#mischaracterization is real and is everywhere

[bird-nest-32]

Not to be dramatic, but every time someone refers to Newt as 'Mama Noot' another bullet enters my skull

[dukeofdelirium]

I saw this anti-Kataang post saying Katara is 14 going on 25 and Aang is 12 going on 8. And honestly this really pissed me off, the invalidation of Aang’s trauma and the adultification of Katara honestly grosses me out. It’s such a shameful mischaracterization and flanderization of both characters. Zutara stans like these are such fake fans, they don’t care about the show, they don’t care about Katara just their own fanfic version of Katara they can project onto.

https://www.tumblr.com/linnoya-writes/708121534055759872/kataang-but-its-only-a-2-year-age-difference?source=share

imma be real this is the weirdest shit I ever read 😭

“Aang plays with Momo while the other kids drink TEA like sophisticated ADULTS and play GAMES that require CRITICAL THOUGHT !!!! REEEEE”

Aang knows how to play pai sho…… we literally saw him playing it in book 1 episode 12: The Storm…. Fuckin moron @ OP 🤦🏻��♂️

Also the weird commenting on what Aang would theoretically know about genitalia and sex is … odd…. And it’s also so strange to me that people think Aang would be some naive idiot who knows nothing about the world let alone about sex at his age.

The air nomads were very sexually open in ways that none of the other cultures are in ATLA. This is canon. They were a sexually free people, lol. So saying that Aang would have no concept of these things because he’s too “immature” to know about it is not aligning with what we know of his people and culture. We also know that Katara and Aang married and had a child together when they were pretty young, so… this whole argument is so strange lmao. Adding onto this, Aang traveled the world and frequently at that and we can assume he did so solo. He had way more life experience and knowledge by the age of 12 than Katara or Sokka combined, who had never even set foot outside their village. If any of these two characters is naive about sexuality and all it encompasses, it would in fact be Katara…. Who grew up in a village without men aside from her brother… lol. Aang traveled everywhere, he probably was friends with plenty of girls and I’m sure Katara wasn’t his first kiss, either given these facts.

Their argument is “Aang doesn’t know about female anatomy” which is implying he is unfit to date her on the grounds he couldn’t “please” her. However, as I already showed, this would very likely not be the case given Aang’s culture and people and everything we know of his life pre iceberg.

If anyone doesn’t know about sex and genitalia, it would be Katara. 100%. She literally grew up in an isolated village with no males aside from her brother. She would have virtually no concept of male puberty or male anatomy. Lol. So what’s the argument here? Is Katara now “unfit” for Aang because she grew up isolated from men? See how easy that was to flip their bullshit? 😭

And no, the point isn’t whether he knows or not, OP. The only reason anyone is considering this in the first place is because you argued the point. Yknow, because normal people don’t rlly think about this in regards to cartoon characters.

It’s honestly so bizarre to me how ppl act like Aang is the naive, stupid and sheltered child in the show when in reality, Aang was already self sufficient as a 12 year old. He traveled, cooked for himself and cared for himself during said travels, he knew of other cultures intimately, he knew a lot of history, he was already a master of his native element, etc…. That doesn’t sound like a naive child to me. Aang doesn’t act silly and goof off because he’s stupid. It’s both an aspect of his carefree personality and also a conscious choice and coping mechanism from trauma and grief and survivors guilt.

And anyway, Katara thinks of Aang’s carefree nature in a very positive light. She likes this about him.

I’m also never gonna understand the argument of “she grew up in war” as if Aang didn’t fight alongside her in that very war as a kid, too. Yeah, he had 12 years before that, but who gives a fuck? He also suffered far more loss than Katara or anyone for that matter, and that is objective fact.

[ams-puppy]

sobs i self ship with this character from a very popular fandom and he’s in a popular ship with another character which i hate!!! Like almost everywhere I go there’s content of them, someone randomly mentioning them in a non ship video… it’s hard

oh my GOSH we here in The Wired System™️ understand you

it is so ROUGH out here, especially when it is a combination of a ship with a character you don't like and blatant mischaracterization. and when you cannot seem to escape off-handed mentions of it every which way.

