#like... general fandom i am very interested in what you have to say

[nikethestatue]

I wrote an ask to you several weeks ago with some thoughts, as someone working in publishing with marketing/PR. I see Elriels are still being harassed for simply picking up what SJM/BB put down and it saddens me. Sometimes it feels like this fandom needs adult supervision. I'm in my mid-30s and never feel as old as whenever I venture into this fandom.

This might be really long but since you are one of the biggest Elriel accounts I hope it would be alright if I provide some very general knowledge about media-publisher relations that I think a lot of people would benefit from knowing. I am absolutely no ACOTAR insider. Everything I say, I only say as someone who has worked within publishing/PR for a long time (never with anything ACOTAR related!) and who has been following this upcoming release closely out of an interest in the publishing side of things.

In general, this is all you need to know:

What the publishers back = what reputable media outlets mention.

This is simply standard industry practice. It is no secret. Every single thing about a high profile book release is carefully coordinated between publishers and media outlets. It serves them both. Publishers manage expectations by shaping the narrative surrounding their releases, all to maximise sales and foster a positive reception of the release. Reputable media outlets maintain their credibility with readers and their relationships with publishers by not publishing random nonsense.

Fandoms often seem to lack self-awareness about their importance amd influence on publishing decisions. While publishers certainly keep an eye on fandom discussions, their primary focus is not on fandom-driven narratives (fanon) and preferences but on the massive casual readership, which drives the majority of book sales (and SJM is HUGE).

Fandoms are disproportionately populated by readers who were dissatisfied with canon, who seek alternate narrratives or ships. This is what makes fandom spaces so dynamic, but it doesn't reflect the general readership. Fandom is a tiny fraction of it. Publishers are very aware of this. So fandom theories and fanon ships will never be acknowledged by a publisher unless it serves a strategic purpose. Why? Bevause every PR and marketing decision is made to guide expectations in a way that maximizes book sales. Acknowledging fanon doesn’t serve that goal. It only risks confusing casual readers, weakening pre-orders, or generating negative buzz.

In fact, media-publisher relations can work to "combat" spiraling fandom narratives ahead of major releases by adjusting expectations rather than fueling speculation. This is, I think, why BB has never entertained the ship wars: because the only narrative they care about is the one in the books. They want the general readership to have appropriate expectations, not to confuse them.

So (and here is simply how I judge these events), why has an Az-Gwyn-Elain love triangle never been mentioned anywhere reputable, despite it dominating fandom discourse? Well, you guessed it. Because it doesn't exist to BB. It is a fandom creation. A gwynriel ship is simply not part of BB's narrative surrounding the upcoming release, as seen in the past year's media coverage. It's Elain and Azriel all the way. Even Lucien barely receives an honorary mention. We're talking the credible, reputable sources here (like TIME, E! News, etc). The only sensible conclusion is that BB wants the casual readership to focus on Elriel. Becasue, again, the last thing a publisher wants is confusion ahead of one of the biggest releases of the last decade.

To the Elriels that feel harassed and tired: You are not delusional. You’re picking up exactly what SJM and BB are putting down. Don’t let anyone bully you into thinking otherwise. When people call you insecure for being excited about Elriel's media attention, it is a deeply naive view. There’s no “winning” the ship wars because there was never a competition, at least not from the publisher’s perspective. There is one narrative, one endgame couple, and no other ship was ever a real contender. Fandom discourse may create the illusion of an open-ended outcome, but publishing doesn’t work that way. Writing is not the throw of a dice. Writing and producing a book of this scale is a years-long process involving immense financial investment and coordination betweem multiple large actors. The story’s direction is set long before fandom discourse begins, and no publisher would gamble that investment on shifting fandom opinions that reflect neither the general readership nor, and most importantly, the author's vision (which is what they have invested their money in).

Sorry for coming to you on anon to say all this. I just feel for Elriels and want them to know this. I'm sick of seeing them gaslit and ridiculed and questioning their own perception of reality. I'm not active in this fandom and don't really want its attention directed at me (I've seen too much over the years) so I prefer being anonymous.

I say this is standard industry practice but of course, always take what I or anyone else say with a grain of salt. Especially someone who anonymously claims to have credentials of some sort. None of this information about the industry should be difficult to confirm with a little bit of research (and please do look into this, double check what I've said, because the more you know about publishing, the less susceptible you will be to gaslighting!).

Thank you so much for this!

Everyone: PLEASE READ -- super interesting. But also kind of confirms what we've been saying all along. Nothing is accidental and of course everything in terms of publicity runs through BB and from them.

And you are so right about fandom usually being against canon and making up alternative options for their fave characters. I see it even with couples outside of Elriel/GA. Look at Nessian, and the stans who weren't happy with Cassian, and moved on to Eris (as if he is a better choice?! WTF). Same with Bryceriels, who weren't happy with Hunt, and now made up Azriel and Bryce connection. The anti Rhys campaign, and pro Tamlin one, because 'Tamlin is sad' and therefore Rhys is the devil. Many such examples.

This is really informative and I think would bring some calm to Elriels who've been hassled like hell in the past few weeks.

[gveret-fic]

Your Elphaba soul post got me thinking about just how different bookverse Elphie is vs movieverse Elphie. I don't think movie!Elphie would ever say she doesn't have a soul! I think it would be utterly offensive to her. Maybe I'm just not in the right fandom circles, but it seems like no one talks about how, dare-i-say woobified movie!Elphie is. I would love to hear your take. I've seen Cynthia saying they wanted to give Elphaba some innocence to lose so that her character arc would mean something, but it also just kind of seems like the easy way out to me? I know the musical and the book are two very different animals, but I think even in the musical Elphaba is a lot more Daria-esque than movie!Elphie is.

Oh they're wildly wildly different. It's the first thing I noticed when I watched the movie, and at first it put me off Cynthia Erivo's performance. Her Elphie is sweet and quiet and gentle where book Elphie is abrasive and rude and loud; poised and dignified and intensely feminine vs off-putting and strange and gender non-conforming (and intersex); open and vulnerable and easily lovable vs provocative and difficult with defense mechanisms for miles. It's basically a completely different character who's unfortunately found herself in similar circumstances.

It took a second watch to let go of my expectations for the character and just let myself fall in love with this version of her on her own terms. Of course, she's much more easily digestible, with more broad audience appeal, and this inevitably removes some of her complexity. Woobified is a good term for it; she really is just the most huggable sweetie pie put through hell through no fault of her own. But Erivo really portrays her with so much pathos and genuine heart and charisma that you just can't not love her. I am not immune to big puppy dog eyes and a bright gap-toothed smile and a warm little chuckle at Galinda's antics lol.

I'd say the musical characterization is equally simplified/homogenized for broad appeal. Maybe she's a little more generally sarcastic and standoffish in the musical, but I kinda like this more genuine version, I think Erivo's Elphaba seems more heartfelt, especially in her relationship with Galinda. You can see this particularly in Popular; in both versions this is the comic relief song, but in the musical Elphie is generally long-suffering and uninterested while in the movie she's an active participant and genuinely seems to be having fun playing along, mimicking Galinda and giggling like a school girl. It's really cute.

Also there's the issue of race. In the musical there hasn't been a full-time Black Elphaba until now with Lencia Kebede, who was of course cast only after Erivo. I think it's easy to see why they'd choose to make the first major depiction of Elphaba by a Black actress more unimpeachably lovable. Of course they shouldn't have to, but that in itself is a commentary on its own.

Unrelated but a major improvement of the movie over the musical is the handling of Nessa and her disability, which was just atrocious in the musical. In the movie they make it a point that pushing a wheelchair without permission is a serious violation, and in general give Nessa a bit more personhood and genuine chemistry with Elphie.

It's never gonna be as interesting and complex and political as the book, but for what it is I think the movie did a fantastic job and had a lot of love and care obviously put into it. Bookverse Elphie is still my number 1 though.

[exploring-the-cosmos]

Okay so I'll just say it because I've been thinking it for a while, but the weird dislike or sometimes even hatred for Eddie Diaz (and Ryan Guzman) that is present in this fandom feels (at times) incredibly forced at best and downright racist at worst. And he's already a pretty white-washed character as it is. This is not in any way meant as a call-out to any one person in particular, and certainly not me saying he's a perfect character above critique, but my god, I need people to inject a little bit of nuance into their views of these characters. I love Buck as much as the next 9-1-1 fan, but he is not this perfect angel who can do no wrong like some people act like he is. Likewise, Eddie has made a lot of mistakes and done a lot of shitty things (some of which Buck himself has done, too). But at the end of the day, I think he is a very complex character who is doing the best he can with what he has and means well. I don't know why some of you are in this fandom if you dislike these characters as much as it appears you do.

And the SHIPPING WARS MY GOD STOP IT. I usually stay out of shipping discourse because I think it's ridiculous and unnecessary most of the time. Ship and let ship is always an option, and I think most people would benefit from choosing it. And listen, I will admit my bias and say I am primarily a Buddie shipper. But I have no issue with Bucktommy shippers as a whole nor the ship itself being popular. Do I ship it? No. I don't even particularly like Tommy as a character, but I don't care if other people like him and the ship. What I do have an issue with, however, is the way some of y'all act with such vitriol towards Buddie shippers, Buddie as a ship, and, specifically, Eddie Diaz as a potential love interest for Buck. This is where I think some people's underlying racial bias really becomes apparent, and no, I'm not talking about all BuckTommy shippers, only those that are explicitly anti-Buddie because they don't like Eddie. Because why, WHY are you so insistent on seeing these two white men together, who have had so little time together on screen and, in my opinion, have been shown to have very little in common with each other other than the fact that they care about and are interested in each other romantically, but so against Buck potentially being in a relationship with a different man who he has been best friends with for the better part of a decade, who wrote him into his will, cares deeply about him and who he cares about just as much, spends a lot of his free time with, and who also happens to not be white? Look, I'm not gonna sit here and say every single one of you is a raging racist or anything. I don't know you. But I think a lot of y'all would benefit from a little bit of introspection as to why you feel the way that you do about some of these characters and ships. Also, yes, Buddie shippers can be toxic and racist, too. I am not saying Buddie shippers are above those behaviors as well, only making an observation specific to some people's anti-Buddie and anti-Eddie sentiment.

