#so if they can make desire who is a canonical rapist in the comic

[orionsangel86]

Hi! I've been reading your latest analysis, and Dream being perceived as misogynistic has come up a few times. I've never really caught that(tho it's been a hot minute since I read the sandman comics and I might've forgotten)? He's really respectful towards Bast, Hettie, and Titania, He's mostly kind towards Rose and Nuala, and yeah, he was a dick towards Ishtar, but you explained why's that far better then I ever could. He also comes across as cold-hearted and cruel towards Lyta, but I think that has less to do with her gender and more with Dream not knowing that tact Exists. I also think that Dream being abusive husband is total bullshit. In the song of orpheus, Calliope and Morpheus seem to be close and Calliope doesn't show any signs that she's afraid of him, or is being abused by him, and at the wake she says that Morpheus was the best lover she had ever had. Why would she say something like that about her rapist?

Hey! Yep I agree completely. I think a lot of this interpretation comes from Ishtar and the Sandman Companion (which I haven't read but appears to include some absolutely insane hot takes that make zero sense and clearly just wanna be edgy and dark).

Other than Ishtar, who I have already now spoken about extensively, the only other female character he has actively hurt is Nada. Now the Nada story is horrifying, and I can't in good conscience defend Dream here. I'm with Death on this matter. It was a really shitty thing to do. Now, baring in mind Death hints that Desire had a lot more to do with that whole situation than they have ever let on, Dream's behaviour towards Nada was disgusting. She rejected him and he sent her to Hell for it. However, I don't think this is evidence of Dream's misogyny. What it is evidence of, is that Dream is an extremely prideful and hot tempered creature who does not take kindly to any response that he considers an insult.

Even with Alianora, all we know is that he became cold towards her, to the point that she wanted to leave him. We don't know anything more than that. Overture only shows that Alianora was upset and didn't want to be stuck with him anymore, and so Dream created an entire world for her to live in where she wouldn't have to see him. Remember that if Dream was truly cruel towards her he could have simply kicked her out of the Dreaming, left her to fend for herself in either the Waking World or sent her back to where she came from, even though she told him they would never accept her again. He respected her enough to give her a world of her own, even after she decided to leave him.

Now the comics as you have said give us absolutely ZERO indication that Dream was abusive towards Calliope. There is NOTHING. NADA. NIENTE. I have poured over every single page that includes Calliope as well as every reference. The only thing that comes close to indicating that he might have been cruel towards her was when she comments that "the old you would have left me here to rot" which is also more an indication of Morpheus' pride after being hurt/rejected than it is of abuse and misogyny. Had Calliope's capture and abuse at the hands of mortals happened much sooner, whilst their divorce was still a fresh wound it is probably far more likely that Morpheus would not have helped her, simply because he was still nursing his wounded pride after she left him (because the comic does make it clear that Calliope left Morpheus just like Nada rejected him and Alianora wished to leave him. Morpheus has never initiated any of his break ups. It was always the women who chose to leave him, therefore hurting him to the point that he lashed out like a wounded animal.)

Outside of ex lovers, he doesn't treat any other women badly. He clearly has a mutual respect for Lady Bast, who seems to adore him. He and Titania were lovers and are on very good terms. He is certainly on better terms with his sisters than he is his other siblings and he treats Mad Hettie far more respectfully than she usually gets treated. He was kind to Rose throughout the Dolls House, as you say. He was also extremely respectful of Barbie and even called her Princess Barbara to respect her dream kingdom. He treats Ruby respectfully and is shown to be genuinely upset and haunted by her death to the point that two other characters remark how odd it is that he even cares about the death of a mortal. He wasn't always tactful with Nuala - stripping her of her glamour in front of all the other Gods was a bit cruel, and an indication of how much he dislikes fairie magic even though he remains close to the fae in general, but Nuala also falls head over heels in love with him so he must have been treating her reasonably well for that to happen! He certainly doesn't take advantage of her the way she expects when her brother presents her as a gift. I think it's often forgotten about but Nuala was literally given to Morpheus as a gift to do with as he wished, the implication being that she was to be his whore. He never forces himself on her or treats her the way she is technically there for. If this comic was adapted by writers with a Game of Thrones mentality I shudder to think how Morpheus would treat Nuala. But Morpheus is far too respectful for that. There is nothing in the comics that even remotely indicates that he would take advantage of a woman or anyone. Hell, in the scenes with Ishtar he certainly isn't perving over the women or acting in any way less than utterly respectful and dignified. Even Matthew shows himself up in those scenes as being a bit of a pervert when he was a man. But not Morpheus. If he was a misogynist, wouldn't he be taking Cluracan up on his offer and fucking Nuala the moment he gets the chance even if she didn't want it? Since by fae law she is his property to do with as he sees fit. He is within his rights by the laws of the fae to force himself on Nuala whenever he wants. A horrible thought but a true one according to the comics. But just because he has that power over Nuala, he never uses it. And yet the Sandman Companion implies he's a rapist? Nah. I call bullshit. If he was a rapist he would have raped Nuala the moment he had the chance, and he has had plenty of chances.

Instead Morpheus requests that she be given quarters in the palace and made comfortable. He agrees to let her stay in the Dreaming because refusing her means refusing his gift which would cause Nuala harm if she returned to fairie. He never asks anything of her. She takes it upon herself to act as his maid simply to keep herself busy but Morpheus never orders her to do any of it. Honestly his treatment of Nuala given the situation is the biggest indication imo that he is NOT a misogynist, NOT a rapist, and certainly NOT abusive.

Then we have Lyta Hall. Poor confused Lyta Hall. The problem with Lyta, is that for Morpheus it was always simply bad timing. He never took the time to explain things to her properly because he was always either late for a meeting (with Hob) or about to go to Hell (to save Nada) or dealing with something that was distracting him at the time. Lyta reacts badly towards him because she blames him for Hectors death - which is stupid because she KNOWS Hector died before she ever met Morpheus (in both comic and show she knows this) and Morpheus is frustratingly lacking in tact when dealing with the overly emotional grieving pregnant widow. His treatment of Lyta is NEVER misogynistic though, even when she calls him names, yells at him, threatens him, etc etc. She is far more aggressively confrontational towards him than practically any other character and each time he sees her he is patient and calm with her and just sort of takes the abuse she throws at him - mostly because from his point of view she is just a grieving mortal with no power who is absolutely not a threat to him - which is why her being his ultimate doom is so ironic.

When I take all of this into consideration, I can't possibly come to any conclusion that supports this theory that Morpheus is a misogynist let alone a rapist. There are too many layers of interpretation to every moment in the comics and misogyny is only one of multiple interpretations in the few stories that can possibly be viewed that way. In fact, over the past day or so since these conversations have started again, I have actually moved further away from these interpretations and am more inclined to disagree with them and consider the other interpretations more compelling.

[antiloreolympus]

if they absolutely HAVE to have a consent story? eros should be the villain. everyone is always like 'APOLLO IS A RAPIST GRRR' when, in the original myths? in a modern context, one could argue eros gave him a date drug (regarding daphne). arrows that magically alter the way you feel about and pursue things? magical aphrodisiac? did apollo agree to take that shit? obviously classicism cant be TAKEN in modern context, but. if rachel smythe insists? apollo is also a sexual abuse victim, via eros.

