#looking at you villain stans

[mxtxfanatic]

Not mxtx critiquing how you can’t make villains 3-dimensional without people starting whole fandom wars over it because people can’t accept a villain being both terrible AND sympathetic due to their background.

And what did the fandoms surrounding her books do when she made her villains 3D?

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

favourite twdg villain?

I'm a fond enjoyer of the St. John's as villains. I don't know if they're my favorite just because they're only in one episode, but I love the concept of this family almost immediately jumping into cannibalism toward the start of the outbreak, dealing in human flesh to bandits, and casually feeding this group their friend's legs.

Like... what the hell was this family like before the outbreak that all three of them were like, "Hey now listen... nothing should go to waste, the dead are eating people so why shouldn't we? We gotta survive and in our defense, we only target those who were gonna die anyway... like y'all."

Dude, Mark was shot in this shoulder with an arrow. He wasn't going to die from that injury. It's so fucked that these seemingly friendly people took the group into their home and then fed them Mark's legs.

If we take the idea that everyone is infected and have the capacity within themselves to become walkers, to become monsters, then the St. John's were infected long before the outbreak, y'know? Not literally, but something was wrong with them and the outbreak just further spread that infection and changed them.

But again, are they my favorite? I dunno if I can say that since I have a lot more appreciation for Lily now. Yeah, some of her writing gets a little wonky in ep3 of TFS when she goes on her monologues and shit, but y'know what? I'm into it.

You have to remember who we're talking about and the fact that she's the antagonist; Lily isn't some anti-hero in TFS who secretly has a heart of gold that's brought to light because she reunited with Clementine... she's a fucked up woman who did fucked up things in the name of survival. She's full of rot now. She sees kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers to protect her home as a means to an end, but she doesn't actually give a shit about the people she's taking. They aren't people to her, they're as the episode title suggests, toys in her game. The only one she sees as a person is Clementine, and while that makes her hesitate at first, she sees Clementine's a prize to bring back.

She remembers what happened in S1; her father had a heart attack and as she tried to save him, Kenny smashed his face in with a saltlick and then expected Lily to just stand up and help him get back to his family because "he did what he had to, he made the hard choice." Yes, Larry was a piece of shit. No one liked him, and you can even question Lily on him and she'll tell you that he has a lot of pain. Yes, it makes him an asshole, but he's still her dad and he's all she has. I mean... the simplification is daddy issues, but in all seriousness, I don't doubt for a second that many of Lily's issues stem from Larry being a shitty father to her.

Then everyone thought she was losing it when she insisted there was a traitor in the group, which she was right about, but she was unstable. She was unwell, but how do you help someone like that when you don't have training to go about it? Then Lily ends up killing either Carley or Doug and the group turns on her, and either she's left behind or she steals the van and runs away.

Then we don't know what the hell happened to her until we see her again in TFS, but like... a lone woman with decay festering inside of her joining the delta? Exposing her to their methods? I mean, what else did she have to lose? She had nothing, she lost everything, and she has a lot of issues. Survival is easy when you're numb, when you don't care about the individual; they're all just cogs churning to make the system run, and if a piece doesn't cooperate, you get rid of it and find a new one.

Plus I think there's something to say about Lily not wanting to be perceived as weak again. That whole display she put on in the cells? Telling the story of what happened to Minerva and Sophie? I get the criticism that it feels like Lily did a 180 between episodes but like... yeah dude, because it's a performance. It's not just her and Clementine anymore. It's a display of power and authority. She's playing the part and thriving in it as she ensures everyone else is terrified of her.

But then when Clementine and AJ get the upper hand? Again, she's not afraid to play up the pleading to earn enough sympathy to spare her- hell, just to let their guard down enough to strike and get the upper hand again. I mean, she's got nothing else to lose, right? If she doesn't go for it, she'll be killed and sure, you can kill her anyway but at least she tried.

