#& that gets complicated when like the people responsible are like

[waspredteeth]

I see a lot of confusion on why calling Damian Wayne "feral" is racist/problematic, so here's a rundown.

There's a difference between calling your child or your younger sibling "feral" and calling a character like Damian "feral." You know your child/sibling/niece/nephew etc. They're real people, and unless they have a problem with it personally, then there's nothing wrong with calling them feral as a joke. It doesn't (shouldn't) affect their perceptions by other people. It doesn't become a label that follows them.

Damian al Ghul-Wayne is a fictional character. A canonically mixed Arab/Chinese/Jewish White character with a history connected to some of the most prominent Arab comic book characters, who themselves also get insanely mischaracterized.

He's constantly whitewashed. He's been written with racist undertones (the suicide bomber vest). He's had his character development and progress backtracked time and time again by DC. DC treats him weirdly most days and completely shitty in the worst stories.

A good majority of fanon hasn't done any better than DC. You cannot pat yourselves on the back for being more inclusive or mental health aware than DC when you call a mixed Arab/Chinese boy "feral". It's constant. You can come up with various titles and nuances for every Bat-character, for every Robin.

Tim can be smart, a skater, a genius, the one holding everyone together, the little brother, the one who needs love. Jason can be cool, morally "right" or "wrong", unstable, PTSD-stricken, the one who was betrayed, the one with Shakespearean tragedies. Dick can be fun, happy, the first one, the prodigal son, the one with complicated history and the big brother.

You give them room for exploration. Love and care and attention and research. Many headcanons. You either comply with canon or you don't, but there's substance to their character.

What does Damian get? He's feral. He's rabid. He's a gremlin. He can't be reasoned with. He has no self-control, he's impulsive. He's hurt others, and you can't forgive it. Sometimes he's homophobic. Or classist. Or plain mean and rude to your favorite boy. He's always carrying a sword. A psychopath with no regard for another's well-being (usually Tim in a lot of fics). He can't be taught what's right.

I've seen people cry that Damian needs to punished or kicked out or treated the same way he's treated others. He needs to be brutalized or talked down to. He can never grow as a person, because he's mean to Tim or Jason, and you need him to exist as the abuser. His first move is always violent.

Fanon compares him to an animal often; he bites, claws, hisses, growls. Bruce or Dick or Jason or Tim have to wrangle him, tame him, civilize him the white man's way in lieu of his brown mother and grandfather who "clearly" raised him wrong. You don't see the issue with that? The issue with always labeling one of the few major brown characters in Batman comics as the unreasonable animal? That the child of color is always the abuser, the instigator, to older characters?

And even if you don't see him this way, you don't write him this way - then are you giving him the care and attention you give for other Bat characters?

Do you know anything else about him other than his "anger"? Because he isn't always angry. In fact, he's typically well-mannered. Quiet even, when he's not being provoked. DC's writing will always vary but whenever Damian lashes out, he's usually written with a reason to act the way he does.

Are you making him intelligent like he should be? A hard believer in redemption? A neglected and abused child who isn't meek or crying or closes himself within? Are you willing to explore that he's always exhibited the "wrong" kind of trauma responses - lashing out, being snippy, ruining relationships, refusing to admit weakness?

Do you write anything about him without making his mother and grandfather comically abusive and violent? Will you give him the supporting cast/friends he actually has? Can you write his dad/siblings interacting with him without making them white saviors or therapy pets? Can you write him without a ship or his love for animals or being vegetarian overshadowing everything?

Is he a character to you at all other than a glorified plot device with a sharp tongue and the convenience of being violent?

[clangenrising]

sorry if this is too harsh to ask. when ever the story leans over to the city cats, they mistreat others or lean on the evil/bad side (look at poor aldertail, lake, scorch, and smokeyrose :( ) the more I read this, the more I'm siding with the clan cats to wipe out all the city cats. that way there can be peace for everyone because I can't see how the city cats have any remorse in the clan cats eyes or yours

Wow. Okay.

Um, first things first, I will never be in support of Wiping Out any group of people. I get what you're trying to say but that's just not an ideology I can get behind. It is honestly a very dangerous and upsetting argument to make and hopefully, I can explain why.

