#thinking a character is evil and hating them is valid but at least understand WHY they are like that

[beanghostprincess]

I gotta say it bothers me an insane amount when people refer to the Vinsmoke Brothers as "grown-ups" and say they were old enough to know what they were doing during WCI. Because despite agreeing on the fact that yes, they are abusers and Sanji has all the right in the world to not forgive them, the thought of them being irredeemable, especially emphasizing their age... Feels wrong.

People seem to think that once you turn 18 you're all grown-up and aware of your own actions, but when you've been manipulated and used and abused since the day you were born, no you are not. Abuse stops your normal growth and understanding of your surroundings and the development of a personality. And I am not saying they didn't know any better or justifying shit because they are awful people and there's no excuse for what they did to Sanji. But their whole story is about how they didn't grow up at all and are used as machines, and about how Sanji grew up too fast.

Sanji knew what torture was at the age of 8 but his brothers don't know what actual love is being 21. And I think both situations are extremely fucked up.

Referring to somebody (especially somebody who has grown up in a toxic environment) as mature and an adult (as an excuse to say they are aware of what they're doing completely) when they're 21 is just so wild to me because first, the didn't have a chance to grow up at all, and second, it's just 21 how the hell is 21 that old for you? People justifying the actions of teenagers but suddenly deeming people in their early twenties as "old enough to know better" is stupid. You don't turn 18 and suddenly become aware of good and bad out of nowhere. They were clearly caged and trapped in that cycle of abuse and didn't grow up at all.

Neither Sanji nor the viewers have to forgive the Vinsmoke brothers for their behavior at all, but you can admit somebody is redeemable and had a shitty life and they're the way they are because of their abuse without actually justifying their actions or forgiving them. Yes, fuck the Vinsmoke brothers. They're horrible people. Sanji should hate them and if the story ever makes him forgive them I will be extremely furious, I would despise that. But acting as if they were inherently evil and being +18 made them mature and emotionally aware all of a sudden is just not understanding their characters in the slightest.

[killcodesashes]

[QUICK RANT ABOUT QUEER REPRESENTATION IN TSAMS/TSBS SHOWS]

[As a genderfluid aroace person myself.]

TSAMS

Uh. I don't like it. Aroace Moon? Cool. Absolutely valid, we love him for that. Wasn't adressed much except in a few episodes which are pretty good, I liked the one where he rejects Foxy a lot!

But recently- g e e z. I understand wanting to bait people in with ships people want! Specifically KidsCove. Same in tmgafs! But the problem is that they do it not just to tease/mess around with the viewers in good fun, they genuinely seem to hate the shippers and actually want to make fun of them? Not just with kidscove but with any other ship that isn't canon. They don't even want to confirm Sun's sexuality, just constantly making it a gag that he has a bisexual flag in his room. Which as a queer person? It's just annoying. Just really annoying ? Please all we want is a confirmation or something? We want queer characters we can actually relate to. And we don't really get that :( Then New Moon came along and said it was possible he wasn't aroace. . . And then they never mentioned it again. So why mention it in the first place ? I don't think I would've minded it if he had just changed how much attraction he felt but was STILL aroace/on the aroace spectrum. As long as it was actually clarified. But they seemed eager to rush to his evil era so they didn't bother to close to any lose ends before hand, though I guess being aroace might've just not been as relevant.

On a bit of a side note- Ruin feels very gay coded. Very gay. There is no way he's straight T.T he's a villain but he's a zesty man and we absolutely adore him for that!!

That was probably an accident, though. Every theatre kid seems gay! /lhj

Just overall upsets me that the VAs seem to act offended by the mere idea of shipping characters? As if that's not a common/vital part of every fandom.

[OTHER SHOWS UNDER THE CUT]

TMGAFS

Upsets me that they can't clarify Puppets identity or pronouns? [Or maybe they have recently but I genuinely doubt it]

Because who are they meant to actually represent ?? It's probably just me but I wish it was more clear or something. I appreciate the VA for trying I do though, absolutely love that guy[Foxy’s VA, genuinely seems to just be a chill guy. And I think it's really cool that he actually does roles that could come off very cringe, voicing most of the cringe dimension characters +struggling with Puppets voice for the longest time.] I just wanna know if Puppet is a trans fem queen or trans masc slay or just trans ? But nothing seems to be clarified.

Again with KidsCove? Genuinely just annoying how they blatantly just do it to make fun of the people who ship them and get views from them.

Foxy seemed to have been gay before his memory loss. Or was at the very least interested in men to an extent. But since he began to be the main character of a show he suddenly only likes women?? S u s. They really keep insisting he's extremely straight and genuinely just annoys me that they erased him being interested in men [Proved he liked men in the episode he asked Moon out.]

. . .now. . . M o n t y. As a genderfluid person? I hate them and literally feel more represented and seen by cis characters from other shows. For the longest time Monty being genderfluid wasn't even adressed and was usually just brought up for plot reasons or something? And it pissed me of that every time they correct a character on Monty's pronouns.. they immediately go back to using he/him pronouns. I think the new fem body is pretty neat! Though I think it would've been more interesting for Monty to stay masc but ACTUALLY get their right pronouns used and their identity getting genuinely respected DESPITE of their appearance. But the body? It's genuinely completely fine! /gen I used to hate my body too and understand that the writers might've thought it might be easier for people if they just used a different body completely! But it annoys me that my gender representation comes in the form of M o n t y. The annoying character known for constantly hating on others and partially destroying their lives. Anyone can be genderfluid, yes. But when the representation is so little? I just wish it was at least a bit better or with a less hateable character.

TLAES

Lunar! Uh. Again can we just get clarification on his sexuality? Is he polyamorous? Bisexual? Omnisexual? Just any clarification please?

Gemini! I wish they were canon nonbinary. They're literally stars. Why did they have to be gendereddd. Also curious about their 'sexuality'? Will also likely never get clarification on it :/

OTHER SHOWS/SIDE NOTES

Roxanne is canon lesbian and so is Glamrock Chica! I'm so sorry but I forgot his name T~T I think it was Tiger Rock[??] Is also canonically gay! Glam Chica has a girlfriend! And I do think their relationship is pretty cute [from what I've seen] and overall wish I would finally get to watching the show a bit more! Funtime Foxy feels very queer to me? Not just because his design is pink but his overall characterization! He does have a girlfriend! But he seems to be comfortable in his own identity and presentation from what I've seen? At least, it seems to be more comfortable than some o t h e r characters. I feel more represented by Funtime Foxy and Lolbit than I ever felt represented by Monty. But that is a personal opinion!

I overall have just lost interest in all of the shows. I'm tired of being constantly disappointed and lead on. But I do wish I could watch more of the other shows since they seem to show more love and care towards their characters :)

CLOSING THOUGHTS!

It's just shows. Does any of this really matter? I think it matters when the shows are claiming to have good representation when they really don't. And they're allowing people who aren't queer/a part of the LGBTQIA+ community to feel like they have the right to shut real queer people down. I've seen so much acephobia and overall homophobia even in this community. A l o t in this community. I wish the writers would listen to ACTUAL QUEER PEOPLE!! I wish the VIEWERS listened to ACTUAL QUEER PEOPLE.

That's what I really want. I just want to be heard and represented.

I don't claim this community. I CAN'T claim a community who is constantly against us.

LISTEN TO QUEER VOICES.

[towards-toramunda]

I feel like it’s worthwhile to point out that nobody is saying Ludinus is a good or morally grey guy. Nobody is saying the ruby vanguard is a good group. When people (or at least me idk I can’t talk for others) are saying that seeing the humanity of the people drawn into the other side is important it’s because Matt keeps making a point to bring it up. Matt showing us Tuldus being forced to pray for hours as a child and being punished for lack of piety, showing us a locket with a child on a cultist they’d just killed, showing us Lilliana’s pain, and now with Bor’Dor’s backstory with the gods.

Being a DM myself I think that its important not to discount the constant mentions of the trauma from the masses in this cult because Matt, the dungeon master, the story weaver, the one calling the shots, keeps making a point to highlight the backstories of the people who join the vanguard. I’m guessing (based on the fact that Utkarsh doesn’t watch the show and had no context for what the vanguard was) that Utkarsh came to Matt and said “give me a character idea” and Matt decided that the story needed a PC on the other side.

It really feels like he keeps saying “Look at how these people have been hurt. See them as people with trauma and love and family who easily fell for Ludinus’ lie.”

And that lie is another reason I think its valid to question the gods. Because questioning the gods doesn’t make you want what Ludinus wants. Questioning power, why it acts the way it acts, does the things it does, and doesn’t do the things it doesn’t do, is important in any society! Even one where there are gods (and I’d say especially one where there are gods with questionable morals and backstories). Because while Ludinus is evil and has vile intentions, he is drawing people into his power grab by hiding it in a nugget of truth: many feel slighted by the gods. Many have seen the good things the gods can do and are left to wonder why they’re left to suffer. Why the gods choose to help some and not them. Why their families forced them to worship those they didn’t believe.

And seeing this story NOW when we’ve seen so many stories in real life of people who are traumatized and hurt and confused going to the internet with their grief and being led to hate groups and radicalization feels VERY intentional on Matt’s part. It feels (to me) like he’s begging us to see the ruby vanguard members as people who were drawn in by a charismatic leader who pretended to understand their pain and used them.

Matt keeps telling us its important to see the humanity and the trauma faced by the other side. He could be doing this to flavor the story or to create tension or push the characters to make hard choices or some other reason. I just feel that empathizing with the trauma of those on the other side doesn’t make you akin to a terrorist sympathizer despite what some seem to take from that, and its wild given how clearly (to me) Matt wants us to empathize with them.

(Because this is the internet and people love to misread things:

I don’t agree with the things the people in the ruby vanguard do, I don’t think Matt agrees with it, but I think Matt wants us to feel conflicted with them. I think Matt wants us to believe they’ve been misdirected and could be deradicalized, but its up to Bell’s Hells to decide if they’re willing to forgive the harm they’ve been put through or attempt the effort to deradicalize.