Avoidance, avoidance, avoidance! that has always been our tactic. blocking, filtering, anything that makes you comfortable. block the whole world!!! do it!! for one of my headmates who selfshipped with a popular character, the key was to understand how much content he could handle and how much he couldn't.

he got news, and he could occasionally see art, but anything outside of canon was of little value to him, and he found his comfortable spot setting boundaries. anything that made him anxious was off the table. it made his environment quiet, but manageable!!

do not be afraid to set up boundaries, even with people you know!! ESPECIALLY with people you know, actually!! your selfship is yours, and it is real. as real as could ever be! we support you! ♡

besides. that ship makes your f/o just as uncomfortable. they already have a partner, after all, and that partner is YOU!!!

[moraymiso]

one bsd opinion you will absolutely defend with your LIFE?

mmm i have SO many but i feel like talking abt this one atm. it kinda turned into more of a pet peeve rant as i went along, dw, i will share plenty of die-hard takes for whoever u are anon…

strap in, this is a longer one 😭

i’ve seen this especially on reddit— skk antis getting their panties in a twist every time dazai is jokingly called gay, or when anything about the skk ship is mentioned. it happens EVERYWHERE for sure, but it’s… crazy over on reddit.

and you’re totally allowed to be annoyed when that’s all people boil him down to, you’re totally allowed to dislike mischaracterization, you’re totally allowed to hate a ship! but GODDD it specifically grinds my gears when people aren’t even giving worthwhile critiques and instead just try to insist “dazai is straight!”. there’s actually a very highly upvoted post on reddit compiling “evidence” of dazai being straight. it’s definitely not a well-meaning post, it’s absurd, and i wish i was kidding ;; i’ve seen SO many people go “he likes women, cuz this this and this! he’s straight!”

like…. y’all. addressing the elephant in the room: BISEXUAL PEOPLE EXIST?? i’m not even bi and it pisses me off that people seem to just ignore that there’s more on the table than just gay and straight. OBVIOUSLY dazai likes women. nobody is denying this?? why are you losing your marbles over there buddy?

BUT ON TOP OF THAT, it is heavily implied in his own works that the irl osamu dazai was bisexual, primarily describing his experience having a crush on a boy his age when he was teenager. obviously these characters in BSD are not 1 to 1 copies, but it feels massively disrespectful to the real author (who lived at a time where being open about his orientation was downright DANGEROUS) to immediately and vehemently insist that dazai is straight because he likes women.

personally, i believe dazai is meant to be coded or insinuated as bisexual in the series due to a number of reasons i’ll probably get into on a later date (not rlly related to ships btw!)— not everyone agrees, and that’s fine! you’re totally allowed to think he’s straight, dislike his ships, dislike when people oversimplify him etc, but it just drives me crazy when people get MEAN about it and go to insane lengths to try and have some weird gotcha moment every time someone mentions a ship or makes a joke.

tldr: chill out with ships and headcanons guys, please, it is never that deep. when we call dazai gay, or call bsd a gay series, we are not being serious. and i love bi dazai!!

remember: neither of these things are confirmed. you’re headcanoning that he’s straight as much as we’re headcanoning that he’s bisexual.

[twig-tea]

2, 11, 18

Coming back to this a week late because I could NOT make a decision, I remain forever on brand.

2. What was the Asian QL that got you to join fandom?

The one that got me writing meta on tumblr was La Pluie, thanks to the efforts of you and @lurkingshan. It was an effective campaign and I'm grateful you waged it!

8. Which Asian QL character is most misunderstood?

I had such a hard time choosing who to write about, this is the one that I kept deleting and rewritng. Patts in La Pluie comes to mind as a man who was pushed to the brink. Sailom from Wedding Plan is definitely one that stands out for me because I was in the camp that misunderstood him until Lom's full situation and Nuea's background came out and we got to see just how intensely the power dynamic between him and Namnuea was actually not in Lom's favour after all; and then he gave one of the best apologies in BL and won me over fully. I've also written before about how Noh from Secret Crush on You seems to skirt by without being understood as the freak4freak he is. I thought about writing about The Eclipse, but I think that entire show is misunderstood to be honest. What a waffle-y answer, but the short version is: Any character who makes an in-character, narrative-justified mistake. I like it when characters aren't perfect. Anyway since I started this draft, I've binged Miracle of Teddy Bear and now think the answer is Tofu. Both main characters are not understood, but Tofu in particular has been mischaracterized and his agency undermined. Working on a bigger post about this.

