#why does every character have to be morally grey (if not straight up villainous)??? what if i dont want him to be like that? 🙂

[rucow]

saw too many ppl having awful takes on nerevar and voryn and the tribunal etc etc on twitter, so now im drawing soft sweet nerevoryn bc i can. im going to balance out all the negative energies in this fandom, one drawing at a time 🫶😊

[unknown-lifeform]

tseng and sephiroth for the character ask :)

Tseng

Sexuality Headcanon: probably some flavor of aromantic going on, like I do think he might feel romantically attracted to people from time to time but mainly he doesn't really notice

Gender Headcanon: I like him as the stealthiest trans man ever. Gender is an exercise in burying information and he is winning this

A ship I have with said character: I like to think that the Turks are all kind of lowkey involved in a general vague something that no one really wants to acknowledge or think too much about it. So I'm gonna go ahead and say all the other Turks

A BROTP I have with said character: Honestly I loved the hints we had of him interacting with Zack in Crisis Core, it felt like the least messy relationship Tseng got to have in the Compilation - with the Turks, he's the boss, with Rufus, he's a subordinate, with Aerith it's complicated at best, but it really felt he just liked Zack as a person. Maybe Rebirth will give us more of it, who knows

A NOTP I have with said character: I don't really like Tseng/Aerith, gotta say. I get the like basis behind it and why people ship it, but I prefer it as some kind of complex messy sorta friendship with a lot of difficult history

A random headcanon: I think it's funny if Tseng was the most well-rested person in Shinra. Like you see everyone there working overtime - whether it's actually working like Reeve, who honestly looks like he needs to sleep for 20 hours straight, or if it's their personal after hours fun like whatever Scarlet and Hojo are up to all the time. And Tseng does make a perfect candidate for overworked and exhausted to the bone with all the messes Turks without doubts need to deal with, right? But what if he wasn't. What if he gets his nice 8 hours of sleep every day and full meals and is just at peak physical performance all the time. People don't think he should be able to, that he should have way too much work for it, they always see him at the office, but Tseng is just magic like that. It's time to go to bed and he will go to bed

General Opinion over said character: he's a pretty enjoyable character overall, I like that since og we've had these hints that he's way more complex and caring than he lets on, I'm very into this whole morally grey villain thing he has. I never actually end up writing him or anything tho, I just find it hard to get a good grasp on him. Like he's enjoyable but at the same time he doesn't give me the same kind of serotonin supply other characters do, and he's just hard to work with on some level

Sephiroth

Sexuality Headcanon: gay but he himself almost doesn't notice. He's not interested in dating or sex for the sake of it and more often than not he himself doesn't notice what's going on, it's more like he just occasionally stumbles across someone he likes and he wouldn't quite call himself gay because for all he knows it might just be coincidence he ends up being into men

Gender Headcanon: tbh Sephiroth can be literally any gender imaginable, he has the range

A ship I have with said character: welcome to the Sefikura blog with the novel length Sefikura fic lmao. But also all of ASGZC is good

A BROTP I have with said character: in settings where I have only Sefikura as a ship going on, then I love friendship with Angeal, Genesis, or Zack. I also like Sephiroth and Aerith being besties but Sephiroth never admitting he may actually like being around her

A NOTP I have with said character: I'm fairly flexible when it comes to Sephiroth ships. I will say I tend not to read Sephiroth/Vincent because I'm a dad Vincent fan and that kind of informs my whole reading of their relationship, but since it's also just a theory I don't like overall care a lot

A random headcanon: thanks to his alien dna mix Sephiroth actually has ended up having a mild allergic reaction to some specific types of plants that normal human beings have 0 reaction to. I don't know what type of plant exactly, just that they're not common in Midgar and from time to time Sephiroth will come back from a mission with a mild rash on the exposed part of his chest and think it was just the leather chafing in a weird way. The Science Department could probably figure it out but Hojo is in too much denial to admit Sephiroth may have a puny human weakness like allergies

General Opinion over said character: before snapping he was a wonderfully complex character who was beaten over and over by the world around him and really just deserved a hug. After he went murder happy he became very entertaining and also extremely villain hot. 10/10 character he has it all

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

people going “well we can’t know! it’s so complicated and mysterious! you’re wrong for judging!” whenever a character does anything that isn’t morally pure is something I hate so fucking much bc not only do people often sprinkle in some good old fashioned real life victim blaming by trying to state that the action is so complicated and morally grey irl too even if it’s something like murdering someone for no reason but it’s also just like. bro why do you like this character if you think they’re so unknowable either the character is terribly written or you have negative media comprehension skills like even mysterious characters who don’t tell the truth a lot can be analysed? figure out the patterns, what they stay consistent about, what we know is a lie and what isn’t to figure out what else might be lies or might be truth, and you can easily figure out their basic personality and motivation. but like, that normally makes them flawed and sometimes horrible people and we're allergic to liking characters that aren’t morally good anymore i guess. you can’t even handle morally grey characters without trying to justify their every action as okay let alone straight up villains. hell, you can’t even handle heroes that fuck up once you either think they’re evil ontologically forever or argue that their fuck up was totally fine actually like. please realise you can enjoy media and analyse it without having to make everyone a one note goodie or baddie. and slapping on the label morally grey doesn’t fix it y'all don’t even know what that means.

[hard-times-paramore]

On the topic of Blade Runner's most controversial scene

-

TW for discussions of rape.

If you've seen Blade Runner, you probabbly remember the incredibly creepy "love" scene between Deckard and Rachael, who actually resembles sexual coercion.

The first thing to mention is that I'm not entirely sure a rape reading of the scene was intentional from the director's part. Every time I look it up on google, there isn't an answer to it, the sources just say Harrison Ford and Sean Young had no chemestry on set, which is why a tender, romantic love scene didn't work, and instead the producers told Harrison Ford to act more rough and shove her against the wall.

Perhaps this lack of intention, this utter oversight on how bad and straight up violent that whole scene came across, explains why it was never mentioned again, and it's lack of consequences for Deckard's character. In the end of the movie he meets again with Rachael and asks if she loves him, and trusts him, to which both questions are answered with "yes".

If the movie spends it's run portraying Deckard in the light of a troubled man, who dislikes the Blade Runner job for what it makes him do, to tell that, essentially, he has good intentions but is unable to fight back against the system, then why suddenly make him a rapist? Why say "he's a rapist but he means well"?

It might be that the scene just aged like milk left outside in the sun for a couple weeks, that in the 80s, love scenes were all about swooping women off their feet and men taking the initiative, etc. It might also be that Deckard was helping her acknowledge her own feelings, her own real emotions, something that makes a replicant just as real as a human, by not letting her run away.

It was awfully handled, though, and way too many people have caught onto how creepy it is for me to ignore it.

So in a "death of the author" case, where, even if the intentions of the scene weren't to be read as rape, it still was. What does it mean for the movie?

Well, it definitely does turns Deckard from "morally grey" to straight up a villain, even if he is the protagonist whose eyes we see the story through. He was on equal grounds to the replicants until that point - given the replicants also killed people. But if you analyze the context cues, after the rape scene, he sinks lower.

The replicants have killed both as a response from oppression - killing the crew of the ship they escaped from while off-world and killing anyone who goes after them - and also due to the lack of emotional experience that makes them so volatile in the first place. They are born adults, able to understand language and their jobs, but have no experience with anything else. Might be that they don't entirely understand the consequences of killing. Roy Batty grieves his own life and the lives of his group, and he does kill Sebastian without any self-defense reason, so he is indeed still morally ambiguous.

