#not saying that those fanons and headcanons were inherently bad

[burr-ell]

I didn't want to make this post by @utilitycaster even longer than it was or derail from the immediate subject, so I'm making my own to discuss these frustratingly apt tags:

#tangent but the best way to put it is that there is a FRIGHTENING lack of empathy among a certain set of shippers #and every other character is constant collateral and right now Orym's on the chopping block#but like. feed fcg the coin? guests merely exist to make the relationship happen? Orym would be happier dead? #how dare ashton express they have also experienced trauma? shitting on every past deity-aligned character? it's a real pattern.

Because I was reminded that this is also, by my estimation, the reason a lot of people were genuinely upset with C3 Percy. Some corners of the fandom had spent months building up fanon where Percy, one half of one of the most iconic CR ships (and therefore a huge form of potential validation), would do everything in his power to make Imodna happen bring Laudna back to life and get rid of Delilah. And then Bell's Hells actually met him, and it turned out that under the circumstances, Percy was an individual with his own thoughts and feelings about death and fate who'd had thirty years to reflect and had reservations about resurrection even laying aside the Delilah situation.

It didn't matter that he explicitly said he wasn't rejecting the idea of bringing Laudna back entirely. It didn't matter that he had very good reasons to behave this way, reasons that the entire fandom was reminded about rather viscerally less than a year beforehand. It didn't matter that once he was assured there was no threat, he was actually really helpful and genuinely kind to Laudna in particular. If he wasn't immediately accommodating to fanon and validating the juggernaut ship, he was an irredeemable asshole who deserved to be "humbled" by having his wife and close friend go behind his back despite any reasons they might have to be concerned. (Which, to be clear, they didn't do, but the "nyah-nyah, Vex and Pike totally OWNED that rich old geezer cause they're strong women who do what they want!" sentiment was very obnoxious and I was pleased to see that Matt torpedoed it.)

[nerves-nebula]

hiding the asker cause I don’t wanna put this person on blast since i don't think this is intentional- but this ask actually perfectly relates to what caused me to post about butch gerudo in the first place!

mainly weird racism stuff in legend of Zelda. We (my gf and I) were mostly talking about gerudo link stuff and orientalism, and there are a few things you’ve said here that tie back to those kinds of racial biases.

Like I’m no Zelda expert but this is fanon interpretation right? This is a headcanon? Ok so like? why is it so aggressive? They’re cool women with muscles, they don’t need training courses to figure out not to physically assault people. I know this is like hyperbole and kind of a joke but it reads very close to one of those racial fetishes where a white person is “feminized” by an aggressive brutish person of color. And those fetishes are just symptoms of a larger societal bias to see people with dark skin as more inherently aggressive, animalistically dominant, and violent.

Obviously if you want the gerudo women to step on you that’s cool or whatever but idk what you mean about them “scaring you into frilly pretty little lady clothing” because gerudo link is literally wearing the same outfits as the gerudo women. Why is it frilly and feminine on him, and aggressive and butch on them? It’s possible you’ve fallen into the trap of tall & muscly = less feminine but even then, most gerudo aren’t like bodybuilders. Most are pretty lithe. (not that it would be more correct to assert they're masculine if they WEREN'T thin but you get the point) And once again “scary aggressive poc force feminizing me” is like. a very specific genre of porn/kink in which race play & forced feminization come together.

(it should be noted I’m not commenting on either kinks here past saying that they are clearly linked to real world biases and racist stereotypes. Idc about problematic kinks as long as they’re consensual and not used outside of fantasy to dehumanize non consenting people as nothing more than sex objects. so don’t try to talk to me about them in a moralizing way as if being into taboo stuff makes you a bad person. I’m black, I don’t need anyone white knighting at me about how bad it is to be racially fetishized, I’m aware that it sucks, and I will block you for being annoying.)

I think of it this way: if the gerudo were white, would you look at their clothing and consider them less feminine? Would you say they’re serving butch realness? Because I know I wouldn’t. Their clothes and presentation are pretty solidly feminine to me, with colorful patterns and makeup and long hair and lots of jewelry + ornamentation.

Anyway sorry about the racism rant its just that this is a good example of what i was talking about with my gf last night.

[science-lings]

Okay so before the part 2 of the fanon tropes that people dislike poll comes out I want to talk about some of the tropes included in it, because I don’t necessarily agree that all of them are ‘bad’.

One of the most repeated suggestions (surprisingly) was Twilight being the emotional sponge or group therapist/ wolfie being the groups cuddly therapy dog. Sure, in canon he’s not known to be extremely friendly but I’ve seen so many fics and art and headcanons that involve wolfie being the chains family dog. I think this whole thing stems from him being reduced to a supportive role in Wild angst and since the fandom has decided that Wild angst in general is all BAD then any trope included in that is inherently BAD and WRONG. But I personally don’t see the harm in wolfie being a little cuddly sometimes. I also think that some people are afraid of platonic male affection and that’s why we may never get a canon hug between any of the boys but whatever, I’m kind of rambling now.

Another trope that will be included that I think deserves a bit of nuance is the child soldier Wild one. I think this one is prevalent bc of child Wild fics and ones where he has memories of being a knight or whatever. But the thing is, this is literally what’s implied to be canon and is an important part of his story and an extremely interesting thing to explore sometimes. But WILD BAD and WILD ANGST BAD. So whatever. I think it may sometimes be used as one of those things that’s meant to surprise and enrage the other links on Wilds behalf, which I don’t actually see anything wrong with. I think we all sometimes need someone to stick up for us and I don’t think it’s wrong to bring up subjects of things like abuse in fics. Just say you don’t like Wild. Again… it’s not like it hasn’t been repeated a hundred times.

I also wanted to apologize to people who were made to think that because they have used some of the tropes in the first poll that their writing or creations are bad. I’ve definitely used a few of them myself and wanted to try to pinpoint tropes that I feel like are nearly universally disliked, that I’ve seen people openly complain about. It was never meant to make any creator feel bad about their work and I’m so so sorry if it did. Everyone has the right to their own interpretation of characters and use of tropes, and you shouldn’t have to be made to feel bad about it. Fandom should be a place of sharing creative works and not tearing each other down, so I’m sorry if I inadvertently did so with the poll.

[sparatus]

for the choose violence ask game: 10, 12, 17, 22 and 23 please!!

choose violence asks

yesss YESSSSS

10. worst part of fanon

answered here

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

okay listen this place is sparatus and desolas propaganda central so let's do somebody else. have i explained why we should all be fucking nicer to my dad han'gerrel vas neema recently

like nothing pisses me off more than how people talk about gerrel because it always comes down to that stupid dreadnought and the ren interrupt to punch him in the gut (WHICH SHOULD GET YOU FUCKING SHOT BTW) but like. there's more to his character than that?? the gerrel we meet in me3 is RADICALLY different from the one we talk to in me2 and everyone just kinda seems to forget that cause they're too busy peacocking about how cool they are for telling the admiralty board to leave tali alone and punching a superior officer in the stomach

in me2 he's actually the admiral who's SYMPATHETIC and doesn't want to exile tali, he likes her, she's one of his own (they're both neema crew!! he's her commanding officer!!), and she's the daughter of his best fucking friend, you and tali can get him to talk about his pilgrimage with rael and what the two of them were like as dumb impulsive teenagers and it actually seems to help him cheer up a bit. he's soft-voiced and just seems really sad in 2, probably because, y'know, his best friend since before pilgrimage is presumed dead. yeah he and rael went to different ships but it's likely a career thing, and obviously they've stayed close if rael's daughter who he didn't spend much time with knows they're besties. he was probably visiting the rayya frequently to come say hi to his best friend. tali should have referred to him as uncle gerrel just like raan is auntie raan and he should have recused himself from the trial i'll die on this hill

and yes i can absolutely defend his actions in me3 i'll fight tooth and nail about it but i've already written those essays before, and i'll posit: his best friend died researching geth and trying to find a way to retake the homeworld. now they're fighting geth for the survival of their race. deep-rooted emotional tie and investment in winning the battle for his best friend who didn't get to see the day come anybody. me3 starts 6 months after the arrival dlc he hasn't had a lot of time to adjust to his best friend being dead i know i'm reading way more into it than bioware did but listen. i'm right.

also i have him as gay and married to an oc aerazl'xala and also he's raan's son but headcanon isn't relevant in discussions of canon reasons we should appreciate a character

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

any character that's not normandy crew yes i know i, Professional Niche Character Propagandist, am biased but like there's a whole universe outside the normandy guys. also fic that actually explores the consequences of shepard's actions instead of just rolling with the power fantasy

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

hmmm is it too obvious to say the comics?? cause it's the comics. and not just evolution either, tho obv the captain of the desabrudas raft has an inherent bias, redemption is also a personal favorite outing, tazzik is actually one of my favorite niche characters who gets no attention. giant bastard

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

i mean obviously AviTis you bastard. but also honestly aria/tevos for the sheer political juiciness of it, no romance just manipulation and ambition and maybe some old bad feelings

[joshuaalbert]

