#you have to understand that the fandom has woobified him so bad it makes me genuinely sick to my stomach to see art of it

[bodega-catto]

Seeing Geto and bottom side by side makes me sick to my stomach. Hopefully one day I’ll be normal about my interests but not today. I truly truly hate bottom Geto. 🤣

[lets-go-hurt-someone]

I love Shadowheart. She was my bae throughout my first (unfinished) Tav run. I abandoned that run because Astarion convinced me I needed to restart as Durge for him, but Shadowheart forever holds a very special place in my… well, heart.

I’ve been thinking about the contrast between them and their arcs and the way fandom interacts with them.

They both start off as characters that by D&D standards are “evil.” Shar is an evil aligned goddess, and vampires are evil aligned creatures.

However, Shadowheart isn’t evil. She disapproves of actively evil decisions and approves of kindness to animals and the helpless. She just doesn’t like it if you seem to be putting do-goodery above your search for a cure to the tadpoles. She is fine with killing the grove, but the contrast between her at the tiefling party and the goblin party shows pretty starkly how she really feels.

Astarion starts off the game evil. I will fucking fight anyone on this. He has very very good reasons to be evil, but so does Shadowheart… and she’s not. Astarion enjoys chaos, he likes murder, he likes hurting people. He thinks being “good” is weak and stupid and that might be a trauma response, but it is how he genuinely feels at that point in his story.

And yet. AND YET. For some reason, I have never seen anyone complain about making Shadowheart a Dark Justiciar. If she likes you, you actually have to encourage her to kill Nightsong. Even on my evil run, she spared Aylin if I didn’t tell her not to. You have to either not care about her or intervene to make her evil, and right up to the end where she kills her parents and Shar wipes her memory again, she is just so miserable and resigned to what she’s been influenced to be.

But people do it to get the hotter sex scene or whatever and that’s fine.

But Astarion? The man who spends the whole fucking game begging you to help him take over an evil cult and murder his “family” so he can become a living vampire as soon as he realises it might be an option? The guy who will throw a fit and leave you if you don’t either succeed in a persuasion check or help him eternally damn 7007 people— no matter how close you’ve gotten to him?

Apparently you’re an evil piece of shit if you find his “bad” ending compelling or, dare I say it, hot.

I don’t really care which ending you prefer for either character— I think the game does a great job on its own telling you what you should think and it’s fairly nuanced for both characters. I just don’t understand why Astarion has to be so woobified and his “bad” ending fans vilified as if they’re naive morons with no media literacy.

Shadowheart, the character, hates her “bad” ending way more than Astarion, the character, hates his. And fandom can’t reflect this because I don’t know…

Oh god. It’s sexism isn’t it?

[shorthaltsjester]

honestly as someone who has been in various fandoms for a long time now and who also watched campaigns 1 and 2 without really getting into cr fandom it isn’t Shocking but it is annoying how often people will look at the stories that cr tells and make absolute claims about the goodness of characters (goodness here meaning Moral goodness, not I Like This character and think it’s well made goodness, which is a separate post entirely). particularly regarding the gods and pc parents. and honestly like, typically in fandom i get annoyed by people bending over backwards to woobify characters who are active in their choice to be unkind and generally horrible but in the cr fandom it’s tended to be the opposite where like. a character is just. a human being (in the sense of being Average not in the sense of Fantasy Races) and huge swaths of the fandom act like that’s the most unforgivable thing someone can be. and maybe it is, but one of the most powerful things about fiction is that it tends to encourage people to expand their empathy and exercise their ability to forgive. because fictional characters, no matter how much people like to project onto them, tend not to cause anyone harm, so it’s easier to learn how to forgive and accept things you don’t understand without also villainizing them.

this is mostly prompted by the recent 4sd and the fact that matt’s response to what’s up with the dawnfather was a very insistent “He’s not bad!” and also seeing the online reaction to the mention that the matron would punish vax for saving keyleth that has taken the as usual completely bonkers tune that the raven queen (Who When Met With A Brother Asking A God To Kill Him In Favour Of His Sister, Gave Him A Job, and Later Extended His Natural Life To Help Protect The World And Have More Time With His Family And Allowed Him To Visit His Sister On Her Wedding Day) is a horrible evil abusive bitch of a god. like. can we grow up? can we understand the world and fiction that represents the multitudes of experiences found in it in shades of grey? is that too much to ask (i know it is).

but also specifically the like Extremely Adamant way that both matt and laura were like no no no no relvin isn’t Horirble he’s average. he’s not good he’s just. he’s A father, not a good or bad one. and on the surface it’s hilarious that they’re both so like. enthused to point out that he’s Average because typically when people respond to a claim of a characters badness with the level of immediacy they both did it’s a rebuttal of “no, this character is good actually.” but it was just to affirm that relvin did harm imogen, but not because there’s some aspect of his character that is inherently cruel or especially Bad. and like. yeah actually. yeah you should react like that to a claim that this average person who Has hurt someone, the way that nearly every single person has hurt someone in a way they cannot repair, with immediacy to say this person is a Person and thus imperfect and capable of great harm, but that isn’t some all encompassing judgment on their morality or capability to also do good or be fine.

anyway this is kinda just a rant post but also is just me saying i’m very grateful that when surrounded by a fandom that tends to paint characters as Good or Bad and even while using a game that can encourage that with its alignment system, cr has always told stories that see goodness as a persistent choice that might sometimes falter and that can be chosen even after a lifetime of Badness. i can’t remember exactly what the quote was so forgive me if it’s incorrect but when jester is talking to caleb after he claims he’s not a very good person and she says “good people do bad things sometimes. even bad people do good things.” that’s it! that’s one of the most consistent themes across campaigns. and yet.

