#just in case you want to accuse me of mischaracterizing

[azaharinflames]

you’ve had such well-thought out answers to everything 911 and bucktommy so i wanted to hear your take on this. i just came across someone writing that bvddie endgame is corroborated in the overall story and not going there is in bad faith 😵‍💫

i’m sorry but when the showrunners - both tim and kristen - plus the actor who portrays one half of that ship have emphasised over and over again the deep friendship and brotherly bond between buck and eddie…what am i missing here?

there have been numerous instances where the writers have opened up the possibility of buck realising romantic feelings for eddie and every single one of those instances have been clear: it’s always been about TOMMY

I had a long answer to this, and then the blackout happened and I lost it :/ So, trying again!

First of all, thank you so, so much, Nonnie! I really appreciate your words.

I've always thought that there is no stopping from living in delusion, if living there is all you know. But what do I know, lol.

I don't see how Buddie endgame is corroborated in the overall story, I genuinely don't. And I think anyone trying to claim the people not seeing it do it in bad faith are adding to some harmful rhetorics I've been seeing a lot in the fandom. Where if you don't like Buddie, then you're labeled as a racist and a homophobe.

Stop it. Cut that shit.

What they're doing by throwing accusations like those so easily is trivialising some very serious issues, whilst actively engaging in perpetuating those. Meaning, you cannot seriously tell me I am homophobic for not liking Buddie when in the same breath you're saying (with your whole chest, mind you) that Tommy Kinard, a canonically gay man (or Josh, also a canonically gay man), should be run over by a train. It's not a joke. It's not funny. Stop it.

Sorry for derailing there a bit, but it truly annoys me.

Look, to be very blunt here, I don't think 911 has written a single one of their pairings as being corroborated by the storyline. They've hit gold with Henren, Bathena, and Madney, and now with Bucktommy, but honestly? In all cases, it was a product of their luck in having actors that had insane chemistry together without the producers expecting it, in having actors advocating for their characters and the directions they wanted to take them in... I am not undermining the talent of the writers. There is only so much an actor can do without some good material. But I genuinely believe not a single couple of 911 was planned from the start (save Henren, because of obvious reasons), nor did they orchestrate the whole series to fit them.

Bucktommy are an anomaly (affectionate), in the way that, somehow, they fit so well, to the point that the red string theory was born. But we all know they were not planned from the start, and that Tim is probably still in shock at how hard he hit the jackpot with them.

So. For Buddie? Nothing indicates it was them from the start, and I think some small fun tidbits (like the elf in Season 2) that were done to joke around with the fans got taken too far. I'll just put in as simply as I can, I guess:

If the show wanted them to be endgame from the start, their growth would've gone perpendicular. Meaning - the actions of one would constantly be reflected in the other. Furthermore, if they were meant to be endgame, you know what we would've seen? Them acting like they do in fanfics.

Hot take, idc. But I mean it. Because in fanfics, back when I was reading Buddie, I maybe could see it (in the ones that didn't heavily mischaracterize them). A situation where they were fully supportive of each other, where they were each other's number 1 (Chris on a whole other league ofc), where their decisions were heavily influenced by each other, where they shared every big moment with each other.

But that is not what we got. And that is not what we have, for as much as they want to twist it that way.

And they made that even more obvious once Tommy came into play. Once they had Buck leaving his sister's wedding momentarily because he wanted to share that moment with Tommy (who, also, put Buck as his priority the second the emergency was over). Once they had Buck going home to his boyfriend in 710, instead of almost moving in with the Diazes to try to fix Eddie's mess. Once they showed us how Tommy takes care of him in a way no one else will, will put Buck as a priority even when they are not together (yet), will feel Buck's pain as if it were his own.

I feel like this got very long, and that my thoughts are all over the place lol. But to sum it up:

I do not think Buddie endgame is corroborated in the show, nor do I think it would be as amazing as they think it would be. Mostly because we've had Eddie looking about done with Buck several times this season (and in a no-cute way, I'll say), and mostly because after all they've done with Bucktommy, how significant they've made them so far? Yeah... I don't know if they could ever achieve that again without people thinking: Oh, but this is just a copy of Buck and Tommy. Meh.

Sorry for the long ass answer hehe. I was answering this ask shortly before the power outage, so it was on my mind most of the day (whenever I wasn't worried sick lmao)

[saihakkenden]

a kiss.. behind the mistletoe? (⸝⸝๑ ̫ ๑⸝⸝⸝)

click for better quality ദ്ദി(｡•̀ ,<)~✩‧₊

sketch

reference

[evieelyzabethh]

Imagine streamer Jayce and reader, and Viktor doing a stream where Jayce and reader read fanfics of themselves before rating them on accuracy, while Viktor is just cringing in the background and making sarcastic comments. He dies at the [insert reader’s name] x viktor fics

Jayce definitely brings up the idea. His twitch chat is already insanely horny and he doesn't do much to monitor it. The second he catches wind that there are fanfics out there about him, he is creating a tumblr account and politely asking forcing you two to join him. Viktor, who isn't even featured on the channel much grossly underestimates the number of fics out there and is appalled by his mischaracterization and the fact that he has the most about him.

Jayce would give the internet ungodly amounts of clips to make edits from, you would try and play ball with the horniness before inevitably breaking character, and Viktor slowly descends into madness the more you roleplay what you're reading. He is holding the phone in his left hand, the other wrapped around your throat as his face contorts in confusion before shouting "My leg is where?!" He accuses the author of being a delusional virgin before moving on to the next one. Like he genuinely is trying to picture the scenarios in his head but the position switching becomes too much he loses track and gets confused. You have only made it through a reenactment a handful of times, and each time he jokingly asks, "Was it as good for you as it was for me?"

Viktor needs to be strapped down to get through x reader fics. He wants to leave! He is not having it at all. It doesn't annoy him that they ignore your existence, he knows it's a wish fulfillment kinda thing, it's more so that the mischaracterization is even worse. The whole time he's like "I would not say that!" "Can I sue for defamation; I am nothing like this!" Best case scenario, he throws on his reading glasses and starts criticizing the grammar and spelling. If it becomes a regular series, he has a button that makes noises from every time someone messes up there, they're, and their.

[sharffffff]

Pili 2 didn't deserve this - but also did, an analysis

Preface before I get too deep into this: I haven't rewatched any of the Pangi vods (except pangkey moments for research but it isn't relevant) in a bit, so some of the facts can be not exactly accurate and feel free to call me out in the tags, however I try to keep everything laid out plainly. If this isn't obvious, this is from a pov of a Pangi viewer - if Pili has specified something different in his streams, I won't know it, and feel free to tell me about it and I'll try to correct it.

Now to the topic of the post: there is an insane amount of mischaracterization surrounding Pili 2, which leads to the character hate he doesn't deserve. If you want to hate the character, do it for the actions he has actually done, or for the fact that you don't like split personality trope, or anything else - but don't attribute actions done by another character to him.

If you look into the history of the relationship between Pangi and Pili 2 (and 1.5, but we will get into it later), Pangi certainly instigated it at the start. The accusations of Pili 2 being a person he had no recollections of, the stalking to try and catch him in on the lie, the obsession Pangi had with him for around a week - from Pili 2's pov, they were completely unjustifiable, and so he decided to be cold and distant to Pangi as well, until eventually Pangi left him alone - and everything could've been solved here, if it wasn't for the Pili 1 book.

Here's the first and one of the only two (two and a half? three?) cases where Pili 2 has done something especially bad towards Pangi - ripping out the last two pages of the book, but in his own eyes, it was protecting his own skin, and he expected to die for this - and he did, first by Pangi, who was justifiably angry, and then resetting himself to start on 3 lives again. This was the one death to Pangi that in the eyes of Pili 2 was justified - he expected it, it came, everything was fine.

After that, Pangi tried distancing himself from Pili 2 as much as possible, and while Pili 2 himself still sometimes came along to be annoying to Pangi, it was minimal. Until the first appearance of Pili 1.5 - in the shape of the signs filling up Pangi's entire house. We know it's Pili 1.5 because Pili 2 didn't remember it - and also because the signs were clearly referencing Mocha. But they drove Pangi angry, and made him think that Pili 2 was lying, was stalking him, was being obsessive - and from Pangi's eyes he was, because Pangi didn't know (and tbh still doesn't know, somehow, my streamer is stupid forgive him) that Pili 1.5, or Mocha possessing Pili 2, is a thing.

Pili 2 still kept being annoying to Pangi, yes, but it was only fueled by Pangi accusing him of things he has never done, and it culminated in Pili 2 stealing armor set Pangi got for Jonnay (it took so long to find that alt vod to confirm that reverb was on so it was actually Pili 2 and not Mocha), which resulted in Pangi blowing up Pili's base, and Pili stealing Pedro.

Pangi was justifiably murderous after that, but then Pili gave Pedro back, and they talked, and then they decided to leave bygones be bygones, start from a clean slate and just keep their distance so nothing more happens between them.

And that's when the cracks start to show, where the perspectives of Pili 2 and Pangi differ significantly. Very significantly, one might say.

Because from Pangi's perspective, instead of leaving him alone, Pili starts hounding him, hounding his friends, first trying to kill them and then asking them out, starts consistently psychologically torturing him and just won't die no matter how many times he is killed. He does everything in his power to make Pangi's life as miserable as possible, and even tells so to his face - and tells him that yeah, he did place the signs, yeah, he is still here, yeah, he will torture him, will kill Lukey just to hurt him, will make his experience on this server living hell - and it drives Pangi insane, drives him to kill him over and over to make sure he leaves him alone - and he never, never does. So from Pangi's point of view, all those kills on Pili are justified - in an environment he came from, kills are a valid reply to psychological torture.

But then we have Pili 2's perspective, where he does nothing of what was listed. Yes, he asks Lukey out and forms a relationship with him, inviting him to the ball just to have fun - and then retracting that invite when Lukey rejects him and Pangi confronts him. He never did it to make Pangi jealous, he just wanted to have fun with Lukey. And then he also asks Zam out - not caring that he's Pangi's friend, just wanting, again, to spend great time with his friend. And he is killed for doing nothing, killed by this obsessive, murderous person who seems to just hate him for things he did ages ago, saying he did things he never actually did. Yes, there is suspicion about those things actually happening, as multiple people have told him he did them, but he doesn't remember them - and while he suspects what might be the cause, in his eyes he is innocent, in his eyes he doesn't deserve any of those deaths except the very first one. In his eyes, first Pangi promised to let him be, and then ruined his entire life.

And that's where Pili 1.5 comes in. He was the one doing every terrible thing that Pangi described, he was the one hunting down Lukey and trying to kill him over and over again. He was the one harassing and manipulating Pangi - Pili 2 never did that. Well, maybe he did a little bit of manipulation, but who hasn't. Pili 1.5 has done so, so much more. And in most cases it's easy to miss - the only change is that his voice changer is gone, his reverb is off, and, of course, the personality shift. Pili 1.5 does the things, but Pili 2 suffers the consequences - and doesn't know why. Pili 1.5 is the one who keeps prolonging the cycle of violence, and Pangi takes the bait every time. It was Pili 1.5 who made Pangi thing that Pili 2 was taking Zam to the ball just to make Pangi feel awful - because Pili 1.5 specifically mocked him, said that he would make the ball extremely miserable for Pangi - but Pili 2 never intended it this way.

And this is the exact reason why from Pangi's point of view, every death, every bit of violence, everything he ever done to Pili 2 was justified - but also why Pili 2 didn't lie when he said Pangi did it for no reason. Because he did do it for no reason - it wasn't Pili 2 who was torturing him, it was Mocha possessing his body.

And if this trend continues, if Pili 3 really is Pili 1 with memories of both of his installments, Pangi will suffer even more. Because it will be even more of Pili 1.5, with none of Pili 2 to counteract it. And god knows I will suffer from it. But while I can't defend Pili 1.5, I will be Pili 2 defender. My boy did barely anything wrong and suffered so much for it. Too bad he had to suffer the consequences for action committed by a different person. But also I despise split personality trope with all my being so I'm glad Pili 2 is dead.

[xuxueee]

Ranting cos I can

(Tw: horrible grammar and spelling as always, because I can't do better)

Is it just me, or is SaneGiyu and GiyuSane the only ship which the role completely changes their dynamic and how the characters are viewed as? Like take RenGiyu for example, make is GiyuRen, the characters are still the same, nothing changes just the role if they top or bottom. Even RenSane/SaneRen, SaneOba/ObaRen, ShinoMitsu/MitsuRen, even other ships as well. But In SaneGiyu/GiyuSane a whole lotta changes between the characters depending if they top or bottom. Some people try to defend "mischaracterization"as people trying to put themselves on these popular characters and write either fics or draw the ship, where they put their mental health into the characters,their traumas and everything because they are their comfort character. But in SaneGiyu is rarely the case, because if that's the excuse for mischaracterizing a character, its completely justified, but like I said, in SaneGiyu is rarely the case. I was recommended this SaneGiyu/GiyuSane a03 fic where this was the case, it wasn't anything of my preference but i can see why people can like stuff like this, having your comfort ship/character go through relatable stuff that you went through and see how they deal with it, a lot a people like that. But in the other case and much more popular one, people just completely discard the ship and shape the characters of how they want to without any reason at all and go around saying non true stuff about them and call it canon and piss you off about it, when it could just be a head-canon but no, they just spread false accusations of the character. Like when people used to hate Sanemi so much on season one for stabbing Nezuko, calling him heartless and this horrible person. Now how would it be to see other people call him that now? People will obviously disagree and fight that person to justify Sanemi, cos in reality Sanemi is not like that, is he? People will feel flustered and angry at the person who will say this stuff and complain about them. But now, I see people complain about people who try to correct the roomers and give a show of how the characters would really interact if they where in a relationship, because a character obviously wouldn't be a bottom in every relationship they will be in, or a top. People are different and just because I say Giyuu tops in GiyuSane doesn't mean I will go around saying Giyu tops in Rengoku x Giyuu, Obanai x Giyuu, Sabito x Giyuu, Tengen X Giyuu. With Sanemi as well, just become I say he bottoms here doesn't mean he will bottom in any other relationship. People forget, they really do, relationships are not the same, ships do not fit one stereotype, for example gays ship, one has to be so masculine alpha male and one so feminine and cute cry baby, LIKE WHY CAN'T I HAVE TWO MALE CHARACTERS WHO ARE BOTH STRONG ASF AND WHO CAN BEAT EACH OTHER UP LIKE ITS SOMETHING CASUAL? (This goes for Gl as well, I'm not leaving you guys out.) But when I say people are mischaracterizing a character, they immediately assume I'm talking about Au's or their sexuality. "Well I think Giyuu and Sanemi are two broke people on the street." yeah Au, but that doesn't necessarily mean to change their while personality to a unrecognizable one? Giyu can be trans for all I care, does that mean he should stop having his stoic resting face? Does that mean he should stop being straight to point how his character is? Straight forward? Spartan? No, a HEAD CANON sexuality doesn't mean the characters personality is suddenly so different because "their trans" "their bi" "their lasbian" if you believe so, they you mostly likely like to base things out of stereotypes. Even if their complimental stereotypes, they still are stereotypes, just because your lasbian doesn't mean you will fall in love with every female that breaths the same air as you.

Okay I got out of topic for a second, but my point is, SaneGiyu is not my problems, the shippers, SHIPPERS, are. So if I don't agree with your view point of Giyuu or Sanemi? So what if you do not agree with my view point of them? People completely miss my point in my says. When I try to keep the character in their character, it's suddenly became "oh But it's SaneGiyu, where Sanemi tops" so if he tops? Is that a reason to completely change his character to fit the "top person" stereotype? Why isn't this referenced in other ships Sanemi is in? Why only SaneGiyu? And why Giyu has to be this twink in SaneGiyu? But not in other ships his put in? No, topping or bottoming doesn't have a touch in the dynamic of the ship. I made that Giyu x Sanemi ship chart right? People started defending mischaracterizing, "oh because Sanemi tops" "oh but miss leading a character nothing , it's fiction." I'm gonna make this clear, even though my Giyuu x Sanemi ship charts where "GiyuSane" it's wasn't just for "GiyuSane" the same shit is also in SaneGiyu, is just the role that changed, it doesn't mean they gotta change because Giyu bottoms Sanemi tops. That ship chart was for both GiyuSane AND SaneGiyu.

