#coworker interpreted something i said that clearly wasn’t directed at him as being Directed At Him

[birdpal]

wow this is nostalgic haha

[bigskydreaming]

Have you seen Linkara's review of The Dark Knight Returns? He goes into why the view of Robin as a soldier, popularized but by no means invented by Miller, is so dangerous.

I have not, but I need to refresh my memory before I go check it out because I’ll either agree with it or be infuriated by it and I can’t remember which just at the moment but would like to before I restart that argument ten years later.

LOL, so like, I knew Linkara yeeears and years ago. We were both regular posters on Gail Simone’s messageboard on CBR like fifteen years ago, maybe longer. Pretty sure we even met in person a couple times at Gail’s annual SDCC breakfast meetups, but not sure. I do know for sure though that he and I were both involved in a three way argument about this very topic with another guy.....I just can not remember if he was the one who agreed with me or the one we were both fighting with about it, LOL. I THINK we were in agreement as while I wasn’t like.....as pro-DC as most YABSers were given that it was Gail’s board and I mostly hung out at the X-boards and just swung by YABS once a week or so BECAUSE I couldn’t stand all the ass-kissing that went on at that board so that DC writers and artists would hang out and post regularly, LOL, like I’m pretty sure I remember Link as being one of the less....vehement of the pro-DC camp.

(Tbh, one of the biggest ways in which I disagreed with Gail on stuff is I UNDERSTOOD her feeling a need to be civil with other DC pros even if she didn’t like them personally, I just....couldn’t manage the same and didn’t feel any desire to try. Like for example, not sure how many people know who Ethan van Sciver is, but he’s a long time high profile DC artist, best known for his GL stuff.....but he used to hang around YABS pretty regularly. EvS is ALSO a haaaaaardcore conservative, Trumpian, and all around terrible person. And he always was.

Like he’d play it civil back then but his opinions were downright hateful on a variety of topics, particularly towards marginalized groups, but he was good at picking just the right moments to half-assedly walk something back the second he took something ‘too far’ - so like, the end result was he said it and everyone saw and remembered, but before anyone could react he’d drop the mea culpa card and be like oh I’m sorry I know that was out of line, I was just caught up in the moment and it’s all good cuz this is all friendly debate anyway right? We’re just talking here.

And he’d pull this crap all the time but because he was a DC pro, people would let him get away with it and warn people off coming down on him so he didn’t feel unwelcome at the board. Now the painfully ironic twist here is that shockingly, totally unexpectedly.....fast forward to about five or six years ago where good old Ethan burns a shit ton of bridges and decides well why not make things a dumpster fire for everyone in my vicinity....and he became the driving force behind a bunch of alt right comic book fans starting their own weak ass version of Gamergate, only called Comicsgate. It never was nearly as....big...as Gamergate was, but it was still ugly. And the thing is, Ethan sicced his sycophants on other industry pros he’d worked with over the years but always disagreed with on politics.....like really let the ugly fly....and most of these pros included Gail as well as a bunch of the other DC professionals from back in the YABS days.

Because thing was....that was literally WHY he’d hung out at YABS so much back then, despite being so far in disagreement with most of the progressive leaning board. He was always just interested in stirring shit up, he never actually had the slightest interest in debate or seeing the other side of anything....he just knew how to play the right cards to get the right people to come to his defense and cool things off rather than run him off, in the name of keeping things civil and such...all so he could start it all up again a couple weeks later.

And this is literally why that kind of thing doesn’t work for me at all. Because he wasn’t really that subtle even then, most people knew all along exactly what he was doing, and letting him get away with shit that would have gotten anyone else banned purely because he was a industry pro just meant that his opportunities to subject anyone in his vicinity to just vile, hateful shit ended up more protected than all the marginalized posters on that board who didn’t come to it to see his shit but had to constantly listen to it anyway because people were more interested in making excuses for him than making it comfortable for everyone else.