Also, this is an aside, but the way fandom and shipping culture in general has gravitated towards strict adherence to canon content is.... weird. Like, why are some of y'all so allergic to engaging with or creating content outside of the confines of what the canon material has offered you? Have fun, be creative, go wild, and also be respectful to the folks around you who see things differently. We all share this space, and we should all care about making it as positive and welcoming of an experience as possible.

[neallo]

do you have any advice on how to make friends on tumblr, im finding it a bit hard and would appreciate some advice. thank you

hello my dear anon. i would be very happy to provide advice on how to make friends here on tumblr dot com! i will be focusing on how to make fandom friends, because that is all i have ever really done on this webbed site. i am not going to get into the nitty-gritty of social skills and manners, because i want to focus on the basics of fostering connections with other people in a fandom on tumblr, but i'll quickly say: don't be over-familiar in an invasive or jokey-mean way to people you don't know well, respect boundaries and social cues (don't repeatedly message someone you don't know well if they're not replying to you), and be generally niceys!! i know you probably know all that. but it's key, and i think not everyone is totally fully aware of social skills when it comes to interacting online in particular, so i felt it was worth saying (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠❤

now we can move into the real advice :3c

first things first: actively participate in your fandom! you can do this by creating fanworks (writing fic, making art, etc)— and if you want to, you should give it a try! participating in the fandom doesn't need to involve making fanworks, though. plenty of people mainly participate in fandom by supporting creators and taking part in conversation about the characters or ships that they're interested in. on tumblr, you can do this by leaving your thoughts on fanworks that you like! you can do this by replying, or— even better— reblogging with comments in the tags!

other good forums to interact with the fandom include meta posts (you can add thoughts in the body of your reblog if you have something you want to say, or in the tags if you're shy / just want to go "hell yeah!!!" generally) and questions that people ask ("does anyone know if [character] ever [does/says something specific]?") — these are nice opportunities to find and connect with other fans who are talking about or want to talk about the things that interest you ❤️

of course, you can also post things in the tags! generally, best etiquette is to keep posts in the fandom, character, and ship tags kind / civil. you will see people saying things like "ugh [character or ship] is so annoying" or "i hate that people only write [character] as a [top/bottom/seme/uke]." however, this is not something i recommend doing or engaging with. everyone can do whatever they want forever, but i find this type of behavior unnecessary and unpleasant. people who center their tumblr experience around complaining about what other people like and do are frankly participating in fandom in a way that confuses me. i fail to understand why someone would choose to consistently focus on things that upset or annoy them; fandom is meant to be enjoyable.

try to talk about the characters and ships you like, and the dynamics you like for them. rather than going "ugh i hate it when people write [character] in [some specific way]," try talking about the dynamic or characterization you'd like to see more of. bonus points if you can resist saying "why doesn't anyone write [xyz thing you want]," because there's a good chance someone has written that, and if they see your post, they're not gonna know if you haven't seen their fic, or if you have seen it and just didn't like it. a better way to put that would be "does anyone have recs for fics where [xyz thing you want happens]?" do not say "i tried looking but couldn't find anything good." people aren't gonna want to rec you things if you're leading with a weird attitude. of course it can be difficult to find fic that you truly love which also aligns with your preferences, but especially in a tiny ship or fandom, it's best to have some tact. also, if you're really that pressed for stories you wanna read, it's a great reason to get into writing 🥰

all this said, everyone needs to bitch once in a while; that's normal. healthy even. this bitching is best left in DMs, though, or at the very least, on your blog, out of the tags. and don't let haterism consume you!!

OH! i almost forgot. send asks! send asks to people in the fandom that you think are interesting and nice. send asks for ask games when people reblog them, and send asks about fics or characters or fanart to other people in the fandom. if you're very shy, you can do this on anon, and then interact with the answer once it's posted by replying or reblogging.

okay. let's say that you've been engaging with fanart by reblogging and leaving your thoughts in the tags, engaging with fic by reblogging with thoughts in the tags and / or commenting on AO3, and interacting with other people in the tags for the characters and ships you like. and, best of all, sending asks! doing all of this, you'll get a sense for which people you might get along with, and who might be receptive to your friendship. if someone is replying to your tags, following you back, interacting with your posts, and so on for a while, that's a great opportunity to DM them!! (it's fine to keep things to asks and replies for a while if that feels easier, of course!)

once you have a person in mind that you would like to DM, it's up to you how you want to reach out. i'm an impulsive and somewhat outgoing person online, so in my early days in the DN fandom (and my last fandom) i would often just spontaneously DM people whose vibes i liked and introduce myself (hi, i'm neallo, i hope this isn't strange but i just wanted to pop in and introduce myself!). i would then let them know that i liked their blog, or their art, or their writing, often leaving a specific thought about the item in question ("i totally agree with your post about [character], he WOULD say that" or "i love how cute / pretty / impish you make [character] in your art" or "your writing style is so compelling, i've really been enjoying your fics"). i don't do this very much anymore, but it's not because it doesn't work. it's just that i have a finite amount of time and there are a lot of people in meronia now T__T so, generally, i only go out of my way to reach out to people i've already interacted with a good deal through posts / asks / comments on AO3 (aka people who i feel would possibly like to be friends with me).

you technically can cold DM people if you really like their blog or writing or fanart. i personally don't mind a DM from someone i haven't interacted with before, but i do always have to take a second to make sure they're not a child and not a spam bot or something. some people are put off by being messaged directly by someone they've never interacted with before, though, so i think it's generally best practice to kind of get a feel for things on the public side of tumblr before sending someone a message!!

now, a word of self-compassion and general caution. first: not everyone will reply to you. others may reply at first, but fall off (i am really bad about this myself, just because life has been getting in the way a whole lot recently). sometimes people are busy; sometimes they are just not really actively seeking friends or conversation; sometimes they maybe just don't think they'll vibe with you! it doesn't reflect poorly on you if someone doesn't respond to you or try to befriend you. it can be sad, or a little disappointing, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. don't take it personally, and try not to feel too dejected or hurt over it.

one more thing. ideally, this will not happen at all, but if it does, hopefully it will be seldom. in my experience, it has been very seldom! the thing is this: someone might be unkind to you. i personally am not that good at figuring out when someone is being mean to me unless they're insanely obvious about it! i will make excuses for someone doing or saying hurtful things several times ("i'm sure they didn't mean it like that" or "they're just kidding around") before i realize that they're being kind of an asshole. i don't actually think this is a bad trait, though-- i like to assume good intent from other people, and only rescind that assumption when i'm proven wrong. i only mention this to tell you: if someone routinely makes you feel bad about yourself, your art, your writing, or your thoughts, maybe they're not the best person to befriend.

[meglyfer]

Have you considered that perhaps you're just not looking in the right place?

I do not know of many AUs that have been created as of lately, but dear mootie @sandeewithtwoe over here is working on Undersales which, though we don't know much about yet, it seems like something interesting. And, oh look, is that the @uvtale blog? There ain't much there yet, but as a friend of the creator (who I assure you is very enthusiastic about working on this AU) I know stuff, and god this thing is gonna be so cool when more of it comes out (Also I'm pretty sure there were some other AU related things shown in Underevent. Right, you should totally check out the Insomnia trailer by Wily Art on Youtube)

I won't say that "Oh, you've got very interesting AUs coming out every single day!", but saying that there isn't anything creative coming out anymore is just plain stupid. The human creativity is immense, and even when you think that all interesting things have been created already, you'll be surprised as more and more people come up with compelling concepts and stories. You may just not be seeing these ideas as frequently as in the past because the creation of AUs has greatly decreased over the years, but there's still things popping up worth giving a chance

Also, "chased out good creators", I am not sure what this specifically is referring to, but even if this has happened, new artists, writers and other types of creative people join fandom all the time. Even if those "good creators" (whatever your criteria for that is) left, you'll have new people with good, fresh ideas joining the fandom

TL;DR: There are still interesting AUs being made, but they are harder to find as there aren't many AUs being made in general compared to early fandom You also need to check why you sound as if the amount of good/interesting ideas humanity as a whole can have is a limited number set in stone

Transcript: The UTMV community hasn't produced actual decently creative AUs in literal years because they chased out the good creators. No one can prove me wrong

[limonjarritos]

Do you guys know how insane it is that Rody is biphobic and bi just casually in this story. Like imagine if there was less cannibalism (boo) and the whole game was just Rody fighting his bisexual demons.

(actually he probably kinda lowkey was with how much his mind strays back to Manon when speaking to Vincent, though he's also perhaps that down bad. But still, you know how people will subconsciously play up their opposite gender attraction when trying to fight the same sex attraction thoughts)

[joshuamj]

in regards to last reblog (specifically my tags on it), very friendly reminder that i would love to receive asks, i promise u will not be bothering me. Just be prepared cuz depending on what u say i may ramble on and on.

[relicsongmel]

Iris, Miles, and their mutual "secret"

The Ace Attorney fandom is no stranger to discussions of homoerotic subtext in the game's script—pretty much everyone who's spent more than five seconds here will be able to tell you that. Screenshots of lines that imply romantic tension between same-gender characters are all over the place, to the point that many fans are drawn to the series purely by its reputation as "the gay lawyer game." Some scenes are more well-known than others, but one I find brought up fairly regularly is this conversation between Miles and Iris:

This is optional dialogue that can be triggered by presenting incorrect evidence on Iris' Psyche-Lock during the Investigation portion of Bridge to the Turnabout. The argument here is that the "secret" Iris is referring to is the same as her own: that being, a romantic interest in Phoenix Wright. Which is definitely hilarious when you consider that Iris has known Miles for less than a day and she's already reading him for filth (granted, she could have been clued in by the similarly infamous "indispensable friend" line, and she's also exceptionally good at reading people despite Miles thinking otherwise). As a Narumitsu shipper myself I am not immune to enjoying that interpretation; however, I feel like there's a lot of nuance in this scene that isn't often addressed by the fandom at large. Which is unfortunate because watering it down to just Iris calling out Miles for being the gayass he is (to be fair. she's not wrong) does a MASSIVE disservice to both of their characters, and I'll explain why.

