#i think that's why i have a lot of love for characters that my subset of fandom has a tendency to bash like qui-gon or mace windu

[tranakin-skywalker]

Who is your most disliked star wars character and why 👀

Oddly enough I don't tend to dislike characters. The most I get is indifference, just a complete non-opinion.

Actually wait no

Rush Clovis

I suppressed my memories of those episodes so hard I forgot he existed. Though it's more the writing choices rather than the character himself I dislike. I'll admit, I only ever watched the Clovis episodes once and that was several years ago so I don't remember them very well at all.

I think mostly I just dislike that the writers used him to get Padme and Anakin both to behave in ways that are entirely out of character for their movie counterparts, and it pisses me off to no end. Like, I'm fine with characters acting ooc, but only when the writers give me a convincing reason to why they're behaving that way. I actually find that really interesting! For me it's less a question of if someone is acting out of character and instead what would it take for them to behave this way realistically? And those episodes episodes failed spectacularly at that.

Honestly, it's probably the wasted potential more than anything else that annoys me.

[theblogwithoutfear]

karen page is so annoying in the show...is she better in the comics somehow or is she just like that

So I've actually wanted to talk about this forever, but I kept forgetting to make a post about it. Your ask is a perfect opportunity to write down all my thoughts. Brace yourself, because I have a lot to say. Sorry in advance lmao

I actually prefer Karen in the show. To be fair, I have not finished all the comics, but so far I think her TV counterpart is a lot better (I still like her a lot in the comics tho, don't get me wrong). The NMCU version of Karen Page also has a lot of Kirsten McDuffie (another comic book girlfriend) in her, which is great in my opinion.

A lot of people find her annoying, but to me it's her flaws that make her such a fantastic character. She isn't a caricature, stock-girlfriend character pulled from a box of tropes; she's a well-rounded individual, extremely realistic, a mirror of Matt Murdock, and a woman with real agency. Her actions have major consequences on the plot. In my opinion, a lot of superhero girlfriends (in comics, movies, TV, whatever) are written more like props than characters, and they don't have any agency or actual plot relevance. Which is why, when a lot of them die, their deaths feel so cheap and inconsequential. That's where fridging comes from. It's been a problem with superheroes since their very inception; and a problem in storytelling at large. So often in fiction, women are flat and unrealistic.

So to me, Karen's heavily-flawed character is refreshing. She is extremely impulsive; she's deeply intelligent, but makes such stupid decisions; she can be hypocritical, self-destructive, and petty. Sometimes she manipulates people, even unintentionally. She's very well-meaning, but constantly makes mistakes. And it's these mistakes that move the plot forward, and reveal important things about both her and Matt. Her actions have real consequences for the story, and she undertakes her own journey throughout the narrative. She is almost as much a protagonist as Matt is, in terms of her character development and growth.

For that matter, every one of the flaws that I listed are things that Matt does too. They are almost perfect mirrors of each other; people who are immensely concerned with justice and compassion, people who care for the truth, and people who want to make their city a better place. However, as they go about it, they stumble and make mistakes and endanger other people. They're hypocritical and contradictory and impulsive. They constantly have to call their own moralities into question, because they almost never live up to their high ideals.

(Also, as a side note, I think many of Karen's flaws—as with Matt's—come as a direct result of all the trauma she's been through: her mother's death, her brother's death, her alcoholism and drug addiction, her dad cutting her off, being framed for murder, almost getting murdered in prison, etc. So I think it's fair to give her some grace.)

But what makes both Karen and Matt so lovable, imo, is that they keep trying. No matter what mistakes they make, they get back up and try again. They do everything they can to atone for the blood on their hands.

I think also (and I'm not accusing you of this, just a certain subset of people in the fandom) that people are more willing to accept Matt's flaws than Karen's—because there's a lot of misogyny built into our society, and there's this ingrained idea that women have to be paragons of virtue. Women, both in fiction and in reality, tend to be put under a microscope and dissected, while men can get away with a lot more. So Matt and Karen have identical flaws, but only Karen gets hate for it, which makes me very sad.

It may be the writer in me, but imo flaws are what make a character—and a story—meaningful. A well-flawed character can take a ridiculous, implausible story and make it feel grounded and real and impactful. A well-flawed woman even more so. I love Karen for the same reason I love Jessica Jones and Wanda Maximoff; or, to go beyond Marvel, for the same reason I love Jo March and Katniss Everdeen and Miss Haversham and Katherina Molina. They all elevate their respective stories beyond the initial premise and plot. Flawed female characters are realistic and impactful, and therefore empowering.

Obviously, to each their own. Some people just find her annoying and don't like her personality, and that's fine. But for me, that's what makes her feel real, and that's why I love her.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I've been thinking a lot about this today, but I think I've nailed down what my biggest lingering issue with s2 was - it's that I wanted Ed to get more explicit sympathy, and I don't blame the story for not doing it because I can see why they thought they wouldn't have to.

As you know if you were around as s2 was airing, one of the big frustrations was that a certain subset of the fandom thought the narrative was vindicating a read of Ed as irredeemable and Izzy as blameless. Because of this, I often found myself wishing that there were more scenes where the crew explicitly sympathized with Ed's struggles and told him outright that they still loved him. Even though the narrative was so sympathetic towards Ed, I knew how a lot of this season would be read so I wanted it to be said so clearly it would be impossible to miss.

The thing is, of course, that the writers wouldn't have assumed that necessary. Now, I do wish we'd had more Ed/crew scenes (another place I blame the budget cuts and not the writers). But they show us the crew feeling extreme guilt over mutinying on Ed and accepting him back very quickly.

They (reasonably) assumed that the audience would be able to fill in the gaps because Ed is a very likeable, sympathetic character and they (reasonably) expect their audience to like and sympathize with him. The only problem is that vocal subset of the fandom who love to villify Ed and thought their interpretation was being validated by the story up until like the last ten minutes of the finale, which was frustrating to the rest of us. The other thing is the writers (reasonably) assumed they would need to put in the work to make the audience like Izzy, so they devote a lot of time to making him more likeable, which, to those same people, came across as absolving him of any blame. It could too easily come across as an abuser (Izzy) turning the narrative against the man he abused (Ed).

I know it's because of the fandom atmosphere that I so strongly miss scenes where Ed got some of the sympathy that was afforded to the character who triggered his spiral into such a dark and self-destructive mindset in the first place. The writers couldn't have expected this and I think they made the best decisions they could with what they had. But dear lord does it make me want to write a bunch of fics about Ed getting pampered and fussed over by the crew.

[obscuretobyfox]

Been seeing a lot of debate on whether or not Noelle Holiday is trans in other subsets of the community and I just wanted to say:

It doesn’t matter! Noelle being trans currently has no effect on her character or story, so she could or couldn’t be with really no change either way. (I don’t understand why people have gotten so heated over this…)

For what it’s worth, I like to headcanon Noelle as trans just because.. well.. I think it’s a fun idea! As a trans female myself, I think it’s lovely to imagine Noelle sharing a quality with me, but ultimately you can believe whatever you want to believe. Thus is the nature of a headcanon.

Here’s a couple posts from r/Deltarune that pretty much sum up my feelings on the matter.

Oh, and- Happy Holidays! I know it’s early, but I’ll likely be fairly inactive here as the holiday season gets more busy and finals approach.. I’ll still attempt to update the blog if there’s any Toby Fox news that comes out in this time. I appreciate you endlessly for your support!

[acknowledge-reigns]

Random thought this afternoon.

Reason 5,000 why the bloodline is so beautifully done and why what Roman, Jey etc have done over the last four years is simply a different level...

The connection of bloodline fans. Here me out. Yeah we each have our own faves. Example being Roman is my #1, but I still adore the twins and I think for a lot of us, they've made their characters so intricately connected that it's hard to love one without having some level of appreciation for the others.