Meanwhile Deckard, if he is a rapist, was imposing control over a Replicant woman, reducing her to an object and dismissing her feelings, which draws a connection to women to replicants to objects, and proves the movie's point that what happens to the replicants isn't fair. But also means what you previously thought was a well-meaning jerk has now been recontextualized, specially with his relationship with women and the replicants he apparently felt bad for hunting. Specially in the scenes he interacts with them, such as when he covertly interrogates Zohra as she's getting dressed, or when he asks Rachael if she loves him.

It might be that Rachael stayed in his apartment because, being hunted, she had nowhere else to go. It might have been that she told him she loved him in fear of what he would do if she said no. She has been stripped of agency, and is tied to her abuser by necessity, for fear of her own safety.

Or it might be that Deckard isn't a rapist at all, that the scene was consensual, and by the end of the movie they are in love and together in a "us against the world" way. The way his entire character, and really, a lot of the movie is contextualized hangs in the interpretation of that scene.

-

And yet the sequel, 2049, seems to have gone the first route, that Deckard and Rachael really were in love and the scene just aged badly. That opens interpretations for the sequel too. Maybe it tried to right the wrongs of the first movie by saying the scene was consensual. In my sincere opinion, it only made it worse. Because, intentions of the director aside, there's no way that wasn't a rape.

If you interprete it as being rape, then it means Deckard is still the same piece of shit as years before, didn't evolve or grow at all, and thinks he was in the right. But that would mean terrible things for Blade Runner 2049, as Deckard was portrayed as a hero in the movie.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

FR im glad that probably won’t happen for a while for BLLK since there’s still a lot of material that needs to be made before it can be over…

THATS WHAT I SAID??? I wanna know what editor sat through reading it and approved it for publication like??? And what compels people to put this out there like….imagine having to see this in a bookstore like oh my

Ooooh you’re so right…I think it was the hype from s1 and the gap in between the release (plus the movie!! Almost forgot that existed) that really built up s2 especially since the beginning was very gojo centric….speaking of I almost forgot you consume jjk too, are you caught up with the manga? I have some thoughts…(only some because although I’m technically caught up I got so confused for a very large chunk of it that I barely pieced together what happened for a good section…)

So real he’s way too yolo for the elite life!! He would not give af about social status or keeping up the status quo, maintaining reputations etc. LOL Something about yuki always having some position of status in the social hierarchy as like a side character is something I love like….no wonder he’s a model in canon he definitely gives off these really poised elegant vibes like he is DEFINITELY a noble I’m very excited to see the diff dynamics in hollyhock!!!

Morally grey assholes are my personal fav LMAOO when I first read that y/n offers up hiiragi I was like rubbing my hands together (there needs to be a better phrase for this?? Like when villains go hehehe and rub their hands together ykwim?) I love the way y/n isn’t your cliche mc where she just seduces Otoya on spot or something I CHEERED when I read that like let’s go??? I’m so excited to see her selfish side like I feel like in these settings it’s such a unique way to go about the mc?? I remember watching/reading some series with more historical settings (like my happy marriage which I mean. It’s a romance so I guess I should’ve expected it LOL) but the mc is usually very…submissive…? I get how that fits into the contexts of the time too (eugh misogyny) but it’s refreshing to see more bold characters than your token shoujo protag LOL

Also every time you write Itoshi bros crossed out I giggle LMAO honestly yeah their tag is alive and kicking comparatively too and I do see many similar if not identical tropes and prompts (no hate to any of the writers because I have found some gems in there too! Just bc of their popularity and characters very susceptible to similar tropes and ideas lolol)

We love a writer that does research?? I’ll speak on behalf of all your readers when I say we definitely feel the effort you pour in <3 everything’s thought out so nicely I love how your stories develop!!

Umm speaking of developing SLOW BURN I’m a SUCKER for slow burn maybe that’s also why I love your writing too…I feel like you give the story and characters proper time to develop and evolve without rushing them through to a conclusion which makes it sm nicer honestly….like even if some pieces have more open endings I feel like the stories are much more complete because it felt sometimes more slow burn esque? Compared to just jumping straight into a relationship after a few sentences or something

AWW ILL BE YOUR NUMBER ONE YAPPER HAHA It’s honestly hard not to get invested like I need to know what happens next…this kinda just piggy backs off the paragraph above this one LOL also side characters ALWAYS grow on me like it’s a given and BLLK has so many interesting ones ill gladly absorb more content for them…so trust I’m not going anywhere soon!! (Also I think YOURE the one doing the Otoya nation a great service LMAOO)

-Karasu anon

nah because that got APPROVED LMAOAAO maybe the author self-published it?? idk i guess everything has a niche audience so maybe some people are into that…

yes i am all caught up!! i keep up w leaks too so i know everything that’s going on. to be honest i don’t 100% love how the story’s been going and i def have felt my interest in jjk waning as of late but i’m sure gege has some kind of end game planned that will be interesting. reading weekly has def been disheartening as it’s hard to invest when the same fight has been going on for SO long yk?? i feel like things that would’ve gotten me hyped before now just feel like…okay…like not enough is happening chapter to chapter or smth idk. once the arc is finished and it’s animated i’m hoping the pacing feels a bit more natural!!

YES otoya is almost like irreverent i think?? he’s not immature but he just truly does not care he’s doing his own thing. whereas karasu is very concerned w what people think of him and yuki has an innate classiness and dignity to him so i think they could pull off the noble vibe well. though quite honestly karasu gives me more knight/samurai (in this au) vibes — still a fighter, but a more honorable one who has a moral code he strictly follows compared to otoya’s willingness to do wtvr

MORALLY GREY CHARACTERS WHO ARE ACTUALLY MORALLY GREY MY BELOVED 💖 oh yeah 100% if i was going a bit more cliche i could’ve had y/n try to seduce him or smth but i tried to avoid that (although eita does make one slight joke of a sexual nature during their convo but he’s just being goofy so i think it’s okay) as i really wanted to set her up as someone who’s not afraid of being brutal/ruthless to get what she wants. and i agree there’s a lot of more subdued fmc in historical aus but honestly it’s an au so why not give my female characters agency??? i’ve def written the more stereotypically “weak” fmc before but i didn’t want to go that route this time given who she’s inspired by. plus a lot of it is rooted in westernization i think — people view the history of other countries through a european lens when a lot of the time that doesn’t apply. for example y/n being a bastard wouldn’t be a huge problem in japanese society as bastards/cheating were actually relatively common back then!! and even accepted…if a lord didn’t have legitimate heirs he would adopt his bastards and that was that 🤷🏻‍♀️ that’s why y/n being “cursed” and the daughter of a maid, as well as reiji being the legitimate heir, is important to her backstory and why she suffers in the way she does, as well as an explanation for some of her later actions. in a european-based story, just being a bastard would be enough of an explanation for all of that, but in something based on sengoku-era japan, there needs to be further context. but also even setting that aside if i can have ninjas in my story (who i am trying to keep more accurate than their general portrayal in fiction but i’m still going to take liberties with) then why not a ruthless selfish fmc who goes to war and takes over the kingdom?? anyways there’s records of empresses in japan, china, and korea alike, so long story short i think that writing y/n like this makes sense and is about as historically accurate as the rest of it, so why not?? plus it makes for a more fun story