And in the end, he ended up turning on the very people who’d protected him from everyone else ripping into his hateful viewpoints with the directness they merited. Which just. Sigh. To me just smacks of a whole lot of unnecessary years spent putting up with his barely veiled bullshit until he didn’t bother even veiling it anymore....even though the reality is NOBODY was ever buying into his veil of it in the first place and we all knew what was right behind it all along. Anyway. Not that it matters LOL, but good old Eth, was one of the primary reasons I decided not to go into comics when I had a couple of opportunities come up, as I decided to focus my efforts on Hollywood at the time instead. Lmao, I figured if I was going to have to keep my mouth shut about coworkers whose opinions I vehemently disagreed with in the name of professionalism, I might as well focus on the profession that would pay me more money to keep that to myself. Look, at least capitalism is useful when ADHD and trying to pretend to be decisive about life choices.)

Long ramble nobody asked for aside, like I said, I can’t remember Link’s take on this particular topic but it’s likely the one I agreed with for the most part. My own take has always been that Miller sucks and if he said it chances are I said he was wrong because he is about everything and my religion is people saying so and by people I mean me. My religion’s also big on self-actualization. Not sure what else, I did just make it up and I think I’ll probably just stop there so I don’t accidentally make it a cult.

But yeah. I mean, maybe it’ll surprise people given how critical I am of the abusive elements of canon, but I’ve never applied the child endangerment/child soldier argument to sidekicks. It’s obviously not that they don’t get hurt in these stories and even traumatized, it’s not that they’re NOT in danger as kids....it’s just why I put such an emphasis on it being their choice to fight crime and be heroes and NOT something that Bruce or any other mentor or parent pushed them into.

Because this is one of the reasons why death of the author more often than not just doesn’t work for me. Authorial intent matters. Readers are always free to interpret a text however they want, regardless of authorial intent....but IF a writer has a specific intent behind a narrative choice, chances are most interpretations that refuse to align themselves with that viewpoint aren’t really all that RELEVANT to the story the writer was trying to tell in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong. Those other interpretations can still exist. They’re allowed to exist. People can abide by them all they want. But if someone’s takeaway from a story is a deliberate choice to read it entirely different from the story the writer intended it to be.....like, their interpretation is all well and good, but it’s not actually at all a RELEVANT commentary on or review of the story the writer was actually writing. They’re not actually saying the writer did a poor job of telling the story or was wrong in how they did it....because they’re not actually talking about the story the writer was actually telling.

Thus their commentary on it exists. But it’s just not that relevant. Because nothing in it even CAN offer an opinion on how else the writer could or should have written that story....because the story they ARE talking about isn’t the story the writer was even interested in writing.

Now, there are some times when authorial intent DOESNT matter. And when criticism of it is entirely fair and earned even if it’s of something the writer didn’t consciously or deliberately write into their story at all. But these things are almost ALWAYS unconscious. Unlike what I was just talking about, where the writer was very consciously writing the story a certain way for a reason, and thus people who aren’t interested in reading the story the way it was written to be read just can’t offer up a commentary that says anything useful or meaningful about the story that was actually written...the flip side of this is when the writer puts things they don’t intend into the text, but still are very much there all the same.

And this sort of thing applies to things like micro aggressions or racism, homophobia, sexism....things where a writer didn’t sit down intending to be offensive or alienate their readers but still put in things that they don’t think to view as offensive due to their own privilege and lack of experience EXPERIENCING the microaggressions that marginalized readers might be all TOO familiar with and thus can’t avoid reading into a passage where the writer might not have INTENDED harm or offense, but delivered it all the same. Because they didn’t think to put it into their story, they weren’t TRYING to....but they didn’t think to avoid putting it in there either, even if it’s because they didn’t know to until it’s pointed out to them that it’s there.

And this also applies to when the writer puts into their story, via whatever viewpoint they’re writing from, things that herald from their own viewpoints, how they view the world, even in terms of unconscious biases or expectations....but things that readers can still interpret as something they vehemently disagree with, even if the narrative seems to condone it. Because a lot of these viewpoints are things where the way they’re written....even just not coming out as clearly not condoning or agreeing it can effectively be read as tacitly condoning it.

So to apply all this to the idea of child sidekicks and child soldiers:

They’re not one and the same, and thus treating them as one and the same or interchangeable is IMO an inherently flawed perspective that doesn’t ever have anything USEFUL or RELEVANT to the stories that most people are trying to tell with child heroes and sidekicks.