I don’t think it makes any sense to say that questioning the gods makes one akin to Ludinus. Theres a lot to question about the gods. Where did they come from? What even is divinity? How much of their exandrian creation story can we actually believe if they’ve supposedly been hiding the existence of predathos from us? How do we actually know what predathos is? If a mortal can become a god then what the hell even is a god? Etc.

I hope this goes without saying, but just in case: If you don’t want to empathize with real life hate groups please don’t. This is a fictional cult based in the idea that they can release a predator that will get rid of the gods. I don’t see the ruby vanguard as a hate group, a horrible cult that has done vile things and led to the deaths of innocents absolutely, but I hate groups are hateful towards one or many marginalized groups, and thats not this. (I suppose one could argue they’re a hate group for the gods and… sure. I disagree but sure). To me, empathy for the members in the vanguard makes sense in the context of the story Matt is telling, but in real life it is very hard to have empathy for hate groups even if they are formed of traumatized and hurt people who could be deradicalized. I believe deradicalization is necessary for many but fucking hard/impossible for all, and I especially believe that members of marginalized groups shouldn’t feel the need or pressure to help in the deradicalization of those who harm them.

Similarly I believe Orym is valid in his decision to be at war with members of the group that killed his family. Yes I think he is unable to be objective (Liam O’Brien said so himself), but, as a person with ptsd myself, sometimes you need to screw objectivity in the face of trauma. I think we as the audience should be aware that he has lost objectivity so we can better understand his actions, but I don’t think that lack of objectivity makes his choices “wrong”, and its strange to see people claiming that anyone pointing out Orym’s lack of objectivity doesn’t have empathy or morals.)

Anyway this was too long and I should never get involved in discourse again.

[fallenrain40]

little uh... random rant thingy below. v yknow, I don't really understand the whole qpr thing. now,I know it isn't like this... but to me it feels like trying to pressure aros and aroaces into having some version of a relationship or partner. or to get an aroace to date you by saying "well we can just be qprs" (which is basically what someone did to me, i'm lucky that they then completely ignored me afterwards after like, a week. it upset me but at least it didn't keep going further.) and due to my first experience with a "qpr" a while back... it feels even more so that way. (as i just said) then I thought, well hey, maybe it can just mean friendship! it doesn't HAVE to mean anything more romance related... but then... if it's just friendship that's a lil different from the norm, I don't understand WHY I would need to use a different word for it. why can't I just call it being best friends?? platonic soulmates? idk, maybe the label just isn't vibing with me. I think it's just the whole "trying to find/looking for a qpr" culture around it that makes me feel like it's too similar to dating for me. like... when you get a best friend you generally don't go out saying "looking for a best frienddd~" ... it just kinda happens.

...yknow, when I first wrote this post, I started it trying to understand wanting to have qprs or label a relationship as a qpr, but now i'm back to low-key hating them again. it's just TOO close to an "inbetween romance and platonic" that I don't like. it's just... I hate when people say things like "oH bUT aROmANTICS cAn sTILl hAVE qPrS-" like uh does that mean if we don't want a relationship AT ALL we are bad and evil? only aromantics that want to have qprs are valid now?? why should we want to have a relationship at all?? why isn't friendship enough for you people?? why is the defense for aros, aroaces, and aces also, always "but they can still have _ relationships?" it feels like they are literally saying that we are only good becuase we still can have something close enough to romantic relationships. and obviously btw, i don't care if other people want qprs, i even like to headcanon characters with qprs, just please stop assuming it's a thing all aromantics or aroaces want or something that we all feel and can have.... and stop implying that those of us who don't want anything outside of friendship is wrong. or that we need relationships in any form. sorry, I started rambling.

[yuikomorii]

Hello there, I would like to ask you something.

Why is the Sakamaki family your least favourite if your favourite Diaboy is a Sakamaki?

// You kinda answered your own question, Anon. :”)

The reason why I don’t like the Sakamaki family is ✨Ayato✨ or the way he’s treated there, to be more precise.

Ayato is without a doubt the most unfairly treated member of that family, even Kanato is more loved than him, although he’s supposed to be the one nobody understands.

No one ever thinks about what he had to go through, despite the fact that his past was extremely painful. It didn't leave "scars" like Laito's, but pretty reminder that Ayato was the most tortured Diaboy in the entire franchise, given that the lake scene was only one of many near-death experiences Cordelia forced him to go through, and he was also very emotionally and mentally abused for centuries. But does anyone really care? Apparently not.

Either his brothers are incredibly ignorant, or Rejet simply does not know how to write trauma. Only because Ayato appears energetic and unbothered does not mean that he is without inner struggles or insecurities. They pretend that in order to be considered traumatized, you must hate yourself or be depressed, which is a very wrong mindset. I also dislike how many characters, particularly Laito, find Ayato's life ideal to the point of envying him, despite the fact that being in Ayato's shoes would be a terrible fate.

Now, let’s get into more serious stuff. Ayato may not be a completely innocent character, but he would never betray anyone or project his insecurities onto them.

If you ever feel pathetic, read this YOUNGBLOOD chapter, where Shu and Subaru both backstab Ayato and use him as bait while he is being beaten up by ghouls to help his brothers find out more information. The fact that they casually talked about betraying Ayato makes it even worse, and I can't understand how people here are excusing their behavior with "They were just children." Being a child is not an excuse to be a jerk and ruin someone's life. Ayato wouldn't have been cursed if they hadn't left him there.

This really dark secret has been confirmed in Laito's LE route, and while I love Laito, this literally makes him far more toxic than he was before. So, basically, Laito wanted to kill Ayato when he was younger. It would have liberated Ayato from Cordelia's abuse, but he also has a desire to live, and taking that away from him would be evil. Again, I've seen people justifying it and they were all like "Poor Laito..." . He had his reasons but what he wanted to do is still very wrong, Ayato did nothing wrong to him.

Reiji is also really mean towards Ayato, plus was the source of Ayato's breakdowns in LE, but I don't have high expectations from Reiji because, like Ruki, he isn't sugarcoated and he talks ill about everyone. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but Kanato is Ayato's brother who has hurt him the least; they insult each other, but he hasn't done anything cruel to him for no reason (not counting bad endings).

And now people will probably come to me and say that the Sakamakis do care for each other, but their "love" for one another is phony and forced to me.I'm not including the Tokutens, where they appear to be having a good time together, because those aren't 100% accurate after all. I honestly don't care if they're family-oriented in other routes; if they can't be like that in the most canon route, with a guy who's almost always supportive of them and apologizes if he ever does them anything wrong, they're no longer valid to me and the best ending for Ayato would be to leave that household as soon as possible.

Bonus— Here we have two DL characters able to stand up for themselves and for others, who are never afraid to help someone but still get mistreated, while the fandom keeps mischaracterizing them:

[thenugking]

✨🌊🌸🌿

✨Which is your favourite platonic BG3 dynamic and why?

Hmm. Based on purely in-game stuff, it’s got to be Wyll and Karlach. Enemies to BFFs in like three days. Out of game, I love my Durge Lee with Astarion (they are like when you have two pets or perhaps siblings who sometimes just slap the shit out of each other for no reason before going back to chilling together) and my first Tav, Val, with Shadowheart (bitchy goths who don’t care about people except actually they care So Much). Would love to get around to writing them someday.

Also the dynamic I’m writing between Orin and Ketheric in No Highly Esteemed Deed. This is Ketheric’s emotional support surrogate daughter figure with zero red flags!

For my favourite dynamic not in the game or made up by me… we’ll get to that in question four!

🌊What moment in the game had the strongest emotional impact on you? 

Karlach’s breakdown after killing Gortash gets me every time. And I was sobbing in my Shadowheart Origin playthrough when I saved her parents. That storyline is so comforting to me, especially when, if you’re not playing as her, it’s Arnell who goes, “Ohh you don’t want to go by your old name anymore, of course we’ll love you for whoever you are now.”

🌸Rec one of your fics and tell us what you like about it!

My series No Highly Esteemed Deed Is Commemorated Here is my baby at the moment. So I’m actually reccing two fics but look I spend half my time thinking about this series and I want some validation. But, uh, warning for incest and every relationship here being at least toxic, if not downright abusive. If you like your doves dead, come and give me some validation, if you’re not into that shit, understandable, have a nice day.

What Is Here Was Dangerous And Repulsive To Us: Gortash and Durge take a nice romantic carriage ride to Moonrise Towers except that lol no they don’t, Orin Is Also Here, and gortash isn’t positive she wants to fuck her sibling but The Vibes Are Fucking Rancid.

Super proud of the slowly building Well This Is Fucking Uncomfortable in this one! And that multiple people have told me “damn how did you make me feel for Gortash here?” He’s still very much a bastard and I loved writing him hating the whole world, but he’s fucking Going Through it.

One of my favourite reviews: EXCUSE ME ORIN> MA’AM. THIS IS A WENDYS

This Place Is Not A Place Of Honour: The multichapter sequel that I’m currently working on! The events between the gang arriving at Moonrise and Orin stabbing my Durge in the brain (and the aftermath of that, if I ever get there). They’re all doing their evil plotting in the background, but it’s mostly focused on the relationships between Durge, Orin, Gortash and Ketheric, and the various ways in which these characters are deeply fucked up.

Like I mentioned, I’m really enjoying writing Orin and Ketheric’s weird fucked up friendship. Ketheric imprints on Orin as his New Daughter Figure after Isobel runs away from him (just because he told her that her wife who he is currently torturing was dead so Isobel should get over her) and that’s going about as well as you’d expect. Ketheric is trying to fix Orin while ignoring most of her underlying issues, Orin’s worrying that she’s going to lose Durge to the Gortash and the Absolute plot, Gortash is determined to Win his relationship with Durge despite the constant red flags, Durge is causing problems on purpose.

