#like i dont actually care much abt other ppls interpretations of any characters ever

[dandyshucks]

is this a safe space for me to gripe about other people's interpretations of my favourite guy. in a very "this doesnt actually matter and I'm just complaining for fun" way.

[riphimopen]

so i love your interpretation of michael's character and i had a blast reading your thoughts about him and it made me wonder if you have any nice hot takes about the other slashers?

!!!!! aw THANK u im glad u like my takes!! other slashers hmmmmmm................ well. as far as jason goes i think we gotta stop acting like this man isnt smart as hell and also mean as hell. like yeas its the ableism and infantilization rampant in the horror community obv lol but jason has SO much potential outside of the camp comedy vibes of the f13 franchise to like. really explore themes of dedication, family, loyalty, trauma+grief processing, and vengeance. NOT THAT I DONT LOVE THE CAMP COMEDY OF THE F13 FRANCHISE OFC but if they ever do a more serious take, i think we could dive a lot deeper than "he kills for his mom" and get into "he was a traumatized + disabled child who was isolated for decades and returned upon the death of the only person who had ever treated him like a human being" without exploiting his hydrocephalus for shock value, and even then we have to explore the parent/child dynamic of any mother and disabled kid like. on the one hand obv pamela was his world and he was hers, and she loved him more than life itself, but on the other hand theres a very bitter story to be told abt "disability parents" (autism moms i.e.) and overbearingness vs actual love and care, if we choose to take that route. BEYOND THAT, moving back to adult jason, his story is really one of like i said grief and trauma processing and the lengths to which we'll avenge those we love; would love to see ppl discuss his mentality as much as michael myers, for ex, and get into the nitty gritty of - how much violence is too much violence. how much of him is a righteous force of nature and how much is a son lashing out in the name of the only warmth he ever knew. when did it stop being about pamela - did it ever? was he still thinking of her in new york, in space, etc, and when we say that he was, was he thinking of her and avenging her in terms of operating on his own free will or by her order as a voice in his head (which, again, is definitely a method of processing trauma)?

jason being an emotionally complex killing machine instead of just a mama's boy gives us SO much for discussion but ALSO: on the flip side, we need to acknowledge that just bc hes more sympathetic than lots of other villains doesnt make him any less of a murderer. he's still very much a nasty and ruthless guy, no amount of trauma can excuse that lmao, and i'd love to see more content for him being like. fucked up and insane in da brain and straight up brutal yknow? like at the end of the day as much as it IS abt pam, it's also just abt corpses in the woods and being stalked through the trees and axes at night when the phone lines are cut! it's abt HORROR as much as it is abt family and if we're moving away from the nigh-parody takes we've come to expect, then we should go scary just as much as we go emotionally complex. THATS the equilibrium we gotta maintain: only make jason as deep as he is frightening, and vice versa, because these two aspects of his character contribute to one another so fundamentally!! if you are going to explore his character as a vessel for trauma (which u should!!), then emphasize the fact that hes gone batshit with it and is completely no holds barred!!

ultimately i think jasons not just a big gentle giant like fans like to think and NEITHER is he a mindless killing machine; f13 content should be abt exploring his grief as it relates to the extreme violence he inflicts and if anything should strive for a core theme of catharsis, bc when it boils down to it, what is catharsis in this case but violence for the sake of grief?

also i think freddy krueger is a funny guy and his character needs no expanding on whatsoever lol

[cryptideye]

i make jokes abt it but i dont actually care WHERE frecklewish is, shes not real and i can just draw her in starclan with that being just as canon as the website article, im just pissed that the current “team” just. very clearly does not give a shit about their own books. that article has the EXACT vibe of fans who will skim a wiki page and then get mad at you for stating something that canonically happens in the books, except to a MUCH larger scale since they actually. have power over what happens in them.