Even post implosion with them going their seperate ways and beefing, all subsets of the bloodline fandom remained interlocked in that. Whereas a faction say for example like Imperium. Giovanni left and his subset of imperium fans sort've naturally broke off. TJD broke up and Rhea and Damian fans had a natural break off from Finn (not so much Dom? Idk) etc. When Edge left TJD, His fans split off in a natural break. Of course all of this is generalization to some extent because their are Edge fans who are also Rhea fans and Gio fans who are also Gunther fans etc, and this obviously isn't shade or hate to any wrestler/fandom/faction.

It's funny because bloodline fans almost recreate their family structure. Sure I'm a Roman Stan, but I love my Uso stan cousins. Sure you might be a Jey stan, but I know you love your Jimmy stan twins.

The bloodline has captured this magical nostalgia of cutting pictures out of a magazine and gossiping with your girlies about which Jonas Brother is hottest. Even though each and every one of them make you giggle and melt like a tween who just took a personality quiz in J-14/Tiger Beat that said Harry Styles is their soulmate.

Side note for my fellow JoBro girlies who grew up to be bloodline women - Roman is Joe (frontman, most popular, heartthrob), Jey is Nick (cutey, successful solo career, broke off from the others), Jimmy is Kevin (funny, cute and underrated), Solo is Frankie (that lil brother that tags along). I do not make the rules.

Either way I say all this to say I love that they each have their own individual careers, accomplishments and personalities and we love each of them individually and yet they've made their carrers so incredibly connected forever. The only similar faction in that way is the shield but this is even stronger.

[arson-09]

How people are trying to change fandom (the rise of hatred against non-canon media)

This was inspired by the rise of backlash against the "Rhysta" ship.

Traditionally throughout the history of fandom spaces on social media, a very important factor has been creativity of course. Art and Fics by fans being the backbone of a fandom. Including non-canon ships, Aus, etc. And of course there was drama (when is there not drama?) BUT there wasn't as much hate because there was an understanding that it's not REAL. People in fandoms understood creativity and thinking outside the box (canon)

But something interesting happened in 2020 with the pandemic, people who weren't apart of fandom spaces started joining cause what else were you going to do? but there started the divide. These people wouldn't have joined fandoms originally because they didn't have that sort of creativity. Which isn't a bad or negative thing, everyone is different and that what makes the world go around, but these people were not used to fandom spaces and that divergency. To them, things have to be how it was written and non-canon things, ships or au's that can't hurt you or become canon, were blasphemous. Because why change the foundation if you liked the original media? this also ties into the "why do you read or interact with this media?" questions when people engage with media in their own way even if they dislike the majority of it. which is valid to do, I do it personally with acotar. I dislike the majority of acotar from the way it's written to lots of the characters, but I interact with a certain subset of the fandom that shares a love for the same characters as I.

But these people, these mostly neurotypical, TikTok people, intrude into these safe creative spaces and cause a ruckus over non-canon Aus and ships. for no reason! Ships like Rhysta are harmless, of course people who make and consume this media don't think it's going to be real, and that's the misconception! Making and consuming non-canon media doesn't mean you think it's going to happen or want it to happen, it's just existing. existing for the sake of existing and stretching creative muscles. You can't grow as an artist if you do not break from the mold, from the restraints of canon.

What you are doing by constantly harassing and posting shit about non-canon media is showing you lack a fundamental understanding of Fandom. Policing what people do is a fruitless endeavor. of course, calling out actually problematic creators is okay, when what they're doing is actually harmful and not them being creative or God forbid, a little weird.

There has been and still needs to be respect in the places. Filtering tags for things that upset you and blocking creators you disagree with is key to being someone people will actually listen to and respect. If you refuse to do that, no one you harass, or attack will take you seriously. and maybe that's not your objective but that means you're going to be blocked on main and made fun of. And this segment is somewhat targeted at someone who has been consistently harassing my mutuals, but I've seen so many people like this and it's a real issue. And its such an issue in Booktok popular books and shows, and media that becomes popular with the masses.

Fandom spaces aren't meant to follow canon to a T. People will have non-canon ships, opinions on how they think the series should have gone, opinions on characters, etc. Constantly harassing and targeting creators won't change that.

I know this won't stop this behavior, it will continue to happen but it's been bothering me and maybe this will change some people's minds on how they interact with the media they like, and they hate.

I love rhysta, I think that the dynamic is very interesting and that people are free to explore that and say whatever they want about how it could have gone in canon. None of that means i think its going to happen or that it should. Lord, people are just having fun. Like they should in fandom places.

[myloveforhergoeson]

ash's november 2024 reading round up

find all the books and fics i read (or didn't read...) this month under the cut with a link to the synopsis and my reviews/ratings attached :)

this is just for fun! i'm not a professional, i just like to read <3

booklist:

despite buying so many books this month. i finished none of them. currently working on funny story by my goddess emily henry....

fic list:

1. assorted works of @partiallypearl/ @praetoravila <3

promise me, i'm never gonna find you fake it

i know you know (i got your heart thumping)

it's nowhere close to closing time ch 2

all over again ch 9

the way you toyed with my emotions this month... jesus christ... from lolive to kogan i love my oblivious idiots in love so much. when i tell you i think about ikyk (igyht) like once a day im being so serious - that is peak lolive to me!!!!!!!!!!! promise me... is just so adorable as well. something about our sweet California girl olive not knowing how to dress appropriately for the winter especially in minnesota.... lord... logan is so attentive!! he loves his gf so much augh!!!! these snippets fuel me while the main timeline lolive are thrust into... whatever they're doing rn... olive's birthday chapter had me in tears ngl. if you need someone to come and beat up her parents, put me in coach! so masterfully written though, the emotions were swirling in my brain ages after i finished the chapter. augh! and nowhere close to closing time... save me... the introduction of the boys were so sweet - it's always interesting to see everyone's takes on majors/areas of study hehe early friendship kogan means sooo much to me... don't worry logan! those glances sure mean something!!!!!! <333

2. assorted works of @selangkir <3

jocy story!!!!

omfggggg god the way you write is just so gorgeous; painting pictures with your words is so hard to do and you make it look so EASY RAUGH!!!!! i really love how you take lucy and jo's typical characterization and flip it, where lucy is a lot more unsure + unconfident whereas jo was the one pushing her to start playing again. i can't really explain why that stood out to me, but i sure loved it!! excited to read more of your work in the future hehe!! <33

3. assorted works of @naquey / @ithinkyouhealedmyheart <3

ghostwriter ch 9-17

30 days of November!!

Drake loves Marnie

Carlos x Reader

such a productive writing month for you - i am so inspired by your creative spirit. the time and effort you put into each one of these projects is clear throughout the work!! wonderfully done and you always leave me wanting to read more... then just my luck a new chapter appears haha! though i'm slowly making my way through ghostwriter, this subset of chapters i read this month had me howlingggg kenonnie (affectionately) make me want to tear my hair out!!!! i love how ridiculous they are and reluctant to admit they like each other (even if i am admittedly team curt... just a teeny bit...) they compliment each other so well! the starstruck chapter was *chefs kiss* in addition, the 30 days of November prompts was such a wonderful way to get to know a lot of the other characters in the story, as well as some of your other characters too!! the flower series is woven together so interestingly + i can't wait to read more!! additionally, i loved getting to know more about drake + marnie in their wedding one shot, it was adorable! idk anything about drake and josh so i'm taking your word as gold on this one... i love them soooo much!! and of course!! your carlos x reader story had me rolling on the floor with laughter!! your take on rames is everything to me.... <3

4. assorted works of @icegirl2772 <3

Take A Shot In The Dark ch 17

AHHHHHHH!!!!!! IT'S HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!! STAY CALM EVERYONE IT'S HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!!! to be here for this monumental moment in james and kaelyns relationship... wow..... AJFBAJFB im so excited for the next chapters... kendall is going to have to get cool w some things superrr quickly👀 this chapter had everything, action, romance, tension... augh.... like james, i feel similarly about neil. so it was great to see him get knocked around :) love it when my boys get into fights in the name of those they love :)))))))))))))) <3333

5. assorted works of @fiyero33053 / @fiyero0533

promptober one-shot 27!!

promptober one-shot 28!!

hello!!!! once again learning so much about TUA from your stories... prompt 27 was just adorable. had me kicking my feet and giggling and shit. the idea of such a tough guy still being able to get silly and mess around with his daughter.... leading into 28 too! from what i saw of the show, i don't remember diego and allison interacting a whole lot, and i never really got to see them as parents, so this was such a cute idea to bring the two of them together! such a great fall memory together too :)) diego on the phone had me laughing so hard. "[my kids] know when shit's lame" rlly got me rolling! so happy you found a little more inspo from my prompt list heheh!! <33

[ghelgheli]

17! but also using the opportunity of the ask game to get to know more about the effortless worldbuilding in sff :)

from the end-of-year book ask

17: Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

I think Three Body Problem is the only one meeting this condition this year so I'll have no trouble staying on topic :> but I'm gonna specifically talk about "hard" SF as I conceive of it—I haven't read any analysis so this may just be a jumble of improvised thoughts.