[necrotic-nephilim]

Before reading the comics, thanks to sladixk fics, i genuinely thought that dick always lost to slade, now I know that most times when he's and adult he beats slade no problem but it got me wondering how you feel about this canon-fanon difference

OHH this is a good question!!

i think sometimes fanon makes Slade a little... too badass. i think something some fanon fans don't understand about Slade in the 80s/90s is that he was like... kind of a loser? like don't get me wrong he was a main villain of the Titans for a while and he was certainly meant to be a formidable villain but this reputation he has in fanon almost supersedes him. (for example with specific plots: the fandom interpretation of the Judas Contract is Slade as the mastermind, but the writers have said that Terra was supposed to be the big villain manipulating everything. which is a ridiculous thing to put on a teenage girl getting groomed but, it does depict the intention of who was supposed to be "at fault" in that story) and don't get me wrong, i definitely love playing up the reputation and aura Slade has, but he really is a general contract killer on the level of like, Deadshot. personally, i wouldn't even put him on Lady Shiva's level, i think she far outranks him.

and to be fair to some fanon, recent comics have... tried to badass-ify Slade. some of his more recent Deathstroke runs are really trying to put him as this guy with legions of men underneath him who's this *deadly* killer who can take on Batman and Superman and all the like. and i just find that... boring? like, do i enjoy him being a smarter-than-average villain with a lot of connections? yes. but i don't think anything in his backstory really lends him to being as formidable as he appears in some fanfiction that puts him on this untouchable level. i would personally go as far to say i think *most* of the Batfamily could beat him in a fight under the right circumstances. bc Slade really is just Some Guy who got a serum from the military and went AWOL. (there's certainly more to his backstory than that, but at a glance, he's really not a trained fighter from birth like other characters are) and whilst i do enjoy Slade being formidable i have to admit, it was sort of fun when he was a loser? and i've gotten a kick out of certain comics that point out he's only a terrifying villain when he's up against teenagers. (Ghost-Maker calling him out on that is one of the funniest things, to me) like could Slade give Batman a serious fight? sure, but i don't see him ever winning unless you *really* nerf Bruce. and i really don't see him ever winning against most of the Batkids once they've got some years under their belt. Slade's scare factor was always tapered by who he was against, and he was a *Teen Titans* villain. so he's a little ridiculous and sometimes just sort of a weird loser. and i say that affectionately.

furthermore, on the flipside, i think... sometimes, we woobify Dick a bit too much to my tastes. or, really any Robin who gets shipped with Slade but of course Dick is the standout in popularity and i find it's more prominent with him. it's really a general slash problem, in which one man must be the Strong Top and then other must be the Weak Bottom. and that manifests in Slade being physically larger than Dick (which in canon, ehhh i think the size difference would be largely negligible) and him being able to beat Dick. bc it makes for more fanfic scenarios where you can put Dick at Slade's mercy for porn, for angst, for whatever you'd like. Slade is a good pick if you want to really put Dick on the weaker side, bc you can play with healing factors and strength enhancements. so on a physical level, Slade will be stronger than Dick. does that mean Slade can beat Dick in a fight? historically, no. i mean, Slade trusted Dick to train his own daughter in the Renegade storyline, so i think this is a fact even Slade is aware of.

i don't think it's a bad thing fanfiction likes its big top/small bottom tropes. if you want to make Dick a submissive, pliant bottom who is going to lose in a fight to Slade for your dead dove porn, get it. i've probably written or will write the same. it's appealing and it's a very common trope for Dick. but it becoming the fandom norm does sort of nerf Dick, occasionally. i think some fans don't fully comprehend the actual level Dick is on, where he's very close to being an equal to Bruce, if not already Bruce's equal. in fandom Dick is sort of trapped in this "post-adolescence but not full adulthood" state that does not acknowledge he has been an adult running superhero teams for years. he was filling in for Bruce in the Batman mantle all the way back in the 90s. he can defeat villains like Slade, and usually without a lot of difficulty. to me the only time you can realistically make Dick lose and it be "in character" is either 1, to have Dick *very* early on in his Robin years (i think if he's past 16, he can beat Slade) or 2, very deeply wound Dick/have him in a psychologically altered state via drugs or something. otherwise yeah, i think Dick wins 99% of the time.

but fanfiction is fanfiction, and it doesn't *have* to be canon. esp if Dick losing to Slade is just a sexy prerequisite to porn. do i wish more fanon explored Slade as kind of a loser? absolutely. do i think Slade is *too* cool in most fanon? also absolutely. but those are my tastes and i don't begrudge anyone who just wants a strong, mean man to whump the shit out of their blorbos, which usually, is the purpose of Slade. i find most fanfic with Slade tends not to be exploring Slade's character. they're simply using him as an easy stand-in for a metahuman who's morally grey and very mean but has a nuanced history with Dick, or whoever else. which, very valid. not all fanfic needs to be a character study, but i do think it'd be cool to see more Slade-centric fics that *do* want to be character studies.

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 1 Part 2 (8/8)

Propaganda under the cut!

HISOKA MOROW

He's genuinely (unfortunately) a really cool character and good villain imo, and his character design SLAPS!! He's very entertaining onscreen and even though he's REALLY weird and creepy and I don't condone anything he does I can't help but love his character. I also love his voice and his REALLY GOOD character song. In a character tournament I saw some people saying in the tags that people who like him are "not to be trusted" and kinda saying people who like him are bad. That made me feel kinda not great tbh. I must keep reminding myself that HE IS NOT REAL and it is OKAY TO LIKE HIM!!!! I can like the guy while also understanding that he sucks and his actions are bad!