Another of my favourite reviews: i went into that scene like "hehe the horrors" and i went out like "OH DEAR GOD THE HORRORS"

🌿Rec someone else’s BG3 fic and tell us what you like about it!

here there be dragons by shadowfell

13 year old Orin ends up the ward of the BG1/2 protagonist and under a geas stopping her from murdering people, and becomes friends with 14 year old Wyll. Two Weird Theatre Kids with no other friends hanging out while Orin puts a lot of effort into drawing Wyll’s thematically appropriate gruesome death. They work so well together and their dynamic fucking delights me. And I love getting to see my two blorbos who fandom often doesn't give the love they deserve fucking shine.

There’s also a multi-chapter sequel of the two of them as adults going through the game plot. It’s still early on, but chapter four got posted last night and that’s my read for this evening, once I’m done killing Orin in my current BG3 game and need to go and read a kinder AU for her.

[rollercoasterwords]

Hey rae! So, I have a topic that I’d like to hear your opinion about because I feel like it’s been talked about a lot (at least from the media I consume) and that is saying that liking DE characters makes you anti-Semitic/ ‘support’ Nazis. I know how you feel about rosekiller, which I totally support, if you wanna be a hater, please do, but…hmmm I don’t know how I feel about people calling each other every name in the book for liking a DE. I mean that’s the same with regulus, I’ve seen quite a few people talk about how they hate him because he’s DE and liking him/any other DE makes u anti-Semitic. This has me questioning my morality and my pov because I refuse to be associated with people as horrible as Nazis, and I think that you always give a good perspective on things and so if you also think that liking these characters associates a person with them then I seriously need to sit down and have a 1:1 with myself, y’know?

Also, on the same topic i feel like there’s a huge controversy with liking Barty and hating Snape, which I see how that could be wrong, but we know more about Snape and he’s done things to characters that we really know and love so I kinda feel like not being fond of him but liking Barty is valid-ish?? Because yes, if we can erase huge parts of Barty’s character to make him more likeable&redeemable why wont we do that with Snape? I still don’t know how to feel about this whole thing because I think questioning things about yourself is a good thing and it helps you learn&grow so I’d just like to hear your thoughts (rosekiller hatred put aside). Like, if you think rosekiller is the most boring ship in the universe and if you wanna hate on it, please please do!!! Express your opinion!!!! But it kinda rubs me the wrong way to hate on the people liking DE and associating them with a hateful group. If you don’t wanna answer, that’s more than fine, you can totally ignore my ask!!! I understand if you don’t wanna share your opinion on this topic. Have a good day!!

hi! i appreciate that u value my opinion + i'm happy 2 talk thru my thoughts with u, but before i do i wanna make it clear that i am not any kind of expert in antisemitism + am not jewish myself, so you should not be taking my thoughts as like. The Ultimate Opinion on this issue at all--like, i'm happy to discuss, but i do not by any means have the authority to just deem something Good or Bad for u, y'know? nor would i ever want to! i don't really think issues like this can be boiled down to a simple "it's totally okay and no one should ever get upset about it!" vs "it's morally evil and no one should ever like these characters!" (also - if any jewish mutuals or followers wanna weigh in + let me know if there's anything i'm missing/overlooking/etc please do!)

so, i've seen at least some of the discourse you're talking about floating around online. i've seen some jewish people saying that blorbo-ifying death eater characters ignores the nazi allegory and makes nazi-allegory characters sympathetic, which is antisemitic. i've seen other jewish people saying that it's offensive to simplify naziism, a much larger, real political issue, down to calling fictional characters "wizard nazis," and that it belittles the actual historical significance to use antisemitism as a talking point in this discourse about which characters it is or isn't okay to like. that's why i say that i don't think you're gonna find One Cohesive Position on like....what's okay or not okay; it's just something you're gonna have to parse for yourself, and while i do think you should be giving particular weight to the perspectives of jewish people on this issue, that obviously doesn't mean that every single jewish person is going to agree.

anyway, i've mostly stayed out of this discourse partially bc i don't really care about most death eater characters and partially bc, as i said, i do not feel like i am any sort of expert who is like. qualified to discuss the ins and outs of antisemitism in hp fandom spaces. so again, this is just gonna be a conversation about my thoughts as they currently stand--not a lecture where i'm telling you what's right or wrong, and not a set-in-stone Stance on the Ultimate Truth of this matter or anything.

currently, my feeling on this whole quagmire of discourse basically boils down to: i think it's reductive to broadly state that anyone who likes/engages with death eater characters in fandom in any way is automatically antisemitic; i think there is more nuance to the situation and boiling down the issue to an overarching generalization is not necessarily the most useful way to address antisemitism in this particular fandom space.

and there are various reasons that i feel that way, which i'll try to break down below:

death eaters are not a 1:1 allegory for nazis

this is something that i think gets lost in translation a bit when we just say "oh the death eaters were wizard nazis." while, yes, i think jkr was definitely making some allegorical nods to naziism + hitler, particularly with the blood purity aspect of death eater-ism, personally i think that had less to do with jkr actually having a good grasp on the politics of nazi fascism and more to do with jkr being the kind of liberal who just goes "hmmm who's the Worst Person in history??" and then just cherry-picking bits and pieces of like. naziism to give her Bad Guys an easily recognizable cultural referrant to associate with their Badness. (i mean--from the critiques i have seen regarding jkr's own antisemitism that is embedded in the hp text, she clearly was not writing the death eaters as like. a disavowal of antisemitism.)

something that concerns me is that treating death eaters as a 1:1 allegory for nazis sort of obscures some very important, very fundamental differences in the fascism of actual nazis. in hp, death eaters are positioned as a fringe "terrorist" group, in that they are opposed to the wizarding State. they obtain power through largely "illegitimate" (again, by the metrics of State power) means by way of a coup; in this way, a fundamental aspect of the death eaters as Bad Guys is that they are not legitimated by the State--something that very clearly speaks to jkr's own liberal politics when it comes to defining Good versus Bad.

but real-life nazis rose to power specifically by using legitimated State power. this is really fucking important to understand!!!! historically, fascism is often perpetuated by the logics of State power, and that's part of what allows it to take hold--people think, "oh, it can't be that bad, after all, we elected this fascist leader." etc. while hitler did attempt to gain power through a coup in 1923, that specifically failed and led to him pivoting and seeking control by becoming a legitimate part of the German government. he solidified his power using completely legal means, from within the State. this is very, very different to how voldemort + the death eaters take power in hp, and also very opposed to jkr's State-centered politics about Good vs. Bad. while i think it's important + useful to recognize the ways in which death eaters draw allegorical connections to nazis and how that can perpetuate antisemitism if we're not aware of it, i think to simply paint death eaters as nazis can actually lead into the trap of thinking fascism is something that is opposed to the State, when it is more often something that grows out of the State.

liking a death eater character is not always gonna translate to liking death eaters

so, aside from the whole sticky situation with nazis as an allegory for death eaters in the first place--what's more important to me when thinking about how someone likes/engages with death eater characters is gonna be the way they engage with those characters, and what that reflects about their own politics.

if someone likes a death eater character because they like death eaters and think that like...there are no issues with the death eaters' beliefs or positions, then....yeah that's a major red flag. but most of the people who like these characters, from what i've seen, tend to do one of two things:

1 - explore the character because the character broke away from the death eaters in some way (regulus, snape, etc). this usually requires an exploration of how the death eaters are bad, because it requires an exploration of why the character turned away from them. i'm gonna be interested in how someone explores that issue and what that says about their own politics, but that's a case-by-case basis, y'know? and even if i personally think someone is still missing the heart of the issue in their "death eaters bad" story, it is still a "death eaters bad" story--i don't really think a person is aligning themselves with the death eaters if they're specifically writing about how they are bad and why someone initially taken in by their beliefs would later turn away from them.

2 - explore a character who hasn't broken away, looking at why a person might align themselves with death eaters and how someone might buy into that sort of political rhetoric. again, this is a case-by-case basis for me in terms of looking at what sort of politics is reflected, but generally speaking i do not think that writing stories about why or how someone might become a fascist is Always Morally Wrong. in fact, i think these stories are very necessary in helping us understand how fascism takes root in real life.

if someone is just writing "death eaters ra-ra!" fanfiction then. yeah i might take that as a red flag. but the death eaters are so clearly Bad Guys that i personally have not come across any examples of someone doing that, even if i have come across stories where i don't entirely agree with the politics of how someone is writing the death eaters as Bad.

liking a character in the context of fanfiction is not always going to translate to liking that character as a death eater

a lot of people write aus and stories where the death eaters don't even exist. in those situations, i struggle to understand how liking the characters, in and of itself, would be antisemitic, as the character has specifically been turned into not-a-death-eater and is oftentimes basically an oc.

liking a fictional character is not a simple moral reflection of how someone actually thinks - what i'd be more wary of is someone absorbing the neoliberal politics of hp without question

this is kind of getting back into repeating some of the points above--but again, for me personally, this is an issue that i evaluate much more on a case-by-case basis rather than trying to broadly apply One Rule. since i can't automatically know someone's reasons for liking a character, the context in which they like the character, etc, what i tend to judge more is the specific way i actually see them interacting with that character--how they write them, what stories they like to read, their hcs, etc. again, i am not an expert when it comes to judging antisemitism, so i do also try to make it a point to see what my jewish mutuals are saying when this sort of discourse comes up. but for myself, i tend to be more wary about the politics underlying specific pieces of writing rather than which characters someone is choosing to write about.

