#(bad characterization / fictional / etc)

[thegoldenavenger]

Absolutely devastating that every liushen fic is set in a world where lbh doesn't exist or is somehow so far removed from sqq that his protag halo can't get in the way of the aforementioned liushen

#misc #or hes flanderised but we dont talk about those fics #very cosmically tragifunny that lqg only gets a chance w sqq if lbh is: #a) too young to be competition b) too Gone (in The Abyss) to be competition c) too Wrong #(bad characterization / fictional / etc) #to be competition #anyways.... it's funny and i will never grt over how Second Male Lead lqg is #someone gimme a fateswap fic where lqg and lbh switch places so sqq gets an organic chance haha

[mockerycrow]

Talk About Sensitivity In The COD Fandom **Important.**

THIS IS NOT A DEBATE POST. DO NOT BOTHER.

Hey, everyone. After the reveal of Makarov in the trailer (as well as general concern), I think a chat about sensitivity is important. Since the trailer’s release, I have seen a major increase in simping for Makarov posts as well as genuine romanticization of Russia and/or Russian Soldiers. First, I want to talk about the romanticization of Russia and/or Russian soldiers because it’s seriously getting out of hand. I need you guys to realize that Russia is an ultranationalist country and yes, maybe not everyone who lives there believes what their government does, but it’s important to know a big portion of their population does. I have seen multiple posts and edits of this man right here (pictures below).

THIS GUY IS NOT SOMEONE YOU SHOULD LIKE, AND PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT HE DOES NOT LIKE YOU. This is one of the most popular Russian Soldiers amongst the internet due to the way he wears a mask, gear, has an accent, and is buff. He makes videos teaching soldiers how to kill people—innocent people in Ukraine who are just trying to survive. I have seen people straight up ignore when someone tells them what this man has done, so let me put it this way—he does not like you. He wants you dead. He is racist, a homophobe, transphobe, antisemitic, etc. He absolutely hates The West, and he does not like you unless you are a cis, straight, white 100% Russian. Even if you’re a woman, he DOES NOT LIKE YOU. If you American, HE DOES NOT WANT YOU ALIVE.

[This part is not targeted; just a general statement.] Second; there is a serious problem with how you guys address Makarov as a character. There is absolutely no problem enjoying him as a villain because I do too, but you guys have to realize that Makarov is an ultranationalist—which is exactly what Russia is right now, an ultranationalist terrorist state. “But he’s fictional, it doesn’t matter! it’s not that deep!” It actually is that deep. I keep seeing content for Makarov and I can’t force anyone to stop making “fluffy fics”, but I need y’all to have some fucking decency towards victims and people affected by the war. I know people who are affected by the war who feel ill seeing posts painting Makarov in a good light. If you are going to write Makarov, do NOT romanticize him as a character—do NOT paint him a decent or good light, because you can’t. Write him like the bastard he is. And no, this isn’t a “let people write what they wanna write” situation. You can do that, but please be expected to be judged and blocked by me and many others. Makarov is quite literally the characterization of everything that is wrong with Russia, and what HAS been wrong with Russia. Makarov is not a bad boy, a rebel, etc, he’s a fucking terrorist. Please be for real. “But the military in general is bad, so why does it matter specifically around Makarov?” Please see above my previous reasons. Thanks.

The overall message of this point is to be fucking respectful. There are actual people dying and slaughtered for no reason other than ruined pride and a lot of Ukrainian folk seek comfort and distractions in the internet and their fandoms. This ruins it for them and quite frankly, sometimes how Makarov is being written? It’s completely insensitive. Anyway, below are a few links where you can directly support the efforts and the people of Ukraine. Peace and love, and please write with critical thinking.

#call of duty #call of duty mwii #cod mw2 #cod #mw2022 #mw2 2022 #modern warfare ii #ghost x reader #soap x reader #gaz x reader #price x reader #makarov x reader #vladimir makarov #modern warfare #cod mwii #support ukraine #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty x reader #ukraine 4 life #love y’all #mwii #important #do not skip #read this #please read this #compassion is good #use your critical thinking skills #use your fucking brain #american here. forever love ukraine. sending my regards #just. use your brain please.

[sixstepsaway]

so here's the thing

i've seen a bunch of people say on twitter and stuff how... ed's behavior is very abusive and his anger is dangerous and he isn't romantic lead material because of it

and i get where they're coming from

but to me the main issue isn't putting ed in the position of a romantic lead, but not crafting the narrative around his characterization so that it allows for a spicy romantic pirates-in-love narrative instead of...whatever this is.

i'm going to try and explain this. idk if i'll do well but i'll try

the way she show presents stede is as an innocent baby who isn't really equipped for pirate life. he goes into a fugue/disassociative state whenever there's any real violence, apparently, and needs protecting by other characters when things get too rough - for example when ed is telling ned lowe not to take the poker to stede.

that's fine! it's honestly adorable to see a masc character being so soft around the edges and being protected by other characters this way.

(i'm not going to touch on stede's... eh... not great characterization this season rn)

then there's izzy, who is shown as a bit violent, a bit rough around the edges. he's more likely to draw a sword or throw a punch or hit someone with a chair or take a punch like a champ. violence is just part of life for him and that's okay, it just Is, from small things like smacking stede on the ass to bigger things like being wall slammed, it's not all that big or bad for violence to happen around and with him, he tends to give as good as he gets (there's some nuance here but i'm talking the macro themes not the micro of what izzy does vs is done to him)

and finally there's ed

ed is presented as violent (stabbing knives at guys, telling fang to use the snail fork etc) and used to a life of violence, and then in season 2 he's presented as really violent, his anger coming out in dangerous and terrifying ways

and frankly, i'd be super into it if he and izzy were the main ship and that twisted dynamic from the first two episodes of s2 was explored and fleshed out into something deeper

friends to enemies to lovers who fight and fuck. angry pirates who lay hands on each other, who break the whole ship with each other in the heat of passion.

except instead, s2 gives us... abuse. it gives us izzy cringing and lowering his head and trying to protect the kids crew from ed's angry outbursts.

so when stede comes back and he's still soft around the edges and ed headbutts him and it's deliberate, it's... not a great look, and the vibes are a bit skewed

if stede fought back, if when ed struck out at him he struck back, if they fought rather than it being one-sided, if it was friends to enemies to lovers and not presented as healthy, but maybe they can work their way there, who knows, maybe even more like anne bonnie and mary read because hey, they were doing something very similar?

except they were both into it. they were both enjoying the fighting and the fucking and the burning down the house.

stede's not enjoying it.

i cannot describe how much i hate this sequence just because of the way stede flinches

anne and mary don't!! mary jumps at the unexpected bang but she doesnt flinch, she doesn't cover her face like she thinks the vase will be coming for her not the wall and anne? looks so into it

and the thing is that in real life, no, you don't want to date someone who throws shit around, or headbutts you

but in fiction when it's two fucked up people doing this shit together like anne and mary?

that can be fun.

but instead what we've been given is stede flinching and apologizing to ed and then all of ed's...what, semi-redemption???? is done away from the other collection of people he abused, and then he spends some time on a fishing boat wearing a dog collar and everything is fine because he's good now and won't be doing anything bad ever again

and it's just... poor writing. the vibes are rancid.