(eros as the villain anon) there are actually a few lesser-known myths regarding apollo (and dionysus) BEING the target of sexual assault, either by other gods, or by mortals. (dionysus and the sailors, a lot of myths heavily imply they intended to abuse him) and i feel like people forget that. people also bring up cassandra as evidence as to why he's evil, when like. he offered her prophecy so she'd bang him. she refused? he didn't even take it away, just made it defunct. that's not the same.

(eros as the villain anon, cont.) the modern idea of consent falls out the fucking window when you have a god who decides who does and does not fall in love. in the mythos, love is regarded as a kind of madness that possesses the body and makes you do stupid shit. you could EASILY stretch that for a story regarding consent, and put in a good message about how sexual abuse DOES happen to men, especially queer men. where's hyacinthus. where's nerites? why is eros just a GBF with a nohomo GF?

(eros as the villain anon, one more time) bonus: poseidon as an 'uwu cutiepie wholesome boy' is the most disrespectful shit i've ever seen. not only is he known for being a sexual predator, there's a lot of shit emphasizing that he's especially violent about it. why the hell was apollo the villain instead of poseidon?? this is demeter, caenis, and medusa erasure.

-------------End of ask-------------

I won't say if I agree or disagree because all I see is facts. Rachel didn't really think about the rape plot outside of it being a way for Persephone and Hades to bond and to reveal that Persephone is op.

Eros himself said he can control the sexual desires of nonvirgins in the story so he could've definitely done something to Apollo here.

Hera (idk about Zeus) doesn't like Eros and Aphrodite in this retelling so he could've used his power to manipulate Apollo for revenge against the King and Queen (since it's becoming clear that Zeus and Apollo are most likely related). Or he could've done something to Persephone during the time he got her blackout drunk.

It's also funny how we haven't seen a single mlm relationship in LO. She said Eros is canonically bi but only once did we see him with another man (orgy). It would've been interesting to see an Apollo and Hermes relationship outside of just friendship.

But I honestly hate the amount of excuses LO fans have about Apollo being the rapist because gods like Poseidon were rapists and got to be that silly or chill character. Same thing goes for Zeus.

She had the opportunity to completely remove any and all sexual assault from the comic but chose to demonizing another character for plot development.

Again, Rachel does research but doesn't use it in a respectful way.

[wakraya]

my view of jane as a facist is only because thats what the entire fandom has turned her into because surprise surprise! canon being in the hands of the fans was a bold faced lie hussie made to escape criticism, and you have to ask yourself, are the new writers doing what they want for the fandom, or just what THEY want? just what they desire and think matters? because it sure as fuck seems like it. sure as fuck seems like they dont give two shits about anyones views other than their own.

YES! They are doing what they want to explore because they ARE writing the story! There’s a separation, a divergence, however, between what they are exploring, and the Fandom! The mere idea of ‘Beyond Canon’ and ‘Dubiously Canon’ comes precisely from this, the fact they’re exploring a specific route that hurts some characters and develops others in ways that conflict with people’s headcanons, but they explicitly don’t want people to stop doing divergent takes, because this is just one of many routes that they’ve just decided to go for because, they just think it’s interesting to go this route?

Once again you push your entire experience as the thing that is happening. You are the person that doesn’t want Jane to be seen as Fascist, yet you’re also pushing the idea that there’s NO other possible take on her right now in the Fandom. 4/13 came and all I saw was positivity for both John/June and Jane, and many people refusing to consider the Epilogues and just saying that Jane deserved better. So how is she only seen as a Fascist by the Fandom? She’s one now in the current content, yes. She’s also redeemable in Meat because she hasn’t gone that far yet. People know this, and people still like Jane.

you have to be out of your fucking mind to think that anything positive is going to happen to these characters that the authors dont like, none of the authors like jade so of course shes just a one dimensional dog dick furry "haha look she said yiff" joke, and jane is just a rapist. plain and simple with nothing else to her. its game over for these characters and the fandom is never going to pull them up because the narrative keeps beating them down over and over again until people do just give.

The epilogues showed us exactly how Hussie wants the series to end, the kids are failures, theyre all losers and nothing ever changed and they all ended up unhappy because "caring about things is for losers". And now, his friends, WHO SHARE THAT SAME MINDSET are getting to do what THEY want, which is why Vriska being fondled by Gamzee in the Epilogues? oh thats not canon to HS2 because Kate LOVES vriska too much to let that happen. but jades dog dick? that just exists to hurt? oh that can stay.

You're wrong. And I'm right. and when Homestuck 2 ends, you'll be forced to admit I'm right cause I've seen through this shit. I've seen the authors bully and block and scream at anyone who doesn't immediately shower them with praise for making the fat girl into a neo nazi who COMPLETELY beyond redemption for no reason other than to hamfist a trump parody into their shitty story. You're wrong. Plain and fucking simple.

Oh. Ooooooh. Oooooooh haha! Here I thought I was actually debating with someone, I was just getting shouted at by the Jade Fucking Hate Anon, no fucking WONDER I wasn’t getting anywhere! Fuck you and everything you fucking stand for.

I shouldn’t even acknowledge these asks because you’re vile and fucking rancid as per usual, but congrats, you ACTUALLY got me heated by posing as a Jane Fan that was hurt by the Epilogues, instead of the shapeless ball of bile and hatred you are.

Jade Harley is great. The writers like Jade. Jade was probably the person having the most fun in the Epilogues’ Earth before shit went down. The first update we get with her being aware of things in Meat, she beats the shit out of Callie for trying to make the story more Dramatic and Slut Shaming her, and beats her at her own game, regaining control of her own body. Jade is comfortable with her body and having sex and positive about it, but she mentions ONE time that she would like to have a biological kid with Dave and Karkat but she can’t, and suddenly YOU latch onto the idea that it hurts to exist because she has a dog dick.

You are. Impossible. To talk to. You don’t want to talk, you want to spew your bullshit and have it taken as fact when EVERYTHING, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING the Writers are DOING now contradict your own takes, you’re

Dirk.

You’re Ult Dirk, you’re so fucking closed in your own mind and so convinced that what you’re doing is the only way, that you cannot see beyond that without it tearing your whole concept of being, and that makes you obsessively assault and attack every last fucking shred of positivity you see around. Also the Vriska thing is still canon, surprise! That happened entirely like in the comic, and your focus on going on the Hating Kate bandwagon is just sooooo telling of how deep down this fucking rabbit hole you are.

You wanna bet, Hate Anon? Fine. Fucking bet.

It’s people like fucking you who are vitriol in human shape that aggravate the authors and make them block people, because you cannot consider in your mind the idea that people have good will and intentions when writing darker content. They are exhausted of getting shit like you in their mails and inboxes.

But when HS^2 actually continues to showcase good fucking things for the characters, and have them take control of what’s going on and face the bad things that have happened in the Epilogues? Then we’ll see which of the two is in the wrong, the girl trying to be positive and spread good vibes in the Fandom, or the person hidden behind an Anonymous Facade sending slurs and insults to people because they uuuuuh, I don’t know, dare to like content you don’t I guess.

Fuck you.