Why I like this character: He’s a fantastic villain, his character design rocks, his theme song is excellent, he’s funny, he’s unhinged, he has hips for days, and he has a glowing boner. Why he deserves to be in this tournament: He’s, uh, like, kind of an actual pedophile. Like, he’s specifically aroused by powerful opponents, but one of the sources of that is the protagonist who’s like 12. So. Yeah. …Also he regularly kills people, I guess. Have you seen twitter users calling their fans bad people: No but I’ve seen tumblr users do it, if that counts.

He's popular in the fandom but also you WILL get called problematic by tiktok teens for liking him. Like yeah,, I get it,, but liking his character doesn't mean I condone his… less than savory behaviors. This clown is still hot and charismatic and very skilled with nen how can I Not enjoy when he's on screen?

ELIAS BOUCHARD

He manipulates the main character consistently, makes a character cry by telling him how much he looks like his dad, forces the knowledge of her father's dearh into a different characters head and ends the world through aformentioned manipulation of the main character

(this is about jonah!elias to be clear, og!elias is a different character) i love him so much he's so much fun but i'm not very open about it because he's the main villain and some people are very weird about it,,,, i have seen people say he's a personification of capitalism and if you like him you support capitalism or you didn't get the point of tma (which is just wrong, tma is vaguely a metaphor for capitalism yes but also for a lot of other things and elias isn't even a capitalist he runs a non-profit?) so many people call him homophobic or racist (because he's technically from the 1800s) and say if you like him you're a bad person but there are literally no canon basis for that at all (plus. he's literally a fictional character) i have actually seen a parody of the miku binder thing with elias to say that people who like him are just like people who woobify jefferson. which. what. you'd think people would latch on to the brutal pipe murder or the eye gouging that lead to body possession for his quest to be immortal or the constant manipulation to call him a terrible person but no apparently?? (or the. y'know. literally ending the world)

[ungodly-amounts-of-godly-trauma]

wotw round 2

propaganda under the cut!

espresso cookie:okay. heres the thing. espresso cookie is a badass mage who scraped his way out of poverty and literally invented his own form of magic from scratch. he is world renowned as an extremely powerful and reliable scientist. he literally created one of the greatest inventions of all time in-universe and helped strengthen cookies all across the world in battle.he's also really mean. there are multiple stories about him not getting along with this one dude (who's basically his worst enemy) and generally just being really mean to everyone. he can be normal (because he feels emotions like everyone else?) but generally he's just really sick of everyone's shit.you know what the fandom did with him? they took his character anD FUCKING RUINED IT. HE WAS REDUCED FROM A BADASS MAGE WHOS SICK OF EVERYONES BULLSHIT TO A SOFTIE TSUNDERE BOY WHO GETS SHIPPED WITH HIS WORST ENEMY. ITS SO ANNOYING. IT IS THE WORST CHARACTERIZATION. ESPRESSO HAS NEVER BEEN SHOWN TO HAVE A "SOFT SPOT" FOR HIS ENEMY. IT IS LITERALLY THE EXACT OPPOSITE. IF I SEE ONE MORE PERSON BABYIFY ESPRESSO AND REMOVE PARTS OF HIS CHARACTER FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR SHIP I WILL GET VIOLENT. I'M SORRY YOU CAN'T HANDLE MEAN CHARACTERS. BUT IF I SEE ONE MORE PIECE OF MEDIA REDUCING HIM TO A LITTLE SOFTIE INSECURE CATBOY I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD. IT'S SO BAD I'VE HAD TO STOP INTERACTING WITH THE FANDOM JUST TO ESCAPE ITwhite:

ok since his twin is like the super edgy anarchist biker guy, people then go "okay and this is the sweeter softer one of the two <3." it doesn't help that like his story arc is him going from like a socially liberal centrist who doesn't understand systematic inequality to eventually you know, being an official part of the anarchist biker gang, because that means at the start when the gang was doing some more morally dubious things he went "guyssss we shouldn't do those things" and then people stuck with that and forgot that his opinion on such things changes. like his whole thing is being strategic and subtle while Black, his twin, is about dramatic public actions. like by the end he doesn't disagree with Black's methods, he just thinks manipulating things in such a manner to raise public support that doesn't alienate their cause from more moderate folks is important. he has diplomat training and cares about pr, he's not a pacifist.

also I feel like people erase his bisexuality a lot too because he's endgame with Sean and then also go and make him the uwu innocent one in their relationship. like babes are we forgetting the opening scene of him as an adult is after he hooked up with his girlfriend in Russia (that he might have been living with? unclear, it was only one scene). also don't forget that he made out with Eugene. he didn't have to do that. anyways he's not an uwu so innocent gay boy who has never progressed pass kissing before.

[sacrificialsam]

dean pain is so annoying like yes dean has feelings but not everything is about him guys.

i hate it in the show obviously but the way it extends to fandom and dean fans will make everything about dean pain actually gets me angry. its an immediate block

recently saw a gifset about sams eating habits and some of the replies are insane!!!!

