#it's called fanon and fanfiction for a fucking reason

[evasive-anon]

Jason Attacking Tim at Titans Tower

Fanon vs Canon

We've all seen the versions in fanfiction but I'm not so sure everyone's seen the original so if you're one of those batfam fans who doesn't want to read the comics (regardless of reasons) but you are curious about how it actually went this is for you.

What I'm addressing:

What does Jason actually say to Tim during the attack?

Did Jason drug all the other Titans?

Did Jason really wear a Robin costume?

Did Jason slit Tim's throat or call him replacement?

Did Jason actually break Tim's bo staff?

Was Tim crying or scared?

Did Jason write a message on the wall in Tim's blood?

Did Jason's eyes glow green?/Did he follow pit rage mechanics?

Panels and details below. This is a LONG one.

What did Jason actually say to Tim during the attack?

Dialogue in fanfiction during the Titans Tower attack varies based on what kind of fic you're reading but usually its either 'time to clip Replacement's wings' if its staying a beatdown whump 'or oh no precious lil bby why is no one watching you' if its an accidental child acquisition. Not judging either option, but this ain't about them its about the real shit.

Look at these opening lines:

Hey, Tim. I was here first.You're the Red Hood. You've been cleaning up Gotham the easy way. Easy? What do you know about easy, Tim? You had a father that looked after you. You went to a private school, right? You slept in a bed. I slept on the streets, I lived in the alleyways in Gotham. Trying to survive. Until Bruce took me in. I trained as hard as I could. I did whatever he asked. . . at least at first. But it didn't matter. They said I wasn't tough enough to be robin. But today, they say you are. Show me, Tim. Show me what you have that I didn't.

Jason really puts himself out there in all of his dialogue in this encounter, the struggle of having to fight for anything and everything he got in life, even the things that came to everyone else for free, and then being told he wasn't even good enough for the things he fought for.

There's a trope in fanfics that if Jason knew Tim stalked Batman and forced his way into being Robin that it would change how Jason felt about the situation but that's even addressed in this comic:

You were a kid, worried about how Batman was spiraling down into darkness. You spent weeks tracking the dark knight. Solving a mystery no one else could. You discovered who he was behind that mask. Millionaire Bruce Wayne. You were so pleased with yourself, I'm sure that you forgot who you were really dealing with. I know Bruce Wayne. And let me tell you, Tim if someone was trying to find out who Batman really was. If someone was stalking him for weeks. He'd know about it. You can't be that good. I am. He let you find him. And I bet he said the same thing to you as he did to me, didn't he? That you had a talent to make a difference in Gotham. That he needed someone he could trust in war on crime. That you were one of a kind. The light to his darkness. Robin, the Boy Wonder.

Tim saying 'I am' is really such a moment that doesn't come through in text because he is right that he really did do that but I also completely understand why Jason wouldn't believe it.

TBH my favorite part is how done Tim honestly sounds with Jason thoughout all his trauma dumping. Like imagine a grown man who used to work the same part time job as you breaking into your house, dressing up in your work uniform, ranting about how much the job ruined his life while he beats your ass??? God, and he probably had to write a fucking report about it after. RIP Timmy.

What do you want? Do you want to be Robin again? Is that it? You... want to take it away from me? Why in the hell would I ever want that? Don't you get it? When I died no one cared! No one remembered me. Are you completely insane? No one could forget you. I've spent my entire career wearing this mask under your shadow. I had to convince Batman to let me try this. All because he'll never stop blaming himself for what happened to you. You ask me, that's the only reason he hasn't taken you down. He's holding back. But me? No freakin' way. That's the Robin I wanted to see. Still. You do realize the whole idea of training a teenager to fight against something he'll never eradicate is a mistake. It didn't even surprise anyone when I died. When I failed. I failed-- but I'm still beating you. Do you think you're that good now?! Do you really, Tim? Yes.

Tim bashing Jason across the face as he says 'no freakin' way'? *chefs kiss*

Jason drugging the other Titans to knock them out?

Little bit true, Kory was actually just already away from the tower and BB and Cyborg were about to bounce because of the drama going on with Donna's return but Jason like super tazes them and then drugs Raven who he thought already went through enough shit without him knocking her out violently.

Note: Jason says in the text here that he never rolled with Cyborg or BB but like he actually did in some comics so?? The continuity is lie I guess idk.

Did he show up in Red Hood gear or a Robin costume?

Both tbh but he spent most of the time in the Robin costume but bro actually made a stripper rip away version of his Red Hood gear so he could dramatically reveal the Robin costume underneath. I can't believe no one ever includes that in their fics its so fucking funny.

Does he call Tim 'replacement' or slit his throat?

No, this came from a Batman comic with Hush not Teen Titans. That incident takes place in a graveyard not Titans Tower and he calls Tim pretender not replacement.

Does Jason break Tim's staff?

Tragically, no. The bo staff snap would have been iconic. Instead he just takes Tim's staff and beats Tim up with it and breaks stuff. BUT!! He uses it to bust a statue in the TITANS MEMORIAL ROOM which is a place in Titans Tower just for having statues of dead previous titans and Jason is rightfully pissed he didn't get one. Like Tim is correct in saying no one forgot him still but like I would be hurt too if all my friends made cool statues of friends that died and then just left my zombie ass out, like wtf.

Note: I am seriously losing my shit that I have never seen someone bring up the memorial room in a fanfic. That is so much angst material. 😭

Tim crying/ being scared?

Hell no. He's a fucking Robin you know he's being a sassy boy the whole time, even towards the end when he's about done he's still saying he's her and I love Tim for that.

Note: There are a few different times where Tim does a flippy Robin move and then Jason just fucking copies it like flexing that he can do it too, and its just so petty and stupid he's trying so hard to be better than an actual child. 💀I get why in the context of the situation but its still so ridiculous.

Message on the wall in Tim's blood?

TBH I really don't know for sure on this one?? Like its implied that he did but Tim isn't bleeding all that much throughout this beatdown and like we don't see Jason do it just the Titans reacting to seeing it after. It could be Tim's blood, it could be red paint, and it could even be that Jason packed an actual bucket of blood to bring with him to write a message with after he finished. TBH the world is your oyster on this one.

Note: If anyone can find another comic where this event was brought up where they actually clarify it was Tim's blood hmu and I'll update this but I couldn't find any.

Pit rage/ glowing green eyes?

Fanon only at this point in the comics. Jason is seems to be himself and even thinks Tim and his friends are pretty cool at the end, and he's just like reflecting on if he had good friends if he would have turned out better as he leaves.

[nekropsii]

Ok, don't get me wrong, i think your opinions/analysis have arguments, so you have reasons.