[gascon-en-exil]

While I've certainly found the gay relationships in older FE (i.e. the one's relegated to subtext) much better than modern, subtext is not an equivalent substitution for the kind of confirmation S supports give. I'm really tired of having to rely on subtext for any kind of meaningful representation since it's so easily shrugged off by the broad cishet part of the fandom. And I think shrugging off people's disappointment with "there may be more in subtext" is a little insensitive. (1/2)

That being said I don't see S supports as end all be alls either. I think the system is limiting and I would really just prefer to see S supports and the avatar leave in favor of romances and relationships that can develop more naturally during the plot and save culmination to the epilogues or if appropriate than at some point in the story. (2/2)

You are right in that there is something distinctly artificial about the presence of Avatars and S supports in FE, although like it or not those features are popular enough to where we’ll probably keep seeing them in all non-remakes* going forward. S supports themselves were introduced in Awakening as an update of Genealogy’s purely numerical love growth system, in order to replicate that game’s breeding mechanics. This was a necessary addition in light of how the C-A support system had been employed in the GBA games and Tellius, to develop relationships ranging from the explicitly romantic to the subtextually romantic to the familial and usually not romantic to the completely platonic - and all of these categories either with or without paired endings. FE13 stamps out all that ambiguity to allow the player to make specific, clearly marked choices that lead to eugenics babies, and for all that game’s obnoxious bouts of homoerotic denial it works as both a breeding metagame and an Avatar dating sim. Fates shook things up a bit with two same-sex S supports, but then those are as criticized for being gameplay detriments as much as they are for characterization issues. 

Now we’ve come to the third iteration of S supports, for the first time in a game without breeding. My belief is that the only reason they exist in Three Houses is for that secondary function introduced in Awakening, that of self-insert wish fulfillment. It therefore makes perfect sense that Byleth is the only character with S supports, and while I have never bought into FE’s self-inserts and as such care remarkably little about them I understand what they’re meant to represent. It does however highlight the artificiality of the whole mechanic, as it would be unreasonable to assume that the other characters don’t have romantic entanglements of their own outside of Byleth that will be expressed in their C-A supports. Byleth can S rank because they’re meant to be the player, and that’s it. To borrow an observation from @agoddamn, it’s as superficial a conceit as the decision to make Byleth - the amnesiac child of a mercenary with no prior experience - a teacher, which gives them authority to command the game’s armies without needing to be royalty (Corrin), super secret BFFs with royalty (Kris), or BFFs with laughably naïve royalty (Robin).

But is it insensitive to ask people to look to subtext for representation when the game’s S rank options are not to one’s liking? I don’t think so. I’m old enough to remember when subtext was pretty much all you were ever going to get for same-sex relationships in popular media, which for gaming in particular wasn’t even that long ago. Looking specifically at Fire Emblem, there have been all of two inarguably gay characters in the series’s nearly 30-year history, but far more than that who’ve raised enough eyebrows to have people pointing at them as more or less positive depictions of same-sex relationships...and pushback from members of the fandom who don’t care to read them that way. The debates on Ike’s sexuality have raged on for over a decade now, reignited by the existence of Priam, and there are still people out there who maintain that the guy having paired endings with two male characters (and only them) is inconclusive. So yeah, I get the frustration - but does it really matter what other people in the fandom think? For a good bit of the 2000s and (so I hear - not old enough) earlier online fandoms in general were hostile to the idea of slash/same-sex fanwork and kept it walled out of many major fansites, and yet it continued to exist in spite of opposition. Ignore those elements in the fandom, find community elsewhere, and move on.

Besides, this is overlooking the point that reading into subtext can be genuinely fun. Take for example Shadows of Valentia, which produced the series’s second canonically gay character in Leon. Despite this however in the weeks and months following FE15′s release neither I nor my acquaintances in the Tumblr FE fandom spent much time talking about him; rather, most of observation on the game’s queer content focused on the Deliverance, that hotbed of sublimated desires and unusually frank contemplations of non-straight sexuality. In the tumult of everyone in the organization wanting Clive’s heterosexual dick we got Fernand being a frustrated childhood friend turned antagonist and potential rapist(!) via some weird triangulation of desire, Lukas yearning for something he can’t name with his superior officer and Python being the one to coax out the man’s lack of physical desire (for women or for anyone), and Forsyth and Python being massively gay in general but also comically dysfunctional. That’s all far more interesting to parse out than Leon the aging twink pining for daddy dick he’s probably not going to get. Both are entertaining in their own ways, but the Deliverance situation had a lot more analytical longevity. That’s the kind of stuff I’m really looking forward to in Three Houses, from Dimitri’s circle, from Caspar and Linhardt, and from anyone else who presents the material. There’s a lot fewer limitations when you don’t rely on the game to tell you who can and cannot have sex.

*Even though a Blazing Sword remake could hypothetically see Mark the tactician expanded into a full-blown Avatar role, belatedly vindicating the torrent of badly-written Lyn/Tactician fics that flooded the fandom back in 2003.

[kurtty-drabbles]

"After this is all over, do you think we could still be friends?" (Comic canon)

N/A: Uhm, I was thinking of use AoX for this. I hate this au and I hate the current event going on.

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @sailorstar9 @discordsworld @bamfoftheundead

 Nate´s dream world is a fine testament that the man is a loses canon and can hurt more X-men that the Sentinels could ever wish for. His vision of a perfect world would envolve every woman being a slutty version of themselves and every man is free of any sin.

 His mother( not mother) Jean Grey would be virgin and untenable and there´s no signal of his father...as he so wishes. 

And of course, Kurt Wagner is with the woman he often wishes to understand, his own birth mother, which is a desire Nate can understand. 

 Brian and Moira manage to enter into Nate´s perfect world and Brian rescues his wife, in fact, everyone is safe, well, they are out of Nate´s lunacy world and no one can say they had a good time.

 "Meggan?" Brian asked. One word, several meanings and all Meggan does is cry and beg for forgiveness (she remembers Excalibur, she remember that particular incident and hates it)

 "Brian, is it my fault? Am I a bad woman? I didn't remember you or Maggie...Why?!" she screams the last part in anger, in shock and in sadness and her once beautiful look morphs to match the inferno she is feeling. 

 "NOTHING of this is your fault as nothing of this is Kurt´s fault," Brian said and Meggan chuckles at this, a bit dry, as she comments how the roles reversed.

 "Brian, I want to go home...and let´s make Wisdom Maggies´s godfather," she said as if this is a question and Brian knows his woman well enough to understand that this is not really a question. 

 Jean and Scott killed Nate(it wasn´t a cathartic moment as they think, at least, not in the way others were hoping for) and many apologies are given. Bishop forgives them, even if is not Jean´s or Scott´s fault...but he wants to stay out of the X-men for a while. 

 Kitty does not know how to tell that she almost makes out with Apocalypse and the mutant himself is unsure of what to think of this. 

However, she does know that Kurt Wagner is not taking this situation well. 

 "Elf?" Kitty asked as Kurt is back with his usual clothes and is being way bluer than usual.

