#let alone characters who are both)

[designernishiki]

ever think about the fact that nishiki largely spiraled the way he did because of being considered incompetent and unfavorable in comparison to kiryu by everyone important in his life, and thus was constantly neglected and forgotten about. and then think about how the bomb would never have had to go off if kiryu and/or yumi just paid literally any attention to him after the showdown. talked to him. helped him to his feet. kept an eye on him. anything. instead of more or less forgetting he was there and allowing him the opportunity to do what he did. do you ever think about that. i sure do

[gjdraws]

What do I want? Wasn't ever asked before

[kyliafanfiction]

I sometimes feel like characters who do truly monstrous things while also having been victims of some pretty insane shit themselves are sort of an exercise in empathy. Or at least, should be seen as such.

Like, in real life, if a person who has been horribly broken by their experiences and failed by society than proceeds to rape someone - it's hard to feel the justifiable sympathy/empathy for that person (without excusing their rape, never do that) because well, you can look at this actual human person they hurt, or worse, and it feels gross and disrespectful to the rape victim.

And this is understandable. (And applies to more than just rapists/rape victims of course, that's just the most visceral one and thus picked for that reason)

But a fictional rape victim is... fictional. You can't 'disrespect' their trauma, and while obviously rape/whatever else is real, and people may related to the rape victim and thus see your comments about the rapist also being a victim as somehow being about their experience...

Well, it's not.

Because the rapist here, didn't actually hurt a real person. Fictional characters are objects. They're objects that often grab us by the throat and refuse to leave our fucking heads, yes, but they're objects. They are tools used by writers to tell a story, and readers to tell a story.

And one of the things fictional characters are good for is allowing us to consider experiences we never had, and imagine ourselves in other circumstances and lives. (Also just fun and fascinating and interesting to watch their stories).

It's very easy to feel for the rape victim in fiction, and rightly so. That's Level 1 Empathy there. Granted, some people IRL fail that, but that's not really what we're talking about here.

Advanced Empathy, hard Empathy is feeling for the rapist. Not for the rape, of course, even if they feel guilt about it, but if someone really was failed on multiple levels and was broken and damaged and went through the sort of psychological wringer that would leave most of us here on tumblr catatonic - they do deserve the same Empathy any human (any person) who went through all that.

Even after they also do the bad thing, critically they still deserve Empathy. And that is fucking hard. I very often have a hard time feeling bad for truly awful people who also deserve empathy and sympathy, real and even fictional (despite all this, yeah, I'm not perfect on this) for what they (separately) went through.

It also becomes even harder when what they went through is utterly bound up with what they did. How what they went through and experiences is in part responsible for what they did - because they still made a choice. The circumstances may have left them not in their right mind, may have left them feeling without choice, may have driven them to things they normally might not think of or do, but they still chose to do that bad thing. And that's not okay. They still hurt someone.

And yet - one cannot remove the action from the circumstances. So you can still feel empathy, and elucidate all the factors and circumstances as to what led up to their choices and why, and it doesn't change that they did the horrible thing. The rape, or the murders, or whatever.

But circling back - with a fictional character... they didn't hurt a real person. There's no one who is real that suffered. The things the character did IRL are bad because they hurt real people.

So you're not being disrespectful to the victim by feeling that empathy, or sympathy. By exploring the things that they were a victim for. Even by wanting to focus on those things - fictional characters should be compelling in all their aspects, if they're written well.

And yet, of course, if you do that empathy and do talk about what the bad person went through and all that context, people come at you. They call you evil, just as bad as the (again, fictional) character, or they say that you're treading dangerously close to the arguments people use to defend the real people who do these things in real life. Or you're disrespecting all the victims of these crimes IRL. Especially of course, if the person coming at you has a reason this comes close to home.

But again - fictional.

In an ideal world, we'd all feel sympathy and empathy when it's called for, regardless of what the person did. Even the worst most monstrous people deserve human treatment in prison. And if you don't have empathy, that's hard. Even if you do have empathy, that's hard.

So if you look at a fictional character (who doesn't hurt a real person by virtue of being fictional) that does horrible, vile things, but went through so much, and you still can't empathize or sympathize with them... I mean, it doesn't make you a bad person, not even close, this is still fiction, and there's people I should empathize with in fiction that I don't, but...

It's still a failure of your ability to be empathetic. And we're all humans. We're all failing at that, among other things, all the time. But... it's good to be aware of that. at least?

At the very least, bear that in mind when other people are talking about that context, and that victimization. And please, for the love of god, don't fucking pretend that the victimization didn't happen, that this person who did do terrible things (in fiction) suddenly didn't also (in fiction) experience awful shit, as if doing a bad thing erases all the bad things done to you.

Again - it doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, but like... the horrible state of prisons in our society is a real, actual problem. The way we as a society dehumanize people who do bad things is a real actual problem for a lot of reasons (not least because it creates an incentive for authority that wants to dehumanize a person or a group to expand the definition of 'did bad things' to make their dehumanization now acceptable, among other things).

So yeah. Fictional character who suffers but than also makes others suffer - that's a useful exercise in Empathy. And doing that doesn't make you or anyone else a bad person, or actually defending the sorts of crimes, IRL or Fictional, that this character did. Contextualizing is not whitewashing, empathy is not erasing, and humanizing is not disrespecting the victim(s).

So yeah, they fictional character did bad things. But there's more to them than that. And you can say but and talk about what comes after but without disrespecting the fictional victim. Because the fictional victim... is just as fictional. Just as not real.

Is it possible for this to end up being taken too far? Yes. But that's a reason to be mindful of yourself when it comes to real people, not to never do it. And when it comes to fictional people - again, fictional. Nobody was actually, really hurt.