all that being said, i do still think it's fair if someone views liking death eaters as a red flag, y'know? like, everyone is allowed to judge for themselves what they see as red flags in this fandom space, and if someone is saying "i think it's antisemitic to like death eaters," i personally don't really think i have a right to go and argue with that person, for obvious reasons. since i do sometimes write about death eater characters, i try to be very aware of what kinds of politics are underlying my work and what sort of messages someone might take away. but if someone needs to block me, avoid my work, etc, i obviously don't have an issue with that--everyone is allowed and encouraged to curate their fandom space in a way that's best for them, and if someone has a boundary regarding interaction with death eater characters, that's their boundary to keep, y'know? i don't think it's productive (unless maybe you yourself experience antisemitism and it's a conversation you want to have) to go to that person and argue about why they're wrong, as if they need to tell you your actions are actually morally okay with them. sometimes people are going to have issues with the things you write or read in fandom, which is why you need to develop the ability to reflect + weigh these sorts of issues for yourself, and grow comfortable with the idea that there is not always going to be an ultimate Right and Wrong answer for How To Behave.

as for the snape vs barty [or insert whatever other death eater character here] - my thoughts on that are essentially. i truly do not think it matters which characters you like or dislike. you can like one death eater character or not another. it's fine. you don't have to like one character over another. this is fanfiction. the moral stakes are not that high.

the only instance in which i would say liking one character over another gets hypocrticial is if you are saying that people shouldn't like a character. for example -- if you are running around the internet saying that snape is a disgusting character and nobody is allowed to like him, but at the same time you're blorbo-ifying barty crouch jr. then, yeah, that's annyoing and hypocritical. but if you're just chilling in peace, reading + writing ur fic and not policing the things that other people are allowed to like or dislike, then i truly do not think it matters if you like barty crouch jr. but not snape. i'm all for self-reflection and thinking about why you personally might like one character over another, but at the end of the day writing + reading fic is not any kind of activism; it's a hobby, it's for enjoyment. i promise that u do not need to have a moral crisis about disliking severus snape from harry potter lmao

[bowtiesarecool123]

yk what guys time to refute all of the hate all quiet has been getting bc i have nothing better to do

ok so i am having a very hard time understanding how a film score without lyrics can be offensive. does it make fun of something that requires nuance? no??? this score is not satirical in any way nor does it appropriate cultural music so where the fuck did offensive come from??? also what is so bad about the score being anachronistic? in fact i think this is one of the best aspects of it, if a film score has to be strictly within whatever period the film is set in not only does it lead to one dimensional uninnovative film scores, it just doesnt make sense in some scenarios. does a prehistoric film have to feature sticks as its only instrument?? ok even if we take all of that at their best, i feel like we're being too severe a couch critic, like cmon, they won for a reason, we don't have to be this rude about it, just say it's mid and call it a day...

yay lets generalize a very diverse fanbase bc it makes it easier to strawman and push my argument!! ok anyways i think a rlly big thing with sucessful adaptations is that ur gonna have to change some stuff. what works on paper might not necessarily work on the big screen. i get that a huge point of contention is the ending change and the cutting out of the returning home section. so about the ending first, i actually liked the changes bc while i get the poetic ending of the book, i think the movie ending does rlly well for character development and rlly goes all in to show the psychological changes paul experiences during the war. if we did keep what they were doing in the book, we might run into a lot of issues bc we're able to know what paul is feeling however that might be difficult to translate on film. also, we get interesting interpolation and final emphasis on the theme of how war is essentially just a puppet game. without the changes of the 11am armistice or the final orders from the evil general dude, we lose the new themes that the film brought in which would feel less complete than status quo. ok so the returning home argument, the novel is obviously more complex than the film but that doesn't make it better or worse. our film at hand already has a huge run time, if we tried to shoehorn in another whole theme, that might be too ambitious and we lose the focus the film has right now. i would definitely choose a world where they focus on one theme and do it really well, which is what's happening rn, over a line by line adaption that could feel messy and end up being too ambitious. again, a line by line adaptation has already been done and i wouldn't fault anyone for thinking the 1930 version is better, it just means it would be even worse and completely redundant to make another line by line adaptation rn. also again, these are completely all my opinions and its def valid to disagree on all of them but the real root of the issue i have with op's comment is how they chalk it all up to ppl not reading the books. it just comes off as rlly elitist and just not representative of what ppls actual opinions rlly are. also it's better to attack the media itself rather than ppl who enjoy the media 💀

braindead bird app time, here we have the classic case of someone thinking it's cool to shit on the film that all their twt mutuals are shitting on rn without ever having seen it. sorry if this is a bit left field but next time maybe watch the film b4 commenting on it?????????

this is honestly one of the least problematic opinions out of the all quiet haters so far but i am still responding to this bc the only category all quiet beat banshees in was original score (why is it always this) and the score doesn't have much to do with whether or not this film is a war film or if soldiers appeal to u or how many times this has been remade. and like i agree, banshees score, phenomenal, but if all quiet lost it still would go to babylon so i feel like the anger here is rlly misdirected.

all quiet haters cannot seem to comprehend that this film is not a remake holy shit. and even if it is inferior, it would only be inferior storywise bc u cannot fucking argue the point that 1930s vfx and cinematography are better than the 2022 version. and the only sweeps all quiet got were technical category sweeps so the inferior remake point is entirely irrelevant. and i am willing to bet 5 bucks this person didnt watch the movie bc then they would understand that technical aspects and story aspects are different bc what it sounds like rn is they're repeating whatever they've heard without properly applying the criticism to its accurate category.

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ok im done now very slay if you've read all of this im sleep deprived bc of babylon dickriders so ignore my gramatical mistakes ty.

[nonbinarygamzee]

Dave thoughts? I'm very curious about your hatred for that guy (if that makes sense)

HAHA ok so admittedly maybe my posts about how much i hate him are a bit overblown because i basically think its really funny that he only comes up on my blog if i am being a hater. integral to understand that while i post "fandom" content on here that i dont really think of this as a fandom blog so much as a blog where i come to have conversations with myself and so naturally just bc of who i am a lot of my little posts are full of context and meaning i never bother to externalize because they are for me to reread later and have a little chuckle about.

anyways. theres a lot of reasons i find him grating but i can at least admit it that a lot of my annoyance has more to do with the way i was forced to slog through strider manpain posts endlessly as a teenager any direction i tried to look. when the fandom seemed hyperfocused on him and his woes while actively sending me like graphic gore at like age 14 for saying hey maybe this other character also deserves some sympathy and maybe even analysis that has more to say than why they are an evil irredeemable monster for being unstable as a child. which yknow that isnt daves fault but man even without that part it was tiring to see all of the emotional depth constantly boxed into his corner. and then to repeatedly have the comics itself affirm all of this as valid exploration and then ridicule me for My exploration. for many many years the strider manpainisms made me not bother with dirk just on principle even though today hes one of the more interesting characters to me! so i can admit im not being totally "fair" here but well. as usual i think the fandom darlings can handle a fraction of the disdain ive see thrown my favies ways constantly for over a decade.

and like none of that to say i dont Get why people do this with him or that he deserved anything he got as a kid or it wasnt abuse or whatever. let the records show that i think it is Wrong to terrorize your brotherson with swords and sex puppets. im a feminist.

more rooted in the reality of the comic itself though i just find it grating how often daves sole function in a scene is to be the authors mouthpiece and specifically often in ways where you are meant to implicitly agree with the things he is saying irregardless of whether they are a centrist gen x nightmare opinion because its also the larger opinion of homestuck as an entity. dave is far from the only character to do this and id say any of the characters you could comfortably refer to as the "protagonists" actually end up slipping into this fairly often. that said the other biggest offenders imo are karkat, egbert and terezi and i also have feelings of extreme ambivalence for terezi and to be honest an outright disinterest in egbert. so. i am at least consistent about it! karkats my special guy but i need him hunted for sport and tortured until he stops being this and largely the things he believe that make me feel that way heavily align with the opinions the comic depicts as mostly right and again tend to be moments hussies worldview is bleeding into the narrative especially openly.

anddd ok. i just find daves personality grating on top of it. i cant sit here and pretend ive never laughed at a dave strider dialogue but generally a lot of the parts people find very funny are parts i tend to come away having seen the thousanth iteration of dave having his worldview affirmed and getting to do some #awesome clapback at the person insinuating he even try to think outside of his own preconceived ideas about what things should be like. in general in a story so full of characters doing bad things it just grates on me that, while his offenses are certainly usually "minor" in the grand scheme of things, the lack of willingness to challenge them often just means like dave gets to be right and nobody remembers when he actually massively fucks someone else up or makes them feel worse. like to be clear none of this is a problem in that characters cant "do bad things", i literally like vriska, but it would be cool if we could at least like. acknowledge that theyre anything but entertaining even within the context of the universe where other characters should be allowed to be uncomfortable when hes actively creepy or uses their emotional breaking points as a soapbox for how He feels. but since it would cause this big rift in how homestuck itself presents the opinions it wants you to agree with, those characters just..... not only do not mind most of the time but even if they do its never in a way that allows them agency in the matter. thats the crux of it all for me actually, hes by far one of the most autonomous characters of the bunch and it feels frequently like his agency is at the expense of others because hes a self insert.

um ok tldr hes annoying and him being the Face of homestuck is like..... accurate but in the most painful nightmare way because he kind of just. Is homestuck. to me.