Honestly, I look at Lily in TFS and still see that scared little girl playing the tough bitch, just like Carley said in S1. It's just now escalated from "tough bitch" to a downright vile person. She's so... lost? I suppose? Lost within herself and the monstrous means she's taken to survive.

I get the criticisms of how she was used in TFS, but for me, it's like when people complain about Minerva not getting the redemption arc she supposedly should've gotten, y'know? There's no saving her. Lily was never on our side, and there was no getting her on our side. She wasn't ever going to redeem herself. Even if you spare her and she drifts away on her raft, can someone like her actually find redemption? Or will she just find another group that'll feed into her rot?

Truly, I say let her be horrid. Let her be the piece of shit villain with a few fleeting moments of humanity. Let her drown in the blood she's spilled.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

No One: People in the Gravity Falls fandom on twitter at any chance for some fucking reason: *trying to revive hating a literal 12 year old child, aka Mabel*

[fromtheseventhhell]

Sansa is a girl who vomited when Dontos was killed in book 3, who, in book 4, wept hysterically while recalling her aunt dying after trying to kill her, and who helped a stuttering man finish his sentence without mocking or ignoring him in a small moment of kindness, and doesn’t shame or judge Myranda for having sex outside marriage, is going to become a villain. If so, GRRM’s pacing is way off. I mean Arya is killing people like Dareon and Daenerys displayed no emotion when her brother died, and ignored hundreds of people getting burnt in favor of the joy of flying on dragonback and if none of that is any indication that they’re becoming villains, how can Sansa even come close ??

Okay, so people have just decided to play in my inbox today. That's fun.

I'm not sure why you decided to send this to me considering I've never said anything about Sansa turning into a villain. Let's not pretend that this is some popular, wide-spread idea in fandom either. The most people discuss is her story taking a darker turn, which all the signs are there for. We know that TWOW is going to be a dark book (per George) and that, as of her current story, Sansa is currently part of a plot to poison a child. She's not going to be a paragon of virtue no matter how desperately you want it. If you dislike the idea then you need to take that up with the author. And putting down Arya and Dany to try and prop Sansa up is just boring at this point. We get it, it's the only way you guys have of making her look better but it's getting old. I guess talking about her on her own just isn't punchy enough huh?

[whumble-beeee]

Stan McKellen (22)

(character intro 2 of 4 for the (Un)Official Guide Series!)

he/him, 5’4

Alias(es): [deadname], Stanford

Powers?: Has the ability to absorb and redirect energy to move and manipulate physical objects, much like the colloquially known ‘telekinesis’.

>> Power Level: 4

(More info under the cut)

>> Social Designation: Blue– Test Subject | Black– Currently incarcerated for power-related crimes. Learn more here.

>> Stan's bloodline is the only known case in which powers are passed down genetically, instead of seemingly randomly as with the rest of the human species. This makes him very intriguing to interested parties.

Background: Doesn’t seem to have any official public records. It's as if he didnt exist. Thankfully, we know better! Stan lived a more or less normal childhood with his two parents and sister, Chloe McKellen, up until his early teens, when he and his parents were captured to be experimented on by Supramed Research Corp., seemingly for their unique powers. The sister was somehow saved from capture and covertly placed with her grandparents, while the parents haven’t been heard from since their initial capture. In captivity, Stan gained a myriad of mental and physical disabilities, including PTSD and extreme knee and hip joint weakness. He managed to escape and reunited with his sister and grandparents, but an incident with the police ended with six SWAT casualties and Stan escaping and taking his sister to live on the run. He now has no other known living relatives. He and his sister have since been living a semi-normal life in hiding with Stan's fiancé, Marcus Silva, up until his most recent recapture. It seems that this time he is of a much higher priority, and he might not be so lucky as to escape.

Extra Note(s):

Transgender female-to-male. All files have been updated to reflect this.

Uses a magical heirloom cane to both enhance his powers and aid mobility.