"sam is fussy because dean sacrificed and made sure he was never hungry whereas dean eats everything bcuz big bad john starved him uwu"

or even worse "sam thought he was a chubby 12 year old when he was "well fed" bcuz dean was so emaciated from being so underfed and he felt guilty about it :("

like????? you sound crazy and it says so much about what you think about people with eating disorders. im killing them with my mind powers. literally everything bad that happened to sam is just fodder for the "dean is a poor little victim" brigade

everything boils down to "sam is a spoiled brat who doesnt realise how much martyr dean has sacrificed for him" which is crazy cuz dean really hasnt protected him all that much, not in the show and imo, not as children

i completely understand you anon, i have like half of the fandom blocked on my main for almost this exact reason. the framing of dean being kind, punished, nurturing etc, while sam is selfish, evil, spoiled always feels like a thinly veiled attempt at deflecting from the actual heinous stuff dean does, especially to sam sometimes. it's all about making dean the victim, woobifying him in a way, and it really shows in people's headcanons about abuse as well, which it think is even worse than the already bad ones about eating disorders. malnourished dean specifically is such a wet dream for people who love woobifying dean, because we know comparatively little about their childhoods so headcanons are less easily disproved, and stuff that we do know (lack of money, lack of food) paint a very sad picture of it. i'm not saying you can't argue that dean has had issues with food in the past, but saying sam should feel bad for it, sam who was also just a hungry little kid, is ridiculous. i personally do not believe dean went days without food just so sam could have some more, he'd probably steal money or groceries before it came to that, or even go to charities. dean is self destructive, but he's not stupid. also the narrative of john maliciously starving dean is stupid as hell, why would you train your child to survive fighting monsters just to sabotage them by intentionally starving them? in a scenario when there wasn't enough food i 100% believe john ate less so sam and dean could have enough, but people love to pretend john was actually satan before they use their brains.

[ruthlesslistener]

Honestly your analysis on Wyrm culture and PK gave me a lot of inspiration on how view him. I don’t mind him woobified if that’s how some fans like him, but really breaking him down, I can’t ignore the facts with him. I find myself enjoying viewing him in a more antagonistic role with how views himself and others. By Wym merits—regardless of how neurodivergent he is compared to most of his kind—he is a conqueror. His function is to build a kingdom and build it well.

I also love how you view him hating his Wyrm instincts and suppressing them, but at the end of the day, you can only fight your instincts so long.

I don’t want to ramble too much as I would probably just go on discussing Herrah and Lurien as well.

Very glad you enjoy my interpretation of him, anon! I've been writing stuff with him in it since like, November 2019 so it means a lot to hear that people like how I write him given the time I've put into trying to understand and flesh out his character from the hints we get in canon. He's a conquerer and he has some pretty terrible ideas about self-worth, but he loves so deeply and the results of that love are what make him truely monsterous. Very fun guy to play around with, esp. with the added 'dragon in man's clothing' deal he has going on.

Personally I dislike the more recent trend of woobifying him just bc he canonically felt super guilty about mass murder, but that's based entirely on the fact that I like him BECAUSE he's tragic and a deeply flawed, fucked up, terrible person, so it's more just not my thing. But I will take woobified PK ANY day over how the fandom was when I first joined, where people seemed to unanimously think he was the epitome of misogynistic evil intentionally abusive straight white male capitalist who kicked the vessels into the Abyss as well as being a colonizer of Hallownest, and if you liked him you'd have to list all his faults and say you don't support him every other breath and if you contradicted the fanon idea of him you'd get slammed for it (people thought that him being 'The Pale King' and his wife 'The White Lady' was direct proof that he was a colonizer who genocided the moths....when the reality is that they're just both literally white. I have seen only one person deal with this take with any sort of nuance, the rest was...oh boy it was bad). They're probably still out there and just have me blocked, but the trend of people viewing PK as a pathetic little man has increased to the point where I think they're in the minority now. Which is a relief, because while I can understand hating PK, you at least should get his character right. And he canonically IS a pathetic little man. I just want to kick him down a flight of stairs and set him on fire with a blowtorch rather than swing him around like a stinky little ferret

I'm ALWAYS down for hearing rambles about Herrah and Lurien though!!! Especially Lurien. Please god the Lurien fanclub is like 2.5 people we're dying like flies out here scoob

[super-hero-confessions]

little bizarre but also intriguing and disturbing to me.

but since there's (honestly way too much) discourse on becca butcher getting raped by homelander because of how people want to perceive/woobify homie as a character (despite all the horrible things he's confirmed to do on screen. lika y'all... raping becca is seriously not even close to the worst thing he's done like can we not ignore/forget about flight 37 and all the other shit for a hot minute?? why is *this* of all the shit where so many people draw the line???????)

anywho, it's interesting that the same people who woobify and love homie or make this same discourse about his character or try to say 'he's not written as a rapist' (seriously what the fuck, in the show yes he is, he's written as worse than just a rapist actually, by far) are also the same people who won't take a look at/dismiss the comics homie as lesser somehow??

i mean i get it sorta, he's not antony starr. but he's also not so far off character wise (starr does a great job bringing some core character elements to life *from the comics*) and honestly not as bad or sadistic as the show's version (at least not naturally/inherently...? that kinda only makes any real sense if ya actually read the comics... oh well). and wouldn't ya know it

comics homie *doesn't* rape becky.

he's just framed for it. like, and get this, he's *framed* for almost everything else too.

weird to me that there's so much discourse and woobifying or rape apologism or dismissal for show homie contrasted by genuine fear for even looking at comics homie, despite comics homie legit being more woobie than show homie and *actually* legit not having raped becky

leik why? why?? why even discuss or deny something confirmed in the show when you could just... read the fuckin' comic?? and go from there?

blows mah mind.