(I really do want to make clear, before people read the tags, that this applies to all crimes these sorts of characters do, rape was just picked as the one to use as the example.)

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Generally envy the bitches on twitter right now trying to insist Mace Windu and Martha Jones and Finn won't victims of racist hatred in fandoms, because what fucking reality are they in and how can I get in.

[goreforum]

like no other to you, what you've done you cannot undo

[ruvviks]

made the realization my vampire story would work best as a video game and now i can't stop thinking about it

[seilon]

sorry I will not shut up about this show But. I just. wanted to mention how fucking cool it is that ok ko has a major bi character in it (a bi man at that) that has important on-screen romantic relationships portrayed with both a female partner and a male partner and neither is considered less legitimate than the other. his orientation isnt pointlessly called into question or suggested to have been faked or changed for ending up with a man when he was previously with a woman. It’s just natural, and so one doubts that he was once romantically interested in/involved with carol just because he ended up with boxman. and I think that is very cool and something I feel like I super rarely see with bi characters– when bi characters are represented I feel like it’s pretty common to only have them shown romantically involved with one gender or another and it’s more of a side note that they also like people outside that gender, or they’re portrayed as “confused” or god forbid suggesting their feelings for someone weren’t really real because they ended up with someone of another gender (not to be confused with comp het; in that case the individual isn’t bi and that’s different). And so having a children/family show that has two solidly bi characters first of all, and one who’s a grown adult who’s had established relationships with two genders on screen is just honestly really cool and I appreciate that so much

[realbeefman]

gen v is a prime example of shows that in no way need to include romantic subplots but for some reason do… while i am thoroughly enjoying the Aftermath of the Polycule (cate/andre’s relationship) WHY are jordan and marie hooking up? do they even like each other? marie has a more well-developed relationship with like. literally every single other member of the cast besides jordan. it feels like they reached episode four and went FUCK WE FORGOT TO EXPLAIN WHY JORDAN AND MARIE ARE IN THE SAME GROUP fuckin uhhhh they can be making out in the dorm! they had like 3 conversations and all of a sudden they both like each other? this is semi believable for jordan (as they don’t seem to have a personality yet outside of being genderfluid and wanting to be a hero) but for marie this is a really strange twist on her character… hoping they explain it more in further episodes. as it is it’s just. strange and out of nowhere

[arolesbianism]

Every day I mourn the fact that none of my family and friends give a single shit abt oni lore, I don't wanna keep repeating shit I've already said before on here but every now and then I just remember the horrors™ and nearly explode not being able to scream abt it again

[leifandthorn]

Top 8 #Kale Blushing# Scenes

An incredibly scientific list (transcripts at the links):

8. the hall layout makes no architectural sense but at least it let Kale almost walk into a Leif/Thorn kiss and then back off without getting caught

7. Thorn has a soulbonded therapy cat, so when she’s cute, it means he’s being cute

6. if this blush lasts more than 4 panels, please call your medical provider

5. a just-defeated magical vine monster was cutting off Kale’s circulation, so at least he has a good excuse for being lightheaded

4. Thorn is being charming in the next room, Kale and Leif both notice at the same time

3. Leif gives Kale a quick refresher on how to talk around his governor module compulsion microchip, and also casually touches his lips, it’s fine

2. it’s like three storylines later when Kale realizes Thorn did this to surreptitiously take his pulse

1. Time Traveling Future Thorn completely forgets not to casually address Kale as “babe”

[kallypsowrites]

My least favorite genre of fandom post is when someone talks about loving two characters but then people who DON’T love one of those characters have to come on and talk about how INFERIOR that character is to the other one.

Like, beloved, mayhaps this post is not for you <3

[scourgeofshadows]

I came up with my own thoughts from watching the first episode of Helluva Boss season 2: So...Striker should kill Stella, not Stolas. She deserves to be assassinated more than Stolas and being betrayed again is suitable. How shall it be done? While Striker attempts to murder Stolas, Moxxie and Millie (those who were assaulted by him in the last fight) should knock sense into Striker, causing him to lose balance, and accidentally snipe Stella instead of Stolas. He then realizes Stolas actually is a great king, thus sparing him and joining IMP.

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

what do u MEAN they don't go over the guy that's literally the LOSTBELT KING what DO YOU MEAN THEY SKIP OUT ON GODJUNA LIKE THAT, HES THE GUY I WANT TO KNOW MOST OF NOOOOOOO

WELCOME TO MY EVERLASTING PAIN AND AGONY

the saddest thing is that there’s like. Tiny glimmers of stuff to work with it’s just they don’t do anything with it (you could theoretically make a decent parallel with him and Asha, there’s some interesting stuff re: the lokpala he ends up summoning and why they might’ve been the ones he chose, the whole reason why he did what he did in the first place (and the fact he ended up the way he did has extreme tragedy vibes)) but they mostly just treat him as an end boss to defeat its el depressó especially because even with how little he gets he seems to have a pretty painful backstory

[cruelsister-moved2]

i hate the SHORT SIGHTEDNESS of capitalism.....like they are going to long term desecrate the voice acting industry & make sure that all the good talent leaves for other work they’ll be better valued in and no one will bother training or honing their craft because it’s just not worth it like they’ll turn it back into an amateur industry that’s what happens if you don’t reward professional work with professional pay

[marklikely]

getting annoyed at all the people i keep seeing saying no omg halloween ends was so good because they tried something new and im like yeah ok but did literally any of the stuff they tried actually turn out good? no.

[inactiverandomjreader]

The only kind of love triangle I'll be accepting from EJ Gina and Ricky this season is Gina and Ricky rebuilding their FRIENDSHIP and EJ misunderstanding, so that Gina and EJ can have good open communication and come out of it with their relationship stronger