With the notable exceptions of Miller, Ennis and certain other writers who by their own admission usually aren’t even trying to write about superheroes but rather deconstructions of the genre as a whole.....the vast majority of comic book writers, even the ones I dislike LOL, aren’t writing about child soldiers when they write characters like the Robins. Because CONSCIOUSLY, with INTENT, they’re already trying to write something completely different:

Child heroes and sidekicks are almost universally written to be child (although to be really fair, for the most part they’re largely teen) empowerment allegories. They’re youth power fantasies.

They’re stories about kids, about teens, getting to be the ones to save the world. About kids who don’t need adults to save them because they save themselves or their friends. Kids saving other people, other kids, grown adults. Stories about child HEROES are written as metaphors of hope for the future and the promise of the younger generations, or power fantasies where kids who feel helpless and powerless in their own lives can read these stories and vicariously imagine through the characters the idea of one day having the power to save themselves or other people, what that would be like, what they’d do with that.

But here’s the important part, and why people interpreting these teen and kid heroes as child soldiers doesn’t really offer relevant commentary to stories that are written to be allegorical youth power fantasies, regardless of authorial intent or death of the author....

And that’s because the key ingredient here, the thing that’s not really up for debate or open to interpretation....is that these stories can ONLY ever be allegorical.

Because like I said before, child heroes and child soldiers are not the same thing. There simply IS NO REAL WORLD EQUIVALENT for child and teen heroes as comic books style them.

And that’s why the fact that with most every child hero in comics, no adult makes them be a hero. They choose that for themselves, it’s almost universally characterized as a self-determination or empowerment moment rather than one of coercion like Miller likes to characterize it. His choice to characterize Bruce essentially drafting Dick as Robin to fight alongside him does nothing to provide commentary on any other superhero story, no matter what he’s told himself or his fans, because his story is the only one where Robin was drafted!

You can’t condemn narrative choices that nobody but you has actually written and then act like you’re saying something about any narrative other than your own fsjsjfshfzgzfhgs.

And you also can’t claim that you’re just seeing in the text something that’s inherently there and the other writers didn’t just see to avoid like I was talking about being a valid critique....because what’s being commented on there isn’t anything that was written unknowingly. Other writers consciously wrote the same things as Miller in terms of a child engaged in all that violence....but they deliberately wrote those moments to be metaphors of a kid that gets to save themselves and other people and CHOSE that, which is inherently opposed to the interpretation of a kid who is ONLY in harm’s way because he was forcibly drafted by a more powerful figure or force who cares neither what he wants or if he gets hurt.

These two ideas are mutually exclusive. They can not coexist in the same narrative because a character can not be powerless and self-empowering about the exact same specific choice. And thus anything that’s said about one of these narratives is inherently unable to say anything that’s relevant about the other....because the other is not written by its writer TO BE the kind of narrative that particular commentary is dissecting. It’s not TRYING to be that narrative, so no review of it can possibly say how flawed it’s execution is of an idea it’s not actually trying to execute.

And the differences between child heroes and child soldiers are not just limited to choosing that or being drafted and these other differences are equally key.

The biggest being that child heroes can not be seen as ‘basically’ the same thing as child soldiers.....UNLESS you are also perceiving adult heroes as basically the same thing as adult soldiers. And not even law enforcement or police or temporarily deputized or whatever else you want to spin it as....SOLDIERS, specifically. You don’t get to bring up something as charged as child soldiers and then get vague with your terminology when the close scrutiny that brings to your analogy stops working in your favor.

If sidekicks are child soldiers then you must in conjunction view adult superheroes as soldiers. And not in the abstract one man war on crime way Miller likes to consider Batman in his attempted deconstruction of superheroes. ACTUAL soldiers. If there’s no room in your comparison for child heroes to differentiate from real world child soldiers, there’s no wiggle room for the adults either.

And again, except for Miller, Ennis and specific others who by their own admissions are not TRYING to view superheroes the same way most other comic writers are, but fail to see that genre conventions are largely interpretive and thus seeing room for different interpretations of superheroes isn’t actually a commentary on how other people see and write those same heroes....like except for these select few, most writers are not writing superhero soldiers unless they’re Captain America or Captain Atom. Yes I know there are other superhero soldiers but let me be pithy. Even those aren’t really the same as their real world equivalents.