*chicago mobster voice* koyk

alright spocko

favorite thing about them 

I like the duality of him I think. like the man is completely fucking unhinged and hanging on by a thread most of the time but he’s also extremely clever and has the background knowledge to support what he’s doing and he does have these really interesting quieter moments. he’s representation for those of us who were quiet and nerdy in school and then became gay and insane and also representation for those of us who have had the first stanza of sea fever memorized since we were 15. i also just genuinely think he’s fun to watch. he has very few legitimate flaws as a character but because he feels kind of personally out of control a lot of the time, it doesn’t feel like the situation’s under control 100% of the time even though you know he will ultimately have the skills necessary to get them out of it. not to make this entirely a kirk vs picard point, but picard always feels far too in command of the situation and that’s less fun to watch imo.

wow what a surprise me talking about a character turned into a long post. continued after the cut

least favorite thing about them

i. do not like tos movie kirk in general especially as the series goes on. idk who that is but he's not kirk a lot of the time. like at times series kirk is short tempered or snarky at a time he shouldn’t be or something but he’s still very much driven by his love for exploration or humanity or his crew. it seemed like what they were going for in the movies was that he was going to be disillusioned in the beginning but then regain that, but if he did, it didn’t stick around. he just feels vaguely misanthropic to me and while hero decay is not inherently a bad arc, it doesnt seem like that’s what they were necessarily going for, because that’d be an uncharacteristically depressing throughline for tos content imo. I still haven’t finished VI lmao and part of that’s just because I was bored but part of it was bc I was like. I don’t think I like this character right now? part of it’s bc with age i increasingly look at him and go “yeah that’s william shatner” and not “yeah that’s kirk my friend kirk” but part is because he seems like he’s much more what a lot of Male Fans™️ thought the character was where he’s this cool guy who doesn’t care about the rules because fuck you. it’s not All the time, but he lacks warmth to me a lot of the time.

brOTP

i respect people who ship kirk/mccoy or spock/kirk/mccoy but generally i'd say kirk and mccoy are brotp to me. i also really enjoy his dynamic with chekov.

OTP

like. spirk is the og for a reason. when we started watching it my expectation was that I would be like “yeah I get where people were coming from” but not necessarily much more than that but by episode…3? I was like oh. yeah. okay. okay.

nOTP

in terms of things I’ve seen people actually ship I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but fuck every time the show tries to stick him with like a 19 year old and even reading about the proposed johanna mccoy storyline makes me want to commit a felony so I’m glad they did not do that.

random headcanon

kirk is a real guy and he’s spent the last like 60 years fighting for control of william shatner’s body.

unpopular opinion

pour one out for every male character that gets called a himbo and is characterized as a complete dumbass in fanon despite being demonstrably smart and innovative in canon. yet another thing that got passed down to riker!

also fuck anyone (shatner and the kirk fanboys with terrible ideas about masculinity and a fundamental misunderstanding of the character) that thinks kirk would hate wesley. there’s literally no supporting evidence for that. he’s maybe not Great with kids but he tries his best with them (several episodes but charlie x stands out in this regard) and i think 2x13 obsession helps disprove this as well

song i associate with them

as with most of the information in this post you already know this but highwayman is a very kirk song to me. the last verse is obvious but I think he’d like the idea of having been a highwayman and a sailor and a blue collar worker across past lives.

favorite picture of them

yeah,,,,,,,,,,,,

[undertale-data]

[Image Description: an Undertale chat box with the name "PAPYRUS", in all caps and Papyrus font, in its center. On its left is a talksprite of Papyrus sweating anxiously, and on its right is a talksprite of Papyrus wearing sunglasses. End I.D.]

The Great Papyrus is the most popular Undertale character among the fans surveyed here. 19.6% of responders chose him as their favorite. That’s a total of 519 fans! (Wowie!!)

Not all Papyrus fans are unified on his characterization, however. The most obvious divide was between fans who call him a “cinnamon roll” or “precious baby,” and those who find these takes infantilizing. A lot of people like the friendliness and optimism of this character, while others recognize this but highlight his maturity too. Fans who worry about his infantilization seem most concerned with how he can be portrayed as naive or dumb by the fandom. A portion of fans specifically mentioned this naivety as a point in his favor, though the marginally more popular take seems to be that he is not naive, regardless of how he first appears. This fandom divide seems to relate to Papyrus’s autistic or ADHD coding. Many fans relate to him as ADHD and autistic themselves.

Fans also related to him in his desire for friends. Many responders think of him as a friend and a comfort character, so at least in one way his wish has been fulfilled.

The phone calls were a major reason that fans said they felt connected to Papyrus. Thanks to these calls, he has the most dialogue of any character in the game. His humor and dialogue were often highlighted as favorite qualities.

While fans may disagree on some aspects of Papyrus’s personality, it is clear that his fans all value his optimism and kindness. His fans do not see his kindness as weakness. Many talked about the complexity of his character and the strength it took for him to show mercy to the player character, even when the player doesn’t show it in return. He believes in himself, and he believes in you! This kindness and trust has inspired his fans to be kinder themselves.

Papyrus fans were also drawn to his mysteriousness. Several responses pointed out that he is a more mysterious character than Sans, who is also often loved for his mystery. As shown in the phone calls, Papyrus will put on fronts depending on who he is around, making it even more difficult for fans to uncover his secrets. Some people in other sections of the survey found this frustrating, but Papyrus fans tend to see it as another point in his favor.

Among the greatest proportion of responses were from fans who couldn’t choose a favorite trait, or who just love everything about Papyrus. While these responses may be less lengthy, they are still as full of love as the essay-length answers. These responses tended to say phrases like “cool dude” or “Papyrus my beloved” or “THE GREAT PAPYRUS.”

(You were overcome by writing about such a handsome skeleton. He understands.)

Highlights: (under the cut)

Honestly Papyrus just feels like joy. Funny, incredibly kind, with a few mysteries/weird quirks about him that are fun to ponder over. I especially love how he often acts proud and self aggrandizing without putting others down, and in fact sometimes uses that to lift his friends up alongside him. You don't see this take on proud characters often.

Papyrus is strong. Strong in body, but also morally strong. He knows what is right, what it means to be merciful and kind, even in the face of danger or death. Some think him naive. And yet, even facing death and seeing the dust of those he knew, he did not falter or turn from his ideals of mercy and change for the better.

BECAUSE HE IS THE GREAT PAPYRUS

His optimism and his overall personality is endearing! You're always having fun with him :D

He's meeting all of my standards.

Papyrus is very under appreciated, and overlooked, and it's very frustrating to me—he's a complex character but people treat him like he's a baby!!! I like him because he's kind of goofy with how he talks and he's just very charming and kind.

He's weirder than Sans, and it wasn't acknowledged for years because he acts oblivious and dumb, even when he's clearly not. Quite frankly, I find it iconic. Also, his entire personality helps a lot.

I'm ND, trans, and projecting!

OK SO he's just a friendly guy!! A dude who likes cooking for his friends!! We love a hype man!! Also smart as hell and I feel like fanon majorly overlooks this. Making good, fun puzzles is HARD and setting up a flamethrower to go off wirelessly is complicated. Like even if that bridge puzzle didn't go off the components were complicated. Love that cool dude!!!!

I heavily relate to Papyrus as a character and consider him my favorite fictional character of all time. He is a very well-written and thought out character with several quirks and layers in his personality. It is headcanoned by some (myself included) that Papyrus may possibly be on the Autism Spectrum due to his nature, his interactions with others, and overall how he displays himself to the world we see.

I could talk about Papyrus forever, and you have made a grave mistake in allowing me to do so. He is a charming, strong spirited, well intentioned, complex character that is often wildly misinterpreted, and I think originally this is why I was drawn to him. He is presented as one thing and in fact acts as one thing (though not the same way as presented by fandom), and in reality when you look closer than you are meant to he is not, in fact, any of these things. It was intriguing to me. Secondly, and rather contradictorily, another thing that drew me to him is that he is very true to himself, when it comes to idiosyncrasies and moral values. It's true that he does not offer much in the way of personal backstory and feelings, but he offers very much indeed in the way of personality. What a guy! He wears silly crop tops and bright colors, he speaks in a manner specific to him that sometimes doesn't make sense, he cares about something or someone and goes whole hog with it -- he's passionate, damn it! I love him and his weirdo, goofy self with all my heart. He cares about other people to a fault, too. He would sacrifice everything to help someone, and his belief in the potential of both others and himself is indomitable. When faced with the responsibility of a kingdom, his friends gone, his brother lying to him, and himself all alone without a reliable support system, he recognized what he was facing and still bucked up and became determined to get through it. When faced with a murderous, over powerful enemy, someone who had killed many of his friends and fellow monsters, someone who had repeatedly been rude and borderline aggressive and showed no signs of stopping, he saw that they were having difficulty and offered to help and to care for them, and didn't regret his decision or change his opinion on what they needed and their potential for change, even when quite literally killed by them a moment after. Even in death, even directly after a betrayal like that, he never stops believing that they can get better, that anyone can be a good person if they want to be. That's important, I think; that concept of giving people the chances they need to grow and to change. I have a tattoo of that moment on my thigh, it's that important to me. I guess I really like Papyrus because even though he is fictional, watching him out there makes it easy to believe in people, in our inherent goodness and desire to love each other. He makes it easy to see that we can change, that no matter what you've done in the past or who you currently are, no one is inherently a bad person, and no one is incapable of learning how to be a good one. It is just a step by step process that we have to take day by day.

[Image Description: A wordcloud shaped like Papyrus. His gloves, boots, and cape are red; his Battle Body is blue, yellow, and white; and his bones are white. Some of the most visible words are: Kind, Love, Good, Cool, Relate, Funny, Friend, Mystery, and Papyrus. These are the words that responders mentioned most in their essays about him. End I.D.]