But i can't stop thinking, when you talk about fandom not interpreting things correctly, mostly dancestors, it feels like:

Fanon: i love the dancestors! They are all so nice!

You: aCTUALLY, they are all ASSHOLES, except mituna, latula, and porrim. The rest is crap and here is a long and detailed list with why:

And a the end of the list :but this is what makes them great as characters, because they have a narrative function to it!

Yep. And I stand by that. Firmly. What’s the problem here?

The Alpha Trolls - not the Dancestors, that’s literally every character in Homestuck - are largely not good people. Calling them nice is blatantly false and outright disregards almost every single scrap of text we are given. Mituna’s a good dude in a bad situation full of people he doesn’t really like, as is Damara. Latula’s literally never done anything wrong. Porrim’s just a regular person. Aranea’s pretty nice, and her actions during Game Over were a result of eternities of torment and desperation to be seen + heard, and is therefore not fully representative of her. Meenah’s cute, but a major fuckup that has committed some absolutely egregious crimes. That’s it, really.

The Alpha Trolls are Good Characters and (mostly) Bad People.

Are you maybe experiencing some kind of difficulty in understanding that there’s a difference between a character and a person? Because a fuck ton of people in fandom definitely do have that problem, for some reason.

A character is a plot device. It is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. A person is a person. The difference between a bad person and a bad character is that a bad character isn’t fulfilling the role and function they are supposed to perform, and a bad person is just a shitty guy I do not want to be around. Conflating the two leads to bad analysis, and is also a primary contributor to apologetics, and all those god awful fanonizations that sand down every edge the character has until they’re pleasant people and totally unrecognizable. People think they have to like a character as a human being in order to like them as a character. Which is completely untrue, and is totally naïve to the fact that villains are popular for a reason.

A character can be a bad person and a good character - they fill their role and serve their purpose very well, but would absolutely suck to be around. Meenah, Vriska, Cronus, and Caliborn all fit under that label. This isn’t always a villain role, but it does tend to get taken up by villains. And anti-heroes, of course. Vriska is there, after all

A character can be a good person but a bad character - they’d be pleasant to talk to in real life, but they suck at fulfilling their narrative purpose. Just about every fanon version of a character is this. It’s more of a fanfiction thing than an actual real literature thing.

I am the biggest fan + defender of the Alpha Trolls you can find. The Alpha Trolls largely are not good people, but they serve their function very well. This is not a controversial statement because it is entirely true. Fanon is dogshit and totally wrong, 100% of the time. This is a hill I’m willing to die on because I’m literally just correct. There is not a scrap of text on this planet that you could procure to say Cronus Ampora is a good person - anything you could scrounge up is just baseless fanfiction and total garbage.

I do not see the confusion, nor do I understand the point you’re trying to make. These are facts that can and do coexist, quite regularly. Even within Homestuck. Again, Vriska exists. What now?

[archer3-13]

I dont think there's ever actually any confirmation on what Rasa [fourth kazekages] relationship was like with his other children, cause thinking on it i dont remember any commentary from the other sand siblings on what their relationship was like with their dad.

certainly they don't seem too aggrieved that hes gone, but at the same time thats because originally the fourth kazekages death was a complete afterthought. relevant only in the sense it was an out from further suna konoha conflict, and by the time the sand siblings showed up again other things were more important/relevant to the story. when rasa showed up as an edo tensai could have presented that opportunity of learning what those relations were like, but rasa showing up again is solely for the gaara therapy hours so he can get some closure. in that moment rasa might as well not have had any other children and gaara might as well not have had any other siblings.

not that i think rasa being a shit dad to his other kids is unreasonable fanon [cause that is technically what it is with the main story being reluctant to comment any which way], as interesting as I find the man he is much like chiyo a cock, cause everyone in suna projects as much asshole energy outwards as possible. and his handling of gaara as a human being was deplorable, even if it also highlights the very real and unaddressed problems of the shinobi world and its values where human individuality, liberty and rights are sacrificed in the name of village prosperity and nation statehood [as opposed to just him being a cock].

but by that same token, I think all thats really confirmed about how he treated the other sand siblings is that he kept gaara forcibly separated from them. and if you separate gaara from the fandom woobification of him and think about it from the perspective of a military nation states leader it makes sense to keep your dangerous ticking timebomb unstable murder weapon away from the easily breakable children that represent the villages chances of future success. I'd almost call it good parenting even [bar that gaara is also his kid] to keep the children away from the unstable murder weapon that keeps accidentally maiming anyone it gets close to.

but i think a lot of that is kinda irrelevant to the actual discussion fandom seems interested in on this matter, because I don't think most people headcannon rasa as a bad father to temari and kankuro based on the patterns of his characters behaviour. I think most people do it out of this idea of "sand sibling solidarity". gaara's the baby woobie of the naruto fandom [its most widely accepted one anyways], and the sand sibling dynamic is a popular one. so its cathartic to blame any of their earlier problems/dysfunction and distaste for gaara on the big ol mean rasa/fourth kazekage.

and I think thats entirely too lame, cause it turns the sand siblings and their dynamic into temari and kankuro being gaaras generic yes men. a problem that does kinda intrinsically infect the original work mind, given that after the chunin exams the sand siblings disappear up until the sasuke retrieval missions ending at which point they're all suddenly buddy buddy with each other. but thats something that was a consequence of time and narrative flow, keeping the story focused and all. but fanfiction offers the opportunity to flesh these things out, and theres some real interesting ground in how the sand siblings transition from being completely fucking terrified [for fairly understandable and reasonable reasons] of gaara to being his pillars of support as kazekage following the [partial] failure of konoha crush. reducing it to rasa being the evil bad man who kept them separated when they actually wanted to be gaaras friends all along, is such a waste though.

anyways, feel free to crucify me now for being mean about the writing around the sand siblings.

[wenellyb]

Eddie Diaz is a white Latino. Did people learn nothing from the Pedro Pascal discourse? And does the fandom *not* remember that episode where the funeral protestor refuses to be tended by Hen and Chim, so he asks Eddie to give him care— fully seeing he’s white— until Eddie says his last name is Diaz and his father’s Mexican, but he can channel his mother’s Swedish heritage for the man’s comfort? White people are not members of the global majority, but they do live and exist outside Western Europe and the U.S. (like Mexico).

It’s so weird how parts of the fandom are making any positive reaction to a m/m relationship in this show (that isn’t their yaoi ‘buddie’ fanfiction) into something about loving to see white men kiss. Y’all would still be getting that with canon buddie! Y’all couldn’t even support Michael and Glenn (calling them “homewreckers”). Y’all constantly ignore Hen and Karen with your complaints of “queerbaiting.” Y’all also called TK & Carlos’ (911 Lone Star) relationship “toxic” because it began with sex and because y’all fanon Carlos as some aggressive control freak. Like… c’mon!