HAHAHA the itoshi bros are like the only bllk characters who i see with a tonnn of fics!! the others don’t have quite as many (although kaiser is getting up there i think). i do think that a lot of the stories have similar tropes due to the nature of the characters…they both feel like very “stuck” characters in that you can’t do too much w them or change them a lot — they’re so into soccer that putting them in an au for example would fundamentally change their characters, so you most likely won’t catch me writing more than a one shot or two abt them. whereas as we’ve discussed tabieitaken, kaiser, nagireo, and even hiori all feel like they have characters outside of soccer so it’s easier to put them in other scenarios and play around with how they’d react to them

I LOVEEEE A GOOD SLOWBURN!! even stories where the characters get together quickly in terms of time i try to really show the buildup. i always want the relationships i write about to feel believable, so i need to write every step of them falling in love or else it doesn’t feel accurate to me. that’s actually an issue i had with peregrine — because it started in the future, after that buildup, i felt weird writing nagi being in love w the mc because it didn’t feel “earned” yet.

oh you can never keep me from my research LMAOAO i’ll take any excuse to do it!! even white butterfly had me googling the flora and fauna of japanese fields to ensure i didn’t mention any animals that wouldn’t natively live in y/n and hiori’s field HAHA

OMG YAYYY I’M GLAD TO HAVE YOU!! i agree side characters always end up growing on me and the bllk ones especially there’s just so many i love and am constantly chatting about…proud to be supporting the otoya nation 🫡 i’m hoping we get a few members of otoya nation and karasu nation alike after season 2 (and yuki nation even though i don’t talk abt him hardly as much as i do abt tabieita)

also i did see your request posts hehe let me finish up my current karasu one shot and a couple of my event requests and then i will get to them 💖 i loved all of your ideas though!!

[girl4music]

Once More, With Feeling’ allows all the characters to confess truthfully with the exception of Willow because Willow doesn’t believe she needs to confess anything. She doesn’t think she is in the wrong for what she does to both Buffy and Tara until Buffy and Tara straight up tell her that she is. Willow is completely oblivious to her own abusive and manipulative behaviour towards her loved ones. To her, the intention is to help them, to make things better between them… 

So Willow doesn’t get a song of confession or honesty not just because Alyson Hannigan can’t sing and they didn’t wanna dub her, but because she doesn’t think she needs to confess anything. It’s not wrong to her until she’s told that it is. And even then, she still doesn’t really understand why it is. Willow is self-entitled. So it’s hard for her to grasp why her willow-ing situations is a selfish or wrongful act. She also doesn’t get to duet with Tara because Tara’s love song is about how Willow has affected her character. It’s not meant to be a love song between the both of them. Just Tara’s love song. Kinda ironic that this character is called Willow and almost her entire arc is about her “willing” things her way. Or clever. It’s an appropriate name. And her nickname is shortened to 'Will’. Even better. This character’s arc is all about having her “Will” be done. 

Similar to Warren or Glory or even Spike to some degree, although he is well aware that he is being selfish and wrong and evil. Willow doesn’t get it. She gets it with other characters but not herself. It’s not the same to her. 

GILES: “Oh, there are others in this world who can do what you did. You just don’t want to meet them.” 

WILLOW: “No, probably not, but… well, they’re the bad guys. I’m not a bad guy.” 

They say there is no BIG BAD of Season 6... but to me... Willow is absolutely the BIG BAD of Season 6. I refuse to believe otherwise. Yes, I love the character. I also love my mother. I’m still not going to excuse her mistreatment of me because I love her. It doesn’t work that way. People have to be called out for what they are and what they do regardless of the relation. People that have no handbrakes on their behaviour are the hardest to convince of being in the wrong for it because to them it’s not wrong to behave that way. And when they’re called out - they immediately go on the defensive and they turn it around to them being the ones violated or victimized. Gaslighters, manipulators, abusers are all like this. All act like this. And in Season 6, Willow is so powerful and so self-entitled that she believes that every time she is attacked by her loved ones for her behaviour it’s either because they’re jealous of her or they don’t understand her. 

That they’re making her the villain. 

But the truth is that she is the villain! 

And she doesn’t recognize that. Of course she doesn’t. Her egomania won’t allow her to recognize it. Only in others. And of course - she doesn’t start out that way. She’s a very good and gentle-natured person. But the seeds are there - and all it takes is one bad day for them to grow into full embodiments of violence and destruction. That is Willow’s arc. That’s why she’s such a profound character in the Buffyverse - or, in my opinion, all of TV history. She’s a flawed character that is allowed to be a flawed character. She's very quietly morally grey and I absolutely love her for that. 

[the-crimson]

With Dream’s new lore video I hope people will stop trying to excuse c!Dream’s actions or calling him “morally gray”. This boi is evil. Full stop. And you know what I LOVE THAT for him. This is a post I’d been considering making for a while and the new lore drop gave me the motivation.

All discussion about the character not the content creator.

The Dream SMP is a story filled to the brim with morally gray protagonists and antagonists who are the heroes of their own stories. That is awesome and gives for a lot of really in depth discussions between the fans and interesting conflicts between the characters. However, when creating a narrative like this with so many morally gray characters, there is one plot device that is necessary to highlight just how grey these characters are: A Pure Evil Villain. Which is the role that Dream has grown to fulfill after Shlatt hit the bucket.

Now, I’m going to say this here. Watching Dream be evil and run around the server causing chaos is my favorite thing. It’s the same reason why people watch Death Note or enjoy classical Disney Villains. Sometimes... watching fictional characters do unapologetic evil... is fun.

What gets unfun is when people try to justify his actions or call him “morally grey”. No. He isn’t. He is my evil little meow meow who enjoys committing war crimes. You are allowed to enjoy watching fictional villains do their villainy. A lot of villains are written specifically so that the audience is enthralled by them and enjoy watching them reap chaos- but you are not supposed to root for them or justify their actions (unless the heroes are really insufferable lol)

In my mind, Dream is equivalent to a classical Disney renaissance villain. He certainly has the villainous pinash, charisma, and queer coding for it. These villains are extremely enjoyable and have a wonderful stage presence but in the end, you can’t wait for them to hit that third act breakdown and fall apart.

All the apologists trying to justify his actions are missing the point of Dream as a character. He, a pure evil villain, is meant to highlight how morally gray everyone else is. Every single person on the server has committed war crimes and hurt other people so how do you determine who is good and who is bad? Well, you put them up against someone who consistently and unapologetically abuses, manipulates, tortures, and straight up murders people for his own goals with no tragic backstory or sympathetic motivation in sight.

That is why you have duos like Azula and Ozai in ATLA or Hordak and Hord Prime in SPOP. You have an extremely complicated and morally gray villain working right next to a pure evil villain to highlight just how complex one is, and how evil the other is. In the case of the dsmp, that duo has changed over time but right now it seems to be Punz and Dream. Punz, a morally gray character who we have seen waver but remains loyal to Dream and his goals.

In the end, Dream is my favorite* character because he is a pure evil villain and that is incredibly FUN to watch. Stop worrying about morality and sit back to enjoy the ride.

*I love many of the characters equally but evil Dream squeaks ahead by a sliver because he is just so fun to watch and I can’t wait to see what fucked up evil thing he does next.

