#let villains be villains

[riverssongs13]

It was already established that Agatha is NOT a morally good character. We've been fed the information that she traded her son's life for the Darkhold, that she is a coven killer, and that she's Jolene, among other things. The Nicky for the Darkhold part may have been false, but that does not diminish the fact that Agatha is an atrocious, terrible person who killed countless people.

Given the knowledge that its presumable she did it to keep Rio busy does not excuse the fact that she did kill them witches. And of course she will have zero remorse over that, because again we're presuming she did it for Nicky.

So why are we suddenly finding issues with how remorseless Agatha is? Did we not spend 8 episodes fawning over the hot lesbian MILF who is unapologetically chaotic and murderous and whose ex is literally Death? Sorry but I don't see where the disconnect is.

"difficult to root for a character who takes advantage of people’s kindness or desperation, and shows zero remorse for it" Uhm again, Agatha is not a good person. She does not need some redemption arc that would cleanse her of centuries scamming and killing all those witches. She's written perfectly as she is.

The montage of Agatha's time with Nicky was not some form of penitence for all the horrible things Agatha has done throughout the centuries. It was just showing how her story started, and how it connects to the events of "now". It even has the "time lapse" of Agatha singing The Ballad with her false covens, which ultimately leads to the basement version. It was not "Agatha is actually not a bad person, see? She loved her son."

"Agatha is a horrible coven killer scammer grifter conman" AND "Agatha loved Nicky so much she pleaded with Death to not take him" are not mutually exclusive statements. They can be and are true at the same time.

Can we please appreciate "bad" characters for who they are? Not everyone needs to be "good". It's okay to like bad characters and its okay for them to be the protagonists. Loving Agatha for being the murderous, remorseless cunt that she is, is okay. Let villains be villains.

[oakthcrn]

When people on the clock app keep calling sauron morally gray, it makes my eye twitch. No. He is evil, he is the master deceiver. He does not care for anything but his own agenda. Booktok girlies are watching it and thinking he can be redeemed, no. He's not fucking Rhysand, he will kill you without a second thought.

[gloriousburden]

Not going to lie, I hate redemption arcs in fiction so bad. Sorry not sorry let characters be themselves and PLEASE stop taking their preexisting characteristics and forsaking them just to make them plot devices by giving them instant redemption arcs that make no sense. MAKE ANOTHER CHARACTER!

They’re pretty much never done well and I either hate them or feel nothing about them. YOU SHOULDN’T FEEL NOTHING ABOUT A CHARACTER’S DEVELOPMENT!!! Even hating it is better. At least it makes you feel something.

DIE REDEMPTION ARCS DIE!!!! LET CHARACTERS BE THEMSELVES ESPECIALLY WHEN IT MAKES SENSE FOR THEM TO BE THEMSELVES!!! LET CHARACTERS BE SELFISH AND EVIL AND MEAN AND WHATEVER THEY WANT!! THEY CAN STILL ADD TO THE PLOT IF YOU REALLY NEED THEM TO WITHOUT YOU HAVING TO MISCHARACTERIZE THEM AND MAKE THEM GENERIC ENOUGH TO BE A PLOT DEVICE!!!

This isn’t about characters who’s development is fully thought through and they have a reasonable change of motives as obviously people can change. No this is about characters who are used as plot devices at the last second because the writers ran out of characters.

If you want to redeem a character, at least make it make sense. Break them down, and show them actively working on redemption. Make them spiral and question all of their motives. Make it make sense. Give them a reason to redeem themselves outside of Um we actually need them to move this arc forward.

[livinces]

Me when mfs try to make my villain fave out to be a Poor Little Meow Meow:

[tumbleofdorks]

Plot happens and people really be like, "My villain blorbo is... bad? 🥺 This is lazy writing and the writers should be ashamed!"

Like, babes, what did you think was gonna happen?