Most of the city cats are not Evil. Most of the city cats are people who grew up in a corrupt system and have been taught to do bad things from a young age. Like Mystique for example: Has she hurt people? Yes. Does she seem resistant to change? Yes. Does this mean she is not worthy of compassion or a chance to grow and be better? Absolutely not!

I was raised Mormon. I know a lot of people, some who I love, who do bad things on the regular - people who voted for trump, people who support homophobic or imperialist policies, people who are hurtful to the marginalized people in their lives. I will NEVER believe that these people deserve to die for the way they are. They are just humans doing their best with the knowledge they were given and the baggage they've accrued.

I do think that there are cats, like Razor for instance, who need to be Stopped, certainly, and removed from positions of power. Unfortunately, cats don't have the ability to institute more systemic solutions to these kinds of problems so they will most often solve these problems by killing the cat. But this should only happen after it is clear that there is no opportunity for a non violent solution.

The world is complicated and messy and it means people are taught bad things and have trauma that makes them hurt other people. I'm not saying that those behaviors are okay. They should be held accountable for the harm that they do. But those behaviors do not make them irredeemable or Evil. Hell, I don't think there ARE Evil people! I don't think there are GOOD people! People can't be good or evil because they are always going to be making new choices. Some of those choices will hurt people, some of those choices will help people, some of those choices are entirely neutral. I believe you can judge people's actions but its impossible to judge their 'soul' so to speak.

There are a lot of cats in the city who do bad things because they see those things as normal or because the system rewards them for doing so. Do you think the Clans should kill all of those people?? Because I will never agree with you if you do and I urge you to rethink how you see the world.

Give me any city cat and I will be able to find a way to empathize with them. Yes, even Razor. They're all just people. And in my opinion, none of them deserve to die. They deserve to change and heal. And I think most of them will. I'm a death penalty abolitionist and that means I don't think ANYONE should be put to death. You don't get to selectively apply that kind of belief only to the people you think are 'good'.

Sorry for how long and rambling my response was. If anyone has follow up questions or comments, I'm open to discussing this further, just please remember to be kind and avoid any sort of harassment, and that goes both ways. Nobody harass this anon for what they said. I believe they are very misguided but that doesn't make them a bad person. If you think that then you've entirely missed the point of everything I said.

[onesidedradiostatic]

Real talk

Im sooooo tired of Vox always being portrayed as the victim and Alastor the only one 100% responsible for their friendship falling apart

Did we all suddenly forgot that Vox is a terrible person too? He brainwashes his audience, he supports Val, he is willing to offer his lowest employees for Val to kill, he's also prob abusive to his employees as well, he stalks pretty much everyone, he has like 5 cameras inside Angel's dressing room, also it's like implied he's jealous of Angel because he gets Val's attention, him being jealous of Angel for being a victim of abuse is pretty messed up if you ask me. Oh he also told Sir Pentious to fucking kill himself and he also gets hard of seeing people in pain and get hurt! (Sure it was Alastor but still messed up)

" he looks so sad at the end of stayed gone when Alastor threatens him I feel so bad for him:(("

Really ? Well maybe if he had just kept his little hate boner for Al to himself instead of feeling to need to start publicly slandering him it wouldn't had happened. Just saying. Also I don't see how people feel bad for him. If anything he looks so extremely pathetic it's laughable I want to kick him

Okay this is kinda out of the point I want to make it's just many people who make him the victim seem to forget he's a terrible person so I just wanted to friendly remind everyone that he's as awful as Al ^^

Anyway

I think, we should acknowledge, that it's a complicated, and probably tragic, situation. What if, maybe, they're both as equal at fault for shit going down hills for their friendship. Vox because he doesn't respect others wishes and cannot take no for an answer, he prob tried forcing Al to move on with recent technology, which Al hates. ((His request to Al to join the Vees also prob meant catching up with the nowdays stuff and new technology, like the rest of them)) and Al because he was prob unnecessary cruel and brutal with his rejection.