[maeshmallo]

so i folded and binge-read lore olympus

im just gonna talk about it cause im bored and there’s stuff i wanna discuss about it. i’ve always been in love with the hades x persephone story (the first version i read was consensual so that’s the one that resonates with me the most) 

im gonna start with the good stuff

- i love the animation! the colours are so fun and cool and i like how captivating they are, and the pink of persephone and blue of hades works well together

- i like that the time frame of olympus and the underworld is expedited compared to the modern world, that’s really neat

- the comedic timing is spot on, both the dialogue and animation can be so great and make me laugh to tears

- hades and persphone’s moments can be so tender and sweet, one scene between them that just sticks with me is when they are cooking together, or the first time she asked the names of his dogs and he lit up. they are so soft for each other and it makes my heart so so warm ;-; and i like their banter too

- i like hermes, and artemis, and eros, and basically everybody who’s become a friend in this series, they’re great (ares is an honourable mention bc he’s funny with amazing character design imo)

- the fact that therapy is a thing here??? pls they all need it omg 

- the exploration of cycles in different extremes (the cycle of fertility goddesses being used for power, having shitty people around you in turn making you shitty to those you love, the fear of becoming one’s parents, etc)

- i like that none of the characters are “good” or “bad”. as it goes with deities, they are as morally grey as you can get especially in regard to mortals. (with the exception of apollo. i hate his character.)

- i appreciate the discussion of boundaries between hades and persephone, letting fluffy moments just be fluffy and sweet

- their relationship in general has very sweet moments and warms my heart a lot of times

- honourable mentions: baby hades being very worrisome for such a small boy, hades with his stars, hades with his crowns and earrings, hades with his little glasses, hades’ scars. hades. 💕 

all in all, it’s a very fun read with many intriguing and cool themes that I love and i’m excited to see how it is concluded

now for critiques 

- why did persephone have to be 19/20??? not 119, not 190, that young compared to everyone around her??? i mean even though on our (mortal) terms, she is legal and perfectly capable of making her own decisions. but the issue within most age gap relationships is not primarily the difference in years itself, but the difference in mindset and stages of life (a relationship between a 14 and 18 year old is vastly different from a relationship between a 30 and 34 year old). there doesnt seem to be a point to make her so young and then pair her with a being literally older than death itself, ya know? but that’s just me 

- not necesarrily the characters, but more so the reactions to them. why is it that hades, modeled to be a capitalist business owner that keeps the dead souls as slaves and does things that are so cruel (i.e tear out some kids eye for a photograph or threaten an employee for asking for ID) is seen as a precious baby that can do no wrong?? now please understand that I love his character, I adore him!!! but he is no baby, and there is nothing stranger than seeing a morally grey character or straight up villain (who doesnt love a good villain every now and again amirite) be coddled and have excuses made for them while their female counterparts are villainized for the same or lesser offenses, which brings me to my next point

- minthe. she is no saint, and i dont like her all that much. she was petty and catty, and an awful and cruel partner towards hades. however, she is complex in that we see her internal monologue and can see that most of these things come from a place of insecurity and deep rooted issues with herself. not to excuse her behaviour because it is all very immature and lame, but i hope to see an arc from her that allows growth and letting go of being forced to see herself as nothing more than a trashy nymph. and learning to apologize properly

- also why was it funny when hecate smacked him across the face like three times but a crime when minthe hit him upside the head. my point is both were bad, but one gets forgotten and forgiven. 

- man why is persephone drawn so mf tiny? i mean it’s cool to be short, but in some frames she’s legit at his waist which is a bit odd since you’re kind of already toeing the line of what is appropriate and what isn’t in their relationship (employer/employee relationship, extreme age difference, somewhat childish nature). i cant lie this feels nitpicky but it’s just so jarring everytime i see it combined with everything else, ya know??

- i dont know if the apollo incident was necessary. i feel the story would have been the same if had just been a pushy jerk trying to marry persephone because she is a fertility goddess for his own advantage. it was just an awful thing that provides very little substance to the plot and made me struggle to read it.

- im still a bit lost on where we are with what’s going on with persephone. when she goes into her “death bringer” state, why does it seem like she’s been possessed instead of it being embraced as who she is? i’d like to see her gain more control of these powers and maybe trained properly by someone so that the next time they are used, they are used with intent and purpose.

- lastly, why is persephone’s growth being stifled? we see her make mistakes, and fall short in certain areas, but i would also like to see her excercise agency and fix things for herself. we only got to see a glimpse of that, but i want more so that she can figure out for herself what and who exactly she is and what she wants without having to think about others and what they need from her. if she is to become the queen of the underworld we want her to be, she doesn’t need to be coddled all the time.

if there is anything more to be added to the conversation, pls feel free too!! i like conversation and this is an interesting topic!

[dylanobrienisbatman]

Omg give us ur rant abt hating d*rklina as a ship.. im petty

Okay Anon, so i saw this the other day and I wasn't in the right headspace to answer but i am now!

So to start off, I am firmly in the ship and let ship category. You like a ship, i don't care. That doesn't mean i won't rag on the ship itself but I don't send hate, I don't really engage with shippers from ships I don't like, and I am liberal with the block button and the blacklist feature. Cultivate your tumblr/online experience, y'all. You don't owe anyone on this hellsite (or any other) a damn thing.

However, I REALLY do hate d*rklina as a ship, and I have a big problem with the way the shippers talk about it, so I hope you were being serious about wanting a rant because here it goes.

As for the ship itself, i feel like the reasons I dislike it are pretty obvious and standard. It's abusive. He is her abuser. He manipulates her. He spends months grooming her and gaslighting her, intentionally trying to get her under his control so that when he literally enslaves her it will go over easier. He never actually loved her, he wanted to use her for her power. It's not complicated, it's not really 'up for debate', that is the way its written, and the author has explained that that was the intended interpretation of her work. I mean he literally sexually assaults her in the second book, and straight up tells her he's going to kill everyone she loves so that she has no choice but to fall to him because she is completely alone in the world. He threatens to skin her alive in the second book when they're on the boat, he has no problem torturing her to get Mal to do what he wants. That's not love. He does not love her. It's pretty black and white, its explicitly written as an abusive relationship. The point was to show how easily powerful men can manipulate and abuse young naive women who don't know any better and try to see the best in people. Alina 'fell' for the version of Darkles Sparkles that he intentionally created to try to control her. Nothing he told her was true, from his backstory, to them both being 'the only one like [each other]' (hello, baghra), to using Genya to convince Alina that Mal had abandoned her, everything he did was manipulation so that he could get her under his control. It is not a romance, it is not 'a ship war', d*rklina is not written as romantic. He is her abuser. Full stop.

There is also the point about him being just a generally horrible person all around. He's not morally grey. He just isn't. He sold an 11 year old into sex slavery, forced her to stay in that situation so he could use her, and then mutilated her when she defied him. He also groomed and abused Zoya, because he saw that she was exceptionally powerful and wanted to use her the way he wanted to use Alina. He enslaved Alina. He blinded and mutilated his own mother. He is a genocidal maniac. He shows no remorse, he doesn't care about anyone but himself and his own power. He is not the type of character that should be romantically shipped with anyone. If you like him, that's absolutely fine! One of my fave characters ever is Kai Parker from TVD. Dude was a straight up psychopath. He tried to kill multiple pairs of toddlers. He brutally murdered his pregnant sister AT HER WEDDING. He is a HORRIBLE person. But I think he's a brilliant character. But do I think he's a good guy, do I want him anywhere near any characters in that show in a romantic way (ehem b*nkai)? Absolutely fucking not. Being a fan of a villain character is fine, but fucking own that shit. Villains can be SUCH good characters, but they're still villains. Erasing the bad they've done so you can justify putting them in situations where they WILL harm the people around them because you can't level with yourself about the bad things they've done doesn't make you 'woke', it just makes you look like you don't understand the media you're consuming.

