#rather the traumatized anti-hero

[arisu-alisa-alice]

𝓠𝓾𝓲𝓮𝓻𝓸 𝓪𝓶𝓪𝓻𝓽𝓮 𝓬𝓸𝓷 𝓹𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷

[transfemskullfucker]

Love how Batman has like, 3 rogues that directly challenge his ideologies and then the rest are just random ass people & insane fuckers that have nothing better to do with their lives

(Bonus rant in the tags if you want an actual response to this post)

ur telling me batman (a hero whose power is like 65% fear 35% money) has a villain who is all about weaponizing fear and he’s not the main villain? ur telling me batman (man with a secret identity so strong that there are questions of who the real person is at the end of the day and whose entire creed is about stopping One Bad Day™️) has a villain who is his childhood friend that has physically separated his dual violent-nonviolent nature and is all about duality and chance and he’s not the main villain? ur telling me batman (man with strong ideas about the Right Way to stop crime and who emerged from the destruction of his own family structure) has a villain who is his undead son/former sidekick who he couldn’t save and now disagrees with the way to address crime in gotham and he’s not the main villain? ur shitting me about this clown guy right

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hello! Someone genuinely trying to understand and perhaps unlearn some reactionary tendencies. With the response to that anon about "not asking if you're a pro or anti", the response about "imagine if they put this much effort into protecting real kids" definitely got me thinking. So... Is an adult shipping children and finding that hot NEVER a red flag? Or is it case by case on seeing how that person handles the distinction between fiction and reality in other things? And bringing the issue of real kids into it, if a real kid who has been abused sees someone shipping kids and finds that a red flag in that person, that... No, no I juicy answered my own question on that one. Block them and cultivate your own experience.

hi there anon, and congrats on trying to unlearn some things! and great job catching yourself at the end there, that's exactly correct.

I will start by saying this right out of the gate: fundamentally, I do not really give a shit about what made up scenarios about fictional characters people are jorking it to in private. I am, first and foremost, interested in how they are interacting with actual, real people.

"but Makenzie are you saying people who look at sexually explicit images of real human kids should be allowed near children?" no I'm not. please note that I was specifically talking about people engaging with fictional characters who are, you know, not real and do not have feelings and therefore cannot actually be hurt, traumatized, abused, etc, in any way that actually matters. I want to be so clear about this: you can genuinely think whatever vile things you want about fictional characters. you can enjoy any problematic shit you want with little guys who don't actually exist.

like, here's an example I use a lot: I'm kind of a huge Batman fan. don't know if you could tell that or not, I'm pretty subtle about it. if you spend any time in the Batman mythos, you know that this is a story where you just kind of have to take for granted that our hero is a billionaire using his vast wealth to dispatch vigilante justice with military grade weaponry and a small army of child soldiers and cop friends to help him put people in prison. these are moral quandaries that are discussed and acknowledged within the story, but fundamentally the universe is always going to involve billionaire vigilantism and child soldiers and the so-called carceral justice system. that's just the price of admission if you're gonna read Batman.

and like. I spend a lot of time in that world. I love Batman, I love his child soldiers. he's my little blorbo or whatever. but like, at no point have I said "yeah, fuck it, preteens should be learning martial arts to fight domestic terrorists, actually. I think Elon Musk SHOULD be allowed to put on a fursuit and beat up criminals. cops need more funding." no amount of Batman comics can make me believe or act on any of those things because, you know, I'm a person with a brain and I know the difference between "thing that makes a good story" and "thing that should actually happen for real."

and the thing is that genuinely, honestly, if someone thought that it was a red flag that I like Batman, and that enjoying Batman comics was somehow a red flag indicating that I'm fine with violence being done against real, actual children? I would think that person was a nut, if I can be super real. like, I'm thinking about somebody trying to make the case that I shouldn't be allowed to hang out with my nephew because I enjoy the fictional character of Robin so clearly I'm going to kill my nephew's parents in front of him to try to get him into vigilante justice. or if someone attempted to bar me from teaching my 4th-6th grade sex ed classes on the grounds that I was obviously going to teach them to do karate to clowns instead of how their reproductive systems worked.

(although, lets be real, there are a lot of politicians who would MUCH rather let little kids cage fight each other than learn anything about safer sex.)

this doesn't just apply to morally bad things, either, btw. I also read a lot of romance novels, especially hetero romances. and the thing is, not one of those books has made me want to fall in love with a ruggedly handsome but condescending straight man. hell, none of them have made me want to fall in love with anybody, period. that's not really something I'm interested in for myself, it's just a fun and frequently funny dynamic to explore. I'm hardly the first queer person to point out that the allegations that queer media "turns kids gay/trans" is obviously bullshit since the vertible mountain of cishet media evidently failed to turn any of us straight/cis, you know?

my point being: no, I genuinely don't think it's often, if ever, reasonable to judge someone's actual, real life morals by how they interact with fiction.

I'm going to say something so vulnerable right now, because we're in a safe space here: since you asked me this very reasonable question, you evidently value my judgment and perspective at least a little bit. and I once read and thoroughly enjoyed a fic in which Dr. Horrible, from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, gets fucked by a sapient evil horse. and I don't think that makes me a morally reprehensible person, or a person who advocates for real human beings having real sex with real horses. I think it just makes me kind of a weirdo with a bullshit tolerance.

if you want to hear a MUCH more thorough take on this, complete with addressing the issue of shipping fictional children, I cannot recommend Princess Weekes' video essay enough:

[darklinaforever]

All the posts being horrified at people shipping Edwin with the Cat King make me laugh.

The delirium of being alarmed because the Cat King would be an adult and Edwin a minor kills me with laughter.

Edwin is certainly a 16 year old ghost, but... it's all in his description. A ghost. And he's been a ghost for a long, long time.

Are you telling me that he hasn't had time to evolve in all these years, and especially since his traumatic stay in hell ?

A little logic please. Edwin does not remain at the same point as when he died, frozen forever. He’s a character with an arc and development. And then, you're not telling me that Edwin behaves like a typical immature teenager ?!

And the Cat King may be thousands of years old but he behaves very immature most of the time. In fact, you could even say like a teenage form. Objectively speaking, he does not appear morally very different from the other official adolescent characters in the show.

And then, this kind of consideration of age will always make me laugh, when we are essentially talking about two supernatural beings ! Conclusion : We don’t care about their age difference !

And let's not even talk about those who are angry with this bracelet story, while I still point out that it was literally a punishment for Edwin having performed an equivalent in terms of spell on one of his cats, with Edwin having himself been quite condescending about this / these animals about how they all look alike to him.

The bracelet is a consequence and punishment for Edwin's actions.

It's not for nothing that the Cat King tells Edwin exactly the line he told him about not seeing the evil in a little spell.

Then... accusing the Cat King of being a sexual and other abuser, as well as a potential rapist... Wtf ?

Already, it's forgotten that clearly, during the scene and all the others where the Cat King tried to seduce Edwin... Well our dear ghost seemed more than appreciative.