Like I said before, I have no big problem with SaneGiyu, my problem is the shippers. And people may same I'm doing the "same thing", because they view the characters differently. I agree I may have also viewed a character differently until people called me out on. For example Zenitsu, I used to hate him and think he was some kind of freak, because I didn't bother going through his character because I already got the first image of him in my mind and couldn't care less about the rest of him or the actual him. Bitchy move right? So what's your problem if I say Giyuu isn't emo cry baby who needs help 24/7? Is that actually him? Is Sanemi actually this horrible heartless person? Most of th SaneGiyu shippers are just like me then when I based my opinion about Zenitsu being a creep, and how I didn't care about looking into his acutal character. No I do not think of Zenitsu like that anymore, and no bro isn't a creep, is just people who already feed me these false accusations of him and the same thing is happening with SaneGiyu. Ask the Zenitsu stans, I feel just like them when people mischaracterize Giyuu or Sanemi on the internet, unpleasant isn't it.

Okay, bye bye beautiful 🤧😘

[featherfootproductions]

GUYSSSS MISAKO CAT DOODLE.

THERES MORE PLS READ.

⚠️⚠️HEY NINJAGO FANDOM (and any others) I THINK WE ALL NEED TO HAVE A TALK. OK.⚠️⚠️ So for one dragons rising s2 part 1 comes out tomrrow for those in the United States and some other areas, but there’s also been some slight debates about Misako on tumblr (maybe not but I keep getting posts related to her).

and it’s a little annoying tbh. Well not annoying but difficult. Some posts are saying “Oh well misako wasn’t s good mom but the ninja weren’t better!” Which I am NOT trying to call anybody out or attack them. However yeah none of them were really ‘great’ at raising Lloyd however there’s also other factors that go into it as well.

I myself am more neutral about Misako. I don’t like her. But I’m willing to hear out genuine debates on her. However yes, I agree Misako is a complex character and while I and I’m sure many others who might dislike her or feel neutral about her understand that and understand that she had reasons for her actions- that does NOT mean we still cannot dislike a complex character. (Also you don’t always HAVE to have a reason on why you dislike or like something and sometimes you might not even know yourself why)

for example on tiktok there’ll be videos saying “We need more complex characters!” And usually the video will go to “you couldn’t even handle (insert character(s)).” And it’s one thing if they mischaracterize the character and don’t understand it. But if they still know the characters complex and understand the reasons that doesn’t mean they have to LIKE the character. They aren’t entitled to. And nobody is entitled to be upset at someone else for disliking or liking a character. You can debate civilly about a character if you want but don’t go throwing accusations like “OH YOU DONT LIKE (insert character) YOUR PROBABLY RACIST, MISOGYNISTIC, ETC.” And while I’m sure in a few cases that might play into it. But also- that’s not always the case. Like if I dislike a female character for reasons am I misogynistic? No. Not unless I hate her BECAUSE she’s a woman. Not because she might’ve done something I personally don’t agree with. And I think we all need to understand that,

EVERYONE can form opinions based on their own personal experiences and morals. You don’t have to LIKE someone else’s opinion but you don’t have to berate them for it either. And I’m sure someone might say “OH YOU JUST DONT LIKE MISAKO.” NO. I don’t like her- but I don’t hate her. I have mixed feeling about her. But it’s no different if someone else also disliked a complex character such as Garmadon or Wu. (Most of the time from what I’ve seen) It’s not because of a racial or sex issue with the character. It’s just because that character in that own individuals opinion isn’t their favorite.

EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO THEIR OWN DISLIKES AND LIKES.

so if you can relate or have anything to add onto or maybe speak with me about feel free to reply or reblog. THANK YOU, HAVE A NICE DAY.

Tagging some of my mutuals/pookies/ or just someone who could give a good opinion so they can help spread some awareness! @clovercreationscc @froggityboingerrr @hollowflight-propaganda @iamsonormalaboutninjago @nyaskitten(I want ur opinion on this lol)

[crearibir]

I read the 2022-23 Punisher run by Jason Aaron.

It's not good. It's alright at times, and sometimes it even approaches decent, but on the whole I'd say it's bad.

I've seen some people say this series is supposed to be a deconstruction of the Punisher's character, so on so forth, etc.. But, if that's what it's supposed to be, it completely fails at that for me because the run's entire premise is based off a mischaracterization (Frank knows his family is dead, and wouldn't try to resurrect them, he's pretty consistently killed the people who've tried to do that. If he wanted to be with them again, he wouldn't do necromancy, he'd probably just kill himself.), some of the more climactic dramatic moments are also based off mischaracterization, and, whether the run knows it or not, to me the backstory retcons kind of... absolve Frank of some of his personal culpability.

Well, yeah, I suppose he would go into crazy murder town after Central Park. I probably would too if I had Literal Satan whispering in my ear and influencing my actions since I was a child. And I know, "Is it better to be born good or resist your evil nature" quote, yadda yadda, but the run being vague about the Beast's influence on Frank as a child actively harms the points it's trying to make. Because everybody else in the story treats it as though he was a normal person who made decisions. Which is fair, they didn't read the flashbacks because they're not the reader. But I, the reader, know that's not the case. Because I, the reader, know about Literal Satan whispering in his ear and the stupid fucking "Oh you're actually the reincarnation of an ancient Hand samurai" shit. So that's going to affect how I'm seeing everything.

... Unless that was all supposed to be bullshit and not real, which wouldn't actually fix anything because then the book is dedicated to flashbacks that aren't actually real, and then never addresses it.

At times, the Punisher comes off as cartoonishly evil and crazy, which then makes the ending kind of... come out of nowhere. Why would he suddenly change his mind because Maria Mean To Me? I get what they were going for, but the two halves don't feel cohesive. So every time the Punisher acts not kind of cartoonishly evil and crazy it comes off weird.

Also: there's points where characters (usually the antagonists) will point out that the Punisher is acting out of character, to which the priestess (usually) will go "nuh uh." This happens so much that I almost want to accuse the writer (or editor!) of speaking directly to me and telling me "no, no, he's totally in character." Except it annoys me because no, he's not. And the not explaining why he's acting out of character ("that rascal Jigsaw drugged him again!" or anything like that) just annoys me more. It also annoys me because there's points where he almost acts in character and then it's right back to no territory.

I think you can write a story that really tackles the Punisher as a person, and really gets into his head and strips him down. This book is not that.

[the-meme-monarch]

I hvn't checked on ur blog in a while so if you really got a transphobic ask than fuck whoever did that > :<

but I do want to input that as far as shipping goes: I'd imagine it's cuz sometimes your posts come off as "headcanon police"y and could easily be interpreted as "hate" themselves, I think maybe some tone indicators or "rant" disclaimer would help a lot (assuming the hate asks do have backbone and aren't just people being rude and mad for the sack of being rude and mad) I'm really sorry if this ask reads as passive aggressive, I don't intend it to be. I just remember feeling that your post about "why do people portray sweet as jaded" was phrased kinda aggressively, like complaining about "mischaracterization" thats actually just "not characterized by your interpretation, like I feel the best thing about scc is how much was left for intepreatation and thus how creative and varied but still have the same vibe fanworks of them have, so seeing posts looking down on these creative works from a very creative an amazing artist felt a little odd: but I am autistic, so I might have just misunderstood the tone completely ^^*

in that case I'm srry for wasting your time reading this fndjskfa

while I have the confidence to send this ask I might as well add that your lineart is SO good and I must have watched your scc animation at least 10 times: at least 3 of those time was on low speed as I paused at every frame, and I also just really appreciate that you give ralsei a tail, the fluffy boy deserves a fluffy tail *applause*

the transphobia seemed entirely baseless, they didn't connect it to anything but I can't imagine why someone would send it if not for Being Pissed At Something I Did.

anyway that wasn't meant to be heacanon policing, i feel justified being upset w people mischaracterizing scc, sweet in this case, bc ppl will make sweet's defining character trait "grmpy straight man character" when he isn't ! he is not at all the straight man character, if anything, capn kinda is? since he's the only one to point out something not making sense (like kk asking to buy a bagel when he's selling them) whereas sweet goes perfectly along with kk saying he wants to be a car. sweet Does get angry, we see that before and after their fight, but they were also very easily convinced (by kk, not really capn) to stop being mad and was immediately happy again. overall sweet is just emotional, and i don't like that people stop at "mad". and then making them the straight man character was wrong to begin with. their characterization is just so clear to me i don't get why people think he's jaded. now I'm worried abt that also sounding mean when i didn't intend it so but Well. maybe i deserve to be mean. as a treat /j

and well i have every right to be mad abt people infantalizing kk i think. you didn't say that and I'm not accusing you but since I'm on the thought train of Being Mad With Their Fandom Mischaracterization

also thank you ! ralsei can have a tail. as a treat

[none-gender-left-man]

Let's talk LGBTQ+ erasure in the Marvel Fandom

Mischaracterization in fandom is a big problem, and it's something we see from every fanbase. A character gets boiled down into a few condensed traits and their nuance is washed out and forgotten. Fanonization isn't always inherently bad, and can lead to fandom solidarity and representation through headcanon, and this can sometimes eventually have influence on canon, which can be seen in the Homestuck fandom, where eventually slash pairings that received enough attention became endgame romantic pairings (Dave and Karkat, Rose and Kanaya, etc.). Of course I'm not here to discuss Homestuck today, I'm here to discuss the Marvel fandom and its toxic dudebro fans, as well as related topics that intersect with this issue. 

There's a common mischaracterization problem in the Marvel fandom, particularly in relation to queer relationships and characters. 

First example is Deadpool. Wade Wilson is described by his canon writers and creators to be omnisexual or pansexual, or of an otherwise fluctuating and open sexuality. The Deadpool video game wildly mischaracterized Wade and even made him behave in some homophobic ways, acting grossed out by men and homoerotic implications. This was jarring for me as someone who has read his comics and knows for a fact that Wade has multiple emphasized crushes on or at least attraction to other male characters, such as Spider-Man, Thor, Cable, and others. The game was very popular despite this mischaracterization and created a condensed fanonized Deadpool that is made into nothing more than an ultraviolent oversexualized joke, despite his character being the epitome of coping humor and having a very tender and compassionate side to him. It's known in the comics that Wade uses his humor to cope with his severe trauma, this doesn't mean he is just comic relief. This has gotten consistently worse since the Deadpool films. (I'm looking at you, shitty Wal-Mart DP t shirt that shows Wade holding a sign that says "oh I'm sorry did I offend you?" Which is really OOC imho)

Many of the more hypermasculine fans of Deadpool seem to have this false image of him being the epitome of "offensive humor" when in reality his trademark is Metahumor, not going out of his way to be a dick to people. These fans also often either ignore or aren't aware of Deadpool not being straight, portraying him as thirsting after buxom ladies but forgetting his openly admitted male attracted orientation which is just as obvious if you're not actively ignoring it. This is a grave mistake that takes so much from his character, especially in the case of the Deadpool/Spider-Man team up comics. 

In that span of issues Wade went through an entire moral transformation, molding himself and his moral compass to earn the respect of Spider-Man, while unable to go more than a few pages without flirting with him. The things Wade goes through in order to Do the Right Thing by Spider-Man in any other story would be considered romantic. If a man did this much for a woman in a narrative of course no one would question the romantic subtext, but because it's two men, half of the fanbase has a kneejerk reaction to this concept and swear that Deadpool flirting is a joke. (Or that it's just "Bromance")

Yes, because apparently a man being attracted to a man has to be a joke. /Sarc

Wade and Peter are even canonically shown to be "heartmates" and this still isn't enough for the erasure to end, and ultimately I think this is because the fans guilty of this either didn't read the Deadpool comics and only know the movie or game, or they chose to read the comics through a straight washed lense, assuming all "gayness" is a joke.

It's made prominently clear in Deadpool/Spider-Man that Wade is probably in love with Spidey based on his actions, and truly every single interaction with him leaves more evidence to support this idea, especially when you look at his relationship with Shiklah and how not-good it was in comparison to his much healthier dynamic with Peter. Even with the knowledge of the ridiculous Peter Parker Policy (that states Peter Parker must always be portrayed as a straight white man in canon despite him being the embodiment of the underdog), one cannot deny Wade is attracted to Peter canonically. The only thing in the way of them being a pair is that they're both men and Marvel is too cowardly to make one of their most famous and family oriented characters queer, and that fans who aren't queer actively ignore the obvious subtext and narrative value of the Wade/Peter dynamic in the comics. Marvel has doubled down on this with the MCU by making Peter Parker WAYYYYY younger than Wade than he actually is in the comics (don't ship MCU spideypool folks, that's gross. Comics only. MCU Spider-Man is far too young even at 18), making it now impossible for us to see this dynamic on screen, because they're only capable of giving queer representation when it comes with an R rating, apparently (and they really didn't do that w Deadpool either tbh they stated that he's pansexual in some trailers but never showed much queerness in the films at all, even with Ryan Reynolds wanting to focus on Wade having a boyfriend at some point, it hasn't come to fruition bc Marvel is too scared to lose their rabid straight fans).

The same erasure can be seen in Venom, in relation to Eddie Brock and his undeniably queer relationship with the genderless, masculine presenting alien living in his body. 

Eddie and Venom are portrayed and referred to as if they're married, Venom himself states that their bond is equivalent to a marriage, and Eddie calls Venom "love". Yet again, this is ignored by edgier straight fans who refuse to see the blatant truth about the characters. 

Venom drops everything to be with Eddie, his purpose in life itself. He chooses Eddie over his biological purpose and has repeatedly been shown to do ANYTHING to stay with him, never wanting to be apart from Eddie. 

After the release of Venom 2018 this relationship is receiving spotlight again, but not without pushback. Many fans seem to have the impression that this relationship is fan generated and accuse shippers of "hamfisting gay shit into everything" when in reality they're the ones hamfisting straightness where there is none, and erasing the canon in order to fit their personal interpretation, the very thing they accuse queer fans of doing. The same thing happens with Spideypool, with Stucky, with Symbrock, with Loki and Venom's nonbinary genders, with every LGBTQ+ hero or character in Marvel this can be seen as a pervasive problem. The elitist nerds who go out of their way to delegitimize other fans are often the least fluent in the source material they claim to defend.

This is both a result of toxic fandom, and of badly managed representation on the part of Marvel as a company. I'm by no means an authority on all things Marvel, but as a queer fan of Marvel properties, I feel this needs to be said.

[rainhadaenerys]

A Response to the Dany/Sansa "Pawn to Player" meta

@lordofthesevenkingdoms and I talk a lot, and we usually discuss metas that we read. Some time ago, he showed me this meta from the "Pawn to Player: Rethinking Sansa Stark" project, named "The Mother Role Model and Its Impact on Character Development: The Case of Daenerys and Sansa". This meta is a very good example of how Sansa stans have been demeaning and mischaracterizing Dany to prop up Sansa for a long time.

Some people seem to have this notion that Sansa stans attacking Dany is a new phenomenon in the fandom. Some seem to think that the fight between Sansa stans and Dany stans only started because of the show and because of shipping wars (Jonsa vs Jonerys), and that book Sansa stans/non-Jonsa stans were always angels that never hated, demeaned or mischaracterized Dany. This meta that @lordofthesevenkingdoms showed me is an example of how this is not true, how Sansa stans attacking other characters like Dany to prop up their fave has always been a thing. The meta compares Dany and Sansa to talk about how Dany supposedly "lacks" as a mother because she doesn't have female influences in her life like Sansa, how Dany supposedly is a failure as a politician and diplomat because she lacked those influences, and, of course, how Sansa is better than Dany.

This actually isn't a meta I was planning to write. I just wrote a lot of rage comments as I was reading, so I decided to post them. Basically, this is me commenting all the stupids ideas in almost every paragraph of this meta.

First, a comment I made in a paragraph from the meta right before this one (because they're all in the same page and I ended up reading the end of the meta that comes before the Dany/Sansa one)

Westeros will receive but it doesn’t need any more kings and queens fighting for power and a throne. While there’s no doubt that Sansa would make a competent Queen who would employ love, and not fear, to inspire her subjects’ devotion, the evidence in her arc highlights that her power will not reside in traditional Queenship, but expressed through the aims of peacemaking. As we saw with Jon, Westeros needs peacemakers: people who can resist violence and reconcile differences.

Wtf. "No doubt Sansa would make a competent queen"??? Where did we see this? When did Sansa rule anything for us to have "no doubt" that she would be competent? Oh, because she said once that she would want to be loved if she was a queen? I'm sorry, but thinking "I want to be loved" doesn't guarantee that one will be competent, and love isn't all that is needed for a ruler (Dany is loved by her people, but that didn't make her queenship easy). Not to mention that this description of Jon's arc is already too simplistic. Jon's arc isn't about just "being a peacemaker". Jon's arc, just like Dany's, tackles both the benefits and the downsides of both peace and war, and love and duty. It isn't as simple as "peace=good, war=bad". This meta that came before the Dany/Sansa one isn't even about Dany, but we already see the digs at Dany here. "Westeros doesn't need more people fighting for power" (but it's totally ok if my fave fights for power/Winterfell, huh?), "Westeros needs peacemakers" (unlike that Dragon bitch that is incapable of peace and is good only for war) "Sansa will use love and not fear" (unlike that dragon bitch that uses fear to rule in the imaginary alternative ASOIAF book that I read). You can try to defend them by saying that the meta isn't saying this, but it's very much implied (especially considering that this meta already talks about "mothering", something the Dany/Sansa meta will accuse Dany of not being good at), and it was these ideas that were used for years to vilify Dany.