i spent a really big chunk of time between s1 and s2 defending ed. i kept saying how what he did to izzy by making him eat his toe wasn't abuse, it was a one-off and abuse isn't a one-off thing it's a pattern, and then s2 made it a pattern.

explicitly. explicitly a pattern.

not just one toe but three.

jim saying "you're in an unhealthy relationship with blackbeard"

and all ed offered izzy was a "sorry about your leg" which might've been fine if izzy survived and they could work on this more, but instead that's all the apology and closure izzy will ever get

ed threw a chair and a vase and made stede flinch in fear and stede was right to do that. what part of any of this implies this will never happen again? that stede won't press the wrong button at some point and be on the receiving end? none of it

and if we'd been presented with a s2 stede bonnet who could handle himself and stand up for himself and fight back, then maybe i could imagine that turning into a weird sexy fucked up anne/mary like thing and maybe that could be why they put that episode in, but instead it feels like that episode was going, "look, see, ed's violence is fine because these two are fine with it with each other"

but stede isn't

ed and izzy or ed and stede in an unhealthy battle of a relationship could be such a fun, interesting and downright sexy thing to watch unfold on tv, and could honestly end somewhere far more down the chill end of the spectrum, but that's not what we've been given here

i cannot argue that ed isn't an abuser anymore, and not just of izzy but of the whole crew. he terrified frenchie.

it's not good writing to try and lean into the idea that ed and the pirates are violent and live a life of violence, so it's okay that ed's been violent, while simultaneously presenting his violence as traumatic and abusive, and then less than three episodes later saying oh it's fine now, he's just a little meow meow who can do no wrong, see?

especially considering they had him murdering people at the end of the season. and sure, you can say the english are just cannon fodder and they dont 'count', but they did before. ed explicitly did not kill before, and that included the english, or the spanish, or anyone else. so either they count or they don't, but flipping him on a dime makes no sense.

ALSO

having ed be the son of an abusive man who threw plates at his mother and made her cringe and then having ed kill his father to protect his mother and then a season later having ed become the kind of man who throws chairs and vases and makes his love interest cringe is, again, not bloody optimal

i want to say again i dont CARE about tv always presenting healthy relationships or tv always giving us aspirational goals. i want messy fucked up dynamics and terrible people making terrible choices, and still, to this day, i fucking love ed teach. i would honestly love to have seen them continue with ed's darkness and bring stede into it and see where they went with that, to have stede kill ned lowe and not just bury his feelings in ed but get off on it, enjoy the violence, and see where that led, but no

and so instead all we end up with is a protagonist who is being set up for a lifetime of abuse from an intimate partner, and a romantic lead who abuses his love interests (and yes. izzy is a love interest, he is set up like one and positioned like one and treated like one), frightens his love interests with his violence, is erratic and most of all inconsistently written. he was so sorry about scaring fang as though he hadn't been deliberately terrifying the whole crew for fuck knows how long? what?!

the whole fandom has spent so long saying, "no no, i know stede bonnet irl was a slave owner, but ofmd is using the names and not any real piracy, it's more disney piracy, you know? so that kind of stuff doesnt exist!" and then they flipped around and went "blackbeard is blackbeard and so he is evil and does all these horrible things" and i dont know how to rationalize the two sides of that because it feels so out of place

i'm getting rambly, this isnt a particularly well constructed thought process, i just feel like we were robbed both of a toxic, violent relationship that could be fun to see explored on tv and a soft and sweet love story between two middle aged men exploring their first loves in one fell swoop and there's no way for s3 to bring either of those things back because they got utterly torpedoed by making ed a horrible person

ugh

#ofmd critical #i hate that i'm using this tag now :c #edward teach #ed teach #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #i guess #izzy hands #stede bonnet

[randomgirlyoudontknow]

No one will probably read this, but as a long-time fan of ATLA (as in, I literally watched the show as it aired in 2005-2008), I wanted to share my thoughts on the live action. Let it be known that I am far from an ATLA purist––the original certainly had its own flaws and aspects that didn't age well, in retrospect. Despite the generally negative reviews I've seen from the fandom, I was actually very satisfied with this adaptation! But I’ve seen people saying that the characters were butchered, that it’s a soulless and superficial reproduction, and those who liked the live action aren’t capable of thinking/watching critically, which I wanted to push back against (I mean, I’m working on a doctorate in literature…I am quite literally incapable of watching anything uncritically).

The shift in tone to a darker, more mature one was a positive change, imo. It is definitely a much angrier show than the original, even if some of the characters were not as fiery as they should have been (*cough* Katara *cough*). Overall, while there were certainly decisions made that I didn't agree with (mainly related to pacing and narrative), I thought the cast and crew really captured the spirit of the original, and even added depth and nuance to parts I felt were initially lacking.

In general, I really appreciated the added emphasis on the cost and suffering of war and imperialism, as well as the depiction of the physical effects of bending. Now, I realize this is largely a matter of personal preference––for example, I'm very interested in depictions of war in fiction (I mean, my dissertation partially covers the impact of WWI on avant-garde art & literature, so...). But I've seen several claims that the live action glorifies war and violence in a way that is meant to traumatize the viewer, and I simply don't think that's true? While the original handled war, genocide, trauma, etc. in a phenomenal way for a kid's show in the early 2000s, it was also still sanitized when it comes to death and injury, to an extent that I feel like we, the viewers, almost lose sight of the fact that bending KILLS. Sure, we were exposed to its after effects, like the death of Katara and Sokka's mother or Zuko's scar, but there's something to be said actually seeing and acknowledging the very palpable danger that something like firebending presents.

I've even seen someone say that the show's depiction of "gratuitous violence" constitutes a "profound misunderstanding" of the source text, which I think is frankly a bad faith take. The death and violence, though more realistic, is still not a major focus of the show, nor is it glorified in any way. A glorification of violence would look like indiscriminate killing and maiming for the sake of edginess (looking at you GOT). We would see graphic depictions of death and injuries, which simply does not happen in this show (they even joke about the fact that we never see anyone die in Ember Island Players). War and fighting are still treated with the same depth and gravity as the original, only this time, the severity of its consequences isn't obscured from the viewer.

I also thought the show's handling of trauma (especially Katara's) was excellent. The choice to have Katara's mom's death revealed in flashbacks (specifically when around firebending) was something that really stood out to me. And the new characterization of Bumi, which I realize was quite unpopular, was another change I quite appreciated. His bitterness and cynicism seemed more in-line with someone who had endured 100 years of war and the suffering of his people at the hands of a brutal imperial force. Lastly, I was pleased to see the narrative attempt to address the role Iroh played in the Siege of Ba Sing Se (something that was absolutely missing from the original). The Earth Kingdom soldier confronting him and calling him a butcher was a powerful moment, for me. I truly hope the show continues to dive into this aspect of his character in future seasons.