See, real soldiers don’t make distinctions about whether or not they’re willing to use guns. Their personal views on killing are not prioritized over whether they’ve been told to use lethal force to accomplish their objective. They have a chain of command. No matter the rationalization, they pledge their loyalty to singular nations and the aims and objectives of those specific nations over the abstract of acting in defense of the whole world.

Now again, maybe that applies to Captain Atom, but for the most part can you say the majority of comic book writers are TRYING to write Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman etc through that lens? No. So while Miller really thinks he said something when he wrote his Batman with guns, fighting in the Middle East, killing people left and right, none of that actually ‘showed’ people that at the end of the day, Batman is no conceptually different from a real world soldier like. No all he actually did was write his own take on Batman, and said look, he’s a gun toting murderous asshole, huzzah I have deconstructed the modern superhero!

Like. Shut up Miller. Honestly.

But seriously. Superheroes do not have a real world equivalent and neither do child heroes. Even when it comes to nonpowered ones like the Batfam, they’re still deliberately written in a larger than life, four color perspective that requires a suspension of disbelief at the front door. We ALL know and understand that they aren’t a blue print for how to go out and be a real world vigilante. Even real world vigilantes exist. But they don’t look anything like the Batfam and it’s disingenuous to pretend they do for the sake of teh discourse. Nobody honestly believes that there is even the OPTION of going out one day and deciding to become a comic book style vigilante like one of the Batfam. It’s why even they’re termed superheroes despite the lack of superpowers. On a CONCEPTUAL level it’s understood that the stories being told about them require an extrahuman medium. You can not simultaneously write characters according to a mythic scale but then attempt to interpret that very writing on a real world one. It doesn’t work.

Which brings me to my final piece of this pie. Or puzzle. Idk I’ve been doing this response for awhile I forget what this is.

And that is again, the difference between interpreting a story in a way the author probably didn’t intend and understanding when a story isn’t meant to be interpreted in the way you’re trying to.

And this difference is how I can understand and reconcile the idea that it’s not inherently abusive for Bruce to allow his kids to fight crime at all, even though that would inherently be child endangerment in the real world, but at the same time, I can view him as abusive in other ways that don’t make allowances for the differences between real life and comics.

Basically it boils down to: CAN this specific element of a story be duplicated in real life or mirror a real life action or idea? Is there a direct parallel to a real world equivalent at all?

I can view Bruce fighting crime or saving the world alongside a child Robin without viewing that as child endangerment or inherently abusive, even when Robin gets hurt in the process....because there is no real world equivalent to those parts of a story. NO ONE, child or adult, is going out there and doing those things Batman and Robin style. Even the people who dress up in their own real life vigilante personas basically just do niche neighborhood things like walk people home from the bar. And even people doing real life vigilantism in terms of taking out criminals, like, that’s usually more of a personal revenge thing and not one where they’re trying to attract attention via a costumed persona. When you think real world Batman and Robin, nothing comes to mind for a reason.

And thus this says nothing inherently abusive about their dynamic, even according to real life parallels of child endangerment, because it’s not a real scenario. And thus it’s not TRYING to say anything about real life. It’s innately allegorical. It’s power fantasy emphasis on the fantasy.

In contrast, when you have something like Bruce hitting one of his kids.....no matter who the characters are, that specific interaction and the dynamic it presents DOES have a real world equivalent. That’s just parent/child abuse. And thus even if the writer didn’t intend for it to be interpreted that way, it’s still a valid interpretation. If it looks like a parent hitting their child, you can call it a parent hitting a child.

Batman and Robin fighting killer mind controlled plants together? Can’t happen. I’m not going to call it child endangerment when it’s not a realistic scenario and not meant to be, and I’ve already been presented with a valid alternative interpretation of this being a child empowered to help save people alongside his superhero father. There’s no point in condemning a dynamic that CANT be translated to a non allegory in real life.