My bone to pick with the usual analysis of this scene is mostly centered around the larger conversation to be had regarding the treatment of female characters in fandom spaces. All too often they tend to play second fiddle to the male characters, and a similar principle holds true for ships with their canonical male love interests: mostly ignored in favor of the the more popular M/M ship(s). At best these women are sidelined, at worse they are flattened into wingmen for the boys (as is frequently the case with many AA girls and Narumitsu, Iris included), and at the absolute worst they are demonized for their perceived "competition" with whatever gay ship is most popular and therefore the Only Valid One for the male characters involved (as exemplified by some very "passionate" fans that I generally try to avoid interacting with). Whenever this scene gets brought up, the focus is almost always exclusively on Miles and what the interaction says about his relationship with Phoenix; Iris is only relevant insofar as she's the one initiating Miles' Homosexual Moment™—you could replace her with almost any other character and there'd be a similar level of neglect for their role in the interaction. Only very rarely will you see attention given to what Iris' question about Miles' secret means when she is the one asking it, and what it can tell us about her relationship with Miles/what she thinks of him, and vice versa (absolutely wild how even Miles himself is often flanderized despite being the fandom's golden child). It's all too characteristic of the systemic misogyny that has plagued fandom since its inception, which is deeply frustrating to me as someone who adores Iris as much as I do (if that wasn't obvious by now). So that said, let's dive deeper into what I think the missing link is here: namely, the Iris-Miles dynamic as it pertains to their relation to Phoenix.

Iris and Miles is one of my favorite relationships to explore in the whole series—but as I've described above, unfortunately a lot of people get it wrong in my opinion. Discussion about the two is frequently centered around Narumitsu Love Drama—which is a conversation worth having, don't get me wrong—but the elements at play there aren't always represented the way I envision them, which again, is frustrating. Take the idea of potential jealousy, for instance: it's pretty standard love triangle fare that can be (and often is) quickly turned into demonization when it's used in a shipping context, character assassination be damned (re: Narumitsu fanfic authors that project their personal dislike of Feenris onto Miles via his jealousy of Iris and/or how they tend to portray Iris unfavorably). However, it's not inherently a bad thing to explore: personally, I do believe that there is mutual jealousy between the two of them. Miles might not have the full context of Iris' history when this conversation takes place, but he's emotionally intelligent enough to pick up on what Iris means to Phoenix, and vice versa. And him being a jealous hoe about it isn't out of the question when you consider that he's a bit of a loner by nature and doesn't have many close friends or outlets for socialization outside of his job. The crucial element that's sometimes missed, though, is that Miles not only lacks the self-awareness to realize he's a jealous hoe...he's also a self-sabotaging jealous hoe.

And the same can be said for Iris, who is similarly introverted and doesn't often leave her home at Hazakura Temple.

The whole reason Miles is peering into Iris' heart in the first place can be found in this exchange, after he breaks her Psyche-Lock:

Miles uses the Magatama in order to gain the answers he needs to bring the truth to light and get Iris acquitted, and he does so for the express purpose of reuniting her with Phoenix so they can find closure—in fact, he reiterates this to her multiple times. He obviously recognizes how Phoenix is suffering from what happened between them (I'd argue he sympathizes with Iris' plight as well) and has resolved to do what he can to help him heal, but there's no reason for him to be so insistent that she rectify things with Phoenix when it does nothing but harm his own chances with him. Unless, of course...that's the whole point.

To convince Iris to reveal her secret so he doesn't have to face his own, because he thinks himself undeserving.

And Iris, noticing this because she empathizes with that feeling of unworthiness, calls him out on it in an almost uncharacteristically forward manner when she asks him what he's hiding.

Takes one to know one, indeed.

Iris highly respects Miles for taking on her defense despite the risk to his job as a prosecutor. She's willing to trust him after hearing he's a friend of Phoenix, hearing him out and letting him reason with her. She still keeps her cards close to her chest in some regards, but she's more honest with him than she's been with anyone else in her life apart from her sister. She sees his commitment to the truth and how it starkly contrasts with how she's lived her life to this point, and thinks that this is the type of partner Phoenix deserves—not someone like her, who only knows how to survive using lies and deception. She sees so much strength in him but still recognizes the insecurity lurking beneath his tenacity, which is why when he falters in his logic, she takes a leap of faith and gives him one last chance to examine his reasons for pushing the burden of his unspoken affections onto her, as if to say: "Look in the mirror. Is this really for me? Or is it for you? Do you really seek the truth for its own sake, or do you merely hope to find one truth so you might run from another?"

Her question to Miles is a gamble—a coin flip of self-sacrifice. If she loses and he presses on, she has to face the secret within her heart she's been suppressing for five years. But if she wins and he gives in to the truth in his, she has to live the rest of her life watching it unfold and knowing she threw away her chance to finally stop living in fear of her own love.

Either way, there's no escaping heartache for her anymore.

Miles and Iris both want what's best for Phoenix and prioritize their vision of his feelings over their own. However, they are also both deeply emotionally repressed people who find difficulty in being direct with their feelings, and are predisposed to self-sabotage due to childhood trauma. These tendencies may manifest in different ways for both of them, but the fact remains that such people would likely not compete for a person's affection in the traditional sense, which is exactly what we see with how Iris and Miles deflect their feelings for Phoenix. These selfless, lovestruck idiots toss that man around like a game of hot-potato because their mutual self-hatred for the ways they've harmed him has rendered them terrified of the reality of what he means to them, and desperate to find a way out of admitting to it. It's the most compelling explanation I can think of for why the usually unassuming Iris makes such a bold judgment about what Miles might be keeping locked away, and why Miles goes to such lengths to make sure she talks to Phoenix and tells him the truth—his agreement to defend her was conditional on that exact promise. They go through this whole song-and-dance of playing wingman to ignore their own feelings while still trying to bring Phoenix the happiness they think he deserves—and then they wonder why seeing Phoenix give the other one attention burns them up inside.

Because they’re dumb. And I love them.

TL;DR the Iris Psyche-Lock scene in BttT is so much more than just "haha Miles gay" and I wish people talked about it more. Also Iris and Miles are way more similar than they appear at first glance and if I think about it for too long it makes me physically ill thank you for coming to my TED talk

[iasmelaion]

I have been afflicted with a terrible curse: tearing through a book series, and upon finishing, seeking out the fandom only to find that most of that fandom appears to be reading an entirely different series than I am, lol. I brought this on myself, to be clear. I think a big part of the mismatch is that it's a genre I'm not that familiar with and that I don't care about/for in and of itself, so I'm coming at it from a different perspective. Also, maybe I'm reading into things too much! But what can I say, a girl needs enrichment in her enclosure, and there's enough meat on this bone that I will be occupied for a while.

All of which is to say, I read through all seven books of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series that are out to date (thanks, free Kindle Unlimited subscription!), and now I have a lot of thoughts and no one who cares about them ;____; I played myself ;_______;

This series is such a hard sell in general, because on the surface it looks like male power fantasy garbage, it's litRPG, and there's a decent amount of mildly obnoxious dude humor at first. But a) it's only slightly male power fantasy garbage, b) it's not tedious litRPG and in fact the genre evolves and shifts into more straightforward SFF the further in you get, which is clever on a meta level and also a relief, c) to the extent it is litRPG, it mostly isn't boring and annoying about it (no stat nonsense for the sake of stat nonsense), d) the mildly obnoxious dude humor is often genuinely funny and to the extent it is obnoxious, there's some in-universe reasoning for that.

Anyway, the premise is as follows: Earth is suddenly and devastatingly mined for its natural resources by aliens. This results in the death of billions: everyone who was indoors is instantly killed. Anyone who was outside gets a chance to enter the "dungeon", which offers a chance for the remaining humans to compete for an alleged chance at freedom and sovereignty if they reach the bottom floor, but it's basically The Hunger Games: a propaganda exercise that's meant to earn money for the aliens running it as a game show, only this is a dungeon crawling RPG rather than a Hunger Games/Battle Royale situation. No one has ever reached the bottom floor. The best result most achieve is to reach the tenth floor, where they can take a deal for some variety of indentured servitude.

Enter Carl, our hero, a former (late 20s? early 30s? don't recall his age, but somewhere around there) Coast Guard technician who is outside when it all happens because he chased after his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, a best in show tortie Persian cat. Carl and Donut enter the dungeon, Donut eats a magic treat and becomes a sapient talking cat, and the books follow their struggle to survive and fight back against the cruel and inhuman system they've found themselves in.

Tonally, the series is interesting in that it manages to balance a very bleak, dystopian premise with genuine hilarity and moments of legitimately heart-wrenching emotion. Also, this is not a "lone heroic super cool guy saves and fixes everything" kind of story. This series is interested in teamwork and community in dire circumstances, and the found family of it all is genuinely moving. As a whole, it's just bonkers entertaining. I love when I can tell the author is having a blast, and you can absolutely tell that Matt Dinniman is having an absolute blast.

Anyway, a list of things I enjoy about this series and/or a list of general thoughts, some of which include mild spoilers:

PRINCESS DONUT. i love her. this cat is amazing and hilarious. She's exactly like you'd imagine a prize-winning Persian cat named Princess Donut to be. also, to my delight, she gets to be a fully rounded character. like yes, she's hilarious and often comic relief, but she's also taken seriously, and Carl is absolutely Insane about this cat. He fuckin' loves this cat, and the cat loves him. Also, hilariously, she has higher stats than Carl at the beginning. (In fact, she mostly has higher stats than him throughout, so she's technically the party leader. Which is why their party is called the Royal Court of Princess Donut.)

Donut has A+++++ insulting skills. On multiple occasions, I have lol'd in horror and delight at her savagery. A favorite:

Rezan: Why does that cat always type in all caps?