The Vale’s army: Could be deployed as a sort of peacekeeping force; I don’t see a scenario where they trek North to reclaim Sansa’s birthright as LF foretold. Doing so would mean going to war, starting with the death of SR. It’s fundamentally incompatible in light of Sansa’s personal and political mothering efforts.

*rolls eyes* This is ridiculous. So war=bad, it's the great wisdom Sansa stans keep repeating. So much that Sansa won't even go to war to reclaim Winterfell. I guess Sansa will just ask the Boltons politely to give her Winterfell and they will be so impressed by her political genius and courtesy and "mothering" that they will just give it to her. Or, most likely, Sansa will get Winterfell because Stannis has already reconquered it, which is a very convenient way to keep Sansa's hands clean, and it also makes it very convenient for Sansa stans to vilify any character (like Dany) who needs to go to war, who won't just be given things in a silver platter because of narrative convenience.

So yeah, I just commented on these two paragraphs that came before the Dany/Sansa meta because they already set the tone for the criticism that the next meta will level against Dany. You will see the same stupid logic and arguments being used against Dany. So let's start with the Dany/Sansa meta properly. I'll skip the first paragraphs of the meta because they are just describing obvious stuff like "Dany had no home, Sansa had a home, Dany had no mother role, Sansa had a mother role, Dany had no education, Sansa had an education", etc.

Much is made of Sansa’s initial naïveté regarding stories, but Dany only gets those stories as a wedding gift from Ser Jorah; she lacks even fairy tales as basic guidance. (to contextualize, the meta is trying to say that Dany has no experience or education, and therefore is unprepared while Sansa is prepared, blah, blah, blah)

Uhh, first, what's the evidence of this??? I find it incredibly unlikely that Dany has never heard a fairy tale in her life before she was given those books. Viserys certainly heard and knew fairy tales. And in fact, Dany tells her how he told her tales of the Seven Kingdoms:

Viserys had been stupid and vicious, she had come to realize, yet sometimes she missed him all the same. Not the cruel weak man he had become by the end, but the brother who had sometimes let her creep into his bed, the boy who told her tales of the Seven Kingdoms, and talked of how much better their lives would be once he claimed his crown. - Daenerys I ASOS

And we know that Viserys has taught Dany a lot about the history and culture of Westeros and the Targaryens (see here and here), so there's no reason to believe that Dany has never heard a story in her life. We also have other examples of Dany stating that she knows many songs and stories:

She even liked the sailors, with all their songs and stories. - Daenerys I ASOS

~

One of her forebears, the third Aegon, had seen his own mother devoured by his uncle's dragon. And there were songs beyond count of villages and kingdoms that lived in dread of dragons till some brave dragonslayer rescued them. - Daenerys II ADWD

So this idea that Dany never heard songs and stories is ridiculous, and Dany doesn't lack any of that formative experience. This is not something that Sansa has and Dany doesn't.

When she initially finds Vaes Tolorro, a mother’s choice, a place to plant trees, she doesn’t embrace it as a home. She only embraces Meereen as “home” after seeing the destruction her intended method of claiming King’s Landing has brought upon Astapor.

Ugh. What is Dany's supposed "intended method" to claim King's Landing and Astapor? War? I guess Dany should have asked politely for the slavers to give up on slavery. I guess this shows how bad Dany is in comparison to Sansa, huh? I bet if Sansa was here, she would have used her charm and courtesy and would have convinced the slavers that slavery is bad, right? Unlike bad Dany who uses violence. It's the same argument that Sansa stans use to vilify Dany nowadays: violence=bad, Dany=violence, Dany=bad. These old metas were already creating this sort of mentality in the fandom, so this idea that book Sansa stans were angels before show stans and Jonsas happened is nonsense. Not to mention that this is a huge misunderstanding of the political, economical and military situation in Astapor. First, it was not Dany's "methods" that caused destruction in Astapor. The destruction of Astapor was caused by the slavers. Blaming Dany for this is blaming Dany for the actions of the slavers (a tendency that this fandom has, as this meta explains). Also, Dany's failure in Astapor has nothing to do with her "bad methods/violence" of conquering Astapor/how she plans to conquer King's Landing. Dany's failure was because she lacked experience to know that she needed to leave a garrison in Astapor, and none of her advisors advised her on this (see more here and here).

The role of Mother is defined by children and “home” is the place in the world a mother makes for those children. Dany didn’t recognize a home when she stumbled upon it because she never truly had one. With no female role models at all, she can only rely on the meager guidance of the two male figures who came closest to providing her with safety—Viserys and Khal Drogo. So it is little wonder she tries to carve out a place for her children with fire and blood.

What a bunch of bullshit. So for Dany to prove that she is a "real mother", she has to decide to stay in Vaes Tolorro, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere? Dany wanting more for herself (and for her people) is somehow a sign that she is not a "good mother", that she "doesn't recognize a home". UUUUGH. I wonder what Sansa would have done (since this essay seems to try to argue that Sansa is somehow a better mother figure than Dany because she had a mother figure that Dany didn't have). If Sansa was in Dany's place, would she have stayed in Vaes Tolorro? Would Sansa have stayed in the middle of nowhere, since this essay seems to say that this is what Dany should have done and that Sansa is better than Dany? Something tells me that Sansa would not be very content to stay in the middle of nowhere. In fact, we have quite a few examples of how Sansa would not be content with a place so desolated:

Sansa shuddered. They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked causeway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it. The air had been damp and clammy, the causeway so narrow they could not even make proper camp at night, they had to stop right on the kingsroad. Dense thickets of half-drowned trees pressed close around them, branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus. Huge flowers bloomed in the mud and floated on pools of stagnant water, but if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down, and snakes watching from the trees, and lizard-lions floating half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth. - Sansa I AGOT

~

“Cheerful, is it not? I fear there’s no safe anchorage here. We’ll put ashore in a boat.”

“Here?” She did not want to go ashore here. The Fingers were a dismal place, she’d heard, and there was something forlorn and desolate about the little tower. “Couldn’t I stay on the ship until we make sail for White Harbor?”

[...]

Sansa, but you are no longer a child. You’re a woman grown, and you need to make your own home.”

“But not here,” she said, dismayed. “It looks so . . .”

“. . . small and bleak and mean? It’s all that, and less. The Fingers are a lovely place, if you happen to be a stone. But have no fear, we shan’t stay more than a fortnight. I expect your aunt is already riding to meet us.” He smiled. “The Lady Lysa and I are to be wed.” - Sansa VI ASOS

The essay says bullshit like "'home' is the place in the world a mother makes for those children", implying that Dany is incapable of "making her own home" while Sansa is capable (because how dare Dany not want to live in the middle of the desert), but Sansa, when told she needs to "make her own home", rejects the idea of staying in a desolate place. So yeah, this argument of this essay makes no sense and has no ground to stand on. 

Sansa is quite different. In an emotionally cruel captivity in King’s Landing, she can find comfort in the Sept and the godswood, both religious traditions and beliefs that recall her parents with the latter also being a strong reminder of home itself. She never simply yearns for the place but also the company of family and the people of Winterfell in general.

Another bullshit. Sansa doesn't feel at home in King's Landing (or in the Eyrie, for that matter). In fact, she constantly yearns to return home, specifically, to Winterfell (a place):

Home, she thought, home, he is going to take me home, he'll keep me safe, my Florian. - Sansa II ACOK

~

I pray for Robb's victory and Joffrey's death . . . and for home. For Winterfell. - Sansa III ACOK

~

"That will need to be determined. For the moment, you shall remain here at court, as our ward."

"I want to go home." - Sansa VIII ACOK

~

"From here the King turns east for Braavos. Without us."

"But . . . my lord, you said . . . you said we were sailing home." - Sansa VI ASOS

~

"As was bringing me here, when you swore to take me home."

She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell. - Sansa VII ASOS

~

The Eyrie was no home. - Sansa VII ASOS

So this idea that Sansa "never simply yearns for the place" is bullshit. And Dany also wants family and company just like Sansa. I won't bother to show examples here because @lordofthesevenkingdoms has already made a huge compilation of the moments of Dany yearning for company here.

She is able to tap into memories of Bran while she encourages Tommen.

Uhh, Dany also has memories of her brother. Not to mention that, if the argument here is that Sansa's positive memories of her family inspire her to be a good person (like encouraging Tommmen), then it's an idiot argument, because Dany doesn't have as many positive memories and yet she is still a good person. She didn't need her family to inspire herself to be a good person, she became a good and kind person by herself. So the lack of these "memories" was in no way detrimental to Dany and in no way made Sansa better than Dany.

She is able to disregard her surrogate mother Cersei’s advice because she has a different role model in Cat (something Dany can’t do with MMD or the Green Grace because these are her first real female encounters ever). 

???? No…? lol, Sansa had a female role model and she still fell for Cersei's deceptions. Sansa is not immune to being deceived and betrayed lmao. Dany being betrayed by Mirri or by the Green Grace is a question of political game and it simply shows that nobody is perfect when it comes to seeing through other people's intentions. What the author is probably referring to when they say that Sansa "is able to disregard her surrogate mother Cersei’s advice because she has a different role model in Cat" is the moment where Cersei advises Sansa to rule through fear, and Sansa thinks that if she becomes a queen she wants to be loved. If this is what the author means, then well, Dany didn't need a role model to learn this. Dany has decided that she doesn't want to rule through fear all by herself, despite the fact that she had no role model to teach her that:

The thought of home disquieted her. If her sun-and-stars had lived, he would have led his khalasar across the poison water and swept away her enemies, but his strength had left the world. Her bloodriders remained, sworn to her for life and skilled in slaughter, but only in the ways of the horselords. The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King's Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father. - Daenerys II ACOK

~

"I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn't have done that. He wasn't just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?" - Daenerys III ASOS

~

"No, Magnificence." Reznak bowed. "Shall I send these rascals away, or will you want them scourged?"

Daenerys shifted on the bench. "No man should ever fear to come to me." Some claims were false, she did not doubt, but more were genuine. Her dragons had grown too large to be content with rats and cats and dogs. The more they eat, the larger they will grow, Ser Barristan had warned her, and the larger they grow, the more they'll eat. Drogon especially ranged far afield and could easily devour a sheep a day. "Pay them for the value of their animals," she told Reznak, "but henceforth claimants must present themselves at the Temple of the Graces and swear a holy oath before the gods of Ghis." - Daenerys I ADWD

So not having a female role model didn't make Dany worse than Sansa in any way.

She’s had a mother and younger siblings, so she can become the person Colemon and Lothor Brune seek help from in dealing with Sweetrobin.

lol, apparently Dany has never taken care of anyone, huh? She never took care of Missandei, she never worried about Belwas' health, lol, nope, Dany never did anything of the sort. Only Sansa takes care of people, apparently.

Even when Littlefinger lies to her about taking her home, she is able to rebuild Winterfell in snow and draw strength from it. She is stronger within the walls of a Winterfell she built for herself in exile.

LMAO, so…????? That doesn't mean literally anything…? I mean, all characters have certain things that they do that inspires them to find strength and move on???? So what if Sansa finds strength in Winterfell's snow castle? Dany draws strength from stories of her brother, she draws strength from her hrakkar pelt, she draws strength from her feeling of responsibility over her people… what does this person even want to say with this????

This sense of home allows Sansa to mother herself, while Dany’s lack of it plays into her frustration, depression, and arguably her need for Daario’s companionship when a part of her believes she should avoid it.

Uhh, Dany's depression has to do with her political situation and her much bigger responsibilities. I don't even understand what this person is trying to say here. What do they mean with "Sansa mothers herself"? Is the author trying to say that Sansa is stronger and more resilient than Dany because she has a "sense of home" that Dany doesn't have? This is ridiculous. Because Dany is incredibly strong and resilient, only an idiot would say that she isn't. Dany has survived rape, she has survived losing her brother, her husband and her son, she has survived seeing her people die in the desert and be killed by the slavers, she has survived different assassinations attempts (the wineseller, the Sorrowful Men, Mero, the poisoner in Daznak's Pit), she has conquered cities, freed thousands of slaves, taken care of thousands of people, and is still standing against slave masters that want to take her down and enslave her people. Dany has survived all of this and her spirit hasn't been broken, she is still fighting for her people and for what she believes is right. How can anyone say that Dany "isn't as strong as Sansa" because Dany "doesn't have a sense of home"? Not having a home didn't make Dany weaker. Dany is just as capable of "mothering herself".

And the Daario mention is also ridiculous. This is just like those misogynistic dudebros who think Dany is "stupid" for having a crush and sleeping with Daario. Dany has never let her feelings for Daario influence her decisions (see here). The assumption that a teenage girl having a crush or sleeping with someone makes her "stupid" is a sexist assumption, because no one would say the same of a male ruler who decided to have a lover.

Dany’s marriage fortunes turn out fairly well despite it all (sure, there’s ample room to quibble, but not when Viserys is the starting point…). Drogo seems to genuinely care for her and she begins to develop a sense of belonging, if not “home.”

No comments. Just… no comments.

Yet Dany still lacks any real role models; her only female companions are her handmaidens who are in truth slaves. While Sansa learns about dealing with men from Septa Mordane who is an authority figure placed over her by her mother, Dany learns about men from a former whore who serves her as a slave given to her by her brother.

Wtf again. Why the fuck is Sansa better than Dany because she has "female role models"? What exactly those role models gave to Sansa that Dany doesn't have? Because it seems to me that despite not having "female role models", Dany turned out pretty great. Not to mention that this is a circular argument: "having female role models made Sansa better than Dany. Why is Sansa better than Dany? Because she had female role models". It's a circular argument.

It's also a sexist argument, by the way. This idealization of womanhood, as if women were the only people who could ever be good, as if the only way to turn out good and intelligent is by having women to teach you, is sexist. It's a form of benevolent sexism that puts women in a pedestal while also enforcing traditional gender roles as the only thing acceptable (as an example, there's the idea that only woman are capable of being caring and nurturing, so they need to assume that position and they are the only ones who could teach how to be caring).

Dany has no equals or superiors among women and no exposure to a social hierarchy. In fact, I don’t think Dany recalls the name of a single female in her life prior to the events we see.

So what....???

Sansa has her mother and Septa Mordane as authority figures, and her sister is her equal other than the minor factor of a small age difference. She has Jeyne and Beth in her circle of friends, who she learns to treat as equals despite the station difference, and maids among the smallfolk who are at a lower level.

"Jeyne and Beth in her circle of friends, who she learns to treat as equals" -> Where is this said in the books? We don't know how "egalitarian" Sansa's treatment of Jeyne and Beth was. We don't have that information in the books for the essay to make this statement. And considering the classist ideas that Sansa has in the beginning of the books (and still has even as far as the ending of ASOS, when she doesn't like the idea of being a bastard), I find it hard to believe that Sansa treated them as "equals", especially considering how aware of social distinctions Sansa is.

Old Nan has no station of note, but is respected for her age and service to the Stark family. And almost immediately, Sansa is exposed to a Queen and Princess who while in her social stratum are her superiors. A huge part of motherhood is guiding children on the path to finding a place in the world, and to do that one must first know what those places are. We see Sansa clearly exposed to and comfortable with understanding how people fit into those places, while Dany’s experience is limited to being a slave and a free person with slave-owner authority over others and little if anything in between.