11. Which Asian country's BL is usually your favourite?

I have favourite BLs from all countries and origin isn't a guarantee I"ll like or dislike any particular show. In terms of percentage, I tend to love a greater ratio of Japanese BLs, some of that being due to manga and anime being my entry point into Asian queer media. But my favourite series is Thai (UWMA), and I have a real soft spot for Pinoy BL (Gaya Sa Pelikula and more recently Marahuyo Project rewired my brain) and Vietnamese BL (Hey! First Love) too, and two of my favourite comfort series are Korean (Our Dating Sim) and Taiwanese (History 2: Crossing the Line). There just tend to be fewer misses for me from Japan in relation to the number of hits, and by hard numbers the majority of my favourites are from Japan. If we're talking GL though, Korea currently reigns in this category (with of course entries from everywhere, because I can never actually pick a fave).

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

What would you say?

https://www.tumblr.com/burst-of-iridescent/749249507199533056/no-shipping-zutara-is-not-supporting?source=share

Classic "deliberately mischaracterizing people's arguments to pretend you're being opressed." It doesn't matter whether every individual zutara shipper, or the shipper of literally any fictional couple, wants a romantic/sexual relationships for themselves in real life - that's not what we mean when we point out they're obsessed with pretending Zuko and Katara's dynamic can ONLY be romantic.

What we mean is "If you cannot understand that two characters, especially a guy and a girl, can interact with each other, in a positive or negative way, without romance being a factor, you're obsessed with seeing romance everywhere."

If you somehow see romance in stuff like Zuko trying to bribe/blackmail Katara with Kya's necklace, Katara leaving him to die in the North Pole, their talk in Ba Sing Se, Zuko immediately siding with Azula and that resulting in Aang's death and Katara holding a grudge to the point of threatening to kill him if he steps out of line, fine. If you see romance in their friendship, positive interactions and hugs, fine.

The problem is the bizarre claim of "You can ONLY read these moments as romantic, and as the show either deliberately or accidentally setting Zutara up as a real endgame possibility." THAT is acting like romance is the only valid form of storytelling, and playing into the stereotypes of "Well, EVERYONE wants romance" and "Guys and girls can never be just friends" - and yes, that's still what it is even when it's coming from someone who is asexual/aromantic.

You'd think someone who's not interested in sex/romance would be thrilled that some people can look at two characters repeatedly voice their discomfort with the idea that they MUST like each other and actually believe they genuinely mean it instead of resorting to the bullshit "Well, if you felt the need to deny it at all, that means you DO like them!", right? Even if they don't personally agree with that reading of this particular dynamic?

But no, gotta pretend that saying "It's weird how shippers cannot accept that their reading is not the only one that exists, and that the writting team already confirmed they did not mean for this dynamic to be read as romantic at all" is somehow an attack on them specifically for liking romance tropes/a ship.

[ectonurites]

What is happening in the timkon tag? I, haven't been there in a while but seen like 7 consecutive posts cursing it's existence as a bane to characterization everywhere

well as i said in my tags on rimi's post

i haven't gone in there in a while either so i don't know what specific brand of anything is in there at this specific moment. but last i went there as i recall it was largely the stuff mentioned in that post/stuff that felt designed in a lab to annoy me. rampant mischaracterization and fanonization etc is often the case with... most fandom tags, not a problem that exclusively exists in the timkon tag, but it does especially annoy me there due to my love of the characters in the source material. i mostly just rbed that post bc it came across my dash and was #real based on the last time i had gone into the tag

[cartoonrival]

3, 11 and 13 because I love drama and violence

3. (worst take you've ever seen): im sure these arent what you were looking for because theyre not actually affronts against nature theyre just affronts against me specifically, but i saw someone say amy would watch a lot of youtube poops and i literally havent slept soundly since. it made me so annoyed. no she fucking wouldnt???? its part of the whole thing where people who don't like how amy is in canon try and give her generic 12 year old traits without any actual consideration for whether those traits even suit her or not. its def not the worst take ive ever seen but its one that haunts me. another one that haunts me is someone saying surge would like illuminati hotties and i KNOOWWW that one just bugs me because i have a hyperspecific vision of what music surge likes but like be for fucking real. no she would not. she listens to music that makes her feel evil and like she could kill people.