Which leads me to why I have such a problem with the way D*rklina shippers engage with the ship. They simultaneously wanna say "oh we know it's toxic/bad/abusive/etc., that's why we like it!" and then also they try to claim that it should be endgame, they romanticize scenes where he is abusing her (and by romanticize I mean they literally try to frame his abuse as romantic, not like "oh yeah my ship is interacting!!". those are different things. You can be excited about ship interactions without trying to say that things he is doing to her are actually romantic), they try to argue that he is morally grey/misunderstood/etc., and they straight up try to lie and say he's not her abuser.

If you wanna ship an abusive ship, own it. Be straight up about why you like it. It's okay to be into dark shit, y'all. It does NOT make you a bad person to be into dark shit. But this idea that fiction doesn't impact real life, and that people can't call the ship out for what it is is a problem is a very troubling trend in fandom. Nobody is saying you can't ship it, do what you want. But this idea that these people are 'oppressed' because fans of the show/book continue to point out the facts about the way the story was written and how the relationship is actually presented is fucking insane. Someone saying that D*rklina is abusive is not calling you out, they are stating a fact. It's the story as it was presented. You trying to say it's not makes it look like you have no reading comprehension. And this idea that 'well i'll be on the lookout for evil shadow wizards in real life lol' is such horse shit too. His shadow wizard powers aren't the issue. He is a powerful man who grooms and abuses young women. You're telling me you lived through the Me Too movement and you wanna act like thats not a real threat that young women face every day? You're telling me that you can't see that the actual real life connection you're supposed to be making here? Okay, well you should maybe deal with that and come back to me, because that's an issue.

Fiction is meant to teach us lessons. Darkles is meant to teach us something. He is meant to show us that sometimes, powerful men lie to, manipulate, groom, and abuse young women, and we should be aware of that. The story is about a young woman who is sucked into an abusive situation, and then she breaks free and in the end she is able to defeat her abuser. That is a really powerful story, and one that millions of real life women can relate too. To pretend that that story doesn't have real life connections makes you look insensitive and frankly, kind of cruel.

So basically, in the end, my biggest issue is that D*rklina shippers love to spout this nonsense about 'knowing' it's bad and that he's a villain, and 'that's why they like him', and then turn around and try to say that he's not actually the villain, he's not actually bad, and the things he does to Alina that are abuse are actually romantic and sweet. You wanna ship an abusive ship, you do you, but lets not pretend it's anything other than what it is, but romanticizing and normalizing abuse tactics so you can feel, what? morally superior? Cool? edgy and different? That has real life impacts. You are normalizing abuse. Real people will engage with that rhetoric, and it will make it difficult for them to see abuse when it happens to them or the people around them because they believe its romantic or normal to be treated that way.

You wanna be a villain stan? You wanna ship dark ships? Good on ya, but fucking own your shit, y'all.

[madame-mongoose]

saw the oc asks and immediately jumped in here for my regular dose of your amazing ocs >:D

17, 18, 19, & 20 for The Librarian because I’m obsessed with them

17. First that came to mind is cynic. He's a downer but in the practical rather than emotional sense. Sees the possibility of bad in everything but still gets blindsided when bad things happen. Second, they're an "alien" with a british accent. Why do they have one? It's funny teehee. Third and fourth is a double whammy!! Anti Villain with a side of and then what? He's a villain but like not really? His motivations make sense and morally grey. But also what will he do if he DOES escape? They've spent so much time thinking of how to get out of the Library they haven't even considered the after. Lastly a pinch of can't live with them can't live without em with Zekira!! He hates her guts at first but when she leaves he feels so so lonely. They won't admit it but Zeki is their bestie

18. OUGH I'd love to meet Barry dude!!! I would tease him like no tomorrow and I'd peck his cheek and piss him off. Like!! Barry I'm just a little guy you wouldn't hurt a little guy!! I'd also probably vent to them bc Barry is a very good listener and very practical in their problem solving which is something I'd appreciate

19. Oh he'd kill me for sure. Like no question about it. I'd tell him I stuffed him in the library and pulled that shit with Zekira and he'd straight up end my life. What's the point of having an oc if they wouldn't want to kill you if they knew of your existence

20. OH THIS IS A FUN ONE!!! SO originally Barry was a whole ass different character. He was actually a lightning elemental demon that was (somehow) related to Zekira!! He was banished into this mirror dimension (literally it was a room that stretched forever just full of different mirrors that showed the reflections of every living person) and was trying to escape and wreck havoc. I thought I had some art of this but apparently I don't!! It was only recently that I completely overhauled his character into something basically unrecognizable to the original concept

[smp-live]

Was scrolling through c!Wilbur crit blogs again and it got me thinking about why exactly I argue in favour of him so much so here’s a random ramble (that got long) about it:

Most c!Wilbur critics (at least, in the tag, not directly post-lore stream. The ones that do actual analysis on him) are like... really reasonable about it, actually, lmao. Like it’s mostly just calling him a bad person because of power hunger/manipulation/being a bad dad/whatever else. (Not talking about antis. I mean people who are really critical of him, but recognize that he’s a well-crafted character with nuance.)

Which I agree with! I consider myself an apologist, my writing and analysis leans really sympathetic, and I still agree that he’s a shitty rat bastard that I would run far away from irl. Even at the beginning of the story, he’s very morally grey, sometimes using underhanded persuasion tactics, doing ehh things like stealing, and it only gets worse from there.

But on the other hand, he’s... not that bad. Like I saw one person say about c!Dream, “My reaction to most critique of him is... so what?” and that’s how I feel about c!Wilbur, I suppose. Yeah, he tried to rig an election - but it was a last-ditch effort at not going full dictator, he didn’t follow through, and later on he - in part - decided to blow it up because they couldn’t get it back while being democratic. And yeah, he manipulated people - all in all, it wasn’t really really bad things, mostly to paint himself in a better light because of his insecurities, and people sometimes fall into manipulative language without even outwardly realizing that it’s a shitty thing to do. Of course, that shows a bigger underlying problem in their mindset and the way they interpret relationships and possession, but then that’s a different discussion - and definitely one that applies to c!Wilbur.

(Not saying he doesn’t ever intentionally manipulate people. I think that a. sometimes it might be accidental, (”If you wanna be President you’re gonna have to get on my good side,” mans was Not thinking straight,) and b. other times he falls into old habits/coping mechanisms that happen to be manipulation, (Tommy at Las Nevadas.) Other than the election and maybe some times in the early founding of L’Manberg, I can’t think of any moments where I’m like, “Yeah, he is Purposefully Manipulating here.” And even then, it just doesn’t strike me as a terrible thing. People manipulate, it’s a thing they do. That’s it. A morally grey action.)

And I think the majority of the reason I make more posts painting him in a positive light and don’t really discuss my critique of him is because it feels like the fandom has an overwhelming bias of hatred/crit, even if a lot of that isn’t, y’know, proper analysis of his character. I instinctively want to balance it out for this character I love/relate to, because a lot of what I see straight-up ignores the lighter side of his moral-greyness.

Like, a while back, I posted a couple clips from late-election arc, of Wilbur talking about how he feels about Fundy siding with Quackity and against him. And the way I initially saw it while watching was, “Okay. He feels betrayed by his son who disagrees with his politics - and thus, him as a person, because your politics are a reflection of your identity, especially in Wilbur’s mind - and it’s perfectly understandable that he’d want to vent about that in private to a close friend. On the other hand, he should be able to recognize that Fundy’s allowed to be his own person and shouldn’t be babied. Fundy is in the right, here, but Wilbur’s feelings shouldn’t be dismissed.”