(and i actually do see iterations of him sometimes that i find compelling but they all feel so detached from how hes presented in the comic that it just feels like someones oc. all of this said also i actually kind of have an absurd amount of thoughts on how he would act post game (epilogues ignored here) just i dont bother to do much with em because dave likers would hate it and other dave haters probably wouldnt care enough lol. also always secondary info anyways, hes finally allowed irrelevency in My city)

[baltears]

hello spookyshai!! its cool if u dont want to, but i was wonderin if you'd elaborate on what you like about william? i just like thinking about/mentally rewriting westworld and its characters in my free time, and your fascination with william's got me fascinated, mostly bc i see him as a stinky bastard. so obvs you'd definitely have a more nuanced take on him, which i'd also like to develop for the imaginary westworld rewrite fic that i'm never going to write ;)) regardless if u answer or not, just wanted to say i'm a fan of your blog and i hope you're havin a good day!!

omg so first of all thank you so so much for sending this, especially asking unprompted about a character you don't even like and giving me a chance to explain my feelings about him which is just incredibly cool of you. i love and am obsessed with william so giving me any excuse to talk about him at length is like gifting me $1000. if you want to know more about my meta thoughts about him after reading this, (I'm gonna talk A Lot – sorry – but i can't possibly get through everything because he's just a very complicated guy and it's a very dense show), you can always look in my william tag. I have a lot of text posts about him, but I also often talk a lot in the tags of my own posts as well as reblogs. This is gonna be a lot of totally disorganized and unedited infodumping of a lot of different meta, but i've talked about all of it at length elsewhere too and I can also totally elaborate more if you have any specific questions (you could send another ask if you wanted, but also feel free to just message me about it anytime). I'll do my best not to get too emotional (lol) but it'll be tough because this character is so close to my heart. but I'll try!

this is a huge wall of text lol so i'll also be adding more bold and italics than i normally would just to make it a little easier to read.

so first of all let's be clear, he completely is a stinky bastard. he is a horrible, awful, faithless, pathetic specimen of a man. not liking him is totally justified. just wanted to get that out of the way. personally I think not liking anything for any reason is totally valid and justified, but there are certainly good reasons why a lot of people don't like william. he is not a good dude, at least not after a certain point. No one is obligated to relate to him, empathize with him, feel bad for him, whatever... like, no one's obligated to like anything, but especially this guy. sometimes people can get a little shirty about the fact that i do, like me liking him means i think they have to. I don't think that. I do love finding other william stans, and i am very unapologetic and open about my love for him, but him being widely hated makes complete sense to me.

sigh like why i love him so much though… it's kind of hard to even put into words. on one level it's just extremely personal, like, there are a lot of things about him that i really resonate with and identify with, although I know that sounds weird (it's definitely gotten some very shocked reactions before, lol). i'm a villain liker in general, i tend to be able to relate to those types of characters easily and it kind of takes a lot for me to really dislike one on a personal level (though that's true of any sort of character, i just tend to like the majority of the characters in any work that i genuinely enjoy regardless of how shitty they are – to me the only truly bad thing a character can be is annoying, like, the kind of annoying where you just want them off your screen). Characters being any degree of evil or shitty or problematic doesn't bug me at all, personally, I tend to feel no deep internal urge to have them 'held accountable' for the things they do, unless they exist in a narrative that genuinely doesn't seem to understand that they are in the wrong, which does irritate me when it happens. But anyway, I don't want to get too oversharey but there's definitely a very high level of just personal resonance to the character for me in terms of the kinds of conflicts he has, the things he struggles with, the dominant emotions of his life, etc. so that's part of it. also though he's just… a very complex and beautifully constructed piece of character work, so I also love him just on a technical level as a writer.

He has such incredible significance in the story too, being the thematic representative of humanity, both to dolores and to the wider narrative – his capabilities for good and evil are humanity's capabilities for good and evil, right. Dolores' opinion of humanity and feelings towards humanity are very colored by her opinion of him and her feelings towards him, and thematically their relationship is sort of a microcosm of the broader relationship between hosts and humanity and very much a central piece of the narrative. Even when it's out of direct focus it's being constantly referenced and pointed back to, such as with the caleb storyline in season 3 – caleb himself is basically one big callback to william in s3, parallels out the wazoo, and his function of turning around dolores' opinion on humans is very much related to him reminding her of william – hence why her storyline in season 3 ends with her remarking on how her memories of william as a young man indicate to her that humanity is capable of goodness, because caleb's capacity to choose echoes william's capacity to choose, caleb's goodness echoes william's goodness, it all goes back to that, etc.

So… I guess I'll just jump in lol. William's Thing, the fulcrum of his character, the main feeling or sentiment that underlies all of his evil actions and kind of his general turn away from the kind and gentle person he used to be, is alienation, right. He lives his whole life (as he tells dolores in 1x07) not fitting in anywhere, not making connections anywhere, not having any sort of community or any experience with love or companionship of any kind… he's just been totally alone and alienated his entire life. like, the closest thing he had to a friend was logan, and he hates logan. I think this is the major thing people miss about him – there's this perception that his turning evil was out of some form of entitlement, that he was just angry that this woman he liked didn't like him back and it's just an issue of wounded masculinity, but to me that completely misses the mark. Like yes wounded masculinity is a piece of his character (the way he performs and weaponizes masculinity in general is… really fascinating, I'll go into a bit more detail about it, but the kind of showy machismo that he displays is definitely a tool that he intentionally developed for his own use rather than a really integral part of who he is) but it's not at all the core emotion happening there.

To William, Dolores was not only a person he was in love with or a person he was attracted to. She was also his first and only genuine human connection ever. She was his first true friend, she was his first love, she was the first suggestion anywhere in his life that it was even possible at all for him to experience a sort of deep mutual understanding and care, that somebody could actually genuinely see him and let him see them. He literally just had not ever experienced any level of real emotional intimacy before, which is a feeling i actually think a lot of people relate to if they grew up feeling very lonely. And then ultimately not only was that relationship taken away, but it was kind of retroactively deleted. When he saw her again back in sweetwater, his thought was not, "i don't have this relationship anymore," but "i never had this relationship," and further, "the single person i've ever thought i could have this kind of relationship with is actually not capable of having any kind of relationship with anyone, including me, and i literally just made all of this up in my head." After losing Dolores he is not just sad and lonely – he literally comes to the conclusion that he can never have any kind of intimate human connection or be genuinely loved, ever, because the one person in his entire life he thought he connected with is not even a person at all, but just a thing. It's very much a rug pull moment on a level that's hard to describe, it kind of takes some thought-experimenting to get to that emotional place because it's a level of shock and hurt and betrayal and like, paradigm-shifting that most of us don't regularly experience (which I think might be part of the reason why a lot of people don't seem to really understand his character or be able to parse what's going on with him emotionally). Suffice it to say it's a wound deep enough that he was pretty much never going to recover from it.

After that happens he is completely destabilized, he loses all sense of meaning and self, and he never gets a grip on it again. He had totally reconstructed his idea of his life to include the genuine possibility of meaning, and meaningful relationships, when he met Dolores. And with the loss of her, all of that suddenly went away and he basically was just left with nothing. So that alienation that he grew up with is now not just a part of his life, not just a thing that he suffers from, but he starts to feel that it's inherent to him and that it comes from him, which is partly why we start getting all the anti-social behavior he displays later in life. He develops and kind of fosters that lack of empathy in himself not because he's truly incapable of empathy (as we see when he's a young man and at a couple of later points here and there, he is in fact very capable of it) but because he feels fundamentally cut off from other people – he can't reach them and they can't reach him.

So that fundamental sense of alienation is really what informs 90% of the things he does after that point. He starts building this persona, inside and outside the park. The real world feels meaningless to him at this point because the only hint of meaning he's ever had in his life was in the park, so he buys the park, and simultaneously starts trying to "win" at life in the real world like he would in the park. The real world honestly doesn't feel any more real to him than the park does, he just knows rationally that it's different and so he behaves differently outside the park… he builds all this wealth and power for himself, he becomes a famous philanthropist. Inside the park he starts creating this character for himself, this sort of hyper-masculine, hyper-competent, totally emotionally composed, merciless, badass villain. And he makes a very concerted effort to stay in this persona as often as he can.

It's all a performance, though, right. As early as 1x05 we have Ford pointing out (to his face! legend) that his barely-hidden desperation to find meaning in the park is giving the game away. In that flashback near the end of 2x02 we get a glimpse of what's underneath, because he's performing this cold, heartless persona in front of Dolores literally while his voice is shaking because he's having to try hard not to start crying as he's talking to her. Deep down he is still very wounded, he still loves her, he still desperately wishes deep down (as jimmi simpson explained) for her to just tell him that all of it was real, for her to be real and truly be a person the way he thought she was. When he's an older man that wish is still in there, it's just been buried very deep, covered up with a lot of other things, twisted. But it's always there, it's his most closely held desire, the only thing he truly wants, and it comes out all the time in the things he does. All his tormenting of dolores, and especially his desire to make the park "real" in order to find meaning – that's that. That sense of deep confusion that's always there in his character too, the constant inner monologue of "who am I, what does this mean, does anything mean anything, what is real or not real, what is going on," that's that too, that's his destabilized sense of self and reality and meaning that came out of losing Dolores. And by this point he has also come to feel, as he says in 2x09 to his wife, that there is something very fundamentally wrong with him, in a way that's kind of at odds with how we as the audience have historically understood him.

The thing is, we saw him be a kind, loving, gentle, thoughtful person. He certainly was not perfect, for instance his later narcissism started out as a sort of basic self-centeredness, but he was a fundamentally good-hearted person who put most of his energy into trying to do the right thing. But he starts saying that he feels like that wasn't the real him, that he thinks deep down he was evil and poisonous all along, that his turn to darkness was inevitable, and that there's a sort of helplessness to his evil. There's this deep sense of shame that permeates his character along with his loneliness and alienation and resentment. He hates everything, he hates the world, but above all he hates himself – kind of amusing considering the god complex he's developed over time. But that really does seem to be the underlying emotion, that he truly thinks that deep down he was always bad. It's very heavily implied that his philanthropy outside the park and his attention to his family, his kind of good-guy persona, is something that he constructed to try and make up for his true nature, and all but stated that he doesn't feel like he's succeeded. To him, no amount of good he does will ever balance his level of evil, evil that as he says doesn't come from anything he's done but something deeper than that, something immutable, something he is. So that's why we eventually have him getting to the point of going "I might as well not bother with this anymore. I might as well just be evil, because I can't change what I am."