Speaking of characters, I loved that we got extra background and insight into several of the characters. Zhao, for example, was unexpectedly quite funny, and his actor really did a phenomenal job of fleshing him out and making him feel like a real person (as slimy and smarmy as he was) rather than a stock, cartoon villain. And I have to give kudos to the actors who played Sokka and Zuko––they both did an incredible job of embodying their respective characters, in a way that felt highly reminiscent of the original. In particular, I thought the handling of Zuko's backstory was truly outstanding––perhaps even better than the original.

All in all, I felt the live action did a really nice job of balancing the darker sides with the light. While I've seen fans complaining that the show doesn't have the same goofiness and lightheartedness, I actually thought the humor worked really well––it was one of the few times I felt the overly ironic, Joss Whedonesque one-liners actually fit. Sure, the humor was a lot drier and more toned down than the original, but I nonetheless thought it carried the show's spirit well (loved that they let Sokka say “ass” not once, but twice). There were moments when I genuinely laughed out loud! I also appreciated how, despite the more mature tone, hope, friendship, and harmony still remained the most important aspect at the end of each episode.

There's a lot of room for improvement, but I was overall very satisfied with the live action, and I'm very glad that the series has been renewed. I'm very excited to see what the cast and crew does with the rest of the show!

#tl;dr i really enjoyed the live action #long post #there's honestly so much more i could say but my brain is currently fried #this is probably a little all over the place but i just finished up a book review and i am incapable of forming coherent thoughts #atla #avatar the last airbender #natla #natla positivity

[mothmanssweetsucculentass]

Ok here’s my two cents that no one asked for on the current (sort of?) debate going on in the Creepypasta fandom on here rn.

For starters, I grew up with Creepypasta. I also grew up mentally ill. I am also autistic. So I know my way around good and bad mental health rep at this point. And to be honest? A lot of the original stories DID suck balls at representation or just horror writing in general.

However, nowadays I see other people on here, often mentally ill or any other social outcast, taking these characters and reshaping them as their own to fit their own feelings and experiences, and I don’t think anyone has the authority to criticize things like that. Cringe culture is supposed to be dead anyways, nevermind the fact it’s inherently ableist at its core.

We also need to take into account kids still exist in the fandom. Pre teens who got tired of shit like scooby doo and wanted something more “mature” or “edgy” to get into without fully going off the deep end into full blown horror movies. At least that’s how it was for me. Not everyone, especially someone who’s younger, is gonna be comfortable with the grit and gore a lot of Creepypasta “purists” are pushing for these days, and that’s okay! When a fandom gets popular it’s always inevitable and unavoidable to have the popular characters get two dimensionalized.

There’s also the whole mascot horror thing that I don’t wanna get into, but I’m 90% sure that also plays a part in the old favorites like Jeff and slenderman being brought up again. They were and still are recognizable characters. Recognizable characters aren’t a bad thing. Making horror more approachable for younger audiences isn’t a bad thing. People having their own interpretations based out of their own experiences isn’t a bad thing.

Some of us grew up and wanted the more edgy and reality based content, and that’s also not a bad thing! But neither side should be dictating or policing how the other enjoys content in this fandom. If you personally don’t like the way something is written, characterized, depicted, or drawn, no one’s forcing you to look at it. No one’s claiming it as canon. No one’s asking for you to accept it as the end all be all.

At the end of the day this fandom was built on OCs and personal depictions of stuff. I can’t name a single character or story in this community that was created by some outside party like a movie or TV studio FIRST (because I know some got so popular they breached the fandom and got their own shows/movies/comics/etc). Everything here was created by someone who wanted an outlet for their creativity, or their pain, or their coping, or whatever else.

Realism and dark headcanons aren’t bad, and neither are any of the headcanons out there who just wanna make a goofy found family of social rejects as a form of escapism.

A 13 year old drawing a fictional layout of a fictional mansion where these fictional characters live isn’t going to suddenly invalidate the horror, I promise, it’s not that deep and it never was.

A 22 year old making a dark comic on the realistic origins of Jeff who is a fictional character in a fictional world isn’t going to suddenly invalidate the more softhearted side of the fandom.

Sure, there can still be a split if people are so adamant about that, but as someone who personally enjoys both the brutal horror side and the “haha Jeff is 15 and gay” sides equally, y’all need to at least learn to be civil to anyone who has a different headcanon than you. And if that seems like too much still, the block button exists for a reason.

TL:DR this fandom is based entirely off OCs and headcanons and people can do whatever the fuck they want because none of it is real and horror comes in many shapes and sizes and intensities and no one should be bashing anyone on their headcanons or views or rewrites or whatever else.

EDIT:

Actually wait I think I have more to say-

Horror, like any genre, has NO AGE LIMIT. And by that I mean, if someone younger wants to delve into scary stuff, they should be allowed to do so without criticism. I personally grew up on “child friendly” horror media like Scooby-Doo, and the older I got the more horror I wanted to experience.

There’s no right or wrong way to “understand” horror, and I frankly think it’s ignorant and stupid to say if you don’t fully “understand” something, then you shouldn’t be involved in it at all. Horror isn’t always about gore and unspeakable violence and the eldritch entity that wants everyone’s skin inside out. That’s why horror has sub genres for fucks sake. Gut wrenching brutality against innocent people isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay!

However, bashing anyone’s tamer headcanons, or calling anything anyone interprets differently than you “stupid”, that’s not okay. God, I feel like an exhausted parent giving this lecture to fellow adults, but this really needs to be said and stressed.

I am an adult. I like when stuff in the fandom takes a dark turn. But for nostalgia’s sake, I also love the fanon so much, because that’s what I was exposed to.

And for fucks sake if it comes down to picking sides, I would rather stick with the part of this fandom that gives zero shits how you see a character as long as you’re having fun.

You can have your serial killer 30 year old Jeff and your canon-accurate-to-that-one-image eyeless Jack, but don’t shit on other people if they don’t want the same thing. Your interpretation isn’t canon, and neither is anyone else’s for that matter.

Realistic, dark, gritty Creepypasta isn’t a new concept, and neither is “adult” Creepypasta. And by the way, Creepypasta was never stated to be for adults. That’s like saying kids and only kids can eat trix cereal. It sounds that stupid on paper.

Let people interpret things the way they wanna interpret. No one is infringing on YOUR character ideas. Creepypasta has no age limit, nor a set way the horror has to be presented. Those who do continue to claim that just sound like pretentious assholes.

Very small side note, I personally think it’s inappropriate and rude to keep using Toby as a “bad example” of mental health rep when the creator has stated multiple times the character is old, not researched, and not even in the fandom anymore. Leave the poor guy alone.