For those who don't understand, the Cat King is literally what allows Edwin to finally embrace his sexuality ! Without Cat King, probably no love confession to Charles !

And in fact, it's a good thing that Cat King was interested in Edwin and showed interest in him, tried to seduce him, etc. It's not negative in his purpose. Edwin is this guy who is quite stuck while the Cat King is very extroverted and helps to unblock our ghost.

It makes me laugh even more to see all these people screaming in defense of Edwin, his physical integrity, etc, while our ghost boy... well he clearly wouldn't have been against kissing the Cat King and maybe even more at the beginning.

Need to watch their scenes again properly... Edwin's body language doesn't show that he's uncomfortable.

Okay maybe he is, but in the sense that the Cat King reminds him of his lack of experience, but beyond that, very clearly, in general, around the Cat King, (except when he takes the appearance of Charles, obviously he feels uncomfortable in that moment) Edwin seems simply extremely attracted to the Cat King / receptive to his advances :

Same with all those people being mad that the Cat King forced Edwin to tell the truth.

I repeat... THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE POSITIVE FOR EDWIN ! THIS ALLOWS HIM TO EVOLVE ON HIMSELF !

I'm not saying that the Cat King behaves morally (as for offering Edwin to sleep with him in exchange for his freedom before offering to count the cats, or forcing him by magic to reveal what he really thinks), not at all. He is clearly a form of antagonist / anti-hero, neither good nor bad, and finally rather neutral in the plots of the show.

But this character and actions essentially only serves the positive evolution of Edwin's character regarding everything related to sexuality, but not just that, also his emotional relationships with other men AKA Charles. Again, without the Cat King Edwin probably wouldn't have confessed his feelings to Charles. So the Cat King essentially allows Edwin to fully embrace who he is as an individual, his complete identity.

And it's nothing new that a morally questionable character with morally questionable actions has this kind of role in relation to the protagonist.

Seriously, the antagonist who allows the hero's sexual awakening, as well as its deepening on itself is as old as time. Even more so when this antagonist and hero share similar characteristics such as their loneliness.

Besides, it's not for nothing that the first real kiss that Edwin gives himself to someone is to the Cat King (especially after all this talk about kissing and Edwin finally understanding their appeals), even if it's on the cheek that still a kiss. A second kiss more precisely, which he gives on his own and which is much better than his first with the crow.

Crying foul about this makes me wonder what universe these people who are complaining live in as for the codes of fiction. Again, people who cannot see beyond the surface should not be allowed to open their mouths.

[hainethehero]

So I made the mistake of stumbling onto the NOT STEVE ROGERS FRIENDLY tag today and..

You have to be a special type of delusional to be this obsessed with a character you don't like!??

Over 2k fics have the tag and are almost entirely Tony Stark-centered fics. I'm assuming these are the "fans" who totally buy into the MCU canon and don't know any other Captain America lore outside of what Feige and Whedon have done. Or, they're the "fans" who refuse to understand the politics behind Steve's character and how he was inherently undermined throughout the entire ten years of the MCU by the directors and writers for most of the films.

Because the arguments in most of these fics for being "not Steve rogers friendly" are really surface level shit like:

1) "Steve refused to sign the Accords and broke up the Avengers" (he was right & he didn't break them up, an overemotional Tony did when he refused to listen to Bucky's side of the story).

2) Steve fought Tony and almost killed him (yeah, like Tony didn't blast Bucky's arm off and shoot his repulsor rays directly at Steve).

3)Steve is homophobic (y'all are just making up reasons to hate this man atp)

4)Steve is racist (Steve hated racists & you'd know that if you read the comics, or you guys are just that deluded that you're making Steve racist & trying to project it as canon and therefore a "reasonable" explanation as to why you hate him)

5)Blaming Steve for Rhodey's accident (WHICH WAS TEAM TONY'S FAULT!)

6)YALL, THEY MADE STEVE THE BAD GUY IN A BROCK RUMLOW/BUCKY FIC! I stg I cannot make this shit up💀 Steve's bad for wanting Bucky to be Bucky again, but somehow Brock's the good guy for wanting Bucky to be the Soldier...

Steve left Bucky for Peggy (we'll get to this soon)

There's a hundred more irrational reasons for the Steve Rogers hate, but let me get to the WORST part.

THERE ARE BUCKY STANS WHO ARE ANTI-STEVE ROGERS.

And I'm sorry, no. I don't accept that you love Bucky Barnes but hate the one person he loves the most in the world.

They argued in a couple fics that "Bucky also went rogue after Siberia but he didn't want to associate with Steve, Nat & the rest of the team- WHO HELPED RESCUE BUCKY & EVENTUALLY EXONERATE HIM- but rather, he went off on his own & eventually Tony finds him, they hash it out and become friends to lovers."

Helppp???? Wdym Bucky isn't gonna stick with the one man he's been keeping diaries about to try and get back his memories? But he'll go to the one guy that re-traumatized him by blowing out his arm again?

Not only that, but Bucky absolutely hates Steve in some of these fics and the reason will be, "he left Bucky to go back to Peggy." Like, you cannot be a serious fan if you're still going with the Endgame canon. For a majority of us, we recognize Endgame as being nothing but terrible writing and mischaracterizations. Why are yall not analyzing and interpreting media critically? The MCU has never been on Steve's side and have always diminished his character in an attempt to make Tony the ultimate hero of the OG 6. Don't yall know the discourse? It's embarrassing atp.

And this is my stance on the entire thing: there's nothing wrong with writing fics about characters you don't necessarily like or aren't interested in. It's OKAY if you don't like Steve Rogers- but you've gotta be rational about him, instead of hateful. Most, if not all of these "anti-steve" fics are written in bad faith. Bad understanding of the character and pure, shameless mischaracterizations which just makes these types of fics fickle and weak- hilarious to read though cos that Brock one had me deadddd😭💀.

[hussyknee]

This is, bar none, the funniest fucking completely unironic shit published by a legitimate news outlet:

In recent months, orcas in the waters off the Iberian Peninsula have taken to ramming boats. The animals have already sunk three this year and damaged several more. After one of the latest incidents, in which a catamaran lost both of its rudders, the boat’s captain suggested that the assailants have grown stealthier and more efficient: “Looks like they knew exactly what they are doing,” he said. Scientists have documented hundreds of orca-boat incidents off the Spanish-Portuguese coast since 2020, but news coverage of these attacks is blowing up right now, thanks in part to a creative new theory about why they’re happening: cetacean vengeance. Now that’s a story! “The orcas are doing this on purpose,” Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, told LiveScience last month. “Of course, we don’t know the origin or the motivation, but defensive behavior based on trauma, as the origin of all this, gains more strength for us every day.” López Fernandez, who co-authored a 2022 paper on human-orca interactions in the Strait of Gibraltar, speculates that a specific female, known to scientists as White Gladis, may have suffered a “critical moment of agony” at the hands of humans, attacked a boat in retaliation, and then taught other whales to do the same. Whatever the truth of this assertion, White Gladis and her kin have quickly ascended to folk-heroic status on the internet. “What the marine biologists are framing as revenge based on one traumatic experience may be a piece of a larger mobilization towards balance,” the poet Alexis Pauline Gumbs tweeted before referring to the killer whales as “revolutionary mother teachers.” Media figures and academics are expressing solidarity with their “orca comrades” and support for “orca saboteurs.” One widely circulating graphic shows a pod smashing a boat from below, above the words “JOIN THE ORCA UPRISING.” (You can even purchase it in sparkly sticker form.) Yet all of this fandom and projection tends to overlook important facts: First, these orcas are likely to be playing with the boats rather than attacking them, and second, if one insists on judging killer whales in human terms, it’s plain to see they aren’t heroes but sadistic jerks.