I've also said in other posts that the things Juliet says to him come off as obviously abusive. Like, she's technically correct that there's some sinister things going on with his private life, but listen to how she says it. You're a virus, not a person, a thing that mindlessly infects and destroys and has no other purpose. And he agrees with her! He doesn't question it at all, he just says, yes, you're exactly right, I'm not a human being with good and bad attributes, or potential to do both right and wrong. I'm a virus. Like, again, I know people get weird about having empathy for villain characters, there's the whole "cool motive, still murder," thing, because we don't want to be excusing anyone's bad actions with a sad backstory (personally I don't really care, but I understand where the concern comes from). But when he said that to Juliet it just… like I don't know how else to put it, it broke my heart. He really believes that about himself. And later he starts to question it because he's not sure anymore if he actually chose to do any of the things he did… but the way his hallucination of Emily puts it, these are his two options: you are evil, or you had no choice. One or the other. He never puts aside the idea that he is a monster that does not deserve to live, and his suicidality persists from season one (when he encourages Dolores to shoot him in the head and reacts with honest disappointment when she can't) to the end of season four when he actually does manage to engineer his own death. He is deeply, agonizingly, pathetically miserable existing the way that he is, he seems to see his even being allowed to live at all as some sort of cosmic injustice. But he doesn't know how to change back to the way he was.

All that having happened, though, we also keep getting these repeated suggestions in the story that he actually is still capable of goodness somewhere in there. The narrative keeps asking what William is exactly, what his fundamental nature is, and keeps refusing to land on one answer, instead choosing to keep things ambiguous in a way that would be sort of odd for your garden variety villain. In 2x04 we see him experiencing regret, feeling empathy and pain on behalf of others, and acting genuinely heroic, only to later backtrack and say it didn't mean anything. In 2x09 Emily tells him he is in his essence "a lie" but makes no attempt to locate what the "truth" of him would then be. In 3x06 he tries to figure out the answer to what's going on with him again only to decide he still doesn't really know, in 3x08 we get this reminder that he still stands for Dolores as a representation of both humanity's evil and its goodness, in 4x05 when his host duplicate asks him what he is, he says "Jury's still out." He is too far down his current path to turn back, but he still does not and cannot definitively and finally choose evil, because despite his self-loathing it seems like he senses deep down that his other side is still in there. All that to say I think he's getting a redemption arc in season 5, if we get a season 5 – season 5 is supposed to be the do-over season, and the character who most desperately needs and could most benefit from a do-over is William.

Um, closing thoughts… I think he's really funny. Sometimes intentionally, like, I do laugh at his little quippy comments, but I also just think it's really funny how pathetic he is and what a mess he is and how he basically imploded his entire life on accident. I do feel a lot of very genuine care and empathy for him (obviously), but he's also such a garbage fire of a human being that you sometimes just have to laugh. He's just my funny little guy, also he sucks, also I love him and he's my lil angel, also he's the worst man ever in history and deserves to be drawn and quartered (said with love). You get it. :) There's dimensions.

Trying to think of other characterization notes for your imaginary fic… oh, did you notice he puts on an accent in the park? He does this fake Southern drawl when he's playing his park character, but it's not his real accent and he drops it at other times, kind of like how Dolores sometimes does or doesn't use her "rancher's daughter" accent when she's being Wyatt in season 2. Uh… Total nerd, at heart, seeing as "all he had as a kid were books." (I kind of suspect that childhood memory might not have been totally real, by the way… made a post about that recently that's a little ways down in my tag if you're interested.)

There are more things I could say, but I think I've probably gone on long enough for the one ask lol so I'll cut it off here. Thank you again, so much, for sending this. I hope you enjoyed and got something out of this response, but if not I still do very much appreciate you asking and being curious. I hope you had a great day too!

[porcelaintoybox23]

I think the funniest thing about fe3h is how much people hate these characters. The game has some serious writing issues, but even ignoring that, I still don’t understand the rage a lot of people have. I like Edelgard and Dimitri even though I side with El’s philosophy. I dislike Rhea the most but don’t hate her, she’s just fucking nuts. People will literally compare Edelgard to hitler, which is very inaccurate and also doing way too much. Seriously, the holocaust isn’t a light comparison to make toward anything. Be accurate at least. It’s not even a tumblr problem it’s everywhere, youtube, Reddit, etc. No side is totally right or wrong, but people will jump through hoops to bash/support someone.

Edelgard did some morally dubious things and better writing would’ve had someone call her out. Like I understand why, but the people she has around her are seriously messed up, though I understand that she has to play the field. People think that El should be able to enact continent wide change without war, but peaceful means have rarely worked throughout history. Maybe it could’ve been nice for the three house leaders to join up and strong arm Rhea into retiring and takedown TWSITD, but that’s a writing flaw. Like slavery didn’t end peacefully. Also, TWSITD has nukes. I don’t think El had that much power over them, clearly. A real discussion on Remire village would have been a great support.

Dimitri is a mass murderer who killed indiscriminately. Like everyone is, but I really didn’t want to kill those thieves. Still love him, but he was creeping me out. The blue lions are my babies the way the black eagles are, but it’s weird that Dimitri is okay with a lie being told to the populace. Sothis hasn’t been doing anything for like a millennia. That whole convo pre Enbarr was so bad. El could have been forthcoming with something, anything. Dimitri just seemed to be on the opposite side because.

The church is shady and built on multiple lies. Rhea has gone through some serious stuff but she has done and enabled a lot of harm. I understand her grief, but I don’t think it warrants a fake religion, upholding or at least not stopping the crest system, being able to execute people instead of the local rulers doing it, child soldiers, experimentation with the end goal of replacing the person with Sothis, and revising history. I don’t think Rhea is evil, she just doesn’t change anything? Or really just upholds crappy systems instead of grieving.

Edelgard is an imperialist, it’s the 12th century

I don’t know what hate has been thrown toward Dimitri, but the boy has schizophrenia and psychology doesn’t exist.

Haven’t played verdant wind yet, but I think “it’s the 12th century” is still a pretty good catch all excuse.

I admit bias here, I have nothing good to say about Rhea. Woman is creepy. I do like Cyril, Flayn, and Seteth though.

If these characters were perfect, there would be no story. They all have flaws and make mistakes. Each have a valid perspective, well maybe not Rhea

The only characters I can see people justifiably hating are Sylvain and Ingrid. A sexist, womanizing creep, whose depth doesn’t negate that, and a racist. (Okay, that’s just pure bias) Ingrid was really justifying genocide and basically called Dedue, “one of the good black people”

At the end of the day, this game is great for discussion, but these characters aren’t real. Like some heated debate is fun, but a lot of you seem to take this personally.

Edit: if you are replying to this post arguing for something, I do not care. None of these characters are uwu babies and it’s fine to disagree. That is the point of this post. I don’t care if you hate Edelgard and want Rhea to curb stomp you, or vice-versa, just stop insulting each other and making weird arguments.

[beanghostprincess]

What are you most controversial/unpopular OP opinions??? Sorry if it was answered before

You want me to get canceled so bad-- If I speak-- But idk, I guess I'll say the controversial opinions I can say publicly without a bunch of people coming at me!

Zo$an is a bit... Overrated? And by overrated I mean extremely/annoyingly overrated. I like the ship and its canon dynamic but I think at least 80% of the fandom portrays them in a very mischaracterized way. Not to say that... The ship is literally everywhere and the shippers always look for every little thing to prove they're canon, even if the "proof" has literally nothing to do with them. It's not that I don't enjoy the ship (although I must admit I prefer other dynamics a lot more) I just can't stand shippers that go to extremes. It's funny because I think Zo$an's dynamic is way more interesting and romantic in canon than it will ever be in the fandom. It's a bit sad, ngl. I liked them a lot at first but it got so tiring and now I am pretty exhausted from seeing it everywhere. The people force it to be more than it is when the canon is already pretty fucking great.

Adding to the Zo$san thing. I think that relationship would only work if Luffy is there somehow but it wouldn't last a day without him in the relationship. Unless there's like, a ton of character development most of these people don't make them go through.

One Piece Film Z is my worst enemy. It's such a boring movie. The only good thing is the soundtrack and maybe the suits but God watching that was torture.

Boa hate is uhhhh weird. I mean, I get why the joke about her being in love with Luffy might be annoying, but I think most of you need to learn to understand that Oda's sense of humor is sometimes a bit too exaggerated (and not funny) and it has basically nothing to do with the actual canon dynamics between characters. Boa likes Luffy because he's one of the first men who has ever treated her right, so of course she confuses that feeling with love. And of course, yeah, it isn't canon. Whatever. Just read between the lines, maybe? And also, stop using words like "pedo" to describe her because using that term so lightly about 1) a fictional character and 2) somebody who's clearly not a pedo is fucked up. Lmao. Do you even know what that word means???

Once again complaining about Pudding hate and saying that it's stupid. I won't overanalyze because I always do it with her, but the only reason people hate her is for misogynistic reasons and because they're babying Sanji. Evil male characters are okay and hot and very traumatized but the second it's a woman she's the most evilest person ever! Because God forbid they make mistakes! Suddenly their character development isn't valid because they hurt their babygirl!

Now that we're talking about my dearest Pudding. Not tagging anybody of course, but I saw this post with so many interactions of people agreeing about Sanji considering violence as a sign of love which??? Doesn't make sense at all?? OP said it was because he couldn't tell the difference between love/abuse because of his family, but that's just... Not accurate. That could only happen if they had manipulated him into thinking abuse is a type of love, but he had healthy love growing up. Even when he was with the Vinsmokes (Sora and Reiju, I love you). And yet OP said Sanji considered Pudding's behavior flirting (wrong) and that's why he let her attack him (nope) and that it was proof of Zo$an. And okay, it's not a hugely popular theory, but a lot of people agreed with it and it bothered me a lot because it's both out of character and also using Pudding (complex female character) once again to try and prove the canon of a ship (that doesn't have anything to do with WCI either???). It just bothers me. People can perceive the story however they want but... Y'know.