LMAO, so this Sansa stan is saying that Sansa is a better maternal figure because she accepts traditional hierarchies, "knows her place" and "knows people's places". WOW. Besides, Dany did have people in her life that were superior to her. She grew up in the streets, for fuck's sake. In each nobility house she and her brother were received, she was less powerful, living there as a favor, and inferior in hierarchy. And those noble houses that received her and her brother certainly had women that were superior to her. Not to mention that it doesn't freaking matter whether Dany has women that are superior or inferior to her in hierarchy, because she did know people who were both inferior and superior to her in hierarchy in her life, and that's more than enough for her to understand how hierarchy works. These people don't need to be women for Dany to understand hierarchy (what even is this argument?). Besides, just because a person doesn't have people who are inferior or superior to them, that doesn't mean they won't understand hierarchy, LMAO. Everyone who lives in a society understands social hierarchy! Unless, I guess, if you're autistic or have a lot of difficulty in understanding social interactions, but this is not the case for Dany. It's practically impossible for people to live in society and not understand social hierarchy. Dany not having women superior to her doesn't prevent her from understanding basic facts about how a society works. And in fact, Dany excels when it comes to social interactions, understanding different societies, etc. We literally see Dany being capable to adapt and understand the culture of every place she goes. This includes understanding the hierarchy of each culture, and we have plenty of examples of Dany understanding hierarchy of different cultures (X, X, X, X, X). Not to mention that we do see Dany talking about hierarchy several times in the books. Remember when Dany was sad that Daario wasn't highborn enough to marry her? Or how he was not fit, by her society standards, to even buckle the spurs of a landed knight? Or how she thought Jorah had crossed the line when he kissed her, because she was his queen and his birth was too low for her? Honestly, this argument was ridiculous. Saying that Dany is not as capable of understanding society and hierarchy as Sansa is just because she supposedly didn't have women superior to her in her life is ridiculous.

We see the results of this repeatedly throughout the series. Despite being in a position of extraordinary weakness in King’s Landing, Sansa is able to engage those around her. Tyrion is impressed by how well she navigates social functions, and her skills in this regard play into the Tyrell women finding her a desirable asset for their House even if less than benevolent in their motivations—a role they’ll reject Cersei for. We see Sansa dance at her own miserable wedding and socially engage those around her.

Well, thankfully, I wrote a very long meta demonstrating how Dany is also very good at courtesy and social skills. So I won't bother with a longer response on this topic. You can read the meta here. As always, this meta made another nonsensical and unfounded argument.

Dany is in a position of power in Meereen, but does very little socializing even at public events.

Apparently, listening to hundreds of petitions in court is not socializing in a public event. Apparently, having councils where freedmen participate (like Rylonna Rhee, or the leaders of the freedmen fighting companies) is not socializing in a public event. Apparently, her conversation with Xaro and the reception she prepares to receive him and for his dancers is not socializing. Apparently, having dinner with the Green Grace and Hizdahr, ordering the graces to be entertained while she and the Green Grace speak, none of this is socializing. Apparently, we should measure Dany's ability to socialize by that one (1) party in which she was frustrated with the peace and didn't want to talk to anyone. The thing is, that one moment does not define Dany and it does not speak to her political abilities in socializing, especially considering that Dany had no need to socialize at that party, because as Dany herself notes, she wasn't worried about socializing at that party because Hizdahr was already doing that for her (which is more his role than hers anyway, because he is her consort, while Dany is a ruling queen):

So Daenerys sat silent through the meal, wrapped in a vermilion tokar and black thoughts, speaking only when spoken to, brooding on the men and women being bought and sold outside her walls, even as they feasted here within the city. Let her noble husband make the speeches and laugh at the feeble Yunkish japes. That was a king's right and a king's duty. - Daenerys VIII ADWD

Also, the quote above shows very well that Dany does understand the political need to socialize: she says herself that entertaining guests was a king's right and a king's duty. The only reason she wasn't doing it herself was because Hizdahr was already doing and she saw no need to go there herself (she wasn't in the mood because the peace deals meant she would have to accept slavery outside Meereen, and if Hizdahr was already doing it, then she doesn't really have to).

Besides, Dany did do the basic, because she know that she had to. She mentions how she was drinking and smiling with these people, because she knows it's necessary even though she hates them:

I hate this, thought Daenerys Targaryen. How did this happen, that I am drinking and smiling with men I’d sooner flay? - Daenerys VIII ADWD

So Daenerys clearly understands the need of socialization and courtesies. She's not such an incompetent idiot as this Sansa stan wants to believe. And if this Sansa stan is going to claim that Dany has bad social skills because she brooded at one party (despite all the other many examples of Dany having good social skills), I could do the same to Sansa. I could take all of Sansa's slips and mistakes in courtesy and claim that Sansa is also has bad social skills. Just to give a few examples:

"Leave her alone," Joffrey said. He stood over her, beautiful in blue wool and black leather, his golden curls shining in the sun like a crown. He gave her his hand, drew her to her feet. "What is it, sweet lady? Why are you afraid? No one will hurt you. Put away your swords, all of you. The wolf is her little pet, that's all." He looked at Sandor Clegane. "And you, dog, away with you, you're scaring my betrothed."

The Hound, ever faithful, bowed and slid away quietly through the press. Sansa struggled to steady herself. She felt like such a fool. She was a Stark of Winterfell, a noble lady, and someday she would be a queen. “It was not him, my sweet prince,” she tried to explain. “It was the other one.”

The two stranger knights exchanged a look. "Payne?" chuckled the young man in the green armor. - Sansa I AGOT

~

“Oh,” said Sansa. I am talking to him, and he’s touching me, he’s holding my arm and touching me. “The Queen of Thorns, she’s called. Isn’t that right?”

“It is.” Ser Loras laughed. He has the warmest laugh, she thought as he went on, “You’d best not use that name in her presence, though, or you’re like to get pricked.”

Sansa reddened. Any fool would have realized that no woman would be happy about being called “the Queen of Thorns.” Maybe I truly am as stupid as Cersei Lannister says. Desperately she tried to think of something clever and charming to say to him, but her wits had deserted her. She almost told him how beautiful he was, until she remembered that she’d already done that. - Sansa I ASOS

I could point out how impolite it was for Sansa to publicly say that Ser Illyn scared her. I could point out Sansa's slip in calling Olenna "Queen of Thorns". I could use these mistakes to make an exaggerated claim that Sansa has terrible social skills. But of course, Sansa stans wouldn't like this, and would point out all the other moments in which Sansa displays social skills. So why is it that Dany is deemed incapable of social skills because she brooded at one party, despite the fact that Dany has plenty of other moments in which she displays great social skills? That's a double standard and intellectual dishonesty.

It isn’t that Dany fails to personally win over political players so much as that she doesn’t know that she should be going through certain motions to even try.

What. The. Hell. Did this person even read ADWD???? The very quotes I showed above already show that Dany understands very well the need to go through these motions (she knows she needs to smile, she knows that it's a king's duty to entertain the Yunkish and only doesn't do this because Hizdahr is already doing this for her). And the entirety of ADWD is Dany thinking of being polite, thinking that she needs to have dinner with the Green Grace (and entertain her guests at the same time), being courteous at court, sending Hizdahr to negotiate the support of the nobility, thinking she has to be courteous to Gallaza's cousin, marrying Hizdahr to gain support, thinking that she needs to unite freedmen and former masters to bring peace… the entirety of ADWD is Daenerys trying to be courteous, diplomatic and make peace. And this is just ADWD. In ACOK Dany is courteous and flatters the Pureborn. In ASOS, Dany is courteous to Kraznys in order to conceal her intentions in Astapor. This Sansa stan just has no idea what they're talking about. (And again, here's the link to my meta about Dany, courtesy and social skills).

We don’t ever see Dany dance at a celebration, or make others feel at ease with little compliments, or even just chat.

Wtf. First, this kind of comparison can't really be made between Dany and Sansa, because we only see Dany at one party. Dany's story is different from Sansa's, which means that Dany just doesn't have as many parties like we see Sansa go. This is not Dany's fault, they are simply different narratives.

So Dany's story only has one party shown (the peace celebrations), and no one is mentioned dancing. Actually, the only people mentioned dancing were Yunkish dancers, that is, professional dancers, and they are said to be slaves. So that's another thing that needs to be considered if you're trying to compare Dany and Sansa's social skills: they are navigating different cultures. We don't actually have full information about this, but considering that the only people mentioned dancing are "dancers", the slavers probably consider dancing to be something done by the slaves to entertain their masters. Meaning that Dany dancing at that party would be really out of place. So saying that Dany "doesn't dance" and that Sansa "dances" really isn't a good measure of how their social skills compare. Similarly, in the feast of Xaro's visit, we also see dancers entertaining them, and those dancers were also slaves. Once again, this is not an appropriate moment for Dany herself to dance: they are supposed to only watch the dancers (and when the dance ends Dany is very polite, praises the dancers and arranges baths and food for them, which shows that she has very good social skills).

As for Dany trying to make others feel at ease with compliments or chatting, we actually see Dany doing this many times. As already mentioned above, Dany praises the dancers. When Dany meets Quentyn, she makes a jape to ease the tension in the room. And even after she marries Hizdahr, she still goes to have a private conversation with Quentyn, because she still wants to be in good terms with him and still wants his support for when she goes to Westeros. So this shows that Dany understands very well the political importance of chatting, compliments, etc. In my meta about Dany, courtesy an social skills, there are even more examples of Dany using compliments, chatting, etc.

A great deal of the flat portrayal of the Meereenese is Dany’s failure to gossip, to learn there is a Lancel-like sick son she ought to inquire after or even discover that two families have a feud like the Brackens and Blackwoods. Sansa is fully armored, the garb of Westeros, in courtesy while Dany only thinks to put on floppy ears—a token facsimile of being Meereenese. Part of the maternal social role is to know, as Cat described it, the hearts and hearths issues of other families, and Sansa is fully engaged in this respect, but Dany isn’t because she’s never even seen another woman in a social environment.

Uhhh, maybe because gossip isn't relevant for Dany's narrative??? See, Dany's narrative goes beyond trivial matters and machinations that we see in the Westerosi narrative. Dany is trying to make a revolution, to replace an entire economy, and she is dealing with a nobility that is mostly her enemy. Not because Dany has "failed" in making them friends, but because of the very different nature of their interests (Dany wants to end slavery, the slavers want slavery back and are organizing a terrorist organization that is killing Dany's people). So it's very unlikely that they will want to have any kind of nice chats and meetings with Dany, and even more unlikely that they would be gossiping with her and revealing secrets to her. The very nature of Dany's political situation and narrative makes it impossible for her to have a close relationship with the nobility, and this is not Dany's fault, it's not Dany's failure, it's because the slavers have very different interests that they won't let go. So trying to compare this with whatever gossip or close relationship that Sansa has with nobles that aren't her political enemies is completely unfair.

Not only that, but despite not seeing "gossip" properly, we do see Dany receiving, listening and caring about information regarding the noble families of Meereen. After Dany has just taken Meereen, she already knows who is related to who, to the point that she knows that the family Pahl will oppose her fiercely because she crucified one of their family members and another was killed in the battle to take Meereen. That shows that even in the beginning of Dany's stay in Meereen, she is already gathering information about Meereenese society. When Grazdan comes to her court, she knows the importance of being courteous to him, because she knows he is a cousin of the Green Grace. In her very first chapter of ADWD, she already knows not only who Hizdahr is, but that he has many friends in many cities, that he is very influential, and that he has bought the fighting pits in order to make money. She knows her child hostages personally and knows from which families each of them came. She knows that Skahaz is hated in Meereen, which leads her to conclude that marrying him would gain her nothing. All of this shows that Dany is very much aware of Meereenese society. Sure, she doesn't always get all the nuances, like understanding the importance of Hizdahr's ancestors and how the Loraq family is more prestigious than the Kandaq family, but that doesn't mean Dany does nothing to understand the society of the city she is ruling. And I would bet that if Sansa was in Dany's place, she also wouldn't understand all the nuances, because just like Dany, Sansa would also be an outsider to that society and would need time to adapt. It's only natural that Dany doesn't yet understand all nuances of Meereenese society, but we do see that Dany knows plenty and makes an effort to learn more. She is not ignorant and she is not unwilling to learn.

And again, this argument that "part of the maternal social role is to know, as Cat described it, the hearts and hearths issues of other families, and Sansa is fully engaged in this respect, but Dany isn’t because she’s never even seen another woman in a social environment" is a ridiculous argument, because once again there's this assumption that only women are capable of social skills and courtesies, and that because Dany "didn't have a female role model", Dany will never be capable of that. It's a sexist argument that once again enforces traditional gender roles and gender essentialism, because it assumes that, unless someone has a woman teaching them, they'll never understand these things (and as we see with Dany, this is not true, she has learned all of these things without having a "female role model").

Finally, using the rivalry of the Brackens and Blackwoods as an example of how Sansa knows more gossip than Dany is hilarious and stupid, because Sansa never mentions the rivalry between the Brackens and the Blackwoods in her chapters lol.

Has Dany ever even held a baby? I can’t think of where she has or would have. Sansa has her younger siblings with her mother’s example to begin to learn how to be a mother. Arya used to come up with names for the smallfolk’s children, and while Sansa frowned on her sister’s fondness for associating below her station, newborns in a community like Winterfell are celebrated, so Sansa likely had the opportunity to coo over each newborn and also got to witness the mothering practices of all the families in Winterfell. We see this difference in background play out in their stories.

"Has Dany ever even held a baby? I can’t think of where she has or would have." -> If this Sansa stan can just assume with little evidence that Sansa was "cooing over newborns" from all Winterfell, I can also assume that Dany has probably held a baby of one of the rich families that took her and her brother in. If Sansa stans need no evidence to make their statements and can make assumptions on so little, then so can I. Besides, how the hell is this even relevant???? Dany holding babies or not doesn't make her less maternal, and it doesn't make Sansa superior. For fuck's sake. Also, whether Sansa held a baby or cooed over a baby in the past doesn't really determine how maternal she will be. I am an older sister who had a younger brother that was almost 9 years younger than me, so I did get to hold him quite frequently, and yet, years after, I don't think I still know very well how to hold a baby and I wouldn't consider myself very "motherly". Honestly, none of this determines anything, and we do see Dany being motherly throughout her entire story. This is a freaking bullshit argument.

Barristan trains knights for Dany; he has 27 boys he thinks of as “his orphans,” yet Dany has never come to see them train or practice. These orphans have entered the service of the one they call “Mother,” but Dany isn’t aware of how to offer motherly encouragement to them like Sansa is—or even aware that she should.

Princess Myrcella nodded a shy greeting at the sound of Sansa’s name, but plump little Prince Tommen jumped up eagerly. “Sansa, did you hear? I’m to ride in the tourney today. Mother said I could.” Tommen was all of eight. He reminded her of her own little brother, Bran. They were of an age. Bran was back at Winterfell, a cripple, yet safe.

Sansa would have given anything to be with him. “I fear for the life of your foeman,” she told Tommen solemnly.

Tommen gave a shout of joy and ran off to be readied, his chubby little legs pumping hard. “Luck,” Sansa called to him.

Sansa found herself possessed of a queer giddy courage. “You should go with her,” she told the king. “Your brother might be hurt.”

Joffrey shrugged. “What if he is?”

“You should help him up and tell him how well he rode.” Sansa could not seem to stop herself.

“He got knocked off his horse and fell in the dirt,” the king pointed out. “That’s not riding well.”

The result is this contrast between the very personal motherly attention Sansa gives Tommen with this distant maternal archetype of a woman that inspired these orphans’ calling, but who doesn’t even know their names.

Again, this is nonsense. This example with Sansa encouraging Tommen and telling Joffrey to go to him doesn't work as a point of comparison, because the situation is circumstantial: Sansa was there at the moment, so obviously she would encourage Tommen. But she didn't go there for the sole reason of encouraging Tommen.

Besides, it's not true that Dany never encourages/praises people or that she never acts as a "mother":

Smoke hung between the purple pillars. The dancers knelt, heads bowed. “You were splendid,” Dany told them. “Seldom have I seen such grace, such beauty.” - Daenerys III ADWD

~

“They said no.” The wine tasted of pomegranates and hot summer days. “They said it with great courtesy, to be sure, but under all the lovely words, it was still no.”

“Did you flatter them?”

“Shamelessly.” - Daenerys III ACOK

So above we see two examples of Dany praising people. But not only that, but there are also moments in which Dany does go to people to encourage them:

Children ran behind their horses, skipping and laughing. Instead of salutes, voices called to her on every side in a babble of tongues. Some of the freedmen greeted her as “Mother,” while others begged for boons or favors. Some prayed for strange gods to bless her, and some asked her to bless them instead. She smiled at them, turning right and left, touching their hands when they raised them, letting those who knelt reach up to touch her stirrup or her leg. Many of the freedmen believed there was good fortune in her touch. If it helps give them courage, let them touch me, she thought. There are hard trials yet ahead … - Daenerys V ASOS

~

Even feeding them had grown difficult. Every day she sent them what she could, but every day there were more of them and less food to give them. It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well. Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. "I will not turn away from them," she said stubbornly. "A queen must know the sufferings of her people."

[...]