Try not to engage. It’s not his fault, but he attracts trouble wherever he goes.

His story!: The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping, a self-help guide for super-villains and bounty hunters

Taglist: @flowersarefreetherapy | @pirefyrelight | @cakeinthevoid | @painsandconfusion | @books-are-everything

@paperprinxe | @tippytappytyping | @chaotic-orphan | @notactuallyluska

[lord-squiggletits]

Every now and then I see Hot Takes about Megatron's ending in IDW1 that drive me nuts like dlskfdjlskf some people really get caught up so much in JRO's sad old man Megatron that they deadass think that Megatron getting sent off to trial to face either execution or lifelong imprisonment wasn't just a bad ending, but was specifically some sort of "fuck you" or punishment to say that villains aren't allowed to have nice things or whatever. Girl do you know what the fucking genre/tone is of the comic you just read? IDW1 is a heavily political, morally gray universe leaning heavily towards realism in terms of its handling of plot themes and you're seriously out there saying that Megatron, a war criminal with crimes/deaths stretching to the billions, is being unfairly punished by the writers by getting sent off to trial? You know, like what makes sense for the realistic kind of universe IDW1 is?

I mean fuck man JRO literally plotholed/handwaved major lore about the Matrix and Cybertronian-organic relations with that "oh lots of religious organics recognize the sacredness of the Matrix" and completely undercut the emotional weight of Megatron's (and everyone else's) ending by having his quantum copy get to fly off and have adventures in the universe forever and ever.

What in the FUCK else do you want from an author (JRO) who's already a flaming Megatron apologist that whitewashed Megatron's personality, gave him so many sympathetic backstory points, and then invented an entire alternate universe as an excuse to have Megatron save billions of lives to contrast with the ones he killed. Like god I love Megatron too but some of you ppl are fucking blind

[darkmagicmirror]

I've been thinking about @spicyviren 's post about Claudia preventing the sun from rising (and they made a more in-depth post today as well, which is also very good!), so last night I got curious and Googled mythology and eclipses because what if the eclipse actually happens and it's not just Viren's dream? And we know TDP likes mythological references. So...

This is so fascinating because of the "I swallowed her" comment Aaravos makes in Janai's dream.

A demon (or dragon, or-- (etc)) is eating the sun?

(*Personally, I don't think Janai's dream is necessarily accurate for telling us what happened -- but Aditi getting "eaten" by someone especially a dragon wouldn't surprise me.)

And speaking of "swallowing"...

And some of the other mythological explanations mentioned in the article I linked are also really interesting:

(The highlighting was done by Google, so it's not necessarily more important.)

And canon material, especially the Ripples short specifically, reflects a few themes here:

Abandonment - the humans are essentially abandoned by the stars (and the sun is a star): "It cannot be, wept others. The stars would not betray us!" - after the "star" falls from the sky and changes the land.

Crisis/existential threat - "With its impact came a long and terrible night: The earth bled! The seas churned! The sun and moon hid for weeks behind the sky’s screaming storm!" (Also bolded for emphasis because the sun hiding? The fact the moon does too is interesting, but the sun specifically is called out later: "And when the long, dark night had finally passed—for the sun must always rise, mustn’t it?" VERY interesting considering the sunrise mentions in S5.)

Eclipse as an act of creation - though much of the story talks about the calamity, there's also how "[the stars] had rejoiced to look down upon their newborn sea."

The Sun and Moon coupling and creating more stars - this is more of a stretch, but the Sun and Moon did get hidden together, and the Sea (of the Castout) serving as a mirror of the stars... like they're duplicating the stars, though only in image.

Mischievous acts - I personally think Aaravos is mischievous, so hmm.

One side note on the second-to-last point: if Viren learns the Star arcanum, which is very rarely understood, could that, too, be analogous to creating another star?