 "Dr Moira called me to say that Meggan is not pregnant and Brian and Meggan are relieved with that" Kurt said looking at Kitty "No, Katzchen, this is not me crying over the imaginary or something I never desire, this is me crying because Meggan, a woman that loves her husband and daughter was taken from them to be a hoe...and I take part of this sick play" and adds softly "we were raped in a way...It was another person using my body as someone else was using her body...and I don´t know what to do"

 "Kurt, this is not your fault, Is Nate´s! He is dead and won´t hurt anyone ever again" Kitty said knowing this is a weak statement, but, she does not know what else to say. 

 "I´m doing therapy...is not the first thing something like this happens to me and...People joke I´m a slut and I never truly care but ...I don´t want to be like that Kurt ever again..." and cries and Kitty didn´t think twice as she goes to hug the elf.

 "Excalibur is over...Dr Moira told me" Kurt explains once his sobs are calm "The Braddocks don´t want a rapist near their daughter and ...frankly, I understand 100%" and asked with finality "do you ...hate me?" 

 "Elf, what a stupid question, I couldn´t hate you, never!" Kitty knows deep down Excalibur is dead and gone as Meggan does not want to be near anyone who has any contact with Kurt, she can understand why.

 Even with all the therapy, Meggan does she still feels uncomfortable by talking with Kitty(even about mundane topics) and Kurt is heartbroken thinking of himself to be the lower of man. 

 Kurt will endure many therapies to finally realize that it wasn´t his fault, he is a victim too and more so until he can truly forgive himself.

 Kitty didn´t let the hug end as Kurt is crying and sobbing hard telling a few things Nate did to him and Kitty knows that if Nate was alive...she would kill him.

[hootpoop12]

Theory time

Alright, so we all know through the context of this being written in a fanfiction/a03 format that this is all a play about canon VS fanon. What is a little hard to decipher is what are the things that are plays off fanon and which qualities are the true aspects of the characters(canon)? ANYWAY here are just a few of the things I am ASSUMING are plays off fanon based on my years in the fandom and sheer obsession of consuming this shit (trigger warning for everything taken place in the epilogue FYI):

-Dave: I think some of the main aspects of fanon influencing his epilogue version is intertwined with “woobifying”, “Slow burn”, and even possibly even “sexuality”. 

        -Woobifying is a fandom concept of reducing a character to “a cinnamon roll too pure for this world” someone you wanna baby (often applied to trans guy characters whether canon or headcanoned). This one is a bit of reach I’ll admit because it DOES makes sense that after years of living with Karkat the dude would soften up but there were times in the epilogue even Dave admits he’s gotten softer and the dude just plain out was very passive. In my time I’ve seen tons of depictions of Dave as a lot more emotional than shown in the comic or a lot more woobified in fics (like in meteor fics where he often has very dramatic emotional outbursts) By the way this is NOT me shitting on you if you like viewing Dave in that way because a lot people with trauma relate to him and use him for “cathartic release”(me fucking too lol). It’s more a guess/observation of maybe why he’s developed in this way due to the comic now being a strange sponge absorbing all fanon, good and bad, into it weird ass grasp.

        -Slow burn is likely the trope that plays into why the hell it took so fucking long for him AND Karkat to admit their feelings. If you have literally ever consumed Davekat content I’m sorry but 99% of it is slow burn lmao every meteor fic is pining, every coffee shop AU is the budding of a lifelong partnership, and every Harry potter furry inflation pwp crossover WHATEVER fic is 10k words building of sexual tension like......To bring their other relationships in canon into this we can see that Dave was able to flirt with Jade and Terezi and entered a relationship with them at a pretty normal rate WHICH can totally be attributed to the fact he views them as girls and himself as heterosexual so was much more comfortable making a move- sure. Looking at Karkat, however, and you see the dude is a little shy about romance sure but he was still able to flirt with Terezi and make awkward moves on John so like......I can’t help but to feel like something outside (us?) was influencing them?

        -Sexuality is another sort of reach but I think it’s something to consider. In terms of the comic....when exactly DID canon end? You could argue at the end of act 7.......or the moment John used his retcon powers to create a new timeline. Fandom Dave (on the tumblr side at least) was usually consider queer and a lot people shipped Dave with another dude. Perhaps John going back and rewriting canon helped bring our influence over Dave’s sexuality into the comic? I remember finding out Davekat was canon and confirming my “Dave is bisexual” headcanon and just thinking in wonder how it felt like Hussie was plucking my desires straight from my head and incorporating them. Which made me HAPPY by the way. If this is anywhere even near truth it’s not like he didn’t do a fantastical and natural job of incorporating it into the comic which shows how “incorporated fanon” is not a totally horrendous thing. The comics always done it with fandom memes and such. 

-Rose Lalonde. Not too sure what fanon influenes were brought onto her to be honest? In candy she was almost like a creepy stepford wife which is. Bizarre to me. Rose is the most contrary and rebellious character so seeing her settle down like that (OR FUCKING DOING SOME GUYS LAUNDRY) is a little strange. In meat she insists that she is an individual despite being married but that could have EASILY been Dirk’s influence? Also her biggest fandom stereotypes off the top of my head is Know-it-all smug meddler, alcoholic, and elegant. Really none of that was applied so still need to consider her more. The most damning thing however is where is all the piss?? If you look at the amount of piss kink rose fanfiction one has to wonder......and I can’t even continue this joke.

-Jade Harley: Gonna keep it real with ya’ll. I feel like this epilogue gave Jade Harley way more character. She wasn’t given much in canon except for lonely silly girl so it makes sense to me why she’d grow up desperate for physical bonds and inserting herself into relationships. I liked her telling John that she wasn’t some princess in a tower anymore cause it shows she KNOWS how everyone has always viewed her and that’s a little sad. As for tropes around her character.....yep people pleaser, silly girl, hippie, shoved aside for literally any other character......Need to think about her more, too. 

-Jake fucking English. What even is there to say? He more than anyone was influenced by fanon and it doesn’t take too much thought to see how. In a lot of fandom jokes and in fanfiction he is basically treated as a stupid piece of meat. I genuinely don’t read much fanfiction about him except from a trust few fans who I know care about him and will write him in a full rounded way. In any case we see a single moment in which Jake has this oppressive narrative taken away from him and it was when he was talking to Dave and Karkat during their election conversation. If that wasn’t already hard enough to read we can look back at the implied rape that took place with him in the beginning of Jane’s relationship with him or over the course of it. John, the one person supposedly not influenced by fanon as he’s still tied to the comic via retcon powers, is even the one to tell people that Jake is basically being raped. So yeah. Good times. I’ll get to Dirk in terms of Jake in a moment L M A O. Imagine that being the saddest lmao you ever just read.

-Jane Crocker: Welp hope you weren't a Jane fan lmao. What can I say except it FEELS like all the subliminal messaging really got to her and she’s like......warped by the condesce? I think if in the comic they showed more of her political takes then maybe this wouldn’t have come as such a shock. Like, I flat out am disgusted by her character now? She’s a facist, abusive, rapist(that was hint, unfortunately)? WOW good take homestuck writting staff?? I mean I know one of you used to write like incest pedo rape porn but aight??????????? Anyways in fanon Jane is treated as the girl who gets in the way of dirkjake so kinda that early 2000s bitchy yaoi girl brand, boring person in the background, or the hottie. They obviously kept saying she was “easy on the eyes” so there’s the hottie trope but that’s about it.