“Go if you wish, ser. I will not detain you. I will not detain any of you.” Dany vaulted down from the horse. “I cannot heal them, but I can show them that their Mother cares.” - Daenerys VI ADWD

Just because we didn't hear anything specifically about these orphans, that doesn't mean she never encourages anyone, or that she never thinks about the political importance that this has (as the quotes above show, she does understand the political importance of encouragement and showing that their mother cares). Besides, who's to say that Dany never went to them? Who's to say that Dany doesn't know their names? Dany constantly makes a point in remembering people's names. She remembers Hazzea, she remembers Rylonna Rhee, she remembers Stalwart Shield, she remembers Mossador. Remembering and giving importance to people's names is something very important to Dany's character, so who is to say that she didn't know their names? Most likely, the fact that we never hear their names in Dany's POV is simply because GRRM didn't think it was relevant to mention at the moment. In case some people forget, this is still a story, you know? No writer is going to write every single thing that happens in a character's life, no writer is going to name every single character that is mentioned in a story, and just because we don't see something, it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. So saying that Dany never went to visit the orphans is not really a proof that Dany doesn't think about encouraging her people, especially considering that we do have other examples in which Dany does encourage her people, and does act like "a mother" to them.

Also, even if Dany had indeed never gone to visit those orphans and never knew their names, that doesn't mean that she never acts maternal/encourages her people, or that she never thinks on the political importance of this (as the quotes above show). Not to mention that if Dany never went to visit the orphans, it could have been for many different motives. Dany is a ruling queen, not a consort. So she has many other duties (like, you know… governing) and it could very well mean that she had no time to go. As a ruling queen of a big city, Dany really can't go to every corner of her city to personally encourage every single person in her city. While a queen consort could go from place to place more often, a ruling queen can't always do this. And actually, it isn't really her job. It's something no one would chastise a male ruler for not doing, but since Sansa stans are obsessed with traditional femininity, they go on about how supposedly "politically incapable Dany is" for not visiting one group of orphans, which is ridiculous considering that we do see Dany encouraging people. Ugh.

There’s also the dynamic with other women. The closest thing Dany has to an equal or a friend is Missandei.  When they have one of their most personal talks, Missandei tells Dany about her home, and Dany offers to get a ship to send her back, but Missandei prefers to stay. Dany offered the best thing she knew how based on her experience, she wanted to give the closest thing she knew to her own house in Braavos memory; but it is fairly clear that Missandei has moved well beyond her old home and needs to build a new one, to find her place in the world much like Dany’s own struggle. Even though Dany is fairly consumed with her own future husband, she never thinks to try and provide for Missandei in this regard, something that comes as second nature to Sansa.

UUUUUUUUUUGH. Where do I even begin. Well, first, what's the implicit premise of this argument? Well, it's trying to say that Dany is too self centered to see Missandei's real needs or wishes, and that instead, she only suggests to Missandei what she herself would have wanted, which is to go home. So this makes Dany a bad mother who is incapable of providing for Missandei. And then they go on to say that Sansa, unlike Dany, is good at this, because Sansa, of course, has had "female influences" that Dany didn't have, which makes mothering second nature to Sansa while Dany is a failure. This argument is on the same level of the Jonsa arguments that distort the text to claim that Dany only cared about Doreah when she was dying because Doreah taught her how to please Drogo (as if Dany couldn't feel grateful AND feel empathy at the same time, as if it could only be one or the other). It's the same level of intellectual dishonesty. And honestly, what a bullshit argument. 

First, because it's not Dany who is failing to understand Missandei, the person who wrote this essay is the one who is failing to understand Missandei's motivations. It's a completely natural thing that Dany would offer Missandei to go home. Missandei's brother had just been murdered! Dany literally tells Missandei "I will send you from this awful place", because she is worried about Missandei's safety, because Meereen is a dangerous city, and she is asking if Missandei would want to stay in a city in which her brother has just been murdered! Like… asking if Missandei wants to leave this city and go home is a very normal and logical thing to ask! Anyone with common sense and empathy would have asked the same, it's not a "failure" on Dany's side to understand Missandei's wishes (I bet the Sansa stan who wrote this meta didn't even remember the context in which Dany offers to send Missandei home. They probably didn't even remember that Missandei had a brother. So the one who is being oblivious about Missandei is this Sansa stan, not Dany). Also, it's not "fairly clear that Missandei has moved well beyond her old home and needs to build a new one". Quite the opposite, actually. When Missandei refuses Dany's offer to go back to Naath, it's not because she doesn't want to return to Naath or because she loves Meereen (pfff) and wants to build a home in Meereen. It's because Missandei is too afraid to go back to Naath, afraid that she would be taken by slavers again. She literally says this in the scene!

And Dany IS trying to build a home for Missandei! In this very scene, she talks about how she wants to protect Missandei! And Dany is trying to build a new world, a new Meereen, rebuild an economy, defeat the people who are killing her people, bring peace, she is doing all of this to build a home for Missandei and for her people! Honestly, it's so ridiculous how this person tries to distort Dany's genuine compassion and worry for Missandei after her brother was killed into "oh, Dany is so self-centered and doesn't understand Missandei, and Sansa is better than her". But this is what Stansas always do with Dany. Distort all the good things Dany does or thinks into something bad somehow. (And as you can see, this is not a recent thing, is not just Jonsas or show stans that do this, so let's stop with this bullshit about how the ASOIAF fandom was better before the show stans, or how Sansa stans were little angels uwu).

Of course, Jeyne had been in love with Lord Beric ever since she had first glimpsed him in the lists. Sansa thought she was being silly; Jeyne was only a steward’s daughter, after all, and no matter how much she mooned after him, Lord Beric would never look at someone so far beneath him, even if she hadn’t been half his age.

What the fuck does this person want to prove with this quote? That Sansa is perceptive and sees what Jeyne really wants (unlike bad mother Dany that doesn't see what Missandei supposedly wants?)? Well, we have a ton of examples of Dany being perceptive and seeing what people want. If Dany was self-centered and not perceptive as this person tried to imply, Dany would have never realized that the weaver from Astapor was angry with her, she would think everything is fine. She would never realize Illyrio's small smile that Viserys doesn't notice. And so on.

We see it again with Lothor Brune and Mya Stone. Sansa notices he always smiles when he speaks of Mya, and then wonders what Mya thinks of him. She assesses him and concludes that he’d be a good match for her as a person and for their mutual stations; and wonders if Mya could do better and thinks if her father had acknowledged her that she could, but as an unacknowledged bastard Brune is a good choice so long as Mya is content with the match.

Again, we have a ton of examples of Dany being perceptive. We also have examples of Dany thinking of social hierarchies and how it affects marriage. Just because Dany is not involved in romantic gossip (because her narrative is not about this), doesn't mean Dany is an idiot that doesn't see anything. Not to mention that this does seem like this Sansa stan is trying to imply that because Dany is not traditionally feminine and doesn't care about things like romantic gossip the way Sansa does, she would be a worse politician than Sansa. Which is a sexist tendency of the Sansa fandom to demean or even demonize any female character that doesn't perfectly fit into traditional femininity. Also, you know, it should be perfectly ok if Dany's personality is different from Sansa and if she doesn't care as much about romantic gossip. She doesn't have to have the same traditionally feminine personality and interests as Sansa in order to be a good politician and ruler, and she is perfectly capable of arranging a political marriage even if romantic gossip isn't a natural interest of hers (which is actually debatable, there aren't many situations from which we could infer whether Dany is interested or not in these things).

Without a stable family background and role models, Dany doesn’t know how to do this or even that she should be doing this maternal role. She doesn’t think to take Missandei to watch one of Selmy’s training sessions to see if any future knights and Missandei exchange smiles. She doesn’t think of making matches for Irri or Jhiqui when they’re going through their “it is known” spat over who Rakharo likes more. Missandei’s choice to not go home is a choice to build a new home elsewhere, and Dany empathizes and identifies with her, but despite her own inner desires to find love never thinks to embrace that facet of the matriarchal role and find a match for her.

Again, this is nonsense. This is not Dany's role. First, why the hell would Dany take Missandei to "exchange sparks" and seek marriage with Barristan's orphans? Missandei is freaking 11!!!!!! And why would she try to arrange marriage for Jhiqui and Irri considering that Dothraki society is so different and has different values? Not to mention that, despite the fact that Dany is close to Jhiqui and Irri, they are still servants. Did every "good" Westerosi Queen go around arranging marriages for all of their servants? Arranging marriage for them not only is not necessary (Missandei is 11 and Jhiqui and Irri can find someone themselves), but it's also not politically relevant, because none of them come from rich or influential families that would allow Dany to make political alliances through marriage. No Meereenese noble would accept to marry former slaves and servants. Finally, Dany not being a matchmaker doesn't make her less maternal, as there are plenty of other moments showing how maternal Dany is, and it doesn't make her a bad politician (as we see that Dany understands very well these matters, but finding a match for Missandei, Irri or Jhiqui really isn't Dany's pressing concern at the moment. And neither should it be. Her people are dying, for fuck's sake.

There is also an interesting contrast in their relationships with “old women.” Dany tried to be maternal with Mirri Maz Duur and was rejected and betrayed. She is trying to be a mother to the Green Grace’s city, and finds another hostile reception if not the very Harpy that plagues her. In the first, Dany advocated Dothraki marrying the Lamb women, and in the second Dany herself is going to marry a Ghiscari. These older women do not see or identify with Dany as a maternal figure or welcome her maternal influence into their realms. In Sansa’s case, though both Cersei and Olenna’s intentions toward her were less than benevolent, both of these older women sought Sansa out not just as a marriage for their House but the favorite son/grandson and heir as well. They want Sansa as the matriarch of their next generation.

This is nonsense. Mirri and the Green Grace are Dany’s enemies. Olenna Tyrell is not Sansa’s enemy (and Cersei is keeping Sansa as a political hostage). Mirri Maz Duur wanted revenge against Drogo. Olenna didn’t want revenge against Sansa. The Green Grace wanted slavery to come back to Meereen, which is why she is a political opponent and has different interests from Dany. Olenna doesn’t have different interests from Sansa. Mirri or the Green Grace “not seeing or identifying with Dany as a maternal figure” or “not welcoming her maternal influence into their realms” has nothing to do with any failure on Dany’s part, it has nothing to do with Dany not having good “motherly instincts” or with Dany not having good social skills. It has to do with the fact that they were never going to support Dany, no matter what Dany did, because they either wanted revenge or had radically different political interests. Also, Olenna wanting to marry Sansa to Willas has nothing to do with Sansa’s social skills or “motherly instincts”. She wants Sansa to marry Willas because of Sansa’s claim and because of her own political ambitions. As soon as Sansa is married to Tyrion, the Tyrells drop her, that is, Sansa’s “charm” and “courtesy” was not enough for them to fight for her or want to help her (I mean, Olenna cared so little for Sansa that she didn’t care that Sansa and Tyrion would take the blame for Joffrey’s murder). And with Cersei is the same. She accepted Joffrey marrying Sansa because Robert wanted. But she had no problem in replacing Sansa when it suited her, and Sansa was just a political hostage after that. Sansa’s “charm” and “courtesy” didn’t prevent Cersei from being horrible to her.

So while Dany’s arc touches on almost every maternal theme in a literary sense (and quite powerfully, I would add), Dany herself struggles as a mother largely because she has nothing even close to a role model, and is so ill-prepared by her prior life for the task. She approaches motherhood from the deficits fate and experience have imposed upon her. She wants to protect “her children” from her own negative experiences, but is unaware of how to nurture them, to treat them as family or create a home for them.

Bullshit. Dany does not "struggle as a mother". Dany is not “ill-prepared”. She is perfectly capable of nurturing her children, as plenty of examples show (you can see in this meta, as well as the examples mentioned above), and it’s not her fault that the person who wrote this essay didn’t have the slightest knowledge of Dany’s character and forgot everything that Dany did. And once again this idiot comes with that stupid argument of how "Dany is self centered and wants to protect her children only of the things she lacked, blah, blah…”. Stupid.

It takes the counsel of another woman for her to think of her own political marriage, but she never considers offering a Brown Ben Plumm or others lordships to start families of their own with a series of marriages to unify her divided people. Her first marriage was a sale of chattel to buy a home for her brother at the cost of her exile, and not the unification of two Houses. She’s willing chattel in her second to buy a paper peace, but the transactional and sacrificial nature are much the same. Sansa’s betrothal was for the good of the family including Lysa, Sweetrobin, and Edmure. It is the maternal Cat that makes this point, not Ned, and later again we see a maternal recommendation that Robb and Arya marry to help save Ned. These marriages are shared sacrifices to protect the family and all recommended by the matriarch. Dany’s past experience leads her to believe her children ought to be protected from such marriages to the scant extent she thinks about her responsibility to arrange marriages at all.

Another idiocy. First, Dany’s political marriage with Hizdahr is not “the counsel of a woman”, it’s a suggestion that literally everyone gives Dany, and something that was being discussed for some time. The essay seems to imply that the marriage being the suggestion of a woman shows how female influences are important, and that if you have no female influences you couldn’t possibly understand the importance of political marriage. Which is in itself a ridiculous notion (you don’t need to have female influences to understand political marriage), but also, we don’t know if the initial suggestion came from the Green Grace, for the essay to imply that. Second, Dany arranging marriages or not doesn’t actually mean anything for her. Dany doesn’t have that power over the slaver families to be able to arrange marriages for them. Dany grew up poor and gained her power by herself, meaning that none of the people in her entourage actually has political power to be of use for political marriage (as already explained, marrying Irri or Jhiqui wouldn’t bring Dany any political benefits). About giving lordships, who gives lordships to sellswords??? Catelyn (the one the essay praises) certainly wouldn’t do that. Most rulers wouldn’t, and in the rare case it happens, it’s usually in special circumstances. Sellswords are called sellswords because they are paid, you know? Basically, Dany’s political situation and narrative are so different from the political situation and narrative in Westeros that it doesn’t make sense to talk about these things.

Finally, this essay is supposed to talk about how the “maternal influence” that Sansa had made her more appropriate as a maternal figure than Dany, but Sansa also hasn’t arranged any marriage. So with what basis does this Sansa stan claim that Sansa is better than Dany??? Saying that Catelyn arranged marriages doesn’t mean Sansa learned this “lesson” and that Catelyn’s influence will necessarily result in Sansa arranging the political marriages that Dany supposedly “failed” to arrange.

Dany’s rebirthed an extinct species to become the mother of dragons and is an icon of motherhood for the oppressed of a continent, but struggles to mother herself and those most dear to her. By the end of Dance with Dragons, we see her embracing Fire and Blood over planting trees, which is not surprising considering Viserys and Khal Drogo are her two primary role models in life. Her experiences in Meereen do make her more of a veteran which somewhat diminishes the vital nature of role models, and it seems likely that she’ll have additional advisors when she heads to Westeros. Yet in her immediate future she still seems to lack a “crone” figure, which may be cause for concern. She’ll need to embrace that Fire and Blood when she lands in Westeros, but she’ll still need to make alliances which do require an element of planting trees or at least seeds. Westeros needs a maternal figure like a Cat who is willing to let old grudges and a Jaime go if the realm is ever going to have peace.

This is such a simplistic understanding of what fire and blood means for Dany’s arc. It does seem like this idiot just read the Meereenese Blot and thinks that because of this they know everything about Dany. This shows no understanding of how the peace was unjust (X, X), how Dany is indeed capable of planting trees (X, X), and in fact, we literally see her planting trees in ADWD (X, X). And it definitely shows no understand Dany’s characterization, because Dany is capable of being diplomatic and “letting go of old grudges”, she is not a violent person at all and always strives for conciliation. Also, I’m rolling my eyes at this person saying that JAIME would be better for the future of Westeros than Dany, and that JAIME is someone who "lets go of old grudges" (he totally didn't kill Jory and a bunch of innocent people just for revenge lmao, oh, and he totally didn't try to kill Bran and Arya).

As Brashcandy’s essay points out, Sansa seems to be the one most likely to fill that peacemaker role. We see her leadership when Cersei leaves during the Blackwater, and a willingness to pray for Tyrion despite her misery in the marriage. Pragmatically, she’s one of the few characters with a personal relationship with virtually every faction and probably the only one with a positive personal relationship to each faction. Her personality is a significant factor, but without the skill sets of her courtesy armor and Cat as a role model she couldn’t have survived to this point with so many potential allies among the North’s enemies. We’ve seen Sansa’s tendency to gauge marriage prospects since Game of Thrones, and continue to see it on her trip down from the Eyrie with Mya Stone and Lothor Brune. She seems inclined to find the best possible happiness within the restrictions of her station. We’ve seen how Robb’s first inclination was to consider assaulting the Twins rather than paying the toll; and he was also unwilling to trade Jaime for Sansa and Karstark preferred revenge for his sons’ deaths to getting his last son back. In both these cases, it was Cat who sought a peaceful alternative and Cat who preferred to let injustice stand so that her family might live. If Sansa parallels Cat’s path in this peacemaker regard, she may succeed in persuading other matriarchs and reach an accord that Catelyn could not with Cersei.

