#red flag characters

[heretherebedork]

Hi Francis,

I, for one, am getting a bit tired of hearing so much about green flags lately. 😂 So, can you share your top 5 red flags that you can't help but to love? I love falling for a fictional red flag. ☺️

Thanks! Love you. ❤️

lol, hey, why not? Let's see if I've got five... probably no gifs for this one, though! But also I am so picky about, like, red flags versus just 'flawed characters with yellow flags' so expect this list to be a bit... odd.

Day from Love Syndrome III tops this list for me. He is everything wrong in this world and with romance and the show knew it and the show said 'yeah, fine, but Itt likes it and you can't argue with that' and I love it.

Ziao Chin Teng from HIStory: Obsessed is an obsessive bully who lies about having amnesia and does not stop at anything in the new timeline let alone the original timeline where his lying and lack of communication drove his partner to run into traffic. This man is the worst and I do still love him.

Yi from Cutie Pie and Naughty Babe and I just have a soft spot for this poor little rich boy asshole with trauma and bad communication and just... oh, he is red but he's still fine and he's doing his best his best just happens to suck.

Kang YoHan from The Devil Judge because he is, in fact, nothing but a red flag and that's why we love him. He might be doing it for the right reason but he's also pushing every limit of morality to do it and he won't stop until he wins.

Keito from Happy of the End is the definition of a red flag characters in a show made to show you that he is a red flag and I adore him on all levels, absolutely every last one, he is deeply fucked up and traumatized and he is screaming internally at all times and he is awful but he is also exactly the person Chihiro needed to bring out his light and they saved each other, in the end.

Bonus mention:

Minato from Minato Coin Laundry. Look me in the eye and tell me he's not a red flag. This man can barely accept his own sexuality, struggles to face any form of affection, cannot actively let himself want things and will always push people away.

Honestly, I was writing this and realized that despite all of this I still can't come up with a single Jittirain characters to put on this list because they're all red flags and I hate most of them by the end (at the least the semes) and the only real red flag MAME character I could put on this list would be Tin and I might like him but he's not, like, one of my super loved characters.

[midnightsun-if]

Does Midnight Sun have any red flag characters 👀 purely for scientific reasons

Definitely! None of the ROs, I think, are red flags, but there are definite red flag characters within the world of Midnight Sun.

Evony Andora, as an example, would be considered a lighter shade of red when in regard to flags, but she’d definitely be one (if she were to be romanced). As she becomes slightly obsessed, in a sense, with an individual that is able to ensnare her heart (as it never happens).

There are a couple of other characters too, as I’ve mentioned, and you’ll meet quite a few of them. Of course, you won’t truly realize they’re red flags— either because you’re not in the right setting, for plot reasons, or simply because you don’t truly interact with them that much.

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[nerd-elf]

I’m tagging all my favorites here, feel free to do the same

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

demanding a series in the same vein (heh, vein) as Dexter/Hannibal wherein a prolific serial killer plays cat & mouse with the police--except the serial killer in question is a preteen schoolgirl. this would make for compelling television due to the fact that middle school frequently causes girls to become deranged, and more media should reflect this

[hualianschild]

the jade of lan clan and white lotus of xianle seems to have a type

I've been waiting to see how long it takes for others to talk abt the sqq erasure 💀

[tiredandoptimistic]

Love may have lost in Restoration, but it wins with my banger RvB pride flags

Diversity win! Red vs Blue has allowed local queer person to reach new heights of hyperfixation for eight years and counting.

[emloafs]

we may watch the same show but i watch it gayer

[aq2003]

you know that term "male character being written by a woman" that describes an emotionally complex well-written dude that fans immediately fall in love with because they are crafted w/ so much care and would probably make an ideal partner or whatever? yeah this is exactly the energy of brennan lee mulligan portraying his discontented girlboss npcs in dimension 20

[apparently-artless]

No, really! I'm in love with you! I've got a boner right now! You're so gross!

Raise wa Tanin ga II Episode 01 - Kirishima & Yoshino

[noridoorman]

"Uzi acts like an attention starved 14-year-old who thinks they are depressed while they have no idea what hardships can happen in life" (rough paraphrase)

Did we watch the same show? No, seriously, did we watch the same show?!

Oh yeah, I guess Uzi only THINKS she is depressed and SOOOO naive about REAL hardships in life, like having a dead mother, a neglectful dad, being a victim of bullying, getting infected with eldritch monster genetics, getting posessed against your will several time, killing all your classmates WHILE posessed and also fighting and emotionally manipulating your crush STILL WHILE POSESSED, sacrificing yourself because you think it is the only way to save said crush, watching your home planet get torn into pieces as the no-more-little-sister of your crush tries to eat the planet, see the LITERAL HEART of your crush-turned-boyfriend pulled out his chest and swallowing a weird black hole even though you have no idea what it could do to you. But ya'll, she's just an edgy 14-year-old that has no idea

[anatryhard]

Doodle

[hipstersoulgushers-art]

Facecanons for the reds n blues now that I’ve been hyperfixating for over a year

[sunny12th]

I don't think we need a monologue or explicit statement from Dany renouncing the Targaryens of Old Valyria for owning slaves and the Old Valyrians for spreading slavery through Essos. She never thinks about them, she doesn't have them on a pedestal in her mind. She has a favorable viewpoint of her immediate family, mostly Rhaegar, that she was taught by her brother. I dont think we need to see Dany explicitly state for the readers that her slave owning ancestors were evil and she disagrees with them because her actions show this.

[mollysunder]

Some people have long essays for why Viktor will s2's main antagonist. Meanwhile I think Viktor will be a main antagonistic because he's got some of the worst traits of a tech bro. Iykyk.

[emillungs]

its pride month so i drew my favorite man-hating lesbian moments from book!liandrin (so far)

honorable mention