Read the full list of responses shared with permission by clicking this link! (The document is 25 pages long, so you may want to make a copy to prevent lagging.)

[cto10121]

The bad Shakespeare takes keep coming, I see. This one had the cleverness to couch itself as a personal narrative (makes it much more interesting, tbh). But as bad Shakespeare takes are my bread and butter, my boon and bane, mamma mia here we go again, with Merchant of Venice.

“But those who thought the play was irredeemably antisemitic were, the consensus went, vulgar and whiny—​and, completely coincidentally, they were also Jewish, which somehow magically invalidated their opinions on this subject.”

I’m glad (is that even the right word?) this author found scholars that don’t think this play is anti-Semitic, but my experience with scholarship has been way more mixed than that. Suffice to say, this is literally all the play is known for these days, and views of the play as anti-Semitic are everywhere (Rosenbaum even had a hot take that since the Nazis liked it, it must be anti-Semitic). Didn’t know Harold Bloom thinks this play is anti-Semitic, though. That in itself is a bit of a red flag, as Bloom is a notoriously poor reader of Shakespeare.

“[I]n Merchant, Portia unhappily fulfills her father’s requirements of her suitors, while in Il Pecorone, the lady enjoys drugging her suitors and robbing them blind. By removing this detail, Shakespeare removed the suggestion that malicious schemers come from all walks of life.”

Or, by removing this detail, Shakespeare removed the clear and abhorrent sexism of his original source that turned a woman robbed of her autonomy by her father’s will into a criminal. It’s almost as if you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

“Dr. Lopez, one of the most respected physicians of the 16th century, had indiscreetly revealed that he once treated the Earl of Essex for venereal disease. The earl took revenge by framing Dr. Lopez for treason and arranging for his torture; while on the rack, Dr. Lopez “confessed”—​though “like a Jew,” as the court record states, he denied all charges at trial, while the attorney for the Crown referred to him matter-​of-​factly as “a perjuring murdering traitor and Jewish doctor.”

This is a very twisted account of the Lopez affair and Essex’s motives in going against him, at least to my understanding. For context, Lopez was accused of receiving loads of money from the King of Spain to poison Queen Elizabeth.

According to Stephen Greenblatt, in Will of the World: “Essex had tried some years before to recruit Lopez as a secret agent. Lopez’s refusal—he chose instead directly to inform the queen—may have been prudent, but it created in the powerful earl a very dangerous enemy. After his arrest, he was initially imprisoned at Essex House and interrogated by the earl himself. But Lopez had powerful allies in the rival faction of the queen’s senior adviser William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and his son, Robert Cecil, who also participated in the interrogation and reported to the queen that the charges against her physician were baseless.” Lopez apparently had been taken bribes from various sources, and confessed (freely? under torture?) “that he had indeed entered into a treasonous-sounding negotiation with the king of Spain, but he insisted that he had done so only in order to cozen the king out of his money.” Weird.

Greenblatt isn’t a historian, though, and Essex was indeed an asshole to Lopez, (and for what is worth, I feel Lopez was innocent; I just get those vibes) but so far I can find no other source that Essex actively framed Lopez. Most likely he did some sleuthing, dug up some questionable, compromising stuff, and tried to blow a hearth flame into a firestorm.

“After all, the historical record gives Queen Elizabeth a cookie for dawdling on signing Dr. Lopez’s death warrant; her doubts about his guilt even led her to mercifully allow his family to keep his property, not unlike the equally merciful Duke of Venice in Shakespeare’s play.”

Again, Lopez had powerful allies (doesn’t get much higher than Burghley), and again, re: Greenblatt: “According to court observers, Elizabeth gave Essex a tongue-lashing, ‘calling him rash and temerarious youth, to enter into a matter against the poor man, which he could not prove, and whose innocence she knew well enough.’” A cupcake, then?

“And it is of course entirely unclear whether this trial and public humiliation of an allegedly greed-​driven Jew attempting to murder an upstanding Christian, rapturously reported in the press with myriad antisemitic embellishments, had anything at all to do with Shakespeare’s play about the trial and public humiliation of a greed-​driven Jew attempting to murder an upstanding Christian—​which Shakespeare composed shortly after Dr. Lopez decomposed. Most likely these things were completely unrelated.”

Nearly all the major Shakespeare biographies and articles I’ve read literally and explicitly talks about the possible influence of Lopez’s execution on Merchant of Venice and names it as an inspiration: Greenblatt, (he even headcanons that Shakespeare watched the execution!) Bate, Ackroyd. That’s how Horn managed to ping my BS radar something awful—because I had read about it, many times, even if it was mentioned in passing. It’s solid, legit Shakespearean academic fanon. The sarcasm is really unwarranted, and childish besides.

“It was damned hard to hear the nuance while parsing lines like “Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnal,” or “My master’s a very Jew; give him a present, give him a halter,” or explaining what Shylock meant when he planned to “go in hate, to feed upon / The prodigal Christian.”

The first two are the fool’s, Lancelot’s, lines, I think. As for Shylock’s hatred toward Christians, while ugly, it’s entirely understandable given the Christian characters’ treatment of him pre-play and during it (Antonio spitting on Shylock’s gaberdine and then asking him to borrow money from him is called out by Shylock himself for its sheer hypocrisy). It also fits Shylock’s character as an unassimilated Jew, resenting Christian hypocrisy and racism.

“The actor began the brief soliloquy that every English-​speaking Jew is apparently meant to take as a compliment: ‘I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? . . . ​If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?’

“Wait, that’s the part where he’s more human?”

[…]“Sure,” I told my son, game-​facing him back in the rearview. “He’s reminding us how he’s like everyone else. He’s a normal person with normal feelings.”

My son laughed. “You seriously fell for that?”

[…] “What do you mean?”

“Shylock’s just saying he wants revenge! Like, ‘Oh, yeah? If I’m a regular human, then I get to be eee-​vil like a regular human!’ This is the evil monologue thing that every supervillain does! ‘I’ve had a rough life, and if you were me you would do the same thing, so that’s why I’m going to KILL BATMAN, mu-​hahaha!’ He’s just manipulating the other guy even more!”

And then the crowd applauded, Harold Bloom cried, and the mayor gave the author’s six-year-old son a gold medal for his Brave Hot Take. Honestly, this was the most unbelievable part of the essay I’ve read. Unless this kid has been reading academic essays on MoV that posit this exact same interpretation (“Shylock was just using humanistic rhetoric to justify his ~bloodthirsty revenge!”), this one’s for a fake Internet stories anthology. Shylock may be a dour, miserable pain in the ass, but he is no Barabas, an actual anti-Semitic caricature—he has a character, and a recognizably human one, and the play bears it out that he is right in his anger.

“I reviewed the other moments scholars cite to prove Shylock’s “humanity.” There were two lines of Shylock treasuring his dead wife’s ring, unlike the play’s Christian men who give their wives’ rings away. But unlike the other men, Shylock never gets his ring back—​because his daughter steals it, and becomes a Christian, and inherits what remains of his estate at the play’s triumphant end.”

Er, this is a non sequitur—that last has nothing to do with the first. The point is, Shylock doesn’t give away his ring; the fact that his daughter stole it means nothing to his treasuring it. It may be proof of the play’s marginalization of Shylock (which accurately if sadly reflects real-life systematic marginalization), but not his humanity. Shakespeare just doesn’t do backstories, even for major characters, so it is significant that he gave Shylock a wife/beloved in the first place.

“Finally, scholars point to the many times Shylock explains why he is so revolting: Christians treat him poorly, so he returns the favor. But for this to satisfy, one must accept that Jews are revolting to begin with, and that their repulsiveness simply needs to be explained.”

This makes absolutely no sense at all. If one accepts Jews are inherently revolting, then no explanation need be given for when a Jewish character acts revolting! The racist accepts the revolting Jewish characterization without qualm. The fact that the play insists on his grievance is significant.

“We listened together as Shylock went to court to extract his pound of flesh; as the heroine, chirping about the quality of mercy, forbade him to spill the Christian’s blood as he so desperately desired; as the court confiscated his property, along with his soul through forced conversion; as the play’s most cherished characters used his own words to taunt and demean him, relishing their vanquishing of the bloodthirsty Jew.”

YMMV, but to me there are no cherished characters in this play. That’s the whole point! Everyone is so mired in this dreary capitalist materialism that denigrates genuine human connection into mere transaction. Everything to these characters is money, money, money (and class), or at least tainted by it. Shylock is simply the most overt (and honest) of the lot. Love relationships, religion are impoverished; Portia and Bassanio are scarcely more suited than Portia and her other suitors. Shylock and Antonio are Jews and Christians in-name-only: They are capitalists first and foremost. Portia is a smarter, more likable Karen. Lancelot isn’t funny. Jessica is okay, but her leaving her father is framed as a asshole moment at least in one instance. Portia is probably the most lovable, but she has her asshole moments too. There are no truly awful characters, but you don’t need to demonize and dehumanize your whole cast into two-dimensional racists just to make a point.