I don’t think anyone who is supportive of Buck’s new relationship is arguing that Tommy is perfect. He’s was a fucking dick to both Hen and Chim when they joined the 118. His “delivery man” comment to Chim was wildly unacceptable. No one has forgotten this. Yet both Hen and Chim are *NOW* good friends with him…? Why? He changed. And the show shows the audience this. They show that he developed a great camaraderie with Hen and Chim. They show how he— unlike Sal and Gerrard— shifted his behavior and worldview to accept, embrace, and enjoy change.

Tommy could have been Sal. He could have been Gerrard. He had a good working relationship with both men and both men encouraged bad behavior in the 118. Yet he didn’t. He stayed on and befriended Hen and Chim (when most of the other guys still refused). Because he chose to learn and change and open himself to people’s differences (which likely also helped him come to terms with his own “differences”).

Tommy’s arc is meant to show how someone can make amends, repair relationships, and become a better person (y’know… learn, grow, and reform himself). The general audience for this show is straight and white. They *need* to see white people changing and learning to be better. They *need* to see queer people coming into themselves. These are important story lines.

Fans like Buck and Tommy together because they like Buck and Tommy together, because they like what this means for them and what might happen going forward. That’s literally it. We’re all just overjoyed by having more queer representation, including Bi representation. That’s it.

But there are a lot of “buddie” shippers in people’s inboxes hating on Buck and Tommy together for no reason other than it stands in the way of their ideal porn fantasies (“buddie”). And they’re being weirdly queerphobic about it, too.

Hi Anon!!!! So much to unpack here. I'll post this and let anyone comment their thoughts because this is an interesting conversation.

I'll start by saying that it never occurred to me that Ryan Guzman was not White, until Bucktommy became more popular and some Buddie shippers said that Bucktommy shippers were preferring the White MM pairing and I was like "Hmm.... both Buddie and Bucktommy are White MM pairings"???? Like it never even occured to me.

I'm not here to debate Ryan Guzman's ethnicity, he knows that better than us, but as you mentionned people seem to forget that there are White latinos.

I should add that Americans will maybe have a different perspective but in Europe, there is racism, and there is also xenophobia both are bad, but not the same.

If I'm talking about someone who is White and Latino being a victim of prejudice, I would never say that they're victim of racism, I would say that he's victim of xenophobia.

Believe it or not there are a lot of Europeans are xenophobic but not racist and vice versa.

With that being said, I agree with the rest of your ask..

I love 911 Lone Star and watched 911 casually but I never got the Buddie shippers, especially the ones who said they shipped Buddie as a form of activism, or because there was a lack of Queer representation (which is true) but Henren are there, TK and Carlos are right there and it's the same franchise.

They never cared about Henren, they even erased them whenever they accused the show of Queerbaiting even thought it has several Queer characters.

I remember when they started complaining that Bucktommy had more fics that Henren after one kiss.... but never said anything about Buddie having over 20 000 fics after 6 years of nothing even thought Henren was canon.

A lot of their takes are rooted in hypocrisy, it's like they're taking all the arguments that have been thrown at them and throwing them back at Bucktommy shippers without even thinking about it.

It's very important to have discussion about fandom racism, because it's a huge issue especially in the biggest fandoms but I do feel like some of them are bringing the issue in bad faith. This discussion is so important but it needs to be had with the Bucktommy fandom AND the Buddie fandom. So far the Buddie shippers only want the Bucktommy shippers to have it.

Why don't they take a look at the mirror first and ask themselves why they never cared about a Black Lesbian couple when one of them was a Main Character. Why don't they ask themselves why a ship with 2 best friends has over 20000 fics and a canon ship that is TK and Carlos only have 7000.

And why do they find the weirdest excuses to hate on Carlos (as you said), who's clearly not White and never give him the same courtesy they give their fave White chatacters.

When Buddie shippers talk about fandom racism, all I can think is: the call is coming from inside the house.

[devilbeez]

Okay like— can we as a twst fandom come together and agree that

Azul dress like every male shoujo anime character ever. Like sweet babycake, my top 3 most beloved child, I will sell little of what I have left of my soul to you if you ask but I will not going to let the fact that you dress like someone from Ouran high school host club go

Jamil’s life would’ve been better if Kalim wasn’t in it in the first place. Don’t get me wrong the angst and fluff of those two are chef kiss but like….it really would’ve been better for Jamil’s mental health and actual development if Kalim never wanted to become his friends. It wouldn’t be as juicy of a story but Jamil would’ve been way less traumatized

Deuce’s mom is hot…….

Neige deserve more screen time. I don’t care if you love him, I don’t care if you hate him like me, he deserves more screen time so we can either hate or love him with an actual reason. I can guarantee you more than half of what you probably know of him is from fanon lore because Neige isn’t secretly evil canonically, Neige doesn’t have a big bad plot to over thrown Vil in canon, and imma call my self out here, Neige doesn’t think his cuteness is a cursed similar to Epel and want to break from the heroic roles but can’t because the industry is fucked and go on to keep feeling guilty because he isn’t appreciating the opportunities he have with every waking moment. Even if those are a much more interesting plot point. His wiki page and screen times are so short it make accurate fanfiction writers cry slightly inside.

Lastly, the ramshackle ghosts deserve recognition and there should be a petition for them to have names. They’re the uncles that stay when dad went to get milk and they deserve to be love as much as the nrc boys and staff

[gello-strands]

You're incredibly correct about scout btw. There was a poll awhile ago called "which merc is the most trans" and YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHO SCORED OVER 30% OF ALL VOTES.

Like cool fine it's just headcanons. But its so annoying to be scrolling through the trans tag on ao3 and almost all the tf2 ones are scout snivelling over whatever made up problem ails him in this particular universe. Gah.

YES THANK YOU. I have zero problem with trans headcanons but when it becomes fully accepted in fanon it makes it insanely hard to find any other interesting takes or opinions on the character other than "he's a trans boy!!"

And most of the time their reasoning for why they headcanon him as trans is "oh he has anxiety and he's the twinkiest of the group!!" And I hate to be that guy™ but why is the most commonly trans character, the youngest and the most conventionally attractive?

Like I mentioned earlier, having Scout largely accepted as trans really closes the door on any other interpretation of his character!! And the way people characterize him as trans is so boring!!

Im sorry if any of you are huge fans of the anxiety-ridden daddy-issues-having twinky little depresso baby boy version of his character, but I absolutely HATE IT!!