But Bruce hitting his son? A father no matter how good hearted normally, being affected by extreme stress or grief or something else that makes his behavior take a turn for the worse and reach a point where he physically lashes out even if he never would have in the past? Nothing remotely allegorical about that. That story has too many real world equivalents to dismiss as having nothing to say about abuse in real life. Even if the writer didn’t intend for this to read as abusive because they were thinking of how much worse Dick has been hurt fighting alongside Bruce and never held that against him even though technically it was Bruce letting him get hurt....doesn’t matter. That interpretation still requires viewing through a lens that can’t exist in reality. No kid can ever excuse a parent hitting them by thinking of how much worse they got hurt taking down their local mob together and if he didn’t blame his dad for that cuz he wanted to do it to help people then how can he blame his dad for hurting him in a moment of anger? Umm. Doesn’t track see? They’re not the same thing at all.

Or another one that really bugs....I’ve heard people defend shipping a Robin while underage with an adult by saying if they’re old enough to make the choice to risk their life and have that choice respected, they’re old enough to choose who they want to be with. Umm. No. That’s not just apples and oranges that’s genetically modified grapes and seventeenth century cannonballs.

That logic doesn’t apply because neither of those things is the underage character choosing ANYTHING. They’re fictional. Everything they choose is just what their writer wrote them choosing. But again, one of those choices is one that an underage reader CANT choose in real life and have respected by every adult in their life, and thus will never have a bearing on their life as anything BUT an allegory they have to interpret and translate into something actionable they can apply to their life and choices. The other choice is them being written as presented with an option that’s actually a textbook real life grooming technique and something abusers use to justify the relationship they’re trying to cultivate with a minor by saying aren’t you mature for your age, aren’t you old enough to know what you want or to do this or that in which case you should be old enough to make this choice?

See the difference? Putting on a cape and going out to fight robots? Not directly applicable. Saying yes to the grown man saying he wants to have sex with you and thinks you’re old enough given this other choice you’ve made that highlights your maturity? That’s a choice that can be presented both to a Robin or a real life minor, but a writer justifying that choice for that Robin by saying well he’s already previously made this other choice that has no real life equivalent.....that creates a pretty misleading interpretation to people reading that story and not stopping to think through the distinctions between what KINDS of choices the writer is presenting these characters with and then justifying via their narrative.

And while I haven’t watched the video you’re referencing, anon, I would definitely agree that this is an example of how viewing child heroes as child soldiers is....not great. Aside from being cynical, misusing the idea of death of the author and helping to validate Miller’s choices and thus ego which is NEVER a good look LOL....it also intentionally or not paves the way for putting fictional types and MEANS of harm on an even playing field with real life ones and acting like it’s all one and the same with no distinctions to be drawn. And this doesn’t actually offer anything substantive or constructive about holding characters accountable for reasonable expectations of harm, when the sources of harm have no reasonable equivalent and thus only exist in the medium of being a youth power fantasy in which the child involved is fictional and can’t truly be harmed, with the harm done the second the scene ends and where the character can be back in fighting form the very next scene. Thus the only lingering element there IS the power fantasy.

Nope, all it actually does is muddy the waters in the REVERSE, and make it so it’s actually easier to justify or rationalize types and means of harm that DO have a real world equivalent, but by pointing to examples from a fictional medium and emphasizing the fictional character’s lack of being harmed while de-emphasizing the fact that the writer has full control over depicting this in a solely positive light that doesn’t ALLOW the fictional character any angle from which to voice that this CAN result in harm when not written for fictional characters according to a writer’s specific intent.

And that’s that about that. My opinion: you have it.

[eligos-venator]

Business, Lizard, And Doubts

[Word count: 1617]

"I'm not even going to ask what you did to cause this. Chances are, knowing you, you bit off more than you could chew again and it blew up in your face." Clad in a faded, tan leather jacket, the gray-haired hyur who had spoken glanced over at the approaching Au Ra. He had been given a description of what to look for, though he could still scarcely believe that his normally-cautious client had been turned from what seemed a Hyur with defects into a massively tall Au Ra, who stood at seven fulms. Not as large as some of the Steppe Xaela he had seen before, but it was a rare sight still to see anything close to that height beyond the occasional Roegadyn when he was in the cities. He had chosen to meet here, right by the outer walls of Aleport, in order to ensure that this was a legitimate meeting and not some trap Eligos had set to clean up his tracks. And by all indications Eligos had told him the truth, as the slit, draconic eyes that stared right back at him after he spoke were clearly those of his client.