-Roxy Lalonde: Out of ALL the Alphas they fucking escaped with their goddamn dignity PFFT. So in terms of tropes: trans Roxy, alcoholic, and flirty “boy obsessed”. 

        -So with trans Roxy this is like Dave’s sexuality thing I discussed where a widely celebrated headcanon influenced canon and that not necessarily a BAD thing. Like I said, this theory is that canon is just absorbing fanon for better and for worse. I saw people were bummed they weren’t a trans girl but I am actually down with this for two reasons. 1) being all those memes “what’s your gender?” “the void” and 2) a part being friends with someone who’s trans is.....not being used to seeing them as the gender they actually are but taking the time to learn these new unfamiliar pronouns- and get the fuck over it. It’s their choice and you just gotta accept it despite your feelings. 

        -alcoholic Roxy was not at all incorporated which is the biggest fanon about her (not as much in recent years thankfully) so honestly? Kinda diminishes my argument. It’s not like the writers were worried that tossing out their progress as person was bad writing lol look at Dirk.

        -Flirty Rox. In candy they were SUPER fast moving in their relationship with John and despite towards the end they said that Dirk dying made them wanna do something with their life I just....don’t buy it? Mainly because john who is uninfluenced by the fanon tropes even noticed how fast they were moving and how stepford agreeable wife she’d become. 

-Dirk Strider. Aight. So. Here we go. fandom tropes are controlling puppet master, abusive, and cold/uncaring.

        -Dirk is a naturally controlling man, yes. Every version of himself struggles with this, yes. Even if we work on issues does not mean old flaws will never leak out, yes. However, after in the comic itself we see conversations with some of his closest companions and the effort he was making and ready to continue making was completely obliterated. Dirk is someone who takes his projects a little too seriously so why would he toss out this one- the most important one in his life? ANYWAY........Dirk in canon is shown that he’s also not great at multi-tasking or really anything that he really makes himself out to be AMAZING at. Don’t get me wrong I actually view Dirk as a complement dude cause he did get all the alphas into the session in a smoothish fashion (yes hal is him so it still counts) but, like, even when Dirk sounds like an AWESOME engineer to Jake he even admits that he basically had the future’s technology to help and it wasn’t that impressive. So now he’s claiming he’s the BEST? Wack.

        -Abusive Dirk......The sheer amount of people in the fandom who still misconstrue his character as heartless and the sheer amount of fanfiction of sociopathic Dirk might’ve done something. If he is truly becoming his “ultimate self” and he is heart aspect.....all these fanfiction splinters are getting applied to him as well, ya’ll. INCLUDING one of the epilogues writers who literally used to write fanfiction depicting Dirk as a brutally abusive and manipulative version of himself. With the similarities between their big fic and the homestuck epilogue I can’t help but to wonder if they’re subtly trying to incorporate that? After all Alt Calliope goes into detail about how the writer/narrator is IMPORTANT and when one is someone who enjoys viewing dirk as such....well who’s to say pfft Everything about how Dirk treated Jake was some of the most shocking to me. How did you get the guy taking most of the blame for a relationship gone wrong to a man who in a very rapey way makes someone obsessed with him, stupid, and unable to ever receive respect? Horrifying stuff to read, lads. It makes much more sense to me if you look at this fandom’s perceptions on DirkJake. My god there are some bad takes and there’s a whole section of the fandom who was hellbent on making the ship out to be the most problematic ship to ever occur. So whereas in the comic you have Dave pointing out that both sides had issues and everyone was willing to talk things out you had half the fandom insist that it was all Dirk’s fault and he just COMPLETLY forced himself on an unwanting Jake. Yep, sound familiar?

        -cold uncaring. yep tons of depictions of Dirk being cruel to his friends and family and sorry but go reread Homestuck I don’t even know what to tell you if you actually believe that. There’s literally nothing here I could write to help you. As if the whole thing about his character isn’t about how the people around him helped prevent him becoming like that and he hasn’t said in a dozen different ways how much he loves them and wants to treat them better. Get out of here with that shit lmao 

I guess all can be said about Dirk at this point is either 1) the absorption of the vast amount of terrible Dirk depictions from ascending to his ult self has warped him 2) he’s playing a villain just because Homestuck being over means not existing which TERRIFIES him and existing is a higher priority than treating the people around him right or 3) caliborn influence

        1) For the ascending I’m pretty sure this is the theory that’s gonna be right

        2) playing the villain is probably not what it is because on twitter all of the writers are saying the transphobia is literally just him and they’re boosting a lot of theories say “this is a story about friends you love disappointing you and you moving on” So. Yeah. Take that depressing nugget of information. (I literally will be fucking dead inside if that really is where this story is taken. No joke I will probably quit this fandom lol don’t know if any of you really know how big that is for me to say

        3) Caliborn? eh maybe who the fuck knows after typing that last bullet point out I’m too bummed to continue this hah

[bigskydreaming]

And another thing!

Can we like, just collectively fuck offffffff with this whole ‘the natural opposite to Bruce’s abusive relationship with Jason is Jason having a warm, nurturing relationship with Talia after she adopts a pseudo maternal role with him when she dumps him in the Lazarus Pit’?

This trend has kinda been around forever, but I feel like its been popping up in like, every Jason-centric fic I read lately, and uggggh, dislike. Look, I actually feel no desire to defend Bruce and his parenting, ever. I try and go with AUs and canons like Young Justice where he’s like, Bad At It, but not to the point of the absolutely toxic abusive shit he’s guilty of in various writers’ runs in the comics, but that’s just because I want his kids to have nice things and his kids all at least WANTED Bruce to be a good father at one point. But if your take on Bruce is that he’s abusive despite his best intentions and the best thing for any one of his kids is to move on and get the hell away from him, I’m not gonna argue with you, or try and defend him in the slightest. I will read the fuck out of that, happily.

Until you try and pretend Talia’s not...just as bad?

Like, okay, I have complicated feelings on Talia, mostly because the shared universe nature of comics makes it impossible not to. She’s an extremely nuanced and complex character and has been for decades, which means I really enjoyed her and found her every bit as compelling as Bruce, until....Morrison happened. And I loathe Morrison’s dumbass writing and try and pay it as little heed as possible, so wherever possible, I go with one of the takes or canons or AUs where Bruce and Talia had fully consensual sex and she just never told him about Damian til later, because I will never ever ever excuse the date rape interpretation of Damian’s conception. And I’m fully aware that it was written that way largely BECAUSE Morrison’s a dumbass and most likely didn’t think through the full implications of what he probably just saw as an expedient way to give Bruce a longlost kid he knew nothing about, or how it would throw Talia’s character under the bus. It’s different with Dick and Tarantula, because Catalina didn’t have those decades of prior characterization and attachment, her agenda was pretty clear from not long after she debuted. (Although, we gotta talk about how just like with the aggressive man of color stereotype, the only times comics show a man being raped by a woman, its a woman of color. Pin in that for now).

So I mean, I don’t automatically write off Talia unless we’re dealing with a fic, AU or run in canon that clearly expresses its going with the version of events where she date raped Bruce. I vastly prefer being able to still enjoy her as the compelling equal and foil to Bruce that she was for a long fucking time before that. 