Anyway this all implies that perhaps a similar eclipse occurred before, when Aaravos had fallen and the Sea of the Castout was created? And we know how the Rise Again short story, which is about her pseudo-resurrection of her pet cat, correlated to S4 opening with Claudia having brought her father back to life, sort of in a repeating history sense. Aaravos's Patience story foreshadowed the fact that all he could do in S4 is wait and bide his time. Ripples could foreshadow S5 being that first "touch" that sets off greater change... and, like with the resurrection, perhaps history repeating itself, in a sense, with a potential upcoming eclipse?

And another interesting line: "The sky opened its maw and spat from its black jaws a tiny star."

It's not exactly black, but I know some people say the ridges here look like teeth...

Also, even though Sol is referring to his blindness, these lines about the Sun "never [rising] again" and an "eternal night" fit into similar themes to the eclipse and the Ripples short.

Also, just going back to the abandonment theme of the eclipse really quick--

The Midnight Star poem also talks about the stars abandoning humanity. "Elarion, unworthy whelp, / Wept as the stars turned black the sky, / They donned their masks / They turned their backs / And left Elarion to die."

(I have more to break down about that entire stanza in another post; I just want to point out the bolded parts for now.)

Now, most of these are references to the past... so what about now?

If I were to guess on how the same themes I compared to the Ripples story might apply to "current" series events...

Abandonment - Claudia feeling abandoned by Aaravos (as mentioned in the Lost Child short)? Or, alternately, Aaravos feeling abandoned (by either Claudia, after she had to flee from the battle, and/or Viren, after his rejection)?

Crisis/existential threat - IMO the biggest threat is Karim potentially joining up with Sol Regem right now. Though some would say Aaravos being close to being freed could be the threat/crisis here. But I'm an Aaravos apologist, so I am not part of that group LOL

Eclipse as an act of creation - Claudia regenerates her missing leg, perhaps?

The Sun and Moon coupling and creating more stars - Viren Star arcanum?

Mischievous acts - Aaravos again.

All of this to say-- I don't think the eclipse is just for show/because it looks cool, but if we consider the mythological beliefs surrounding eclipses, it ties in significantly to the story.

Also I leave you with a few last bits from the article that just remind me of TDP things:

"In many cultures, the darkening of the sun meant the gods were very, very angry with humanity, and about to inflict some punishment. Often, that meant that in order to appease them, you had to kill someone."

That reminds me of the stars seeming to punish humanity for daring to use magic... which is also when Aaravos gets cast down?

"The Greeks thought an eclipse meant that the gods were about to rain punishment down on a king, so in the days before an eclipse, they would choose prisoners or peasants to stand in as the king in the hopes that they’d get the eclipse punishment and the real king would be saved. Once the eclipse was over, the substitute king was executed."

This is so far off, but it reminds me of Harrow anyway? Mostly with the soulfang serpent idea of switching Harrow with someone else. Interesting.

"For the Inuits, the sun and moon weren’t a married couple but brother and sister. At the beginning of the world they quarreled, and the sun goddess Malina walked away from her brother, the moon god Anningan. Anningan continued to chase after her, and whenever he caught up to her, there was an eclipse."

Which reminds me of the line in Strangers, the short from Soren's perspective, where "Claudia had appeared and he’d done it again, a little boy chasing after his sister..."

A lot of it is probably coincidence, but it's still really interesting!

[danny-chase]

dang it i miss when jason was a self serving asshat of a character that was consumed by his desire for revenge and was willing to do whatever it takes to prove his point

[eldragon-x]

thinking about that wretched triangle again

[flowersandbirdsflyingfree]

Send this to your mortal enemy <3

[mxtxfanatic]

The fact that my two most popular mdzs posts on this blog are “wwx is a literal genius” and “jc is an abusive uncle” reminds me that the loudest people in a fandom may not actually have the most popular commentary, and also maybe people can separate fanon additions from canon commentary.

[silveredwood]

Guess who cannot sleep because of this lesson?