I see a lot of people acting like it's a deep and interesting look on his character but in my opinion it really isn't!

Sure, he does get urked when his dad is brought up, and sure he is pretty damn awkward sometimes. But I think his dumbass confidence is fully genuine most of the time!

He has anxiety because of his ego, he doesn't have an ego because of his anxiety.

People really just pull issues out of their ass for an excuse to make him a sad uwu boy. Even in a case where he IS going to lose, he's still the type to be a huge egotistical dick about it!! And I love that about him!!

Now I will say, I don't read much fanfiction myself, but I roleplay quite a bit and I do engage in a lot of general fanworks! And it really bothers me when people so blatantly favor Scout over other characters to the point that everyone else is nothing but a tool for something interesting to happen to their precious pookie bear.

If your going to see Scout as this serious, deep, multi-layered character, then the least you could do is give somewhat of the same treatment to other mercs! Especially spy considering how much of a plot device he can be to Scout!

But in SO MANY CASES. Spy is nothing but a evil mean stinky bad father who is fully 1-dimensional! It fucking sucks! In no way is Spy a good dad, or even a good person. But he really isn't such a heartless asshole as people make him out to be.

ANYWAYS. Yap session over

[pleasantspark]

This is gonna get me hate but....

WARNING: MY OWN OPINION I RESPECT YOURS BUT PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY HATE.

The thing is, the fandom. The fandom constantly preaches about the virtues of canon x canon and even fanon x canon to the point I feel suffocated, I am primarily first and foremost a oc x canon and selfshipper, anytime I see good art and the tags features a fanon ship. I unlike it.

It's not because I hate the art, I dislike the ships. But then again. Canon ships, stale as shit. VegBul is a overrated ship because of the constant fanservice it gives. I like the idea of a tsundere being tamed, but the fandom doesn't really have any other ideas other than the same plot for a fanfiction, then there's ChiChi x Goku. I hated Chi Chi, still do. And now I hate Goku as well.

Then there's the other ships, 18 and Krillin and the other ones, none of the ships are good, as with the fanon. But this is saying something because I respect y'alls hussle but it's not for me, it's leagues better than Hazbin however.

The shipping aspect of the side is just stale.

Then there's Frieza x Cell and or Frieza x Yamcha that I do not really see happening, Frieza being paired with Cell feels like selfcest, and at worst incest. Frieza complimented Yamcha and all of a sudden it's seen as gay? Like I mean, I am a man who calls my fellow guys handsome does that make me and that person gay? But yeah, whatever go ahead I love a crackship, no I am serious I do. But the idea of them being together isn't really my idea.

Then there's the Launch x Raditz ship, which to be honest is because a famous DBZTuber's thing. Let's face it, no one would have shipped them together if MaskoX didn't make that series at all. It falls under crackship as well, so I don't really care for it as much as everything else.

Perhaps the issue is, the fact I hate all the hero characters. I never really liked any of them even the turned good heros. They all are generic and have the same MO, fight bad guys and keep Earth safe. Goku is a good character in that regard, but the fact the Son Family ALWAYS somehow gets Ws is astondishing.

Then there's VEGETA, someone I first laid eyes on in 2019. I selfsjipped with him. But stopped after something else. I grew to dislike him for a reason I will not be sharing.

Then there's Bulma who was shaping up to be the less disliked character in my opinion. But sadly her cahracter is a stereotype of smart and rich female, that Chi Chi is jealous of. I like Bulma but overtime it's just became obnoxious.

Then there's Yamcha the fandoms punching bag and who people pair with Frieza because it's cute, I don't know, he Tien and some other characters barely appear in anything anymore because of the fact that they've been sidelined.

I think the problem is I like the nouned villains. Most of my work surrounds them, I don't want another DBZ Show, I want a godamn villain show where they all have their own wacky adventures.

I don't mean TFS HFIL as I am tired of people recommending me Abridged and TFS, no hate to anyone here but I don't find the appeal in that. I just don't really get to see why I can't be content with canon content featuring villians.

Then perhaps the worst of all, is the fact the kids, the kids in DBZ are underutilized. There's NOTHING beyond Gohan these kids have, it's always the adults, and not the kids. The main reason why Gohan never married Videl in most of my fics is, that Videl was just... Someone who was bland, never liked Satan either, nor did I like Pan. Why should I care for a character who the narrative never treated well, who, like Bulla is for gooner bait (Which is fucked up) and not treated well. I Don't care for Goten or Trunks either because they also get the same treatment.

"But if you feel like they don't get treatment, then why don't you give them it in your rewrite?"

Here's the thing, if they wanted me to care for the characters, then they should have them be more integral to the plot rather then the fact of being a burden or nothing.

Why should I care if the writers don't care? Yeah, I know, so that's why I avoid canon ships and fanon ships and try to write my own things.

[27thfirefly]

hi. i just read the last chapter of your fic went blind last year and HOLY FUCK it is so good. i get it if you don’t want to like spoil things about your fic but i have many many questions and thoughts so im just gonna write a bunch of them.

the whole thing with like. dirk tapping into ultimate dirk and part of canon and then being shoved out? and then kind of realizing that he is a small part of something very big and wanting to be a bigger part of it, and then getting orange eyes representing a stronger connection to dirk-ness? fascinating. and is daves eyes turning red then symbolic of him becoming closer to dave-ness? and speaking of that- dante??? great character, very interesting. is he like somehow a version of dave? and what was he talking about on the swings? is he also in some sort of a loop? and what was it that dirk did at the end of chapter four? he did something with the sword, right, did he make dante decapitate him and then somehow come back to life?

and hal. and cal! holy shit, i can’t believe it but you kind of made me LIKE cal somehow? in the sense that he can be violent and outrageous and insane and vengeful when dirk can’t and its kind of cathartic.

its interesting to see where things stay the same as in canon and where they dont. like dave has chat logs with rose in 2014 and 2015? but hes only fourteen. so he’s technically both older and younger than he is at the beginning of homestuck. and dirk was like 13 in 1997, which is about when daves meteor should have dropped? but did they come with the meteors at all, in this world? dirk came with lil cal on his meteor in canon, but here he got him when he was 12. but dave still seems to be somewhat in touch with his time powers, and dirk with his heart powers, so some things carried over from the game?

god. this is all so fascinating and good. i will be probably rereading the fic and eating drywall until a new chapter comes out. you are an amazing writer.

wahhh thank you very much! for what it's worth i too have been thinking a lot about went blind last year. glances at the +50k word txt document of story notes and wip chapters. so i do love getting to talk about it even if working on it is very slow at the moment! i will put this under a readmore cos i got carried away but

there's a lot of things i don't want to spoil yet yes... but i think i've laid enough of the groundwork that these things won't feel terribly out of place within the story.