#creepypasta #creepypasta fandom #jeff the killer #rant #I’m not a professional in anything don’t @ me #I’ve just been here for years #so I at the very least partially know what I’m talking about #I personally think this purist mindset and behavior is bs if you go and attack other creators #just be nice to people Ohmygod #update #eyeless Jack #slenderman

[foursaints]

saints I’ve been having fun learning more about you the sleepover asks were all so fun and lovely but would you entertain a return to the psychosexual analysis of fictional characters? anything that’s been on your mind?

oh i had just been waiting for someone to say the word.. i will probably expand on this later! but i've been thinking about barty's story as analogous to Christ's Side Wound. as in, he is a christlike figure who is Feminized Through Violence

i've been reckoning a lot with HP as a bioessentialist narrative in light of jkr's views. obviously this is bad but the way gender is enforced textually is so fascinating to me BECAUSE of how warped it is (ex. how women in HP can either be Mothers or Evil). barty's entire characterization is wrapped in traditionally masculine themes of power & violence & domination. i would say his entire character in-text is just one long Assertion of Control .... but that's really compelling to me because it's ultimately fruitless?

for a character w/ these traits (allegedly manipulative, cruel, dominating, etc) he spends the majority of his time forced into some form of bondage or constraint, being passed around the hands of powerful men. his devotion to voldemort reads really submissively and almost erotically ("my master"). and then there's the whole thing where he quite literally switches places with his mother (taking on her Body), both occupying matching roles under his father's control?

he's literally a fucked up Girlboy Manwoman. it's so insane to me. even the repeated admonishment of "Master Barty, you bad boy!" from winky contains this double entendre where he's BOTH a violent, overpowering, domineering male figure & this emasculated, penetrated, porous boydaughterservantwife who is scolded like a child. he's jkr's ill-formed caricature of male violence forced to assume the role of Battered Woman over & over. i need to marry him so bad it makes me look stupid

#CONTRASTING THIS WITH LILY AS an impossible gendered ideal is also CRAZY #what if I were an impossible golden standard of gender conformity & you were an evil fucked up boygirl #barty meta tag #<- WE'RE SO BACK.............. #a #ive also been having lots of fun!! but this blog is first and foremost about MR CROUCH JR we cannot get it twisted 🤨 #actually a sadomasochistic reading of his character would be fucking crazy . #i’m going to delete most of my sleepover asks. not all but most. i think

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Hi! I wanted to ask you something, since I really enjoy how you characterize the relationship between a grumpy, lonely, stoic, angry etc. character like Ghost (though I don’t know if I’d say he’s angry) and a love interest. What would those first few interactions be like, (would she seek him out, and would it annoy or confuse him) and what characteristics would he see early on in her to realize that he likes her. I can see someone like him avoiding her initially, until his feelings are too strong and then he’s all in. I don’t know, maybe that’s an incorrect interpretation. Also you kind of already answered this question in a previous ask, but I just love how in depth your character analysis is!! Hope your day goes really really well and thanks for giving us all some fantastic stories!!

First of all, thank you for your interest and praise! Also, this is such a lovely, cute question ️🩷✨️ I certainly don't consider myself as any kind of a Ghost expert, but I absolutely love to share my thoughts on him and love to hear other people's thoughts on this man too 💕

My thoughts on this under the cut ->

"I can see someone like him avoiding her initially, until his feelings are too strong and then he's all in."

Yes, me too, definitely! Trust issues are one reason for avoidance, but I have this HC about Ghost having an ominous feeling that he's born with bad luck. He has this almost superstitious belief that shit will hit the fan whenever he turns his back. That's why he's so gloomy: quotes like "People you know can hurt you the most" and "Choices have consequences" come to mind... The latter imho is a perfect example on Ghost's instinctual belief in Murphy's law instead of being a neutral, logical take on how laws of cause and effect work.

This inner conviction that tragedy and disaster follow him wherever he goes is why he subconsciously steers clear of relationships and, in fact, any chance of happiness: because happiness is always followed by immense pain in his world of experience.

But like you said, if he gets "trapped," it's challenging for him to pull back anymore. He's curious by nature and gets a kick out of physical intimacy and extremes - and love and lust are one of the most intense experiences there is! Violence can be viewed as a profound, distorted form of intimacy (like... this guy is an expert in hugging people from behind and plunging a knife in them 🫠), so of course passionate sex is like a drug to him. Tender lovemaking or rough rutting – as long as he's present and his partner is present too.

So I'd say he's drawn in by physical attraction and sex first (not that he would be into superficial hookups, I think he'd rather deprive himself of sex altogether than have a series of shallow one-night stands), and this would eventually lead to feelings which grow in depth until he cannot keep himself away any longer.

I think people like Ghost could be compared to a wild animal or an abused dog 🥲 so it's better to let him "sniff" you first. Smothering him with attention and demands will only drive him away. But after he sees you 1. are not a threat 2. accept him as he is 3. give him the occasional treat (lol), there's a good chance he will eventually trust you and attach himself to you.

(Again, I can't believe this is my life now: talking folk psychology about a traumatized fictional man on Tumblr, but here we are, this is fine ☕️✨️)

Ghost also has to feel he's needed in the relationship, just the way he wants to feel qualified and capable in his work. If you try to force him to be something he's not, he will likely leave – simply because he doesn't want his partner to settle for anything but the best. But if he gets a feeling that he is needed and can provide and be of service to his partner, he will do anything in his power to make them feel protected, safe, and content (in that order). I also think he prefers to feel useful rather than be admired – that's why he would consider a friends with benefits setup insufficient. Also, feelings! If he senses he's just being used while slowly developing something more than just horny feels for the other person, it will only make him resentful and, again, drive him away.

"-what characteristics would he see early on in her to realize that he likes her."

It's difficult to say because I don't think Ghost has a particular "type." It's more about the chemistry and little things to him: I see him as a man of detail, so it might be something very fleeting and minimal in a person that catches his attention.

But if by characteristics you mean what kind of behavior he appreciates (not sure if I got this question right), then perhaps patience paired with acceptance and compassion. I think he wants his partner to be independent... and dependent on him. Like I said earlier, he wants to feel needed but doesn't want to be smothered. He wants to feel useful but not used. He demands unconditional loyalty but despises childlike codependency.

I wrote a standalone sequel to Refugee a while ago and will post it here soon, in it I explore your question on what the first interactions would be like (from Ghost's POV). 💞

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this! Or any Ghost & relationships topics for that matter 😍

#answered #ghost headcanons #simon riley headcanons

[olderthannetfic]

It's odd that some people are saying that we need to immediately accept ex-antis into fandoms with open arms lest they relapse into their harassing ways. No, we don't! Trust is earned over time, and you certainly don't need to placate the formerly abusive so they don't abuse again or fall in with the wrong crowd. Come on. There's a bit of Geek Social Fallacy #1 mixed in here too.

--

Eh. A lot of what people actually say is that we need to make the bar to changing one's mind lower. And that goes for many kinds of views.

If someone is a dangerous harasser, that's one thing. If they merely had a stupid DNI and thought rape fantasies were unhealthy, they're a lot more likely to stop being an idiot if given space to gracefully back down instead of being raked over the coals.

I do block many of the clowns I see in various posts' comments howling about "fictional CP" and the like. A perma-ban from my discussion space is more than justified.

But I wouldn't characterize them all as active harassers. Many of them are, by their own admission, young and still dealing with abuse trauma that they aren't getting adequate mental health support for. They're highly reactive in those comments and will fight with people who show up to fight with them. They post toxic PSAs to their own tumblrs. It doesn't mean they necessarily also post callouts of specific people, stalk, follow people around bothering them, etc.