OFC THATS ME.

😭😭😭😭😭😭 IT FIT HIM SO WELLL IMMM CRYIIINGG

i dont have much energy to maximize what I'll get from the boxes tho, but if this event comes to lonely devil, I'll farm it like crazy later to get all of them..istg 🥲🥲🥲🥲

THIS THEME DRIVE ME INSAAANE...

And I really love the villain's side outfit so so sooo much. 🥹👏 SOLMARE STAFF REALLY DO A FRICKING GOOD JOB RIGHT HERE EVERYONE LOOKING SOOOO GOOD!!!!

And the story honestly im not surprised but I love their lines!! 😭

My god, solomon, just take me away pls. I dont care.

[shoechoe]

i could say a lot about anasui as a character but from a solely design standpoint... you guys. he is literally just diavolo but worse

[paris-geller-was-straightwashed]

I’m sorry but this fandom has the most piss-poor reading comprehension I’ve ever seen.

I’m not sure if “reading” comprehension can still be applied to a visual medium, but whatever - regardless, the fact that fans can’t even read the fucking narrative and instead deconstruct or misconstrue characters and then rebuild them completely different then how they’re actually suppose to be in the story, is wild.

henry creel is meant to be a fucking villain. like. I need you all to understand this. there was no mistaking this when he was introduced to the show. yes, his background and reasonings for turning murderous and then fully becoming vecna are complex and interesting within the story and how they relate to the lab and whatnot, but we’re suppose to grasp from the beginning that henry always had it in him to turn into a villain. it didn’t simply start with the abuse under brenner (abuse, btw, as we’ve learned from the billy fiasco, is not a get-out-of-jail-free-card when it comes to his actions) - it starts when he’s a fucking 10yr old kid and he tied up a bunny rabbit and started torturing it. no, I’m not saying a lonely and disturbed child was straight up evil, but purely from who he was, he found his own purpose and enjoyment in harmful things.

he always had that. and we’re suppose to grasp that from the narrative.

ppl out here saying he was actually trying to help el???? that he, quote, did nothing wrong????? this isn’t interpreting the text how you see it. this is fucking taking the whole text and tossing it out the window.

the duffers were clear the second henry was introduced. we can read this not just from his actions, but by the setup too - the soundtrack, the way el is nervous and unsure of him, the way jamie plays him with that continuous haunting air; we’re told, from the start, to be cautious and unsure of him. this slowly changes we he starts interacting with el; encouraging her to utilize her emotions for her powers, whispering ‘good luck’ to her during the lesson, and then finally when we see him try to help her escape, we’re thinking maybe he’s a helpful good guy after all! the tone of the episode is leading us towards that, it’s set-up to have us believe that - so, we can have that show-stopping moment of a rug being pulled out under us when el walks out, seeing the dead bodies of her ‘siblings’ and henry covered in blood. that scene change is a massive fucking curve - it’s suppose to flip you over on your back, harshly tugging away the previous thought that maybe henry would be a good guy. we can see clearly now, he is not a good guy.

this alone, should be enough context. but his actions are more proof. him trying to get close to el wasn’t to ‘help’ her or protect her from brenner - it was a manipulation tactic, bc he saw her as a prime tool of use either for her strong psychic powers or bc he saw that same lonely/’feeling different/’ factor he felt in her too making her an easy target, and planted the seed by appearing to ‘help’ her so she’d accompany him in his take-over. killing the other children was not an act of mercy - it was bc he saw them as ‘weak’ and wanted to be rid of them before moving up with el, he didn’t gave any damn about them clearly by the way he either ignored them or encouraged el to fight back against them. this isn’t empathy - it’s manipulation. like..you all know there’s a reason why there are so many similarities between henry and el/will right? it’s to show us, in almost a black-n-white way, a good guy and a bad guy. they have similarities, but it’s their inner core, who they truly are, that gives way to them making the right or wrong choices. their morals - like the way henry, again, ties up a rabbit and tortures it, and then the way el cries at harming the cat and refuses. how will is both sensitive and haunted like henry, but instead, also kind and warm - giving his dumptruck to the little girl in the sandbox, ‘all friends welcome’ written on castle byers, whereas henry went into isolation as a youth bc he was both angry and afraid of the world. henry himself maybe didn’t start out evil, but what we’re suppose to understand is that he always had it in him to become so and did.