A shark wrote this.

The recent incidents, none of which has resulted in any injuries to humans, are simply the result of curiosity, Monika Wieland Shields, the co-director of the Orca Behavior Institute in Washington, told me. A juvenile may have started interacting in this way with boats, she said, and then its habit spread through the local community of killer whales. Such cultural trends have been observed before: In the Pacific Northwest, orcas have been playing with buoys and crab pots for years; in the late 1980s, one group of orcas there famously took to wearing salmon hats. Is ramming boats the new donning fish? Shields believes that theory makes more sense than López Fernandez’s appeal to orca trauma. White Gladis shows no physical evidence of injury or trauma, Shields told me, so any “critical moment of agony” is purely speculative. Also, humans have given orcas ample reason to retaliate for hundreds of years. We’ve invaded their waters, kidnapped their young, and murdered them in droves. And yet, there is not a single documented instance of orcas killing humans in the wild. Why would they react only now? And though recent events may fit the story of these orcas’ being anti-colonial warriors, you can’t just anthropomorphize animals selectively. What about all the other “evidence” we have of orcas’ cruelty, or even wickedness? Scientists say they hunt and slaughter sharks by the dozen, picking out the liver from each one and leaving the rest of the carcasses to rot uneaten. Orcas kill for sport. They push, drag, and spin around live prey, including sea turtles, seabirds, and sea lions. Some go so far as to risk beaching themselves in order to snag a baby seal—not to consume, but simply to torture it to death. Once you start applying human ethical standards to apex predators, things turn dark fast.

Oh no, they gleefully torment other animals for sport!! Does this species deserve to have any redeeming qualities???

Perhaps #orcauprising was inevitable. Humanity does have, after all, a long history of freighting cetaceans with higher meaning. Moby Dick is, among other things, a symbol of the sublime. The biblical whale—or is it a large fish?—that swallows Jonah is an instrument of divine retribution, a means of punishing the wicked in much the same way some have framed the boat-wrecking orcas. The whale 52 Blue, known as the loneliest whale in the world because she speaks in a frequency inaudible, or at least incomprehensible, to her brethren, has become a canvas for all shades of human sorrow and angst. Orcas in particular have long been objects of both fear and sympathy, in some cases with an explicitly anti-capitalist tint. The 1993 classic Free Willy centers on a conniving park owner’s scheme to profit off of the bond between a child and a young killer whale. And more recently, the 2013 documentary Blackfish chronicles SeaWorld’s real-life exploitation of captive orcas. The “orca uprising” narrative fits neatly into this lineage. In our present era of environmental catastrophe, Shields told me, it’s appealing to think that nature might fight back, that the villains get their just deserts. But projection and anthropomorphization are only shortcuts to a shallow sympathy. Orcas really are capable of intense grief; they are also capable of tormenting seal pups as a hobby. They are intelligent, emotionally complex creatures. But they are not us.

Someone paid this dude actual money to conclude that Orcas aren't human.

In conclusion:

[elainsgirl]

Hey! Just wanted to say I love seing a strong Elain supporter on this app!

And to make a quick comment on what makes me giggle about the over blown fascination with Gwyn's character that I noticed. I see the same argument that Elain is 'boring' and Gwyn is a 'warrior'. Even while reading fanfiction I see the same pattern. Elain is usually portrayed in rather canon fashion. Demure, gardening, trying to help, getting spying lessons from Az and twins. Helping her family through non warrior strenght. You can actually see it playing out like that since its close to the canon material.

Yet Gwyn is always 'the warrior'. The savior, hero of Prythian, leader of Valkyrie. With a sword healding hand protects the world and the man she loves! And I always smile at this, cause it just proves how majority of tiktok fandom has created their own fictional version of Gwyn. Cause in the canon material we never saw her be a warrior.

They say Elain did nothing, but neither did Gwyn truly. All she did was cut a ribbon and manipulated a beast (which again begs the question - lightsinger?). But apart from that, she really wasn't written in a warrior way. According to the book she didn't even finish the rite technically. Book Gwyn is rather gentle and shy, trying to rebuilt herself from the traumatic events in her life. She's afraid of everything and if they wanted to pick a mate for Az they should have picked Emerie. She carried Gwyn up the mountain. She's an illyrian, and having an illyrian love interest for Az who hates him illyrian side would have been awesome. But no. They pretty much picked a red-haired Elain.

Awe, Thank you 💕

Elain has always and will always be my No.1 girl,

Gwyn is a sweet character. She has the perfect, likeable traits. Flawless. Little depth or complexity. Besties with Nesta. Perfect at everything. Badass. Etc etc. She has enough background to give you the general gist of who she is but not enough that her stans can’t self-insert or shape her to be the way they want which is evident in their fanfics, theories and Hcs. Fanon Gwyn and Canon Gwyn are two completely different characters, canon Gwyn is not that popular. Fanom Gwyn that Gwynriels have built up is. Thats why Gwyn is so popular, she is the ideal fmc gwynriels want whereas “boring” Elain isn’t. Lmfao, even eluciens change Elains personality to be more extroverted and fit Lucien better instead of adhering by Elains canon traits, are we suprised? No. Canon and antis do not mix well.

The hilarious thing is - People did ship Az and Emerie bcs of the reasons you listed. But then Emerie turned out to be possibly gay so anti elriels had to find another character to ship Az with God forbid he ends up with the woman he actually wants. In comes Gwyn and Ta da! You have her being shipped w gwynrieo despite neither showing any romantic interest in each other. The whole gwynriel ship is based on fanon which cool. Thats good for them but you can quite literally do that w any characters.

If Mass wanted Az to end up with a badass, bubbly warrior she would have had Mor and Az end up together. Instead of bringing in a whole new Li for Az so late into a series that too in a standalone book. There is 0 difference between Moriels dynamic and Gwynriels. Same ship, different font. Yet Mass broke up Moriel and chose to develop Az and Elain romantically and plotwise. Why? Bcs she wants the two beautiful, quiet introverts to end up together.