But then 90% of the tags were just straight-up hate for c!Wilbur, going as far as to say that he should die again. (And this was after we found out how bad the afterlife was for him.) That fucking floored me. I just couldn’t understand how they took this nuanced character aching for ‘the son he knew’ back (hm. very similar to c!Phil, actually) and turned it into ‘wow. This suicidal man sucks and should maybe die.’ I was so close to making a post defending him before realizing - I was letting fandom bias against a character push me further onto the sympathetic side.

And that’s such a fuckin’ weird thing to have happen, because you’d think that exposure to negativity about a character would make you feel more negative about them? But without fail, every time I scroll through the crit tag, or read a critical post about c!Wilbur/L’Manberg, I maybe lean a bit more towards that side for a few hours before swinging back hard onto the apologist side. Because a lot of the critique, to me, is really just, “so what?” after I let it stew a bit.

Then there’s the whole mental health issue. Obviously it doesn’t excuse the shit he did - I know people who have been in the middle of breakdowns and the stuff they say still fucking hurts, even if they didn’t truly mean it. But recognizing that he needs help? That for pretty much all his time on-screen, he was depressed and paranoid, which obviously affects the way he acts? That’s obvious. And were he in the position to get professional help - which he deserves - everything would be much better off. That’s the root of my apologism, I think: He deserves to get better. He’s not inherently evil, or bad, just a fucked up little man who’s ruined his own life and needs help. I want to see him, specifically him, get better.

Narratively, his punishment has been extreme and disproportionate. Every mistake, every choice - good or bad - has led to suffering, on his part. Start a fun little rebellion, maybe to gain some power? War and betrayal. Declare an election to consolidate said power? Lose, and get exiled. Blow up a nation? Die, and even in the afterlife, he can't catch a break. Purely as a sympathetic human, it feels like he deserves to rest. Deserves to heal.

But even medicated and less anxious, or going to therapy for his neuroticism and depression, or whatever, he still would be quite morally grey. A lot of his manipulation, his power hunger, comes from this neuroticism; from needing to feel safe and needed, (just like Quackity.) Not all of it, though. He’d still have his unhealthy ideals about relationships and possession, for example. Less prominent, sure, but still there. Some people, I feel, discount how tied up with his mental illness it is, while others don’t really recognize that it’s also a personality problem. Like, changing those beliefs is changing part of who he fundamentally is, as a person.

Actually, I think the c!Wilbur apologist community, in general, tends to scapegoat his mental illness a little too much? Not in that we explain his actions with it or ask people not to villainize it, (although sometimes I feel that what we call villainizing mental illness is a bit excessive, but it’s not my place to talk about that as someone who doesn’t really relate to Pogtopia!Wilbur,) but in that we use it in discussions a lot. Which is fair, because it permeates every single aspect of his character, but even without it he’d have toxic traits? Like his possessiveness is not purely a byproduct of his mental illness, imo. Nor is his treatment of Fundy. It’s amplified by it, surely, but that little seed of it is there in the first place. Just as c!Dream’s abuse needs to be addressed as a central part of his character, c!Wilbur’s possessiveness does too - and also outside of the context of their mental health, because they’re both brought on by an internal personality flaw, some fucked-up belief, if that makes sense.

As I said before: c!Wilbur is a mess of a human being that I would hate if I actually met. (irl I would’ve been a SWAG supporter, based on policies, but since this is fiction, I was POG.) But because he’s a character, that flies out the window, and I can love him - not even just as a character, in the sense that I appreciate he’s well-crafted, but in terms of personality and all that shit, while recognizing he’s a kinda crappy guy. Because he’s a character. That’s the fun of it.

[lassieposting]

Bit late and random but it's the anon you leave food out for here to give away I am also bi and I think exactly the same as you about bi val pretty much, every time Derek offers me representation my reaction is to slowly, hesitantly take it and say "thaaaaaaaaanks..." while rolling my eyes, in much the same way one accepts their least favourite flavour of sweet from an annoyingly enthusiastic uncle-type-individual. Ironically I feel I had more in common with her before the bi shit started up.

What I find really amusing is that Landy actually did reasonably well at representation when (and only when) he wasn’t trying. 

Oh god, this got long, anon, my ass rambled.

tldr; I'm glad actual bi people dislike bi val (or how Laundry handled bi val) as much as me, this will probably offend at least one person but i don't really care, Dirty Laundry wrote better rep when he didn't mean to write rep at all, and if he ever starts trying to "represent" groups I'm part of I'll take him out back like a dying horse and shoot him.

Like, yes. He had stupid and potentially offensive shit - I say potentially because what offends one member of a group won’t necessarily offend all of them. His attitude to mentally ill people is, frankly, disgusting. We’ve had “Skulduggery can’t be abused, he doesn’t have feelings”. We’ve had “eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY”. We had Ping, who seemed to be pretty much universally offensive. And that's what's always going to happen when a straight, cis, white, wealthy, male author tries to write marginalised groups he doesn't know shit about, because inevitably he's going to fall back on stereotypes.

But we also had:

SEXUALITY REP: Phase One's nonstraight characters were treated like the straight ones, and like, isn't that the whole point? There was no need for a massive Coming Out Story TM to grab for those sweet sweet Woke Points, because sexuality isn't supposed to be important to mages. I never understood why Val needed that whole Coming Out Panic storyline. Like...Des and Melissa are ridiculously supportive, encouraging, loving parents. They accepted you dating a ~19 year old when you were ~16. They accepted you revealing you could do fucking magic and that you'd been lying to them for like seven years. They took your undead buddy in stride and the most pressing question your dad had was whether magic toilets exist. There is zero reason to think that "I'm bisexual" is gonna be the thing that makes them flip and throw you into the streets in disgrace, Valkyrie. Come on.

Tanith had girlfriends and it was just mentioned casually, because it's normal.

China had massive UST with Eliza. That was an opportunity right there to not only include a f/f relationship, but also to bring back one of the few precious surviving characters from Phase One, using characters and a relationship that already had several books' worth of setup and tension and interest from fans.

The Monster Hunters have a casual conversation about which one of the Dead Men they'd date.

Ghastly has a conversation with Fletcher about the pain he's been through being in love. He never uses any pronouns.

It was confirmed at one point re: the Dead Men that at this point, after 300-odd years, everyone's been with everyone else at some point.

Thrasher is gay, and while Scapegrace's...everything...is treated as a joke/comedic relief, Thrasher's love for him isn't. He's completely devoted to Scapegrace, and that in itself is not played for laughs, even though the rest of the scene usually is. Thrasher's description of their first meeting is essentially a love-at-first-sight situation for him.

"ABNORMAL" RELATIONSHIP REP: Age gap relationships are normal for mages. Off the top of my head, using only canon, canon-implied or almost-canon ships:

Ghastly/Tanith (~350 year age difference)

Tanith/Sanguine (~250+ year age difference)

Tanith/Saracen (~350 year age difference)

Caisson/Solace (~250 year age difference)

China/Gordon (~400 year age difference)

Kierre/Temper (~500+ year age difference)

If you include fan ships, there's also things like Mevolent/Serpine or my Mevolent/Vile, which are both ~600 year minimum age gaps based on the timeline, or Valdug (and its variations) which is ~400 years.

Now, whether you consider this kind of rep positive or negative is up to you, but it’s there.