the article also clearly doesnt exist to give new insight into a character. it was made to say “shut up youre wrong and were right just accept it and stop disagreeing with us” which is. super insulting ! especially since nobody on the writing team actually wrote the books, and the SOLE AUTHOR agrees with the interpretation that frecklewish and all of mapleshades other victims deserve starclan

i cannot imagine how you could write that article while also having... read the books. this isnt even a “my interpretation is fact” thing like its CANON in the books that mapleshade is an unreliable narrator and this article is acting like mapleshade’s assumptions are factual, which is a take you could ONLY arrive to if you only skimmed her wiki page instead of reading the book, or if youre like 9 years old. not to be harsh but they blatantly LIED about the context behind the confrontation between mapleshade and frecklewish when frecklewish says she wishes mapleshade were dead instead of her kits, i absolutely do not trust that whoever wrote that section read the book in any depth. you cant convince me they did

like, if their reasoning was “freckle called the kits half clan creatures which would be traumatizing to them, and she never seems to think that this line of thinking is wrong” id get it ! because thats something that actually happens in canon! but it contradicts rainflower being in starclan despite her abuse of crookedkit, AND contradicts the fact that STARCLAN THEMSELVES sent the message about the kits not belonging, and since the writers REFUSE to admit any wrongdoing on starclans part they cant say that xenophobia is wrong

this is not the first time the writing team has ignored fan complaints, like with the abuse shown in spottedleaf’s heart and squirrelflight’s relationships apparently being “unintentional” (and therefore isnt important enough to be acknowleged or fixed) and the writers just never even ACKNOWLEGING warriors racism problem even when fans were OUTWARDLY complaining about that very recently

the most weve ever gotten from them is changing that disgusting line about briarlight being happier dead than alive (but they also reinforced their “disability as punishment” shit in the frecklewish article so clearly it didnt get through) and getting a TERF fired (though theres also no canonical lgbt rep in warriors besides two gay couples being confirmed outside of the books text)

i get why ppl are emailing them but like. they arent gonna do shit ! the backlash about that ableist line was way more than it was with frecklewish (as someone who was in the community during both of these “dramas”), but they still clearly havent taken it to heart. they arent gonna do anything! just draw frecklewish in starclan and pirate the books

[seoafin]

oo yeah, the stark differences in eng fics on ao3 and those that i’ve read in websites like pixiv/ weibo/ lofter/ typesetters is a high-context asian subtle/implicit intimacy vs low-context western loud/explicit intimacy (1)

tho ,, i think the setting (character + environment + time) and the prompt (au? canon? romance? slice of life? epic?) play into it. i think the differences that exist between portrayals of intimacy by east asian authors and by western authors largely stem from cultural philosophy, which could make some things jarring to those unfamiliar with either

tbh i'm the type of person who, when reading lit abt supposedly asian characters, would appreciate the story more if it was also true to the characters' culture, and so i'd also like to see them experience and understand love the same way asians experience and understand love. but that's just me (i know there are diaspora who like to see other things), and that's also for a concept that's more for peaceful romance/character-centric settings. it’d be a different case if the story is plot-driven, or historical, or apocalyptic

i personally prefer the nuance of intimacy in pieces by east asians bc that's what i like to see and what i'm familiar with. but either way, i don't mind the differences exist. it just means that there's a variety to all of our experiences. as long as it's written into the narrative in an organic manner, it will still feel like a love i can appreciate, whether romantic or platonic or anything in between.

the whiplash was intense when i opened a fic bc i was curious or bored (or both rly) and then boom, untagged daddy kink. SHSHS it makes me giggle sumtimes, since he’s a jpnese character, when it comes to gojou, bc personally i just can't imagine him calling anyone any kind of petname unless it means to fuck with them,,, like, for eg, in stsg fic i just can't vibe with gojou calling suguru anything but his name, but that's just me and largely the way i interpret their characters, and it's just nice to know that all the authors of jp/cn/kr fic i've read before feel the same way more or less ,, but that's it HSJJSJS if someone else decides they want gojou calling suguru this or that, then that's like, alright. that's what they want to write and see, yk, and there's nothing wrong with that, i'll just swerve respectfully lmao

also for pdas,, i think it definitely depends on the age of the couple and the setting

like, if they're a campus couple, pda is pretty common. handholding, picking each other up from class, study dates in the library/courtyard/cafe, going to drinking parties together, that sort of thing.