Uhhh, as if Dany had never felt compassion for her enemies (she has), or as if Dany didn’t know anything about courtesy (she does). As if Dany had never sought conciliation and peace and her first instinct was to always attack (as this essay implies when it mentions how Robb’s first instinct was to attack and how Catelyn stopped him). Quite the contrary, Dany’s first instinct IS conciliation (see this meta). Not to mention that this entire essay seems to imply that because Dany isn’t hyper feminine and doesn’t constantly think about marriage, that she is somehow incapable of conciliation, incapable of ever making a political marriage or having what’s necessary to rule in peacetime. Which is ridiculous. Sansa is constantly thinking about marriage because she is a romantic person and very traditionally feminine. Dany literally has other things to worry about instead of dreaming about marriages and matchmaking. Just because her personality isn’t like Sansa’s personality, that doesn’t mean she is incapable of understanding political marriages or incapable of being a political agent for peace. But this essay suggests that only traditionally feminine women can be peacemakers (which is a common sexist bullshit amongst Sansa stans). This is ridiculous, and no one would say the same thing about a man. Jaehaerys I wasn’t constantly arranging marriages, that was mostly Alysanne’s role, and yet, I don’t see people saying that he was incapable of peacemaking or conciliation. He was the conciliator, for fuck’s sake. Dany is a ruling queen, not a consort. She has the same role as Jaehaerys, so why is she being held to different ridiculous standards about traditional femininity?

In conclusion, this essay is ridiculous. The lack of “maternal figures” or “female influences” didn’t make Dany incapable of understanding social hierarchy, having courtesy, social skills, it didn’t make her less maternal, it didn’t make her incapable of being a peacemaker or of planting trees. Not having maternal role models doesn’t make Dany unfit to rule or to be a mother. Actually, Dany is quite politically capable and has all of the necessary skills that this essay claims she doesn’t have. Also in conclusion, this essay is a very good example of how Sansa stans didn't start hating and demeaning Dany only with the show or with the Jonsa vs Jonerys war. This entire essay is all about how Dany is a supposedly horrible politician and how Sansa is supposedly better than her, without the slightest understanding of Dany’s narrative, Dany’s political situation and Dany’s characterization. And Sansa stans wonder why we are pissed off at them.

[umbraja]

Body Hair Positivity: Good or Gross?

It’s been a trend lately to embrace a more diverse image of beauty. Freckles and muffin tops, dark skin and curly hair, scars, tattoos, unusual proportions, crooked teeth, pretty much anything is supposed to be accepted under the banner of Body Positivity. 

But what about body hair?

And I’m not just talking about armpits or legs. I also mean unusual body hair. The kind people don’t talk about. The kind women aren’t “supposed” to have: chest hair, happy trails, beards, back hair. The kind that doctors call hirsutism and is often associated with hormonal imbalances from things like Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, Cushing Syndrome, medication side effects, menopause, or even just genetics. It affects somewhere between 5%-10% of women depending on the region surveyed but may be higher as it can often go undiagnosed.

It’s not like we’re taught how healthy body hair should look.

Humans have been removing body hair since before recorded history. Archaeologists have found evidence of early humans using clam shells and shark teeth to remove body hair. Ancient Egyptians are well known for their full body waxes. Ancient Greeks considered it “uncivilized” for a woman to have pubic hair. Roman boys celebrated their entry into manhood with a mandatory first shave. And medieval European Ladies plucked daily to remove all hair from their brows, temples, and neck - some even plucked their eyelashes. The “New World” was no stranger to body hair removal either. Thomas Jefferson, and many others, wrote of some Native Americans’ depilatory obsession.

“With [Native Americans] it is disgraceful to be hairy on the body. They say it likens them to hogs. They therefore pluck the hair as fast as it appears.” - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

In the non-native US, body hair removal wasn’t really a big thing until the 20th century when we did a complete 180 on the subject. Before that Puritan values made sure that most body hair was covered by clothing so few bothered to remove it since no one was gonna see what was under all that cloth. Now recent studies say that 93 to 99 percent of American women regularly remove their body hair, making it one of our most widely practiced beauty norms. Girls as young as 10 are pressured into shaving, waxing, plucking, threading, anything to remove errant hairs as soon as they start to sprout. Refusal to do so leaves us open to bullying, both on the playground and in the office. Visible body hair can cost a woman jobs, promotions, and relationships so most of us remove it, no matter the cost. Which one study worked out to be more than $10,000 over the course of her life for the average American woman who shaves. If she waxes instead the bill goes over $23,000.

So what happened?

“Where eighteenth-century naturalists and explorers considered hair-free skin to be the strange obsession of indigenous peoples, Cold War-era commentators blithely described visible body hair on women as evidence of a filthy, ‘foreign’ lack of hygiene.” - Rebecca Herzig, Plucked, a History of Hair Removal

The driving forces behind hair removal in America are the same three that cause most of the nation’s problems: greed, sexism, and racism. Let’s go in chronological order. 

As the “Age of Enlightenment” began to secularize European politics, Imperialists needed a new excuse to justify their expansion into non-European territory. Naturalists like the still famous Charles Darwin handed them pseudoscience. It’s debatable whether or not these naturalists intended their work to be used as the foundation for white supremacist ideology that still plagues us today but there’s no question about how racists interpreted it. They saw evolution as a line that went from ape through colored people and ends at Aryan. Real science tells us that’s not at all correct and if anyone is closer to cave man it’s white people who often have Neanderthal in their DNA. But they didn’t have genetic sequencers back then so they used physical traits to “prove” it instead. Part of this was a gross mischaracterization that body hair could be used to determine a person’s place within the line of human evolution. They claimed people with coarse, dark hair were closer to apes and those with thin, light hair were more evolved. Guess who picked up on that concept in the 20th century.

Darwin further complicated matters in his attempt to explain why some white people were hairier than some indigenous populations by associating hairiness with evolutionary backsliding and mental illness.  

“[Hairiness in Europeans] is due to partial reversion; for characters which have been at some former period long inherited are always apt to return. We have seen that idiots are often very hairy, and they are apt to revert in other characters to a lower animal type.” - Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

Other scientists and even medical experts of the time ran with this idea and before long the educated elite considered hairiness (along with other non-Aryan traits) to be a symptom of disease, insanity, and criminal violence. The uneducated masses were more familiar with freak show displays of unusually hairy people as “missing links” to our primate ancestors. Both cases considered having body hair to be a very bad thing. They’re also very bad science and not at all true.

Despite these very strong, racist feelings about body hair, it still wasn’t common for American women to remove it beyond the upper lip, neck, jaw, or between the eyebrows. Most women don’t have much hair there and those that did rarely had time or money to invest in removing it. Also they wouldn’t be caught dead admitting they had to so historical records might not be accurate about how many women actually plucked. For the first half of American history peach fuzz and other light hair was seen as normal and clothes covered the rest. But the 20th century not only saw women wearing less cloth and showing more skin it also saw them calling for gender equality. Critics of women’s liberation often accused suffragettes of sexual inversion - aka acting too much like men, which they saw as an abhorrent threat. To really drive this point home they often depicted women’s rights activists as being hairy, thus politicizing our pits. Pair this with the “hygiene” movement’s embrace of already mentioned racist views on body hair and you have a recipe for weaponized shame.

“Self-consciousness brings timidity, restrained action and awkwardness. The use of Del-a-tone relieves the mind from anxious watchfulness of movement.” - 1919 Del-a-tone depilatory advertisement

Enter Capitalism. Producers of hair removal products wanted to up sales so they did the exact same thing that was done with every other beauty product on the market - shame women into buying their stuff. It’s debatable if this was motivated purely by greed, in an attempt to reach an untapped market, or if the resulting gender oppression was intentional but men were spared of this aggressive shaming (until recently at least). Women, on the other hand, were flooded with advertisements for body hair removal products. From the first “razor for women” in 1915 to 21st century laser hair removal ads, women are constantly being reminded of our body hair. It doesn’t take a genius seeing ads that call smooth skin “attractive” or “sanitary” to extrapolate the opposite - that body hair is ugly, and dirty. A series of ads for Del-a-tone depilatory products even called it “necessary” for sleeveless fashion and suggests that not using their product will lead to social anxiety. Pair that with only ever using shaved models in all of fashion advertising and you send a pretty clear message: female body hair is something to be ashamed of. Advertising works. Now most American women actually feel gross if they’ve missed a shave, despite body hair being perfectly natural and not at all dirty. This disgust is so strong it has even bled over into an aversion toward male body hair which has seen a sharp decline in popularity since the shaggy chested disco days. Now men are being inundated with “manscaping” advertisements and expectations of manicured if not completely removed body hair.

So that’s the background but where’s this going?

While female body hair removal is firmly ingrained in western beauty standards, a new generation of women are rebelling against those ideals - body hair included. Recent studies have shown a shift in body hair trends among young women. Only 77% percent of women 16 to 24 reported regularly shaving their pits in 2016 and 85% shaved their legs, down from 95% and 92% respectively just two years prior. Since then we’ve started to see models, celebrities, and everyday women with unshaven pits and hairy legs. Body positivity campaigns have even gotten a few advertisers to include body hair in their ads. Now you can see razors actually shaving hair from women’s bodies instead of inexplicably running over baby smooth skin. 

Women have always told ourselves that hair removal is a choice but we’ve never before been encouraged to choose not doing it. Instead we’ve been brainwashed to think it’s dirty and disgusting and that no one will accept us for being hairy. Today’s young woman is actually presented with a choice, “to shave or not to shave” and a lot of them are choosing not to. Which is great news for people like me who have hirsutism and are sick of being shamed for how nature made us. 

But we’ve still got a very long way to go before I can be confident that my neck beard won’t hold me back both socially and professionally. A lot of the women who have publicly displayed body hair in recent years have come under attack by people calling them various shades of “gross” and some have even been sent death threats. It’s one thing for a rich and famous Hollywood movie star to take that kind of risk but for an autistic office worker living in a conservative backwater that’s a whole different game.

Whatever your thoughts and feelings on body hair, America still hasn’t escaped the shame of the last hundred years. Women are still very much judged for being hairy. A lot of people still think it’s gross. I’m not one of them but I’m full of unpopular opinions.

[linklethehistorian]

Randou and the Sins of Season 3's Fifteen Adaption (Part 18/???)

Episode 28 — Only a Diamond Can Polish a Diamond (2/5)

If there is any nitpicking at all to be done about this segment, I suppose it could be that a bit of nuance was lost on the topic of a certain boy’s heartless and sadistic attitude towards the redhead, but contrary to popular belief, that boy is actually not Dazai, for once; it is Shirase, and, by extension, the gang of which he is a part.

I know many people in this fandom are probably going to be extremely irked by that statement, considering just how strongly some of them tend to stand by and cling to this greatly perpetuated myth that Dazai really had Sheep killed in the book instead of sparing them, but really, before you criticize me for failing to acknowledge what you may perceive to be the gospel truth, at least hear me out, and truly take a moment to consider what I am about to say; yes, what I had to say on this matter would once have only been based on speculation due to the wording of Lea’s post and my interpretation of it, but this is no longer the case.

I realize that this apparently may not be immediately obvious to everyone just from reading that one post as it had always been to me,  but as someone who has finally read the full tale myself, I will tell you right now that the only people who would stand by and further spread that “Sheep were killed” narrative are the ones who have never genuinely laid eyes upon it themselves, because the wording and context were pretty much exactly the same between both renditions; there was absolutely no ambiguity involved whatsoever as to their fates or Dazai’s actions regarding them, and if you have any doubts at all, I invite you to simply take a look for yourself and see:

Believe me, if it isn’t already intensely obvious from the very fact that this article exists, I have no intentions nor desire to cover for any of the terrible, ridiculous changes Bones has made in this adaption, or the mischaracterizations that spring out of them, but even if it’s true that there are many, many examples of that here and many of them at least half-center around Dazai, this is really and truly not one of them, and no matter how much I may resent their other choices concerning Fifteen, I’m not just going to sit here and nod in agreement while they are accused of the one thing they actually did not do. I am not here to dig their grave without any care for if the methods I use and the grievances I have are legitimate; I am simply here to tell the truth and spread awareness of that truth to the best of my ability.

Dazai honestly did spare the Sheep, and he had always planned to, long before he had ever put the illusion of choice in Chuuya’s hands — not because he was kind-hearted by any means or cared at all about their lives, but because, as is typical of him, he had already foreseen and predicted the decision that Chuuya was going to make. Now, sure, if Chuuya had somehow called Dazai’s apparent ‘bluff’ and recklessly betrayed that prediction, I’m sure that Dazai absolutely would have changed his orders and had them all annihilated, but that obviously never came to pass, and, in spite of what a lot of people seem to think, Dazai had nothing to gain in committing that sort of needless cruelty under those specific circumstances.

Yes, as I’ll further explain at a later point, it’s certainly true that the bandaged brunet does enjoy tormenting people simply for the sake of watching their reactions — I won’t argue with you there at all; however, he is not so recklessly bloodthirsty as to put himself at a severe disadvantage purely to provide himself with a very, very temporary, momentary amusement, and that’s exactly what he would have been doing if he had killed Sheep despite Chuuya taking his bait in order to save them. If Dazai had made such a deal with the redhead only to immediately fail to hold up his end after the terms were mutually agreed upon, Chuuya would no longer have any incentive to honor his side of the obligations, either, and regardless of how detached and merciless the bandaged teen may be, that is absolutely not something he would want — no matter how much he may like the idea of torturing and emotionally devastating his peer.

So long as it benefits him to do so, in these types of negotiations, Dazai always holds up his end of a negotiation, which is something that he has even said directly to this very same individual during the first arc of the main series — a statement which his by then ex-partner didn’t protest at all, because he knew it was true.

Overall, this scene was astoundingly well adapted — not just when compared to the rest of this mini-arc, but all on its own merits apart from it, as well, and I could not think of any major way in which it could have truly been improved.

Undoubtedly, as I’d begun to say earlier, even though it may have played out relatively the same, Shirase’s betrayal — and, by extension, the betrayal of Chuuya by Sheep as a whole — was presented in rather vastly different lights between the two versions in certain ways, partly due to simplification in dialogue, but also in some of the ways he and the other members of the organization were represented and portrayed visually, as well.

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[eligos-venator]

In regards to Villainy

I’ve been watching the villain post make its rounds and reblogged it earlier quietly with a small rant in the tags about personal concerns of my own. It’s shown up multiple times since then to where I feel some clarification is required on my part personally, as Eligos’s writer.

Communication and mutual agreement is required on all sides in RP, and nobody gets a free pass to do whatever they please because of some label that helps define their typical position in a roleplay. My gear gremlin was made for me as a player to enjoy watching him learn and grow as a person, and to provide minor inconveniences for other players should they wish him to get in their way as a way to help provide character growth for their muses. Not to be some big bad boss who gets their jollies by harming others. And I will not change him to suit anyone’s personal tastes but my own.

Read on if you want to see my whole take on this. Or not.

Let’s start with what the definition of villain actually means, given it’s a vaguer concept than most would like to think:

Definition of villain

1: a character in a story or play who opposes the hero 2: a deliberate scoundrel or criminal 3: one blamed for a particular evil or difficulty

These definitions are a rough guideline, but overall, all it takes to fall into the category of being a villain is a willingness to oppose a hero, regardless of reasoning or intent. Even in a clash of two heroes, you could call one the villain in that particular story for how they oppose the other. It’s a matter of perspective. One could be the villain of a story merely because they aim for the opposite goal of the hero of that tale, even if both end goals are suitably noble in the scheme of things. We often see in literary works that the villains of stories oft have either selfish or noble intentions, and in the case of the latter, what turns them into villains is how they view the world and how they may have let other important aspects fall to the wayside in their single-minded devotion to their goal.

Rarely is it that a good villain is written to be cruel and harsh for its own sake.  The villain’s view of the world may be twisted, but there’s always an element of logic and reason, the same as you might see in a heroic character. Even initially good motivations and desires can be twisted into something absolutely horrendous and monstrous with the right pulls of the string in a character’s history. Some can have their world views changed for the better with time, while others struggle in vain to understand to the bitter end. But that’s how the cookie crumbles. Not all endings are happy, and not every character deserves a happy ending in a story book, especially so when considering how many that they have made suffer through their actions. But by that consideration, heroes aren’t above similar karmic justice as well, simply because they wore the mantle of hero. Nor are they automatically entitled to their happy ending. Harming others, regardless of role one sees themselves in a story, inevitably begets wrath and a desire for similar harm upon the one who originally inflicted it. And while that may lead to interesting interactions, it doesn’t always unfold in a way where things work out where each party gets their just desserts as people believe they should. We watch what happens as a story unfolds, and the job of the mun in roleplay is to portray the character as their motivations, desires, and ethics would bid them do, be it for weal or woe.