SF, being "speculative" fiction, of course has to take on the problem of speculating and of presenting things that don't (and perhaps cannot) happen. On average this is accomplished thru a healthy combination of scientific grounding and good-natured handwaving: I drop a few sentences about "quantum entanglement" and you go along with my ansible, or you tell me about "positronic circuits" and I agree that you can make a brain with them. This is the compact that makes SF work because you fundamentally cannot expect speculation without, well, ceding ground on reality.

But at least a subset of SF readers are of the kind to really want to grok how it is that this or that scientific feature of the world works or may come about. Every contraption and novel technology is like a puzzle to be riddled out. This is the place where speculation becomes sincere mechanical prediction, and it's why I love hard SF.

This subset of readers can be matched to a subgenre of writers who commit fully to filling in as many blanks in their technological, biological, etc. speculation as possible. The rows of astronomical data can't be left vague—tell me what frequency of light we're dealing with here—xenobiology isn't taken for granted—what is the neurology of your aliens??—and so on. The dots are connected, the rest of the owl is drawn for real, the image is made crisp. Like fireworks for the reader's brain.

When this kind of worldbuilding is executed well imo it looks effortless. Looks, not is, because behind every explanation of near-c travel is hours of research into at least special relativity and time dilation, along with calculations by-hand. Behind every account of an exoplanet's atmosphere is probably a few papers perused on the subject and several articles on scientific american. Peter Watts, in the note at the end of Blindsight, includes a fucking bibliography of a hundred or so references as well as thank-yous to many an academic he split handles of liquor with. And this is only the visible fragment of what has to be a library of knowledge accumulated both passively and actively to make a speculated world feel as concretely plausible as possible.

None of this is necessary for good SF. The aforementioned compact means any author can opt out of this commitment at any time. But it's what it takes to make tightly-written hard SF, where your conceptual hands are kept diligently at your side, waving an idea through maybe once every five chapters when you have no other choice.

So anyway, Three Body Problem is a tour de force in doing this and doing it cleanly. It uses a storytelling device a lot of hard SF employs to make it work: rather than stuffing dense exposition into narration (at which point, just read the source papers) it deploys a cast of characters who more than anything else, really know their shit. We get exposition trickle-fed through experts who are trying, along with us, to make sense of their novel environments and unfamiliar technologies using their knowledge of the present limits of human understanding. This is what Watts does in Blindsight too, by the way: a claustrophobic ship crewed by technical specialists makes first contact, so everyone has something encyclopedic to say about everything and it's only natural.

What astounded me about Cixin Liu's writing is that he made it work just when I least thought he would be able to. I was sure I was being shown things completely inexplicable and necessarily supernatural until he went and explained them in plain terms; better yet, he explained them in ways that made so much sense in retrospect that I was kicking myself for not seeing the answer. This has exactly the flavour of a good puzzle.

The trade-off hard SF makes is that you are often limited in the metaphorical/thematic work you can do through your speculation. I think the contrast between "calendrical science" in Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire series and Asimov's "psychohistory" illustrates this well.

Yoon Ha Lee has mathematical training, and calendrical science is a speculative field consisting of theorems, conjectures, proofs, etc. in the language of mathematics that stand in for cultural hegemony and power projection. This makes for a great operationalization of soft power: space is filled and distorted by the quantifiable effects of whatever regime is dominant there (the "calendar" here being synecdoche for culture writ large). But obviously he can't fill in the blanks of how a calendar causes spacetime distortions that specifically make one side's weapons more effective, or provide certain formations with shielding effects. This is, I guess, semi-hard (lol) SF—you can see how it's supposed to work, but it's clear that it just won't. What you get in return is pretty politically interesting storytelling.

Psychohistory is the converse: a deterministic-enough lovechild of economics and sociology explained in the Foundation series as using all the familiar methods of linear algebra and differential equations together with unfamiliar innovations of just how to quantify human behaviour in order to make reliable predictions. There are entire chapters dedicated to explaining the conceptual nuance that went into developing psychohistory ("the hand on thigh principle" from prelude to foundation is just about how the theory resolves divergence by reducing insignificant terms to zero) and an entire book to exploring one of its limitations. It's fascinating to read. But you also get little narrative depth out of it, because hard SF, even when done well, is not guaranteed to make a story thematically interesting or politically compelling. This is the Three Body Problem problem too: its political commitments are threadbare and unserious because that's just not what it's about. I couldn't recommend it on those terms, but that's not what I like so much about it. I will say the conceptualization goes a little off the rails in the final chapters, but I think most SF authors were in some kind of string theory inspired fugue state at the time.

What I would love to see (and I'm sure exists) is hard SF that also has interesting politics. Unfortunately that's an intersection of two already-narrow intersections.

ty for ask✨🐐

[shantismurf]

Same anon as before. Anon due to security reasons. I know you have to be aware that take is not well liked. It sounds like you're trying to say you support it without being irreparably canceled. A frankly disappointing sentiment. I agree those that those who use it shouldn't be harassed but they also shouldn't be given a voice or a platform which is unfortunately what you offer them. It speaks to a lack of integrity. I have seen evidence in your server very recently that suggests you outwardly support it. If I'm reading that wrong then you have not said anything to convince me to the contrary. In fact I asked the question to begin with to give you the benifit of the doubt. I would rather you come out and say that you support it and face the conciquences then poorly playing both sides.

Thank you for taking the time to answer the question, god speed in your days. Proverbs 11:3 and Luke 12:15

(Conversation continued from https://www.tumblr.com/shantismurf/764912386766503936/)

I am painfully aware of how unpopular my stance on this issue is with a subset of our fandom. Believe me, it would be a lot easier for me to just say exactly what you want to hear and rail all day about the evils of this big bad technology and how anyone who breathes a word that isn't hateful about it is morally defunct. It's actually precisely because I am a person of integrity that I cannot do that. I say what I mean. If you can't read my words without twisting them to your preconceived notions, I cannot help that.

I'm just not capable of boiling an issue as complex as this into simple black and white terms. AI is too broad, and the applications too diverse. I believe my position on this topic is that of an informed and reasonable adult (I am 46) who recognizes that the world is complex and that life is an unending process of trying to make the best choices that you can given the information and energy available to you.

So, what is your ideal outcome in all this? Would you like to see all Al eliminated? Do you expect no one to use it, ever? Who decides what's okay to use and what's not, and what gives them the right to make that determination? Where should the priority of fanfic writers using AI tools sit alongside abortion rights and genocide and, you know what, I don't have the energy for this. I have cancer. And I have four young children. The only reason I am investing my precious personal energy into this issue is because I cannot abide the fact that a certain group of individuals feel it is their right to gatekeep and impose their morality on others, to bully young writers whose first experience in fandom was being singled out when their writing tripped some ai detectors (but not all, because they are useless...and why are people going around policing other people's work like that anyway?)

I just want to read, and maybe sometimes write, stories about a fictional Hobbit and the fictional dwarf he loves. And I want to tell people who share their creations of those characters how amazing they are. And I want to talk about how much I love this fandom with other people who love it too. But you don't think I should have any of that because I won't say that people who use a certain technology in a certain way are immoral and should be shunned. 

You threaten me with being "irreparably canceled" and I personally find that practice completely repugnant. Witch-hunts where people run other's work through faulty ai detectors is what should be canceled. This intolerant culture of unilateral humiliation and scorn for that which does not fully align with one group's personal worldview is what is immoral.