the most common petname i've heard cn campus couples use is "baobao/baobei" (寶寶/寶貝), which means precious/baby/darling. for jp couples, tbrh i've never heard anything ,, my friends and cousins don't use petnames either

honestly,,, if u're cn/jp and u're dating someone ur age or younger, u'd probs call them by their given name or a nickname with an affectionate prefix/suffix (小，阿，兒 etc or the norm ちゃん, くん, さん, 先輩/ 輩先 suffix) and ig u could call that a petname. if u're dating someone older than u, then u'd call them (insert name)-san or senpai/jie/ge if u and they want, and that would show how close u are. some ppl date and call each other by their full names, too, and even with honourifics. and some ppl use just their partner's given names.

for kr,, idk much but i think it’s usually 이,야,아 etc and noona/oppa/unni/hyung ????

for older couples, like married couples or people who are working, pda tends to lean towards petnames. "sweetheart", "honey", "wife/husband", that sort of thing. if they're parents, they'd probably call each other "dad", "mum" (I NEVER HEARD MY OWN PARENTS NAME LEAVING THEIR LIPS WHEN THEY ADDRESS THE OTHER)

but if its pda like,, making out in public, i don't think it's very common. i've never seen it shhsjsjs (arm holding can be rewarded with a stink eye from the conservatives elderly (mostly), from where i came from)

in fic, it's abt the same, which means it would depend on the age/setting/couple's preference with the addition of the author's preference which just,,, uh shows , ig

but then again,, pls cmiiw if anyone else knows more

altho i’m a “respect is earned” type of person ,, when it comes to (conservative) elders, it will just fly out of the window,,, the repercussions....just no 🥰 some of them are so fucking petty and are hellbent to teach u a lesson, its actually embarassing

back when the yo mama jokes were still popular and 24/7 circulating in the internet,, me and some friends were 😃😃 like yall can say this and get away with it? when daylight arrive after i crack this kind of joke in front of my relatives, my mom is done scheduling for my cremation date

even if i dont intend it to mean disrespect in some convos,, the damage is done and my parents would straight up be like : “wtf did u just say? try repeating it once more and lets see if u can still sleep under a roof today.” either that or they’ll smack me before saying it ,, whichever could come first depending on their mood 🥴

my relatives wont ever missed if i ever forgot to address them when we meet or during a phonecall by a simple “uncle/ aunt/ grandfather/ grandmother” (usually my grandfather is the one so uptight abt it 💀) and it will end up into a short lecture abt “young kids these days..../ u havent forgot to eat yet u forgot what respect is?/ ur parents are fine ppl but what happen to u”

cue my mother glaring at me or giving the stink eye like @/&/&2@22 most of the times i’m distracted by sth and just spaced out while organising it in my head b4 it could get out of hand ,,, that and the titles i’ve used for each relative is different and i’m afraid to mixed it up bc again...stink eye ,,, like my father’s younger/ older brother and younger/ older sister and cousins + its another different handful of titles when it comes to my mother’s family 😔 - 🐱 (2)

yes!!!! there’s a lot of reasons why i enjoy stsg fics and it’s because gojo and geto are always treated like people in stsg fics.....i’ve found that in a lot of reader insert fics you could replace gojo and geto with the male lead of those mafia boss stories on wattpad and it wouldn’t make a difference LMAO gojo and geto are often caricatures of themselves and it’s just something i’m personally not interested in.

also....i feel like there’s so much intimacy in how someone calls/says your name that just using pet names 24/7 gives it this superficial sense that i’m not really a fan of but then again, in fwb stories i totally understand.