[givehimthemedicine]

"I can't lose you" vs. "You're not going"

so many times that Mike expresses love for El or concern for her safety, he frames it on himself, and how losing her would impact him.

it's true that Mike's adolescence shouldn't have to be so heavily shaped by traumatic losses. it's true that El shouldn't be obligated to keep putting her life on the line. these two have this repeatedly clashing survivors-guilt / hero-obligation thing going on that makes this all so complicated. I'm not painting a 13 year old boy as bad for not articulating a complex issue. this isn't an anti-Mike post.

what I'm focused on here isn't Mike's thought process but what El actually hears come out of his mouth, because that's all she has to go on.

and what she keeps hearing from him throughout the show is that his love for her, and wishes for her not to die, tend to sound motivated by fears about the emotional consequences for himself rather than concern for her wellbeing.

2x9. El, about to walk back into the building where she was imprisoned and abused all her life and use her powers to a potentially life threatening intensity with the burden of the literal world on her shoulders, has to spend her parting moment with Mike reassuring him that he won't experience loss.

3x6. El, for the first time in her life finally hears someone say they love her, and in the same breath the frame gets pulled back onto Mike's own fear of loss again, because again it's about her risking her life / using her powers. (not to mention, after it's all over and done without Mike having lost anyone, she tries to follow up on the I love you and he pretends he has no idea what she's even talking about)

4x9. El hears Mike elaborate on the "I can't lose you" concept at length while in doing so literally (ofc unintentionally) causing her to lose Max. his long awaited love declaration speech is focused mostly on himself rather than naming anything he loves about El beyond her abilities. which seems to be the moment it really clicks for El that this ain't it.

now consider El's response to Max's death.

there couldn't have been a more perfect opportunity to give her Mike's usual line, "I can't lose you!" but they didn't draw that parallel.

even in the privacy of the void, El doesn't speak on her own loss. her words are a direct response and reassurance to Max's last ("I don't wanna go, I'm not ready!" -> "You're not going"), even knowing she can't hear her for multiple reasons at this point. she listened to Max. she doesn't make it about herself. her concern is framed solely on Max.

[atopvisenyashill]

IF YOU LIKE THIS ASOIAF CHARACTER, I THINK YOU’LL LIKE THIS FARSCAPE CHARACTER

i did a “all gays” thing for my birthday last year but i was too lazy this year. instead here is my opinion of farscape & asoiaf characters, comparing characters i think are similar.

if you like theon greyjoy…i think you’ll like john crichton (he’s the main character).

Conga Line Of Trauma

Very loose grip on reality

Struggles with choosing between the family he’s been kidnapped into and the family he was born into

Top Two best story arcs about male victims of sexual trauma imo

Copes by imagining himself as a character in a story rather than face his reality

Pathetic wet cat of a man

if you like jaime lannister…i think you’ll like aeryn sun

theyre hot shit and everyone knows it even though they hate it - the ☀️ radiant aeryn sun☀️ and “was there ever a man as beautiful and terrible”

Well known for being good at their job (which is killing people)

Idealist that got that idealism beaten out of them

constantly repressing emotions

an arc that is very romance centered but atypical as a traditional romance

if you like brienne and/or sandor…i think you’ll like ka d’argo.

Young, experienced but not too experienced military type

Struggles with idealism and what being a soldier/knight should mean

Not forthcoming about backstory

Struggles with temper

Cool And Important Weapon And Mount

Considered mindlessly violent by many

Very weird about romance and sex

if you like catelyn stark…i think you’ll like pa’u zotah zhaan

religious and maternal

pacifist tendencies but also will cut a bitch if pressed

Infamous for being unpleasant

Traumatic death scenes

Questionable relationship with the concept of dying and staying dead

MILFs

if you like sansa and arya stark…i think you’ll like chiana

Their Series’ Hottest It Girls

Idolizes rebellion leading older brother (who ultimately abandons her in favor of his rebellion)

Desperate for family

Holds emotions close, but highly emotional

Taste for finer things in life

Baby of the group

Struggles with grief and anger

Spunky go getter

Questionable taste in romantic relationships

if you like tyrion lannister….i think you’ll like scorpius

mother died birthing him and he struggles with this immensely

tormented by a crazy ruthless woman in power

feels betrayed by a lover of a lower social status just trying to get by and gets real violent over it

The Anti Villain - has very good reasons to be insane but holy shit is he insane

Always survives despite all odds against him

If you like Joffrey Baratheon…I think you’ll like Dominar Rygel XVI (hear me out!)

Absolute ruler who faces civil war

Wildly misogynistic weirdo

Weak grasp on morality

Turned into a violent, selfish asshole as a trauma response

Hates women yet his deepest, most profound and intimate relationships are with a woman he’s not even fucking

Remains selfish and violent throughout the story but also, if you talk shit about him i will throw hands

if you like samwell tarly…i think you’ll like Pilot.

Couple of sweet fools

Underrated for being a bad ass

Intimate relationship with a Very Cool Lady From A Bad Situation (gilly/moya. moya is a living ship btw).

Just wants to be a nerd and hang with his gf (again, gilly and moya)

Doesn’t believe in himself the way he should

if you like stannis baratheon…i think you’ll like bailar crais.

Is he a hero? is he a villain? is he an anti villain? is he an anti hero? you decide!

loses his everloving mind after his brother dies

sad traumatic childhood backstory

an arc focused on what service and leadership means

[SPOILER REDACTED]

HE thinks he’s the straight man in a circle of freaks and he thinks this while being objectively the biggest freak there

and last but not least let’s go to my babies!!!!

if you like bran stark…i think you’ll like stark.

Overwhelming magical abilities

Connects magically in intimate, voyeuristic ways

Potentially unkillable

Considered a sweetie by Local MILF (his mom/zhaan)

Struggles processing a personal loss

A narrative focus on the importance of bodily autonomy

Doesn’t have as much screentime/page time as he deserves

[snopiah]

i see qjaidens involvement with the Cucuruchos as an act of betrayal to the island, bc she enables them to get away with the horrible things they’ve done to her other friends. Yeah, she hasn’t seen the magnitude of what they’ve done, bc to her Cucurucho is nice and hasn’t done anything to her, but she’s aware of the kidnappings and threats and the chainsaws.

Her neutrality to the face of The Federation is actually really dangerous bc she chooses to separate Cucurucho from The Federation and gambles on the possibility that Cucurucho is just an innocent pawn in the grand scheme of things.

In reality though, Cucurucho has some form of autonomy as well. It laughs at the misfortune of quackity and cellbit, and openly threatens the citizens of the island.

(whether or not cucurucho is an AI programmed to just do the bidding of the Fed. or is actually a species like the other faceless federation workers is very vague. So we can make excuses that it doesn’t know any better as it is programmed that way, but that just means that Cucurucho IS the federation and if that’s the case, then it’s extra concerning that Q!Jaiden is willing to believe in it)

in the beginning, jaiden chose to be friends with Cucurucho bc she believes that this is what will help them keep the eggs safe and get her the most information. And im wondering if she lost sight of that goal as she spent more time with Cucurucho, and has possibly skewed her thinking to defending Cucurucho more rather than getting info?