11. (number of filtered fanon related words): 8, which i dont feel like is THAT much but since i have an immunity to the "i've seen this thing so much now i hate it on principle" i dont feel the need to filter stuff toooo often. except for one of them its all ships i dont like, specifically ones that lead to the worst mischaracterization

13. (worst blorbofication): its amy and silver. ive talked out it so fucking much so i wont go super into detail but it is absolutely amy and silver. ik a lot of people would say shadow and i think thats true to a Degree but the thing about shadow is that people tend to understand his general VIBE. he's the most frequent victim of getting his arm twisted so people can draw cutesy template ship art but like. outside of that. theres a general consensus about how his past impacts his current relationships and how he interacts with (MOST) people. might not be always perfect but it doesnt make me want to kill anyone. but with amy and silver people really do not even know where to begin. with amy, no one is pleased with the way she is in basically any canon so they make shit up about her then get mad when it isnt true. you all need to come to terms with the fact that amy is written poorly everywhere all the time. and with silver people have zero sense of middle ground. im actually WAAAY more annoyed by people making silver tough and ruthless and "SILVER MUGGED TAILS" than i am by people making them sweet and cutesy, though obv being too overkill with the Too Sweet Too Pure For This World is also annoying

[helsex-moved]

Oof definitely, dudes one true love is pressing buttons and killing people, he should be left out of ships so he can have more time to press buttons and commit murder /j

But yea just because they're a popular character doesn't mean they need to be included in every fic out here especially when the plot doesn't need them

Oh yeah for fuckin real dude

like I love Grian he's a cool guy but it would be okay if there was a little less of him shoved into fics at random

tbh it's a quality of quantity thing, where he's everywhere but also usually poorly written and mischaracterized

[lonniemachin]

continuing the trend. timkon

send me a ship and i’ll give my brutally honest opinion

i see the appeal, ive read the comics, i understand it completely and won’t deny that there’s something there, but a combination of being annoyed by fans bashing other relationships the two have had for little reason other than “its not timkon” and acting like everything else is lesser in comparison, being annoyed by some fans acting like they don’t exist outside of each other, being annoyed by fans shoving them into certain forced roles or mischaracterizing them, and the overwhelming amount of it everywhere i look when i just want to see kon or YJ content in general plus some thoughts on them as characters separately and together makes me just. not care for it, like, at all.

i won’t lie and say a big reason isn’t the fanbase (not all fans! but god, some of them) but i just want to see something different for them in the comics too. explore kon’s friendship with others and treat it as just as real as his friendship with tim. etc., because some writers and a lot of fans will treat their relationships with cassie or bart and others as less than by default even if that isn’t true. that isn’t to say i don’t love their friendship, and i know how insanely important they are to each other; i wouldn’t say otherwise. i’m just a bit burnt out by seeing it everywhere i turn and trust me it DOES slip past my tag filter

also when people cry timkon over the smallest interaction its always wild to witness. i remember when DC:YJ was still coming out and people were like sobbing and and pointing at kon making a slightly shocked face when tim mentioned his boyfriend or something. like… guys. could it be he just… idk. has never seen bernard before?

[prynnehesters]

i realized im not gonna get the tiefling achievement my current playthru :( bcuz of my choices but i get to suck and fuck astarion so that's a win 4 me

i did this playthru to try some weird builds w astarion and gale and then try more weird respecs for other characters (im gonna make shadowheart a wizard maybe? i want to make wyll a sorcerer potentially)

idk if ill play more bg3 after i finish this playthru. i think my next one would probably be trying tactician with a different tav background or doing resist durge. i also have not romanced shadowheart at all (all other characters i've had at least 1 romance scene w except shadowheart...tbh she unfortunately is my least favourite companion. if i had to do a ranking of the main 6:

astarion (duh, he grew on me, i bring him everywhere, he is in my party 99% of the playthrough)

lae'zel (i use her a lot during act 1, and she's a real one, but i feel like she doesn't get much (if anything) in act 2. she died in one of my playthrus cuz orin took her and i legit cried)