another thing, I really feel like culture DOES play into it. obviously as asian people ourselves who come from a collectivist culture, our idea of love is different from the western concept of love. i feel like this especially comes into play when we see reader insert stories where the MC is super op and strong just so they can “match” gojo and gojo doesn’t need to worry about them even though it’s not even needed!! in asian cultures it’s not a burden to take care of people. it’s love. and i feel like western people don’t quite grasp that bc it’s such an individualist culture (this is a not nuanced at all / a generalization but u get the point)

yeah full on pda in fics always gets me because in japan???? lmao no honey!!! although gojo would definitely do it, not every character would LOL

gojo would pet names as a joke aka ironically, but i just don’t see him doing it seriously unless it's dear or smt

my mom is so big on respect. she always gets into fights abt with my brother and it’s a generational difference tbh but i digress, it’s not like it’s bad to be polite to your elders, but I do think koreans can take it too far to the point where it’s detrimental!!

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Sorry but to the anon, it's very clear ure very white or grew up in west... for you kind information very few asians first cdrama was untamed. As for me pointing out the difference between western way of making things emotionally and asian things of emotional is very different. For most asian cultures parents are the most important thing ever and this is why the leads with no or one parent is very indicative of what kind of life they will have. In most western dramas it's not as important to keep in contact with parents and in most they dont even introduce them at all. Emotions are felt and shown different in different cultures. I'm south asian, and to me the recarination and second life of main leads doesnt really make it fantasy and sometimes it's what the belief system of the culture is so its accepted. While I've seen ppl being annoyed abt rebirth or soulmate culture in western fandoms of different things I love (j/k/c entertainment or bollywood)

Hi anon,

I have said before that I am white and grew up in the West--I haven’t made that a secret. I didn’t suggest that Asians’ first cdrama was CQL. I only said : “I don’t like speculating too much about anons, where they are coming from and what they’ve consumed as media” which simply meant, I do not not them (or you?) so I can’t tell where they (or you) are coming from. It was an admission that while I’m a little stumped by the argument, I cannot derive a life experience from it alone and do not wish to pretend that I can.

I think where we seem to disagree is that you’ve taken my off-the-cuff point about the rain machine as a wholesale condemnation of a trope. My point is more about how the execution of these tropes, which I know are emotional, fail in actually moving me because of the technical aspects or the care put into the scenes. It’s a commentary about the directing, editing, sound design, soundtrack, the finesse of the storytelling. I can see why this could be read as a White person being dismissive and saying Wow they’re dumb for thinking rain is Sad, and perhaps I should be more careful of my wording even with my shitposting. But what I meant to say is that tropes are basically a function of semiotics and repetition: and how a particular iteration of the trope is done can be successful or fail when it comes to the goal towards which it was used. And it’s not even talking about how signs (ie “rain” in this context) have multiple significations attached to them, the same way colours have different associations within the same culture: again, it requires work to fully navigate these elements and know how to use them to full effect. It’s part of the craft of a creative.

Some of the fault can lie solely on the audience member for failing to grasp the association but some of it has to do with how the creatives wielded the trope. The trope is tool, a framework, it has to be interpreted and integrated into the work. And my point about shows like SHL and CQL is that sometimes their use of tropes feels very much like a crutch: like you can simply add rain to a scene and immediately it will be sad and moving. I think the point of the other anon concerning this is that if people defend the technical aspects/storytelling of shows like SHL/CQL where the primary concern was clearly never about telling the most intricate or well-executed story in the first place, is that it sort of lumps together all Chinese content regardless of their quality or the goals of their creative teams into the argument of “you’re not getting that it’s actually well done because you’re not Chinese/Asian”. 