comics homie is a complex can a worms for sure, won't deny that. like the boy literally cries, curled up in fetal position because he can't understand why he's having so much trouble being the monster he's been made to believe that he is (doing bad things causes him literal mental breakdown because he's not used to it but believes he should be, contrast with show homie's breakdowns on the OPPOSITE spectrum of *wanting* to do bad things and being furious he *can't* even tho he'd have zero qualms about it)

but i guess i just don't understand why y'all bother even fixating on show homie having committed becca's rape when comics homie literally *not* having committed becky's rape is like... right there.

bitch... bitch, it's *RIGHT THERE*.

have seen maybe one or two fics actually explore this, tons and tons of rape apologist discourse trying to absolve homie or victim blame becca, and i'm utterly baffled by how full of shit it makes fandom look on a much bigger scale than it needs to be.

that's a fic idea right there i'm pretty sure has gotten a confession before. comics homie didn't rape becky and butcher was completely wrong about him from the beginning. what if instead of believing he was a monster and turning into one because butcher kept pushing, him and butcher actually worked to find out who really committed the crimes?

instead it's just more complaints on how show homie isn't written woobie enough for how some people want him?? what the dick???

y'all are basically complaining about him not being like comics homie while comics homie is. right. fuckin'. there. but y'all turn your noses up to him.

bitch.

and i gotta throw in a news flash cause like. show homie's gonna rampage. it's going to happen. that shit was predetermined, destiny and all that shit, and nothin's gonna stop it. and he will absolutely all the way destroy your little woobifyin' hearts. but i mean... it'll be glorious and i'll enjoy it. because i haven't ignored his writing or tried to draw a line in the sand for what he is or can be just to justify liking or sympathizing with him.

boi's a beloved monster. let's maybe not pretend.

but just like... how?

fandom... can y'all be a bit better? please? or just like. idk, maybe read the comic?

couple friends and i finally bit the bullet and did. unbridled rage, hella thoughts, so many feels, and needed breaks.

but no regerts.

[tysonfurybattlepass]

💫 King 7, 8, 13, 14, 23

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

I love a lot of the fan interpretations of his design, especially the ones that really lean into exaggerated, cartoony shapes. i am really not very good at that style so i'm always delighted by this kind of character model. @levshany probably has my favorite king design. their understanding of shape and flow is just so so good and i look up to them a lot as an artist.

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you hate?

probably the lack of nuance. i'm a very good example of the saying 'the middle of the road gets run over by both sides'. in regards to this character, people tend to fall into two distinct camps: 1) the dismissive haters who neglect the character's fantastic writing in favor of flanderized "bad" personality traits for the purpose of taking easy potshots at a character they don't like. 2) the woobifying stans who have attached a lot of their own identity to the characters they like, and thus trip over themselves to justify or dismiss objectively toxic behavior by their fictional fav because they think enjoying a villain character is somehow commentary on their own moral compass.

i have a very specific type of appreciation for the character as a literary device, but am comfortable with the fact that he is intentionally written to be a bad person. this is, in fact, why i gravitate toward the character in the first place. i like him because he's a bad person. i think he's fascinating and tragic and very well written, despite how subtle his actual setup and progression are. i think, whether negative or positive, fandom attitude tends to reduce complex antagonists like this to very flat, one-note, and uninteresting caricatures of their canon identities. toby fox can write a fucking villain, man. don't ignore half of the work he put into this character just because the other half makes you feel better, you know? it does a disservice, in my opinion.

13. What is an emoji, an emoticon, or a symbol that reminds you of this character or you think this character would use a lot?

this man does not know what an emoticon is lets be so fr. so, in that case, i think a symbol that i heavily associate him with is a bear trap:

hear me out for a second on this one. i think a lot of people don't realize that the thing he uses in battle is definitely supposed to be a chain. the game's graphics arent high res enough to render individual links but like. it has individual rigid parts that interlock. the original concept art shows it as a chain. that's 100% a chain. aside from chains, the other big motif that his physical design leans on is jaws/teeth. so my brain goes to a metal bear trap, since it's essentially a set of huge jaws on a chain. also something something trapped by fate and the laws of the universe... thrashing wildly against your tragic destiny but only succeeding in hurting yourself further with its teeth...theres something there, let it cook for a while.

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

this is the worst question to ask me i fucking always say punk no matter what i'm SORRY i just think it looks good on everybody ;m;

23. Favorite picture of this character?

the fucking. that smear frame of him about to throw the chain whip is so goofy it makes me howl every time i see it. i cant fucking find it rn but it's so good. agent i know you have this frame somewhere you know what i'm talking abt

[schrodingers-romy]

ooooooh i would love to hear your opinions 😈 how about 7 and 25 for jjk? (or whichever fandom you choose that works best for u!!)

Hi robin!!! thank you for asking <3

[Ask game]

(opinions below the cut lol)

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because of how the fandom acts about them?

Tbh I don't know if there are any characters like that in jjk...I do think some characters get on my nerves a bit occasionally just because of how much content there is for him but that's really it

25. common fandom complaint you're sick of hearing

Oh here we go lmao...

okay so the entire group of people who constantly complain about 'gege hating gojo' get on my nerves so bad. Like I kind of got it as a joke but then I realized that a lot of these people were serious and like. holy shit.

(mild manga spoiler ig?) I really just became done with it after gojo's flashback convo with miguel in the manga...a major manga was making a comment on racial stereotypes and I felt like the fandom's response was to bitch and moan about their favorite boy being 'slandered' like he didn't apologize for the comment....