Or maybe she’s doing an uno reverse and she’s marinating Cucurucho AND the audience 🤷🏻‍♀️

do i like what q!jaidens choices are? mmmm not really, i���m on the side of getting the islanders to leave the island, and them not getting traumatized in every which way.

do i think it’s super cool of her to be some type of morally-grey anti-hero with a greater yet selfish goal? fUCK YEAH. her character has so many layers and is super interesting to pick apart and examine.

[zeroducks-2]

I've just finished Gotham Knights and I get that people aren't happy with the fucked ass haircuts but like, I do believe this is the most progressive and well written Jason Todd we've ever gotten in recent times. Even in recent comics. Like damn, bro goes to therapy, picked up his interests and hobbies again (e.g. the cooking and the reading and the shit talking) from his "Robin makes me Magic" days. Like yeah, he's still edgy, but he was murdered by a fucking Clown, he's allowed to be edgy. We got a Jason Todd that isn't diluted to "the angry black sheep character" archetype. He's healing, working on himself, his relationship with his family, and he's fighting his way (brutal and all strength and tact) to do what he stands for and what he believes is right. And his heart is just so big and full of compassion, but it doesnt blind him and make him wishful or naive. He's so well balanced in Gotham Knights. I hope this version of his character is written in future comics. I'm sick of DC writers making him this angry anti-hero who's only reasoning and purpose in life is to get back at Batman for failing him and so many others. Jason is allowed to be more than his trauma. Thank you Gotham Knights for seeing that.

I'm glad you enjoyed the game anon. I personally am not a fan, not because of Jason but because of the game itself. The dialogues felt stale, more reminiscent of tumblr "incorrect Batfam quotes" than the source material, and the NPCs felt dull compared to how full of life they were in the Arkham series (so much so I would hide in random spots just to hear them talking about the current game events, especially in AK). The most unforgivable bit to me was Tim not having ever fought the rogues because he's "young" - I've never seen anything more insulting and infantilizing for a character which already heavily suffers for being treated as the useless one, never allowed to participate in the game changing dynamics or to have meaningful arcs, and is relegated to being the cute little bisexual twink.

That being said it's a matter of taste, and Gotham Knights is surely a good game for those who prefer a wholesome loving family approach to these characters. Jason working on himself and going to therapy and having a good relationship with his "family" is surely what lots of people (especially in here) want to see. Me, I don't think any amount of therapy would help since therapy is based on shared human experiences and repetition of patterns, and Jason died and dug himself out of his own grave. That's not a trauma any therapist would have the means to help with. They indeed "diluted" the event in the game, changed the fact that Jason dug himself out of his own grave and was functionally braindead and homeless for two years, and made it so UTRH never happened in order for therapy to make any sense, because there is no reconciliation possible with a parent that slit your neck to save the person who broke all your bones with a crowbar and then murdered you.

It's kinda like when Wally went to therapy (canonically) after Barry's death. The therapist was a good one and he tried! But ultimately he didn't manage to make a real difference because Wally is the Flash, a super-powered creature with time bending powers who does things on the scale of absurdity, and who also happens to have had an extremely traumatic childhood and to have just lost the only person who ever loved him unconditionally. His problems have roots in reality but are out of the scope of any therapy method currently known to man.

And Jason is more than his trauma, but pretending his trauma doesn't inform his actions and can be solved with him "working on himself" is not an approach I hope they take in comics. I'd rather they went back to Jason doing things his way and protecting the people of Gotham in the only manner he finds helpful, because he experienced on his own skin (twice!) that Batman's methods don't work. I'd rather they allowed him to stop clashing with Bruce as main theme of his stories, and have his own plotlines in which he's in between a vigilante and a mafia lord (which they were doing with Dick by the way, before chickening out and have Slade bomb Bludhaven) with Bruce only as a cameo sometimes.

We have a high number of morally irrepressible characters who always do the right thing more or less. I'd like Jason to be something different, something darker, because there is a dramatic lack of grey characters and anti-heroes which were sanded down to either 100% bad guys or 100% good guys. I hate that, why can't we have nuanced choices and people struggling with the darkness they carry, why does everyone need to be a perfect "unproblematic" paragon of goodness who would never do anything wrong. We have A LOT of characters like that and I love them, I really do! But if everyone and their families are like that then it's really frickin boring!

Plus, I'd like the characters to actually struggle with their past traumas in a meaningful way, otherwise why even giving them those traumas to begin with. Give me Tim still grappling with how he couldn't save his father, give me Dick haunted by all the times he slipped and let go of the no killing rule in a way or another, give me Jason haunted by the tragedy of being abandoned by every person who was supposed to protect him and working from there to being the protector of everyone else.

That's what I hope DC would pick up and write about. I was never much for fluff and wholesome things unless it's in small amounts, I always preferred strife and complexity. But hey, I'm glad you enjoyed the game, at least one of us did!

[theverumproject]

OC Smash or Pass Tag!

Thank you for the tag @topazadine! I was too late to vote on your post, but I would have befriended Uileac :)

I of course have to make this post about Dethra! This hot killer robot is the sexiest motherfucker in the entirety of the Verum Series! (Until now, he's gonna have some competition in the future ;) )

Dethra, originally known as “Project Deathrage”, was built to serve as a weapon of war. Fortunately, his highly developed AI gained sapience rather quickly. So he went against his creators and destroyed them all after they killed his best and only friend, Michael. The person who had helped him and kept his sapience a secret for years. 

Michael's last wish was for him to keep his daughter safe, Luce Balton, the main character of this series, starting off with Verum I: The Awakening

At the current point of my WIP, The Robotic Era (2093), Dethra is a leading scientist of the world. As a walking supercomputer, he has come up with many great ideas on how to improve life in the last couple of decades. While almost nobody knows about this side of Dethra, he is publicly known to be a serial killer and mass murderer. You see, he is somewhat of an anti hero. He is fighting for the good of humanity, he has given himself the purpose of protecting the innocent. But to protect the innocent, he kills the monsters of this world. He bloodies his hands to continue on hearing the joyful laughter of children, the chitter of a lovely couple and to see the bright eyes of an elderly person shining until their very last moments. For everybody felt safe and happy, in a world that has left behind its cruelty.

Dethra is a hulking piece of black metal (2.50 m / 8”2) that absorbs almost a hundred percent of light. He finds the peak male body aesthetically pleasing, so he built his body like one. His “abdominal muscles” are even highlighted with red lights. The same red as his unicolored eyes. But eyes are the only features that his face has, there is no nose or mouth, at least not one that you can see. He does have a little secret hidden inside his head though.

This killer robot is the definition of a gentle giant, a hard shell and a soft core. Two of the things that he absolutely loves are children and animals, he would do everything to protect them. He wishes he could have children, but he knows that he would never be the father that a child deserves. Gone so often from home, busy with one of his “killing sprees”. But he is happy to never be alone, after all, he does have a lovely boyfriend and girlfriend, with whom he shares an apartment with.