"Bit too close to home on that, taking a more literal interpretation there." The familiar, deep and mellow voice of the man's client responded as the Au Ra strolled up to the Hyur, stopping at eight fulms away to indicate he didn't intend to get too close. As always, business was to be conducted at arm's length, to ensure neither side put a dagger in the other's back. "I've had to shelve several projects now, both because I don't fit in those armors now and as these damned horns mean I can't fully encase myself in steel and keep hazards out."

The Au Ra would pace over to the wall, not to lean against it, but so that he was in its shadow, to keep the summer sun out of his eyes and to get some measure of shade as they spoke. He wasn’t a fan of meeting out here where there was open ground, but had decided to go with the request to indicate he intended no trouble, nor wished to harm. He had even gone without his gauntlets that day in order to reassure that he had no hidden weapons on his person, as this associate was quite well aware of how some of his equipment typically had hidden weaponry built into it.

"Speaking of shelving, how does it feel to finally be able to reach the top shelf without a stepladder?" The expression on the Hyur was a mix of glee and amusement as he regarded his business partner. "Is it everything you ever hoped it would be?"

"I swear, if you weren't such an asset we would not be talking at all. Focus on the damned subject at hand." Fangs were revealed as Eligos snapped at his business partner, his annoyance clear in his tone as the golden draconic eyes narrowed while focusing on the source of irritation, the slit pupils briefly narrowing as he stared the man down. "Can you or can you not get me the materials I specified in the letter? Some of them may require purchase from the vultures out on the war front. I will reimburse for any and all purchases, for up to ten times their value, in case they try to rip you off. But the sooner I get these parts, the sooner I can get answers on how to get back to normal. I'm willing to forsake negotiations and haggling if it speeds up acquisition even marginally."

"Alright, alright! I'll get you your damned parts, gearhead. However! If I may be so bold.. Why are you so eager to return to your old self?" The Hyur pressed as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the stone wall. His brow raised as he regarded his associate, his green eyes giving the man a once-over and noting his attire and how, seemingly for once, the man had decided to show off, wearing an open, sleeveless vest that bared both his midriff and arms, and accompanying boots and pants that were lower cut. It was a far cry from the usual, where Eligos would only ever show up in a business suit or otherwise semi-formal attire at the absolute least. A far cry, indeed, and an oddity he couldn't quite wrap his head around no matter how much he looked at the man.

"You're taller now, and likely stronger, too. The loss of your recent works may be frustrating, but.. I've never heard you be willing to spend even three times the value of an object in order to obtain it. Ten times, out of the gate? I can scarcely believe I'm hearing it from you with how cautious you are in spending gil. It’s normally a struggle to get you to even consider paying even a single gil more than an object is worth. There has to be something else. I'm not stupid, Eligos. If I was we wouldn't be talking, and you certainly wouldn't have asked anything of me, let alone trusted me with acquiring technology for you to cannibalize."

"Beyond the horns? Others hate my appearance and it disturbs them greatly, more so than my old self." Came the swift response from the pale, stone-hued Au Ra as his brow furrowed in irritation momentarily before softening up as his expression shifted to a more neutral resting state of mild displeasure. "The dislike from my Xaela coworkers? Understandable and acceptable. This is a twisted mockery of them. I acknowledge that but have no control over it. But their views matter little to none. Just.. several others who are quite close have expressed.. concern, to put it mildly, and a great dislike of this self. And have expressed such liberally."

"I do mind the financial damage this has caused me." Eligos continued as his shoulders rolled forward in a lazy shrug, a habit that hadn't changed even with the change into an Au Ra. "Yet it is a mere drop in the bucket in the scheme of things. So too is the pain I feel from all the times I've fallen or shut doors on my tail. My body will heal from that in time. It doesn't dictate my decisions for me, even if the horns are a constant inconvenience. I've multiple reasons to want to return to normal, even if they may not seem the most pressing in urgency."