Merchant of Venice is not the best of plays. It is one of Shakespeare’s experiments, a proto-problem play before his Jacobean era, using dark comedy and a slight bent of farce to explore and elucidate social issues, racism and discrimination, chiefly. At least it tries, anyway. Taming of the Shrew is the first proto-problem play done completely farcical, which at least makes it compelling in a slapstick-satire way; Merchant is much more sociologically astute, but also more dull and coolly distant even from its own concerns. I don’t blame anyone, much less Jewish people, for not liking the play or thinking it a masterpiece. I myself don’t, though for reasons that have nothing to do with the usual ones. I like what Shakespeare was trying to do and I think he did some things very well. It has ambition and thought. But I feel like for most of it Shakespeare was on writing autopilot while mentally looking around for something a bit meatier to adapt and develop. It’s a jogging-in-one-place play; he has a couple of those.

In sum: Author argues for complicated play’s anti-Semitism, ends up just saying the racist slurs by the flawed/asshole Christian characters made her and her son uncomfortable (feat. A distorted and even misleading account of the Lopez affair). Plus some internalized anti-Semitism to sort through, methinks.

[grayseekerswritinglife]

Warp and TC Relationship Journaling

(Illustration by @whirlandco)

ThunderWarp Week is coming up, and frankly, I've been a bit stumped. I love this pairing to bits, but have been struggling to get a feel for their dynamic. I devoted this morning to doing some journaling on their relationship, and thought I'd share what I've come up with so far, just in case anyone else is in the same boat. To start with, I came up with a set of journal prompts. I haven't used all of them (yet), but here they are:

What do I know about each of them? (Canon, fanon or headcanon; all are fair game)

In what ways to they: Need each other? Complete each other? Balance each other?

What fears or insecurities does each of them have: Internally? About the other/the relationship?

How do they make each other feel: Safe? Happy? Loved?

What are their respective love-languages? (Love languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service, Gifts, Touch)

What was the initial spark of attraction?

What has made their relationship so enduring?

I started with the basics: What do I know about each?

Skywarp is playful. He pulls pranks on people. In my personal headcanon, Starscream took away his slingshot (which would fit with the 'toys' prompt). He is loyal. He believes in the Decepticon cause, and looks up to Megatron. He likes to eat (headcanon), and his favorite snack is gold - which is not necessarily a healthy snack, at least in large amounts. He can appear irresponsible at times. (Maybe more than just appear.) A lot of people say he isn't that smart (fanon, I think?), but I think he has a high emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) and is good at relationships (headcanon). Nevertheless, he and Rumble seem to despise each other (canon), though the reasons for this are never explained. Guardian Robots give him "the creeps," and he has the ability to teleport.

Thundercracker is serious. He's also short-tempered (canon) and can be vindictive (toward Starscream, at the very least). On a personal level, though, he's quiet and thoughtful. He writes (canon) and would like to be a screenwriter when the war is over (headcanon). He and Skywarp both like movies, but have differing tastes (headcanon): Skywarp likes action flicks with a lot of explosions, while TC likes romantic movies, aka "chick flicks." TC is not sold on the Decepticon cause. Perhaps he was at one time (speculation), but has seen the Decepticons stray from their original purpose and the war devolve into a personal feud between Optimus and Megatron. He thinks Earth is too flat (canon), and has the ability to make sonic booms.

The next question that seemed important is: What fears and insecurities does each have?

Skywarp might be insecure about his intelligence. Then again, he might not be! (It is just fanon, after all.) It takes planning, creativity and deviousness to pull off elaborate pranks, so if anything, I prefer to think that Skywarp downplays his intelligence because it allows people to underestimate him. But Thundercracker, on the other hand, might get angry when people call Skywarp 'stupid,' or talk down to him as if they think he is (hello, Starscream!)

Thundercracker feels uncomfortable on Earth because it's so 'flat.' I can't help thinking this comment speaks to an insecurity or fear about feeling exposed. It could be innate, since it's easy to imagine that Seekers prefer to be up high, or to have deep canyons they can dive into, but TC's remark might also be rooted in a negative or traumatic experience from the past. Something to think about. Same thing goes for Skywarp's fear about Guardian Robots. They're inherently terrifying, yes, but he might also have had a bad experience.

If Skywarp likes to eat (headcanon), that might be a self-soothing behavior that helps him deal with the anxiety of being on Earth. Perhaps he's been overdoing it lately, since the Decepticons are under a lot of pressure. They are, after all, losing every single battle no matter how well-prepared they are, or how poorly prepared their opposition is, and this is bound to have a demoralizing effect on the entire crew. If Skywarp is sensitive to emotional dynamics (also headcanon), his pranking behaviors might also be a coping behavior that enables him to distract himself and others from their increasingly grim situation. Since he's a Megatron fanboy (canon), he might also be doubling down on his Faith in the Cause, and feeling extra-sensitive about any criticism of Megatron's leadership (speculation).

So those are some thoughts about them as individuals, but how do Warp and TC balance, care for and complete each other?

What stands out for me is that they are very, very different personalities; a classic odd couple. It would be interesting to explore how they navigate those differences, since they probably need to do so on an ongoing basis.

Their views about the war are one obvious area of difference, and probably the most important one. If TC's doubts have been building over time, and Skywarp's views have *not* changed, they might be arguing about this more than they were in the past. (I'm thinking G1 Earth era, of course.) Perhaps Skywarp fears, deep down, that Thundercracker will abandon the cause and that Skywarp will be forced to choose. Maybe he has legitimate fears about an Autobot-controlled future, especially with the Decepticons losing every single battle lately, and despite his outward protestations, he might be having his own personal crisis of faith about Megatron's leadership.

On a more light-hearted note, their differing taste in movies (headcanon) might be something they playfully argue about. Relationship moments might include the way they help each other feel safe and secure in an inherently unsafe, insecure environment. They both need an anchor, and even disagreements between them might serve to provide that.

And that's as far as I got today! I hope my thoughts are helpful, or at least interesting. I have a better feel for them after doing this exercise. I have farther to go (note unanswered prompts at the top of the post), but this feels like a solid starting point. What do you think? I'd love to hear.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

I'm sorry to hear about that take upsetting you. It's really unfortunate because some of their (not the post, generally) takes are really good but then, the villain-bias just bleeds through like no tomorrow. I've simply stopped reading ANYTHING by people I know for a fact are hardcore villain stans, even if I'll miss out on smth. It's not worth seeing how they malign Hawks' character while painting the LoV as morally superior.

I usually try to give every post the benefit of the doubt and not look at the author, especially since I stick to the general character tags. I had noticed the Hawks-crucifying had died down in the general tags, but I didn't know until recently part of it was because they'd created their own. Frankly, that serves me fine, and I haven't had to block any tags or blogs thanks to that tactic. I don't bother them, they don't bother me, and the general tags stay safe - or at least for me however Tumblr decides to show me content.

It mostly caught me off guard because I got comfortable in the general tags and through whatever means this slipped into general. I've seen some great stuff from people I otherwise wouldn't have found, so going from nodding in agreement and appreciating the writing to having a wild double-take mid-read felt like getting beaned in the head.

I don't want or like to call these people "fake" or "bad" fans, or say they're enjoying the characters "the wrong way." I have said it before and I'll say it again - there is nothing inherently wrong with fanon or enjoying fanon. My canon-adjacent/canon-compliant headcanons about Hawks are often fanon. I don't even have a problem with fans wishing fanon was canon and expressing that among those with a common perspective.

I have a problem with them insisting their views are canon and especially when they get into arguments with those who follow and can prove their position with canon. It has nothing to do with "the integrity of the text" as if HeroAca is the Bible or anything ridiculous like that. I just don't think they realize how they come across as people when they do that. It's like playing a game with a team who play by different rules. They can have their homebrew rules when they play together all they want and that's fine, but in the "official leagues" there are standardized rules and they either have to concede when playing with those playing "standard regulation" or not compete.

It's totally fine to look into, explore, and play with the surrounding theoretical, social and political climate the characters and stories were born out of, play "what if" and alternate history games with them, and so on. I just want them to concede that every time we get a new chapter, as much as they have new information to play with for the way they engage with the series, the version in their circles is not the same as the one that got published.

Though I have heard instances of a few of them lashing out, and that period after 266 was REALLY BAD, I will say that I have been very glad to not see many of them seeking out trouble - or at least not anymore and never with me specifically. I don't know how sustainable this "separate camps" model will work over time, but I would someday hope to have a civil general fandom space - as tall an order as that may be for now.

[llawlietofficial]

What type of characterisation do u like for fics? I do find that fic from back in the day is mostly 1 dimensional but I was curious what ur issues w it where?

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to answer this but I’m gonna be real my opinions on stuff like this have led to me being labeled toxic to the point where people have literally implied they want me and people who share similar opinions with me to leave the fandom, so I’ve been kind of hesitant to answer something like this bashing some recent characterization again. So if you’re one of those people I’m sorry and you should probably stop reading now.

opinions under the cut with some lawlight characterization stuff I don’t like + some stuff I do like:

Honestly? I try and read at least the first chapter or so of every new lawlight fic in the tag and recently it’s been impossible for me to enjoy a lot of it because when I read it it just doesn’t feel like L and Light to me at all? Like it feels like someone at some point wrote a big fic with strong characterization and interesting characters, except they weren’t much like L and Light and they acted in ways L and Light wouldn’t act. And a lot of fics now are based off that same characterization, which in turn inspires fics with that characterization, rinse and repeat. And that’s just not enjoyable to me when I’m looking to read lawlight fanfiction.

Obviously old lawlight fanfiction wasn’t all 100% perfect and there were a lot of doozies in that mix too but it felt like there were more really solid multichapter fics that might have been messy and toxic in ways but they made sense with the canon characters. And fics that did have a happy ending and some fluff thrown in were still written using circumstances that could be believable, even if it took a long time or a slow burn to get there.