Their man loves to tease them in any way he can and he also always wants to make them laugh. He loves to be a smartass for fun and always bullies his loved ones. In a lighthearted way of course.

Pros:

Funny

Protective

Lovely to be with (When you're on his good side)

Loves animals and children

Highly intelligent

Very strong

Very fast

Quick thinking

Has invented many things

Can technically perform surgery

Confident

Attractive

Loyal

Is a robot

Amortal

Has saved countless of lives

Cons:

Kills a lot

Has committed many other crimes

Maybe a little difficult to kiss (Cuz he's so tall and doesn't have lips)

Brutality 

Has tortured people

Traumatized a thousands of people (even innocent people)

Not very soft to cuddle

Doesn't have the best reputation with certain people

Lack of empathy towards certain people

Morbid

Can get reckless (arson is pretty reckless, eh?)

Feared

Intimidating

If Dethra met you before he met his future boy– and girlfriend, and has madly fallen in love with you, would you smash or pass?

Tags: @creative-author @rivenantiqnerd @teamarine777 + open tag!

Get on my tag list here

[narutocharacterpolls]

Now that the semi-finals polls ended, would you like to share your opinion on Kakashi's character? :)

Pie splat deserved

I think it’s obvious that I take in the story broadly through a Sasuke lens and so the biggest reason I hate Kakashi is because of the way he treats Sasuke. There are other reason sprinkled throughout but that’s why I mainly dislike him.

However firstly, I think it’s obvious based on the group of characters I’ve made clear are some of my favourites, but I’m very anti-Konoha and don’t like bootlickers. So that immediately makes me criticize Kakashi and knocks some respect I could have for him off.

Anyways, Kakashi is incapable of treating team 7, most specifically Sasuke but it does affect all of them, normally because he cannot stop projecting team Minato onto his team, and that heavily affects the ways that he interacts and treats his team. He obviously projects himself onto Sasuke and as a result treats him really weirdly imo due to his own self loathing. He teaches Sasuke (a severely traumatized child) the chidori in an attempt to alleviate his own guilt from creating the jutsu that killed his best friend. I really don’t see much, if any, reason that Kakashi did this outside of his own selfishness and he most certainly didn’t think it through in the context of Sasuke. Again, because he views Sasuke as a reflection of himself rather than being his own unique person. He then goes on to literally tie Sasuke to a tree and scorn him for using the chidori (and may I add— while I’m aware Sasuke asked for the fight against Naruto, Sasuke only raised the chidori in defence when Naruto raised his rasengan) and seeking revenge against Itachi (y’know, the man that killed his entire clan, manipulated him, and tortured him by making him watch Itachi killing his family for 72 hours straight), then he LEFT HIM THERE TIED UP TO THE TREE. Not to mention he once again reflects himself onto Sasuke by saying he personally didn’t seek revenge and chose to move on. They are not in the same situation. At all. Sorry but that just rubs on me very unpleasantly.

A lot of my distaste was actually from him in Shippuuden though because his treatment and attitude towards Sasuke just gets worse. When Sakura tries to go to kill Sasuke and he shows up he decides that getting Sakura and getting out isn’t the right thing to do, but decides it’s his turn to try to kill him….. Ehem….. Alright….. Claims that Sasuke has turned to some kind of dark side but claims Obito to still be a hero of Konoha later on….. What a man. Still on the topic of Sakura trying to kill Sasuke, he criticizes Sasuke not once, but twice (later on during a war…. There are bigger things to focus on here) about how crazy and messed up it was for Sasuke to attack Sakura…. When he didn’t just attack her, he acted in self defence after she tried to kill him. But does Kakashi critique Sakura outside of saying she knows she wouldn’t be able to beat Sasuke? No, he doesn’t.

With Sakura on the mind, literally during war arc (once again, more important things to focus on here) he tells Sasuke that Sakura suffers from loving him and that no one needs a reason to love someone, just to hate someone. This is such disgusting behaviour to me as he once again is discarding Sasukes feelings and what Sasuke has stated he wants. Sasuke had literally just told Kakashi how he feels but Kakashi does not care about what Sasuke desires. But it doesn’t matter to Kakashi because to him Sasuke is a reflection of himself and since Kakashi doesn’t view it that way Sasuke isn’t allowed to. It’s a really gross sentiment.

The whole thing of how Kakashi treated Tobi revealing the truth of the Uchiha genocide and the way he reacted to it is also incredibly upsetting. And that revelation still didn’t change the way Kakashi viewed Sasuke at all. He still felt it was right to try to immediately kill Sasuke rather than… Approach him in a similar way to Naruto. But whatever, I don’t feel like getting much into this whole thing though.

There’s other random things, he’s hypocritical within his view of Sasuke’s revenge, I find him overrated as a “powerful fighter”, I personally find him having the sharingan uncomfortable and undeserved, he did not show care for Sakura in the way he did to the other two in classic, bootlicker Hokage, ect., but I’m not going to delve into anything else because I don’t feel like it lol.

All in all I don’t care about people that do like Kakashi, but it annoys be that he’s so often portrayed as someone that he isn’t. I know there’s some good to Kakashi, I find his back story rather interesting as well, he has handled some things well, but the negatives heavily outweigh the positives for me. To Kakashi lovers that decided to read this, you are valid and it’s okay to like him. I just don’t.

[hungrydolphin91]

ok I had to go make my own post about Eugene Cassette Beasts, it's not fair for me to fill up everyone else's tags w how much I love this guy. I wanted to speculate a little about his backstory here cause it honestly fascinates me and I feel like I havent seen this happen much in other media, much less turn based monster collecting RPGs.

So Eugene is from a future world (seemingly the only party member who is except maybe Barkley but he's a dog so.) It sounds like he's from the turn of the century, maybe 2100 or so, and mentions in his rank 3 friendship that in his world, there was a massive reformation when society as a while realized they couldn't keep fucking each other over and destroying the planet, so everyone worked hard to abolish the kinds of structures that unilaterally hurt people (for instance, capitalism). Sounds like a utopia right?

Eugene only says good things about his world really, how much people value acts of goodness and kindness. But he says it all with such a sad tone, like something he's missing out on, because he thinks he is, he didn't fit in. He says that he wasn't great at being helpful all the time, which is why he wants to do better in New Wirral, a world removed from his own where he can be a better person than he was in his own world.

But the thing is, he IS a nice person. Maybe that's by design, everything he does in New Wirral is about him playing the hero, but it's also oh so clear that he brought his own expectations of goodness from his own timeline and they're just as much of a burden here. Even when hes succeeding, he won't cut himself slack, he says he needs to have a cause to rally behind, or what that archangel said to him would be proven true: he IS empty. Or at least, useless, which is probably the same thing to him.

What really grabs me about all of this though (besides the usual love of angst and guilt complexes and hero complexes and whatnot) is this future of moral reformation. Those are a pretty common historical phenomenon, often involving moral panics and an emphasis on presentation--- what matters is that you LOOK pure compared to others. And poor Eugene just felt like he couldn't keep up just because he has some small selfish impulses, or something in that nature I'd imagine--- I think he'd rather throw himself off a bridge than admit whatever the reason was that he didn't fit in in his own world.