It all really hinges on whether "open arms" means "Be personally their friend and be vulnerable with them" or "Do the actual work of deprogramming them yourself in your limited free time" or "Don't ask them to grovel before they're allowed to exist in the main fandom spaces".

I'm not friends with ex-antis for the most part. I laugh in people's faces for their dumb "But isn't X fantasy unhealthy though, on some level???" naivete way too often for that.

But I'm also not worried about taking a personal history of someone's dumber fandom exploits to judge whether they're ~safe~ to have a casual interaction with. There is no litmus test that actually proves someone is safe. It's a matter of instinct and faith.

And anyway, being someone's close friend requires a slightly higher bar than just "They're not a bad person".

[ladyluscinia]

OFMD fandom has me thinking about Protagonist Centered Morality, like, in general.

I feel like we only call it that when we think it's been handled wrong and are criticizing it, even though - let's be honest - we have all bought into some degree of protagonist centered morality in our favorite show. Like. It's the beating heart behind the very idea of a Mook - the faceless darkside minion that your heroes can destroy without any moral consequence for that action because who gives a shit? It's basically inescapable in every cop-show (or reskinned cop show like spn), chosen one story, action movie, revenge quest, underdog tale... we fucking love it when the universe agrees "yeah they earned that" and will generally just roll our eyes at people going "ok but you know your fictional murderers are doing bad things, right?"

Until we don't.

And, like, as an offshoot of this... 99% of the time, when you're criticizing a show for its protagonist centered morality, the most straightforward way to get your point across is complaining about whatever happened. "X did Y and then we're just supposed to forget about it?" Or "X is being such a hypocrite about Z!" And then someone else (real or hypothetical) pushes back with some point about how the story / other characters / etc. don't treat this as a problem and that kicks off the framing criticisms. But is it really about what they did?

People will object to the protagonist centered framing of actions they don't consider that serious, and be satisfied or unconcerned with the framing of actions they find borderline unforgivable. Protagonist centered morality can casually handwave (or seriously penalize) the whole spectrum of morally questionable actions from being a shit in high school to committing massive war crimes. Sometimes the primary complaint is that the protagonist already took a stance against this action, so now being fine with doing it themselves is hypocritical and out of character, and the problem with protagonist centered morality seems to be more that it's letting the OOC part slide.

The concept engages with genuine criticism of a characterization or character's actions as a shorthand, but the part it's actually complaining about is closer to feeling the narrative failed somewhere on a meta level to calibrate how much the audience should care about this event (and what level of in-universe caring would then satisfy).

It's not (at least usually) a fancy way of putting forward character crit of the good guys - most people who want to do that are just going to do so directly. If anything it has more in common with being upset at a story for breaking your Suspension of Disbelief (usually in the arena of character relationships).

#media #tropes #analysis #fandom culture #suspension of disbelief #protagonist centered morality #i'm mostly just rambling here after seeing lots of back and forth flame stuff just bounce entirely off the points being made #like you can't argue someone around to your pov on this by doubling down on how there's no issue until they make one #or defending your fave from perceived attacks. it's not *about* blorbo it's about the meta narrative #see: criticizing the fact the spn universe treats dean winchester's pov as divine law is not really deancrit #in fact my poor blorbo is actively denied character growth because he's fundamentally no allowed to be wrong #ladyluscinia

[krewekreep]

So the case of Nigga Eren/ Black coded characters in fanfic is getting WILD. Now as someone who was on tumblr when people would lowkey get weird if you asked for a race specific fic NOW it’s like because of that lapse in representation and the new wave of tumblr, there’s this overcompensation online for Black users to feel seen and build community. Sometimes I wonder if the writers know how to even write a fanfic (not because they are bad 🫤 but the fact a lot of them just seem like self insert smut) ((arguably that’s all smut on here but still work with me)

As a tumblr user in my 20s with an account over ten years old, I feel like I can kinda Grandma the situation. Both sides have a point which is why the arguing isn’t going anywhere. I believe Black women can be attracted to negative, toxic masculinity. (I personally don’t read alot of x black reader fics cause it’s just not what I like or how I get down in real life). These characterizations bleed a bit too into the real world where these traits and ways are very unhealthy, toxic, and unsafe.

“ITS FAN FICTION.” Bitch I don’t really care and watch who you talking to…

Both sides tryna have an absolute opinion is really annoying and y’all lowkey making Black centric fanfic an annoying community. 1. Yes, we all can ignore what we don’t like 2. Yes, there’s WAYYYY too much toxic nigga coded material to even get to something someone DOES LIKE 3. Whatever your age it’s okay to say I’m attracted to toxic behavior AND like to express it in writing. 4. If you don’t like it it’s okay to have a critique. But y’all blowing the Fuck outta me now 😂

Now imma lowkey be a little mean. NO no one wants to read a hood/ghetto coded White dude or Asian. It’s lame in real life, it’s lame online. Whatever YOU like (as a black person) IS ON YOU. Im not into Wiggas and Chiggas though. And as someone who identifies as hood or from that upbringing it’s a bit *anti-Black* to see every characterization of a MALE is black coded and unnecessarily controlling, possessive, RUDE, inappropriately horny etc. Like you are using REAL LIFE IDEAS OF PEOPLE to get your rocks off…take accountability for how that OBJECTIVELY looks…

All in all TBH enjoy what you want but nothing in life has EVER said what you like, what you do, and how you do it can’t be criticized. And I personally resent Black women who are not of a certain experience and obsess or fetishize men of their own race who simply come from a different lived experience (+ having an accent yall also fetishize) it’s weird…

You can be black and be a part of the problem, y’all not gonna stop cause you don’t ACTUALLY care but imma add my lil two cents…

#black fanfiction #black reader #x black trader #nigga eren #black fem reader #black fanfic writer #black fanfic #aot x black reader #eren x black y/n #eren x black reader #can y’all lowkey shut the fuck up lmaooo #for you

[mdhwrites]

Is Amity a Good Person?

This is not if she's a well written character. A judgement of that is a part of this but the bigger point is just: Is Amity a 'good' person? Does she appear to actually care about others? Does she choose selflessness over selfishness? Etc. etc.

And part of this is going to be subjective. To some people, not being mean is enough to make someone nice. Other people will ask for a bit more, especially out of a fictional character. Hell, you can even see it with most fictional parties. The lancer character who is meant to contrast against the hero is usually a pretty dickish person but you might still call them good because even if they're cursing while doing it, they are still putting their life at risk in order to save a town or the like. Meanwhile, you probably wouldn't call Vegeta a nice person, even by the time of Dragon Ball Super because he is still mostly selfish, even once he's explicitly no longer trying t get stronger regardless of the consequences to others.

So what does Amity do that is actually nice?

...

........

Oh, were you expecting me to start listing things she does? Because I have bad news for you.

See, one hang up I have with going "Amity always wanted to be a good person and so even if she loses her drive, motivation, etc. she gains the personality of a good person," is that Amity doesn't do fucking anything to earn that. She isn't unpleasant. After S1, she isn't trying to murder people or actively bullying people but like... Cool, you upgraded from Mega Bitch to Background character. Why do you claim that's a new personality instead of the death of one?