To answer your question more specifically, here’s some common tropes that feel out of character to me (and I’m not calling out any specific author or saying fics that do any of these things are poorly written because they’re not and we have a lot of talented and dedicated people here):

Either one of them changing their principles and switching sides within the first 20k words and without a LOT of persuading. IMO “we’re two sides of the same coin and not that different despite both being hugely stubborn” is shit I love, “actually I’ve sided with you secretly the whole time/your magical dick has cured me of disagreeing with you/I’m willing to sacrifice the principles I literally died for in canon easily because I want to be with you” is shit I don’t love.

“We suddenly agree and work super well together as partners now that we’re in an AU and there’s no death note” doesn’t feel authentic to me because death note or no death note their entire outlook on the world is different. Light would think L’s methods are disgusting. L would think Light’s initial idealism is naive. Light believes mankind is inherently good and once you get rid of the bad that can shine, L…doesn’t seem to share that. That’s not to say they can never work together but the good shit is when it’s a long journey into understanding each other and where they’re coming from and slowly making compromises and falling in love.

L being a naive uwu tries his best baby who’s being taken advantage of by Light. Light being a misguided uwu baby who tries his best and is being taken advantage of the whole time by L. They’re more complex than that and they’re both bad people but they also both have good sides so any sort of simplification of the characters into one being a villain and one being a victim is uninteresting to me. 

They shouldn’t work but somehow despite everything they do, because they’re alone and because despite disagreeing and being enemies by circumstance and by beliefs, they know without the other they’d never really be challenged or fulfilled. That’s neat. I like that. It’s messy. They’re drawn to each other even as they’re disgusted with each other.

It’s more interesting when they are their own conflict rather than the conflict solely coming from outside sources.

The 500000 fics where Light is a rebellious and progressive omega who actually secretly wants to be protected by L and feels grateful that they’ve found each other? don’t love that. I dislike omega fics in general even if there’s a couple I’ve thought were pretty alright so that doesn’t help either. It is kind of interesting that despite their differences this could be an in-universe reason to force them together. It just seems like omegafic is the lawlight default right now. Like even fics where the plot doesn’t revolve around omegaverse stuff is sometimes omegaverse and that’s ? hard for me to wrap my brain around? that’s not just a lawlight problem though that seems to be happening in a lot of fandoms

Similarly to point one, either of them being okay with losing like lol what. 

yotsuba can be difficult to tackle because there’s so much going on there with the characters, but there’s so many interesting layers to explore and dive into that sometimes get ignored in favor of fluffy hijinks and that’s boring to me. from Light’s perspective L took everything from him and has made his life pretty miserable because of this whole Kira thing and catching the real Kira is the only real thing that could totally clear Light’s name and L just sort of….gives up, for a lot of it. mopes about and acts unmotivated and uninterested because Light isn’t Kira. that’s probably very frustrating for light! and fun wacky fluff or hijinks can happen, but I love when it happens in the “we got so distracted being the smartest people in the room we forgot we’re supposed to be enemies” way because that’s juicy to me

sometimes it’s the little things, too, that bother me. stuff that’ll happen and it’ll completely pull me out of the story. like L Lawliet made Naomi Misora destroy her whole damn computer after he slid into her DMs and you really think there’s any way in hell he’d have any sort of google home or siri or alexa? or casual social media, even under fake names? facebook knows everything. or light saying something or making a joke that i could never in a million years see him saying in canon because the author thought it would be funny or cute. 

anytime Light is suddenly some kind of beacon of goodness champion of justice just because he didn’t find the death note. the death note didn’t make him a completely different person, he’s bitter and jaded and thinks some people would be better off dead even before getting the death note. self righteous yeah totally but actually righteous? nah man

or Light just being a fucking awful person who kidnaps and r*pes L because he lusts after him but it’s okay because somehow in the end they end up together ? i’ve seen that trope a few times and i know it existed in 2007 too i just avoided it like the plague then also. 

I see a lot of AUs that are less “what would L and Light legitimately do if this was the situation or universe they were placed in” and more “i want to write this situation happening like this and i want to make it lawlight because that’s my main ship” 

like, the characters that are being written are fine but if you want to write OCs right OCs. I know all of this seems really harsh which is why I put a warning about it at the beginning, and of course I know some of these problems were also prevalent between 2013-2017 and there’s tropes here that have been happening like this since the dawn of lawlight fanfiction, but since it’s happening now and now is when i’m frustrated by it now is what i’m complaining about, it could be the reason i go back to older fanfiction so much is because i had lower standards back then and it was easier for me to wade through the ones i hated to get to ones i liked and now it’s easy for me to find those again. who knows. Also I agree most fanfiction from 2007-2009 were pretty 1 dimensional. 

And like, fuck me I guess but I actually like the canon characters and I joined the fandom to experience more of them and apparently that makes other people feel unsafe.

I’m not saying people aren’t allowed to express opinions that are different than me or that I Know Better Than Everyone Else or that I don’t like people posting their own headcanons or ideas or things they wish were different about the series, it’s just not my cup of tea and it’s a little frustrating that fanon is mostly all I get in fics now and that people are allowed to express opinions but only if those opinions are “people who stick too close to canon are elitist and should die and are sticks in the mud and need to leave the fandom to stop ruining things for everyone else” because like, we’re people too?

Anyway sorry this veered in a bit of a different direction and I hope I don’t lose followers over this because it’s sad to see people go but I’ve been blogging here for over 5 years and I’m not going to stop anytime soon. I also wrote most of this while having bad anxiety at like 3am last night so it’s all over the place and i’m probably going to think of like eight things in the shower later I forgot to mention because i’ve been thinking over this ask for like two weeks now. 

[traincat]

I think I Kno the answer but I like the way you explain things so; would you ever write superfamily?

This is the sort of stone cold ‘no’ where it’s literally one of the only things I say I will not write on signup sheets. You’d have to pay me to write it. Substantially. If there’s one Marvel fandom-specific trope I hate above all others, it’s this one. I ‘flames on the side of my face’ gif loathe it. And because you played to my ego here, anonymous, I’ll explain why it bothers me so much. (Joking aside, I do genuinely appreciate that people want to hear my thoughts on things! Thank you! I’m sorry for how seethingly bitter I’m about to be, but anon, I suspect you knew what you’d be getting when you asked this!)

Frothing hatred, a discussion about the integrity of the character of Peter Parker, and The Importance of May Parker – all beneath your friendly neighborhood cut.

Superfamily in this instance refers to a specific fic trope in Marvel fandom where a pair of superheroes, traditionally Captain America and Iron Man (the superhusbands, hence the superfamily) although I’ve seen other pairings especially as of late, are written as the fathers of Peter “Spider-Man” Parker – usually adopted, sometimes biological, but ultimately legally. 

In general I don’t really enjoy this kind of fic where two characters who aren’t related (by blood or otherwise) are re-envisioned as relatives. It’s not that I think it’s inherently a bad concept, but what I would hypothetically want out of it – an exploration of how these characters change as a result of being related in this version – is almost never what it actually is, which is that Characters A and B are the author’s OTP, and the author wants to give them a child, and Character C, who is off over there minding their own business probably with their own supporting cast, is right there. 

(While trying to come up with comparative combinations on a tangent I ultimately dropped, I did think “Maria Hill and Natasha Romanoff are the parents of Daisy Johnson, costarring Nick Fury as the mysterious uncle” and apparently there are versions of this I would read. Make superspyfamily the next big thing.)

There’s a lot of other things I don’t like about the trope: the diminishing and infantilization of Peter Parker, a ~30yo man in the comics with his own complicated web of connections and relationships – including, if we wanted to go here, a surrogate father figure in Joe “Robbie” Robertson. The twisting of Peter’s personality in order to make his a Good Earnest Kid, his Grand Canyon-wide independent streak and his anti-authoritarian nature stripped away in favor of making him beholden to two characters who are, you know, not his parents. Two characters who aren’t even, striking a stint in the ice where Steve Rogers is concerned, that much older than him in 616. The fact that, over the years, Iron Man and Spider-Man have clashed several times, often aggressively on Peter’s side of things. 

(This post isn’t meant to be a criticism of Tony Stark – even if I was interested in taking that angle when discussing this trope, which I’m not, I frankly haven’t read enough Iron Man comics to offer a valid criticism – but rather a statement that Peter Parker is an aggressive character by nature, and that sometimes two characters with the best of intentions can have damaging interactions with each other. That’s the beauty of having a canon with 80 million different characters – every possible dynamic exists. And that’s why there’s several canon instances of Peter attacking Tony in my Spider-Man refs folder. Listen, I like when he punches people, okay.) The invention of a totally fake dynamic that has become so widespread and latched on on a fanon level to the point where it was shoehorned into the latest Spider-Man movie adaptation to the detriment of Spider-Man’s actual supporting cast. The fact that when I read Spider-Man fic, I want to be reading about Spider-Man, not someone’s Peter Parker shaped OC. And maybe most importantly: the erasure of May Parker. Without May Parker, there is no Spider-Man, not as we know him. 

I’ve spoken before about the importance and gravity of Ben Parker’s death and how without knowing the exact circumstances, I find it difficult to know what form Peter’s actions will take. (The differences in his crime fighting methodology 616 vs Marvel Noir, for instance.) But while Ben Parker’s death made Spider-Man, the vigilante, I think it’s May Parker who makes him a hero, every day. 