Like you can have your issues with it but making it about YOU and about woobifying the character who did make an off color comment (which he apologized for after being called on it) and then complaining when actual Black people on here talked about how the comment was racially insensitive is just loser behavior.

Idk it just drove me insane...that and how some gojo fans were acting towards yuuta/yuuta fans has caused me to basically avoid going into main jjk and gojo tags since.

Gege is mean to basically every character so i understand the pain but acting as if gojo is being specifically targeted in a smear campaign or smth from his own creator bc he did something not great is just...wild. especially when you take it out on other fans

[thenugking]

Really bugs me when people (primarily Belos stans) are willing to redeem Belos but NOT Odalia, and even make her an antagonist for him to stand up to. Even though it’s pretty clear that while Odalia obviously made her own decisions, his coven system also contributed to her toxicity, as did Odalia’s obsession with joining the emperor’s coven (that she projects onto Amity) and how she is blatantly nervous around Hunter because he represents Belos’ authority. Odalia did way less than Belos, as horrible as she was… But sure, Woobified AU Belos! Go show that woman whose toxicity you contributed towards with your own system since her childhood who’s boss!

Oh my godddddddd. I mean I totally understand disliking Odalia. Like, yeah, she abuses her family, tries to murder a kid, and is cool with genocide. But: *GESTURES AT BELOS*

I don't tend to read Belos redemption stuff so have never had the misfortune of encountering this myself but??? making Odalia into the bad guy for Belos to redeem himself with?? jfc. Not entirely surprising though, this fandom sure does have a Misogyny problem with the way it treats its villains.

Tbh, one of the main reason I started writing Family Jewels was that I was bored of seeing Aladarius content where Odalia single-handedly destroys their relationship and Alador is forced into marrying her. It's like.... oh so fandom is still doing "lets turn the woman who's in the way of our manslash ship into the Literal Devil and then have her Suffer Horribly Forever while the boys kiss uwu," just a bit more subtly. I'm not saying don't have Odalia be a villain here--she sure was abusing Alador and their kids! But like, she can also be a person with her own feelings and ambitions and problems, not just a one-dimensional caricature sitting on top of a pile of money and cackling maniacally. And Alador and Darius are a lot more interesting when they can make their own bad decisions and ruin their relationship themselves, instead of just being Sad Boys tragically torn apart!

(I know I had Odalia contribute to the breakdown of their relationship in my own fics, but it was very important to me writing Take Me Back To The Start that Alador makes the choice to stay with her and put his ambitions ahead of the relationship Darius wanted. It’s just boring to put all the problems onto The Woman, regardless of her overall morality!)

The fandom does this with Terra Snapdragon and Adrian Graye too. They’re both terrible people who hurt the main cast and are the main pro-Belos coven heads, and both very fun as villains… but Terra is one of the fandom’s most hated characters, while Adrian is The Funny Hot Guy. (Nevermind that Terra is funnier and hotter than Adrian could ever be.)

Anyway. Villains are great, but Belos has been given Too Many Rights. Give some to shitty evil women instead.

[good-to-drive]

The fact that people have romanticized or even sexualized your childhood trauma is disgusting. I'm genuinely so sorry that happened.

Can I tell you why I think it's important that talking about Paul McCartneys childhood trauma and it's effects on him become just as mainstreamed as talking about John Lennon's childhood trauma and it's effects on him has always been in Beatles fandom?

First, on a personal level. Have you heard of Ruby Franke, the Mormon momfluencer who has been charged with child abuse? My parents were A LOT like her and though my friends always recognized that we were "one of those" Mormon families, what they did was very normalized and justified. So, naturally, I don't like seeing abuse normalized or justified.

But more importantly on a public level. If we don't get comfortable talking about the truth of Paul's childhood and the effects of it on his thought processes, behaviors, and traits, and therefore him as a person and artist, we are going to have a flawed understanding of the Beatles music, group dynamics, and story.

Obviously none of it should be romanticized or sexualized. It needs to be taken seriously.

Yeah, I feel like that's my point.

Aside from the "it is your moral duty to hate John and if you don't you're as bad as he is" camp most people are capable of talking about John's experiences in a reasonable way, but with Paul there's a lot more resistance. I think that's partly because Paul has received a lot of undeserved criticism and hate over the years so (some of) his fans are a bit hypersensitive to anything that smacks of negativity, completely ignoring the fact that acknowledging someone's pain and trauma is not, in fact, negative or insulting (and it's arguably insulting to say that it is). And it's also probably that Paul's issues in particular are cartoonishly vilified in pop culture right now, to the point that it's almost impossible to even have a conversation about them (try talking to the average internet user about narcissism and you'll see what I mean).

But, frankly, it's also to do with deep misconceptions about the cycle of abuse and what it means to exist within it (which sounds like something you understand as well) and the savior complex a lot of people have about their faves that makes them really, really want Paul to be a poor precious kitten who just needs lots of cuddle sessions and weepy sex to fix his "issues." Which, like I originally said, is basically fine if that's what you want to do. It's essentially fiction, after all. But I wouldn't consider romanticizing abuse or infantilizing survivors to be the same thing as raising awareness around abuse, and I don't honestly think it helps us understand the group dynamic either. (I do agree that we'll never understand Paul and John's relationship if we can't accept that Paul is a human being with a past and a complex inner life just like John. That's something I've been bitching about for ages.)

I hope this isn't too nosy, but I've noticed you saying in tags that people jump on you and accuse you of "woobifying" Paul sometimes. If you're just trying to acknowledge that Paul faced trauma and deserves actual compassion and understanding then of course those people are out of line and I'm sorry that's happened, but if your idea of acknowledging this is "oh poor precious baby let me kiss it better" then, well.... You do you, but I don't think you can fairly claim there's any value in that. Yes, it's talking about abuse, but not in a way that I think we can reasonably claim is compassionate or productive.