wyll (i love him, he's so wholesome. i didn't use him much my first playthru but my second one he was w me 99% of the time to keep me in check)

karlach (i love her too, i was too mean to her when romancing her tbh. sorry for cheating on you like 5 times. but idk, i don't have as much of an attachment to her as a lot of ppl bcuz i killed her my first playthru, she was in and out of my party my second playthru, and then my last one i was evil durge so she and wyll left. it felt weird to get wyll's father w/o wyll lmaooo (i needed the buff))

gale (weirdly enough, my friends think im a huge gale lover/defender but like, his story is insane and he's sweet, from waterdeep, and has a tressym and a library, so like, king, but also i feel like ppl tend to exaggerate so much about him. like yes, he is a wet sock of a man, but also i feel like people either think he's a harrier dubois type or like, "burned your crops and plagued the land". he's just some wizard who thinks he's cooler/better than he is and is hyperfixated on magic. he's a little dumb (booksmart not street smart), but he means well, but can be swayed into doing dumb things. idk. i feel like gale and astarion are both mischaracterized by the fandom where astarion is like "uwu babey" and gale is like "evil malicious" when i'd probably say gale is chaotic good (and most of the characters are) where astarion is more chaotic neutral. tbh i'd say most of the companions are chaotic good if i had to align them.)

shadowheart

if i put the secondary companions, it'd probably be this:

astarion

lae'zel

wyll

jaheira (having her in act 3 is so good...she has so many interactions it's amazing. also her sass.)

karlach

gale

halsin (he feels correctly tacked on in the romance department, but he's very lacking in act 3)

shadowheart

minthara (feels too much like an after thought)

minsc (he's a meme and nothing more)

[bunabi]

Uh no I don't think so... The people who post cutesy and romantic content aren't showing off or in some kind of clique: they're just having fun. It's really not about one 'type' of Solavellan versus another. It's about insecurity. 😭

Feeling personally attacked by criticism, holding onto this 'us versus them' way of thinking, conflating feeling threatened with being threatened. Trying to keep fandom safe from negativity by engaging in the exact same behaviors they fled from on other sites. There are fans like this everywhere. Attached, defensive, lost in the sauce.

If someone's opinion of a character has harmful implications and real life impact that's one thing. I'll go up for Vivienne when fans mischaracterize her or make racist commentary. But as far as disliking or criticizing her actions? That's a discussion of the material and fair game. I think we lost that point along the line somewhere.

There's a lot of dislike for Solas outside of the tumblr and twitter pockets, don't get me wrong, but Solas is very mean, flawed, weird; I want fans to dig into those aspects of him and share their visions 😭

He has problems, big problems, many of them self-inflicted, I cannot get enough of it, as someone wasting her beautiful Sunday writing Zathrian x Solas

[takirasu]

I’m so glad someone actually recognized what Childe was getting at with the “Is being used as a weapon really that bad?” line instead of immediately jumping on the “This domain is automatically his doing, and even though the game is clearly just giving us exposition, I don’t trust him therefore I’m going to disregard everything that’s being said because Childe is wholeheartedly evil” train. I see too many people completely miss or ignore the deeper parts of his character, writing, and lore that work to really illustrate his trauma and his current mindset that formed as a result of those events because they’re too busy mischaracterizing him as some weak douchey chaotic evil supervillain. THANK YOU!! 😭🙏

oh my god ANON I HATE THIS SO MUCH. Like first we had the whole fandom coming together and give him the fuckboi stamp for the famous hey girlie scene, but after the whole Golden House fight, character story etc. it's constantly "He's so evil and chaotic and brings chaos everywhere and everything bad is his fault."

I was on tumblr, twitter and tiktok. There are so many people that comment on how badshit crazy he apparently is and of course he loves this domain and wants to fight. For Childe, Mihoyo makes you read between the lines currently. He's not openly talking about what happened to him and officially nobody in the game knows about him falling into the abyss. The characters don't understand his bloodlust and just push it onto the fact that he's a harbinger, what's a natural conclusion. But with the background info we as the players had I seriously got concerned for him at the whole "Is being used as a weapon that bad?"