Donut: WHY DIDN’T YOUR MOTHER DRIBBLE YOU BACK OUT ONTO THE TRUCK STOP BATHROOM FLOOR, REZAN?

lest this give you the wrong impression, Donut is a classy lady. She is a princess, after all. but also she is savage.

Carl! The books are mostly in first person POV, so we're in Carl's head for most of them, and he is a great example of an unreliable narrator. He'll seem fairly generic at first, but stick it out through, like, the first third of the first book and onward for the slow and steady reveal of his Tragic Backstory and also such exciting psychological and emotional issues as: Insane about Donut; claims he "doesn't like drama" while in actuality he is clearly Repressing Everything; secretly an idealist who wants to believe the best of people; deeply committed to protecting people; full of revolutionary, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian rage; holy abandonment issues batman; simply Does Not See It when various ladies basically throw themselves at him; generally Barely Holding It Together at all times.

people on reddit, mostly: Carl's stats!! blah blah blah power stuff. me: okay, but why is Carl Like This. let's deep discuss that. Also let Carl have a little breakdown. As a treat.

these books are so wildly, delightfully anti-capitalist, lol. I poked around Reddit and tumblr a bit, but didn't see anyone discussing this series' politics, but that aspect is super interesting to me. The series is very, very concerned with revolution and resistance and the form those things take when very few options are available to the oppressed, plus the ethics of revolutionary violence.

The dungeon AI! This thing is Way Too Online in a gross dudebro way, but frankly, it's still funny with it, and the evolution of the AI's character is fascinating. Also, I regret to inform you that I do find it extremely fucking funny that the AI has a thing for Carl and his feet. This is wholly hypocritical of me: if Carl was Carla, and the AI made the same comments, I'd have bounced. But what can I say, comedy is about subversion, I guess.

PREPOTENTE. MY PRECIOUS WEIRDO GOATMAN CHILD. Prepotente was a goat; upon entry into the dungeon and eating a magic pet treat, he becomes a goat man type thing, and he spends much of the series as one of the most dangerous and skilled dungeon crawlers, along with his "mother", the shepherdess Miriam Dom. he's a total fuckin weirdo who screams a lot for no reason and i love him. he better fucking survive the series, i swear to god.

one running theme of the series that I love so much is that Carl does not give up on people, and he does not write them off. He often runs into fellow crawlers who, if he was being bloodlessly practical about things, he should have bailed on. They're people who aren't prepared, who haven't leveled up enough, who aren't likely to survive much longer. But he doesn't abandon them, and he doesn't assume they can't get better. He sticks with them and helps them, and they help him. It's about found family ;____; they all love each other so much ;______;

MORDECAI!!! he's a changeling skyfowl and the team's game guide and later manager, and is a former crawler who took a deal. This is supposed to be his last season in the crawl, before he's free of his indentured servitude. he is Dad Shaped. automatic dad. there is in fact something quietly devastating about his Dad Shapedness.

There's a whole super interesting thing going on with the dungeon NPCs, and how we start out assuming most of them aren't "real". unsurprising spoiler alert: they may have been created by/for the dungeon, but many of them are very much real, and once they realize the position they've been put into, they're pissed.

i truly have no real idea where the series is going with its running theme about parents and children, and the protection or lack thereof of children. Our most heroic characters are consistently shown protecting and caring for the NPC children, even when it's at great cost to themselves.

everything to do with the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, the secret book with writing from prior crawlers that Carl is given, makes me Emotional. I'm honestly shocked the whole Cookbook was never planned, and that it was a result of Patreon votes. It's hugely important in the seventh book, not so much on a plot level--I can see how Dinniman could have gotten to some of these same plot beats without it--but on an emotional and thematic one. There's something so affecting here about the continuity of resistance, of finding hope and strength in the people who came before you, of planting seeds you water with blood and that you may never get to harvest, and the sheer, furious love of the whole thing.

so apparently Dinniman is a pantser when it comes to writing. Clearly, he's having fun, and it's more or less working out so far, but it does make me concerned about his ability to stick the dismount. I saw in an AMA that he likened it to building a spaceship with legos versus building it with a plan, and that he has fun writing himself out of corners. That's all well and good, but some of the things I'm most interested in this series are the overarching themes, and it makes me wary of those themes not getting a proper payoff. I guess I should just enjoy the ride, and accept that there will almost certainly be many loose ends.

On a meta level, I find it very funny and ironic that when I took a look at the reviews for the seventh book, I saw some people complaining about the absence of the more "entertainment" and "game" aspects of the series: no interviews with the outside, no "character sheets" for Carl, fewer big fights for Carl himself to take on, the AI taking on a more active 'deus-ex AI' role. Because in-universe, the dungeon crawl is no longer entertainment. At this point, the crawl has become an actual war, and the game genre it takes on--4x strategy--reflects that. Carl and the crawlers' choices have increasing ramifications outside the crawl, where actual war is breaking out at least in part as a result of their actions. The AI intervening more and more often to put its finger on the scale is part of the conflict; it's fighting this war as much as the other characters are, if with still inscrutable motivations.

This is in fact one of the central conflicts of the series: to what extent is this still a game? Has it ever only been a game? The crawlers and NPCs are in fact fighting for it to not be a game: they're saying "my life is real, my suffering is real, and if you won't acknowledge that, then you're coming in here with us to fight and die too. Not just a game anymore, is it?" And on another side of the conflict, you have the AI insisting that this stay a game, something with rules and a narrative and at least an attempt at fairness, however much the AI manipulates those things.

It seems like there's something of a genre shift going on with this series. As a reader who's not particularly interested in or invested in litRPG in and of itself, I'm fine with it shifting to being more straightforwardly SFF, and in fact, I think that's an interesting and fun choice on a meta level: the more the crawlers and the AI break and change the game, the more the genre of the series itself shifts.

[joejhang]

fanon neil vs canon neil

god i am so FUCKING done with the aftg fandom mischaracterising neil i'm literally writing fucking ESSAYS about it and pacing circles muttering about it under my breath it's driving me up the goddamn wall so i am going to word vomit brain dump yap about all of it in an incoherent tumblr text post. spoilers ahead continue at ur own risk

i've said it before and i'll say it again I HATE FANON NEIL. istg this fandom LOVES to mischaracterise neil and ykw i think i know why. they take the smallest most unnoticeable parts of his personality and then exaggerate them to disproportionate and unrealistic levels in order for him to fit their idea of a conventional, stereotypical and desirable main character. they smooth out his jagged edges and prick at his "insecurities" to make him more likeable, more acceptable and more conventional of a narrator/main character and in doing so erase so fucking much of his personality and draw as a character that he loses just about all of the flavour that made me love him in canon. and also especially within the andreil dynamic this fucking fandom just loves to tweak neil's character until he's basically unrecognisable just so they can cram andreil into some preconceived socially acceptable clichéd ship dynamic. because andrew is perceived as the typical mysterious, moody and grumpy love interest therefore neil just has to be the sunshiney smiley blushing cute softboy in exchange. yeah because all gay ships have to be grumpy-sunshine and black cat-golden retriever dynamic. i raise you: andreil's dynamic doesn't work because of their differences it works because of their similarities. if u think about it andrew and neil are honestly very similar people in the way they think and process emotions and events and that's what allows them to connect and understand each other. andreil would not work if neil was super sunshiney and a blushy soft mess and andrew was the stoic, never smiling, unemotional stone of a guy the fandom loves to make them. just accept they do not fit into the conventional boxes laid out by booktok for what gay ships look like. i fucking digress.

neil is also just insanely mischaracterised on his own. people love making him very jittery and insanely oblivious and easily flustered with a generous serving of self-esteem issues. i hate to break it to you guys: neil josten is not insecure. i don't think there's a single instant in the series where neil is actually insecure about anything. as a narrator, person and character, neil is very realistic, pragmatic and logical. ruthlessly so. i'd say on this, neil is even more cerebral and unemotional than andrew is. neil is very straightforward and realistic abt himself in his narration and i'd honestly say his opinion and views about himself are one of the only things in the story that isn't affected by his narrator bias. if neil is anything, it's self-aware. i'm now going to present all my fucking evidence.

neil doesn't have a sexuality crisis. literally in the entire series never once does he even question his fucking sexuality. it's implied he's already figured out he's aspec/demisexual from the moment nicky questions him about his sexuality. neil says "i don't swing" and follows up in his narration: it wasn't quite the truth, but it was close enough. and later when he starts his relationship with andrew he doesn't ever question the nature of his feelings towards andrew or even anyone else and is pretty clear about it when andrew breaches the topic: "kissing you doesn't make me look at them any differently" so yeah neil is pretty certain and aware of his sexuality.

neil isn't insecure about his appearance. i feel like this is gonna require a bit of work to explain but hear me out. it is mentioned several times that neil has a complicated relationship with his appearance because he looks so much like his father/abuser. this is obviously understandable; you wouldn't want to look into the mirror and see the man who gave u all ur scars. that being said, neil doesn't have a lot of strong emotions regarding his appearance. most of his feelings of panic tied to when r*ko dyed back his hair is because of how it would be a lot easier for his father to discover him now that he has his original colouring back. i'm also pretty sure neil knows that he's cute. like it's never explicitly stated but i've reread aftg maybe fifty times and trust me i can read between the lines. neil explicitly says that he has a "love-hate relationship with his reflection out of necessity" and while the "hate" part of that statement is obvious: he doesn't like that he resembles his father, i've sort of just accepted that the "love" part of it is that he knows he's kinda fine. it's not brought up by him at all bc neil as a person is not one to linger on people's appearances almost at all. i think the only people to get a decent amount of lines dedicated to their appearance in the narration are allison and andrew. but yeah i genuinely don't think neil thinks he's ugly or unattractive and he's probably definitely been told how cute he is by others enough that he doesn't harbour any delusions about how he looks. regarding his scars, he never expresses any insecurity towards them and how they look, he just doesn't like them on display understandably bc of how acutely they point to his past and childhood that he's trying to hide.