one thing i do feel comfortable in divulging is that any connections to canon are deliberately tenuous... how far can a character diverge from canon while still being understood as fitting the mold for that character? when a character is deliberately obscured, how much does fanon interpretation impact what feels in-character?

when you read fanfiction or fancomics or whatever kind of work about a specific character, your mind creates a superposition of the character as they exist in the original work and the character as they exist in the fanwork. as long as the "shape" of the character in the fanwork doesn't stick out too much from your perception of the canon "shape", you can accept that character--as written by someone else--as the same as in canon. some of the choices i have made are deliberately contradictory to the text of homestuck the webcomic. i have made these choices in order to tell the story i want to tell. even so, the basis for the characters in wbly are understood to be the same as in homestuck, creating an expectation for what these characters will act like, what their baseline is, and how you as a reader approach them. your feelings about cal changing within the context of wbly is an interesting case of this in my mind--the cal within wbly is presumably still close enough to canon that you can call it the same character, but the role of cal is changed enough that your impression of him is changed. that kind of thing is FASCINATING to me.

the reason wbly would not work as an independent work is the same as why the homestuck epilogues do not work without the pre-existing fandom of homestuck: there need to be expectations for these characters and relationships in order for me to challenge those expectations.

another thing i will divulge is that went blind last year is not the full title of the story in my mind--i won't tell the full one, but it does tie into just about every conflict in the story.

thank you again for reading my overly complicated fanfic! hopefully you'll stick around even if it'll take me a lot longer than expected to complete. if not, that's fine too.

also every time i send updates to my friend i get lamentations so you know stuffs going great

[stop-spreading-this-poll]

Round 1 Poll 30: So Much Over A Mistranslation

One Piece submission:

A while ago a translation of a translation with bad English translated Law's line calling Corazon a ""大好きだった人"" (literally just ""someone [he] loved"") as him being his ""most treasured person"" and people just fucking RAN with it and I still saw it in edits years later. I've always hated it and I always will. People were using it in meta analysis and theory discussion about how he loved Corazon more than his family like,,, he literally did not fucking say that.

Ace Attorney submissions:

Manfred von Karma is not a child abuser!!!!!

Manfred von Karma is a canonical child abuser. That's just fanon and the only ""evidence"" is a mistranslation.

Manfred von Karma is often painted as abusive on fanworks, and while there's technically nothing wrong with that, the people who subscribe to this headcanon often refuse to entertain the idea that what theyre saying is just that. A HEADCANON. Theyre also sometimes downright hostile to anyone who likes Manfred in general. Usually, what they quote as ""proof"" is a line translated incorrectly and likely in bad faith in a side game, or just straight up fanfic. My friend group encounters this so much that we have a name for this phenomenon.

Manfred Von Karma is an abusive father

the fandom says that manfred von karma is canonically an abusive father. he literally isn't.

Manfred von Karma was not a child abuser

Manfred von Karma is a child abuser

manfred von karma beat his kids

these motherfuckers make up SO MUCH DUMB SHIT all the time but the one that kills me most is that they have a widely based fanon that manfred von karma is abusive when it's completely up to interpretation in the games. he's just a mean bitch and a murderer so they decided he beats/grooms/emotionally neglects his kids too and its so boring i took this to another blog and so did a lot of others in the fandom, the ""misinterpreted blorbo""/""he would not fucking say that"" bracket. immediately the mod was FLOODED with these people claiming that i was straightup lying, WITH MORE LIES. the most insane thing i saw was someone said that manfred allegedly burned letters that miles sent to phoenix when they were separated. not only did phoenix never send letters in canon (popular headcanon) but manfred most certainly was never said to have intercepted them! they were literally quoting wrightworth fanfiction they had read or some shit. its so fucking weird. people who see him as just kind of a silly murder dad with a really fucked up place in the story literally get called abuse apologists. and then when we're like 'BRO WHERE IS THE ABUSE' the other side is just like. 'play the game lol!!!!' meanwhile i, autistic, have played it 546445 times and half the people arguing with me watched one LP in like 2013 and have subsisted entirely off of twitter fanon and ao3 every since. please let me exit this hell

Manfred von karma abuses his kids

manfred von karma was abusive reasons it is false: he most definately was not the one line of ""proof"" (from a dubiously canon source) was a mistranslation from japanease to english von karma did not call miles worthless he called him inexperienced yes von karma is a horrible man but he was not a bad father

[willbyershandmoles]

and for a much pettier reason, i kept seeing people say stuff like "oh, will can have so many boyfriends and be so desired, but no, mike can only have eyes for will >:(" like what lol. that makes mike sound like a fucking ugly loser and i hate that.

I think I know what tweet you're talking about, but that was obviously a joke. and it's not really about mike being an ugly loser, but about this phenomenon where you're okay with your favourite character of the ship being shipped with other characters, but you hate when the other character of the ship is shipped with anyone else. that's why twitter is so obsessed with bychance and other will ships and tumblr is obsessed with mike having crushes on every guy in the show, including el's bullies in s4 (there are more will fans on byler twitter and there are more mike fans on byler tumblr). if you like both characters equally (I assume that you do), then ofc I can see why that's annoying.

also you should take into account that sttwt hates will and noah and doesn't miss an opportunity to call him ugly. even mike fans who ship byler call him ugly. that's why will fans go out of their way to portray him as the prettiest and the most desirable boy in existence.

and also... you're on sttwt? 👀

i agree will is desirable and pretty. but will can be written as desirable and pretty without making mike into a bumbling idiot. agh i'm sorry i'm not mad at you specifically, maybe i'm just sensitive (and i think my period is coming soon), but i've had enough of reading fanfiction and posts where mike is portrayed as an incompetent fool and he should be thankful that he's fortunate enough that will even spared him a glance. when isn't the whole point that they're both lucky to have one another? that they're both down bad?

that isn't to say i'm against mike being Just A Guy. i like that for mike. but not because he's unimportant or "lesser" than will or other characters. he's just a normal dude, who does normal masculine dude things.

that's interesting though that twitter leans more as will stans and tumblr is more for mike stans. definitely have to unpack that. and i will admit that of the two i prefer mike (he's my favorite of all st characters), but i still really enjoy will's character too.

but honestly? even on tumblr, the bastion of mike stans, i still can't escape mike mischaracterization. thats because most mike stans are interested in babygirlifying finn wolfhard, so even if they prefer him it's not actually mike, it's a cursed version of him. also, i just wanted to point out again that even though these stans like talking about mike crushing on other guys, he never actually dates them in fanon posts, or it's never about those guys liking him back. again, to me it's further solidifying pathetic!mike who blushes over every guy, but most of all will.

lastly, i don't have a byler account or anything. i have a private account and i just like and re-tweet stuff there of multiple fandoms. 😆 nobody even follows me lmao, i reject all follow requests. twitter probably thinks i'm a bot.