OPLA isn't that good. Or good at all? I only like it because I like the cast and it's funny seeing my blorbos irl. But the script is simple and dull and just stupid most of the time. The characters are either simplified, mischaracterized, or forgotten. And tbh most of the shots are very awful and could be a lot better. The directing is also nonexistent. It's 6/10 and 3 of those points are because both the Zolu and the cast.

Apparently this is a very common theory about Nami's origins, but, uh, I don't think we need to know? What else do you need to know about her? People say she's a lost princess or something like that as if we didn't have a lost princess already (Sanji ily). Repeating the same plot would be boring and underwhelming, but also? It'd be extremely useless for the plot and it'd go against everything about Nami's story and the way Luffy reacts to it.

Luffy isn't canon aroace. In fact, the reasoning people use for him being "coded" is the same Oda uses for Zoro too and Zoro is almost never portrayed as the "idiot who doesn't know what sex is" the way Luffy often is. If you're calling Luffy canon aroace for what Oda said about him being focused on adventures, the same goes for Zoro being focused on his dream. They could be coded arospec but there's nothing confirmed and the constant discourse about it is stupid. Attacking others because of their ships just because you don't agree with them and saying it's wrong using our identity to do it is very fucked up. Especially since most of the time people complaining aren't even aroace. The only reason people do it (attacking others saying they can't ship Luffy and that it's "weird" and "wrong") is that they infantilize Luffy/Don't want him getting in between their ships (<- aroace person writing this) (also, it's very ableist since people agree on Luffy also being neurodivergent coded and treating him like a kid bc of that but this isn't about that now).

Somehow this is very common. Some fucking how. I can't believe I have to say this. I'm tired of people blaming Usopp for what happened in Water 7. Or in general hating Usopp. Actually, he's one of the best-written characters in the whole show and he's so underappreciated it's so frustrating.

Sanji's perv jokes are annoying af and we all know that, but people who hate the character and consider him a red flag for that are missing the point completely. The point being "Oda exaggerates jokes to an annoying extent and most of the time they don't even reflect the character". I understand they can make you uncomfortable (same here tbh) but reducing Sanji to only those jokes is a waste of his character. You need to take jokes less seriously.

If I see one of these "red flag OP boys" TikToks adding Law/Ace/Zoro/Sanji next to fucking Doffy I will riot. Also, stop adding Crocodile there. He's a mafioso, there's NO way he won't be a sweetheart to his lover.

Baron Omatsuri's artstyle and animation is amazing and it fits the plot and aesthetic of the movie perfectly and people saying it's ugly will forever bother me.

"Usopp is suddenly hot after timeskip!" He has always been hot what the fuck are you talking about.

People reduce Nami to her "mean"/"sarcastic" personality a lot when she's quite literally one of the most kind-hearted characters of all. That being said, morally speaking she's probably one of the worst. I could explain how that works but I don't want to do it now, the point is-- Let the girl be sweet instead of making her mean all the time. And also, let her be mean and selfish without making it her entire personality. There's something called "balance".

Film Red was kind of bad. Like, the songs are amazing (thanks, Ado) but the ending is awful and the plot is very meh. I'm only here for Uta and Shanks but the rest of the characters are just useless. I do appreciate Sanji's hair in the movie, though.

[bthump]

I see folks giving Griffith a lot of heat for killing the band and forcing himself on Casca, which he did for a resurrection and nothing else (the entirety of the Egg-Apostle arc is dedicated to this). He isn’t a human being at that point, so why are people so upset? Let’s not pretend that Guts and Casca are innocents. You want to hate Griffith? Sure, but why do you like Guts, a man who was a direct facilitator in the genocide of thousands in a village just to kill one Apostle, on the basis of morality of all the concepts? Why are you all fine with Casca and the Band fighting evil battles for pedophile kings just so they could get money? Band of Hawk were hired militia, thugs basically, who warred for whoever hired them. However, everyone acts as if Griffith murdered their mother and dog. 

If you want to play the morality card, you better use it for everyone, or no one. This double-standard’s something I’ve always deeply despised about fandoms, or do you all just want to self-insert into Guts and Casca’s place for validations or “r*pe victim” trauma or something? I’m a childhood rape-survivor, too. All three of these characters are not winning any morality medals anytime soon. At least, Griffith’s actually a well written character who had reasons to do what he did. The other two? Not really.

Enh I mean I disagree with the statement that Griffith raped Casca to facilitate his resurrection - I think he raped her because he was feeling petty and it happened to facilitate his resurrection because of fate. His actions during the Eclipse suggest this - trying to kill Skull Knight, raising his hand to kill them as they escape before lowering it after looking at Guts specifically, rather than Casca, as well as the stupid fetus fusing with him being a hindrance to him and therefore not likely something he planned.

That said he was still transformed into an evil demon at the time lol so logically it doesn't make sense to hate Griffith for it. But yk, I can't exactly blame people despite that. I think it's understandable to have a strong, visceral, emotional reaction to a main character raping another main character regardless of logical circumstances. The scene was written to elicit a big negative emotional reaction, and that's what it got. The Hawks mercenarying is not written to elicit a negative emotional reaction, and it doesn't get one. I think that's fair, and I don't think people should have to apply real-world moral standards to a fictional work, especially without regard to narrative framing.

That said it's very true that fandom often demonstrates double standards with how they hate Griffith but jump to excuse Guts for assaulting Casca himself, and also the way they express their feelings is annoying as fuck at best and offensive way too often lol. Like at the end of the day it's a fictional story and harassing and haranguing real people over it is always going to be an obnoxious overreaction. So yeah like, it sucks lol and I totally feel your frustration at the rest of fandom. I don't necessarily agree with the details of your argument but I definitely agree with the sentiment.

[trashlie]

Now don't get me wrong. I love Alyssa as a character, too! She's become my favorite girl right there alongside Shinae but for totally different reasons. She's messy, unlikeable, pitiful, and misunderstood. Her worst qualities make her the most relatable and her bad decisions make her human (not monster-ish). Quimchee put a lot of thought and care into her character and it's a shame when readers keep on dismissing her as a shallow antagonist. At her core, she's an insecure person with no healthy guidance.

I'll be honest though, part of me thinks of her as this grand foil who fails in everyway others learn to grow. Like I can't see her helping to take Yui down, at least not yet. But I can see her having an open-ending where she's shown compassion and mercy. Where she's finally free to figure out who she really wants to be with no expectations and is given the hope to redeem herself. Like Alyssa is not evil and there are characters willing to believe the best in others. Because it's never too late to change. She will always have the opportunity to turn around and grow even if we don't get to see her do it. Look at Kousuke, he'll be reaching his 30s after the big time skip and will still have a long ways to go.

Btw I really appreciate you in this fandom, it's so much fun to talk to you about the most hated characters in ILY! I can't wait until we get more of Yui 😈

GOD YOU ABSOLUTELY GET IT YOU 300% GET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

These are all the reasons I've come to really like Alyssa, too. I can't help but find myself drawn to a messy, unlikeable girl who is desperately trying to find peace and instead making a bigger mess of it. There's something about characters who lack courage and aren't brave because that's what most people are like. We want to believe we'd have the courage in certain scenarios but it doesn't always turn out to be true.

At her core, she's an insecure person with no healthy guidance.

It pains me to see her demonized for her insecurity, honestly. "Why does she care so much what other people think?" Idk because she's a middle schooler and comes across as really, really lonely, and has been lead to believe that if you're surrounded by people you'll never feel alone? Because she's got no one in her life guiding her or giving her the advice she needs. Shinae has only learned what she has through her own experiences, which Alyssa lacks. That's what narrative foils are there for, to illuminate these little truths. Shinae learned that one good friend is better than none, but Alyssa's so insecure and probably so lonely she thinks the only solution is to overflow with friends. And yeah, maybe she seeks external validation, because again, she's insecure. She craves some kind of validation and affirmation, to feel like she's doing this right.

A lot of people take decades to finally figure out that a hollow imitation of friendship is more lonely than none at all. A lot of people deal with unhealthy friendships and let people walk all over them for far too long, because when faced with the alternative, we think that being alone is the worst option, and never realize that the kind of oppressive loneliness you feel from being around people who don't get you or understand you is worse. Alyssa's nowhere near figuring that out yet as a middle schooler, and maybe not quite yet in the present, either. I think maybe she might get an inkling of it, might finally realize that now that she has all this fame, has actual fans, the loneliness is still pervasive, they still can't fill that void, hence feeling trapped. But we'll see!

Admittedly, I agree with you. I would love to see Alyssa grow and free herself of Yui, but the thought of her going against Yui is difficult to fathom, because the Alyssa we currently know doesn't challenge authority, whether or not she respects them (and i think her "admiration" of Yui is just as complex and complicated as Alyssa herself if). While I do root for and hope for that, I've also stated before that it's unrealistic for all characters to make a 180 degree change, and Alyssa is probably the one to change the least. The thing I always come back to is thinking that there's going to be some kind of scandal that loses Alyssa her job, and that hopefully THAT will be grounds for her figuring out what she really wants and who she really wants to be. Maybe she'll always seek the spotlight. Maybe she'll be happy to write songs for others to perform. Rather than seeing Alyssa change, I think now what I hope for instead is that she finds a sense of security and makes peace with herself. I know I'm in the minority here but I'd like to see her reconcile with Shiane. They don't have to be friends - there may not be the room for it anymore - but even if it was just Alyssa acknowledging that Shinae was such a special friend and she didn't have half the courage Shinae did and as a result hurt her, I'd be happy! lol

Like you said, I think Alyssa's changes will be a little more open-ended, something that won't make everyone happy but will be really relevant to who Alyssa is and what she needs to overcome. At the end of the day, her weakness is her insecurity, that she lacks self-esteem and isn't confident yet in who she is, even though she has such a strong personality and such strong interests buried deep down! And I guess this is why I always feel like it has to do with her career failing (I mean, it doesn't help that their group name is what, GL4SS or something like that - glass. Fragile. Easy to break); if she was to lose all of that, she'd finally face true alone, and what would she be left with? When stripped bare down, who is Alyssa truly, and can she learn to be comfortable with that iteration of herself? Is she capable of shedding her mask?