neil is actually very very confident in his own and other people's abilties. this is esp regarding exy. he knows he's good at the game. like he knows. the most distinct example i can think of for this point is when kevin tells neil that he was at castle evermore to try out for the perfect court when they were younger. neil doesn't even doubt for a fucking second that he would've made it onto the perfect court. never does. he skips over the second-guessing and doubt part and just straight up starts daydreaming about the future he could've had playing with kevin and r*ko. like that really got me bc it's easy to assume neil would be super unassuming and have low self-esteem but no like neil doesn't doubt for a fucking second that he deserves to be perfect court. it's just that he doesn't believe in r*ko's delusions enough to play along with it by the time he gets the tattoo. he's also insanely confident about the foxes and their abilities and also kevin by the end of the series. at the beginning he takes a pretty realistic vantage point and says that with the way things are, the foxes will never beat the ravens. but even with that pov he still has the gall to challenge r*ko on LIVE TV and i doubt he's lying when he declares so boldly to everyone that if the foxes were united they'd be an unstoppable force (and guess what he was fucking RIGHT). and by the end, when the foxes are united, he has no more room left for doubt at all. some guy tells neil to kick the ravens' asses and neil just replies with zero hesitation "that's the plan". like he's so fucking on board with it. and he never once doubts that kevin is the best striker in the game. like literally never. at first he considers r*ko and kevin on par with each other (possibly, it's never stated outright) but by the end he literally has no doubts when he says "kevin is the best striker" like goddamn the amount of confidence neil has is so underrated.

neil is a very unemotional narrator. it actually gets me all the time how logical and ruthlessly pragmatic neil's narration and inner monologue is. some of the only strong emotions portrayed in neil's narration are anger, irritation and occasionally grief, which is only ever triggered by major trauma-inducing events (e.g. dr*ke). almost all of his inner monologue is analytical and observing others and dissecting either other people or the situation he's in. and almost all of his decisions and actions are made based on impulse and instinct. neil is a very instinctive person. this is outright stated in the way he plays exy; in theory, he can't give u a lot, but in the heat of the moment he's at his best. this applies to practically all facets of neil's life. he never plans his moves or what he's gonna say (except like that one time when he planned out what half-truth he was gonna tell andrew post-columbia). he's super quick and on the ball and literally does whatever the fuck he wants at any given moment. he's also insanely good at compartmentalising. like it's difficult to explain but while his priorities are obv hilariously skewed, they're also very clear in his mind. things he considers unimportant he simply just doesn't think about. what others look like and what they think of him don't factor into his internal monologue or his thoughts at all he literally just files them away in the back of his mind until they do end up becoming useful or important to him. he barely comments on andrew's appearance at all until andrew becomes someone worth staring at and admiring for him. the only reason he describes allison and renee in the detail that he does is because it's important in understanding how and why he reacts to them the way he does. this man was literally about to lose his goddamn mind at the fall banquet but he specifically reserved his mental breakdown for after the banquet so he could spend his time roasting the fuck out of r*ko. bro fully locked in and was like "clock riko now break down later" and i respect it.

neil doesn't actually have a martyr complex. it's funny because almost all of aftg is him being the absolute fucking opposite of a martyr. he wilfully sticks around the foxes knowing he's putting himself and them in danger. he doesn't "sacrifice" himself until he's absolutely forced to by his father's people. by then, he's already told himself he can't and won't run and he's smart enough to know he'll never get away anyway. and going to evermore wasn't about self-sacrifice or martyrdom it was about protecting andrew and those two are pretty fucking different. he knew he was coming back from evermore and he knew that he wouldn't die there, despite all the shit he went through, so i don't think that can be counted as "self-sacrifice". he was doing what he had to do to protect andrew, the same as andrew would've done for neil or aaron or kevin or anyone else he'd sworn to protect. the kidnapping in baltimore was the culmination of neil's character arc, which isn't really about learning to be selfless and self-sacrificing, it's about learning to stand his ground and stop running. those things r crucially different: neil not running in baltimore wasn't about selflessness, it was about courage. yes, part of it was obviously inspired by the foxes and motivated by not wanting them to be hurt but i truly believe it ultimately was about neil learning to stand his own ground and make his own home and have it be something he's willing to die for. call it whatever u want honestly i just don't think neil is as much of a martyr/sacrificial lamb as the fandom makes him out to be.

[fancyfade]

Difference between Bruce and Dick as Batman.

So I know that there's a lot of temptation to compare Bruce as Batman to Dick or Damian, and Dick as Batman to Damian, often with a "oh well obviously Bruce was meaner/Dick was nicer", but I do think they have a neat contrast that fandom often overlooks (as well as some parallels).

Robin: Year One #3

Batmatn #408

Batman and Robin #6

Dick and Bruce both will deal with whatever current threat exists, before fully helping wounded Robin, getting a verbal "I'm fine" confirmation. They clearly do care about Robin. But they also have an obligation to protect people Bruce tries to physically stop joker. Jason's not fighting Dick, but he is trying to talk him down and talk him into getting help, like he did in Battle for the Cowl. The characters also generally avoid a wounded Robin -- it's just easier to see for Bruce, because Leslie calls Bruce out on it "you're leaving (to go deal with this?)" whereas no one questions Dick leaving Damian once he's got medical care and doing his own mission to revive zombie bruce. I imagine this is partially from guilt (we do see Bruce blaming himself for Dick's close call, and Dick framing Damian as his responsibility in Battle for the Cowl) and also possible due to the whole 'batman has a job, robin's physically OK now so time to help protect people' thing.

A strong difference is after the character's get injured and treated. Bruce becomes overprotective, and continues being emotionally distant, which understandably upsets Dick. He is so overprotective he benches Dick each time he is wounded seriously, and that creates friction between them.

Robin: Year One

Batman #408

Contrast this to Dick's general lack of protectiveness. Nothing changes when Damian gets wounded as Robin. Which works well (emotionally) for Damian and it works for the conventions of the genre.

Dick is generally not portrayed as very emotionally overprotective when Damian is injured, and when Damian is captured, he often expresses more verbal concern for the people who captured Damian than Damian himself.

Batman and Robin #9 - Damian, with a new metal spine, got thrown off a building by the zombie batman dick accidentally revived.

Batman and Robin #13

Detective comics annual #11

I should note: I think it would be uncharitable to assume that Dick expressing more verbal concern that Damian will hurt the supervillains who have him kidnapped means Dick doesn't care about Damian. We see in Batman and Robin some of Dick being worried when Damian is shot, and we see Dick telling Azrael they need to find a quicker way to get to Damian when Azrael is talking about how to find the guys who took him. And also, you know. I just don't think Dick would care more about the supervillains that Damian. But Damian is regarded as a tough kid, he'll be fine no matter what, and he represents a threat to other people (interestingly, something I've seen fans accuse... Bruce of doing to damian? Even though Bruce was much more protective and wasn't worried about Damian killing Nobody when Damian was going with Nobody, or Damian killing the Saturn Club guys when Damian let himself by kidnapped by the Saturn club guys to find civilians to rescue)

But I am analyzing here the actions he does and the words that he says, and what the writer dedicates panel time to. I think it's interesting that Bruce and Dick's similarities with regards to Robin getting injured involve emotionally removing themselves from the situation and focusing on cases, and then their differences are in the follow up. Dick often maintains a status quo, which is satisfying to the Robin character (he does not feel like he's being fired or judged) and fits with the conventions of the genre. Bruce often becomes overprotective to a degree where the Robin character feels estranged from him, and is excluded, resulting in alienation from robin and coming across as the "bad guy".

I find it very interesting that Dick avoids repeating mistakes of the past that Bruce made (becoming overprotective of Robin to an alienating degree and firing him) by doing things that would be read as callous or uncaring to the reader if he wasn't Dick, I guess.

P.S. I know some people say this is why they regard Morrison's Dick as OOC, but I didn't have any place to fit that acknowledgement in the above paragraphs, but I think it's important to note that this was not just Morrison's Dick. In general Dick as Batman era was way different than Nightwing Rebirth era Dick or even post 2011 Dick.

[ask-the-rag-dolly]

okay . while i was writing the essay , i was going on a big spiel about how fandoms often reduce characters to familiar archetypes . then when i finished writing i realized i actually don't know what the Fuck i was yapping about because it all doesn't really apply to the tadc fandom post-ep 2 ? like Cool !! ragatha's an absolute loser of a woman , i think everyone has known that at this point .

basically ragatha's not the Best model for when i want to talk about nice characters being mischaracterized in fandom because i stopped seeing people making her put-together anyway . i can think of other characters that'll fit the thesis better .

i'm only deciding to post what i had down because i think i did say some stuff of note and because people were interested for . some reason ! . just keep in mind that it kind of became a nothingburger .

i'm in the middle of rewriting it to be less about the fandom though and my god it's already around 1118 words what am i doing with my life

also apologies in advance for the walls of text

——— this is not an essay to get you to like ragatha if you’re feeling meh towards her , or even dislike her . opinions are opinions , you have characters that appeal to you and i have mine ! this is just a ramblefest on why i love her , how people characterized her , and commentary on fandom culture as a whole

this is also not meant to bash any headcanons ! like good for you if you see her as the mother figure in the circus found family . the term ‘ mom friend ‘ here is used to describe how people often reduced her and similar characters down to a caretaker role for other characters while ignoring the Depth they have

as i think is clear in this blog by now , my favorite character in a piece of fiction has always been a mentally ill woman . the more complicated the brain , the better . i don’t have a type , but i know more often than not i would gravitate towards characters that are either misunderstood or disliked by most of the fandom

can you guess which category ragatha falls under —

don’t get me wrong , i am NOT generalizing tadc fans here ! the idea of her being a well-put together person lessened around episode 2 which is GREAT because i got to read very cool fics — and i’m not saying you have to know every part of ragatha’s thought processes to talk about her ( though at this point i think i’ve heard enough takes that makes me want to say that — )