No hate, though -- I haven't seen the posts you're referring to so idk what people are criticizing you for.

This is a really thoughtful and interesting take and I really appreciate you sending it to me.

[rosy-fox-art]

i def agree with what you said about how the fandom handles heart's blindness so thank you for calling it out before it got worse. i feel that it would make more sense if he put the blindfold on himself, like how other ppl in the tags on your post said.

another thing that ive noticed is how heart is sometimes infantilized and seen as someone who can "do no harm" which is... strange to say the least. i think ppl forget that he is a personification of a grown man's emotions and depression (sorry for wording it like that lol i didn't know how else to say it)

Hi! Thank you . I was honestly really worried to post about it, so I’m glad to see people so receptive to it so far in a positive light. I’ve been reading the tags very diligently ^^~

As for victimizing heart or ‘ saying he can do no wrong’ and infantilization… yeah I can see this as another issue that’s starting to sprout up, and some people in the tags of that previous post have mentioned it as well. And while I know that’s not everybody and I figure that is also another case where people don’t really intend to do it and just aren’t thinking about it, that doesn’t really erase the problem. This applies mostly to people depicting heart as childish, not being able to handle himself, being idiotic, victimizing and woobifying him etc. So, I really hope you don’t mind me using this as a chance to talk about that a bit, too.

Being over emotional does not, at all, translate to any of the traits I just listed out in the slightest. Sure, heart may be a little naive and impulsive as per his nature, but that is not the same. You are absolutely right to point out that heart an adult here, too. And at the end of the day the album seems to make it very clear that Heart and Mind are not all that unlike each other, but are unwilling to admit their similarities and highlight and judge their differences heavily. Heart is just as harmful and violent as mind, just in a different way. He has the propensity to be just as cunning or manipulative as Mind, too. Even his tactic of victimizing himself is a show of this, and Mind points this out several times in the album. They are two sides of the same coin. There is a large difference between Heart victimizing himself and actually being the victim, which he is not. Or at least, he is not completely blameless for the hole that he has dug for himself. When people show heart as being the victim or as doing no wrong, a lot of the nuance is completely lost.

Secondly, the internet and fan spaces have a bad habit of infantilizing people with mental illness, in general. Depression does not make someone soft and cute because they’re sad all the time. Depression does not make someone an uwu bean. Depression makes someone — as we can very clearly see by how Heart is within the cannon itself— a wreckage of rage and disdain that struggles to crawl out of a spiral of misery and apathy. It’s not pretty. When you boil it down to all of the things I’ve mentioned as being a problem here— that’s infantilization. This is also a big problem when it comes to disabled characters (Because people jump to the conclusion that the character cannot do much for themselves because of the disability, do not understand how disabled people actually advocate for themselves and function day to day from lack of experience or exposure to disabled people, want to depict them as incapable, etc). So, the fact that Heart is both of these things creates a ripe mess. This is kind of why I’m hoping to make some less angry, more informational post about some of the things blind people use to function just like other people here, sometime. Because the lack of these things in itself may lend into the infantilization problem. Being able to do things— having agency and independence over oneself— is a large part of breaking away from that. And I think it says a Lot that you rarely see this happen with Mind or Soul, as well.

So sorry if this came off at all angry, but I’m very passionate about it as someone whose experienced infantilization in my life from other people assuming things about me solely based on my disability. So, if I can say something to stop people from perpetuating it in fan content then I will. 👉🏻👈🏻. At any rate, thank you for the ask! I’m sure there’s a typo or two in here. So so sorry for that!

[space-blue]

I love reading your opinions! What about 13, 17? (for any fandom) and 19 for Avatar?

Oh, well, you're making me blush there... (and also sigh with relief, as work was very quiet, and having a long ask to craft was a great distraction, so thank you!)

13 — worst blorboficiation

Mmh, this is a tough one, because I think there's no bad blorbofication. Like I touched on when talking about homogenization, people taking blorbo on crazy trips isn't an issue to me. Maybe a better term here would be woobifying

The best example I can think of within my fandoms is perhaps Thrawn? I'm going through a renaissance with him I guess... I'm watching rebels at long last and I can't wait for him to show up and make the Empire half-competent.

He's a very compelling character, but the new canon gives him an anti-hero slant, which I think is a little unfortunate, as fandom multiplies that into a bit of 'Thrawn did nothing wrong' and 'he's just a cute smartass doing his best'.

But Thrawn shines as a villain. Which he is. He aligns with the Empire for his interests. For the plans he designed. He does orbital bombings and closes his eyes on slavery and is mostly annoyed at the Death Star for being a stupid waste of resources and taking away from his own, better optimised death squadrons! He's. Not. A. Good. Guy. In legends he has a guy killed on his bridge for being incompetent.

And yeah it's the same bridge where this happens:

Now I know my own original First Fic™️ is Thrawn on holidays, and that I put it on hiatus before I got to the War Crimes™️, so it definitely looks like I'm part of that problem. It's just a general trend. Thrawn being cute with Eli. Thrawn being a harmless hottie. Thrawn being relatable. Thrawn saving his people with some hard logic and art appreciation.

Not enough Thrawn being the bad guy he canonically is. There is that out there though and it's great!! So it's not an actual complaint either.

17 — there should be more of this type of fic/art

For fic, actually gender-neutral readers, not fem readers hidden under a "GN Reader" tag. Your reader is not properly gender-neutral if they have curves, lush hair, full lips, etc. sometimes people try and it just slips past them. Sometimes you really feel like they just slapped the tag on without another thought.

It's hard when it comes down to smut, but it's not complicated to be fully neutral when you're dealing with gen fic. Which ties into another thing I'd love more of : second person GN reader fics that aren't smutty/horny but rather gen. I write them because I rarely find them, and I think they're fun. There's definitely an audience for it!

I don't have anything for art. I'm always happy to see people's work and don't have anything in particular I'm searching for when browsing a fandom. Just curious to see what's up, and happy with whatever I get.

19 — you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

Nice try. I'm not. I like what I like and I don't waste my time with any sort of misplaced shame.

It's not a diss at you! And I understand what prompts this question too. 'Oh no, I never meant to ship it, it's kind of icky, but...' is a common enough sentiment.

Not with me though. If I ship I ship, if I like I like. It's fiction. There's no room for shame or horror.

Thank you for your ask, it was a fun part of a long and empty shift x'D

[autumn-foxfire]

something I actually hate in zhongchi fic is when the authors keep writing that he’s feeling guilty about what he did in liyue and/or he’s angry with zhongli for de deception. He clearly doesn’t regret his actions and would definitely do it all again and he doesn’t care about zhongli lying to him. It’s like they didn’t read any of his texts or didn’t pay attention to the liyue story. He’s not a cinnamon roll as everyone likes to say. They claim he is their favorite character or that they kin him but the version they are refering is so twisted and unreal.

This is why I read tartali fanfiction /j

For real though, I hate this trope in tartali/zhongchi fiction regardless. I once saw someone's summery being "I'm going to keep Childe mad at Zhongli because other fics let him off from what he did too easily" and I'm like "BRO? WHAT FICS ARE YOU READING AS LITERALLY EVERYONE MAKES ZHONGLI OUT TO BE THE BAD GUY WHO NEEDS TO BEG FOR CHILDE'S FORGIVENESS".

I actually read a fic recently that handled an after confrontation with Zhongli and Childe perfectly. They still had Childe being upset as he was used, however he and Zhongli talked and Zhongli explained all he could about his contract and how it was never personal. Then, when Childe points out he never directly apologised to Childe during his explanation, Zhongli returns it with how he has never apologised for what he did to Liyue. Neither of them ended up apologising, you know why?

BECAUSE THEY BOTH HAD THEIR OWN AGENDERS THAT THEY WOULD FOLLOW THROUGH WITH NO MATTER WHAT AND WOULD BOTH UNDERSTAND WHY THE OTHER DID SO.

Childe was originally upset that he was used as he doesn't like to be involved in the schemes of other Harbingers. But he said himself that all he needs from Zhongli is that fight that he was robbed from. And then Zhongli's voicelines confirm that they are still friends.

The woobifying of Childe is something I despise in fandom. I hate that I got into another fandom and what happened to one of my favourites (Dabi) back then is happening AGAIN with another favourite of mine.

Yes, Childe is relatable and easy to project on. Did he get angry at Zhongli and Signora? Yes. However he is not an overly emotional wreck who was completely and utterly ruined by Zhongli telling him who he was, at most he was annoyed he was robbed of a fight and his pride got hurt.

The irony of this situation though, which I've said so many times I might as well be blue in the face from it, is that CHILDE USED ZHONGLI TOO! He very openly used him to get close to the exuvia, he was just honest about it.

Meanwhile, Zhongli could literally not say anything because HE WAS UNDER CONTRACT AND BY THE ARCHONS HOW DARE THE GOD OF CONTRACTS OBEY HIS CONTRACT.

Yeah, yeah, it's transformative fiction and people can write what they want and how they want but I just don't want my favourite characters watered down anymore.

I get it, we like to give Zhongli a closer relationship with Childe than just friends, I've done it too, I've enjoyed fics that do this as well, but does it get frustrating to see Childe treated as an innocent little bean while Zhongli has to drown in guilt because how dare he lie to him!

LOL it reminds me of a viral tweet I saw on twitter about the new Superman cartoon/anime where Lois gets mad that Clark never told her he was Superman and the QRTs were just people wondering why Lois deserved to know a secret of Clark's that he wasn't comfortable sharing with her just yet? Ironically this is the same situation with Zhongli and Childe, where Childe wasn't owed any knowledge of Zhongli's other identity but this time people think he was entitled to it, even though Childe was an active threat towards that identity and was honest about being so.

My favourite thing these stories do is have Childe say "I would have forsaken my mission" or something along those lines and that just isn't Childe. Childe didn't particularly want to drown the harbor but he did so for his mission, he didn't mind attacking the traveler, who he saw as his friend, for his mission, what makes you think he wouldn't have shoved his hand straight in Zhongli's chest if he knew the truth?

He probably wouldn't have LIKED doing it, but he would have. Because he's loyal to a point and a man that never goes back on his vows and promises.

It's why I love Childe, he's such a complicated and messy character who has done terrible things, he plays by his own rules and that means even going against his own morals to do so. I do like exploring him being mad at Zhongli (again I've done so myself) but we can do so without making him the victim because he was FAR FROM IT.

I love exploring the mess that is Zhongli and his relationship, I love the drama and the angst but I also love how perfect they fit together once they get over those hurdles.

I just hate the one-sided anger from the fandom towards Zhongli for no reason.

Urgh, sorry for the long rant. I bottle up this frustration all the time so when people give me the chance to let loose, I really let loose.