THAT is what I want to see from her now. If she never finds the courage to go against Yui, I'm sure she wouldn't be the first one. If she never finds the courage to walk away from her career herself, but instead has to fail to be freed from it, then that's fine, because not everyone can be that brave and make that choice.

I gotta say, I've always thought of Alyssa as Shinae's foil, but the idea of her foiling EVERYONE does seem really likely. We can already see it a little, in how both Alyssa and Minhyuk felt about Shinae in middle school, and obviously Alyssa's betrayal has been juxtaposed against Nol's. You probably are right in that she's foil to all the choices and opportunities they face!

Also waaahhh thank you so much for saying that! ;~; In the beginning, it was just that I wanted to be really objective about characters and challenge myself to see them for more than how they appear at first glance and for more than how they make me feel. I'm a rather incendiary person sometimes, I'm emotionally reactive, so I always have to step back and examine something over and over until I can see it through another lens and i think in doing so it brought me a new appreciation for Alyssa and Kousuke as characters who simply are what they are. But also I liked to push myself like this because I know there's other readers like me who just get really drawn to all the characters and what drives and motivates them, so i'm really glad I get to talk to people about Alyssa, even if most hate her lol. I'm a sucker for the kind of thought and detail that has gone into the writing of these characters and find it hard to deny myself enjoyment of a messy, unlikeable girl who fails to make the right choice every time lol.

(GOD give us the Yui story!!!!!!! I know I have my theories but OH MY GOD GIVE US THE YUI STORY. In contrast to Alyssa, who is not evil and whose selfishness is not inherently malicious in nature, I think Yui is a person who is also shaped by her experiences and probably does lmao take some kind of enjoyment in seeing certain people [men lol] suffer. I don't think she's evil or a narcissist or anything, I just think she's been blinded by and shaped by her life and is taking it out on everyone lmao but I'll get into that more one day!!!!)

[nikethestatue]

Generally speaking, I’m pretty chill with the other ships. Not my cup of tea, so I don’t actually seek art and theories out centring them.

I do however, always find it rather interesting, (and off putting) to note, just how many people seem to ship Elucien or Gwynriel..because they simply hate Elain. By all means, ship who you please, but surely you can at least acknowledge that’s a large contributing factor as to why you ship who you do?

The amount of comments across social media, on any Acotar group and platform is outstanding. So many people just hate her. I don’t get it. “Lucien deserves better, but I want him to be happy, so that’s I ship Elucien” or “I just hate elain and hope she turns evil and dies alone” and of course “three brothers x three sisters is sooooo cliche and boring. Elains useless. Gwynriel forever!”. I don’t understand how a ship can “have your whole heart” when you objectively hate one half of that ship? It’s just..odd.

I think one of the main contributing factors to the Elain hate, is the rise of Gwyn - and the fandoms general inability to uphold one female character without squashing another (to be perfectly honest.) What are your thoughts on why there’s so much hate directed toward Elain? What do you think contributes to it? Do you find any of it valid?

I think that this fandom is interesting in that some characters are legitimately HATED, even though they aren't meant to be hated.

There are huge, HUGE Rhysand antis out there. With virulent, violent hate in their hearts towards him.

Same with Feyre. You'd think Feyre would be a pretty benign character, who would be universally accepted as at least an acceptable character--but no, HATED. Hated for things she has nothing to do with. Called Feyrug. Called dumb, and illiterate. Hated for 'cultural appropriation'. And just really wild BS.

Elain has been hated since day one. Because she is not 'tough enough', whatever that means. I think that she is hated for two reasons--mostly connected to 2 men. She is 'mean' and doesn't give poor Lucien a chance. And she doesn't 'deserve' Azriel. I think if she was paired with someone else, maybe, MAYBE the hate wouldn't be as strong. But she is paired with two of the most popular male characters and she simply can't be forgiven for that.

So the antis will throw everything at her over that--she is dumb, she is infantile, she is not assertive, she didn't grow vegetables, she is selfish, she is a cry-baby, she is a bitch who slut-shamed Nesta (when?), she leeches off Feysand, she abandoned poor Nesta (when?), she is passive, she doesn't step up and blah, blah, blah.

Elain is a quiet, thoughtful characters, with hidden powers and a hidden strength. It becomes apparent when things get tough.

The problem, overall, is that SJM was never able to do justice to both Nesta and Elain. They remained somewhat underdeveloped characters and even though she's had plenty of opportunities, she keeps getting sidetracked and writes 100 pages of work out routines, instead of dedicated 50 of those pages to the sisters and their backgrounds and relationships.

But yeah, I don't think anything will change. Elain will remain hated. Maybe her book will eventually change some minds and hearts.

[yesimwriting]

Do you think Kirigan would go for soft girls or the ones that has the same personality as him?

a/n ahh okay ik ive been bad at updating and making content on here and been on a kinda unofficial break but im doing a little better mentally so more content soon!! anyways i had to answer this the SECOND i saw it bc i have SO many opinions.

--

okay,, this is going to sound like such a cop out answer, but i think there's no wrong answer bc it depends on how you interpret his character (which i'll explain really soon) but basically, in short, my personal opinion is that he'd go for a balance but be more drawn to someone that presents as one extreme and has the opposite hidden in them,,

personally, i think he'd be drawn to someone that presents as a 'soft' girl with a hidden 'darkness' in them, i don't mean like secretly evil but someone who wants to be good so badly but something in them is just a little too hurt or impulsive to always be the bigger person, even though they want to be.

Here's why I think that personality would draw him in most (i'll also explain the opposite personality bc like i said at the beginning, i think it really depends on how you interpret his character)

- okay, so it's clear that manipulation is kinda his love language (all he did was manipulate my girl Alina and i personally do think that that was the only way he was capable of loving her, so his issues weren't an absence of love but an inability to love in a healthy way--but that's just my opinion)

- so someone in that mental state that wants to be good and for the most part is but sometimes does foolish things bc they're human and have to deal with complex emotions (emotions that remind him of his personal struggles), would be really easy to manipulate bc he's clearly not an upstanding moral guy

- so when he tells someone with those internal conflicts that he sees seeds of darkness or something beyond the exterior they show the world, that person is inclined to believe him. (like when he tells alina that he saw her power and didn't run away, but can Mal say the same?)

- and after planting those seeds, he would be quick to reap them,, what do i mean by that??

- well, a major, personal headcanon of mine is that the Darkling definitely craves the acceptance and assurance of a partner to keep away the solitude that haunts him but he's afraid/hates the idea of losing control and giving someone so much one sided power over him

- so that's why he would be drawn to someone with a softer exterior for deeper connection purposes, bc he could feel like a protector/comforter and maintain some control (i also could very easily see him having an innocence/corruption kink but we're not here for that)

- also,, i think he'd see someone like that (or just his SO in general) as super good, and there would be some level of comfort in him to be able to look at his SO and be like 'they care for me/need me so i cant be that far gone, that lost' or maybe even be like 'if someone as good as them is allowed their impulses, i should be allowed mine'

- i also feel like he'd instinctually convince himself he HATES any 'soft presenting' person he's even somewhat attracted/intrigued by bc anything he sees as pure good he'd be at least a little jealous of in a way he doesn't understand (bc keep in mind, his darkness didnt come from a place of true malice originally)

- but i think he'd bore of someone that's completely soft just bc he's attracted to power bc even when he's not working on his plans, he is,, and if the potential SO doesn't have that power physically (as in political influence/grisha ability) he'd ideally need some strength of will/personality,, which is why he likes to press on that person's fear of being 'bad'

- he'd also like to prey on someone with this personality's fear of being a bad person so that he could feel better about himself bc like i said earlier,, a small part of him would be jealous of their goodness and i think at times he'd even be insecure

- especially if his SO started spending time with someone that's a better person than him bc he wants/needs to be the person that his SO cares about most bc it's not like he cares about a lot of ppl and if he cares more about them than they do about him,, that's not a type of control he'd be willing to relinquish

now why i think ppl could believe that he'd 'go for' someone with a similar exterior to him but has a secret soft inside:

- well,, that's basically him

- i believe opposites attract way more in complex characters (which is part of the reason i lean towards the first dynamic), but he could def be with someone with such a similar personality bc two people that crave power could create such a great couple

- first off, there would be a natural challenge there, bc the two could keep each other on edge and motivated (and victory/adrenaline of competition sex would hit hard,, let me tell you)

- he'd feel comfortable being himself a little more with someone that expresses the same level of ambitions as him and that would be easier than a relationship with someone that presents as soft

- tbh i think someone with a similar personality to him as his ideal hook up but for more serious connection,, he'd connect to someone softer bc they could give him approval/assurance he needs easier

- i think that a similar personality to him would keep him on his toes and entertained which is important and someone that's as driven as him would be beneficial for multiple reasons

- they could connect to him through his struggle and validate his actions

- and if that person had a soft spot,, he'd see even more of himself in them and he'd be able to feel like a protector a little more

- he'd def like to push at that softness in order to feel like his SO is important to him, even his SO is good at hiding that part of themselves

--

honestly the reason that how you view his character is so important in answering this question is bc it depends on whether you think that motivation/being pushed while still being needed is more important to him or being validated while still feeling like he's in control is more important to him.

but yeah,, in general i think he'd be drawn to softer girls but would end up going for girls more like him bc of more assured sexual chemistry and bc it puts him less at risk at opening up to anything beyond the face he wants the world to see