[fanby-fckry]

🧩 mine changes a lot

Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game

Thanks for the ask!

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

Ooh I have a few. For fandom-specific answers, any fic that calls Alastor a W-ndigo immediately gets a click backwards.

The one exception to this rule has been Anguish of the Marrow, because the trope was immediately subverted by Angel correcting the person who said it. Major props to JayJBird94 for being the only person I’ve ever seen address the W-ndigo fanon issue within the context of a fanfic.

In non-fandom-specific contexts, not having actual paragraphs/line breaks is a huge dealbreaker for me. I have ADHD and probably some minor dyslexia, and it’s just impossible for me to read text walls like that.

I often read fics one paragraph at a time by covering up the majority of my phone with my blanket/hoodie/whatever I have on hand, because otherwise, I get distracted or the words start swimming. Without proper paragraphs, this trick is useless and I’ll just flounder.

For similar reasons, if the spelling and/or grammar are bad enough, I can’t process it.

A lot of how I read is based on context clues. It takes me way longer to recognize certain words just on their own vs the same word in a sentence, because I can use the rest of the sentence to fill in the blanks. I know the word, I know its meaning, but sometimes without context it becomes a collection of meaningless letters – possibly not even the right letters. (Lowercase b, d, and p my abhorred!)

So if the grammar/spelling actively point me in the wrong direction, I’m basically fucking hopeless.

I do pretty well with grammar attached to a particular dialect, even if the dialect isn’t my own, (for example, AAVE does not give me this problem, because there are still rules and I have a fairly good understanding of said rules) but if there’s not a pattern I can recognize and adapt to, then I’m gonna struggle the whole time.

And if I’m struggling to actually read the fic, then I’m not enjoying it.

I also just realized that there’s like a bellcurve to how effective my reading comprehension is vs how many words I can see at once. Too many words is bad and distracting. Too few words is also bad, but for different reasons.

Words in the wrong order are bad too, but that doesn’t go on the bellcurve.

[hxrpooner]

(i wrote a response to this post a while ago, i don’t remember how long, but i didn’t like what i wrote anymore so i deleted it. but also i really like overthinking things and writing a lot of words about it so i’m rewriting my addition for funsies. i’m assuming op has notifs on this post turned off by now but if not... sorry lol) 

The basic premise of “Undertale Prime” as a hypothetical game off of which Undertale is based is... fine. It’s sort of just a (needlessly convoluted?) way of saying that Undertale subverts the character archetypes typically seen in the RPG genre. The problem is mostly with what OP presumes to be the purpose of this subversion. 

I find it hard just from this post to gauge exactly how the author feels about the game, but I am left with two possible conclusions: 

1) The game/its characters are bad. Undertale is “nonsensical” at best and “morally repugnant” at worst. The writing takes a fanfiction-like approach and fails at maintaining moral and logical consistency. 

I think use of words such as “morally repugnant” and “plotholes” is sort of... over-serious. Is every shounen anime or children’s cartoon that uses talk-no-jutsu “morally repugnant”? 

Undertale is silly. It’s a silly game. It has more serious moments and themes, and it does provide an interesting deconstruction of the RPG genre. But it is also a very lighthearted and funny game for the most part. It could almost be called a genre parody. The juxtaposition of the characters’ zany personalities with their attempts to murder you is... kind of part of the joke? (Like it’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek.I don’t feel like the game needs to spell it out for you explicitly for that to be clear). Mostly I feel like this interpretation is demanding a real-world level of coherence and logic that is unreasonable to expect from a silly fantasy RPG that parodizes many aspects of its genre. It feels pedantic (said the pot to the kettle, har har) 

2) The incongruence is done on purpose, as part of some meta-commentary about fandom. Undertale is aware of its internal inconsistencies and its characters are intentionally written this way in order to critique fandomization. 

The tone the OP takes towards fan characterizations feels quite derisive. I can’t help but feel that this interpretation is influenced by a negative view of fandoms. There are interesting conversations to be had about media literacy and the way fandoms engage with media, but this take feels unnecessarily reductive. In any case, Undertale is very earnest in the way it presents itself, and I can’t picture it as some sort of snide criticism of fans and fandoms. The way characters are written may reference fans and fanon, but I don’t think the writing gives any reason to believe that it’s a negative thing. 

Conclusions aside, I think the reasoning is fundamentally flawed. OP refers to the boss monsters as “villains”; they are bad people. Killing them is a morally acceptable way to “hold them responsible” for their actions. This is an oversimplification that Undertale actively resists. The characters of Undertale do bad things, but that does not make them bad people, or unworthy of saving. Even if it did, it still wouldn’t justify keeping the entire -- largely nonviolent -- monster race imprisoned underground. Sometimes in order to help the people who are good you have to help the people who suck; you don’t get to pick and choose who lives and dies. That’s like the whole fucking point!!! That they’re “monsters”, but not in the way that is typically meant when said in an RPG!!! That you can’t play god with people’s lives and expect the best possible outcome!!! UGH 

(Also... you absolutely CAN kill the monsters that attack you. The game doesn’t punish you for a Neutral route. Some of the characters might end up hating you, or having different things happen to them depending on your actions... although if you don’t like them I don’t know why you’d care what they think or what happens to them anyway. Frisk escapes the underground, and all’s well that ends well for them. A Pacifist ending is “better” in the sense that you get more of the story, the complete credits, and the monsters are freed. But again this is only really “better” if you actually LIKE the monsters. There’s little material benefit to the player or to Frisk; it’s also more mechanically difficult than a Neutral run. And yeah, the game punishes you for a Genocide route. But that’s because you have to go out of your way to kill all of the monsters in the game, which is immoral, pretty inarguably). 

TL;DR: This analysis misses the point of Undertale’s narrative by over-rationalizing, and possibly projecting the author’s own attitudes about fandom onto Toby Fox. 

Also, the line about how “the most sympathetic/admirable women become lesbians” is... weird! Just a fucking weird thing to say. 

A Remake Without an Original

Hold on tight, folks. We’re going full post-structuralist.

So. I’ve been thinking about the discussions that @nostalgebraist and @cyborgbutterflies​ have been having about Undertale fairly recently.