And, my line on her to Peter is that he got his powers from the spider but he got his strength from May. Because that backbone is what made him who and what he is today. The choices that he makes now come of her having raised him a certain way. – J Michael Straczynski (x)

Look, I think there’s a simplicity to Superfamily that contributes to its overwhelming, infuriating, kudzu-like popularity: Spider-Man is one of the biggest superhero properties on the planet. He’s often, however incorrectly I would personally suggest this is, depicted as a kid. He is, as we all know, an orphan – he has no parents, and he lives with his aunt and uncle, and then – robber, bang, power, responsibility – only with his aunt. And I think sometimes when people hear “orphan” and “aunt” they kind of feel a distance – a disconnect. Or maybe it’s an age thing – the idea that May’s somehow too old to be his parent, so she’s discounted. Maybe it’s just because she’s not a superhero, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence that early Marvel is populated with non-traditional family models – the Fantastic Four, for example, are not a team but a family – when these stories were created by Jewish people living in a heavily Jewish area in the shadow of WWII. In the face of decimation, you come together however you can. Orphaned Peter Parker and his aunt, his father’s brother’s wife, alone together. But May Parker’s a lot more than just that.

In Amazing Spider-Man #33, Peter finds himself hopelessly trapped under rubble while Aunt May’s life hangs in the balance – if he cannot free himself, it’s not only his life but hers that’s forfeit, and through his love from her he finds the strength to literally move mountains. (Speaking of removing May from the picture in favor of Iron Man, I’ll never forgive Spider-Man: Homecoming for recreating this scene so that Peter derives his strength from him and not from, you know, the woman who raised him and who he loves more than his own life, in favor of the inherently more marketable Iron Man brand.)

A lot of times in Superfamily fic, they just kill May off. Okay, fine, whatever. I might hate it (I hate it a lot) but like, alright! Fine! If you gotta go here! May’s often been in delicate health, especially in older comics, and if an author needs to take her out of the picture, her literally being dead is basically the only in character reason she wouldn’t be there for Peter if he needs her. I might personally have a grudge against about it, but hey, as we’ve established, I have a grudge against the whole trope. Lately though, and I suspect because of the advent of Homecoming’s Hot Somewhat Younger May – I’d like to suggest that 616 May is not as old as one might think looking at her first appearances and that, as the sliding timescale moves along, we have to address the fact that people both live longer and look younger today than was expected in the 1960s –,  I’ve been seeing a different trend. (Yes, I’ve been known to hateread, I’ll admit it. How else would I know how much I hate it! Also it keeps ending up in the JohnnyPeter tag and I make poor choices re: deriving enjoyment from my anger over fanfic of all things.) Lately, more and more, I’ve been seeing fics where Tony adopts Peter from May – as in, she signs the forms giving up her child, because obviously he loves him so much more. Fics where May is just the cover story so Peter Stark can escape media attention – so great, now she’s an employee. And at least one tweet about how great it would be to see a fic where Peter comes out to May and she throws him out in a homophobic fit but wait! The Avengers can rescue him! So now she’s demonized for the Drama. Gag me. (Not that I think it should matter at all for the sake of this argument, but we have May’s actual word in Amazing Spider-Man v2 #38 on what would happen if Peter came out as gay to her, and that it’s she’d love and support him no matter what.) And listen, like, part of me is like let it go! The majority of this content is written by younger fans just figuring out what they want to write, dipping their toes into the swampy waters that is Marvel canon! But the problem is, this perpetuates. It gets popular, and people form their opinions based on headcanons and not on canon and it becomes a vicious cycle, and suddenly Peter’s the Kid Avenger like, ACTUALLY, and May’s role in the story has been demoted to Roommate With a Car at best. Just there until better, cooler parental figures show up at the doorstep with adoption papers. 

Because, listen, May Parker is Peter’s mother. 

One thing I find fascinating about Peter Parker in 616 is how he relies on and draws strength from other people’s goodness, and none more so than May. It’s her well of inner strength and kindness that enable him to be kind of superhero that he is. 

Without May Parker, Peter Parker would be a totally different character – and I don’t want a different character. I like this one. (For a canon story about how Peter would be different without May, check out Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #8.)

Like I said above, the great thing about having 80 million characters is that those characters get to be different things, and as superheroes they get to protect different things. Iron Man is a futurist. The Fantastic Four are about discovery. The X-Men protect a world that hates and fears them. Spider-Man isn’t here to save the world. Spider-Man is here to protect ordinary people – people like May Parker. 

In conclusion: fuck Superfamily as a widespread trend.

Anyway I had to see an actual article about the MCU refer to two characters as Spider-Man’s “Avenger dads” and another suggest that Dr. Strange and Spider-Man are the father-son combo we never knew we always needed (it’s not, and we don’t), so I guess I’m going to go live in a cave and throw rocks at innocent hikers who stumble upon my Spider-Man Opinions cave now.

[voltron-stats]

Langst Survey Results – “I Don’t Like Langst”

Third time’s the charm! Here’s another read-more!

Why not?

The answers to this question hit on a few major grievances with Langst, which will be summarized below:

OOC Lance: Lance’s character tends to become woobiefied in Langst, which then turns it into a “Break the Woobie”-fest and that isn’t very appealing. Also, this inaccurate characterization results in Lance turning into a one-dimensional person, with almost all of the canon qualities that make him interesting, like his optimism and humor, being erased in favor of him being a turning him into a “messed up caricature of whining and stupidity”. In addition, there exists Langst in which Lance struggles with certain things that his canon self may not have had the same issues with, which is another disservice to his canon strengths. Langst creators also manage to overwrite his existing flaws with new, less realistic ones. On another note, another characterization error that Langst makes has to do with the fact that a lot of Langst uses Lance as a self-insert type of character, ignoring his issues in order to depict the issues of the writer/artist/etc. While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with this, responders at the very least wanted Langst featuring Canon Lance, not a self-projection with Lance’s name.

OOC Paladins: In Langst, the paladins tend to exist for the sole purpose of either being the problem/causing Lance’s angst or to gush and fuss over Lance constantly. Both of these options mischaracterize them or neglects their characters completely. In terms of being the problem, often what happens is that the other paladins become mean to fit a (false) “"oh Lance is so misunderstood and everyone is mean to him"” narrative. However, Lance’s canon angst comes from his own personal insecurities, and not from the actions of others, which is a narrative that a lot of Langst pushes. Characters like Shiro, for instance, are painted in a bad light in order to intensify the Langst (i.e. Shiro is abusive to Lance), and Keith, in particular, is either abusive or Lance’s Trophy Wife (or otherwise only exists to help Lance and nothing else). Finally, as mentioned earlier, when the paladins are mischaracterized in this manner, their own personal issues and angst fall to the wayside in favor of Lance. For example, in certain Kerberos AUs, Lance goes to Kerberos in Shiro’s place and his resulting PTSD is explored and acknowledged, but Shiro, who canonically went to Kerberos and got PTSD, is dragged for being in the same exact circumstances.

Oversaturated, Overrated: Some responders have noted that it was a bit strange that Lance has an entirely separate word and subgenre for his angst. There is a lot of Langst out there, and some responders feel like this lessens the value of individual Langst pieces. In addition, it always seems to be Fanon Lance that is used in Langst, which weakens the appeal. Also, it’s been overdone and to some, it is now boring.

Over-exaggerated, Uncreative: Lance’s insecurities in the show are turned in to a full-blown angst-fest in a lot of Langst. Lance isn’t as insecure as people are making him out to be, his insecurities aren’t always everyone else’s problem to deal with, and a lot of it ends up overdramatic or badly written. Also, there are a lot of the same clichés, overused tropes, and repetitive/obvious arcs used in Langst that makes it look not very creative in terms of pulling heartstrings.

Neglects others’ angst: Several responders were irked that the angst of other characters was being ignored in favor of Lance’s perceived insecurities. Everything seems to revolve around Lance, probably due to his popularity in the fandom, but Lance isn’t the only homesick one or the only character who has angst. For people who prefer other angst, it can be disheartening to try to search for that angst and scrolling through pages and pages of Langst to find even one thing. Also, in ignoring the struggles of other characters, Lance himself is absolved of any crime, i.e. if he hurts others it's mostly overlooked and he isn’t required to apologize or make it up to them, and sometimes other characters’ angst is reassigned to Lance (for example, Shiro’s struggles are Lance’s now).

Racist: When portraying Lance’s Cuban/Latino heritage, Langst can fall into some unfortunate stereotypes. As one responder put it, “A predominantly white fandom brutalizing the attractive, brown main character? No thanks…It makes fans who should be able to relate to Lance as a Cuban and latino teen fucking uncomfortable with even showing their content in fandom…He's also an openly emotional boy, which you don't see often, and yet people turn him into personal wank material and spread it as a popular, proudful idea. It's not...”

There were also responders who don’t understand why people would intentionally hurt Lance, as they believe that he has already suffered enough in the show and that he deserves love and happiness. Conversely, other responders simply don’t like Lance, so Langst doesn’t appeal to them as a result. Still other responders disliked Langst due to specific prompts/tropes, i.e. they would rather there be less character death and more ship-free material (Klance likes to appear hand-in-hand with Langst, to their dismay).