[shadowsandshapes]

I don't know who needs to hear this But if you wanna write something that doesn't follow the popular perception of a character do it

One iteration of a character doesn't cease to exist when another is written about

You wanna ✨babygirlify✨ this villain in one fic and then have them burn down society in another? Go for it! Those ideas can coexist~

[kaleidoscope-vol2]

Anytime a thought enters my mind to tune into season 2, the universe sends me a sign not to.

[miss-nerd-alert]

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: sometimes all you need is an edgelord who’s having fun.

How come we can't just have villains anymore

[ditzybat]

i love the headcannon that both tim and cass look scarily alike, to the point they could be twins.

like they both share the same general lithe build, they’re the same short height, cass has a short bob while tim has his baby mullet, their training is similar due to their backgrounds with lady shiva and the loa, and (depending on your headcanon) both waisan- so i can definitely see instances where they’re confused for each other or where they mess with everyone around them.

cass on patrol in red robin gear so tim can go on a date with bernard:

random thugs seconds away from being one hit k.o’d: yo since when did red robin start melting into the shadows like an eldritch horror?

jason: hey tim -

cass: wrong.

jason: no, im pretty sure you’re tim, i gave you that scar right there in your neck

cass: nu-uh, this is from cain

jason:

cass:

jason: well this got awkward…

steph hugging tim from behind: hey babe

tim: wrong wayne

steph: ew, i should’ve known, your ass isnt nearly as —

tim walking away with his fingers in his ears: lalalalala im not listening to you

damian: i think you’re the only one in this family i respect

tim who has been silently hanging out with him for the past 3 hours: aw thanks damian, i’ve come to love you like a brother too

damian: drake? i thought you were cassandra, my apologies, i retract my previous statement

tim: don’t care, you love me, don’t try to deny it

lady shiva hugging both tim and cass: my beautiful twins, such well trained weapons, unfortunate that you both ended up with cain

bruce pulling his children back: tim isnt yours…

shiva: well that cant be right, he’s s the spitting image of my sister carolyn, and that birth was far too painful to only produce one small child

tim: woah full circle, my drag-sona is called caroline, maybe you are my mom, i wouldn’t put it past janet drake to adopt

bruce: tim no, you’re not even the same type of asian

cass: too late, we’re blood

shiva: see!

[itzitxou]

Taking care of your spy is not easy but he's trying very hard 🩵🐹❄️

[novaviella]

Yeah, hi, hello, just a quick note for everyone.

You don’t have to uwu babygirl-ify villains in order to like them.

It’s not a moral failing to like complex (or just plain fucking evil) characters as they are.

Characters in books and in other media aren’t real and are not a reflection of your morals. Fiction is fiction which is not real. You are (presumably) human and are real. It’s fine. Like the villain. Be a villain fucker. Idgaf.

But please, stop watering down characters or just outright changing/denying canon characters to make your liking them “morally correct”.

side note: this does not include changing character(s) for things like fanfiction. Fanfiction is transformative and therefore you can do whatever the fuck you want with the character(s) in that context.

K, bye ✌🏻

[bishy437]

he won

bonus:

[theballadofmars]

I love how mqf's oficial description is something like: a good heart who wants to help others but then you read the novel and his reaction to lqg trapping ten infected men who are crying in panic is "great now I can start to work in my experiments with decomposed people to find a cure" and gets out a lot of needles, which makes the man cry even harder.

Even if we only get bits of the other Cang Qiong sect leader's we can reach the conclusion that no one there is normal, sqq is just biased.

[mielplante]

on a side-quest with the king !

[conquerthenight]

I really don’t understand the whole thing where people feel they have to pretend a villain did absolutely nothing wrong and that they’re a perfect moral example in order to like them. Isn’t the point of liking villains liking them BECAUSE of their misdeeds, not in spite of them? Not saying I like Rebecca, because I really don’t, but if you do like her you don’t have to pretend she was the misunderstood victim.

Every time people try to girlboss-ify Rebecca de Winter it takes 3 years off my life.

[artsymeeshee]