‘ nice characters ‘ ( especially female ones ! ) in fandom never have the most pleasant development in my experience . either they will be pushed aside because they’re seen as boring compared to the more brasher characters or they’ll be disliked for the few times they did something seen as ‘ not so nice ‘ . and in the few times where they Are being paid attention , they’ll be put in an arbitrary box that waters down their traits .

in other words , fandoms put characters in boxes . terms like ‘ mom friend ‘ and ‘ cinnamon roll ‘ are those boxes . they're common tropes in media that fandoms typically like . it’s why people were so disappointed to find out that jax is actually an unlikable asshole instead of a ' jerk with a heart of gold ' — these boxes make the characters easy to consume and understand .

as you can tell , i don’t agree with putting characters in boxes ! first of all , how are they supposed to breathe in there ?

secondly , it’s just restricting yourself from genuinely engaging with a piece of media , especially for a character-driven story like tadc . i would be More forgiving of this problem if tadc was a plot-heavy show where the lore’s the main focus , but The Characters Are The Focus , Johnathan . trying to understand the characters personally to extract any potential moral lessons from them Is The Point of those types of stories

thirdly , i call those boxes arbitrary for a reason ; they often don't describe the characters at all , and in some cases , even goes against their characterization . my biggest problem with mom friend ragatha is that it Takes away the things that makes her interesting as a character .

do you know what's so compelling about ragatha ? it's that , believe it or not , she is Not the most reliable . one of the most fascinating things with ragatha in episode two is how it shows her approaching emotions Vs. Pomni approaching emotions .

even though it's unintentional , ragatha can be seen as Dismissive and Overbearing . the way she tried to reassure pomni of not feeling hurt by being left behind can seem Passive-Aggressive . her conversation with kinger shows that she Assumes what the other person thinks without hearing them out . this contrasts against pomni who lets gummigoo speak out his feelings and actually had viable things to say than ' don't worry about it haha '

this contrast is interesting to note because it shows the world of difference between ragatha and pomni's emotional maturity .

you can tell that ragatha can be simple-minded . not in a ' she's a dumbass ' way , but in that she's Reluctant to approach uncomfortable emotions without beaming it with a ray of positivity . like you can tell she thinks that Repressing her emotions to the point she can't feel them is the same as ' processing ' them . all of these are stuff that don't fit the Mature Mom Friend archetype .

and that's Fine !! because she was never meant to be in the role anyway !! there's a common theme of Community and Support in tadc , and that Everyone Has Each Other . ragatha was never meant to be the Glue holding everyone together , she's meant to be a part of the Unit that is the circus .

there's also a conversation to be had about how older female characters — or at least characters that are seen as having stereotypically ' feminine ' traits of being kind and caring — are often being pushed to a reductive , supportive familial role that reinforces gender roles , but you didn't hear it from me !

anyways uh in conclusion ragatha's awesomesauce ok i'm going back to drawing

[pangaeaseas]

The Problem of Religion in Harry Potter (or, what is Wizard God?)

tl; dr: I wish more hp fics did something with religion and the wizarding world

so to state my credentials up front: I've read a lot of hp fanfiction, a little on the Reformation and religious history--like, I have probably more background knowledge than the average person but I am very emphatically not an expert and have never actually taken a class specifically on any kind of religious history, and I'm an ex-Catholic who did ten ish years of religion classes. There are probably a LOT more people more qualified to talk about this than me but whatever I've never actually seen very much meta written out on this specific issue so I'm giving it a try. (if you have written or read such meta, please send me recs)

ahh the Problem of Religion one of the great unsolved mysteries of the hp world building (similar issues include What the Fuck is Going on with Ireland, How Does the Ministry Actually Work, What is the Population, etc) and I call it 'unsolved' because the fandom has no massively popular solution (like Lordships for the Problem of the Wizengamot) and in general tends to just not think about it, much like JKR originally did. Now IMO she probably intended most wizards to be, like, generically Church of England or whatever without much investment--basically copying the Muggle equivalent whenever it isn't spelled out how the two worlds differ, which is I think a lot of her un-filled-out world building is meant to be. Which. OK. You can do that, but, you know, religion is a very very important aspect of worldbuilding and in my opinion ignoring it and expecting it to be just the same as 1990s Muggle Britain is uninteresting and lazy.

This (wizards are meant to be some kind of Christian and probably Church of England just for simplicity's sake) is evidenced by things like Hogwarts having Christmas and Easter breaks, James and Lily having a Bible quote picked out by Dumbledore on their tombstone, and Draco Malfoy, most emblematically wizard of wizard characters who can be taken as a potential baseline, automatically saying things like 'Good God'. Which, you know, implies that the idea of a single God, and probably the Judaeo-Christian God because that's the same cultural background as the rest of Britain, is taken for granted by wizarding society. It doesn't necessarily imply anything about Draco's or even the Malfoys' personal beliefs, and of course you have other characters saying things like 'Oh my Merlin' and "Morgana" and things like that. Which in my opinion wasn't meant to be indications of some kind of Merlin or Morgana worship but more quirky and fun flavor things of the kind jkr loves to include without thinking out the implications. But you absolutely can take those statements that way--this post is absolutely not meant to dictate how people want to headcanon and I am absolutely here for giving wizards a well thought out pagan or Non-Christian religion, I just don't think that was the author's intent. There's also plenty of other things that imply Wizarding cultural Christianity that I'm not remembering off the top of my head.

And, of course, much better writers than me have extensively discussed all the Christian themes in HP. Of course, themes don't need to affect how people worldbuild in fanfic.

So: with HP canon, we are looking at a society that is probably culturally Christian and probably (key word) intended to be Church of England. But, because JKR wasn't putting much thought into it and basically just took a Chrisitian bedrock of society for granted, the implications of this are not really explored at all. So what I'm interested in is how fandom deals with it.

Mostly, that is...not at all, either taking cultural Christianity in the Wizarding World for granted the way JKR does or by ind of handwaving that wizards have evolved beyond the need for religion and that's just how it is. And that's perfectly fine! Not everyone wants to come up with a full, working, wizard society, and even if they are trying to worldbuild some aspects of wizarding society religion is often ignored, because people don't want to deal with it for often valid reasons (religious trauma, just disinterest, grew up agnostic, not Christian but thinks wizards probably are etc, etc, etc, ) Personally I wish more fics delved into what wizarding religious belief actually is, but to put it bluntly, that's just me. And I have never dealt with religion in my own fics. So don't takethis as judgement at all.

But there are interesting headcanons when people do choose to try and worldbuild religion in HP.

Fom what I've seen, one of the major ways to deal with religion in HP (aside from not dealing with it at all) is to give wizards, often pureblood wizards, some kind of pagan, often Celtic-inspired, religion. And this is quite defensible! Sometimes this is badly executed and/or turned into Death Eater apologia, but the idea of wizards having a different religion is really interesting and a good deal more interesting (IMO of course) than just not mentioning religion at all. Most fics that I've seen don't delve too deeply into, like the actual history and theology of these religions, but there are definitely some that do. (Also if you know any PLEASE send me recs). So if handled well, this is a great way to add some religion worldbuilding in the world of Harry Potter.

However, my personal favorite set of possibilities--obviously I have some personal bias as a history nerd with a long standing if never as deeply researched as I would like to interest in the history of Christianity and as an ex-Catholic--is that, well, we know the statute of secrecy started..when, exactly? 1690. So this much is obviously a result of JKR's Hollywood understanding of witch hunts (a subject for another time and someone far more qualified). For interested wrodlbuilders, we can take this as a guideline at best, as personally I think it would have taken a good deal longer than one year to agree on and implement something like the Statute and I tend to take 1690 as an end date, not a start. I also tend to take the Statue as a largely European phenomenon, at least at first. But, uh, what was happening in Britain at the time..oh, right...the Glorious Revolution....what was happening that created the conditions for the Glorious Revolution...oh, the English Civil War...which was because of...oh yeah, and what was also happening on the continent, maybe it involved, wait, thirty years..oooh, the Thirty Years War...wait weren't there a whole bunch of massive social shifts happening in Europe at this point in time isn't that funny but surely the stature of secrecy could be considered a part of these massive social shifts...all of which was heavily influenced by...you guessed it, the Protestant Reformation.

Wait. So. Maybe, the separation of Wizards from Muggles, at least in Britain, wasn't actually about Muggles hating wizards or wizards hating Muggles. Maybe it was about religion. Now personally I find this ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING. The possibilities, the possibilities...

Wizards had a massive religious civil war that created the blood status system in its modern form? Particular families have wildly different denominations? Excellent. Religion both in terms of level of religiosity and in terms of denomination is a blood status marker? Excellent. Purebloods are all Catholic (what does this do to both Catholic and not Muggleborns?) Excellent. Purebloods are all Puritans? Weird, but if you can pull it off excellent. Purebloods are all one of the wacky new denominations that sprung up after the Reformation and then either died out or conquered the world? Excellent. Pure bloods are all Lutherans who really hated Henry VIII? Excellent. One of my favoirite ways to create a wizarding religion was someone who had most pure bloods follow a denomination that split off from Catholicism in the Great Schism and then a small minority being Catholic, with the worlds splitting around the Reformation. Even the paganism headcanons can be incorporated: the Reformation could conceivably have made it much more difficult to keep practicing wizard paganism causing separation of the worlds.

Personally I would love to see a world that used the history of the Protestant Reformation super well, but it's not the only way to relate a Wizarding religion or a Wizarding religious history. I just wish more people tried to do that at all. Let wizards be religious! Or let them be irreligious but have thought about it, instead of just ignoring religion at all as something that might conceivably have influenced human societies. Maybe Wizarding Britain has state sponsored atheism. Just say that outright!

Another thing I'd like to see more fic doing is theology: how does having magic impact people's religious doctrine? Does every major religion essentially have a wizarding branch with its own theology because magic impacts their view of the world so much, or do most wizards simply follow the majority Muggle religion in their country with no modifications? if so, why? Do some wizards disagree, potentially violently, over how to incorporate magic into their religion? Do some people refuse to use magic because they think it goes against their religion? Etc etc etc you could go on forever. I've seen fic, which randomly enough was about Regulus Black, do this pretty well (or I thought so as a non-Jew) for Judaism, and I'd love it if done with other religions.

