#i think the whole 'contradictory for the sake of being contradictory' 'punk' aspect of his design

[laurasbailey]

if i may add re: one of the women pulling something like that, i always find that such a funny argument in any fandom because, you know. we do #Live In A Society. so them being women Is actually a pretty crucial difference lmao and yes i might very well have liked it if it had been one of them because of it?

(prefacing the rest of this by asking everyone to bear with me and read this in good faith, i’m talking about a character and not trying to say or imply anything about any players)

which kind of tangentially ties into my biggest beef with ashton (and i understand that this is probably harsh and unfair), but between the acting like they always know better than everyone else, the arrogance and massive ego, the martyr/hero complex combo, the dismissiveness of others' feelings, the anger issues and propensity to violent outbursts etc, this is a character that acts and speaks in ways that are virtually indistinguishable from your average misogynist. i don’t think that this is intentional or even conscious (and definitely not malicious) on tal’s part, I think it’s more likely an unfortunate confluence of circumstances with this particular story (ie the campaign being heavily focused on women, so they’re in a position within the story where they're the natural point one would turn to with disagreements and stuff); but it’s like, no amount of dissecting motivations changes the objective fact of how they behave. and to me that makes for a character who’s about as interesting as idk, an asshole coworker. obviously this is all very subjective, and i know a lot of people find him compelling and write very good analysis, and love and light to them, but i personally cannot get past this and bring myself to give a shit you know.

absolutely get where you're coming from, and it's super interesting because as someone who doesn't see a lot of fandom opinion anymore, i wonder how many people also see this? or do most people just adore ashton and this is the minority opinion?

i usually find taliesin to be very self aware about the flaws of his characters, but i think you're right, without context it could very well come across as misogynistic due to the circumstances of the campaign being very female-centric. personally i think he's just being an asshole and by process of elimination, the women end up in the firing line because they're in the spotlight story-wise and are, let's be real, the leaders of the group. fcg is typically agreeable, nobody butts heads with orym, and chetney generally sits back during any verbal conflict. ashton just seems to have a general lack of respect for everyone and just uses the 'i don't know how to show it' excuse.

i think ashton wants to be a leader (whether they know it or not) but right now they just don't have the qualities to be one. in many situations they're like 'i don't like this', 'we shouldn't do this', but offers no alternatives. and sometimes he'll try to take charge in situations where he should really be taking a backseat (i.e. when they were trying to resurrect laudna) and he'll speak way out of turn on things he knows nothing about (again, that time he said he knows loneliness in a way laudna doesn't ??? lmao). it's like he has a compulsive need to always share his opinion and somehow prove he's suffering more than you, and nobody likes that guy at the party.

it's obvious taliesin is playing a lot of these flaws as a character who was raised by, well, no one, which makes sense! but there's been so little character development for 70+ episodes and very little effort made on ashton's part (up until now where he's supposedly going to change) that i just don't have an interest in it. it just bothers me now because characters i do really love will be caught up in the consequences.