Like it was apparent that if you have at least some sense of empathy and reading people ability that this man is not okay. I have some other theories on this, but possible trauma plays a huge role in his behaviour as well. That man is day and night and he has literally no control about it as seen at the Golden House. People say, for the memes, that he threw a tantrum like a little kid and it was funny, but there was so much more behind it. He literally had no control about himself in that moment and did what he thought was the right thing, to follow orders whatever it takes and whatever extremes he has to go through - because he fulfills his tasks, just to find out that he was played and is now the one to blame, the one who can't set foot back in Liyue without getting evil stares when it was actually someone else.

But! He doesn't talk about it. Because on the surface he doesn't care. In that very moment he was just a weapon being used for the Tsaritsa and he was more than happy to oblige. If it so happens that a whole nation dislikes him, so be it. He was useful.

I could go into more detail and keep you occupied even more, but I'll be making a video about his character for his release date. I was already really into his lore and Mihoyo put a lot into him, but after what he said yesterday in the event and what's gonna come I felt something ring in my head and go okay he's actually worse than we all knew and this is upsetting.

I wish people would stop discarding him like that and just joke about how he's so bloodthirsty and wants to pick up a fight, how reckless and brash he can be. This is just a personal opinion, but what really annoys me is when other characters who have deep lore as well get this treatment, but as soon as it's about Childe your theories and words that slowly get more and more official and canon back-up don't make sense, because he's just a crazy war criminal and nothing more.

Thank you for coming into my ask boc! That was a real surprise

[bbq-hawks-wings]

What was the fandom like after Hawks killed Twice? I joined after Supernatural ended.

So this is just my perspective on the fandom drama as I was going through it. My experiences may not be typical of everyone, even other Hawks stans, but this was how it went down for me.

An important thing to keep in mind is that there were two major groups of "Hawks stans" at this time - one that wanted him to side with the League and betray the heroes (and this was a huge portion of vocal and popular stans at the time) and one side that believed in what's clearly now the canon direction of him remaining loyal to the heroes which was at least considerably less vocal about their theories on where canon would go.

Up to the Hawks/Twice fight there was so much back and forth about whether he would switch sides because that first group I mentioned earlier also happened to be mostly those kind of extreme LoV stans that believed they were revolutionists out to make the world a better place and were the true, secret protagonists of the story; and thus Hawks, an undeniable victim of the toxicity of Hero Society, turning his back on the heroes would prove their belief that the heroes were unequivocally corrupt and evil and that justice was on the side of the League of Villains.

Surprise! That's not what happened.

The fight between Hawks and Twice translated into mess within fandom to begin with and only got worse when Twice was subsequently killed and Dabi came after him. But then something awful in real life happened to make it worse:

The video of George Floyd's death went viral only days before chapter 266 dropped - a real life incident that stoked the fires for discussion about corruption of law enforcement and the use of deadly force on a suspect/perpetrator.

For a minute it didn't just feel like fandom hell, I felt like there was an actual war about to happen in fandom that I hoped was going to stay within the confines of the internet but I also worried that some might fall into the deep end.

People screamed and some "canon compliant" fans were threatened and harassed from people who were on "the other team." Some of those harrased went dark and left the fandom because of it. Indiscriminately, the angry group lashed out at anyone who remotely defended Hawks or the heroes, calling us bootlickers, apologists, and the absolute cream of the crop that shows you how bad it got:

There were angry fans who blatantly broadcasted a "joke" - "true Hawks stans support the extrajudicial murder of mentally ill people." This actually happened, and people were getting hate anons constantly over the topic for a while.

I'm not even kidding when I say this straight hatred was everywhere and had nothing to do with the real life political beliefs, or real life experiences of those who sided with heroes and everything to do with the fact that Hawks betrayed the League (like we always knew he was going to) and because those fans couldn't really take out their anger on a fictional character they decided to take it out on real people instead.

Most of us just ducked our heads and stayed out of the tags as we waited for it to be over.

But the good news is that even though the Hawks/Twice discourse STILL hasn't died out yet, the fandom is much safer again with the new wave that came in right about the time you joined, anon! The new fans who hadn't been steeped so long in the still-small social climate of the Hawks Stan community were unapologetic in their defense of him after they saw the discourse blow up, and now it's honestly so much better because of it. Yes, we still have people mischaracterizing Hawks; but that's nothing compared to the outright warpath some fans were on. Some of us older stans had to outlearn the bad habit of defending him and correcting every post character bashing Hawks, but it's a small price to pay for the fans we have now that love him so much.