Other issues responders had with Langst include:

They portray Lance’s family as evil sometimes

Not being a fan of angst

The tendency to put Lance through continuous hell with little to no positive resolution

It’s “unnecessary to constantly take lance's anxieties and beat him over the head with them”

Presenting elements of Langst as canon despite it all being based around headcanons

Ignoring canon

Are there any good Langst prompts/topics/tropes that you like?

13 of the people who responded said that there weren’t any good prompts. Of the people who chose a prompt, the most popular ones were Homesick Lance (missing his home or family) and prompts in which different team members come to comfort him (e.g. Hunk or Coran).

People also liked prompts that included Lance’s insecurities – as long as they were handled in a satisfactory manner. For example, one responder didn’t want to include “Keith apologizing for Lance being jealous of him.” Other related prompts include scenarios that involve his insecurities coming to light, hiding insecurities to both take care of the team and their issues and not worry them, and Lance dealing with his insecurities about his place on the team. People also liked prompts that looked more into Lance’s character and how he doesn’t feel as useful and looked deeper into his canon psyche/insecurities (as long as, again, it’s done in moderation).

Miscellaneous good prompts include:

Canon-based Langst

Insecurities about his place on the team

Lance worries he’s not enough

Lance-centric hurt/comfort

Paladins comforting each other as a family, and acting as a support group for each other

The team tries to cheer Lance up but makes things worse

Conflicts that aren’t completely resolved

“Lance realizing that he shouldn't lash out when he's feeling insecure and thus damaging his relationships and going on a self-discovery making painful realizations that he doesn't need to be the best and accepting he's fine the way he is realizing validation while nice is not essential.”

“I ship Lance x happiness”

What is your least favorite Langst prompt/topic/trope?

4 people don’t like most, if not all, Langst prompts.

Many people noted OOC Lance and/or the other Paladins as a least favorite Langst trope. For the paladins, responders disliked when they were demonized and turned into bullies. Subcategories of this include: Lance isn’t appreciated enough by the team, "Everyone hates Lances except Trophy Husband Keith", “Keith blows up and tells Lance he's worthless/will never be good enough/anything of the like”, Shiro neglects his needs, and Shiro is mean to Lance. For OOC Lance, as one responder aptly put it, they dislike prompts that go along the lines of “Keith is mean to meee, I cry myself to sleep and no one caresss, The team won't listen to me even tho I'm righttt”.

Other unpopular prompts that multiple people mentioned are: Lance dies, Insecure Lance, and Lance feeling suicidal/cutting (suicidal ideation, being caught self-harming, etc.)

Other least favorite prompts include:

Lance being “singled out for unending hell”

It’s Keith’s fault that Lance is insecure/compares himself to Keith

Lance feeling like he shouldn’t be a paladin (especially when the feelings are triggered by things the other paladins say)

Lance is injured

Violence, abuse, neglect

Non-/Dub-Con

Pining for Keith

Kidnapped, tortured, brainwashed by Lotor

“sex makes things better”

Homesick Lance

If you could change anything about this microgenre, what would you change?

Firstly, one of the things responders wanted more of is a focus on angst for other characters besides Lance. Similarly, responders wanted more variety in Langst, giving Lance depth as to why he’s sad or depressed, instead of making it due to, say, pining for Keith. Related to that, people wanted less Langst (or any angst, for that matter) being used as a ploy for ships; this is mainly having less Langst be from a romantic standpoint, and also making it less “Klancey”, since in those scenarios Keith tends to lose a lot of personality in an effort to make Lance Happy™

Speaking of Keith losing his personality, the main thing that this set of responders wanted to change about Langst was to let everyone remain in character. Characters shouldn’t be thrown under the bus or reduced to something they’re not in order for Lance to achieve maximum angst. The other paladins value Lance as a member of the team and are supportive of him, and their characterization should reflect that. In addition, the team’s characterization should remain intact, allowing them to be fleshed out characters in their own right, rather than one-dimensional foils. Good angst can still be done with canon characterization. Furthermore, some responders singled out Keith and his characterization; he seems to be used as a prop to deepen Lance’s angst, and this may involve altering his canon personality.

In regards to Lance’s characterization, he also needs to be written better. He should be portrayed as a stronger, more confident character (some Langst portrays him as less intelligent or a “pushover woobie”, which irks responders). Moreover, Lance’s loud personality and sense of humor should be allowed to shine, even though he’s experiencing angst; liveliness and humor and angst are all able to coexist at once.

Of the people who responded to this question, 4 of them said that would change the entire subgenre, and/or its very existence.

Other things people would change are:

Create Langst in moderation

Normalize characters showing vulnerability (Don’t ignore their flaws)

Let Lance be the cause of his own problems

Let Lance be happy

More believable scenarios

More of other paladins reacting to Lance’s problems (i.e. Pidge)

More team support (Team is part of the solution, not the problem)

Less plotless/baseless angst; don’t simply suckerpunch Lance constantly

Less horribly cliché/sappy

Less association with Lantis/Klantis

Don’t romanticize things like (internal) homophobia, depression, self-harm, abuse, non-con, etc.

Do you enjoy angst focused on other Voltron characters? Which ones?

[him-e]

hello Claudia, there's a lot of metas about how show sansa has been occ and her writing is contrived, i know the show is terrible i Watch-hate myself and the whole rape-revenge stuff in s 5-6 was awful, but i can 't shake the feeling that there is a lot of veiled sansa-hate in those metas, like people in the fandom are upset that she have a little bit of whatever agency she has, that she is lady of winterfell, even the shipping stuff , idk why i fell this way ?

I feel like a lot of the got discourse exists because people have their own headcanons about where the books are going, and now the show is ahead of the books so naturally if something tears their headcanon to pieces, it must be a) bad writing; b) ooc; c) benioff&weiss’ evil masterplan to erase a character’s narrative and replace it with their fave; d) all of the above.

The show is a separate canon verse now. While it’s the best basis we currently have to predict future plot developments in the book series, it’s not the books, and nothing irritates me more than endless complaints and comparisons with book storylines that haven’t happened yet, because there’s always an underlying presumption of knowing what will happen in as*oiaf(which we don’t, only George does) and also the presumption that everyone should care for what happens inas*oiaf (say I’m a show only fan: why on earth should I care for some yet non-existent book storyline? Why do you keep telling me that Sansa is supposed to be in the Vale? Why should it mean anything to me?)

Show!Sansa is not “ooc” because she no longer resembles book!Sansa. Show!Sansa CAN be ooc, but only compared to how she’s written in the show. (which is a thorny issue, because how do you distinguish “ooc” from regular character development or from the character suddenly displaying a hidden or latent trait of their personality due to trauma/abuse/stress/life changing events/etc.? it’s not clear cut, and I personally think the term ooc is often misused and misapplied in meta). Show!Sansa being in charge of Winterfell is not “ooc”, because her being in charge of Winterfell has been built up by the show’s narrative for years. You may hate the way they wrote it or fundamentally disagree with the path they chose, but that doesn’t negate that they chose it, they built it, and they’re sticking with it.

A lot of the (anti) Sansa discourse also revolves around the fact that GoT fully embraced her as part of the stark crew and is making her show her stark colors, literally and figuratively, which means her narrative and imagery inevitably tends to overlap with that of Arya, Bran and Jon, as they’re all members of the same family. Wolves, winter, the pack, Winterfell, roots, the godswood, snow, dark and furry robes, some of these themes and images are more central and specific to one starkling than in the others, sure, but they’re all, at the end of the day, inherently stark themes, and it’s perfectly appropriate that they start resonating with all the starklings at this point of the story, since a huge theme of the books is how the starks are stronger than the people who tore them apart and they’re finding their way back home, aka Winterfell, aka the pack, aka each other, despite all odds.

I’m more forgiving when it comes to the argument that the show tends to treat Arya like shit and reduce her to a one note character while Sansa is given the chance to show more facets of her personality, because that’s not entirely untrue. I can see why it gives the illusion that Sansa is treated better by the narrative—when she was actually robbed of a huge, crucial chunk of her book arc to replace a minor character in a horrific rape storyline. And tbh, it’s not entirely an illusion: despite all the awfulness of season 5, the various ripple effects of removing her from the Vale too early, and Sansa herself being written unevenly, you can see there’s at least the attempt to have her front and center, in a place where all eyes are on her and where she can interact with crucial people and impact the main plot meaningfully. Whereas the changes to Arya’s storyline were mostly intended to simplify things, give an abridged version of her arc, cement the popular ~smol badass~ image the gen audience loves so much, or (at best) keep fandom favorites like Sandor and Jaqen involved with her (which occasionally resulted in using Arya merely as a crutch to show off said fan favorites).

so in conclusion I think the show is partly responsible of the sansa discourse with its uneven handling of Sansa and Arya’s storylines… but I also think most of this wank comes from a place of wanting Sansa to remain forever confined in certain headcanons-turned-fanons.

[peppermint-shamrock]

On Mischaracterization and Backlash

tl;dr Peppermint bitches about prevalent fanon that she doesn’t like.

This is primarily going to be talking about Atem and Yuugi, since I’m more invested in them than say, Kaiba or Malik, but I would say this issue occurs with pretty much all of the major/popular characters. I’m also sure this applies to the spinoffs as well, but I will only be talking about the original in this post. Of course, I think this is a general problem, and I would encourage reflection on it in regards to other characters/series too.

Fanon, Headcanon, and Mischaracterization

Most of you are probably familiar with these terms, but for the sake of clarity, I’ll define these terms as I understand them and will be using them in this post.