Oh, and regarding the discord conversation you referred to, it occurred between an actor and screenwriter who has been directly impacted by the infringement of Al in the industry, and a fanfic writer who has learning differences, and myself. The person with learning differences expressed how they wept with joy and relief when they saw how an Al tool could correct thousands of errors in their writing in a tiny fraction of the time it would take them to do so manually. It makes writing more accessible for them. The actor expressed frustration and despair over the future of their career and also has shared the ways they use Al tools to support their creativity and their career. I was supportive of both of their experiences and celebrated their bravery in speaking openly when it could leave them vulnerable to harassment. We each talked about our experience with and questions about the technology. It's precisely the kind of dialog that I value; uplifting, non-judgemental, and informative.

These issues are complex. You can't cut it down a line and say yes this and no that. You don't know where other people are coming from or what their reasoning is, and you don't have the right to judge them. You are most welcome to join our community and participate in our discussions in good faith, but if you are only there to lurk and spy and look for dirt on people, you should take a good hard look at your motivations for that behavior.

By the way, I understand why you would make the assumption that I am Christian based on my previous statement about Jesus. I admire the ideals that Jesus represents, but I put no special weight on the words of the Christian Bible over any other historical text. I am choosing to overlook the references you made that seem to imply I am duplicitous and greedy. My formative experience in a non-denominational Christian cult left me with a deep need to reject absolutes, and respect individuality. I am agnostic, which means I don't think it's possible to know what is and is not true, but I am always learning and always seeking that truth. That's actually a good metaphor for this whole situation. I'm agnostic about Al too.

Say it's playing both sides, if you must. This is who I am. I do not pander to anyone. I can't spend any more energy on this. I'm not going to judge or punish people for the software they use, and I'm not going to stand idly by when people around me are hurt by this senseless vitriol. Intolerance and discrimination are never okay.

I believe we've said what needs to be said, but I'm not going to turn off my anonymous asks. If you feel the need to offer a private rebuttal, feel free. I will not respond publicly again. You can dm me here or on discord if you really want to have a sincere conversation. I'm not interested in holding a grudge. I just want you to leave people alone.

Scripture references:

- Proverbs 11:3 NIV - The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.

- Luke 12:15 NIV - Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

[mamawasatesttube]

Kon-El questions 3, 7 and 16

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

hmmm. how do i put this. it's like... the way karl kesel treated him as a self-insert for his own teenage fantasy self or whatever sometimes. obviously this comes out in the way he gets preyed on by adult women and this is played off as cool and chill, but it also comes out in the way a) kesel writes his flirting. sometimes it's very endearing and cringefail, and other times he's kissing women without consent, and that's played off as chill and fine because kesel thinks it should be and the women in question almost always are fine with that, but also b) he writes off concerns about indigenous hawaiians in kon's narrative (like silver sword or ...man i'm forgetting that kid who gets jealous of him and has powers about it for a minute, but that narrative). and like. yeah. white man in the 90s wrote this for SURE. i don't think it's like, written in the absolute poorest taste imaginable, because there's a lot of ways where it seems almost like they were trying to be respectful of native hawaiian culture, but then there's shit that's so far off the mark it's like. dude. and it's very evident that it just reflects karl kesel's own views much more than any character in-narrative.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

lmaooo that's a toughie!!!! fanon kon at large is just. straight up not my boy. however there's a subset of fandom who leans into him being genderqueer/gnc/trans a lot more than canon ever has and i looove that. trans kon truthers lets go ♥

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

LORD. tim/ber/kon is the one that makes me roll my eyes hardest, alongside the rarer but no less irksome ber/kon. it's like... this is 100% not about kon as a character. this is about tim. ber/kon is almost funny in that it's entirely about tim but with tim himself cut out of the picture. but tim/ber/kon is just "let's take tim's most popular two fanon love interests and just shove all of them together!" and i have yet to see Anything even remotely try to convince me why kon and bernard should give a shit about each other. like, MAYBE you could sell it as a loooong slow burn, but i just. i don't see it man. putting the rest under a cut bc i AM gonna ramble about why i dislike it, so if you like tim/ber/kon or tim/ber and don't wanna see that, keep scrolling here👍!!

this is also partly bc i just... man i really wanted to like bernard and tim/ber but there's nothing there. i knew i didn't like rebirth tim characterization going in when i read tdr but i was hoping i'd at least find some crumbs. it's all just ... like there's no substance to it. there's no conflict, no character flaws, no "why do they even like each other???", no particular way they seem to help each other grow. it's just tropey "told, not shown" fluff where megfitz insists they are SO in love and perfect for each other, over and over, without backing that up really at all, and it just holds absolutely no appeal to me. and when it's just tim/ber i'm like yeah ok sure it's not my thing but whatever. but when people start trying to shove kon into there i'm like NO!!!!!! sdjkfhkd like im just SO unconvinced and it feels like such a great steaming heap of Nothing.

the main reason that is is that to me a relationship needs to have an arc. it can't just be stagnant. if there's no conflict, if there's no room for growth, if there's no development, it falls apart in my eyes. it doesn't feel like a real story about actual people. and as far as the tim/ber dynamic established in tdr, there's just. nothing. even the fact that bernard apparently somehow knows that tim is robin, which should be a HUGE source of conflict, is completely glossed over. it never comes up in any way.

like, we know that tim wants to tell people, but holds back out of a sense of duty. in robin '93, he agonizes about this with steph. but when bruce tells her his identity without his consent - which steph tells him bruce did immediately - he flips the fuck out!!!! he panics and runs away and he's furious with them both!!! so you'd ostensibly think that bernard knowing, and then not telling him he knows, would be sowing the seeds for an explosive conflict later down the line. especially because bernard now knows that tim is just. lying to him. all the time. shamelessly and blatantly lying through his teeth. and sure, it's for a good cause. right? but you'd think that in a relationship that's only just been established, just for a few months, that would also be offputting!! you'd think he'd start getting more and more unhappy that tim is just constantly lying to him and he knows it!! because he knows it about the robin secret, but what else might tim be lying to him about??? he knows now that tim has no qualms just lying to his face all the goddamn time, and he's... FINE with that???? there's this giant secret they're both dancing around and it's set up that there's just. N O T H I N G done with that. it drives me up the wall. i found this absolutely infuriating to read. both of them just being so one-dimensionally "oh we're in looooove so nothing else matters" that it erodes not only tim's specific characterization but bernard's ability to react like . idk. a human being? it just feels like running into dead end after dead end.

so yeah adding kon into that mix makes me want to tear my hair out bc it just feels SO surface-level. it's like... how much of him are you gonna shave off to fit him into this soulless, conflictless mold? it's like how i get annoyed when tim/kon fics ignore kon being genuinely really upset tim didn't share his identity with the team in yj98, but worse. because identity shit REALLY matters to kon. kon has never dated anyone who didn't know he was superboy. all of his civilian friends in sb11 know he's superboy. like, he does Not get close to people if he can't share that. it would be!!! a source!!! of conflict!!! but i've never seen Any ship content for tim/ber/kon that isn't just either completely declawed fluff that's just oh hehe tim has two boyfriends, or "kon angsting over tim dating someone else uwu" bullshit, which occasionally leads into completely declawed "tim has two boyfriends" fluff. it just does such a disservice to every character involved imo.

[einsatzzz]

• What plot points would change due to the inclusion of your character in canon?

• What headcanons/theories do you believe fandom would invent about your character?

• What feelings does your character most often instill in their fans? Affection? A desire to protect? Open lust? A love/hate dynamic? Why do you think their fans feel this way?

• How does fandom characterize/mischaracterize your characters ship in fanworks?

• What is the quote between your character and their love interest/whoever they might be shipped with that their fans would latch onto?

I know this is a lot, but for Kana  & or Kurumi,   😭

Thank you for sending this Jojo!!! I don't mind being sent a lot of OC asks, don't worry hehehe (I can just get very slow jdsbfhsdvfhsdf like right now with this one ueueueue) I love yapping about my bebeghurls the most 🫶🥰💖✨😆🤣

What plot points would change due to the inclusion of your character in canon?