Long story short, you newer stans are my heroes; and I'm so glad to share my previously tiny fandom space with you all! I feel in much better company now.

[oars]

idc i already sent u characters for the bingo but do itto and xiao next *poking u with a stick*

im obsessed with itto my reaction to his picture dropping alone was insane i didnt stop talking about him for a day straight first and last man real or fictional i conisdered slobby knobby (sorry). theres never enough screen time for him to me but after perilous trails he was everywhere for a minute. i like xiao but similar to kaeya i dont have much to say bc his lore is so *wipes a fake small tear* sad... he is simply zhonglis son to me but i do see him get mischaracterized a lot

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

man, I just kind of...I don’t know how to find a place to fit in the Loki fandom anymore. I mean I probably haven’t for a while, at least since things exploded over Ragnarok, but a lot of the same stuff is heating up again because of the show, and it’s like--

there’s this idea in some circles, right, that either you like pre-Ragnarok Loki and see Ragnarok (and probably the show, based on the trailers) as an awful retcon, or that you like Ragnarok Loki and don’t care all that much about the previous movies. it’s deeply polarizing--people seem to either love it or hate it, without much in between, and people who like it think the anti-Ragnarok people are whiny entitled fans who are determined to be negative, and people who hate it think pro-Ragnarok people are shallow fans who don’t actually care about continuity, characterization, emotional development, or really anything but spectacle and cheap laughs.

and the same general attitudes are extending to the show. people who like what we’ve seen so far, or are just excited to be getting more Loki, sometimes go out of their way to mock people who have doubts or act like it’s pathetic and unhealthy to be anything but 100% excited. and people who have doubts assume the excited fans are casual viewers, and sometimes add negative stuff to reblogs of neutral or positive posts, which can be pretty demoralizing especially for, say, somebody who wants to like it but does have some concerns.

it feels like you have to choose, and it’s just...weird and uncomfortable because I don’t want to choose, that’s the whole point, I’ve been a fan since the very first Thor movie and I’ve seen discourse about every single Loki-related movie since, and there have been things I’ve liked and disliked in all of them. I agree with many criticisms of Ragnarok! but I also get real uncomfortable real fast around people who primarily dislike Ragnarok because I do see throughlines in characterization, in part because I’m always happiest making the effort to reconcile new and old canon, and most of my favorite fics have done a good job of expanding on that and accepting these characters as the same ones we loved before. and I don’t want to argue because I never want to get yelled at, and I’m old and tired, and I don’t have the energy to argue, so I keep being uncomfortable and feel like I can’t say anything. and on the other side of things I don’t think I know anyone who only likes Ragnarok, actually, but feeling like you can’t say anything negative or you’ll be yelled at for whining is...also really weird?? especially if, say, your main criticisms are for IW/Endgame, and explaining why those featured some immensely bad writing gets you labeled a whiny entitled fan who’s throwing a fit because they didn’t get exactly what they wanted??

I liked all the actual Loki-related movies (which for me doesn’t include Endgame at all and only partly includes IW, both for lack of screentime), generally speaking! I also rely heavily on fic to fill in things the movies didn’t care about! I mostly loved Loki’s characterization in IW but hated it for pointlessly killing him off so fast in a way that really didn’t make sense, and I mostly hated Endgame for a whole bunch of reasons and only a couple of those reasons involved Loki! I have reservations about the show but I’m also excited to be getting more Loki, and I do see moments in the trailers that remind me a lot of moments from pre-Ragnarok movies, and I’m at least hopeful that what we end up getting will be more good than bad! and it’s really weird and uncomfortable that all these fucking middle-of-the-road opinions make me feel wrong everywhere and too nervous to join most discussions or say much of anything because there’s a very good chance I’ll get mocked, mischaracterized, or yelled at!

I don’t know where I’m trying to go with this, it’s just frustrating because it feels like everybody has to choose one side or the other and I don’t want to, so instead I end up feeling like I don’t really belong anywhere, especially when a lot of people who also seemed to have pretty balanced opinions have moved on to something else or are in the process of doing so. it’s...kinda lonely, you know?