Because being a 'good person' is actually more complicated than just not being an asshole. Being nice to your friends? Of course you're nice to your friends. You care about them (put a pin in it). Noticing when your partner is in pain and wanting to help them? You supposedly love that person, much like why you might be nice to family, so OF COURSE, you put in a little extra effort.

A good person, at least in a narrative, doesn't need the excuse. They help because it is the right thing to do and then their personality dictates how they go about doing so. Maybe they write wiki pages to share their knowledge in a free way so people can benefit from it. Maybe they help out at a soup kitchen because it gives them a chance to be more directly kind and they have the time for it. Or maybe it's just that when they see someone who is potentially having problems, they risk whatever it may lead to be asking this complete stranger if they're okay.

Amity doesn't do this. In fact, as far as actually giving a shit about anyone other than Luz, she's AWFUL at it. Hunter is her kindest moment to a theoretical stranger in the series but it is still characterized by her being suspicious, judgemental and not giving him a chance until the dude is suicidal and has drawn a dozen parallels between them. Even then, she does it as part of mimicking Luz, at least with the joke she immediately makes of how 'this always works for Luz'. Then you have poor fucking Willow. This is a girl that Amity abused, especially for her powerlessness and helplessness, for YEARS. Amity even knows explicitly why Willow should hate her. What her crimes are. But... Then 'good person' Amity, showing 'care' for her friend, treats her as powerless after having thought she didn't need to do shit to be allowed to come to Willow for advice (Labyrinth Runner and Falls and Follies respectively). That is TOTALLY someone who always just wanted to be a good person and is dedicating themselves to that instead of any of their old dreams and desires.

The only person or thing she puts any effort into post S1 is Luz. She doesn't care about anyone else besides that. Belittle Eda for not focusing on taking of Luz in a tangible way during Eclipse Lake? Check. Feel justified to give marching orders to literally everyone in the house just because she's Luz's girlfriend during that same episode? Check. Including Willow, who she has done NOTHING to make up for at this point? Check. Hell, even further: Not give a fuck about stopping Boscha while Luz could just step out of the splash zone around Willow during Winging it Like Witches? OF COURSE NOT. She only gets involved once Boscha's only focus is going to be on Luz.

That. Is not. A good person. Not if the only people who matter are those she deems are worthy of mattering. Changing from actively crushing those other people to just being entirely indifferent to them and their plights is not as a big of a deal as you all seem to think it is, not for it to become the only defining trait of a character's personalities and motivations.

Are they evil? Bad? No. But anything beyond nice is giving such a character a LOT of credit. A rogue isn't Robin Hood just because they only steal from the rich. If they're still lining only their pockets and the pockets of their friends with their thievery, they're still selfish and self centered, they just have code. That's called Lawful Neutral, or Lawful Evil, in D&D for a reason. Not any form of good.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #toh #the owl house #amity

[rollercoasterwords]

i do think it's odd when people talk abt r's lycanthropy as though it is somehow offensive to like....acknowledge or emphasize the fact that he is a werewolf at all. like i think it's weird when people say that it's gross or harmful to write lycanthropy (which is, of course, a fictional disease that is an allegorical tool for exploring themes related to disability) in a way where r is written with "wolfish" traits, or he or the people around him refer to him as a werewolf or just in any way emphasize that being a werewolf is part of who he is.

and i'm not trying to overstate this like it's a huge issue, because at most it's just like. a couple people making posts online, y’know? but i just think it's odd when i do see people say stuff like "don't refer to him as a beast/wolf/etc!!! he's a person!!" or act like it's disgusting for lycanthropy to alter his characterization at all to make him more "beastly"

because like. ok. what we have here is lycanthropy as a chronic illness that is vilified + stigmatized by the wider wizarding world. and typically in fics remus has a very negative view of his own lycanthropy since he's grown up in a society that tells him he's a monster. so if the response to that is "don't emphasize that he's a werewolf at all by giving him negative werewolf traits!!!" it's like....that is. exactly the message that we are supposed to be questioning if we're going into this allegory with a critical reading. bc u are also now treating being a werewolf like it's a bad thing.

like if u think it's an actual issue for him to be portrayed in a way where he is more wolfish/beastly....why? who's saying that those things are bad? why is it so important for him to be portrayed as "civilized" rather than "monstrous," and who in this context is qualifying what counts as "civilized" vs. "monstrous?" why is monstrosity diametrically opposed to humanity/personhood in the first place?

obviously this is all fanfiction and if somebody wants to write r's lycanthropy so that he's just a werewolf once a month + otherwise isn't that affected by it, or is only affected in ways that are easy to deem sympathetic (ie, he gets hurt + has to spend time in the hospital wing but he never exhibits any kind of aggression or "animalistic" or "beastly" qualities otherwise) then that's fine. and i'm also not saying that he has to be written as like hyper-dominant alpha wolf beastman either--i don't necessarily think that's the only possible interpretation for how lycanthropy might manifest in traits outside the full moon. it's more just that i think it's weird when people moralize about like...."playing into werewolf stereotypes" lol bc. again werewolves aren't real. but also in the context of lycanthropy as allegory, the goal is not to say "you can't write those traits related to disability bc it's a negative stereotype," which does nothing to question why it's a negative stereotype and ultimately just reinforces the idea that those traits are something negative. the goal is to use the allegory to explore how people who fit "negative stereotypes" of disability navigate an ableist society that stigmatizes them + insists that the only path to acceptance is to hide their disability as best they can + assimilate, while simultaneously making assimilation an impossible goal.

#this post brought to u by my hatred for the name 'moonstar' thank u xoxo #'remus would hate being reduced to a wolf' false. remus lupin is not a real person #and therefore does not have the real-life capacity for hate #also being a werewolf is literally central to his character. and there's nothing wrong with the him being a wolf. so #also....'moon' is literally also coming from werewolf??? like...ok #and if people r just changing it to moonstar bc they think it's prettier. stop >:( #it's not prettier it's just confusing!!!!!! #ranting and raving

[phoenixtakaramono]

hi! any spoilers or sneaky peaks on the untold tale? i've been anxiously waiting for the new chapter 😫 your writing is on another level, i swear. i reread the first five chapters like more than 4 times each. i'm also loving your characterization of binghe!

Hullo, hullo, anon! 💞 It makes me heartened to hear that you like The Untold Tale! And I’m glad you’re liking my characterization of Bingge! I personally like my yanderes in fiction, and it’s always somewhat hilarious how wild and simp-y Luo Binghe’s POV and dialogue/ thoughts can be compared to Shen Yuan who’s just doing his best, haha.

We haven’t reached TUT’s position yet on my WIPs to Update list, so I haven’t been posting much sneak peeks of the upcoming ch6 yet since the majority of it is still in my rough note form (reminders of what I want to happen, dialogue that needs to happen, specific foreshadowing or worldbuilding, etc) and not the pretty final draft form y’all see on AO3. But I am very frank in my replies about what’ll happen in the AO3 Comments section so spoilers are abound there, haha. If y’all want a Spoiler Free experience, do not check out the Comments section. I answer questions and even gift spoilers (even copy and paste certain scenes that haven’t been published yet) to certain readers as thanks for leaving me long essay-long comments or just plain any comments that’ve made me happy.