Again, I’m not disagreeing with you that there are differences in cultural works and cultural knowledge. In my other post I was pointing out that crying in the rain is a trope that exists very predominantly in western works as well--although yes, the common iterations of the trope in the West might differ and its effects as well, I’ll concede that--because I think sometimes we get a little too hung up on being different that we might miss where things can be similar or that there are a lot more nuances. With the examples I wasn’t trying to argue that these works are better than Chinese works, I just used the first two that came up to mind (and that I knew would be on youtube) to show how much more care it is possible to read into the directing and technical execution of these scenes, and how much the execution has been tailored to the specific narrative or character moment, to the point where even the sound design is used to pull you as an audience into the pov of the character and heighten the emotional connection--as opposed to the autopsy of the crying in the rain scene in SHL for example, where it’d harder to take a specific camera movement for instance and associate it with an effect or see how they’ve thought about how to specifically film this specific emotional moment instead of just a general emotional moment. I’m sure if I go back and rewatch some cdramas or cmovies I’ve watched in the past I could remember a scenes of people crying in the rain that were better executed and do a similar autopsy than I did for those two examples.

All in all, while I can be wrong and misguided, my point is simply that I don’t think in this case that the wholesale argument of “you weren’t moved because you do not get the cultural context” fully works because it assumes that any crying-in-the-rain scene regardless of how well filmed and directed it is would be inherently emotional for a Chinese audience. It’s an argument that is mostly about film-making techniques, and how it can lead people to be lazy in how they wield tropes, not about the trope itself.

[gayregis]

which characters are trans this is a scientific inquiry

all of them except vilgefortz and leo bonhart

ok ok jokes, ill go more in depth... some of this is taken from things ive written before but not posted. also for anyone reading this im non bee nary so know that im not trying to describe the experiences of different identities in first-person, i’m basing this off of both my own and my friends’ experiences... none of this is “OMG YES CHARACTER ANGST >:))” but rather depicting personal struggles in fictional characters, so just know that  the more difficult subjects that may be covered are not there just to see the character in pain, but rather to think about their eventual resilience against it and development afterwards

for geralt and yennefer i have more specific reasons why i think being transgender actually fits with their canonical characters & related story arcs, and then for the rest i have headcanons and maybe some reasoning but not a lot.

geralt: geralt already represents how a struggle with toxic masculinity and expectations of masculinity can influence one who wants to be seen as masculine to deny and bury their emotions. him being trans develops upon the aspect of his struggle with emotions, ive seen my friends who are transmasculine / myself when i used to ID as transmasculine struggle with showing emotions bc of feeling like you’re going to be misgendered if you shed a single tear. in canon, we already learn that kaer morhen has a bit of a macho culture (just fyi eskel and lambert and coen are trans too now, don’t go getting any idea that those guys are cis) and i believe that the “witchers have no emotions” thing is like 5% actual biology and 95% being raised to fight and not to feel. vesemir is a good father but he just wasn’t very emotionally nurturing, it’s the caste’s way of raising kids that geralt breaks out of.

i think geralt’s self-image also speaks a lot to the feelings of harsh internal transphobia. he constantly others himself from others and feels like people view him as different, which is metaphorical for any marginalized group under the sun, but also is very common for lgbt ppl. again this is smth ive really struggled with within the past few years so im just projecting/know what it feels like and feel that how geralt sees himself in canon is similar to a view suffering from internalized transphobia.

geralt's character already redefines manhood because he has to learn what it means to be a good father. and i think him being trans would be representative of his constant learning and growth as a person, yet also somewhat involved with his self loathing and feeling like just Him Existing is an affront ... but of course he unlearns this with time and love from others and all of his character development

yennefer: yennefer’s whole backstory revolves around defining who she is and defying the people who mistreated her and told her she was nothing. canonically yennefer of vengerberg is the story of the successful self-made woman... her life as janka she would rather forget, no one calls her by that name, and no one ever would because its not who she is nor who i think she ever was. 