I already mentioned some here but here's more for you 🫶🫶🫶

With Kurumi's inclusion:

Tsuna gets to have another friend and support added to his circle 🥹✨(well maybe I should say two friends, because Kurumi usually has Yui in tow with her)

Lambo gets to have another onee-chan too! Their dynamic is very funny and cute.

She'll often be seen as a trio with Kyoko and Haru. I guess the perceived love triangle(?) with Tsuna at the center may upgrade to a some kind of love square lmao

With Kana's inclusion:

Tsuna, Lambo and Mukuro get to have another person beefing against them. Thankfully, Tsuna and Lambo are both under Kurumi's divine protection.

Hibari and Gokudera get to have another person they can beef against. There will be a new committee as well.

Yamamoto successfully wins over and befriends another swordsman who will train him. It's a W that he deserves.

What headcanons/theories do you believe fandom would invent about your character?

Kurumi:

Because she's a "good" character, I feel like it's only natural that there will be people with headcanons or theories that depict her as the opposite.

Another reasonable fandom theory I can think of is that her character will develop into someone similar to Rinko (her 1st Generation equivalent).

Kana:

There will be theories that Kana will either go through character development (into a better person) or character regression (into a worse person) as we progress through the story. There will also be arguments that it's a death flag if she goes and develops into a better person.

There will be people making headcanons that since Kurumi is shit at cooking, then maybe the opposite is true for Kana.

KanaRumi: I have a theory for the shipping fandom in general as well, derived from an amusing thing I read from a shoujo-series fandom I can't remember right now. They'll be forced to romantically ship Kana with the nearest character they can personally ship her with to fight off the incest shippers 🤣😭🤣😭 jdsfbhsdvfsh Sorry, both Sou and I have been in the Gen/shin fandom (and other various ones b4 that), and we both agree that if KHRe had a fandom, there would be this small subset of romantic shippers for the twins 🗿🗿🗿🗿

What feelings does your character most often instill in their fans? Affection? A desire to protect? Open lust? A love/hate dynamic? Why do you think their fans feel this way?

Kurumi: For Kurumi, I feel like there will be a lot of people who will feel affection for her. This is because I think a good amount of people may even see her as someone relatable, because of her efforts and struggles with expressing herself. Another would be a desire to protect her, even if they know that Kurumi is strong.

Kana: I can see a love/hate dynamic for this one. I feel like she's the type of character who will both have dedicated fans (who may woobify her too much) and dedicated haters (who may vilify her too much). There will be a lot of discourse related to her. TsunaRumi shippers might feel frustrated with her for always trying to cockblock their ship, while TsunaRumi antis celebrate her as their champion.

How does fandom characterize/mischaracterize your characters ship in fanworks?

Kurumi: In terms of ships, I feel like there would be depictions of her having this intense & bitter rivalry vs the other characters Tsuna is shipped with. But the truth is that her biggest enemy & rival is own self and personal struggles sjdvfhsdvg

Kana: I already answered for her here!

With the modern fandom environment right now, I feel like there would be way less of those "hating on a fem character because they're in the way of their ship" type of problem. Especially since the twins' genders are pretty vague (esp Kana with masc clothes) and they run the risk of being one of those people that would often be listed in DNIs shfshvfgsdvf I feel like they're more likely to just treat the "third-wheel" fem character as an accessory now, from what I've observed.

What is the quote between your character and their love interest/whoever they might be shipped with that their fans would latch onto?

I just realized the question didn't specify whether it's "latching onto (happily and excitedly, we're so back!)" or "latching onto (despairingly, it's joever...)" or "latching onto (in copium/hopium)". Suddenly, I have a few more lines I can think of on the spot (not a guarantee it will be in the story but still--- hehehe)

Kurumi: "I'm sorry...You're so bright sometimes, I just couldn't face you"

Kana: I already answered here! But another one I can think of is: "It's almost impressive...to be able to follow me even to this place. But this really is the end of the line."

[mylittleredgirl]

Least favorite Star Trek character in each series?

i love all my children equally how could you do this to me!!!!

slightly more rational answer: i have been thinking about this since yesterday when i got the ask and it's like every time i think i have an answer i immediately go "oh but i love them for XYZ" and they move up in the ranks. ultimately most treks are ensemble shows and removing anybody from the ensemble makes it all fall apart!

gun to my head, though, bearing in mind that i love all of them:

tos: gun to my head it's chapel i'm afraid and i feel bad about it. she doesn't really get to grow much and the other most-static character is probably chekov and i had a massive crush on him. in 1967 when they went "you know this show should add a mop top for the teenyboppers out there" they were talking specifically about me 30 years later.

tng: i would take the bullet for real.

ds9: man i'm going through main characters and then secondary characters and then tertiary characters and how are they all so essential and good????? literally i have gone thru a list of characters and a list of episodes and am coming up blank. even the villains are fantastic. eddington is annoying but he's supposed to be and his episodes are all great. sloan himself is fun it's just what section 31 did to star trek in general that sucks. like????? there's not a single name that shows up in the credits that doesn't make me go YEAHHHHHH.

voy: if we can count recurring characters i'm saying barclay. i liked him a lot as a character in tng and but go "for fuck's sake" whenever i see "guest star dwight schultz" on the voyager credits. i dislike pretty much every earth-contact episode after "message in a bottle" so maybe i don't like voyager-barclay because he just happens to be there?? for main cast it'd be neelix shut up shut up i love him in the ensemble but sometimes when they give him his own episode it's too much.

ent: sorry malcolm lovers this was the only show that was an easy choice. like we SHOULD dig into the fact that essentially his greatest wish is to sacrifice himself and he won't be happy until he dies on the job. klingon behavior but not at all for the fun and glory of it just because he kind of just doesn't enjoy being alive???? archer is terrible in so many ways but he's also much more enjoyable to watch being terrible.

disco: this is actually a very weird show to even know who to choose from. the cast changes every year! we barely even know the bridge crew! who is interesting enough to count as a main character?? of the main title cast i'm kind of hot and cold with adira. i like them but the sheer amount of anxiety radiating off them at all times makes me tense up whenever they come on screen. (i just realized it's kind of ironic to say adira because they're basically a mix of wesley and ezri, who would probably make this list for most other trekkies but are two of my absolute faves.) (i will think long and hard about this)

snw: i don't know that i have enough of a read on any of them? i still haven't finished it. chapel (again?? oh no) is the one i had the hardest time warming up to early on because she seemed the most wink-y and out of place in a franchise that usually takes silly things very seriously, but i did warm up to her!

lower decks: if we can go with guest characters i hate badgey (only one on here that gathers the "hate" rating!!). i don't find him (it??) funny and i know i SHOULD find it funny which means whenever it shows up i am both not having a good time and feel bad about not having a good time. the main characters are all brilliant. gun to my head it's boims but it's a close one i love them all.

i don't even know what other shows we have i've run out of steam???

oh right picard. captain shaw??? why is such a large subset of fandom so horny for him??? and shipping him with seven of nine of all things???? is it just White Guy With Trauma because there are like. a lot of other white guys with trauma in this franchise to choose from.

[unhetalia]

More than 1 note on a post? I'm gonna take that as people being interested! The follow up of my first character headcanon post - this time for England and Russia aka my America love interests.

England:

Can be described as one word: sharp. Sharp jawline, sharp eyes, thin mouth. He has an eyebrow piercing - he rarely wears it nowadays, but he made the piercing with magic so it's always there. He has an eyebrow slit from a scar he got from a battle with a magical creature that never healed. All the other nations are fascinated with it because scars are so rare among their kind (and also because with how England's eyebrows are, it's very eye catching). Attractive in a rough and tumble way - he's very popular with a subset of the female population who initially peg him for a bad boy no matter how far behind him those days are. (France always jokes he's got the face of a delinquent). Physically 30s, ID says 33.

Tailored three piece suits and oxfords are his regular wardrobe for work, like a proper gentleman.