There’s also a jokey April Fools version of what’ll be in ch6 that I’d tweeted out: TUT ch6 threadfic (April Fools edition). You can read it there if you have a Twitter account but essentially it’s scenes to expect—but butchered with American and British colloquialisms I have a certain writing process where I go all in on the fandom belonging to whichever WIP I’m working on updating, and at that time I wanted to show why it’d be a bad idea if I jumped back into writing TUT under this mindset and how it’d be jarring, haha. TUT has a certain writing style unique to C-novels and light novels in general, so I didn’t want to detract from that experience!

If you want a direct spoiler, this is what to expect from TUT ch6:

Shen Yuan’s shark tank meeting with the Jade Emperor’s Court (and SY finding out who is his celestial family in PIDW)

+

Luo Binghe’s POV, after his meeting with the celestial fortuneteller Shen Yuan (featuring a short cameo from Ning Yingying)

I do, admittedly, miss the SVSSS fandom a lot and really can’t want to return, my lovely dear readers, but I have to be a responsible multi-fandom writer rotating through my list of WIPs in an orderly fashion so it’s fair for everyone and wait for their turn and can only promise the patience will be worth it (to preserve the magic of it all)!! Thank you for your patience! I am heartened to hear there are people still reading and waiting for my return! I’ll share new sneak peeks as I’m live-writing it, once I’m ready to pivot back to TUT. ✌️ There also exist some other spoilery kernels but I’ll leave one more hint:

And after ch6, will be the Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky chapter where y’all will find out whose new poor cannon fodder’s identity he’s transmigrated into almost as a direct consequence of Shen Yuan’s transmigration as a celestial sharing the Protagonist’s Halo with Bingge in this new danmei genre he’s created (laughs). I’m excited because I get to finish up and debut the prettier illustration of ASTtS that’s been gathering dust in my computer files. If you’ve seen the WIP, yes, it’ll be the final version of this concept art I posted before as a sneak peek.

#bingyuan #svsss #scum villian self saving system #shen yuan #luo binghe #the untold tale #ask #anon #phoenix talks

[bitchthefuck1]

you dont like Freddy as kaz?

I decided not to answer this until the show was cancelled bc I didn't want to risk getting dragged back into discourse for anything less, so sorry for the wait.

The short answer is no.

Some of those reasons are outside of his control (his age, the fact that he's not disabled, bad writing and dialogue, etc), but honestly even setting those aside, I just don't think he captures Kaz's physical presence very well. There's a level of intentional calculation and performance to everything that Kaz does that is just completely missing from Freddy Carter's version. This affect is a huge part of Kaz's characterization and what makes him him as opposed to every other morally ambiguous sad boy in fiction, to the point where even if they'd nailed everything else (and they absolutely did not), it still wouldn't feel like a good take on the character without it. Kaz is hugely defined by his sense of self control and how he performs himself and the identity he's created, and it's the kind of thing that would actually translate super well to the screen. It's what makes the moments where he's not in control or where the mask slips have so much impact, so without it the key elements to him that a huge part of his arc hinges on just aren't there. Any performance or adaptation that misses this just feels like it's missed the whole point of him.

#was wondering when id get the chance to talk about this and here we are #it just really doesn't hit and its the kind of thing that would be SO GOOD onscreen #like its one of the most interesting things about him as a character and i really dont see why someone would want to play him if not #for that #freddy carter #shadow and bone #kaz brekker #six of crows #asks

[clevercatchphrase]

To answer your reply That's fine can't wait to see the final product when it's done

I thought you represented Asriel very well but how did you exactly get an exact picture on what personality type to give Asriel? because the game doesn't really feature him as much as other Undertale characters

I was going to work with someone on an AU comic for Undertale's 10th anniversary and I was hoping to have every charceter as accurate or canon as possible. What would be the best approach ?

I'm gonna answer this ask in reverse, starting with "how to keep the characters In Character", then how/why I decided on Asriel's personality. This is quite a long answer, so I'll put it under a Read More as not to stretch out your dash~

So you say you want the characters to be as canon as possible, and wonder what would be the best approach. Well... the only advice I can give is to replay the game and explore as much as the dialogue as you can. Click on everything. Inspect everything at least 2 times. Make a phone call to Papyrus in every room, then go back and do it again after you befriended Undyne. Keep in mind the relationships the characters have with each other and how they're all connected. Undyne has ties to both Gerson and Asgore, who in turn also have a connection as Gerson was once the War Hammer of Justice, and could resonably served in the royal guard as well with Asgore as his boss. Alphys is connected to Bratty and Catty (childhood friends), Bratty and Catty are connected to Burgerpants (the glamburger fiasco), Burgerpants is connected to Mettaton (boss and employee), and Mettaton is connected to Alphys (both have a mutual interest in humans). Everybody has ties to everyone else. How could those ties effect their interactions? What does the character's home/room/job say about them? Take in the environmental clues and extrapolate on them. You can learn so much about the undertale cast from indirect details. And it's okay to dip your toes into common tropes or stereotypes to flesh them out. Just be wary about making those tropes/stereotypes their ENTIRE personality, or else the characters will end up being flanderized. Never forget Papyrus is more than a skeleton who makes spaghetti, Toriel is more than an anxious mother who makes butterscotch pie, Undyne is more than a guard who suplexes boulders just because she can, so on and so forth. Ask yourself, "What are these character's values and beliefs", then using that framework try to imagine they would respond to the situations you have planned for this comic of yours. While some reactions may be similar, all should be unique. We all know Papyrus's reaction to a bad pun will be different to Sans's, but Sans and Toriel may have a similar reaction, etc, etc. There will be wiggle room. You may have to fill in parts that don't have clear cut answers, but ultimately, so long as you stay consistent with the characterizations you decide, readers will be willing to suspend their disbelief even if their interpretations are not 1 to 1 with yours. That's what makes fan fiction and theories so much fun~

Now for the second part. To copy/paste what you asked;

"how did you exactly get an exact picture on what personality type to give Asriel? because the game doesn't really feature him as much as other Undertale characters"

This is just amusing to me because saying the game doesn't really feature him is just factually incorrect. Asriel is in the game A LOT. More than some of the minor characters like Napstablook and Monster Kid, at least. But what do I mean by this? Well, aside from the protagonist you control, Asriel is the very first character you meet in Undertale, even if you don't realize it, and that's because...

Asriel IS Flowey. This is an irrefutable fact about Undertale's lore. Even if he doesn't look like a sweet goat child, even if he doesn't act like an innocent baby boy, we must accept that this cruel, heartless, emotionless flower is Asriel at his absolute worst.

Asriel himself doesn't even deny it. He doesn't say that the things he did as Flowey were the actions of a seperate entity. He fully owns up to it. To directly quote his dialogue from before and after his God of Hyperdeath fight, "I was so tired of being a flower", "As a flower, I was soulless," "I acted so strange and horrible," "I hurt so many people," "There's no excuse for what I've done." And even as Flowey, he does not see Asriel as someone separate from himself when he talks to you in New Home in the No Mercy route, recalling the memories he has before falling down as is own (example, he says "remember when WE played here", as opposed to "Remember when you and Asriel played here".)