shes incredibly strong-willed and knows what she wanted from life but some things are terrifying to reach out for, like love and acceptance. yennefer has a conflict with love and being loved because that was never a safe topic for her ... (also sapkowski handled this specifically poorly imo, but:) yennefer canonically struggles with being loved for who she is. i think she deals so much with her previous abuse and again, expectations from parents, and coming to terms with the fact that she survived it all. also this isnt even touching upon her arc regarding motherhood. wanting to give a child your everything and everything that you never had... the love and kindness that no one gave you...

ciri: ciri hesitated to ever identify with “girl” or “boy,” she’s also i think the representation of childhood in general, she’s naturally curious about gender presentation as she ages and just never really cares to commit to gender. i think she’d say she was a girl but only reluctantly bc she just doesn’t care much.

dandelion: [from his TV Tropes page:]

he’s an artist and a musician, he’s not gonna be cishet...

ok in a more serious context i think he’s a nonbinary guy, i think him being trans might explain why he has way more friendships than relationships with family members. dandelion, like yennefer, is also someone that had to define who he was for himself, i mean for one his stage persona of dandelion is entirely an artist’s creation/hyperbole of himself, i think he also had to think abt his inner identity too

his gender is also just “your friend that comes to your house and eats all ur chips and drinks all ur beer and passes out on top of you on the couch”

milva: ok unfortunately i currently think milva is the token non-trans friend (she’s nonbinary just doesnt think of herself as trans) but it’s only because her major arc in baptism of fire revolves around her pregnancy and miscarriage and just bc she is not trans doesn’t mean she doesn’t go through her own difficult struggling process surrounding her womanhood. she struggles enormously throughout the series and in her backstory with defining herself between two rigid identities: the feminine maria and the cutthroat milva. in her talk with geralt, she reveals how she feels trapped between these two identities and feels like they cannot coexist. i feel like she’s a nonbinary/gender non-conforming butch* lesbian whose struggles with sexuality intersect her struggles with gender and what it means to her to be a gnc woman. also you have to consider that milva was raised in a small village in lower sodden so she understood gender in the very strict roles ascribed to men and women, so she felt like she couldn’t be a woman unless she was this very traditional idea of what a woman is “supposed to be like,” which she’s both been trying to shape herself to be and also running away from simultaneously. she learns to accept herself within the hansa bc they love and support her for who she is, and she doesn’t need to be strictly feminine or masculine to be understood by them

* i know the terms nonbinary and gnc and butch didn’t exist in the 1260s tyvm, i’m just saying this as how i interpret her in a modern context

regis: gender is a human sociological construct so basically don’t ask him unless you’re prepared to listen for 20 minutes. vampires can exist noncorporeally so they can exist without gender, also i hc the telepathic vampiric language is nongendered as it’s a transmission of pure thought, will, and force, so it doesn’t even use any grammar. i also hc that vampires just appear the way they feel in terms of appearance and age (e.g., regis at around 300 when he died still looked 25 bc he was as stupid as a 25 year old, now he’s calmer and understands more, so he looks middle-aged). when chilling out with humans regis will be referred to as a man bc that’s just how he appears but it’s an identity he had to learn about and adopt, not something he was assigned. most vampires look androgynous anyways bc they just feel androgynous, how are you gonna feel a gender when you don’t know what a gender is... if you HAD to understand him with human labels / put it in a modern context (like if i was making an modern real life AU) i’d say he’s a nonbinary trans man. 

cahir: much like geralt i think cahir’s story is one of living up to expectations, but cahir’s actually takes it a step further because his major motivation in his backstory is trying to prove to his mother that he can be a good son that will make her proud and gain honor for the family... he seeks validation from external sources but faces ruin when he learns that war is not the way to prove one’s prowess and skill

angouleme: shes trans and i simply say so bc shes very cool and funny and i dont think a cis person could be this cool and funny. also i think the story of a runaway teen who was abandoned by her biological family and found solace in a new family is both very good and featured in a lot of trans ppl’s narratives. she kind of exudes this “im finally at a point in my life where i’m safe and cared for, i can start HRT now, let’s gooOOoooOOooo” energy.