Dirty, light blonde hair (a bit like this), and D37 green-coloured eyes. While he's very hygienic, he doesn't take care of himself beyond doing things for hygiene, so he tends to have rough, calloused hands and his skin isn't particularly soft, though he has the Nation-blessed clear skin.

Very little body fat, lean muscle. He's 180cm (or 5'10), and is therefore 2cm shorter than America, which infuriates Arthur. A lot of scars from magical battles - he has more scars than any other Nation. Has kept up sword fighting and martial arts, and unfortunately has a temper that means he gets into a lot of brawls. Physicality is very important to him, which comes from some more old-fashioned Nation values that younger Nations don't tend to have (more on this later).

Arthur dressed down = replacing the three piece suit with a dress shirt paired with a sweater vest. Or a long, dark coat. He generally tends to prefer blacks, greys, browns. It's rumoured (according to France) that his fashion sense is to stop young women from hitting on him, thinking he's some kind of bad boy. Also why he's cut down on smoking in public. Poor guy.

Russia:

If England is rough and tumble handsome, Russia is prince handsome - really on as opposite ends of a person's 'type scale' as you can possibly get. He's got a strong jaw and fuller lips, soft eyes. Many a six yer old have tugged on their mother's clothes, pointed at him and told their mum there's a prince, and many a mum have rewarded their six year old for pointing him out. Physically 30s, ID says 31.

Whatever he wears always tends to be hidden by a coat and his scarf.

White blonde hair (close to... this colour). His eyes are undeniably violet. Once again the polar opposite of Arthur, his skin is soft and smooth, looking very much like he's never worked a day in his life - but if the metaphor that I was going for is that England's power is in the way he's hardened from work and hardship, and maintains strength and power through sheer will, Russia's strength is in his impenetrability, in the way even years of holding swords or guns never shows in his body.

I've run out of words, so Russia's body type is the second or last one in this image, depending on if he's at war or in peace times. Minor differences between them, generally. Broad shoulders, thick waist, thick everything. No abs, just. Solidly built. Also, he's 6'7, and wears the kind of boots that make him taller (not on purpose - he just needs sturdy, waterproof boots, and those tend to add height.

[mintakablue]

cool details i noticed + things i loved in across the spiderverse

spoilers ahead!

i think the stylization of the different spiders was even more distinct in this movie than the last one! i like that when the camera is focused on certain characters, you get their aesthetic “bleed” into the world (e.g. gwen’s painterly strokes in her silhouette bleeding outwards, miles and his family having chromatic aberrations in theirs, manny’s chunkier outline, etc.)

i LOVE that the spot is miles’ nemesis for a couple different reasons. he aesthetically opposes how colorful miles’ world is, he is a “villain of the week” that peter parker originally faces off against rather than miles, the major inversion he gets (becoming black with white spots) kind of feeds into the underlying theme of asking who the good guys are--especially when we learn that miles would have been prowler in earth-42! obviously also the fact that he and miles are both anomalies is great. i also think it’s good meta humor to have made the bagel guy become the spot.

there’s also a bagel billboard above the spot’s apartment. in some ways very fortuitous that everything everywhere all at once related bagels to the multiverse.

the stylization of three side characters really stuck out to me--pavitr, ben reilly, and of course, hobie! i love pavitr and mumbattan, i think it was a good choice for the trailer and stylistically a really strong and complementary style to bridge miles’ transition into this aspect of the spiderverse. ben reilly’s stylization i love because it evokes the mobile spiderverse game that introduced a lot of people to some of the more obscure spiders. and DUH i love hobie’s style, you can really tell that they incorporated tons of actual britpunk influences in there. also let me not forget margo kess! she’s so cute in this i genuinely like that she’s a VR spider. i hope to god they make jokes about her being on the web. please.

on that note i do like that the prop design also retains obvious notes of which things belong to which spiders! hobie’s is obvious, but you also see it with gwen’s items. also i like that each spider has a different way of swinging through the air that’s more obvious in this one! gwen and pavitr both have an dancerlike quality to them, hobie’s is a little more erratic (anarchist), and miles of course is still figuring out how to nail some of those more tight swings, but he’s way cooler with being in freefall than any of the other spiders. also miguel using his claws instead of swinging and jess using her motorcycle were very cool! lots of aerial play in this one that i’m excited to watch again and follow the eyetrace for.

good moments with miles and his family! i almost always hate the moody teenager plot because it’s like. you don’t see why they even Should care about their family or the family is so overbearing you start just siding with the teenager, but this movie struck a really good balance there for me. also i just really really like that there are scenes where miles and his mom just speak spanish with each other :’) the rooftop party was so real to me. i am not Latine or live in ny, but i am Filipino and i have been at one million parties like that with my family. and those pink cake boxes from a small bakery that your parents like is iconic.

i genuinely enjoyed the commentary on faking the struggle to get into school LMFAO i think that’s very real for a subset of poc, but especially more affluent Black and Latine people.

OH YEAH miles cracks a joke about ATM machines and then pavitr (my king) cracks the same kind of joke about chai tea and naan bread. a bit of an old joke but hey the movie has been in production for 2.5 years and i do think it serves to highlight the way that spidermen crack the same joke. especially when after in the spiderverse HQ a ton of other spidermen crack the same kinds of jokes about spotting The Spot. across the spiderverse, spidermen are the same

pointing spiderman meme is terribly funny i will stand by that forever

more funny meta commentary about donald glover being people’s pick for miles’ voice and not becoming spiderman, so he’s the prowler--in the same way that miles, had he not become spiderman, would have been the prowler. more obvious is his appearance in mcu spiderman, but i still think it’s fun foreshadowing!

on foreshadowing, i think this movie does a great job of laying out a lot of those bits of information. starting off with highlighting earth-42 and making sure you know that sticks in your mind (and it’s also impossible to choose the number 42 and not evoke the cultural memory of hitchhiker’s guide lol), having the spot talk about how the spider came from a different earth, getting another glimpse at it, seeing miles’ earth number right in the splash screen, saying that the big spider device sends you back to your universe via DNA analysis + margo seeing the big EARTH-42 instead of earth-1610 on the screen. and then even in earth-42, the color palette is really different from 1610! 1610′s opposing color for miles is like a deep blue color (opposing his red suit accent), so 42 having a primarily green palette opposes the prowler’s purple accent!

not to mention that when miles pulls into his bedroom, you can see that he doesn’t have a drawing desk up (or his sashimi/supreme poster). i think it’s a sad little detail that the movie seems to imply that his mom didn’t notice a major change in his appearance (having a short afro instead of braids) is because she works so much she doesn’t see him that often :(

fun sound design in this movie! in the scene where miles-42 gets revealed as the prowler, you actually hear that growling sound effect first when miles-1610 gets tackled and then again twice: once we see miles-42 in shadow as the prowler, then when he says his name!

in fact there’s actually tons of fun sound design details! miguel gets a futuristic sting, gwen has like a full on leitmotif, miles has a short leitmotif which i believe is part of “what’s up danger” (i would need to go back and watch the movie a second time to really pick up on it), pavitr and hobie have their own musical instruments associated with them... and even the spider from earth-42 has its own sting! i might have misheard, but i actually also think hobie and pavitr’s “thwip” sounds are a little different than the standard ones!

i love when those little notes show up in the lower corner. very comic book! a lot of those details make me smile, i really feel like they cared a lot about evoking some of the writing styles of different spiderverse writers there

aesthetically and tangentially related, i like the sketchiness of some of the characters! it’s most obvious in the spot and the alternate universe vulture, but it’s such a neat visual trick. it also serves to give the spot an almost “unfinished” look while also giving him better volume. very excited to see the behind the scenes from the riggers/animators/3d artists

the idea of canon events is such a good one for spiderverse--i think it’s great! one of them that i’m almost certain they’ll bring up in the next one is that. um. gwen usually dies when spiderman is trying to save her. straight up i actually thought they were going to pull that one instead of officer singh dying after gayatri is falling! after all spider-gwen almost got shot, plus miles straight up almost drops her after he glitches out in mumbattan. sony please don’t break spider-gwen’s neck...

genuinely loved all the calls to different spidermen too! there’s like one really prominent shot of paperbag spiderman that made me and my sibling giggle. here’s how the fantastic four can still win

in that vein, i have at least Some prediction of what the spiderverse resolution will be? i can imagine that because miles is an anomaly, his canon event breaking might actually be permissible to some degree... perhaps only if he returns to his own earth? truly truly i cannot IMAGINE that they would make us watch his dad straight up die onscreen because like MAN we already watched his uncle die. that would be way too devastating... but obviously miles-42 and miles-1610 have a lot to say to each other about watching an older man in your life that you love die. i’m a little back and forth about the idea that miles was “destined” in some way to become the prowler in an alternate universe but i’m gonna put my faith in the team to not make it weird ykwim. seeing as they already slipped in commentary about the fact that like Yeah it’s partially because miles’ family has money in 1610 that he is even able to “stay out of trouble” i think there will be an interesting conversation to be had about class dynamics between miles-42 and miles-1610! i am like wildly excited for the next one, i have a lot of hope that it will be even more gorgeous than this movie was and will have the same depth of writing/foreshadowing!

lastly and i know i’m just saying this because to ME spiderman is a very trans character. but peter parker from spider-gwen’s universe was just taking his testosterone okay. and spider-gwen having that painterly pink blue and white as she was saying essentially “i want to live my life fully in my identity” was so... happy pride!!!

[gffa]

Hi! Loved your posts a lot. I love Nightwing and redhood .But the thing that annoyed a hell out of me is the way fandom jason is potrayed . Jason stans always want jason to be Nightwing 2.0.Their question is always like why jason isn't respected among heroes like dick? Why jason doesn't lead the titans like dick? .Was jason as good looking as dick?. Jason should be well suited to be spy than dick . Jaybabs is better than dickbabs.Dick is worst friend to roy. Jason should be Tim role model not dick.sometimes it confuses me if they both have same personality with different names. What's your thoughts on this.

I want to step carefully with this answer because I don't want to make it seem like Jason fans are a monolith (they're most definitely not, half of my Cool People in this fandom are the most excellent DC fans you'll ever meet and Jason is Their Guy!!!) or that I'm talking about anything other than a very specific subset of fans. And that any time I say "Jason fans", it is specifically about the subsection who falls into this, not the whole of his fandom!! And, as a caveat, I'm only talking about my experiences in Jason fandom--of which I do consider myself a part of!--but that someone else who is deeper into Jason fandom than I am may have COMPLETELY different experiences than what either you or I have experienced! And, to be clear, I will point the finger in any direction, that every Bat has a subset of fans that is deeply frustrating, Tim fans have it, Damian fans have it, Dick fans have it, Bruce fans have it, etc. Every one of them has that group of fans that I go ??? over. But also I think I should be clear in that I think we should try to approach other corners of fandom with empathy, because a) we're all annoying nerds to someone else as well, that's just what fandom is and b) this fandom is hostile enough over comic book characters of all things, I'm going to try to limit the amount of gasoline I throw on the fire. ;) I think what causes a lot of fanon Jason in a certain subset of fandom comes from a mix of - Not a lot of regular appearances/his own book/GOOD appearances in his own book/a consistent characterization in those books - A lot of people read more fic than they do the comics - People naturally want their babygirl to have nice things, that's a pretty human response - Jason was kind of created to be a Dick Grayson clone in the first place, in some ways, so it's a natural extension

Jason fans have it rough in canon because he is all over the place, he's not written consistently, so half of the time he's written as the woobie, half of the time he's written as two steps away from being full villain, and it feels like every author has a different take on how Jason sees himself or what he wants. It's hard to agree on what Jason's character is like/what the point of him in the larger comics landscape is, because even the canon can't agree on that. So, then you throw in all these epically long fics that are written by extremely talented authors, who have a consistent take within their own writing, which explores Jason's issues in a way that feels like it has a lot more depth and vulnerability to him, and it's easy to go, yeah, okay, comics are kind of thin, but now I have this strongly developed sense of him in my mind! And when comics don't match that, when Jason is meaner or more of a villain or less cool in the comics, because the comics didn't do all that character work, the fic did, it becomes easy to go, "This isn't what Jason deserves, he deserves to have his issues explored better!" And, like. Jason does deserve better than what Nu52 gave him. It's a thing that a lot of fic vs comics have--like, there's a subset of Tim's fandom that writes him as the most delicate character ever (there's a lot of fic that explores Tim's vulnerabilities, I am not talking about those!!!) and, guess what, has to make Dick a terrible person in those fics as well, like the whole "Dick tried to send Tim to Arkham" is a straight up lie about what happened, but how many of us have still come across it? Which I think comes from that Dick Grayson is a character that you just kind of can't remove from the foundational Batman narrative and mythos, like you can't remove Bruce and still get what you need for the set-up--but Bruce occupies the space of "Dad" for the characters, so he has a very different, defined place in the Robin Of Choice's life. Dick, on the other hand, you can't just lift him out--he created Robin, he was the one that dragged Bruce out of the dark in the first place and created the role of Adopted Kid Who Bruce Is Complicated About, and still occupies that space very strongly. Even when he hasn't been Robin in a long time, his shadow casts extremely long, because honestly I'll die on the hill that I think he's everyone's favorite Robin to this day. Bruce? Yeah. Jason? Yeah. Tim? Yeah. Damian? Even if he never met Robin!Dick, I'd bet he's still say Dick was his favorite Robin. Superman? Explicitly said it in a comic.

(And I feel like there's an element that can be explored on how Dick also set the expectation of how to grow out of being Robin--he moved on to being Nightwing, so we expect that of the other Robins. I've been complaining forever that Tim needs to be allowed to finally do this, to step out of being Robin and not just be Red Robin, but to find his own unique thing. And, honestly, that probably does look more like Nightwing than not. I think there's an expectation that eventually Damian will realize that he doesn't want to be Batman and will instead be something else--or at least that it's a strong possibility. Which again looks a lot more like Nightwing than it maybe should. Because what else do you do with characters when you want to establish them out on their own? So Jason should follow that same path, right? He's kind of halfway onto it, with being Red Hood now, it's just that Red Hood has such a complicated history with how many people he's murdered, so what other options should there be? And patterning him after Nightwing, just as his Robin was patterned off of Dick's Robin in a lot of ways, could be a natural step forward for him there, too.) So, the specter of Dick Grayson hangs over the role and the Bat-son's place in Bruce's life--two things that are big issues in Jason's life. Then you add in that Jason was basically created to replace Dick Grayson exactly, like you can't even tell the difference in half of the panels of Jason's time as Robin if you don't already know. Then you add in that, to try to flesh out Roy's character, they gave him Roy and Kory as friends, two people who were Dick's friends first. And that makes sense--who else would you have as Jason's friends, given his general age? The Justice League is too old for him, Young Justice is too young for him, the only major team in his age bracket are the Titans--characters he does have some connection with, via Roy and Kory. And it's a natural question of, well, why didn't Jason lead them, too? Because Dick lead a team, Tim lead a team, it felt like a thing Robin was supposed to do, to the point that, when Dick introduced Damian to the Teen Titans, he automatically assumed he would lead (well, that's also just Damian XD) because that's what Robins do, why shouldn't Jason, too? So, I see where all of it comes from and understand the appeal--it's a lot more fun than the canon for Jason can be at times and feels like it understands his character better and fanon Jason is a lot more likeable and there's often times a lot that's explore that is really, really good character stuff. I think a lot of Dick's characteristics get ported over to Jason because there's just not as much else established for him in the canon, whether friends or a solidified narrative presence or even a consistent characterization, and Dick's a fun character, he has a rich history of friends and complicated dynamics with characters, like his relationship with Bruce is ridiculously fun to dig into, his relationship with Jason can actually be really interesting, his relationship with Tim is both adorable and has some nice crunch, his relationship with Damian is heart-wrenching--who wouldn't want a character with a wealth of dynamics and characterization to step into? Especially when you go back to canon and Jason's borderline a villain who isn't justified in killing people but still does it anyway, whose trauma is not getting explored in a way that's as satisfying as fanon's version of him is, because canon Jason is a lot more of a hot mess and stepped over the line, while fanon Jason tends to be more righteous and still on the right side of the line. (Or at least intended to, there's a lot of "Jason should be allowed to kill people and not be a bad guy for it." out there.) I think this is why I get a lot of Jason fans reblogging my comics posts about canon who yell at me for liking garbage comics when, guys, I'm just reacting to what's actually on the page for Jason.

