#very few toxic players outside of mythic+

[panasop]

A personal ranking of subclasses in WoW based on nothing but my own experiences on several pve server, running raid pugs and mythic keys lol.

(Btw this is mostly a joke, WoW has alot less toxic players than people realize.

[justaweirdogremlin]

It’s the spookiest day in spooky month so I give you

Jonas Falk

Tall ratty evil junkie bastard, a villain/vigilante OC

(WARNING: shit handwriting, low quality hands)

(Yeah dude looks like emo p2Joseph shut up.)

Pronouns are he/him but bro is homosexual and polyamorous.

Not a lot I known about his past since he’s good at hiding a lot of things and quick to cut ties with anyone. But the scars has their tales.

Though seemingly chill, easygoing and dumb with a smirk that’s plastered on his face, of course, he’s a lot smarter and sinister than he lets on, careful with his wording too. Yet, still gives off a sense of comfort to make you feel at ease and lower your guard down. Or up more, because that would feel weird if you were to think about it.

He may be homeless but he really doesn’t mind, he’d rather live on the streets and sleep on top of flat roofs on buildings. Just being outside and move around a lot, that’s what makes him happy. Being good at parkour, the guy has no problem climbing and jumping from building to building or houses at night. Even so, he still keeps a hideout/base of operations, stashing random metal junk to tinker with (usually doesn’t work), blackmail documents on people that interests him to stalk and more stolen stuff.

Cameras, cam recorders, tapes, film (for the cameras), voice recorders, you name it. He always brings a cassette player with headphones anywhere, just to listen to music because why the hell would’t you?

A better visual of his physique + Stand abilities

(Slight nudity?)

Yes, I made him ridiculously tall, absolute tank (6’10 ft/209 cm). Despite that, he’s still really good at hiding and sneaking, sometimes so quiet on his feet he accidentally jump scares people, but he doesn’t mean to. (Why wouldn’t you be scared shitless if a man with that height was suddenly looming behind you.)

His age is unknown, as I said, not a lot is known about him so who knows when or where he came to existence. Nor of what he is since there’s a bunch of mythical things that exist in the jojo verse. And again, he doesn’t tell much. (But I could 👀)

The stand, Toxic Love (by Tim Curry), with a range of 2m/6’7ft, is like a manifestation of a few different types of pollution.

Producing polluted air that reaches to a rate that is very dangerous to breathe in, damaging your lungs till they collapse.

spreading the noxious gases and chemicals 5m/16’4ft wide, surrounding itself at the center of it. Attempting to get closer to the stand, the denser and humid the fog is. If able to produce enough for an extended period on a high placement, the fumes go up in the atmosphere and infect clouds, creating acid rain, melting the flesh off your bones (remember the rat stand users?). Even Jonas himself isn’t safe from all of that, though it saps away all of his energy.

The stand itself being made of tar, contaminated soil and disgusting water that makes it have a semi-liquid consistency. Having its own cycle like a swamp around the stands uncomfortably warm body. Creating a thin layer of mist, continuously seeping into itself that then heats up into mist again. Punching it with another stand or not, you obviously don’t want to touch that poisonous pile of sludge.

The mouth stomach is what breathes out all of those fumes. The teeth grinds together to create sparks, with the combination of the sparks hitting the gasses it’ll create an explosion of flames. Of course Jonas is smart enough not to do that anytime soon.

A less explosive way is possible of course, flicking some of the stands tar-like fluids on the opponent and lighting them up.

Keeping his opponents in place and alive is also simple, covering them in tar. Since it’s out of the stands warm and humid cycle, it’ll dry out and harden.

But that’s only in its offensive form, it strains Jonas’ mentality a lot. Overstimulating him, giving him headaches that feels like getting his head split in half with an axe, feeling like he needs to vomit and getting cold sweat. Obviously Jonas doesn’t use that form unless absolutely necessary.

So he has it in its defensive form more instead, and it’s a lot more safer and a lot less mentally draining than the offensive.

The defensive form sits on the top of Jonas’ head like hair with a ponytail being a little shorter than his entire body, closely like a pompadour (wonder who he got that idea from). It can’t do any of the abilities it’s offensive form can do at all, though the ponytail acts as a third arm or a shield. That form also saves energy for the offensive.

Swiftly protecting or deflecting anything that’ll hurt its user. But of course, it’s not strong enough to shield or lift literally anything, like something as big or heavy as a car. It can’t slice through things but it can poke holes. Stabbing through rocks or bricks are possible, sometimes metal if it’s thin enough.

Personality

Ironically he likes to keep himself as clean as he can as a junkie, trying to shower more than just once a week, and he smokes.

As said before, he’s smarter and more sinister than he let’s you think. Still keeping that goofy laidback and sassy nature. Though always seems upbeat with a tired smile plastered on his face he actually doesn’t express what he feels, exaggerating and being dramatic to get his point across if that’s what it takes for a person to understand. Otherwise his tone is always… flat? Monotone? Which leads to many misunderstandings. It’s tiresome, observing or messing with people from afar is more entertaining. Jonas doesn’t really care for others, just his documents and recordings. Selfish and narcissistic. Always wants to be right and you’re wrong, he’s smart and you’re dumb, that sort of thing. He’s good with his words and proving it to make you believe him, finding things out about you to get under your skin, that sort of hostility to a stranger or enemy he wants to manipulate to get you on his side. His comforting aura-like thing supports it. But if anything, he doesn’t take things seriously.

On the flip side, if ever manage to get him to feel attached, Jonas seems the same but he’s teasing and brutally honest. He’s not one to lie to anyone or if he makes it technically the truth, which can be surprising. And because he doesn’t regret his actions most of the time. Still an ass with his teasing and sass, but it’s in a way to make it funny for who he’s attached to, which is what he aims for. He’d mess around even more to grumpy ones. His selfishness becoming a facade. Basically just softening up, maybe a little. Still needing to prove he’s better though.

⚠️Cruel noms⚠️

Jonas only partners up with cruel preds, he’s cruel himself and does not care for borrowers one bit. He gifts tinies to his preds when given the chance like a cat gifting owners dead critters, expecting them to eat it. Toys with borrowers as well, giving hard flicks, bruising them, scratching them, squeezing them. It’s a stress reliever to him. He doesn’t talk since he doesn’t see the tiny thing as anything sentient, just another rodent (he’s a villain, what did you expect). The pred he’s partners with or attached to is above anyone in his list, just one at a time, if there’s anything he thinks is a red flag he’ll cut them off. Very caring, protective and a giant cuddle bug when his observer’s instinct acts up.

A dedicated observer taking the trait to the extreme.

[powerbottomblake]

RWBY and Masculinity

I love RT’s, and specifically RWBY’s take on masculinity so much. The show subverts all expectations wrt their male characters and their development, which is why the male viewers experience major cognitive dissonance between what they expect and what story is actually being told (and then have the gall to call it bad writing). Under cut because this has gotten so long so fast.

The two main male characters - Sun and Jaune - are subvertions of genre/medium staples.

Jaune specifically hits all the beats of the typical male self-insert in a harem anime: he’s catapulted into a world he knows nothing of, instantly establishes 3 different dynamics with 3 different female characters/archetypes - Cheery, Ice Princess and Hot Tall and Earnest - one of whom he immediately sets his eyes on, he’s surrounded by women that are a whole lot more powerful than he is (and arguably THE most powerful one is instantly drawn to him), he’s essentially powerless and dealing with self-esteem issues and is nondescript enough to be a vehicle for any male viewer to project themselves onto. Which is why you have a good chunk of Jaune’s fandom from V1 being the embodiment of the Venn diagram intersection bewteen weebs and incels like That, and why there’s so much harem fanfic revolving around Jaune. 

CRWBY have heavily drawn from anime when making rwby so I don’t think this was coincidental; they laid out the groundworks to subvert a specific trope. Male fans, however, bought into the facade and kept waiting for Jaune to essentially steal the spotlight, be the focal point of several love interests and get a power up that’ll let him be their own power fantasy to boot, but CRWBY took his character in the very opposite direction. 

Jaune makes a lot of mistakes but what defines him is how earnestly he learns from them and redeems himself. He apologizes for lashing out at Pyrrha as a result of his own feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness when bullied by Cardin and then accepts her offer to teach him, sincerely taking instruction from her and then taking inspiration from her strength. Once he realizes his seduction skit with Weiss is not only ridiculous but wrong, he instantly changes his approach and prioritizes Weiss’s wants and needs over his, giving her space and knocking sense into Neptune so that Weiss can have her “ideal” date. Jaune doesn’t get embittered about being essentially rejected and most importantly he doesn’t let it affect his relationship with Weiss. Both of them become actual friends from that point on, and we get to see Jaune develop a certain measure of emotional intelligence starting that moment, which becomes part of his skillset and is shown to be part of what makes him a good leader. One of the best examples is how he and Ruby team up in V6E1 to get the hunter on the train to turn the turrets off. Jaune heals the hunter’s wounded arm and gently assuages his fear, in clear contrast with Qrow abrasively manhalding an injured and panicked man and expecting him to comply. The writing essentially puts down the show of arms and props up Ruby and Jaune’s approach; Jaune specifically is the example of masculine leadership the writing looks favorably on.  

And that’s the kicker here: Jaune’s strength comes from his set of soft skills as opposed to traditionally portrayed masculine strength, which usually careens into toxic power fantasy land. His whole arc in V1-3 is about learning to shed any distorted notions of chivalry and strength and knowing that his end goal shouldn’t be to become a hero for the sake of it or to live up to societal expectations, but to do what he can and as good as he can for the sake of everyone. Jaune is a good strategist and he knows how to make the best out of everyone’s powers. He’s there to enhance how people use their semblances together. His big power-up, his semblance reveal is basically him getting confirmed for a cross between a cleric and a paladdin (DnD players amongst us please correct me if I’m wrong): he is the ultimate support, acting as a healer and an amplifier to everyone around him, and that’s why he’s a good leader. His power on his own loses its entire meaning: Jaune takes strength from the people he loves and endlessly, earnestly gives back to them, never once stealing the spotlight in combat because that’s not his role and that’s okay.

And as for Jaune’s romantic prospects, think Forever Fall established once and for all that Jaune’s already found the One and I don’t think we’ll see him get any other love interest, especially now that arkos parallels oz/salem and with how vehement CRWBY are about lancaster being platonic. 

Now Sun. I want to tackle a specific expectation I’ve seen from male fans and that’s about him becoming more significant to the plot by coleading/leading the new White Fang movement...which would be hijacking Blake’s storyline. Blake is the one with drive and a cause, she was literally born inside the movement and has since seen it get derailed AND was the one to reclaim it from Adam and give it a new vision, as opposed to Sun who apparently wasn’t even aware of the systematic oppression Faunus had to deal with on a daily basis outside of Vacuo. So why is Sun, who has exactly 0 qualifications for this job and no interest in it, still expected to get it by a good chunk of his fans? Aside from the pervasive misogyny permeating fandom culture, there’s a specific trope media has served to us for decades now and that’s of a Semi-Competent Male Hero with his Hyper-Competent Female Side-kick (Vox published an article about it a few years ago and I really recommend checking it out), where a male character who’s semi good at best and not nearly as well-versed into whatever field he shares with his infinitely more competent female sidekick somehow walks in and saves the day and most of the time the female sidekick also, unsurprisingly doubles as a love interest. Time and again, male characters get rewarded for being half as good as their female counterpart at best AND they get the girl most often than not. 

But Sun’s whole character is, again, the very opposite of this. Sun never outweighs Blake on her own narrative (as is literal common sense) and shouldn’t be expected to. Sun actually gets schooled into the Faunus cause by his more competent female counterpart, Blake acting as his mentor and introducing him to the fight and why it matters. Blake and Sun basically reenact the plotline of Journey to the West (Sun quite literally references it by calling it a “Journey to the East”) a story whose main character is the legendary monkey king Sun Wukong, who’s the mythical figure Sun’s based on. Sun’s arc about finally knowing the cause and fighting for the right reasons happens thanks to Blake’s guidance - which Sun earnestly complies with and never questions because he knows she’s the expert and he doesn’t usurp that spot from her - and never overshadows her own narrative. Quite the opposite, it builds up to her own arc as a future leading figure of the WF and face of the Faunus cause by having her politicize someone who has no real stakes in this fight even though they should have.  

And then even his endeavor with Blake as a love interest falls through, with their relationship getting entirely recontextualized in V4-5 where their dynamic gets rebuilt as a friendship. Incidentally, that’s when it finally starts actually developing, instead of being stuck in the V1-3 limbo of mutual fleeting attraction where they’re constantly missing each other’s cues because they literally do not understand each other on a fundamental level. V4-5 is when Blake understands Sun isn’t what she needs in a romantic partner, but she does need him as a friend and ally. And Sun, whose premise falls in line with the Nice Guy trope, actually subverts it: he never makes Blake’s emotional journey about him, never expects anything in return and gracefully bows out of the narrative (for the time being) without ever pressuring Blake into acknowledging or returning his feelings. He doesn’t agonize over the initial attraction not going anywhere and doesn’t expect to be rewarded for being a decent person; again Blake’s feelings and well-being are his priority because that’s what good friends do. Their relationship developing into a steady friendship is never a point of conflict between them, and it’s actually lived as a positive event for both. 

And then, to top it off, CRWBY parsed together every bit of toxic masculinity and wrapped it into a power fantasy package and named the end result Adam Taurus, who’s the absolute worst abusive piece of shit. Adam is every single thing bad about men as a power structure: abrasive, entitled, controlling, takes violence as an indication of power and doesn’t take kindly to his leadership/vision being questionned. It’s not really coincidental that he steals the power seat from a woman and acts like he deserves it in any way. But male fans were so starved for their power fantasy fix and traditionally masculine cool calm collected and complicated male character that they were ready to minimize/outright ignore the abuse he’s put Blake through and just how awful a human being he was just to be able to hard project onto him. And CRWBY’s answer to that is basically this:

TL;DR: RT says if your masculinity isn’t humble, nurturing, supportive, compassionate, selfless and earnest then we don’t want it.