It's easy to see his world being our future, in a way. I'd be delighted if terrible oppressive governments and economic systems were torn down in favor of ones that promote equality and universal well being, but currently moral purity is just as much of a trend as ever--- look at any discussion of book banning, not to mention transphobic legislature, fandom antis and so much more. So this hypothetical future is one where even though the 'right' thing has been done, there's still a subtle form of policing going on to enforce it. Maybe that is successful at keeping cruel practices from coming back. Or maybe it's just traumatizing people like Eugene who feel judged by their every action and pressured to be a saint every single moment of their lives.

One last thing I thought was interesting--- as part of his level 4 friendship rank, Eugene mentions how his parents' generation still seem scarred by the cruelties they endured before this reformation. But Eugene is too young to have lived through it himself so you know what that means?? Generational trauma babyyyyy. He's inherited guilt about a time he wasn't even alive for, along with a pressure to make sure it never ever happens again, so no unkindness is tolerated. It's no wonder this boy has so many issues.

So that's my late night rambles about this guy, probably like 50% of this is just me projecting but it's also fun to dissect what's happening here. Like I said before, it's unusual to see a unique concept like character like Eugene and his world in what appears to be a fun little indie game about turning into monsters with cassettes.

[yallemagne]

I think I have finally figured out the anti-badass Jonathan Harker reasoning. At first, I will admit, I was judgy. I judged the entire group to be the people who would like to see Jono castrated simply for being a popular character. There are still people like that, but it's not the entire group.

TL;DR: I think some people are misconstruing Jonathan having superior strength and reflexes as the writers turning his PTSD into a superpower. This isn't the case, and I do believe a problem is that people refuse to read the stories they are making claims about.

Now, no doubt, some fanworks recently have taken to giving Jonathan superpowers, basically. They do the same with Mina, but she becomes a psychic rather than a strong fast man, so her strengths are not even detected by these outcrying people because they are more subtle.

Here is the thing about superpowers: in media that have powerless people that gain powers, it is nearly always a result of a traumatic event. Even in cases where the hero might not have mental trauma from the event, powers usually result from severe physical trauma. Bruce Banner's gamma radiation, Peter Parker's radioactive spider bite, Barry Allen getting hit by lightning, and a superhero typically not deemed to have superpowers: Bruce Wayne witnessing the murder of his parents.

It's just a trend in stories for people to face adversity and rise above it. In universes that have radioactive spiders, that involves getting spider powers and fighting crime. In a universe with vampires, it involves vampire-like powers and fighting vampires.

Now, there are some cases in which weaponizing the trauma of a character can be very demeaning. Often superhero women who weren't born with superpowers suffer exclusively from sexual trauma. Even superpowered women that were born with it tend to be assaulted as part of their "character arc". This can lead to the terrible assumption that to become a strong woman, you must first suffer through sexual trauma and then get revenge on men. Part of making a character a girlboss is making her a damsel, putting her through a traumatic event that robs her of her femininity, giving her traditionally masculine traits, and then trying to add back in the feminine by having everyone around her objectify her and having her use her sexuality as a weapon.

Perhaps, part of why people have problems with Jonathan getting superpowers is because he's so femme-coded. Um. But he's not a girlboss. He's not really transformed into a traditionally masculine figure unless you think that any amount of physical strength is exclusively masculine. Some people may headcanon him as becoming outwardly aggressive, and that can be seen as "alpha male" material, but most people just have him be slightly more aggressive than he was before his character arc. Just because he is now more active and self-advocating than a damsel does not mean he is a macho man.

Let's go into Jonathan's supernatural strengths and how they could possibly be seen as a derivative of his PTSD.

He has super strength. This is seen in the book when he throws Dracula's dirt box off the back of a cart. Most fanfics that utilize his strength bring this scene up multiple times. Now, an adrenaline rush caused by fear or anger can result in great physical strength in a time of danger. Think like a mother lifting a car to save her child. It is possible because the human body is rather strong and often our own subconscious doubts about our strength can inhibit us.

I've seen in some fanworks that Jonathan can tap into this adrenaline seemingly at will, and someone could interpret this as Jonathan having increased fight-or-flight hormones from his PTSD. Understandable. I think that people lean more toward Jonathan having a strong fight response to perceived danger without acknowledging his instinct to flee or freeze when met with danger. It prioritizes active aggression which can be utilized during a conflict. In the first part of the book, we mostly see him freezing up or fleeing from danger. He runs away from the Weird Sisters rather than trying to fight them and the only fight he gets in before October 3 is slapping Dracula with that shovel. He freezes up and faints both when he meets the Sisters and when he sees Dracula in London. I have already named the instances in which he responds to danger with fight, so, they do exist, but perhaps people want to see more of him running away or freezing up? I suppose it is good to include a variety of reactions because people don't always react in the most convenient way to trauma.

He has heightened reflexes. See how he strikes at Dracula before he has the chance to gloat? See how he chases the man out a window? This is also a result of heightened adrenaline and increased situational awareness possibly caused by his PTSD. He's hyperaware of his surroundings to protect himself and others.

Jonathan having increased situational awareness especially can be seen as a PTSD superpower because it can be so debilitating in real life. I don't think people calling for a more accurate depiction of traumatized Jonathan are asking fanfic writers to write him accidentally cracking every tea cup he ever holds, so his reflexes are probably the thing they take issue with.

LET ME USE AN EXAMPLE. @see-arcane! COME UP ON THE STAGE!!

I'm just thinking about this work in particular because I read it most recently: Penclosa. Spoilers, of course. Go read it.

Well. Um. Yeah, the entire crux of the teaser is that Jonathan is suffering from PTSD and trying to find a treatment that will better the quality of life of both him and Mina... but from personal experience, anyone can just take a single scene from your writing completely out of context and thoroughly change the meaning of the scene by applying their own biases to the work.

Jonathan runs from the very back of an audience onto a stage to prevent a man from caning Miss Penclosa to death. It is very convenient that Jonathan was agile enough to get to the front of the room in time, catch Atherton by the wrist, and chop the cane in one fell swoop. "What happened to his PTSD debilitating him?"

Well, him reacting in this way is a trauma response!

"WHAT?" I hear you cry, "TRAUMA RESPONSES ARE BAD!"

Not always!

Jonathan establishes in the previous scene, after defending Mina's honour against Atherton by running him off, that he was traumatized by the results of him going along with the team's decision to isolate Mina for chauvinistic reasons. What happened to Mina made him decide that he was never going to sit down and stand by while people make disparaging comments about women ever again. No offence is too small, no insult is too minuscule, no aggression is too micro to be countered and corrected. The same man who tried to passively humiliate Mina went on to attack a woman who tricked him into humiliating himself.