"Just.. I am not certain, all the same." The Au Ra would glance down, his golden gaze cast upon his right hand as he held it out, extending his fingers and then clenching them into a fist before releasing the fist with a flick of the wrist. "Stronger. Durable. And as you said yourself, tall. But most importantly, I'm finally at ease. I hate this body, but at the same time I feel an odd sense of peace, just knowing I no longer stand out as badly as I used to. I’m not as out of place. Getting used to my new height and how it has thrown off my sense of balance is oddly irritating, given I've always wanted to be a proper height, but everything else?"  

A small, sad smile formed upon Eligos's lips as he continued to stare at his bare fist and arm. His tone dropped as he continued, the conflict clear in both voice and features as he regarded himself. "It feels right. I feel at ease enough to wear more relaxed outfits that show skin off for once in my life, without others threatening me to make it happen. I almost don't want to give this peace up, despite knowing what troubles it will bring. But those important others feel differently. They hate it. And when I've brought it up, I'm reminded I should just return to normal and forget about this sense of peace. I need to keep working and this is interfering, so it is best to be rid of it. All of it. Even those closest have said such. So it will be. Provided you get the parts I need."

"I don't care enough to judge. You're paying for this, so it'll be done. You've got your reasons, Eligos, but it sounds a lot like you'll regret no matter what choice you make." The Hyur casually commented as he pushed himself off the wall, his arms dropping into his pockets as he hunched forward, not meeting the Au Ra's look in the slightest. The business-minded Eligos, showing actual emotion? It was unsettling and the less he had to see it, the better. This change wasn't all it was cracked up to be, clearly. "Right then. I'll get ya yer goods. Usual rate, of course. You may not be profiting, so we'll change it to five percent of the fees paid for the equipment, plus the usual daily rate. 

With a dismissive wave, the Au Ra turned away from his associate, wandering off as his black, whip-like tail swished back and forth. "I've got armor to set up and refit to work for this body. Being like this is no excuse to skip out on work. Contact me if anything is required that wasn't provided in the package sent. And consider your terms agreed to."

The Hyur stalked off in the opposite direction, offering little more than taking his right hand out of his pocket to wave as he too departed. "You must be desperate to agree so easily. Looking forward to future business as always, Eligos. Try to not kill yourself with your next project here. I’d miss the paychecks."

[linkspooky]

"Now, what Furuta did to Rize was horrible, but I think the fandom forgets she wasn’t exactly a saint before that point." I tend to disagree there. Everyone knows what Rize was capable of and what she famous for or they have never read TG. I think people are very much free to point said atrocity with keeping the narrative and personality of these two in mind and I have yet to read or hear from a good portion of people who are hypocrites in that regard. Also, Ui's love for Hairu and Saiko's

love for Urie are still not quite clear, so if it’s romantical feelings you are pointing out (or I might have interpteted your chart wrongly, which might be possibly the case) then I would say these feelings for said characters are pretty ambigious at best, although I agree with your overall premise that their find unfullfillment in their love because of stated factors.

I wasn’t really calling the fandom hypocrites. What happened to Rize is an atrocity regardless of what kind of person she was, there are some things you just don’t do to a person. However, I don’t think there are many fandom works that take Rize for more than she is at face value or take deeper looks at her character, mainly because she doesn’t get as much screentime as other characters. That was all I meant by that remark. Sometimes in writing you try to pick a nice transition for a sentence or introduction to a topic and it comes across as something other than you intended, my apologies. 

As to your second remark first for Saiko while I don’t think it’s completely romantic in nature I still think the love Saiko holds for Urie is unrequited. I didn’t talk about Saiko much because as you said she’s not that clear, of all the 4 quinxes she has the least distinct character arc and I’m including the mess that is now Mutsuki. If I were to guess at what her character arc is though she has an obvious tendency of attaching herself to male authority figures. Especially after having been failed, and basically sold by her female authority figure into a surgery and career she didn’t want for a measly compensation check. 

This is shown with Shirazu:

Haise: This moment is especially potent, because Saiko is shown observing Haise being tortured earlier and effectively doing nothing about it, as opposed to Hinami who stepped in at risk of herself and her current safety at Aogiri for the body of a man who no longer remembered her. However, the moment it looks like Kaneki might surface and Haise will be thrown aside, Saiko appears to beg him not to leave and Haise reasserts himself. This scene also repeats in a way with Tsukiyama later on, but one theory early in these two arcs was Saiko’s dependency on him was one major reason that kept Haise around. 