But there are additional aspects to keep in mind when roleplaying, and it isn’t simply limited to keeping to the character. Communication ahead of time, and discussing what is acceptable, what isn’t, and what one expects to come of roleplay with another, must all be done in order to ensure things go in a manner both parties are ok with what may happen and are on the same page. There never should be any ‘well that’s what my character would do’ bullshit when it comes to discussing boundaries and hard limits on what one finds acceptable versus unacceptable in roleplay. If you feel your character would not be able to be played in a manner in which you prefer due to said boundaries or rules, it is best to find roleplay elsewhere. To push or pressure one into ignoring their own personal comforts and boundaries is unacceptable. Even when walking up to someone, there still is an expectation of some communication on an out of character level should you intend to harm their character. This isn’t reserved only for villains to do. That’s placing undue burden on one player type while relaxing standards for the rest. All players must heed this if communication is to be healthy, in order to avoid crossed wires. 

Which brings us to concerns people run across in roleplay. There indeed are players who play a character type due to the power fantasy, and do not properly communicate with their fellow players, nor keep in mind what they may face for their actions. Please note how I did not specify sides. In my time in roleplay, I have seen many players of heroes pull the same exact thing that they are so quick to accuse villain players of: ignoring what consequences they would logically face for misdeeds and attacking others in the street, as well as attempting to kill without communication or agreement on an OOC level, on top of trying to maim and cripple characters in permanent ways over small slights, such as spilling a beer on them, or harsh words exchanged. All of this, with not a single word of communication or planning ahead of time. One person falling into one side or the other between ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ does not give them a free pass for such behavior. It’s reprehensible behavior no matter who does it, and using the OOC information that someone happens to play as a character on the other side of what one considers good or evil as reasoning for a free license to do so is even moreso. Actions have consequences, no matter what side you are on. It is better and more interesting roleplay to roll with the consequences of a muse’s actions than it is to straight up ignore them. Talk shit, get hit. Hit someone, be hit in return. No party should expect a blanket immunity due to what they consider themselves. But neither should players feel they are given an automatic pass or ability to control the fate of another’s character. That’s still up to the writer of the character themselves, regardless of how much you may dislike the character being portrayed.

In particular, I’ve seen a disturbing number of individuals who feel it is within rights to execute player characters with zero communication out of character, and it’s mostly the players who play the ‘good’ characters saying this. If you feel you have an innate right to execute a character played by another, without any sort of communication ahead of time, you may be better off writing by yourself than with others. No player is allowed to force character death on another, regardless of the roles played. You may discuss and plan, and plot ways any encounter may go, but the moment one tries to bully or force another player into killing their character off, regardless of why, they have gone too far and should not be surprised if the player in question chooses to remove themselves from the roleplay or ignore it entirely.

In regards to the claims of that the guards would not allow such characters in, that is ignoring just how vast a city is and the limited number of troops that would be there to patrol, in comparison to the rest of the populace. What we see ingame doesn’t necessarily correlate to the actual size of each location, as areas have been limited in size both due to technical limitations of the game as well as to ensure a relative amount of convenience for the players.

Certainly, should a character with a bounty and known face get noticed for their deeds or a guard is called for, they should be prepared to potentially face consequences for their actions or try to escape. Actions have consequences. But one cannot simply whip up a dozen super-powered city guard NPCS to try to execute another player simply because they dislike that the player is not playing the type they want them to. Especially if the character in question may not even have a wanted poster or have done anything that would warrant the guard’s attention. That is gatekeeping roleplay at its finest, deciding who should be where based on personal preferences with little regard to others beyond personal feelings. By that sort of standard, any player who disliked someone else could do the same and merely claim that the face is close enough to a bounty that they should be killed on sight. Better to alert a player of a guard character and let them handle it, if you do want to have guards interfere, or plot with said character’s player to see how guards can be involved and then step in if they are agreeable to such. If not, drop it and either watch, or ignore. Whipping up random NPCs to do your bidding and to try to force someone out of roleplay without any discussion will not encourage people to do as you expect, and instead is more likely to earn you a spot on the block list.

Often times, a player character that falls on the villain side of the spectrum may not necessarily have a bounty because they have handled their personal situations or misdeeds in a way that keeps them under the radar, or they are skirting the line between legal and illegal. Assuming that all deeds are known and skipping straight to confrontation is poor form at the least and is considered metagaming. No player gets a free pass to do that. Many villain players have rules that one must adhere to when engaging their characters precisely because as players we’ve all seen people assume what our character would and wouldn’t be let known, or what they would say, and then run with it without even a word to us as the player of said villain. The rules we have are used to avoid such mischaracterization and help ensure that communication is healthy on all sides. Players of both sides get particularly upset when key details are left out and things they do not want nor did they agree ahead of time to are sprung on them.

Finally, a character does not represent the writer. A character may adore strawberries and peanuts, but the writer may be highly allergic to where they are sent into shock even on mild contact with either of them and thus loathes them. And what a character may think of said foods may also differ drastically between what the writer thinks of them as a result of those differences. This is the difference between in character and out of character. I explain it as such as I have seen the community grow progressively worse over time in understanding that what one’s character may do may not necessarily reflect the writer’s view in real life at all. Too many see a character that is morally questionable and believe that the writer behind them will behave in the exact same way as the character, and that how the character may see things is no different than how the player does. If you struggle to comprehend that a character does not necessarily represent the player, then you misunderstand what roleplaying is. It is not merely and only inserting yourself into a game setting down to the last detail. You may do that, but others have just as much right to write out something different, and approach a character not from a perspective of how they themselves feel, but from a point of analyzing of how someone who experienced the history forged for the character might behave and in doing so explore the resulting mindset.

Such history may scar a character or traumatize in a way that brings out behaviors that the player themselves would never consider till they sit down and consider just how the character may respond after all factors are taken into account. Just because one character hates something or someone does not mean that the writer does as well. Darker characters and villains often have traumas that skew their views to some degree, but just because the writer has taken the time to consider what that may result in does not mean they require therapy themselves as a person or that they share those same views or ideals. To say so and paint all players with such a broad brush and claim them to be mentally unwell is disgusting and indicates that, as a player, one cannot separate themselves from their character enough to comprehend that others are able to portray views other than their own personal set of beliefs held as a person. It also discourages dialogue, as it shows an innate, hostile bias, and there are not many that are willing to put up with such hostility and narrow-mindedness as it is being aimed at them as a person and attacking them as a person rather than disliking the character forged. You cannot expect someone to willingly listen and try to see your side when attacked on a personal level for little more than having made something you dislike seeing in your personal roleplay. If you dislike it, don’t interact or involve such a character in your plot line. If they ask for your view, you can always provide constructive criticism, but if you offer it unbidden you should not expect it to be listened to or taken. Especially if it is very clear from how you approach it that your problem is personally with the player and not the details or how they portrayed the character.

As a personal example, Eligos would be categorized as a villain. He works for whoever pays him the most as a minion, and while he mostly does perfectly legal work, he absolutely has done less-than-legal work and then carefully covered up his misdeeds after by pulling the strings of the people who owe him favors. He is considered a villain mainly as he will do whatever he is allowed to within his contract in order to succeed, and often times finds himself working for the wrong [losing] side because his messed-up priorities led him to see the extra money offered as indication of good faith in his abilities and also valuing him as an asset, and not being able to see why acting on behalf of someone he thinks valued him more is a bad thing. He will work with anyone if he’s given a good enough reason or money, or against them if someone else makes a better offer. He won’t kick puppies or harm kittens, or hurt anyone unnecessarily, and if it does boil down to combat, it’s something I absolutely discuss ahead of time to find out limitations and also what one desires to see happen, so that personal growth for the character he is facing off against or with has that opportunity to grow and learn as a person. If someone says they dislike something? That’s now off the table and no longer up for discussion, period. But by virtue of his poor life choices and habitually finding himself on the wrong side of conflict due to his values, he is a villain, through and through.

But playing a character like him isn’t a simple power fantasy made to flex virtual muscles. There’s easier and simpler options, and if I wanted to do that, I’d have just made a hero, as those characters tend to not be analyzed so hard for compliance as villains are. If Eligos had been made to be some stupid power fantasy and nothing more, he’d not be yeeted into a wall half as often as he has by both those around him and his own tools malfunctioning. Nor am I mentally unwell and think the same way he does, simply because I let him say and do the shit that he does. I personally dislike many of his life choices, but do find it amusing to watch him go, and then pile on karma later for all of his misdeeds so he regrets his actions later. He’s an arrogant little gear gremlin who exists to help further stories of others while providing entertaining moments. Just because one individual personally may not see the karma carried out or get to execute him simply as they dislike him doesn’t mean he gets away with no consequences for his actions. As the player, I decide how to punish him. Not others. Him being a villain does not strip me of that right and give it to you simply because you dislike seeing him around.

[96thdayofrage]

Just a theory: the Pan-Africanists who hate #ADOS don’t hate #ADOS because of the latter people’s actual politics. Pan-Africanists hate #ADOS because the people who are involved in that movement are pointing out something that no one else will: that Pan-Africanism in 2021 feels like a response to a question that basically no one really even asks anymore. That for all of their grand pronouncements—the epic and almost mythic sense of their project’s historical certainty—it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore how Pan-Africanism today just sort of feels in a lot of ways like the soggy nub of a joint being passed around at a dwindling party.

Think about it. Does the strangely visceral opinion about #ADOS held and oft expressed by Pan-Africanists really spring from the former’s politics? Yeah? Really? Well, what is it about the #ADOS political agenda specifically that they so hate? Is it that they would like the U.S. government to continue holding onto the trillions of dollars that it owes these people? Is it that they approve of chemical plants and refineries and waste dumps being strewn throughout black American communities in such a way that basically ensures those residents—simply by going outside and inhaling oxygen—contract what are 100% lethal diseases?

Or is it more likely that these people feel somewhere deep down that ADOS are like some kind of apparently lower form of oppressed subjects? And that, as such, they simply aren’t entitled to (or even capable of?) determining their own fate. Is it that they feel ADOS are being insubordinate and unmanageable and refractory and childish? Is it that in their assertion of agency and in their unsparing critique of the international movement that has patently failed them ADOS are hurting the feelings of many people who are—let’s be honest—way too emotionally overinvested in what’s mostly become just a quaint area of scholarship in our universities’ Africana Studies departments?

Just a theory! But doesn’t that seem like maybe a more honest answer?

Maybe those Pan-Africanists just hate that #ADOS has been quite successful in its reparations advocacy despite the movement’s refusal to conform to Pan-Africanist orthodoxy. And maybe it’s that these Pan Africanists have a faint notion that wounded pride isn’t exactly a sophisticated reason to critique #ADOS, so they instead invent some bullshit political pretext about how #ADOS’s advocacy is ‘ahistorical’ or totally reactionary or that those in the movement are corrupted by a strain of American exceptionalism or whatever.

That, anyway, is the basic defensive crouch position from which Broderick Dunlap writes his recent article, “A Dose of Reality for the ADOS Movement”. Adhering tightly to what is now the standard formula for a Pan-Africanist-Critique-of-the-#ADOS-Movement think piece, Dunlap’s essay is deeply fucking boring, stiff, and backward-gazing. It is obsessed with identifying earlier modalities and pointing out the completely obvious fact that #ADOS’s approach does not correspond with them (which, given the failure of those forms of identity and resistance to offer a bulwark against something as basic as inadequate sewage treatment, let alone unify an entire continent, well, duh!). But mostly Dunlap’s essay just aims to persuade the reader that reparations isn’t about money; that the real and most vital question that black people in America need to consider (black people who are forced to live under regularly occurring boil water advisories, mind you!)—is: “what will it take for Black folks to forgive the United States?”

It is true that, in the #ADOS political literature, this inquiry into the capacity of black people to forgive their victimizer is never raised. It also seems true that it is difficult to imagine a less radical and more insulting position than that, but, anyway, I digress. Thirdly, the suggestion that the only thing that #ADOS is concerned about is a simple transaction of overdue funds—after which they just sort of dust off their hands and raise a glass to victory while beginning to contemplate their new investment portfolios—is totally absurd, very easily disproven, and yet another example of the strong tendency among Pan-Africanists to feel that it is their right to define the #ADOS movement however they like.

But if the demand for monetary compensation to be paid to their group is what makes #ADOS a supposedly purely avaricious movement—if that is why they must be vilified and opposed and viewed as a blasphemous and debauched form of a black liberation movement—then what is one to make of similar demands for material redress made throughout the diaspora directly to that nation’s former colonizer? Here’s one such example involving Barbados’s demand for the United Kingdom to pay it reparations. Or when Hilary Beckles, chairman of CARICOM’s reparations commission explains that the organization of Caribbean member states is “focusing [our reparations claim] on Britain because Britain…made the most money out of slavery and the slave trade – they got the lion’s share,” where is the prolonged outrage from the Pan-Africanists who would otherwise decry the omission of other diasporic groups from this one-nation-in-the-crosshairs look at who owes who what? Why don’t the people making the argument for those reparations get accused of merely wanting “crumbs” from the old imperialistic British pie or whatever? Again, we are asked to believe that the Pan-Africanist antipathy toward #ADOS is rooted in a fundamental political disagreement, or like some inviolable set of internationalistic beliefs. But when demands that are analogous to those of #ADOS receive effectively none of the hostility and outright disdain that the #ADOS’s demand for reparations appears to singularly attract from the rest of the diaspora, it sure becomes hard not to see a more cynical motivation at the core of the their ‘critique’ of the movement’s political aims.

Here’s what I think: I think that the refrain of reparations not being about money is a slogan that is 100% designed to sheepdog would-be serious reparations advocates into supporting business as usual forever here in America. I think once you say something like that you have been brought right into the Democratic Party’s orbit and the DNC will make short work of turning your little proclamation of righteousness and purity or whatever the fuck it is into a feel-good campaign of money-free ‘justice.’ I think the accusation that monetary reparations for ADOS are viewed by that group not as the seeds to self-determination but rather as the harvest itself is a lie concieved in malice and spite—that it is a mischaracterization that strives to bastardize a project that has only ever argued the need for a significant restructuring of the (highly group-specific!) maldistribution of wealth in America before their group could ever meaningfully participate in any kind of internationalism. But what I really can’t account for though is why ADOS saying that activates some serious lizard brain shit in a whole lot of people. Or why those people apparently feel the need to gussy up that brute emotional response in some bogus political principle that they can’t really criticize without hypocrisy: it is OK for CARICOM to explicitly exclude ADOS from their reparations claim against imperial powers (and merely refer them to another organization trying to make additional pecuniary arrangements for Caribbeans), but it is a cause for moral outrage when #ADOS tries to take their group’s case to the U.S. government? I don’t know. That sort of unevenness of application strikes me as people who are motivated way less by actual ideas and more by the people themselves who are doing what they’re doing. And what are ADOS even doing that’s so totally unconscionable anyway? Turning to one another and becoming passionately invested in their shared experience instead of performing a committment to something that is no longer really a relevant force in the world but which will get them meaningless approval by lots of strangers? Again, I don’t know. It just seems like a lot of the time that what governs opinion about #ADOS involves a lot more high school lunchroom behavior than what those people would like us to believe.

[lastsonlost]

After the first episode of "The Mandalorian," the Disney Plus series in the Star Wars universe that became the top streaming hit of 2019, aired on the platform, some Twitter users expressed frustration at how few women spoke, and how few female characters there were in general.

Some of those who tweeted, including well-known feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, were met with dogpiling and waves of harassment across social media platforms. 

The harassment largely stemmed from anti-feminist Star Wars fan accounts who rounded up and highlighted tweets under the pretense that those complaining were "outraged" social justice warriors trying to tear down a successful Star Wars franchise.

The harassment is just the latest instance of feminist fandom voices being shut down online.

Anita Sarkeesian is no stranger to online harassment,

YEA SHES VERY GOOD AT MAKING THEM.

 being one of the central figures in Gamergate, the online harassment campaign that resulted in her receiving numerous death and rape threats, along with bomb and shooting threats at her events. But even she was surprised at the amount of vitriol her tweet about "The Mandalorian" received.