(Now, granted, I think the concept of Flowey debating if he still "counts" as Asriel is a facinating philosophical quandary for him to explore, so much so that it became a minor story thread in a 200k word fan fic I wrote 4 years ago, but that story thread is not relevant to my current fan comic nor the game itself because, once again, Asriel DOES see himself as the same entity that is Flowey and vice versa)

Alright, enough sidetracking, back to my main point. Flowey IS Asriel at his absolute worst. Flowey is what Asriel always had the potential to become if none of his actions had consequences, if his choices had no repercussions. With out a prong collar of past regrets to keep him in check, his worst traits can run rampant. And knowing this, I reverse engineered a personality for him by defining who Flowey is then watering these traits down to something that would fit a 10 year old.

So what do we know about Flowey? We know he's deceptive (Lying to you in your first encounter in an effort to steal your soul), He's controlling (Save Scumming in every neutral ending to keep the upper hand), he's sassy (mocking you after the toriel fight no mater if you spare or kill her) and he's obsessed with Chara (declaring life isn't worth living without them, claiming "chara" is the only one who is fun to play with anymore.) (You can also make the argument that Flowey is incredibly lonely and bored, but I personally think that is a result of reliving so many timelines over and over and not something intrinsic to Asriel) using these descriptors I dialed it back in order to fit an average "child" character. My Asriel became someone who is snarky, stubborn, and cares deeply about those he loves to the point of detriment because he justifies it all as "I'm doing this for your own good/I know what's best for you", which in turn becomes his own hamartia. Asriel is also an honorary brat because he is a child and all children are brats and I don't mean that in a negative sense. I was a child once, so I was a brat once. We were all brats once in our lives. It's part of the process of growing up as an emotionally complex creature, and no one is born with perfect emotional intelligence for others. Chara and Frisk are brats too in this comic, but to varying degrees because of their own life circumstances, but that's an essay for another time.

Anyway, I hope this long-ass post helped you if just a little bit, or at least made you think. Good luck on your AU~! (god, I can't believe Undertale will be a decade old in 2 short years.)

#ghost switch #long post #I guess I could also mention I decide character personalities by processes of elimination #as in I identify what I DO NOT want them to be and work around it #I really dislike the most common fanon personalities Asriel Chara and Frisk are given and try my best to do something different

[greenerteacups]

So, because I definitely care a Normal Amount ™ about Lionheart, I went back and re-read the entire thing in preparation for the last chapter of Book 4. It was such an interesting exercise because while I love reading serialized fiction (it's such a core part of what makes fanfic amazing) - it really does hit differently when you look at the story up until this point in it's entirety. (I could go on absolutely unhinged tangents about how much the way you have adjusted canon that just scratches the excema in my brain.)

However- on this re-read, the line that Draco says when he and Hermione have their seminal discussion in the owlery snagged my mind and I can't stop thinking about how Draco accuses Hermione of liking the fact that he's meaner than she is. Because on one hand - yes? He absolutely has less of a sense than she does about Right Decisions, because she always wants to do the "right" thing, but objectively its not always the right thing to do - its just moral relativism rearing its old ugly head again. But on the other hand, he's completely wrong because Hermione (at least in the original books) has this enormous capacity for cruelty that shes not even aware of - partially because girly does not have a single ounce of tact, but also because she wasn't brought up in the wizarding world. She lacks some of the context and cultural clues that allow characters like Draco and Daphne to navigate with an ease she likely envies. And while all the Slytherin bbs have high IQs and low EQs, I think they also are hyper aware of personal standing, so I could easily see Hermione blithely insulting someone without realizing it and completely RUINING their day/month/year etc.

I'm curious if you've thought any more about this dynamic between D/H - and what they think of the others capacity for mean-ness and cruelty??

YES! To all! Especially the bit about Hermione having "an enormous capacity for cruelty that she's not aware of," because yes, that's pretty much one of her cardinal faults as a character — the insidious combination of (a) not really prioritizing other people's feelings if/when they conflict with something Hermione wants or feels, and (b) not being at all aware that she has that quality, and in fact believing herself to be the most emotionally intelligent member of the Trio. (Remember "emotional range of a teaspoon"? I burst out laughing when that happened, because like... girl. The call is coming from inside the house.) At the same time, she's smart enough to recognize when other people are unkind or tactless, so there's this beautifully intricate hypocrisy to how she understands her own emotional intelligence — her pride and arrogance blind her to ways that she neglects others, but her sincere generosity, kindness, and desperate yearning to be helpful and good to other people actually do allow her to see when other people are bad at it, as well as propel her to... well... try. It's a really interesting combination. Hermione is so much fun.

I wouldn't characterize that as cruelty, though, and to an extent it's not necessarily meanness — not in the way that Draco's talking about in that conversation, anyway. Firstly, as a caveat, Draco is in the middle of a fight when he accuses Hermione of liking the fact that he's mean, so I don't think he's altogether sincere about it; I think if you asked him in a moment of repose, he would have a more measured and generous interpretation on their dynamic, even though he's not necessarily wrong. Rather, I think what Draco said is a very inelegant way of pointing out how Hermione uses Draco as a moral backboard: she enjoys the moral high ground, does Granger, and Draco is almost always completely happy to cede it to her. Being around Draco makes her feel like a Good Gryffindor, because while he matches and challenges her intellect/ambition/drive, she gives him direction and moral focus, which is a role he's explicitly told her she plays on multiple counts, and which she's expressed insecurity about in the past (their fireside conversation about "am I good?" and what that means — the idea of capital-G Goodness, and how it becomes increasingly difficult to find as you leave childhood, is one of the tenets of Hermione's arc.)

Secondly, I think Draco is just meaner than Hermione because when he is mean, he does it on purpose. One of the earliest moments of bonding that they ever have as people comes from Draco making fun of Ron's performance in Charms (while imitating his accent, to add insult). Hermione doesn't make the joke herself — but she does laugh at it. She finds it funny. Of course, that's before she's friends with Ron, and she has about 500,000 words of personal growth in front of her, but she still enjoys Draco's dry humor and his attention to detail, both of which he not infrequently uses to make fun of people on purpose. Draco knows this, and he likes amusing her, and sometimes he'll actively make a mean joke because he knows she finds it funny, and because he knows she won't make it herself. They're not the most likable people in the world.

Hermione may not have the same social graces as people born in the magical world, but when she insults people, she usually does it on accident, out of tactlessness, or because they've (in her eyes) well and truly earned it. She doesn't go out of her way to pick on people who haven't asked for it first, and I would go so far as to say her moral compass bars her from it. That's part of what Draco means when he claims to be the worse person, and while he's being wildly uncharitable in that argument, not to mention just an all-around arsehole, he is also a licensed expert on the particular subject of his relationship with Hermione Granger. He knows their dynamic very well, and she knows it.

#ugh i was clearly yearning to talk about this #but thank you for the ask! #dramione #lionheart spoilers