genuinely if Canon Dick met Fanon Dick he would absolutely steal some of those lines and use them next time he needs a morally ambiguous older man who understands he might be a challenge but seriously how big of a threat could nightwing be to underestimate him.

I’m about to ruin your guys day. Let’s talk about canon and fanon. Dick Grayson edition. I’ve realized that some people don’t actually know what’s canon and what’s fanon. (It’s okay to like what’s fanon more than what’s canon, but I want to clear some things up)

Cooking: Dick can actually cook! Literally everyone says that he can’t cook, but he can! He has cooked for his younger brother (Tim Drake) numerous times! I’m pretty sure he’s cooked with the Titans too.

Singing: Dick is one of the only batfam member’s who can sing. In fact Dick is good at literally everything. (Not EVERYTHING but he can do most things)

Kindness: Don’t get me wrong Dick is a sweetheart but some people make it seem like he’s sweet, in a very dumb way. My point is that he’s nice, but not to the extent people make it out to be.

Brothers: This has to do with Dick and Tim, but I still want to add it. Most people think that Tim’s favorite brother is Jason. This is not the case. Tim is the closest with Dick. After Jason died, whatever Dick didn’t do for Jason, he did for Tim. He even trained Tim.

Ps: Tim even grew up with Dick as Robin.