Headcanon - An individual’s belief or interpretation of a character, event, etc., that is neither contradicted nor confirmed by canon (although it can have hints towards it).

“Headcanon” - a common misuse of headcanon, in which the belief/interpretation is clearly contradicted by canon - no amount of freedom of interpretation can get around the fact that it’s just plain incorrect.

Fanon - When a headcanon or “headcanon” is prevalent and shared by significant numbers of fans, and is often popular enough to even be confused with or taken to be canon by those fans.

Mischaracterization - when a character is represented in a way inconsistent with their personality/actions in canon. This is often expressed as exaggeration of traits the character does possess in canon, but taken to an extreme and reductive degree, where other aspects of their character are downplayed/ignored, to be inaccurate. However, it can also be expressed as traits the character does NOT possess in canon at all.

Mischaracterization can be part of fanon and “headcanons”, but doesn’t have to be. In some cases, mischaracterization can be done deliberately (such as for a crackfic/humor or role reversals), with the understanding that it is not plausible in canon.

Just to be clear - there’s nothing inherently “bad” about these things. However, they can certainly be incorrect, and it annoys me when things that are incorrect are taken as canon - not even “up for debate” but taken as absolute fact.

Characterization and Mischaracterization in YGO

Characterization is a complicated issue in YGO, because canon is complicated in YGO. We have the manga canon, we have the Toei anime canon, we have the DM anime canon, we have the dubbed anime canon, we have the movies, we have R, we have the video games, we have Capsule Monsters...granted, not all of this is considered canon, but it does influence people’s perceptions of characters.

So, characterization can be different between the different canons, and what would be mischaracterization in one canon may, in fact, be accurate to another canon. It is also the case that most of the major characters change and grow over time, making their early characterization much different than their late characterization - Atem in the manga is perhaps the most obvious example. Often, fans will mix the characterizations (or what they believe to be the characterization) from different canons and different times, which can create some muddy mischaracterization problems. After all, Atem issuing harsh penalty games is not out of character for the early manga, but post-Duelist Kingdom, it would be inaccurate to portray him inflicting those. Yuugi threatening Kaiba is canon to the DSOD dub, but would be out of character to portray him doing so outside of the dub context.

Regardless, there are some things that are inaccurate no matter which canon you go by.

I won’t pretend to be an expert in fandom history - I never watched this show as a kid, so I’m a latecomer to the fandom. However, the Internet never forgets, as they say, so I’ve had some exposure to the remnants of old fandom, and from this, I’ve identified three rough “eras” of mischaracterization: “young”, “abridged”, and “backlash”. These roughly occurred in that order, and I say roughly because you can still find all of these in modern fandom, and likely “backlash” existed even in the early days, just not to the extent I see it in recent fandom. Perhaps a “fandom old” could give more insight into this or narrow down these areas, but these are my personal observations.

“Young” Fandom Mischaracterization:

The “traditional” mischaracterization. The kind that mostly everyone complains about these days, at least in my corner of Tumblr. I call this “young” because it came out of the days of fandom before I got here, and also because it seems to come from young (as in young teens) fans more than others. It still persists to this day, but is nowhere near as popular as it once was.

This is the kind of mischaracterization that gives us Anzu bashing, where she’s made into an evil and manipulative person who doesn’t care about her friends. She becomes completely unrecognizable, as the only thing she shares with her canon self is an attraction to Atem, which is twisted into something evil.

This is the kind of mischaracterization that gives us the yami/hikari fanon, which is little more than a euphemism for seme/uke - essentially making characters into bad yaoi stereotypes. Atem, Kaiba, Yami Malik, and Yami Bakura are characterized as extremely suave, sexy, powerful, dominant, aggressive, controlling, protective, etc, in a way that makes them hardly distinguishable from one another. Yuugi, Jounouchi, Malik, and Bakura are characterized as cute, innocent, powerless, submissive, helpless, passive, etc, again in a way that makes them hardly distinguishable from one another. Their unique personalities are stripped away.

Often Atem is made cruel and abusive towards Yuugi, Yami Malik is made hyperactive towards Malik, and Yami Bakura is made to be gruff but caring towards Bakura.

In modern fandom, at least Tumblr fandom, it’s pretty well accepted now that these things are mischaracterizations, as Atem is recognized to be an awkward lost soul who cares very deeply about his friends, especially Yuugi, Yami Bakura is recognized as having no idea what he’s doing, and also abusive towards his host, Yami Malik is recognized as the manifestation of of Malik’s trauma and therefore distinct from Yami Bakura and Atem, and Anzu is recognized as someone who cares about and supports her friends. Because of this, I don’t really have to complain about this one much, although I will confess that most of these things annoy me enough to cause me to immediately lose interest in a fanfic.

“Abridged” Fandom Mischaracterization

Mischaracterization done for humor. I call this type of characterization “abridged” because that is probably the most obvious case of this. However, this can encompass more than just the abridged series characterizations - in fact, the one that particularly bothers me the most didn’t come from YGOTAS at all. But it is the spirit of humor that ties these mischaracterizations together.

Aside from YGOTAS, this gives us my personal unfavorite, Atem as an idiot that doesn’t understand modern technology or modern culture/slang, or doesn’t understand anything except dueling. I’ve talked about this plenty, but this is completely inconsistent with canon, as Atem uses technology on a regular basis, has all of Yuugi’s memories, and even believed himself to be Yuugi for some time. There is no reason why he shouldn’t understand everything that Yuugi would.

Related to this is a characterization of Atem where he will inflict penalty games/send people or things to the Shadow Realm/murder at the drop of a hat. Again, he knows how to work a toaster, he’s not going to banish it to hell. He’s also not going to inflict a penalty game on someone for cutting in line or otherwise mildly inconveniencing him/Yuugi - most of the penalty games were the result of Yuugi or friends getting badly hurt.

We’d be here all day if I listed everything, but those two particularly stick out to me as annoying. With this mischaracterization, I do feel bad about getting so annoyed by it sometimes, because in a way, it seems less legitimate to get annoyed when it’s clearly done for humor. But personally, I think the issue for me is not the humor, it’s when it’s taken as canon so often that even when clearly a joke, it rubs me the wrong way. And it IS taken as canon - I have seen posts comparing “fanon” (usually the above “young” mischaracterization) with “canon” (this “abridged” mischaracterization, usually). Neither is accurate, yet one is accepted that way. This also brings me to the final category:

“Backlash” fandom mischaracterization:

Because a lot of people have realized that the first type of mischaracterization is just that, mischaracterization, in recent times there’s been a backlash against it. An example is as I’ve referenced above, contrasting “fanon” with supposed “canon”. As well as just a general shift in the characterization in new fanworks.

However, this backlash doesn’t represent characters as accurately as it purports to. For this reason, this type of mischaracterization is starting to get on my nerves the most - because it is held up in contrast to the obvious, “young” mischaracterization, it is given false credence. But is equally as inaccurate...perhaps even more so in some cases.

This type of mischaracterization gives us reversals - switching who gets the bad yaoi stereotypes (i.e., making Yuugi the “seme” and Atem the “uke”). This is again more of a younger fandom thing and an earlier part of the backlash, but is still present.

Particularly there seems to be this push to make Atem completely awkward and Yuugi completely smooth...a reversal of “young” characterization where Atem is smooth and suave while Yuugi is innocent and blushing. But both are inaccurate characterizations - they’re both awkward teenagers. Yuugi’s only “experience” with sex is watching blurred out porn videos. He’s not going to be some ultra-dominant sex god who completely takes control in bed. He’s gonna be just as awkward as any teenager with his first time.

I know. That’s not sexy. People want sexy so they need to have some sort of dominant and controlling character involved. At least, that’s my assumption behind why this sort of characterization is so prevalent either as Atem or as Yuugi. I’ve even seen this characterization for Yuugi apply to other ships too (like peach). I don’t think it’s any more accurate there.

There’s also a tendency towards a cruel abusive Yuugi. Again, this is a backlash against innocent angel Yuugi, and may also be a backlash to cruel abusive Atem (although why one of them must be cruel is beyond me). Lately scrolling through fanfic, summaries and tags are full of “Yuugi is a jerk”, “Yuugi is an asshole”, “Yuugi is a killer/criminal/etc”. I’m honestly getting really tired of the trend. No, Yuugi is not some perfect innocent angel, but he’s not an asshole, he’s not cruel, he’s not any of those things. He’s not perfect, but he is an exceptionally good and kind person.

Conclusion:

As I said above, there’s nothing “bad” about these things (although there’s certainly a lot wrong). And I am not saying that people can’t or shouldn’t write mischaracterizations such as these or any others. After all, just because something doesn’t appeal to me personally doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t exist.

But I will complain about it. And I do want to ask people to stop acting like these things are canon.

And quite honestly...I can understand how things get exaggerated sometimes. Especially for humor. And sometimes more subtle aspects of a character can be forgotten about. But completely contrary characterizations...I don’t understand how those become so prevalent. You like these characters, right? That’s why you write them, that’s why you write about them. Did you not fall in love with them for their canon personalities? Where then is the appeal in completely changing their personalities and relationship dynamics? If that other sort of personality/relationship dynamic appeals to you, why did you fall for this one in the first place?

I don’t know. For me, I like the characters for who they are in canon and I don’t want them to be something completely different. Same with relationship dynamics.