And I think I’ve hit upon a Doylist explanation for why Undertale is so morally bizarre:

All the characters in Undertale have no canonical existence, they have all been preemptively rewritten as the characters that fandom would have turned them into.

Undertale as it exists now, is like the fanon version of a game that never existed.

Let’s call this hypothetical game-that-never-was “Undertale Prime”.

In Undertale Prime, Papyrus is pretty much an exact duplicate of Skeletor: an evil mastermind whose plans never come to fruition. Constantly frustrated, taking out his anger on his minions in the most hilariously melodramatic ways.

In Undertale Prime, Undyne is a deadly serious super-soldier. Even a bit of a sadist. She is acquainted with Alphys, but there’s no romance between them.

In Undertale Prime, Mettaton has no Mettaton EX form. He remains a rectangular robot for the entire game, but his personality shows small signs of the sass and flamboyance of Mettaton EX.

In Undertale Prime, Alphys is a tetchy mad scientist, more like Cumberbatch’s Sherlock than anything else. Prickly on the surface, lonely underneath. There’s no mention of anime or internet arguments or anything like that.

In Undertale Prime, Asgore is stern and serious, and completely in charge, but tormented by the necessary evils he has committed to protect his kingdom. Like a more sympathetic version of a king from a Shakespearean tragedy.

And finally, in Undertale Prime, all bosses are killed without remorse or punishment.

We’ve seen these character archetypes before, and we can guess how a typical fandom would reinterpret these archetypes:

the Thwarted Mastermind becomes a Bumbling Narcissist.

the Deadly Soldier becomes a Hot-Blooded Blockhead.

the Mad Scientist becomes an Adorable Nerd.

The Geometric Robot becomes a Svelte Bishonen.(look at Bill Cipher fanart)

The Tormented King becomes Sad Dad.

(and the most sympathetic/admirable women become lesbians)

But most importantly, all these villains would become sympathetic.

They’d become comedy relief, or even woobies.

Undertale takes the most probable fanon reinterpretations of Undertale Prime, and makes them canon. Why are the villains actions treated so cavalierly? Because typical fandom wouldn’t care. Typical fandom forgives villains, typical fandom makes villains cute.

But the discrepancy is this: in Undertale, the characters’ actions all remain the same as they would be in the dark and serious story of Undertale Prime. They play the same role in the plot, they are still Villains. The only things that change are their personalities, and the manner in which they are presented to the audience.

The result is that Undertale Prime makes moral sense, but Undertale does not.

It’s as if the Avengers canonically considered Bucky Barnes a family friend and acted as if the events of The Winter Soldier had never happened, as fandom wishes it were– But Bucky was still a terrorist.

It’s as if the characters in Borderlands 2 saw Handsome Jack as charming comic relief, the way the audience does– but Handsome Jack was still a murderous psychopath.

It’s as if, in Kingdom Hearts 2, Organization XIII were portrayed as the bickering sitcom family that the KH fandom made them into– but they were still trying to kill Sora and friends.

Every playthrough of the Kingdom Hearts franchise involves killing every member of Organization XIII.

But I guarantee you every Kingdom Hearts fan has their favorite Organization member.

None of the characters in Undertale are “held responsible” for attacking Frisk, because a game audience typically does not hold boss characters responsible for attacking the player. Instead, the audience sees them, through a Doylist/Mechanics-oriented lens, as a welcome addition to the game: a challenging battle and an entertaining character.

Undertale takes the player’s expected affectionate attitude towards bosses, and makes it the “objectively morally right” choice, according to the game’s in-world metaphysics.

Undertale is not just a game that preaches pathological altruism, it is, in itself, a pathologically altruistic text– a text that privileges the interpretation it expects to be subjected to over its own internal structure and logic, and preemptively changes itself to make those expected interpretations into objective truth, even when those changes create plotholes and morally repugnant implications.

A game, suffering to make itself everything the world expects it to be, about a child who suffers to make itself everything the world expects it to be.

[emeritus-fuckers]

Hi, I made the 'almost as moody as Sodo' request and didn't mean to characterise him, everyone gets a little moody at times and I didn’t mean to make it sound like that was his only/main trait. He has so many wonderful qualities and I didn't need to single him out like that, I sincerely apologise. It was very poor wording, I could've easily left that out and I didn't. Looking back at the req I realise how insensitive that was of me to say, I wasn’t aware you head canoned him as someone with a borderline personality disorder (also just insensitive for me to say regardless). I will definitely look more into blogs and how they write characters in the future before making a req, thank you for calling me out on this.

It’s okay if you don’t forgive me, that was terrible and I do realise that now. I hope you don’t completely resent me for this mistake, once again I am very sorry.

Never said I was upset with you, just used your ask to sorta... rant, I guess? I have an issue with characters being mischaracterized due to my autistic need to keep everything as canon as I can (part of the reasons I was very hesitant to let other writers in at first) rather than going with the fanon versions of characters, who are often just... well, to put it simply, fucked over by the fandom. It's something that has irked me for years now, starting in ~2016, back in my shameful Hetalia years.

In your defense, it was never directly stated that we headcanon Sodo having Borderline, since it's a relatively fresh headcanon that, as I mentioned, is still being researched (since it's a bit difficult for me to differentiate Borderline and Bipolar since I have both), so you couldn't have known. I just severely dislike the word moody due to the fact that my own issues are often brushed up as "being moody" when I was emotionally shutting down, so seeing Sodo, a character that I love, being called that made me go on a rant. Especially since often the "aggressive" part of his behavior seems to be his entire character for some writers, who just make him angry and... that's it. He's angry. That's the character. He's angry and a bottom (despite being called the fucking Sodomizer-) and that's all.

I don't think you were insensitive (or at least, not on purpose), you just worded things poorly. There's no bad blood here, you're not banned from the blog or anything like that. You're free to resubmit your ask, just worded differently, if you wish.

My rant wasn't aimed at you specifically, it was more just... screaming into the void in annoyance at a thing that I notice a lot in fanfiction (and one of the reasons I barely read any) more than anything.

I do, however, appreciate you actually considering my words and taking something out of my manic ranting. Thank you for that, you deserve respect for it.

[tulip-lesbian]

2. What are you obsessed with right now?

8. What’s your favorite show to binge?

21. Describe your best friend.

31. Do you like paper books or ebooks better?

45. What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?

2. i think the only thing you could say i am obsessed with right now is supercorp fanfiction and more specifically kryptonian culture in fanon

8. like, repeatedly? i dont know. i havent been very into tv for a while. the most *recent* good shows ive binged though have been The Imperfects and Trinkets. a lot of shows Ive liked i dont anymore, for various reasons. some have been ruined to me by fanfiction that is superior to the source material.

21. she can go fuck herself <3

31. i like paper books and i like kindles less. but overwhelmingly most of my reading is done on my phone

45. im not convinced ive been on a bad date. ive been on very few dates total, its probably single digits. so, nothing bad, really. none id particularly change. it also depends what you call a date

[jynxedshapeshifter]

In Defense of Fandom (the website not the culture)

To start off, yes, I am biased. HOWEVER I think how good a specific piece of media's Fandom page is depends on the media. I genuinely don't think it's entirely fair to say "this site is inherently bad because sometimes information isn't accurate or the art isn't official art" because sometimes it's hard to find accurate information or official art.

Yes, support fan wikis where they exist -- for example, I much prefer using Nookipedia over the Animal Crossing Fandom page. But also, claiming Fandom.com wikis are inherently bad is just. Blatantly false? This goes for how user friendly the wiki is too actually. The reason I prefer Nookipedia over the Animal Crossing Fandom page is largely because of the user interface, but I also prefer the Forgotten Realms wiki over other fan wikis because I like the UI of the Forgotten Realms wiki.

We'll take the two I use the most as examples; the Ninjago wiki and the Forgotten Realms wiki.

Information on Ninjago isn't hard to find because the creators and writers for the show have an active social media presence, and the franchise itself is ongoing with plenty of places (both legal and not) to watch it. As a result, verifying the information isn't hard, and from my experience the information on the Ninjago wiki is pretty accurate. Additionally, all the art is screenshots from the show, art from official books, or from other official sources. I haven't come across any art or screenshots that isn't from an official source on the Ninjago wiki yet.

With the Forgotten Realms wiki, similarly to the Ninjago wiki, I haven't found any information that isn't verified, whether that be through sourcebooks, adventures, or something else. In fact I've been able to accurately verify everything myself by grabbing the D&D sourcebooks online and comparing information. The Forgotten Realms wiki has pretty accurate information. In addition to that, there's humor sprinkled into it (usually in image captions), which is something I absolutely love. Additionally, just like with the Ninjago wiki, any art is official and from the sourcebooks or commissioned by Wizards of the Coast (for example, the character art for the Honor Among Thieves characters). On the Forgotten Realms wiki, if there's a specific part of the lore that doesn't have a lot of information, it's still added to the wiki, but only verifiable information is added (which has some jokes on the page for Mordenkainen's arcane seal).

With a lot of other media, it can be incredibly hard to verify information. For example, with the Sonic fandom, it can be incredibly hard to determine what's canon vs fanon, which leads to confusion about things like character birthdays. That I'm aware of, Sonic is the only character with a canon birthday in the Sonic franchise, but because of how the Sonic fandom is, that's not exactly the most common of knowledge, at least from what I've seen. Also with the Sonic fandom, some people are so good at mimicking Sonic art styles that it can be genuinely hard to distinguish between fanart and official art.

In addition I have seen so many fanfiction writers for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves mention that they used the Forgotten Realms wiki as a reference for specific aspects of lore, which is something I can't blame them for because the Forgotten Realms wiki is fucking thorough. In fact, and this is something I can't stress enough, the Forgotten Realms wiki's thoroughness and the lighthearted jokes on some of the specific pages makes the Forgotten Realms wiki one of my favorite wikis of all time. The fact that from what I've seen it only uses verifiable facts from official sources (by which I mean it has tons of pages but a fair amount of them feel incomplete due to a lack of verifiable information) just makes it even better.

Call out bad Fandom.com pages when you find them, sure, but don't act like they're all bad because of a few bad apples. The references and footnotes are there for a reason, and whether or not a Fandom.com page is bad is going to depend heavily on the media and the fandom because Fandom.com is LITERALLY just a website that hosts wikis. It's quite basically Wix for fandom wikis, and acting like changing the site the information is hosted on is going to change anything is just lying to yourself.

[vulcajes]

Reasons why this is fucked up:

Why is Regulus leading the protest? He is a pro-fascist character

Why are James and Mary only referenced in terms of their ethnicities and not what they did during the protest?

Why does it imply that Regulus and Lily are only leading the protest bc their partners are poc? I only say this bc the jegulus tag is used.

Why are Barty and Evan here getting arrested? From how fanon characterises them, it's fair to assume it's because they're the rebels who cause chaos, which is crazy because why are they trying to incite a riot at a protest?

Why is Narcissa a lawyer aiding protests? While her character is more of a gray area, there's still the undeniable fact that she is mostly pro-fascist

My criticisms of the inclusion of pro-fascist characters comes from the fact that you simply could not include them. There are characters who would hypothetically go to anti-ICE protests. Barty, Evan, and Regulus are not them. You could've included other characters like Marlene and Dorcas, but didn't. I won't conjecture as to why you only included female characters as either the co-leader with a fascist or the damsel in distress, but I'm sure there are reasons.

You say art is inherently political, but this isn't art. This is a childish understanding of a real life modern fight against fascism and an attempt to bastardise it into silly fanfiction. Nobody is saying don't write about taboo topics or engage in politics whilst in fandom, but writing a fanfiction about fascists fighting against ICE is actually horrendous.

Just because these characters are fictional does not absolve you. You're still discussing real world events and putting these characters into those situations. Your lack of comprehension of the severity of this topic is concerning.

Similarly, just because you can hc a character how you want doesn't take away the reality of how that character is in canon. Evan, Reg, Barty, and Narcissa are fascist characters. You can close your eyes and cover your ears but that does not change the reality of you romanticising them and justifying their actions.

I feel justified in calling you out like this because you are (allegedly) an adult. You're (allegedly) 21. I'm not entirely convinced of this, but if you want to act like an adult then you'll be treated like one. At your age, you should know this stuff is disgusting and unacceptable. Don't treat an actual fight for human rights as a basis for fanfiction.

You also say you're a literature student, which I also take problem with. A literature student would know the difference between writing about taboo subjects/"art is political" and writing fanfiction about your fascist faves protesting against a fascist regime that wants to take away the rights and safety of millions. There's such a thing as time and place. This is neither the time nor the place.

Need a Marauders fic where they protest ICE stat. Regulus and Lily are leading this charge for (my canon - yours can differ) Indian!James and Latina!Mary. Evan and Barty get arrested, and lawyer power-couple Narcissa and Alice get them out.

I'm too scared to write my own fanfiction, but I think I might write this because I want this to exist, and I want my version of the Marauders to be more.

Sorry if this upsets you, but all art is inherently political!

(EDIT: feel free to leave hate speech in my inbox, it gets me horny. maybe i'll dedicate a chapter to you if you feel that much about my hypothetical thoughts on made-up people)