But even with that, the idea that she’s a superior parent to Bruce and a convenient candidate to step into the void he leaves in any of his sons’ lives, let alone Jason, and just...Do Better....umm...how about could we not?

Like, YMMV obviously, but to me the entire point of Talia in the context of her relationship with Bruce has always been she and Bruce are as alike as they are at odds. Selina and Bruce, the appeal of their romantic dynamic is they’re opposites. Talia and Bruce....they have far more in common than they don’t. They have different goals, different lengths they’re willing to go to, they’re not the SAME by any means, but they understand each other in a way few other characters do, because deep down, they always GET why the other one does what they do.

So I mean, I’m not saying Talia is inherently WORSE than Bruce, I’m just arguing that even with all of Bruce’s flaws, she’s usually not any BETTER. Like...its pretty much a lateral move.

Sure, you could easily WRITE Talia as being a loving maternal figure to Jason or Damian or anyone....but just the same as you could write Bruce being a healthy paternal figure to them. The potential is there in either character, depending on what takes in canon you choose to focus on and you clarify where and in what ways you’re diverging from any takes where they both devolve into outright abuse of their kids. Because both definitely have, and thus, you don’t get to just....handwave away any problems with Talia’s character (and parenting) and default to her as this superior parental figure on the basis that hey, she’s not Bruce. 

Like, okay....you want to write Jason moving on from Bruce and rejecting his attempts to reconcile because he’s come to view Bruce as having essentially raised them all to be child soldiers? I WILL TOTALLY BACK YOU ON THAT. I mean, the dude’s memorial to his SON, was a case containing his uniform and a plaque that said A GOOD SOLDIER. Case made, you know? Not one fucking argument from me. Your take is valid, and Jason’s complaint has my full backing.

But here’s the thing....if your fic does NOT significantly diverge from canon prior to Damian’s joining the rest of the Batfam, if it does NOT show Damian having a WILDLY different upbringing than he did in all versions of canon, and by extension, resulting in Damian having at least a somewhat different approach to interactions, worldview, mannerisms and ideology.....

Then no matter what relationship you craft between Jason and Talia, you are STILL swapping out his parental figure - who he resents for raising him as a child soldier - for another parental figure, who LITERALLY RAISED HER KID AS A CHILD SOLDIER.

Like, hellooooooo? Any take where Damian grew up in the League of Assassins without Talia objecting to him being trained with them or getting him the hell out of there, is a take where Talia literally does the exact same thing you’re holding against Bruce on Jason’s behalf. (While, I might add, ignoring that while Tim at least was well into  his teenage years by the time Bruce became his mentor, Dick, Cass and Damian ALL have this child soldier upbringing in common with Jason. It really doesn’t work to single Jason out as the only one who was victimized by their parent in this way).

But okay. Let’s say you’ve got an explanation for Damian’s upbringing or have written that differently. If you’re going with the take that Jason has a connection with Talia now because Talia’s the one who put him in the Pit and either brought him back to life or restored him to full coherency, then almost inevitably (because you COULD do this differently, but I’ve yet to see a take where a writer DOES)....you’re also going with the take that before coming back to Gotham, Jason trained with the League of Assassins, and this is how he was so competent by the time he went up against Bruce and the others, given that he wasn’t nearly as skilled back when he died at age fifteen.

And it really, really, REALLY bugs the fuck out of me that people so rarely spend much time or focus looking critically at Jason’s time with the League of Assassins, and how that contributed to his ideology and methodology as the Red Hood.

And this is a complaint I have both with fics/writers/headcanons that are pro-Jason and anti-Jason. 

Again, don’t get me wrong. I honestly don’t have a problem with Jason’s initial return to Gotham. Like, he can murder the fuck out of every rapist and crime boss he wants, I’ll be in the stands holding the OMG LOOK AT MY BABY, LOOK HOW GOOD AT MURDERING ASSHOLES HE IS sign and doing high kicks up and down the bleachers. 

But ESPECIALLY if your take on Bruce and his raising of Jason is that he was abusive and trained him as a child soldier.....it absolutely IMO does not work to overlook the role the League of Assassins...and by extension Talia....played in shaping the man he was when he first returned to Gotham. 

And they abso-fucking-lutely played a role.

Because Jason is not Bruce, was never going to be Bruce, was always going to clash with Bruce’s ideology in ways even Dick never did, especially when it came to killing. Even before Jason died, it was very well established that they did not see eye to eye there and likely never were going to. It IS part of Jason’s core characterization that he fundamentally disagrees on the subject of killing criminals, the worst of the worst. Whether you think he actually killed Felipe Garzonas before Bruce benched him, or whether you think he didn’t, or that it was an honest accident...this was a hard line they were always going to end up on opposite sides of, and that inevitably was destined to create at least SOME kind of divide in the family.

But thing is, arguing that its okay to kill a serial rapist they have evidence that should convict him, but who keeps getting away with it because of diplomatic immunity and legal loopholes that show how ineffective a corrupt justice system is.....is NOT the same thing as arguing even to kill a murderer in the name of avenging your son that he murdered.....and even THAT is still along way away from.....

tossing eight heads in a duffel bag down onto a table in the middle of a meeting of local crime bosses as an intimidation tactic.

Felipe? That was Jason’s own personal thoughts and morality, his own perspective on right and wrong at work there, 100% him. The Joker? That was a natural, easy to follow extrapolation of those same thoughts and perspective and how they might change and grow as a result of the trauma of what the Joker did to him and how it affected him.

But Jason’s tactics when he first came back to Gotham weren’t either of those things. They were textbook League of Assassins methodology and justification.

And its just fucking WEIRD to discount that when examining his character and how he changed from the Robin he was to the Red Hood he became.

Like, even with varying canon takes, the youngest Bruce took Jason in at has him at about twelve. He wasn’t a trained acrobat like Dick, he was a malnourished street kid with none of the head start on his training that Dick came to Bruce with, already having it under his belt. Everything Jason knew how to do as Robin, the detective work, swinging around Gotham on grappling hooks, various martial arts forms and mastery of weapons....Bruce had to train him in all that from scratch, and that took time. Jason was at the earliest still only like 13 or so when he became Robin. And pretty much every take I’ve ever seen on his death has him at around fifteen when the Joker killed him. That’s two, at most three years of time spent training and being Robin, under Bruce’s tutelage.

Then things split into two takes....some go with the sequence of events where Ra’s or Talia take Jason’s body right after his funeral and put him in the Lazarus Pit, others go with the sequence where he was resurrected on his own, and was found by Ra’s or Talia a year or two later, still largely catatonic, with them putting him in the Pit to heal his mind the rest of the way.

But either way, by the time Jason comes back to Gotham he’s put at around nineteen or twenty, with it usually said that it was five years after his death, and AT LEAST two or three of those years were spent training with the League of Assassins, or with other teachers thanks to Ra’s or Talia’s patronage.

So.....any way you cut it, if you’re going with a take where Jason’s skills post-Robin come from training with the League....he spent at LEAST as much time being trained by them, with their perspective, in their methods, according to their philosophies....as he spent being trained in all that by Bruce.

There is no angle here in which they didn’t play EVERY BIT as much of a role in shaping him as the man he resents for raising him as a child soldier! With it also largely unacknowledged that even WITHOUT the effects of Pit Madness from the Lazarus Pit, you’re talking about a KID, someone who was either fifteen or at most seventeen by the time the League started training him....who is recovering from a trauma the likes of which pretty much nobody can even comprehend. While nursing a massive grudge and resentments born of insecurities and issues that carried over from his fucked up childhood from even BEFORE he met Bruce, and that Bruce absolutely failed in addressing. 

Again, no matter how you look at it, we’re talking about an extremely traumatized and impressionable and suggestible minor, desperate for anything to hold onto, any ideology to grasp hold of, any justification to make sense of all the shit that’s happened to him and where he goes from here, a purpose, a way to move FORWARD.

Like.....I’m all for Jason resenting Bruce raising him as a child soldier. What I DON’T get, is neither him nor anyone writing him in this way displaying the same awareness of the fact that....the League literally raised him to be a child soldier after he was brought back.

Same shit, different generals. That’s it. But again, that’s not an upgrade! That’s not better for Jason! That’s not an improvement over Bruce! It’s literally a lateral move!

And if your take includes ANY aspect of Talia training or overseeing Jason’s training to help him get back at her ex, someone she definitely has issues with at the time, no matter what canon or existing adaptation you’re going with.....you’re talking about someone literally weaponizing a traumatized teenager against her ex.

Ummm. Yeah. We’re just....not gonna call that better for Jason, or healthier for Jason, or in any way, shape or form to JASON’S benefit, okay? Cuz its not. No matter what his issues with Bruce, no matter what your issues with Bruce as a reader or writer, no matter where you fall on the ‘is killing bad people bad, y/n’ spectrum.....it is just deeply WRONG to just generically write Talia as forming a maternal bond with Jason WHILE he’s being trained by the League she holds enormous influence over, even if not as much as her father.....and act like this is the opposite of Bruce and how he failed Jason. Instead of just more of the same.

Like sorry not sorry Talia, but if you actually give a shit about Jason when he comes out of the Pit all traumatized and chock full of issues....you put him in fucking THERAPY, not How To Be An Assassin and REALLY Get Back At Your Dad 101.

And it doesn’t have to be that way, to be clear. You can write Talia taking off with Jason and toddler Damian in the middle of the night, abandoning the League of Assassins to take both of them far away and hide them so Jason can heal and cope and find himself and Damian can grow up not learning how to poison people by age five. You do that, all my objections vanish, THAT is infinitely superior to Bruce’s parenting, and that’s a parental bond with Jason I can happily stan as being for his benefit and to his betterment.

But no fic where he debuts as the Red Hood with years of League training under his belt has that. And this oversight is realllllly starting to get on  my nerves, lol.

Again, from both sides of the Jason camp, pro and anti alike.

Cuz if you’re a Jason fan for any reason, no matter whether you’re in favor of him reconciling or bonding with any or all of the Batfamily or not, why WOULDN’T you want them acknowledging that who he is now and what he’s done as the Red Hood has every bit as much to do with the skills the League gave him and the philosophies the League taught him as it does with what he learned from Bruce? That he was conditioned in these things while in a highly vulnerable point in his life?

And if you’re not a Jason fan, no matter the reason, it is again, STILL a massive oversight not to acknowledge that his actions and agendas as the Red Hood stem from years of being trained as a teenage assassin while in a highly vulnerable and thus suggestible state and with a clear lack of other options or support systems to counter anything they taught him.

Like I said, I’m pro Red Hood, I love Jason, I agreed with him back when he was arguing with Bruce about Felipe Garzonas. Jason’s never targeted anyone but the worst of the worst and he’s always displayed an ability to see reason and back down, he’s not some mindless killing machine. I lean way more towards his philosophies than I do Bruce’s, even if I don’t always agree entirely, and part of my point here is like...this isn’t about judging Jason for his actions or like, ugh, I really like Jason but I think he’d be even better if he was less murder-y, you know, more like Dick.

But like...the rest of my point is that I just honestly don’t see Jason’s actions and professed ideologies as one hundred percent HIS natural perspective, not influenced to an unhealthy degree by others in a position to take advantage of him at more vulnerable times in his life and sway him more to their positions. And THAT’S my problem with how little people reflect on the role the League played in who he became, AND with the insertion of a maternal and nominally supportive bond with Talia that’s written as being superior and more to Jason’s benefit than anything he shared with Bruce.

LOL even when I don’t mean to, like I definitely didn’t when I started this post, I always seem to keep coming back to how alike Dick and Jason and their stories are and how well and how often they parallel each other, because its the exact same issue I have with Dick. They’re just a very easy way to point out certain things about the other.

Like, I’ve talked before about how I think Dick’s aversion to killing, not when others kill but when HE himself is presented with killing as an option - its really just him being terrified of disappointing Bruce and being abandoned by him if he does so, no matter that he’s an adult now. Because I DO agree and always have, that at the very least, Bruce was at times emotionally abusive with Dick and Jason at least, with a strong case to be made for Damian as well. (Tim’s harder to gauge given that most of his time under Bruce’s direct care was at a time when Bruce was overcompensating for all the things he missed with Jason and blamed himself for, and ever since Jason’s return, Tim’s written as being so independent and removed from Bruce’s influence that its more like Bruce rarely has the OPPORTUNITY to fuck things up with Tim to the degree he has with his other sons.)

Sorry. Digression. Point being, like, I do fully agree with the interpretation that Bruce’s rigid moral code and how forceful and insistent he was on imprinting it on Dick, Jason and Damian has at times been emotionally abusive, and I think the effect of that is most clearly demonstrated with Dick, due to the simple fact that Dick has spent more time under Bruce’s care and tutelage than all the others combined. 

So my problem with Dick’s aversion to killing and how its so often hyped up in canon and in fanfics as him being so like Bruce in this regard, or just a Boy Scout, or ‘too good’ or ‘too pure’ to ever kill, at least not without it ‘breaking him’....that’s got nothing to do with me wanting Dick to suddenly go all trigger happy and kill his enemies with no problem. It’s just because.....I don’t think its Dick’s moral code at work there. I think its Bruce’s, and the way Dick’s written sticking to it without any self-analysis of where it came from and WHY he clings to it so rigidly, I view as evidence of conditioning due to how he was raised. With Dick so focused on other areas where he pushed back against Bruce he’s never really realized that how thoroughly Bruce influenced him in this regard flew completely under his radar.

It’s not that I want Dick to kill more, its that I want his choice to kill or not to be based on HIS choices, HIS morality, and not just a kneejerk response to conditioning he’s never recognized as such because who doesn’t have blinders on in regards to parts of our childhoods, you know?

And then circling back to Jason, I went on that tangent to emphasize its the exact same thing there, just in reverse. It’s not even that I DON’T want Jason to kill his enemies, to have the same philosophy or ideology or methods as Bruce or Dick or Tim. It’s that I want his choice to kill or not to be based on HIS morality, as the result of conclusions he came to after having the time and space and distance to separate himself from his various teachers and surroundings and decide for himself just what it is he believes, what choices and instincts are his naturally, organically, and which ones are leftover from his training by the League, drilled in by his instructors - just as he’s taught himself to recognize when his old training and lessons from Bruce are kicking in.

Anyway.

tl;dr - Bruce sucks and is a terrible parent but lolololol unless you’re going well off the beaten path from canon and faaaaaar away from where the League of Assassins can get their hooks in Jason to any degree, like...Talia is not better. Let Jason be Jason, not just a child soldier raised by your general of choice and aimed in the general direction of philosophies you agree with more than their opposite.

[thenightling]

lest we forget your constant putdown of openly nonbinary characters in echo and your blaming desire for everything that ever went wrong for your fave. it just seems like another part of this 'thing' you have about representation. seriously, just maybe step back and think before you make posts about nb characters that's all it boils down to. because you have gone really out of line from what i've seen of your posts.

Echo IS a badly written character.   I asked you to find me someone who actually liked her, not tell me why I shouldn’t be allowed to dislike her.   

I don’t “Blame” Desire for anything.  Desire IS accountable for situations in which desire is the catalytic emotion.  Desire vowed  (in four different occasions) to bring down the Kindly Ones on Morpheus.  How can it be blaming if the character gloats about doing it?

How dare I blame a character for what the character literally talked about doing?  That… doesn’t even make sense. 

 Are you an actual Sandman fan or do you just get the gist of it from my posts?   An actual Sandman fan would have noticed Desire is a f–king Asshole.

Desire RAPED a comatose girl in order to create a future granddaughter in the effort to trick Morpheus into spilling family blood so The Kindly Ones would come for him. (See the storyline called Doll’s House).  Desire RAPED a woman.  This is not fan wank.  This is canon.  Desire is not supposed to be a nice person.  And you are defending them just because they’re nonbinary!?  What the Hell is wrong with you!?  

Let me repeat, the character raped someone to create a grandchild in the hope that they could trick their brother into killing her.   But I’m wrong for blaming them for actions they literally gloat about?!  Have you ever actually touched The Sandman comics? …Ever? 

Desire is not accountable for what happened with Thessaly or they’d gloat about it but Desire IS accountable for what happened with Rose Walker.  They admitted to it in at least two occasions.

Maybe you should have researched the character before trying to defend them because boy did you just step in it!

http://sandman.wikia.com/wiki/Desire

Desire IS actually somewhat likable in Sandman: Overture though, they were fun when posing as Dream-Cat.   Still an asshole, but fun in that one.   I sometimes like Assholes and Desire was likable for most of Overture.   

I love many non-Binary characters.  My favorite is Marvel’s Loki. Have you not noticed I’m a Loki fan? Marvel comics Loki is genderfluid and has canonly been genderfluid for almost a decade now.  

But sure, I’m supposed to like a rapist, who vows to murder someone out of petty jealousy, just because they’re non-binary. All right, sure, that makes sense…  (Really not,  And I can’t imagine anyone actually thinking Desire’s behavior is okay).

[orionsangel86]

Figured I'd continue this as an ask so we don't keep debating on that poor person's post! Anyways, regarding Neil's edgelord tendencies:

What also throws me off about The Sandman Companion's rape interpretation of both Morpheus' marriage to Calliope and his relationship with Nada (it states that the women's story must be WORSE not better, than the version men tell, and pretty much the only way it could get worse is rape...) is that Neil... isn't shy about SAYING "rape" in the text. He doesn't hide what Madoc does to Calliope, nor what the book version of Desire did to Unity (which thankfully got changed to consensual in the show). So why this roundabout stuff with Morpheus? If the character being evil and abusive is supposed to be a core character trait, why relegate it to an obscure, if still canon, guide text?

My hope is that these particular edgelord interpretations are the work of the other co-author, Hy Bender. Alternately, I wonder if Neil was trying to retcon his own work at the time. I have no idea how the grimdark "Morpheus killing himself was good, actually" ending was received at the time, but I could easily see a situation where, like now, the fans look at the ending and go "yikes". Perhaps Neil was doing his best to cover and go "um well ACTUALLY you should be glad he finally offed himself, see how horrible he was!" even when it went against his original intent for those previous issues.

Like now, he might be able to look back and realize the nasty implications. But I could easily see younger-Neil as an author who just released their long-planned ending to a text scrambling for cover when it doesn't get the expected reception.

That's a TOTAL GUESS though. Like I said, I have zero idea how people felt about the ending in the 90s.

Ooof every new thing you tell me about that book makes me shudder and recoil.

Honestly I have no idea what Neil's intentions were with signing off on those interpretations, and I still struggle with understanding his intentions for the ending of the Sandman, other than the obvious being a "what NOT to do if you are feeling depressed and incapable of improving your life", which sometimes gets a bit lost amongst all the misery and angst with zero pay off throughout the Kindly Ones. Do we know what the initial reception was to the ending of the Sandman when it was first released though? Because hasn't it always been critically acclaimed highly praised and considered one of the all time best graphic novels ever published? It's Neil's Magnum Opus.

I think we have both now mentioned more than a few times that the 90s were a totally different era with a totally different mentality to today. A lot of the stuff in the Sandman comics are eyebrow raising because the different mentalities of the era are so obvious to me. The general portrayal of women in particular is pretty um... outdated and on my first read of the Calliope issue I visibly recoiled at that panel where she is raped by Madoc - because I legit had never seen something like that depicted so graphically before in that artform. But you are right to point out that if Neil wanted Morpheus to be viewed as an abuser and a rapist, then he would have just put it in the comics. Desire is a rapist, and yet people still love Desire.

The show is a much better indication of where Neil's intentions currently lie. The removal of any graphic scenes of sexual violence towards women was absolutely the right decision. Dream is a far more likeable character in the show (and I still like comic!Dream even with his somewhat cold demeanor!) I could scream all day about the absolutely brilliant changes in the Calliope episode which come across so romantic and soft that fans are legit shipping them together (which I don't think anyone can possibly do with their comic counterparts). I think the change in the Dolls House to Desire and Unity's whole situation also has huge implications for Desire's character which fascinates me. In the comic it is literally a one time thing where Desire rapes her while she sleeps and probably never considers her again outside of keeping an eye on their child as part of their scheme. The show however indicates that Desire took the time to get to know Unity, to woo her, and to enter into an apparently long term relationship with her in the Dreaming.

I 100% believe they are going to change the story in Tales in the Sand and I think that they left it out of season 1 because it's going to be a huge indication on how the show will deviate from the comics further. I hope they do away with all that stupid virginity stuff (because I'm sorry but shoving a rock up your vag to break your hymen is NOT losing your virginity and that particular part always baffles me. Dream doesn't care about virginity? Well good for him but like, she's still a virgin anyway? Otherwise you are legit stating that this poor girl lost her virginity to a slightly sharp dick shaped rock? Come on people I thought this was obvious? There are better ways to indicate to your audience that your main character doesn't have a virginity kink. Sorry for ranting about that but it really pissed me off when I first read it because it was SO STUPID).

Basically, whatever the Sandman Companion stated is gonna be forgotten about completely when the show releases its new episodes and we see show!Dream be even more the romantic hero. I think we can be confident that any modern interpretations will do away with these 90s edgelord interpretations and thats the best thing we can ultimately hope for. I won't let it tarnish my opinion of comic!Dream though, because there is more than enough evidence in the comics that contradicts some bullshit interpretation that makes no sense.