Jason is a character who has this massive fandom that has been built up around the potential of the character, much of which had to be borrowed from Dick because that's the only really available options and because his central relationship (the one with Bruce) has so many parallels to Dick's relationship (with Bruce) and because Dick being who he is means that he's very easy to like (Dick's not perfect and I'm certainly biased here, but I do genuinely think that Dick is pretty easy to like as a person) and because he has such a rich history of dynamics and relationships that fans see as being really fun to explore, if only Jason had had those relationships instead. I suspect a lot of it comes down to that there's this massive fandom for Jason--fic, posts about him, fanart of him, headcanons for him, etc., throw a rock in fandom and you'll hit a popular post that has Jason as their babygirl Blorbo--and comics themselves don't often match that and comics fandom are pretty notorious for hating their source material/throwing it out in a way that's borderline assumed default MO, so Jason fans aren't any different from people complaining that this comic or that comic coming out right now are garbage. Anyway, that's been my experience. It's not that Jason fandom doesn't do unique things with Jason's character (his death is different from what Dick's experienced, his relationship with Bruce does often come in different flavors, etc.) but the places where they overlap are ones that I can understand why it happens, even if I often personally find that it doesn't match up to who he is in the source material now and feel like there's a lot of really good, crunchy unexplored angles for a character who has been deeply hurt, but went over the line about it, like that's why the recent short story in Beast World Tour: Gotham went so hard for me, because it felt like it had teeth and claws in a way that I've been wanting for Jason for a long time.

[mxmaneater]

How do you see Gortash as queer coded?

Oh, it would be my genuine delight to explain.

Alright, so I have several lines of reasoning, so I’ll start with the low-hanging fruit first.  

Gortash’s obsession with his appearance

Okay, so we all know about Gortash’s eccentricities when it comes to the way he looks.  He wears an ostentatious villain coat, bedecked with golden bits and bobs, matching pants, and a matching shirt (that he wears provocatively low and can’t seem to ever lace properly).  He also clearly styles his hair, which given its length, takes a non-significant amount of time each morning. 

Now.  Am I saying these things on their own make him queer?  No, of course not.  The assumption that gay men take more care with their appearance is a stereotype, though I would argue that there is a subset of people for which this is true.  However, stereotypes also form the context for which we interpret characters and situations, and that social context is very real (even in cases when a stereotype is not), which is why I don’t discount these details either.  

Additionally, when it comes to the Netherstone, Gortash could have easily stuck it in the middle of a suit of armor like Ketheric and called it a day.  But as a politician (and someone who likely doesn’t see a lot of combat), I get that a suit of armor wouldn’t be his first choice.  Nonetheless, the option he goes with (and presumably takes the time and effort to craft and construct himself) is the pair of gauntlets, which are essentially ornate jewelry.  Jewelry that’s functional and dangerous, yes - but also needlessly beautiful.  And he really only needed one of them, but - again - his attention to detail with appearances drove him to build a matching set to become part of his Signature Look. 

Cool.  So let’s move on to:

Gortash’s political career

Alright, so I like to view Faerun as a fairly equitable place in terms of gender distribution in positions of power (at least compared to reality).  From what I can find on forgotten realms sources, it seems like the Council of Four was composed of 2 men and 2 women (at least until Stelmane is murdered); therefore, I think it’s not a stretch to assume that power is pretty evenly divided.  Great - love that for Baldur’s Gate.  Which it was true out here as well.

Even still, that means that 50% of the high-ranking government officials and patriars that Gortash is charming and manipulating as part of his rise to power are men.  As a devout follower of the God of Tyranny, I find it hard to believe that he would just pass up on the opportunity to use sex as a form of manipulation with men, when we have canon evidence that he uses this tactic to gain power with women (hello Lady Jannath).  Why would he - someone who views ascending in power as a holy mission - suddenly be squeamish when it comes to seducing (both literally and metaphorically) the other 50% of his targets?  

Also, like I mentioned earlier, although Faerun may be a veritable gender utopia, the social contexts that influence us in reality don’t suddenly go away when we boot up bg3.  The writers of the game as well as the consumers - us - are very much bound by the social contexts within which we operate, meaning that certain character traits can be queer-coded for us, even if they wouldn’t necessarily look that way to someone who lives in the world of the game (if they suddenly became sentient and engaged in discourse).  

What does that mean?  Okay, so we live in a society that is highly patriarchal and run by men (read: politicians as well as all other highly influential positions of power).  Within these circles, men are forced into “compulsory relationships” with other men (because remember, women don’t hold the clout they desire, and therefore don’t matter) in order to exert and obtain power; relationships such as “male friendship, mentorship, admiring identification, bureaucratic subordination, and heterosexual rivalry” (Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet) characterize these spaces.  Now, as Sedgwick - one of the mainstays of queer literary theory - explains, men enter into these “male homosocial” relationships because they must if they wish to gain power and ascend the ranks; however, the very necessity of these close, male relationships (to the exclusion of, or in superiority to relationships with women) also puts men in the dangerous social position of making it easy to become too close with other men and therefore jeopardizing their access to the very power they sought.  This is the foundation of her argument about forces that keep men in the proverbial “closet.” 

Okay.  So back to Gortash.  Gortash is not driven by fear of stepping over that line - he seems utterly unbothered by professing his connections to whoever he views as influential, regardless of gender (see: default Durge, which I’ll get to later).  He is not scared of stepping beyond this larger, societal “closet” that most men get defensive about in order to protect their relative power.  Sure Faerun is less homophobic than our reality, but again, the coding of these characters doesn’t change drastically based on the in-game setting, because it is ultimately people in our reality who are interpreting and interacting with the game and its characters.  

Also, I make a distinction between Gortash being “queer-coded” and not “gay-coded”; if anything, examples from the game would have me characterize Gortash as bisexual - if he even conceives of sex as an identity factor and not just a means of gaining power over someone, which is a big assumption.  I definitely view him as someone who thinks more along the lines of the latter - and wouldn’t it benefit him, in that case, to be an equal-opportunity manipulator?

This is getting long, so I’ll jump to my final point: 

Gortash’s devotion to the Dark Urge

Whether you read the past relationship between Gortash and the Dark Urge as sexual/romantic or purely a business dealing, the fact remains that Durge is the one character Gortash views as his equal.  And yes, you can customize Durge’s appearance and gender, etc, but the default origin character is male, so a certain amount of “canon”, I believe, can assume at least the possibility of a male Durge.  Gortash - the Chosen of Bane, who loves nothing more than domineering over others - wants to willingly share his Empire with Durge, once he’s conquered the city; that is not a level of devotion that you could expect Gortash to hold for anyone but his “nearest and dearest.”  

And from the letters you can find, it’s apparent that Gortash specifically sought Durge out - tempting him with information about Bhaalist artifacts that had been “stolen” and displayed in a museum in order to form a connection.  This, combined with his desperation to regain Durge as a partner in Act 3 (to the point he’s weirdly forgiving of insult and refusal), offer queer subtext, if not text-text, confirming his particular interest in Durge as a person.  After all, he only “tolerates” Orin, who, despite her own eccentricities, is only trying to accomplish the will of Bhaal, just like Durge presumably was as well.  In fact, most of the characters dismiss Orin as just some “crazy bitch”, which I find hard to believe isn’t rooted, at least partially, in sexism - especially since people forgive Durge very easily for similar crimes.  (I could write my own dissertation about Orin, but I’ll save that for another time).  

In conclusion, there is enough queer-coding between Gortash’s appearance, habits, career, known manipulation tactics, and special relationship with the Dark Urge to at least make the case that he isn’t super straight.  Even without the letter in which he wrote his penpal Franc that he loved him for bringing “wet, slithering malice” into the world.