Anyway. Now I have to figure out how the hell religion works in the Wizarding Britain of my own headcanon.

[nohaijiachi]

Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside

Before we get into the subject matter of the title let me preface a couple of things:

1- All that will follow is, big surprise, my opinion and my interpretation of this character. Do I think I am The One And Only Who Gets The Blorbo Right and that my ideas are 100% the way the author(s) intended to convey the character? No.

More likely than not the way I see Aziraphale could be intensely different from the way Authorman sees him, or Actorman sees him, and I don't think that my interpretation is necessarily any more correct than anybody's else.

That said, if I also did not think that I am, in fact, correct on a certain level, I wouldn't have bothered forming such a thought out opinion of Aziraphale in the first place, nor would be sitting here, writing this post that I can already tell is going to be entirely too long and might probably ruffle some feathers.

So I'll be writing the rest of this post with the caveat that I while I do think my interpretation correct, I'm also not trying to change anybody's mind nor to discredit anybody's else interpretation of Aziraphale. We can sit here in the sandpit and hold different opinions and still be able to build sandcastles together, it really isn't that deep at the end of the day; I can assure you, I'm not here to fight nor cause fights with this one.

2- With the above point, comes also the fact that I won't bother continuously saying "In my opinion" for the rest of this post. You already know that. So, if something will come across as a bit caustic, do know that it is very much tongue in cheek and I am poking a bit of fun at general fannish habits that I am also very much quote-unquoute 'guilty' of having partaken into, and will partake into again plenty of times in the future, I'm sure.

So, with that: Here's Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside

A large part of the people comprising this fandom prefers Crowley. There, I said it.

This fandom's preference blatantly skews toward Crowley. Can we admit that openly? Let's admit that openly.

To be clear, this isn't meant to be an accusation or recrimination or any other -ation you can think of, I am merely stating matter-of-factly a phenomena I've observed in the last four years.

It is also not a wrong nor bad thing in any way, shape or form. I adore Crowley myself. I love them both so much it's unreal.

But I started with that because I think it is very much a symptom of the fact that a lot of people don't get Aziraphale.

I remember back with S1 there had been plenty of times when I found myself reading discussions and opinion exchanges about Aziraphale and Crowley, their dynamics, all the things that went unsaid behind the things that were said, and found myself genuinely surprised by seeing how some people interpreted certain moments wildly different from how I personally saw them.

I look back at that and I think "Oh, sweet summer child". Nothing could have prepared me from the onslaught of takes about Aziraphale that make me go "Good lord, what???" in the wake of S2, and the infamous Last Fifteen.

Now because I don't want to be pointing fingers at specific things and risk upsetting somebody more than I already am by being open in admitting that, guys, yes, some of the takes y'all have been sharing make me go "Yikes(tm)", I'll move on the interesting part and what I would actually love to discuss, aka cracking Aziraphale's head open and see what that actual fuck is going on in there.

Another preface: Because this duo is intrinsically linked and woven together it is downright impossible to only focus on Aziraphale without also mentioning Crowley, so... Let me circle back to our fav demon bae for a sec, here.

I think the reason why it seems that a larger part of the fandom favors Crowley is because I feel like Crowley is a much easier character to grasp. He is very open in his thoughts and feelings, at any given moment us, the audience, have a much easier time watching a scene and sort of ruminating in the back of our heads about Crowley's motivations for saying the things he says and doing the things he does.

That isn't to say Crowley is a less complex character than Aziraphale. They are very much equally complex and multifaceted individuals with their strengths and weaknesses, their issues and the way they each cope with them, how differently they approach their existence and so on and so forth.

But whereas Crowley as a character presents itself with a certain dynamism and a far more outward openness about his complexity, Aziraphale does the exact opposite; we can say Aziraphale is downright hermetic about it.

For us, the audience, he presents a challenge that requires a good deal of thought being put into him to see over the facade he presents at a more superficial level; he requires time and effort to fully dismantle him in our minds to try and see what makes him thick (other than his thighs), and thus I think it is entirely natural that more people latch on the far easier to identify-with, and relate-to, Crowley.

And that is the inevitable consequence of everything that makes Aziraphale... Well, Aziraphale.

So, where to start? Let's try and jot down what Aziraphale truly is at his core.

He is a contradiction.

This man-shaped being is a walking contradiction, constantly existing in a state of being coated in three thousand layers of misdirection and obfuscation and double thinking.

Why is that? Well. He's an angel.

Aziraphale loves being an angel. It is a tenet of his entire existence and something he cherishes. He wants, so very much, to be his ideal of what a good angel is: An entity who is kind and loving and understanding and forgiving.

Of course us, the audience, know that is utter bullshit, because we know angels can be individuals just as complex as the humans Aziraphale loves so much, with all their inherent flaws and capability for cruelty. And, on a certain level, Aziraphale knows that too.

So there we have it, one element of contradiction: Aziraphale wants to think that angels are always Good and Righteous and Never Wrong; Aziraphale knows that angels aren't, in fact, always Good and Righteous and, by god, can they make plenty of mistakes, too.

What else? How about Aziraphale sitting there, being in love with a demon, fully knowing that at the end of the day demons really ain't that different from angels, and also desperately hanging onto the concept of Good vs Bad.

And he sits there, existing with these two contrasting idea equally taking space in his mind, neither side ever capable of taking over the other.

What else do we have? Aziraphale loves God and wants so hard to believe in Her love for humanity and Her ineffable plan, and Aziraphale also time and again does things that very blatantly go against Her will, lies to Her face, and Doubts. He Doubts, a lot, and that requires the capital letter because those Doubts are what spur him in going against everything he's ever told to believe in order to do the right thing.

Aziraphale's very existence is a constant push-and-pull of things he wants to believe and things he knows are real; things he's told to do and things he wants to do. That's how we get "My side" and "there's a bit of good in you" and "you are the bad guys".

And nothing he's lived through has managed to break him out of this unhealthy way of existing quite yet; that's why he acts the way we see him act in the Edinburgh flashback in S2, or at the start of S1 when Crowley has to ease Aziraphale into the idea of trying to stop Armageddon with the usual song and dance of "temptation" and "plausible deniability" and "you'd be thwarting me", even though from the start we can tell there's a little part of Aziraphale who is clearly not at ease with the idea of the end of the world, and once he's been given 'permission' by Crowley nudging him, he is all the way in with the whole saving the world business, not take-backsies.

Both the moments I mentioned here are very important for different reasons, but of the two is very much the Edinburgh flashback that gets a lot more flack by the fandom and is blatantly misunderstood, which I think is the inevitable consequence of that minisode immediately following the glorious, beautiful, heartbreaking piece of art that is the "A companion to owls" minisode.

I've seen a lot of people lamenting that Aziraphale acts obnoxiously in the Edinburgh flashback and, yeah. He does. But I feel like the fact that we are seeing this after watching Aziraphale struggle his way through saving Job's children, even being willing to go to Hell for it, is a though act to follow and probably soured Edinburgh-Aziraphale for a lot of people, made them think that the character had regressed instead of progressing.

But, see, the way he acts is wholly congruous with who Aziraphale is and has always been and keeps being up to the very end of S2. Yes, even after what he does for Job's children.

If you get down to it, Aziraphale had been ready to give up and let the children die, in episode 2. For a brief moment, after Crowley told him he 'longed to destroy the blameless children', Aziraphale was walking away, having tried all he thought he could try to do to stop this senseless act. That was until Crowley tested him by making the crows bleat, cuing Aziraphale to the fact that his impression of Crowley wasn't wrong, and the he could count on him to do the right thing.

To be clear, I don't want to undermine Aziraphale's action by only giving the credit to Crowley but... It is, also, only thanks to Crowley cajoling him and giving him the right excuses, that Aziraphale feels safe in doing what he's always wanted to do all along.

He'd wanted to save Job's children, and thought he couldn't until Crowley threw him that hell of a lifesaver. He wanted to save the world and thought he couldn't until Crowley nudged him on the path of plausible deniability.

He wanted to save Elspeth's eternal soul, blinding himself to the hardships she'd have to endure in her not-eternal life, and was smacked right in the face by the reality of human suffering multiple times.

The way Aziraphale acts in that flashback can't be a regression, because there never was a progression in the first place: He'd always walked the line between Heaven's and God's will and his own, personal morality and sense of justice.

By all means, if we look at Uz-Aziraphale and modern-day-Aziraphale at the start of S1, his reticence about the whole saving the world business should, by all means, appear as a regression as well. You mean to tell me that he'd been ready to become a demon for the sake of three mortal children, and then suddenly a handful of thousands years later when faced with the prospect of the whole world going up in flames he'd just be all like "Heaven will triumph over Hell and it will be all rather lovely"? Like, fuck off, Aziraphale, you lying double-thinker, you (/pos)

Aziraphale constantly exist while being at war with himself. Circumstances have allowed him to rebel the will of Heaven and God more or less safely time and again, but he never quite managed to break free entirely. He'd always ended up being reeled back in, being fed the party lines, being made to feel shame for his independent thinking, until it all becomes too much and he is forced to step back from that freedom he'd been inches away from grasping.

Back and forth, back and forth, never stopping.

And all of this, all of what he is, makes it so hard for us, the audience, to truly see him. To truly grasp him. To truly watch any given scene with him and figure out what he might be thinking or feeling.

To understand Aziraphale is to understand what he is not saying when he says something, which is a good deal harder to do than it is to understand and relate to a character like Crowley, who very much revel in saying exactly whatever the heck he thinks whenever he damn well pleases.

All those layers of obfuscation and misdirection and double thinking that Aziraphale coats himself in are as much an armor that makes it harder for the audience to understand him as they are his very own downfall because, good lord, if you exist like that, if you exist forced to keep things hidden from yourself, well... It's inevitable that at some point you are going to stumble into pitfalls of your own making.

And I love him for it.