I don't think Al was just using Vox like I've seen many people say. He allowed Vox to take a picture of them together. For Al to do that I think it confirms their friendship was genuine. "Ah but it's Alastor so that means it was fake cuz he's an evil manipulative bastard who only cares for him-" You're wrong, but also right lol. He's an evil manipulative bastard, but , he's also capable of genuine friendships with others (( did y'all forget Rosie lol? )). What I think happened is that, time passed , things changed. Vox became obsessed with new technology and tried to force Al to follow in, Al didn't like that, but instead of communicating with eachother and solving their problems by talking it out and respect eachother's wishes, they had an unnecessary argument and fight. They're both to blame for this, they're no victims in the situation and it's okay you can still sympathise with eithers side

Also people who make Al the villain for like not returning Vox's confession and feelings in most One sided Radiostatic videos/fics I've seen-- yikes.. I really hate that I have to literally say to PLEASE don't villiantise the aroace character for being aroace and rejecting confessions. It's extremely ace/arophonic (and yes I get to have a say to this, I'm a replused aroace videos/fics like this genuinely make me feel negative emotions) even if he was extremely cruel with his rejection -- villiantise the fact that he's an asshole- not his rejection.

yes I agree!! this is essentially a consolidation of points I've made before ksdlfglg

like yes, alastor's an absolute shithead but I think there are some people who forget that vox is also... not a good person. I don't think there's anything wrong with there being sympathetic aspects to vox but I feel like there's such a huge amount of fanwork where he's the only one portrayed sympathetically without showing his own bad points in their relationship, and I absolutely hate it when alastor is fully blamed for how vox is now and vox is seen as

yeah

vox got pissy at a rejection, that's not being able to take no for an answer, that's incel behaviour LMAO

feel like there's something to be said about people feeling the need to sympathise with the one with unrequited feelings compared to the one who has to deal with someone expecting romance from them when they don't feel the same. does it have to do with society's expectations about romance that unrequited feelings are more sympathisable?

but yeah I am glad that at least the "complicated" part of the description of their relationship implies to me it won't be as simple as "vox was the poor victim and alastor was just using him", I think it is much more interesting if there's no clear victim and both were at fault in a way

[ot3]

this flavor of trans guy misogyny where they do rhetorical backflips to explain why them not caring about women is good, actually, and since cis men are also misogynists a lot of the time we should all just stop complaining about it.

[mayomkun]

Insane how many social cues humans have and you're supposed to know them all without being told

[redysetdare]

Something real weird about how people only want to truly accept aromantic/asexual people when they're "closer" to being het (in their eyes). People are all about aroaces being sex positive, and being allowed to be in relationships, and being allowed to have sex, and that's fine! But yknow, funny that when aroace people DONT want to have sex or be in relationships of any kind, when people can't just pretend they're 'straight with extra steps' then people don't wanna accept it. Or almost wanna push them into that role. Real funny.

It's the aphobia. A lot of allo people like to say they're supportive of aspec identities but in reality there is a hard line they draw in what they view as a valid and acceptable aspec identity and it pretty obviously is the identities they can pretend aren't aro or ace at all. You can see it when they support Ace people. They'll say "Ace people can still love" with "still love" being the qualifier here. You can see it when they support Aro people. They'll say "Aro people still love their friends/family!" with "Still loving their friends and family" being the qualifier. "Ace people can still have sex" with "Still have sex" being a qualifier. "Aro people can still date or enter a QPR" with Partnership being the qualifier.

Some Allo's cant comprehend that people DON'T want these things, so when they hear about non-partnering, Loveless, or repulsed folks, they break and suddenly you can see their aphobia bright as day. It's all a facade. It helps no one. It hurts all of us, even the aros and aces they find "acceptable" because in their heads they aren't seeing these people as aro or ace.

This doesn't even touch the surface for when you get into people being aplatonic or afamilial, or other a-attractions. When you suddenly don't have the "still love" qualifier, everything falls apart. people use love as a moral standing. if you don't love then you're morally corrupt because the opposite of love is hate. people think not feeling love means you feel hate instead, ignoring the fact that is just not how things work. ignoring that the feeling of love or lack there of means nothing in terms of morals. The world isn't black and white "Love = good" and "Hate/apathy/lack of love = Bad" It's childish to think of the world like that.

so yeah, in the grand scheme of things it is funny. all we can really do is laugh while people continue to act like children because their world view is being shaken up by someone else's very existence. I hope one day they can laugh with us as they realize how silly it was to think in the way they did.

[elftwink]

saw a video about 2 player ttrpgs and one of them was like "this one's about a pretend marriage" and i was like oh? and i looked it up on itch (eyes on the prize, fyi) and it's 50% as of right now and i was like OH? and i bought it immediately & ive read most of it and i am a big fan. and i KNOW that i have friends who would have fun playing it (it's a 2 player or 4 player game; the 4 player variant has 2 fake couples) but asking them is going to be so cringe. yeah we're gonna make up people and pretend to be them and then pretend to pretend to get married and the characters when they start their pretending they're gonna be like "oh we don't have any romantic feelings towards each other this is strictly plot" but then (get this) they will start to develop real feelings for each other. and we're gonna act it out together and pretend to be them but don't worry! we have no romantic feelings towards one another. this is strictly plot. when WE (irl) pretend to be in love it's actually platonic, unlike the people who we are pretending to be to each other. so do you have like 2-5 hours you wanna dedicate to that next week

and the worst part is that's 100% what i want. like i have roleplayed romance before with friends it is literally not a big deal because the whole point of roleplay is that the character ISN'T you. but with a fake relationship the crushing weight of dramatic irony hovers behind me

[fagmegumi]

i know I should focus on writing and not poke hornets nests but. though saionji haters of the “i dont care about him & dont wanna hear about him” variety are completely valid . If you for real think saionji is a villain the way akio is a villain. you completely missed the point of the show

[holyviolence]

omg i spent the whole day cleaning my entire apartment because my family was coming to visit and 1) so so so happy my adhd is being medicated now it's literally changing my life and 2) i FINALLLY got through to my dad about how he probably has ADHD too!!!!! he finally said Yeah i think i might have adhd. and my mom was like Me too (we've had this talk privately before, she knows she has adhd too lol) And my brother is literally transferring to a different school because he can't concentrate and isn't disciplined at his current uni. adhd family.

[designernishiki]

hot take but. oda is honestly one of the most interesting prominent side characters in y0 to me. like. don’t get me wrong obviously i don’t condone his actions, but speaking as a character design guy, i think he’s got a whole lot of complexity to think about in his story and identity that people tend to ignore/overlook because he’s not a black and white “good” person. like no shit he’s morally fucked, that doesn’t mean his intense pining and crazed level of dedication to tachibana and the lengths all his guilt and repressed love for the man he saw as the best thing to ever grace his life drove him to aren’t interesting to think about– if anything it makes him more interesting. he was. really something

[gailynovelry]

First day in a while that I’ve gotten genuine writer’s block! The brain is not focusing. Might be that I’ve got only about six chapters of Ember Warrior left, and that does kind of mean that only the chapters I was nervous about and putting off are left. Maybe I will have better luck after sleeping on it though!

[daydreamerdrew]

The Incredible Hulk (1968) #253

[kiiiiiim]

Trying to get my boss to realize that no, I don't need her to hire more people withno experience for me to train, I need. My boss. To be at work.

[theoreticslut]

Kinda bums me out how many people are missing the point I was trying to make in a fic 😔 & instead of giving me helpful criticism to get my thought/idea for it across they just comment things that make the fic sound completely unrealistic & leave it.

Makes me really not want to write/post another fic like it when I already have one written & formatted that was a request of all things 😣

[astrxealis]

sorry one last: i think it's interesting how peoples own experiences change their perceptions towards things. like milgram

[eruditetyro]

actually let’s back up for a second. pretty weird and sad that young me internalized this idea that people getting crushes on her was like, indicative that people wanted something very specific from her that she probably could not deliver, were idealizing her, would try to manipulate her, that in order to like her they must have stepped away from reality or were only seeing her body or had put her on a pedestal, etc etc etc. pretty sad that she was so convinced no one could actually love her and that she would so inevitably disappoint sooner or later that it was not worth it to even try. now. where on earth did THAT come from. you ask. well don’t because it’s not your business and i shan’t be getting into it. i’m being vulnerable enough here just realizing this on such a public platform.