this! is! not! a! complex! subject! it is, in fact, NOT THAT DEEP.

frankly, I am so fucking tired of seeing this - this repeated wobbifycation of the fandom’s favourite White Boys(tm) where instead of understanding them for who the creators show us they are, completely blindside that to turn them into whatever fandom wants. we saw the same fucking thing happen earlier with billy. billy was written and always meant to be a one-off antagonist. he was suppose to show up in s2 to be a foil to max and the others and literally that was it - even the duffers said so, saying they had no plan to otherwise do anything with billy. but fangirls jumped onto him and built up fever for him so hard, completely deconstructing how the duffers planned him as just a two-dimensional racist asshole and instead saying he was some justified victim who was actually a good brother to max - and boom, now the fandom is filled with this shit, of ppl openly loving a character who tried to openly harm (or possibly kill) a child of colour, and he gets a full storyline in s3. while henry has more depth then billy, overall, this is the same pattern. the show gives us a cruel figure in the form of some young white guy, meant to be seen exactly for what he is, and fandom refuses to see it, tossing away any cruel actions by saying they weren’t meant to be bad in the first place, going so far as to completely rewrite the text of the storyline. 

you know who was suppose to be read as complex? kali.

no, I will not shut up about this - bc it is both so humours and totally disappointing in the way fandom gives free licences to white villains, but completely refuses to give that to actual complex characters and instead read them as one thing only. through the entirety of kali’s episode, we get the overall picture of her as someone both caring and cruel. kali clearly loves el, the way she treats her and smiles at her and opens herself to her showcases this - though kali will never fault el from making her own choices, it’s clear she wants her in her life. she also, cares for her friends; she’s able to relate her story of abuse to their own disenfranchisement, and then taking that, seeks out those who’ve hurt her and others so they’re repercussions, and so they can’t hurt again. there’s empathy and nobility in there - but, kali is also cruel. she’s unable to see how killing ray would affect his children, and how forcing el to confront brenner hurts her. she makes wrong choices, but we’re suppose to see, that kali isn’t trying to be inherently, 100% malicious in them. she’s got a higher purpose, a more complex meaning, behind it all. when you look at her and line it all up with how she acts, treats others, and generally just goes about her business, we come to understand that she’s neither good nor bad, but, somewhere in the middle.

and what happened? she was introduced and quite literally thrown to the mob who beat her to a pulp. fandom outright refused to look at the nuances - to them, kali did one(1) bad action, and so therefore was tossed aside, no longer to be looked at. the same fucking fandom that will bend over backwards for the villains of this story, when given an actual morally grey character shaped by hardship and abuse, wouldn’t even give her the time of the day.

honestly, if it weren’t so disheartening I would find it funny. instead, it’s just sad. it’s deeply frustrating and upsetting how fandom will find every excuse in the book to validate and understand villainous characters of a certain type (aka Attractive White Boy), but won’t give the time of day to actual interesting characters who’re much more deserving of this deep analysis I’ve seen for both henry and billy.

tl;dr: henry is a fucking villain. billy is a fucking villain. they were never meant to be anything more, and if you want a complex character, you can find that in kali or frankly, a handful of other characters in this show. and once more, this fandom has a racism & misogyny problem that aids in the complete inability to properly comprehend a storyline, and it’s no fucking wonder I really hate it around here sometimes.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

i want ike to be in three houses

for science

[arataki-neato]

Dottore stans who hate Collei: 🚩🚩🚩