After watching the first episode of the Star Wars series for Disney Plus, Sarkeesian tweeted asking if she was just tired, or if there wasn't "a single female speaking character in the first episode."

She was exhausted, Sarkeesian told Insider — missing the one scene where a woman spoke and making a typo in her tweet. In the replies, Sarkeesian corrected herself. Then she went to bed. In the morning, the tweet had more than 3,000 replies. It currently has close to 7,000.

"Maybe you should switch to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills... I'm sure you'll find much to relate to there...." one top reply read.

"No wonder you're so tired. They say you should stretch before making such reaches, especially at your age," said another, with more than 1,400 likes of its own.

It's an example of dogpiling, a type of online harassment where, on Twitter, someone's replies outnumber likes and retweets, and are mostly filled with repetitive, hurtful comments.

"It's ironic. Women, especially feminists, get accused of being emotional and angry and all of these things when all we said was 'Hey, I noticed this thing. And it's kind of a problem, and I think it's really bad for our society,'" Sarkeesian told Insider. "If they didn't reply to it, my tweet would have just been gone. They made it a much bigger deal."

Sarkeesian is the most prominent figure facing dogpiling and harassment in response to her criticism of the series, but she's not the only one.

People with and without large Twitter followings, some who are verified and many who are not, have found themselves overwhelmed with anti-feminist replies and messages across platforms after tweeting about how few women are in "The Mandalorian."

Specifically, in the first episode, there's one female character wearing a mask who speaks, and two female characters total, along with a few women spotted as extras in the background of shots. More female characters are expected to play larger roles in future episodes.

"Even if you want to give the show the benefit of the doubt and say there's some big, wild justification that's going to come around in episode 7, it feels wrong that the vast majority of this world is populated by men or male-identified characters," Sarkeesian said.

Star Wars fans have a history of harassing women online when faced with criticism

Online harassment in the Star Wars fandom, particularly of women, is nothing new. Actresses like Daisy Ridley and Kelly Marie Tran of the latest Disney-owned Star Wars trilogy have recently talked about the negative aspects of the Star Wars community.

Ridley, who stars in the newest Star Wars trilogy as Rey, "cut off" her Facebook and Instagram accounts "like a Skywalker limb" due to harassment, and Tran faced racist and misogynistic harassment after appearing as the first woman of color in a leading role in the Star Wars franchise.

"It wasn't their words, it's that I started to believe them," Tran wrote for The New York Times after deleting her Instagram posts in 2018. "Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories."

In the case of "The Mandalorian," almost anyone who tweets about the show from a feminist perspective is at risk of being targeted, because Star Wars fan accounts are rounding up tweets that criticize things like the amount of time it took for a woman to speak in the first episode.

One account rounded up 33 of these tweets with the caption "SJW's are outraged over the 'lack of female characters' in the first 2 episodes of The Mandalorian. A show with 3 female characters. Feminists only care about counting the number of minutes women are on screen in Star Wars."

Insider spoke with two people whose tweets were featured in the round-up, who said their tweets were mischaracterized, inspiring a wave of online hate.

Both of the people who spoke with Insider said they liked "The Mandalorian" and will continue watching it, but wanted to point out that it could be better in terms of female representation.

One woman who spoke to Insider anonymously, because she is trying to distance her name from the situation, says the harassment began several days after she posted her initial tweet about a lack of women in the first episode.

After receiving anti-feminist replies on Twitter, she also started getting harassed across platforms, in part because other anti-feminist Star Wars accounts picked up screenshots of her tweet after it was first included in the round-up and distributed to an even wider audience, including on Instagram.

One person even left a violent message for her in the email submission form on her professional website. It reads "People like you don't deserve a f---ing opinion, but at least I'm glad you can voice it. Doesn't prevent me from calling you f---ing r-----ed for spouting your misandry. HOW DOES IT F---ING FEEL C---? I hope you expire and never have children."

"I had to put everything on private, for my own mental health," she told Insider. "I just had to shut down my profile. I will never, ever, ever tweet about Star Wars again. And I love baby Yoda so much. But I can't. They won. Life's too short for me to fight this fight."

Even after setting her accounts to private, she was inundated by hundreds of follow requests on Twitter, along with DMs sent to her private Instagram.

Those who tweeted about female representation in 'The Mandalorian' stand by their words, despite the harassment

The person who tweeted the round-up of critics didn't want to share any identifying information with Insider, but did stand behind the tweet, and said they didn't participate in or encourage harassment, but the reach of the account became clear once Insider asked for comment in the replies. Within a few hours, a video had been uploaded about this article (which had not been written yet) to YouTube from a channel with more than 130,000 subscribers.

The video in question has been viewed more than 33,000 times and highlights the mentality in at least one corner of the Star Wars fandom that is male-dominated and is aggressive toward diverse media representation.

"What SJWs do is as soon as this kind of thing happens, they identify [the Twitter account that posted the round-up] as hostile to their narrative [...] I would call them left-wing garbage," the voiceover of YouTuber ComicArtistPro Secrets says in the video. "They are going to come in and write an article smearing [the Twitter account], 'Don't you dare shine a light on these cockroaches in such an effective way ever again,'" The YouTuber mocked, referring to the feminist critics as the "cockroaches" in the situation.

"This is a strategy that these sorts of anti-progressive, very regressive cyber mobs have used for years," Sarkeesian said. "They try to use social justice language against us when we try to bring these issues up but it's so transparent and so obvious what they're trying to do, by undermining our point. It's very bad faith."

Writer and programmer David Ely, a male who's tweet was included in the roundup, told Insider that his replies were pretty tame in comparison to Sarkeesian and the other woman Insider spoke to, although he did receive one unspecified death threat from an account that he blocked.

"Part of the response seems to come from a belief that Star Wars needn't be political. That it be pure entertainment," Ely told Insider. "Star Wars is a made-up universe. If gender inequality exists there, it's either on purpose, or because the creator's biases meant they didn't notice it. Either way, that's political."

Sarkeesian also stood by her original point that "The Mandalorian" should have more female characters, and said a lot of the negative response was because there's so much pushback from people who have historically been over-represented on the screen, and are hostile to the changing expectations for diverse characters that represent the diverse Star Wars fanbase.

"We are so accustomed to male-dominated narratives that it's easy to not even notice glaring omissions," she said. "Unlike if the entire cast had been women, I suspect everyone would have immediately noticed that regardless of what one's opinion would be on that casting choice."

MAYBE ITS NOT FOR YOU ANITA....

[a-baleful-howl]

I’m about to go full-on petty mode. So if you don’t care about my personal gloating and back-patting, scroll on by lol

This post contains spoilers for episode 1 of season 8, and also spoilers for my fic The Lone Wolf Dies.

I recognize this post is really only for me. I’m a salty bitch.

This is fanart the wonderful and lovely @cathcacen drew for me when I was at my lowest and receiving the most hate I’ve ever gotten for a fic. 

I ranted about it for a bit, deleted the worst of the flames I could off of FFN, and I haven’t actually been back to FFN since this all happened. Don't think I havent noticed the love and support I got from the JonsaFam, either. I very much appreciated it, and I know many people enjoyed my fic (and are begging me to finish it...).

Here’s some highlights of the comments I received on FFN accusing me of being “unrealistic” or of committing “character assassination” (sad thing is, these aren’t even the worst reviews I got):

“Arya would never let Sansa or the Northern Lords do that to Jon[...]This story is making Jon a bit of a wimp and Arya willing to betray him even though she loves him more than Sansa.” [saphirablue25 on chapter 1]

“Another story about Jonsa, and Anti-Dany, and pro-norte and pro-stark? these crap stories are becoming common since season 7.[...]and this kind of stories, without any artistic or literary value, just deserve to be vilified. is just another excuse to be myopic and criticize character without reason, especially when it is already something practically canon that Jon / Daenerys will be in the books too, as one producer of the HBO series said, who was told George Martin. waste of time.” [flayjunior15 on chapter 1]

“this story is rubbish, more crap without sense…” [guest on chapter 1]

“This is character assassination. Arya Stark would never betray Jon Snow; no matter what;[...]Of course now it’s a Jon and Sansa pairing ignoring everything that happened in season 7 b/c why not?[...] The leaps you Jonsa writers take to mischaracterize daenerys just b/c you’re not getting the ending you want in the show or the books is a little ridiculous. You can’t write a story that’s based on show-canon and then ignore all obstacles presented in said canon just to put your two favorite characters together. That’s not how good storytelling works.” [FanofLogic (lol) on chapter 1]

“I don't think Arya would ever betray Jon, it's just not plausible.[...]There are gaping plot holes, that need to be seriously addressed, the writing and the punctuation are fine, it’s well spaced and makes sense in a linear sense, but in terms of plot and story, it crumbles to dust before you even finish reading the chapter in its entirety.[...]I don’t want to stop you from writing, that’s not my intention, you just need to sit back and ask yourself, if it really makes sense.” [carpenoctem20 on chapter 1]

“Well, I read your story. It is sad really because your writing style is good and enjoyable but the stupidity of your character's actions[...]Too bad, your writing is promising but the story lacks logic…[...]Also, thank you for butchering Arya’s character - she is my favourite and you completely ruined her.” [malb901 on chapter 1]

“I realize that this story is an AU because our characters are written not how they are portray in television or books…” [GUEST VIII on chapter 1]

“If your goal was to write Arya completely out of character and Sansa as a short sighted idiot with the northern lords as her peanut gallery...then good job. Otherwise your characterization needs a lot of work.” [guest on chapter 1]

“Arya...well how she is written is so absurdly offbase from canon you would have been better off write my that part as an of to avoid having preconceived about the character.” [guest on chapter 1]

“What a load of complete garbage. So much character assassination across the board is an injustice to GRRM’s work!” [guest on chapter 1]

“Another junk Jonsa story, I see that many of these losers, are very salty, because their crackship (because that’s the Jonsa, a crack) shipwrecked last season.[...]The author of this story is another salty loser with no sense, just like all the Jonsa fans of this crack ship.[...] even Arya has a stronger relationship with Jon than with any member of her family, she would care less about the North, even threatening to kill the Northern Lord, if they hurt Jon. Only two idiots of Jonsa, defend this story.” [JonsaSucks on chapter 1]

“Highly questionable characterization and plot holes big enough to fly a dragon through...pass” [guest on chapter 2]

“With Arya, she's so OC in this that it would have made more sense to make her a new character. She would never choose Sansa over Jon.” [saphirablue25 on chapter 2]

“So disappointing! This story is a complete disservice to anyone who is not a blind Sansa worshiper.[...]The plot holes don't do you any favors either.” [Zmrzlina763 on chapter 3]

“Poorly written, plot holes, unrealistic” [guest on chapter 3]

“What a pile of crap. So many plot holes and character assassination. You should be ashamed to publish such garbage.” [guest on chapter 4]

“I hated this story...thought it was really ridiculous.” [guest on chapter 4]

“I would highly recommend rereading GRRM’s work as it’s obvious you are basing your characterizations on contrived reimaginings with no basis in the work you claim to be a fan of. Please do us all a favor and quit polluting the fandom with this nonsense.” [guest on chapter 4]

And finally, for the piece de resistance!

“Oh boy that story became retarded real quick” [guest on chapter 1]

Now, I might be biased but my brain kept pointing out similarities to the first episode of season 8 and my fic - which I never claimed to be writing what I thought was really going to happen, but that this what I wished in a best case scenario would, my interpretation of all the info we got from Season 7, and it was always only ever supposed to be a Jonsa one-shot but it kept growing.

Now, one of the biggest complaints I got was “character assassination” - saying that the characters would never behave the way I wrote them to. This is mainly what I want to focus on as clearly the fic is not exactly the same as the episode - and I never expected it to be. Fanfic is fanfic for a reason. For one, Sansa and the North refuse Jon and Dany, and that's kind of the catalyst to everything else that happens in the fic. Thats a big change - so I’m not saying “My fic was exactly like the show!!” I just wanted to point out all the moments while watching the show I was like “See! I didn’t assassinate anyone’s character!” since that’s apparently a crime I was committing against all of fandom.

If you haven’t read the fic, I highly suggest you do since many of these quotes are small snippets taken from a bigger context.

All the text is from my fic, the pictures are the moments I thought were similar from the show.

Daenerys had chosen to forgo her dragons to mount a horse instead, as a show of equality and peace to the Northern people.

The Hound, Sandor Clegane, rode beside them, seemingly reluctant to be there, in his own way.

“Greetings,” she announced. “How gracious for you to meet us.” Though her words were not sweet - they never were - and she measured the air between the two parties cautiously.

“You’ve traveled very far,” Sansa responded, her horse shifting impatiently under her. Her voice did not waver, and it carried loud and clear across the void. “It would be rude of me to not turn you away personally.”

Daenerys remained silent.

“We know no King, but the King in the North whose name is Stark.” Lyanna Mormont bellowed from her own steed. Her eyes were glowering, stern and furious. Not little Lyanna…

“First the Wildlings, and now a foreign whore,” Lord Glover spat, his horse just as wide as he was. “You’re not a Northerner. You’re anything but.”

He looked to Sansa for an answer. Surely Sansa would not leave him to the wolves. Yet she avoided his eye.

“I missed you too, Jon…” she called back, and his heart knew that she meant it. “But Starks stick together. I know that now. What would Father think?” His heart broke. If only they knew…

Jon had warned her. He knew before heading to Dragonstone that the Northerners were not likely to kneel to a foreign ruler. Sansa had said so herself many times. He resisted the urge to gloat, to remind the Dragon Queen of his words.

“Sam?” he whispered. Surely he must be imagining it. Sam was here? In Winterfell? The round man came stumbling towards him, his arms waving madly by his sides to catch Jon's attention.[...] The two clasped each other in a strong embrace for a moment before Jon pulled back. [...] “Gilly?” Jon asked absently. “And the baby?” “They're fine!” Sam answered, finally with a dim smile. “They’re here.”

Arya . Oh, Arya! She’s safe. He frantically grabbed her, sweeping his hands over her hair and face, feverishly kissing the top of her head, thanking the old gods that she was here. Thank the gods his little sister was alive. She had wrapped her arms so tightly around him he could barely breathe.

“You leave him alone!” Arya barked, running swiftly down the hall towards them.

“Don’t you understand what this means, Jon?” Sam insisted. “You’re the heir to the Iron Throne.”

Jon didn’t care about that. Not now. Suddenly everything he thought he knew was a lie. His father- no, his uncle... had lied to him his whole life. This meant that Daenerys was his aunt by blood. And Sansa was his…

He suddenly felt very ill.

[...]Everything tasted bitter to him now. Everything he had ever known was a lie, but oddly, it made sense. Eddard had gone south to save his sister and had returned with a child. It made sense. How - how - had he not seen it before?

[...]People die and stay dead. That was a fact. Unless he had believed more lies than the one his uncle had told him his whole life.

He had traveled on horseback many times, but never alone. [...] When he drew nearer to Winterfell, the snow and winds were so strong he was forced to cover every inch of skin but his eyes.

“You look like you’ve seen the seven hells.”

“You don’t look any better,” Sandor replied. Jaime tried to ignore the slight. It was true he was unshaven, unwashed and frozen to the bone.

“It’s too late,” Bran interrupted. Jon’s blood ran cold at the words.

“What do you mean it’s too late?”

“The Wall is gone. Eastwatch is gone. There is a dragon that breathes blue fire.”

Now, I’m not trying to say “I’m Nostradamus and I guessed the entire first episode.” No. That is absolutely not what I’m saying. I thought I made an informed guess into how the characters might react to the events in season 7 and amongst each other, and used my own opinions on the characterizations to write a story based around one thing: Jon realizing he loved Sansa because she died. Everything else was secondary to me. 

It’s only because I got such immediate and hostile push back to something I saw as obvious foreshadowing that made me feel so vindicated when the first episode had so many similarities to what I wrote. Anyone could have come up with these same lines as I did - because the evidence was there and the Jonsa fam was pointing it out the whole time. 

I just reallllly hate how fanfiction, especially in ASOIAF and on FFN, has the default accusation of “character assassination” to use when you just hate a story, when all fandom characterizations are just opinions. Only the author of the original source material can decry character assassination. Fanfiction is everyone’s personal choices when it comes to things like this, and it appears that a whole shitload of Dany Stans descended on my story, and instead of saying “I hate Jonsa and Dany can do no wrong” they personally attacked me for horrible writing - when in fact I was the one more on point than they were. I never expected Sansa and the North to literally turn Dany and Jon away at the gates - but thats why I wrote a fanfic about it. Because that was the only way I was going to see it told.

I was so upset by this (can’t you tell? lol) that seeing this episode really made me feel good and feel more proud in what I wrote. 

okay. rant over.