MENTAL ILLNESS REP: more like "Which characters in this series don't have a mental illness or a personality disorder?" I have some of these issues, but not all of them, so this is just how I read it, but:

ADHD: Skulduggery

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Skulduggery & Vile

Dissociation: Skulduggery again, most notably in DD and DB

Schizophrenia (or similar): Valkyrie & Darquesse, Valkyrie "seeing" Darquesse's ghost thing in Phase Two

Impostor Syndrome: Reflectionie

Autism: Clarabelle

Trauma/PTSD/CPTSD: Skulduggery, Valkyrie, China, Ghastly, Erskine...pretty much everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. People struggling with trauma are spoilt for choice of characters to see themselves in.

TRAUMA REP: This series is a trauma conga line, but everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. I see little bits of myself in more than one Phase One character.

Childhood Abuse (of varying degrees & types): Skulduggery, Carol & Crystal, Omen, Fletcher, Ghastly, China, Bliss, Sanguine...

Estranged Family: Skulduggery abandoning his crest, Fergus & Gordon, China & Bliss

Bad Romantic Relationship: Skulduggery is also very clearly an abuse victim. He’s got a solid history of romantic attachments to women who manipulate, use and gaslight him for their own agendas.  There's a whole paragraph in SPX about how Abyssinia broke him down, isolated him from his friends and preyed on his desperate need to be loved, all classic abuse tactics.

And I’m personally a huge fan of this backstory for two reasons:

1) Society likes a plucky victim in media. The "My suffering made me stronger" type of victim. And it's not always like that in real life. Not all survivors come out of their abuse stronger or kinder or more understanding. Some of us come out cold and fucked up. Some of us end up as emotionally stunted, bloodied-nails-and-bared-teeth survivors, broken in ways that can't be fixed and sustained by enough rage to power a small sun. But society doesn't like to tell the story of that kind of survivor, because we're not usually a likeable protagonist. When we're shown in media, we're usually the sympathetic villain, or maybe the antihero. But Skug is someone who's done awful things and lost pretty much all his faith in humanity and been burned more times than he can count, and he still makes the conscious choice to try and be the good guy when he could so easily go Evil Supervillain on the world, and I don't know about any of y'all, but I've modelled myself on him in that. I've made the choice to do something good when all I really want to do is just become a horrible, shrivelled ball of nastiness and revenge. And that's because I saw him do it and realised that I could do that too.

Skug is an incredibly capable, strong, masculine Man's Man. He gets in fights all the time, and he usually wins. He's military, an industry that's Really Bad for stigmatizing weakness and mental illness, and he's right up at the top of the hierarchy. Almost everyone is afraid of him. He's a straight up cold-blooded killer. Skulduggery Pleasant is precisely the type of person who's not normally portrayed as a victim of anything. Nothing about him screams "victim" at all. But his abuse history is insidious. He's so conditioned to respond in a certain way to abuse from the women in his life, probably from a very young age, that despite all that strength and capability and stubbornness and ego, he just goes along with it. And it's an established pattern going back hundreds of years. He keeps going back to China, even though he knows she's bad for him and his friends keep telling him to stay away from her. Abyssinia latched onto him when he was traumatized and vulnerable and weaponized it against him to make him easier to control - and when she reappears, hundreds of years later, she jumps straight back into using, tmanipulating and gaslighting him and not only does he let her, he doesn't even seem to realise that behaviour is abusive. He thinks it's normal! That's how he's always been treated by his long-term girlfriends, with the notable exception of Wifey. Even when Val is being fucking nasty to him in the first couple books of Phase Two, sniping and lying and blaming him for everything under the sun, he just takes it. There's no attempt to tell her she's being unreasonable, no telling her to fuck right off and give her head a wobble, no defending himself even when she's bitching over something that isn't even his doing. And this is a man who has an absolutely gleaming steel spine the rest of the time; Skug has no problem saying no to anybody else, but he can't get past the way he's been taught to treat the important ladies in his life. Skug is a walking reminder that anyone can be a victim of abuse, even the ones who seem least likely to be susceptible.

GENDER REP: This one is the most iffy out of the bunch and definitely was not done very well in the eyes of the people who matter most, but I'll include it anyway because it mattered to some.

So there's Nye, who's...agender? Genderless? And uses "it" pronouns? Nye was generally considered horrible rep because it's also a war criminal and experiments on people and I've seen people say "Well I don't want to be seen like that" but? It's still possible to be a war criminal and also genderless. I never saw the two things as being related or relevant to each other.

There's also Mantis, who's in exactly the same gender/pronouns boat as Nye and always seems to be forgotten about, which sucks because Mantis is a war hero. It fought for the Sanctuary during the War and they never lost a battle when it was in command. It's called out of retirement to fight for the Supreme Council in LSODM, ends up fighting alongside Skulduggery during the Battle of Roarhaven, and ultimately dies attempting a very brave, very risky strategy. Mantis is, unreservedly, one of the good guys. It was also my introduction to sentient beings using "it" pronouns, and did it in a way that felt natural, so when I met my first person online who used "it" pronouns and hated to be referred to as he/she, it was...weird, but not as weird as it would otherwise have been, because I was like, "Oh yeah, like the Crenga. Okay."

And then there's the Scapegrace sex change plotline, which...I might have an unpopular opinion on this one. From what I’ve seen, trans people don’t seem to think was handled well or with any sensitivity at all. I’m not trans, so if the trans community says he was being offensive to them, I’m not going to claim otherwise. But...I first read the Scapegrace plotline as a young teenager in a tiny rural school with zero diversity, going through a period of being deeply confused about my own gender identity. He was more or less my first introduction to the idea that genitals =/= gender. I was relieved, at that point in my life, to read someone having a lot of the same thoughts I was having about being in the wrong body. So while it may have been badly done and yeah, the series would probably have been better without it, it did make at least one kid suspecting she might not be cis go “Huh! So there are other people who feel like this.”

Thrasher is also implied to be legitimately trans/gender-questioning, and that's not played for laughs either.

So? Phase One, while it absolutely had faults and issues and things that were just "Oh god why", was actually full of rep, at least compared to the other series that I read as a child/teen. But? As soon as Dirty Laundry started trying to be woke? He fucking sucks ass at it. Aside from confirming Phase One's hints that Skug has a background of abusive relationships, every single attempt at shoehorning rep into Phase Two is Bad.

The painfully OOC, forced, badly-written awkwardness of Val suddenly being rabidly horny for women out of fucking nowhere. The stilted, forced cringiness between her and any of the women she's flirted with - contrast that with Sorrowscorn's interactions, full of natural chemistry that had us all like 👀 I mean, I never shipped Val/Melancholia, but I could always see why people did - they had miles more chemistry than Val/anyone in Phase Two.

The fucking mess that is v*litsa, because if someone says "I'm really not interested in friendships/relationships right now", clearly the route to true love is to bulldoze their boundaries and forcibly insert yourself into their life and proceed to treat them like a delicate soft uwu flower, completely ignoring the horrible things they've done, while gleefully damning their best friend as an irredeemable monster for the exact same things, which is. You know. Gonna affect your so-called love's self-confidence and self-esteem because she knows she's no different to him. Y'all know I love an angsty ship, an unhealthy ship, a ship with fucked power dynamics, but I literally cannot roll my eyes any further back in my head at this shit. I never read Demon Road, but from what I've heard from friends who did, it does seem like every time Laundry tries to write an f/f ship, he comes up with a cringey abusive/manipulative caricature and tries to call it rep, and he needs to Stop.