Jonathan is suffering every day from the guilt of having put Mina in danger. From having put all of Britain in danger! No matter how many times she tries to get him to realize that he suffered too and that suffering was not earned, he can't accept it. He has survivor's guilt. He throws himself into danger to save a woman he just met. Imagine if he'd gotten on that stage but hadn't caught Atherton's wrist. He would have been injured instead. Why was he able to intercept the man's strike?

HE TRAINS GODDAMMIT.

He has done so much work. He copes with his trauma by conditioning himself to use the effects of it for good. He is riddled with guilt for all the times he froze up or ran away, so he has decided that if he is going to have a radical response to danger, it will be him fighting the danger.

When everyone at the party is like "oh my god you're a hero!" he says "no, I'm not." and it's not just him being humble. It wasn't a conscious decision to save the day, it was instinctual. He has trained his instincts to serve him. Rather than trying to mellow himself out and limit the intensity of his reactions, he uses that intensity as a tool.

You can train your body to react a certain way to outside stimuli. That's part of how therapy helps people. But Jonathan hasn't fully conquered his PTSD simply because he taught himself to redirect his energy. He still has debilitating nightmares and crippling self-doubt.

Buuut if someone just hears that there is a story where Jonathan has super strength and super speed and a super bitch face, they might just be turned off from the get-go and refuse to read the story. And then proceed to spread misinformation about the author's intent because similar themes exist in their other stories. It's unfortunate, but this is the internet.

EDIT: lol, apparently a lot of it is, indeed, just someone who wants to see Jonathan castrated as I said up top, but I made this after seeing a different person with a more tame attitude toward the "issue".

[samasmith23]

Diving into The Abyss arc of Donny Cates' Venom!

I'm currently marathoning Donny Cates' Venom run in the "Venomnibus by Cates & Stegman" that I got as a birthday present this year. I re-read "The Abyss" arc published in Venom (2018) #9-12 just a few nights ago (which was the last arc from the run that I originally read back in 2019), and holy FREAKING crap... I had honestly forgotten just how effectively heavy and powerful this arc truly was!

When I first read this storyline back in 2019, it completely blew me away with its sheer amount of shocking twists and revelations, ranging from the backstory of a teenage Eddie Brock being involved in a drunk driving accident in which he ran over and killed a kid, but ultimately got off despite wanting to plead guilty due to Eddie's abusive father Carl Brock violently forcing him to plead innocent, to the revelation that his older sister Mary Brock and past experiences with cancer were actually false memories implanted by the symbiote in order to manipulate Eddie into staying with it, to the fact that he has a son named Dylan Brock who was accidentally conceived during that brief time his ex-wife Anne Weying bonded with Eddie's symbiote and briefly became "She-Venom" during the 90s miniseries Venom: Sinner Takes All.

But re-reading the story now I can look back and greatly appreciate the sheer amount of craft that's on display with Cates' writing in this arc, since he carefully foreshadows all of these plot twists all throughout the arc through subtle hints and double-meanings in the character's dialogue. Aside from the brilliant narrative subversion of fooling the reader into initially believing that Eddie is the kid who's run-over in the flashbacks before pulling to rug to reveal that in actuality Eddie was the one behind the wheel, the twist that Eddie's sister was simply a false memory was expertly foreshadowed through both Carl & Dylan being absolutely confused whenever Eddie mentioned the name "Mary."

Another that I really love about the drunk-driving backstory is how it not only recontextualizes Eddie’s motivations as both an anti-hero and as a supervillain. In regards to his anti-hero persona, Eddie's constant proclamations about wanting to "protect the innocent" were rather ill-defined back when the character received over a dozen miniseries' during the 90s. But here Cates' emphasizes how Eddie's guilt over accidentally killing a kid and being let off due to being manipulated by his abusive father has made him want to try to protect "real innocents" from people like himself. but also during his time as a villain pursuing Spider-Man. As for how this backstory recontextualizes Eddie's tenure as a Spider-Man villain, during in the original David Micheline era in which Venom first debuted, Eddie’s hatred for Spidey was connected to the classic Death of Jean DeWolfe storyline, wherein Eddie wrote a series of interviews for the Daily Globe with a man he believed to be the notorious serial killer, “the Sin Eater,” whilst hiding the killer’s true identity under the guise of “first amendment rights and protecting his journalistic source.” But Eddie was eventually forced to reveal his source’s identity due to mounting police pressure and the Sin Eater’s rising body-count, which led to Eddie outing the Sin Eater as Emil Gregg. But literally 30-minutes later it was revealed that Gregg was just a copycat, as Spidey caught the real Sin Eater who turned out to be policeman Stan Carter, which led to Eddie being fired and refusing to take responsibility for his own failures by projecting the blame onto Spider-Man. Additionally, the Micheline's Venom: Lethal Protector & Zeb Wells' Venom: Dark Origin miniseries highlighted how Eddie’s relationship with his estranged father partially influenced his writing of the Sin Eater interviews in an effort to bolster his reputation, but following his firing permanently destroyed any chances of reconciliation with Carl Brock.

And in those classic stories Eddie constantly proclaimed that he was “once an innocent whose life Spider-Man ruined,” even though his actions as a journalist were incredibly morally dubious and unethical. So the drunk driving backstory of Eddie being violently forced to plead innocent by his father and ultimately getting off? That only further fleshes out Eddie’s inability to accept responsibility and false projection of “innocence” onto himself during his villainous phase in those original stories, while also showing how much Eddie has grown since then by acknowledging that he’s not a “real innocent.”

Plus, there's also a strong thematic through-line in this arc about the nature of abusive relationships in the form of Eddie's co-dependent bond with the Venom Symbiote plus Carl's abusive behavior towards Eddie in the past & Dylan in the present day. Additionally, Cates also touches upon ideas of self-improvement and redemption, not only through the backstory of Eddie's motivation to "protect the innocent," but also through the story ending with Eddie deciding to raise Dylan himself after helping him escape Carl's influence, as well as the Venom symbiote willingly leaving Eddie & Dylan after the former denounces the symbiote's manipulative behavior, with the symbiote proclaiming that it's, "Trying... to... be... better... both... of... you... better... without... me..."

It shows that the key difference between Carl and both Eddie & the symbiote is that Venom at least acknowledges his past monstrous behavior and makes efforts to change unlike his coward of a father, thereby simultaneously allowing Eddie to overcome the demons of his past with his abusive father, as well as making the symbiote's later reunion with Eddie in Absolute Carnage more believable!

Like... hot dang! There's a reason why "The Abyss" arc in particular left such a lasting impression on me when I initially read the first 12-issues of Donny Cates' Venom series a few years ago! Not only does it still hold up phenomenally well from both a narrative and thematic standpoint, but it's gotten me even more excited to dive into the rest of Cates' Venom run and the corresponding Absolute Carnage and King In Black events, which will be my first time ever reading those stories!

However, I do have some thoughts regarding two minor points of contention about Cates' run as a whole and "The Abyss" arc in particular that I've encountered from toxic fandom spaces here on Tumblr that I also wanted to address, which I'll link to right here: