#this problematic character’ as the next

[urfavisaminor]

Shipping ABUSE is supporting ABUSE. a short opinion piece

(P.S. BEFORE ANY OF YOU ASK this is NOT SATIRE!!!!!!! I AM MAKING ARGUMENTS THAT ARE VERY SERIOUS AND MEANY TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY, listen to ur ant queen! blindly. THIS IS A VERY VERY VERY VEYR VERY VEYR EGRYR VERY VEYR VEYR VERY SERIOUS BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I'm not satire I'm not dairy I am serious and smart you people just can't handle my genius I'm so dmart if you disagree with me ur wrong and I'm right

Noq to the main topic, why peoshippers are hitler, while yes, I’m talking about fictional characters, don’t you get it?????? If you write about characters yelling at each other, having a small argument or even an "enemies to lovers"/"rivals to lovers" you’re basically telling your readers that it’s okay to let their partners gasloghtt and hitthem IRL!!!!!! You’re ruining lives with your degenerate scum smut! ITS YOUR FAULT AND I HATE YOU

Bakudeku is proship btw (proship problematic ship) because Bakaga told Deeki to khs once in middle school and was a meanie

“But it’s just fiction!” WELL SO IS NAZI PROPAGANDA so if ur proship just know you're comparable to actual nazis and are clearly racist and ableist and homophobic and transphobic. What’s your next excuse? You’re LITERALLY training people to ignore red flags.

And before anyone says, “It’s just a ship!” let me remind you that words have power. Your abusive ship fanfic lemon could be THE reason someone’s cousin’s roommate's aunt's co-worker's friend decides to stay with their toxic boyfriend. That will happen AND IT WILL BE YOUR RESPONSABILITY. IT *IS* YOU JOB TO HANDLE OTHER PEOPLES TRIGGERS, MAKING THIS CONTENT MAKES YOU HUST AS BAD AS ACTUAL ABUSERS.

NORMALIZING ABUSE IS ABUSE. there's no other motive you would ship this otherwise!

None of you care about real victime (the only real victims are the ones who dont use this shit to "cope"").

In conclusion: You’re all enabling abusers only comparable to the literal devil. Go outside and touch grass. Preferably the kind that makes you itch.

ur wrong and I'm right !

I am so smart so smart so smart

It's okay for me to like problematic media thought! I like problematic ships CORRECTLTy ur just consume it not correctly

try doing it correctly next time

I am not hypocritical

no

[horse-girl-anthy]

this is gonna be an off the cuff ramble/vent so don't read if that doesn't interest you.

I am thinking I'm going to back away from Ikuhara fandom in the next six months (coinciding with when I finish the rewatches I'm doing in my server). I feel like I've exhausted what I have to say about his shows, and I've also developed a very specific way of understanding them which clashes with others. I'm torn between feeling like it's worth trying to delineate my own understanding and feeling that I'm just being territorial, pedantic, or close minded. at a certain point, even if I could be proved "right" on my interpretations, I'm losing the enjoyment I should have in the stories by caring what other people think about them. at the moment, I'm thinking I want to flesh a couple more ideas and then let it rest. I'll always be grateful to Ikuhara and happy I put time into this blog, but nothing lasts forever.

so all of that to say... I was on the fence about writing what I'm about to write. I recommend people who don't want to read someone objecting to common RGU fan interpretations to just check out now. I'm not trying to start anything. but after reflecting on it, I decided it to share my thoughts on this topic; I think it's worth saying, even if it makes me look contrarian or problematic.

---

I watched RGU in 2014, right as the western fandom was experiencing a shift in how it approached the show. I won't detail all that went on during that time--today I'm specifically interested in two characters: Nanami and Miki.

before, I'd say the fandom was overall less critical. things were taken more at face value. for instance, Nanami was not always taken seriously, while characters like Miki, just because they were "nice," were seen as "good guys." however as time's wore on, there's been a backlash to that way of approaching the show. the characters most likely to have received misogynistic hate in the past (Anthy, Shiori, Nanami, and Kozue, mainly) were reinterpreted, while "good guy" characters were increasingly scrutinized.

that was a good thing, as it was a counterbalance to the previous attitude. however, it's been more than a decade since I joined the fandom, and I still see people talking like it's 2014. the way that people have reinterpreted the anime has, often, not resulted in interesting readings. this is because people are still applying an ideological lens to the story, rather than engaging with how it presents itself.

I specifically want to highlight Nanami in this regard. I check the RGU tag almost every single day, and I have seen scores of posts which are nigh-identical to each other. it's always people talking about how she's a "calf to the slaughter," she's actually a victim, etc. and I just... don't get anything out of it.

I think a lot of this shift began with this essay series called Palace Perspective. it's been a long time since I read it--actually before my Utena renaissance--but I didn't like it at the time. it was written in this very self-serious style, and all I remember it arguing was "Nanami is a victim, Touga is a bad guy." I'd loved the Touga/Nanami relationship since I first watched RGU, and that was never how I felt about it. Touga certainly harms Nanami, but based on the series itself, it seemed to me that in large part, Touga was the victim, and Nanami was harmed by his victimization.

anyway, since around the time that essay series came out, people have had this attitude of "actually Nanami is a very deep character, you guys," as if it needs to be repeated over and over. and there's a denial that Nanami is a comic relief character--"actually her being funny is just a ruse because the show is camouflaging that she's a victim!" okay, yes, they do lure you in to Nanami's story slowly; she's initially silly, but all along hiding under that was some serious shit. I'm not denying that. but I'm also not buying that line entirely.

the Shadow Girls do an entire play about how Nanami's comedic suffering is the result of her own actions (they call it "divine justice"). take episode 16 specifically. yes, we have Nanami dreaming about being a calf for the slaughter. that is a great scene and indicative of the unhealthy relationship between her and Touga. but isn't the crux of the episode that Nanami is making a fool of herself??? she tries to one-up Juri at a party. her failure to realize what the cowbell is highlights her ignorance. the show is absolutely poking fun at her. you can go into why Nanami ended up this way, but I don't understand how we've gotten to the point where people are so over-serious about Nanami--and RGU in general--that they can't laugh at it.

I'll take a detour here to talk about Miki. it's become increasingly popular to frame him as a sexist--I've even seen him termed a "raging misogynist." he gets blamed for his strained relationship with his sister and written off as "just as bad as the other male characters." that's another case where I really don't see it. or at least, I feel like people have lost track of degrees in these things. Miki seems unsure of what he believes, sometimes expressing progressive views but other times regressive ones, and he does act within a patriarchal system. but does he comport himself that badly? or is he just a normal 13-year-old boy who falls into temptation?

I want to make a comparison between him and Nanami here. I think you could make a very real case that Nanami has far more sexist beliefs than Miki. she treats every female character as competition, as a hussy out to steal her brother. when she finds out the truth about Anthy and Akio, she immediately jumps to victim blaming Anthy. and another thing: Nanami plays princess.

the fact that so many people write about Nanami but this aspect of her character is rarely commented on is mind boggling. it's like, her whole thing. Nanami wants to be the center of the universe; Touga is her everything and she wants to possess Touga. she constantly acts the victim and tries to manipulate things so her enemies look like the villain.

I'm not saying this to shit on Nanami! I love Nanami, she's one of my favorite characters of all time! but I've found it alienating to be in a fandom where whitewashing is framed as appreciation. even her backstory: people make post after post about how it wasn't Nanami's fault she killed the cat, because she's a victim. here's the problem with that: why are we engaging with the story on the level of blame? I recently read an essay on methods of analysis that placed "vilification and heroization" as the lowest form of engagement with fiction. I understand why someone would want to defend a character from attack, but aside from like, youtube comments or old forum posts, who exactly is attacking Nanami? and also, how is saying "actually she's a victim so that explains everything" accomplishing anything?

I am being unfair here, because some people do engage with the work enough to say more than that. people will point to the neglect Nanami experienced as the cause of her behavior. that's there, it's certainly there. I'm not objecting to serious attempts to explain character motivation in reaction to vilifiction, but more to the impulse to try to paint characters as morally pure. isn't Nanami so great because she's so complicated? when people approach the story with the drive to whitewash, so much of the nuance and feeling of the work goes unnoticed. episode 31 and 32 do portray Nanami as a victim (of Touga and of her parents and of Akio). however, they also portray Nanami's motivations, and not all of them are pretty. over the course of the arc, you watch her entire worldview fall apart. it doesn't matter whether not it's "her fault" she has that worldview--the process is painful and humiliating either way.

all of this carries through to how people react to both Nanami's final scene in the show and her comic relief section in the film. the comic relief scene is bad because it doesn't take Nanami seriously enough, while her final scene is bad because it shows her waiting on Touga and Saionji, which is sexist because she's partaking in traditional gender roles. the only way I can understand those reactions is that people didn't actually pay attention to how she was portrayed in the show, as a comic relief character or as a serious character. I'd understand the objection if Anthy's final scene involved her waiting on Akio, but Anthy and Nanami are different characters (I also don't get much out of the endless Anthy/Nanami posts because of how they are flattened in comparisons). unlike Anthy, Nanami spent the entire show demanding to be waited on, but when we see her for the last time, she's contentedly serving others. that is called character development.

I wanted to highlight Miki and Nanami because I feel they point to a major problem of the fandom: the maintenance of the prince and the princess, just with new definitions. the prince is bad, masculine, harmful, and needs to be rejected. the princess is good, feminine, eternally victimized, and above question. I find this sad because I thought we were supposed to be transcending the gender binary. I know saying this makes me sound anti-feminist, but I'm not. I'm not saying "oh we need to transcend the gender binary by never criticizing men or ignoring how women are victimized"; that would be stupid. but my vision of feminism is vigilantly critical of all things, evaluates each situation on an individual basis, and avoids self-flattery and self-deception.

[pollyanna-nana]

Look. I know some people are going to want to mail a pipe bomb to my house for three houses discoursing again in 2023-almost-2024 but can we please, for the sake of my goddamn sanity, agree that Edelgard waging war for any reason was objectively bad. “Well it was to oppose the church-“ Starting a war is bad. “The other countries didn’t give in so she had to-“ Starting a war is bad. “Well there was nothing else she could have done-“ Starting. A. War. Is. Bad. There is no possible justification on this planet for doing so that makes it a remotely okay thing to do. It is not a “necessary evil” and I hope people don’t take this mindset into actual real life conflicts happening right now as we speak. Yes she’s hot and cool and interesting but if I see one more person genuinely saying she was 100% correct I’m going to eat glass on live TV.

[redr0sewrites]

i will forever defend these two- NOT to start discourse but they are both so heavily mischaracterized by the fandom its INSANE like omg yes they are flawed but they are also trying their best PLEASE leave them alone 🙏🙏🙏

as usual im yapping in the tags if anyone cares

[c-kiddo]

heard a taliesin character was up to some dumbass self destructive behaviour again

[dandelionjack]

i hope ruby gets a well-that’s-alright-then-style notdeath. on the one hand it will make haters mad because oh no not another companion with an impermanent end (and i like to see haters mad) on the other it would require creativity to depict this in a new way + i love all the implications i love the dark fairytale quality of these companion exits i love my un-undead schrodinger’s women

with the way the legend of ruby sunday is titled… legends aren’t usually told about living people. legends are stories of the bygone past, of an age long since over, fictionalised and overgrown with folklore like barnacles sticking to an abandoned shell. there is such a thing as a living legend, but they’re exceedingly rare. the unmistakeable raven’s call in the 73 yards teaser, the trailer’s cut to fifteen crying alone after promising to cherry he’d protect her daughter… the foreshadowing is clear as day…

and yet. there’s one massive HOWEVER. ruby appears in s15: millie’s been spotted on set filming it. which leads me to believe — the doctor isn’t one to take the time travel route and revisit companions that in his future are genuinely dead. that would hurt too much, it would cause unnecessary trauma and could break the timeline. that must mean ruby stays alive in some way. ish. she’s alive and a legend and a mystery. girl-ballad girl-song girl-paradox

here she is, fading out.

p.s.: thesis statement on moffatgirls from the tags i left on somebody else’s post about charley pollard.. well it belongs here since it’s basically the semiotic hurricane swirling around ruby at the moment :)

[godofstupidsentences]

I love my Lorcan Scamander so much, like... he’s a freak, he’s obsessive, he’s a nerd, he loves literature, he’s an misanthrope, he’s a hater, he plays d&d, he loves his brother deeply, he’s the personification of envy, he fell in love with albus and it ruined him forever, he’s a princess, he’s a bad person, he pretends to like black coffee for the aesthetic, he has no idea of how to comfort people, he considers scorpius his nemesis but scorpius barely knows who he is, he forced hogwarts to allow dogs as pets so he could bring his own dog with him, he’s the most likely to kill someone

[rebtrovert-girl]

Nothing can ever really prepare you for the heartbreak of knowing the one drama you really anticipated turn into that messy plot

[gumm1defloor]

I would like a Valentino character analysis post so much right now actually, in general but also regarding his behaviors and mannerisms in episodes 2, 4 & 6 specifically now that the actual show is out and we don't have cherry pick uncanonized content and possibly outdated information

something something period specific socioeconomic implications of Vals caricature and how it relates to his personality and the various persona's he curates based on his relationships to the person he's interacting with and the environment he tries to take advantage of. Something something really don't want to rely on twitter for this and not overly enthusiastic at the prospect of reddit so here we are

[bisexualseraphim]

I can’t believe this needs explaining but a same-gender relationship by definition cannot be “heteronormative” lmao. The way two WOMEN date or have sex with each other or get married will never be heteronormative because they are not in a heterosexual relationship. And yes, this includes butch/femme relationships.

Like do you really think homophobes are looking at a twink and a bear holding hands and thinking “well the idea of them being inside each other turns my stomach but one is slightly more masculine than the other so I suppose it’s okay. Oh and they’re wearing T-shirts that say ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ which basically means ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ even better.” What world are you living in

[vasira96]

can’t stop thinking about zoolander

[skimmeh]

ack the stuff you said about dsmp and its ending and stuff—i feel that. its like this painful nostalgia of what the thing used to be and the fact that it’ll never happen again… i get nostalgic over the lmanburg anthem lmao. im still having a hard time getting over it ahaha.

i honestly hate the ending but i suppose it had to end sometime. Season 2 getting canceled… like you said, there is some comfort in that, but at the same time its so sad to think that it’s finally, officially over. two years of watching funny block men play the funny block game. it was so fun.

is feeling this way over a silly minecraft server overreacting? maybe. but nonetheless theres still that sadness. i just pretend theres a real ending where the nuke doesnt blow everyone up and these amazing characters ive grown to love just live on in their happy little lives.

anyway just wanted to say this after seeing your recent post. in all honesty, i miss dsmp. but seeing that someone i look up to feels the same way i do makes it a little bit easier to bear, i think. so thank you./gen

Hello anon!!! I'm glad I was able to make you feel comforted and better with just a silly Tumblr post (which also was a bit of a rant haha)

Yeah, it's a painful kind of nostalgia. Which is a bit bitter (due to the nature of how ...the dsmp sorta had a very, rather than ending with a big bang, it was more sorta drawn out thin and had a more than unsatisfying ending. its okay,I think as a fandom we are all making our own au endings to replace that one haha)

And despite all the hardship around this dumb lil server, I don't think I regret getting into it. And I still teasure the story and characters so dearly.

I think you're aloud to have such strong feelings over a silly lil thing, cos I think we're past the point of thinking it is dumb to be so invested in a Minecraft server. It was so fucking cool, and not just the server, the fancontent. I would argue that was the thing that made it so loved and engaging to be a part of. The fan content was unmatched and filled with talent.

People who think it's dumb to have a generally fun time within a fandom and to mourn that when it ends, are boring. Yeah it was a Minecraft rp, but it was also the some of the funnest times I've ever had within a fandom.

The dsmp may have ended but the creativity that made it so great is still here, with the fan content and cc, who will go onto new things and continue to make great things and improve.

And besides the story and characters are still there. It's like putting one of your favourite book on a shelf. You can always revisit the story, maybe take something different from it after time.

And I'm sure there will still be fancontent created from the characters, I know I still plan on drawing and writing stuff.

I can't let go of these characters just yet haha.

It's just now there's room for more things, I don't think anything will replace what the dsmp was,I don't want that.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm excited to see what comes next!!! And I'm thankful for the experience of what the dsmp was.

[hesitationmarx]

when someone says __ fans or __ shippers or __ apologists DNI (in the context of media/fandom) do u mean don’t talk about that thing on ur posts or at u? or do u mean if i’m entertained by something u find problematic i literally shouldn’t interact? bc i’ll respect that too but i don’t love it as a trend

[ssreeder]

Sorry for sending that Jet/Suki ask a while ago. Saw your reblog tags under some chiptrillino art and it sounded like you shipped them. We rarepairists get overeager sometimes. I’ll just leave you alone. 😅

OMG ANON NOOOOO!!!

Please don’t leave me alone!! I’m so sorry! I have been struggling to answer asks for about a week (I’m very behind but I love every single ask I get) & I did post my love for Suki x Jet (jetki? Jetski?? Idk anon idk haha) & I’ve gotten a few asks about my Jet / Suki tags - I have just been trying to find the best way to answer.

You’re not overeager at all, I’m just a slow responder & forgetful. I am sort of showing some of their compatibility in my fic LIAB, but I don’t know if they’ll end up together or just friends (we’ll see… jets gotta live)

But they are one of my favorite ships because I think they have a lot of potential (if you don’t like Jet I’d probably skip this ask)

Jet is passionate, a skilled fighter, cocky, charming, a leader, attractive, cares about people (come on now he took in a bunch of orphans and built them a treehouse I’m not arguing with anyone about this) and has a tragic backstory.

Suki is also passionate, a skilled fighter, charming, a capable and strong leader, cares about people, funny, and a beautiful girl.

I feel like Suki would have the ability to put Jet in his place and have all the skills to back herself up if he challenged her. They would compliment each other in their fighting styles as well as their banter because they both have a sharp tongue and a snarky sense of humor. They both can relate to the pressure of being in a leadership position and depending on how you see Sukis backstory they could also share the pain of losing loved ones.

I think out of everyone, Suki has the best chance at making Jet WANT to be a better person and she could give him a reason to actually fear disappointing another person. Jet would also possibly feel truly loved for the first time since losing his parents so young which might help breakdown his cold exterior and soften him a little.

I’ve always really liked them together, and I have a few fic ideas with them as one of the main ships (haha & one with Zuko third wheeling them with his silly gay self) and all sorts of ideas of how they could grow and what a future together would look like… it’s just hard for me to articulate why I like them together so I hope I did them justice by answering this ask lol.

I’m sorry if I seemed like I was ignoring you, it was never my intention to make you feel like I wasn’t interested in answering… I just don’t know how to make my thoughts make sense sometimes (ignore the fics I’m writing those don’t count) so I hope this made sense!!

[finnlongman]

I saw a really good post a while back that said you can't write for the bad faith reader, because it will ruin you and make you second-guess everything. Yes, there will be people determined to misunderstand you and assume the worst, and others who will misunderstand you without even trying, but you can't write solely for them. It will poison your mind and your story and your creativity.

I'm thinking about that a lot while writing this current book. Currently it is not saying what I want it to say, because it's a first draft, and first drafts rarely do – but there also moments of doubt where I find myself worrying about what other people will think about the things I am trying to say. I worry that they're "problematic". I suspect they will be considered "bad representation", even the parts that feel truest to me. These are ideas I try not to think about when I'm writing, because they're impossible moral standards and they're also a trap (nothing is ever good enough, and things that come close rarely make for good stories). But my brain is internet-poisoned enough that it's difficult, because it feels at times like the bad faith reader is a permanent resident in my mind.

Partly to counter this, I've made a point recently of reading a few... challenging books. Some of them have been upsetting, others just thought-provoking; one or two have genuinely haunted me in a bad way, but that in and of itself is useful. It reminds me that whatever I'm doing, somebody else is doing something that pushes more boundaries, and they're doing it with a lot less fear than I am. It also reminds me to be bolder. I spend a lot of time in kidlit- and YA-dominated spaces, for obvious reasons, and though I like to explore some pretty difficult concepts in my YA, there are limits and there are ways of handling things. But in adult books, I'm being reminded, you can push further. You can do more, and worse, and less apologetically.

I don't want to be an apologetic writer. I also don't particularly want to be a graphic one, or to write with the intention of provoking shock and disgust, because that's not my vibe, and I don't think I'd be very good at it. But I think sometimes when I let the morality police worm their way into my head, I need to think more about aiming for the latter, in the hope of avoiding the former.

And as such, I think the only effective weapon against the voice in my head that says "isn't this Problematic™?" or "don't you think it's Bad Representation for this character to behave in that way?" (how I hate the fact that this idea is even in my head in the first place) is to say, "So what! Let's do it on purpose! Let's write messy problematic bad rep featuring absolutely garbage characters and see if the world ends!"

Because quite frankly, I think nothing I come up with is going to be as bad as my brain is afraid it will be. But maybe if I convince it there's nothing to be afraid of about doing that, it might at least produce something interesting. Something that isn't afraid of itself, and doesn't feel the need to sandpaper off all its own sharp edges, and which asks questions without necessarily having the answers.

[softepilogues]

*banging pots and pans* more one piece star trek aus