Then again with Urie:

While saiko undoubtably does care about these people as people too, she pretty much needs them around so she can attach herself to them and still function. That’s the iron of Shao’s description of her in this chapter.

Saiko’s freedom comes at the cost of giving up her individual willpower. It’s why she attaches herself to others, it’s so she doesn’t have to make decisions for herself or assert her own personal responsibility, because as somebody who was effectively sold to the CCG academy her freedom is what she values the most because it was threatened to her.

That’s also why this specific piece of advice was given to Saiko, because Saiko has a tendency to not think about things. She was complaining that maybe ghouls aren’t the bad guys in this situation one arc, and then slaughtering members of Aogiri alongside Urie’s side, because that’s how she could best support Urie the next arc. 

Now returning to the point, what Saiko wants the most is that sense of stability which is why she attaches herself to others. In essence she’s the one who right now most seeks the Quinx as a family, because that’s what she wants. However, Urie is not on that level of understanding yet. Remember, this was said about him not two chapters ago, and I doubt one hug is going to fix Urie’s deeply ingrained in mindset.

So whatever notion of love, familial or romantic Saiko has towards Urie is going to be unrequited at the moment. Saiko wants to think of the Quinx as a makeshift family, Urie wants to think of them as Squad Members he has to raise into faithful CCG members and protect. Both of them are blurring the lines into what they want to see out of their connections rather then what is reality at the moment. 

As for Hairu and Ui, it’s arguably not necessarily romantic either but I am basing this off of the omake which I read as pretty clearly romantic. 

(Translations by Randomthoughtpatterns [x])

In the first one Ui invites Take out on Christmas Eve to “Drink to Loneliness”, as Christmas is generally a lover’s holiday in Japan. Ui however, being his normal lonely self (his hobbies are karaoke, and scrapbooking alone activities you normally do with others) seems to regret not planning enough work to have an excuse to be alone on the holidays. 

Then when Hairu does show up both of the 4 panel omakes are jokes based upon romantic misunderstandings, because they are a guy and girl alone together on Christmas. First is that Hairu says “Walking side by side like this” where it sounds like she’s referring to how flustered she is that they might be mistaken for lovers, or that they feel like lovers in the moment, only for her to bring up kokeshi dolls instead because they both have short haircuts. The next is Ui getting Hairu a gift, and then after trying it on her first thoughts go to Arima instead of Ui, to which Ui looks obviously disappointed but answers “Oh, right.” The punch line being those were two situations where romance might have blossomed for lonely Ui, but Hairu’s eccentric personality changed the subject too quickly.

Omake also totally counts for establishing character relationships too, because Naki and Miza was established in an omake before getting an entire chapter dedicated to it in canon. 

Also Ui allowed Hairu to call him by first name, and it was something they did only in private as evidenced by her almost doing it in front of the quinxes and then retracting it.

Now that I’m done ruining jokes by explaining them however, I’ll admit this also works for a narrative where Hairu and Ui are just friends, and Hairu was just the closest thing Ui had to an equal among his coworkers because they were direct partners, rather than subordinate. Ui’s thing seems to be wanting intimate relationships with his coworkers in general because he is a lonely dude. I would say that’s still unrequited love though, because Ui is arguably the most hung up on Hairu of all the people he’s lost. Here’s the face Ui makes in F’s lie when Tsukiyama reminds him of what he lost at the Rose raid.

Here’s Ui, about one step away from a mental breakdown upon discovering Hairu’s body.

Here’s Ui instantly being shut upwhen Matsuri rubs the failure of the operation in his face.

In comparison, the arguably second most important person to Ui, Arima, only got one panel time of reaction compared to the rest. In a story basically, the more time you show to something, the more important it is. Therefore Hairu’s probably the most important person Ui ever had in his life, while to Hairu Arima was her most important person. Therefore the feelings Ui had towards her, romantic or platonic, was an unrequited love. 

At the end of the day though, this is a chart based upon personal interpretation of romantic subtext. It’s always going to be biased no matter how objective I try to be, but as long as I get the point across that this arc is about people projecting idealized version’s of love onto others, while also suppressing themself then I think the chart has succeeded even if a few details are off.