So, there? I hope I managed to explain something with this post, and that it wasn't just the rambling of someone who spends way too much time thinking about her blorbos. To be clear, I don't think people who haven't spent as much time as me trying to dissect and better understand Aziraphale's character are like, dumber than me or anything. It's just that this pair of angelic-demonic blorbos take too much real estate in my mind, lol.

Feel free to let me know your opinion and if you think I am wildly off mark and my Take Is Bad. I might answer, I might not, it all depends on time and my mood ◝(ᵔᵕᵔ)◜

[juniperhillpatient]

I have talked about this a lot before but it’s on my mind & also it’s something that really should be discussed more in Buffy fandom -

People are constantly talking about how Spike defies all the rules Buffy was taught about demons & vampires & rightfully so. A vampire falling in love with a slayer & fighting for his soul for her is such a romantic notion & I do love it but the nuance of Spike’s arc is even more interesting than that! He does love Buffy but not only that he befriends the Scoobies too. He brings flowers for Joyce after she dies. He helps prove that Tara is not a demon when her family tries to gaslight her & isolate her. He becomes a pseudo big brother to Dawn.

And yet none of that is even what I’m here to talk about! Spike IS a hero & he does have a long spanning redemption arc before the soul (& we’re NOT here to talk about Seeing Red right now, as usual that topic is too expansive & requires its own post) that should be acknowledged & his character is rightfully praised but he is NOT the only exception to vampires having nuance & it drives me crazy that we act like he is. The Judge isn’t just talking to Spike when he says this:

“You TWO.” He’s talking about Drusilla too! He says that they share affection & jealousy. That Angelus in his total sociopathic lack of human emotion is the odd one here.

Then you have things like this -

Conversations with Dead People has Buffy sharing a very long & deep conversation with an old acquaintance turned vampire. And it’s far from the only example in universe of a vampire retaining some sense of camaraderie with people from their life!

That’s right this entire rant has been a lead up to talk about my best girly Harmony Kendall. You’ve fallen for my ruse if you’ve read this far muahaha! Admittedly Harmony’s strongest moments are mostly unfortunately on Angel but even in season four of Buffy when she dates Spike she is clearly intended at times to be sympathetic. Season 4 is also interesting because we see a lot interactions between various gangs of vampires like Harmony’s so-called minions & even Sundays gang where they’re very much evil but also sharing in living (existing?) space & acting like bickering roommates or siblings. Like creatures with bonds & personalities & intricacies.

The point I’m trying to make is that the show never truly wants to grapple with the existence of Spike in all his nuance but it’s also not just about him! In general there is so much to grapple with in the idea that vampires can change & be redeemed & I’m not saying I’m anti scary evil vampires I’m just saying the universe gave us these hints of nuance & then the characters never grappled with it & that’s lame. For Buffy killing things that have a shot at redemption however small would be a major emotional blow if she ever addressed it! Especially in her season 5 “am I just a killer 🥺” arc. Let’s deal with the implications!

Let’s deal with Xander’s trauma about killing Jessie & just how much it would/should hurt for him to see Spike increasingly choose good & work with the Scoobies. I would LOVE to know Xander’s reaction to Harmony’s arc on Angel or Cordelia befriending her & letting her go ina world where the writing acknowledges that he drove a stake through his best friends heart!

It’s just that the writers accidentally complicated their own lore & then totally refused to ever let their characters address what the cracks in the stories they tell themselves mean. Giles says that a vampire is no longer the person but instead the thing that killed them. What’s scarier: the idea that your loved one was killed & something wears their face like a mask OR much more insane (to me) the idea that your loved one came back very wrong but it’s still them? Your brother eats people now but he still remembers how you like your eggs & can quote every episode of the cartoon you watched as kids. Your mom murdered that woman from the PTA who always talked too much in cold blood but she still remembers the recipe for your favorite pancakes. The show wanted scary vampires but it got so caught up in never addressing the infinitely more complex & scarier vampires it accidentally created & sticking to the more simplistic initial idea that it did both the characters & lore very dirty. And I’ll never shut up about it!!!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I'm a Malleus yume, and I'm in total agreement with you. I don't understand why people are so desperately trying to twist the situation in Malleus favor with such bizarre reasons??? like I love my man, but like all the overblotters, he's in the wrong.

Vil was wrong when he tried to poison Neige, Riddle was wrong when he enforced his rules to the point of tyranny, etc. and Malleus is wrong for trapping everyone in dreams against their wishes.

Yes, there are a lot of things going on in the background, like the war and Lilia's departure and how it affected Malleus, but like.... this is happening now. Malleus is doing these things now, and it is hurting people.

Also, as for the "enemy of mankind" and "ruler of evil“ thing. These are characters with opinions, they are doing A Narrative with Conflicts, so of course they are going to be Conflicting and have Opinions. god. liking a character ≠ endorsement of their actions. people don't need to jump through the moral hoop to justify so and so's actions. just say "man that's messed up" and move on!!!!

[Referencing this post!]

I’m not going to rehash the points or the counters brought up here. You can refer to the original discussion linked above, which goes into much more detail, if you’re interested or haven’t already seen it yet. In this post, I'm going to be speculating as to why some individuals may be "desperately trying to twist the situation in Malleus's favor with such bizarre reasons," as the asker puts it.

TO BE CLEAR: I do not mean to disparage Malleus fans, and nor am I claiming that ALL Malleus fans engage in this behavior; this post is meant to be a critical look at why we see some of the fandom behaviors that we do.

As stated in the original post, I believe that many of these defenses are coming from some (not ALL) English-speaking Malleus fans. Why might that be? Well, firstly, some important things to keep in mind:

Malleus is EXTREMELY popular in the EN fandom, especially as a character to yume/ship with oneself. (He's been decently popular in the JP server as of late too, but there is still a noticeable positive bias for Malleus on the EN side.) Several fan polls consistently indicate that at least 50% of responders list Malleus as their favorite character/one of their favorite characters or indicate that they yume with him. This means there will always be considerable positive bias for Malleus among the English-speaking fanbase. Statistically speaking, this also means that extreme Malleus defenses are more likely to occur because there is already such a high volume of Malleus fans to begin with.

The average age for an EN player skews younger (like, teenager to young adult) than the JP playerbase (which, on average, seems to be women in their mid to late-20s). While it's not always true that younger = more immature/less knowledgeable, it IS the case that younger fans will generally have less life experience and thus less of a nuanced understanding of the world compared to older individuals. It is also (again, generally) the case that younger fans tend to have a more black/white view of morality and are more likely to demand that content cater to their own worldviews.

I was very shocked to read many of the recent Malleus defenses that I did. Some of them went so extreme with their wording that it almost felt as though they believed Malleus was the victim in the events of book 7 rather than the several thousands of people under his spell. While I understand being protective of a character one enjoys, I felt that some arguments took it much too far and seemed to entirely push the blame onto other characters instead of holding Malleus accountable for his actions. Similar radical defenses of Malleus have a tendency to crop up with every subsequent book 7 update. For example, there were (and still are) debates about who exactly is "responsible" for the nature of the dreams, Malleus or the dreamers themselves. So what's up here? Why the hubbub about Malleus specifically?

Well, in addition to the two points I brought up earlier (EN fans being younger on average + Malleus being a popular character), I believe a lot of it comes down to some fans being extremely attached to him. This is a phenomenon I often observe with Malleus in particular (and not as prominently with other Twst characters) due to how he is presented:

The main story narrative introduces him as Yuu's special friend, and Yuu is considered special to him in return (as he is usually feared or forgotten by others). Due to this, he is already set up as being "different" and "important" to many players.

We, as outsiders, are allowed to glimpse the positive sides of Malleus that most of the cast do not get to see. We may make the mistake of assuming that our understanding of him is what others see or believe that this is what they should see, in spite of this knowledge gap. This can lead to frustrations when other characters misunderstand him or don't see him the same way the player does.

He is a mysterious entity that we don't know much about, and it has been that way for a few years. This makes it very easy to project onto Malleus and make him whatever type of guy you want. This can heighten one's attachment to him, as you have now put in all this effort to flesh in him out yourself.

Many people relate to and empathize with Malleus being lonely and awkward. This can contribute to a parasocial bond with him, and lead to the feeling that if someone dislikes or condemns Malleus, it is also a personal attack on those similar to Malleus.

His book being the last one, Malleus fans were starved for content and thus had to "fill in the void" by coming up with their own content and headcanons. This means that by the time Malleus did become relevant, fans had already formed a preconceived notion of what he would or should be like (ie the "fanon"), which is, oftentimes, a much "softer" and kinder interpretation of him. This may then be superimposed over his actual character and the actions he takes in canon. To resolve the resulting cognitive dissonance, those fans might become defensive in his name.

The narrative of Twst hardly ever holds Malleus responsible for the things he says and does; it is therefore possible that some Malleus fans got used to that and assume this will be the norm for him. Now that others are calling for him to take some accountability, it goes against that norm and this may cause discomfort in those fans.

No one wants to see their favorite character hurt and/or die, and that has become a very real fear considering what book 7 is building up to. When people experience intense emotions like distress, they fail to think rationally and are more likely to talk off the cuff and make wild assumptions. This is a psychological truth; you can find many research papers about this if you don't believe me.

Not sure how strong of a point this one is, but I feel that sunk cost fallacy also plays a role. This refers to a reluctance to abandon something because you have already heavily invested so much in it. In this case, fans don't want to leave Malleus because they have already sunk so much time and emotional effort into him.

Considering all of that, I shouldn't be surprised that some fans became very upset at even the mere suggestion that Malleus has done bad things or should be "punished" for that. A lot of the arguments try to point out his good traits to balance it out, when that's not really the issue at hand. There are hardly any people out there denying that Malleus has good traits. There are hardly any people out there claiming that Malleus is purely wicked. There are hardly any people out there saying that Malleus doesn't have a sympathetic backstory or relatable motivations. What people actually want is for someone with both good and bad traits (ie Malleus) who is objectively harming people or threatening to harm them, to receive repercussions, given the enormity of his actions and how little he has been called out before relative to his peers.