Val's Mental IllnessTM arc. It's funny how he wrote Skulduggery as a wonderfully complex character with deep-rooted psychological damage and long-lasting trauma, but believes he wrote a character with "no feelings" - but when he tries to delve into the damage the world of magic has done to Val, he turned her into a weak, whiny drug addict who treats everyone around her like garbage and is so selfish and dislikeable that I? Honestly can't even reconcile Phase Two val with Phase One val. They're two completely different people. He's shown on Twitter that he doesn't have any respect for mentally ill people, and it shows. Other mentally ill people might see it differently, but the whole thing just makes me go "yikes".

Never, who has no personality outside of being genderfluid, and whose pronouns make no sense. I'm sorry, I have never met an nb person who insists that you change from male to female pronouns multiple times in a sentence, every time you refer to them. It's confusing as fuck. Now I have been told that Never has apparently received some character development in the last couple books, and if so, fair play, but I quit reading after Midnight, and Never and the rest of the personality-less new characters introduced in Phase Two who just seemed to be 2D Stereotypes to snag Woke Points were a big part of why, so. Development too late, I'm afraid.

(Now, if anyone is looking for a well-written genderfluid character, I recommend the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. I have a lot of issues with her as a writer, and unfortunately I hate her POV character which puts me off the series as a whole, but she wrote the Fool/Amber/Lord Golden and their gender identity/approach to sexuality with so much more respect and realism. That is the kind of rep nb people should be getting: 3D, complex, realistic characters whose gender is only a tiny fragment of their personality, not the be-all-and-end-all of their existence. You know. Like cis people get. Nobody wants to be represented by a 2D cardboard cutout stereotype.)

Anyway idk how much sense this makes it just really amuses me that Laundry would include all this rep completely unintentionally and then go on Twitter and remind us all that actually he's a massive asshole via insensitive/offensive tweets about the groups he'd actually done a fair job of including (i.e. Skulduggery has no feelings, mentally ill people should find another series to read, the bullshit about Val being "heteromantic bisexual" on Twitter and then spouting all the "the woman she loved uwu" shit in the books (proving he has no idea what he's talking about), eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY. He can only write half-decent rep when he's not trying and he inevitably outs himself as having a really shitty attitude towards those people anyway, proving that ultimately it's all either unintentional rep or performative wokeness.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

I really don't get the complaint about Ironwood. His descent into a villain honestly made perfect sense.

Okay, look. Before I begin, let’s just get one thing straight. The way I view Ironwood is mainly my opinion, and it is not an objective fact. Love or hate him, I hope we can all have an intelligent and rational discussion on the way General Ironwood was portrayed, okay? Okay.

My problem isn’t necessarily how Ironwood became a villain in Volume 7, but rather, how he acted as villain in Volume 8, and what the story was trying to say about him and his actions. Buckle up first, there’s some infodumping to be done before we get there.

Now, for those who haven’t seen RWBY (and be warned, spoilers are obviously ahead), General James Ironwood was a supporting character introduced during the show’s second “Volume”. He was in charge of all the military forces of Atlas, the most militaristic of the four main kingdoms in the world of the show.

He had a bit of a bad reputation in universe for bringing a lot of his troops to Beacon Academy (where the first three Volumes took place) for a fighting torunament to serve as security. Long story short, thanks to an act of sabotage from the villains, an army of monsters called Grimm and a faction of former equal rights movement turned terrorist organization known as the White Fang attacked Beacon, killing a lot of people and forcing the survivors to retreat.

Ironwood had a handful of scenes in the next Volume, showing his support for one of the main characters, Weiss, and donating a robotic arm to another main character who had lost hers in the Fall of Beacon, Yang. After, that, he was mostly silent until Volume 7, where our heroes made their way to Atlas to deliver one of the four MacGuffins the main villain Salem needs to Ironwood.

We see that since the Fall of Beacon, Ironwood has been stretched thin in protecting Atlas over the run down town directly below it, Mantle. It’s clear that Ironwood can’t really keep up with handling both towns, to the point where not only is Mantle protected by a single robotic supersoldier named Penny, but Ironwood is also diverting supplies meant to fix a wall to keep Grimm out of Mantle in favor of working on converting the same stadium used for the tournament in Volume 3 into a satellite to restore global communication, which had been down since the Fall of Beacon.

The heroes are naturally conflicted about their loyalties to Ironwood, as while he has given them his trust, they don’t really trust him to tell him some of the secrets they learned. Blake and Yang, two of the heroes who have always been more opposed to authority, leak classified information regarding the satellite to the leader of a group of freedom fighters, Robyn Hill (who is actually voiced by Christina Vee), who at this point, was someone Ironwood viewed as a threat. 

Now you could make the argument that these college drop-outs are severely unqualified to handle a tense situation that even a seasoned veteran like Ironwood is struggling with, but the point is when Ironwood finds out, he’s pissed. It’s really not hard to agree with him when you consider everything he’s done for Team RWBY and their friends only to be betrayed like this. So Ironwood declares all of the heroes fugitives and place a warrant for their arrest

At this point in the story, you can understand both sides of the argument regarding how to handle the situation. Ironwood’s anger is very understandable, and while he acts as an antagonist to out heroes, he’s not really a villain.

And that’s when he shoots a fourteen year old child. Granted, he currently had the soul of an old friend of Ironwood in him, but Ironwood literally just tried to murder someone, and almost succeeded.

Volume 7 was very polarizing among RWBY fans for the portrayal of Ironwood. It doesn’t help that when Salem, the main villain of the series, launched an invasion of Atlas, Ironwood’s plan was to launch Atlas and keep Salem from getting the MacGuffin, essentially distancing it from the rest of the world... when Volume 7′s final episode aired in February 2020.

Now, you would think, after being forced to stay in their homes to minimize Covid deaths, the writers would understand what they were antagonizing Ironwood for was basically what every government in the world did a month after they finished work for the Volume, and maybe realize that maybe they shouldn’t portray someone like Ironwood as a complete monster.

Volume 8 opens with him killing a councilman who disagrees with him. And it all goes downhill from there.

This Volume goes out of its way to portray Ironwood as a genuine psychopath, mainly to stop the people who agreed with him over Team RWBY from supporting him. He does things like working with one of the villains to achieve his goal, gives his soldiers permission to torture people for information, and after Salem is neutralized temporarily, rather than continue to evacuate Mantle like he had originally planned before the villains and Team RWBY screwed up his plans, he decides threatening to bomb Mantle to use as leverage is a better idea.

And then there’s the whole idea the the writers want to treat Ironwood losing his arm in a fight and replacing it with a robotic one like Yang as a symbol of him “losing his humanity”. It’s... kind of insulting when you realize that Ironwood is a man suffering from PTSD, and the show is basically demonizing anyone who uses prosthetics in their daily lives, or is traumatized from war.

I’m not saying Ironwood is just like Chloe, but the way both narratives choose to demonize both characters to spite their fans is why I draw the similarities in the first place.

There’s also the fact that the writers claim Ironwood is acting this way because of his Semblance (they’re basically Quirks from My Hero Academia) giving him an iron will that won’t make him change his mind on his decisions... when it’s never addressed in the show, is only mentioned at a fan panel, and not even Ironwood’s voice actor knew about this until a fan told him. It’s a stupid way to handwave away the criticisms that Ironwood is acting out of character, and is universally considered by fans to be the dumbest Semblance in the show.

But overall, the point I am trying to make is that instead of portraying him as this morally grey villain who merely opposes the heroes because he has a different way of solving problems, the writers decide that isn’t a good thing, so they demonize him just to make Team RWBY and the heroes (who many have claimed do a lot of bad things this Volume) look better by comparison.

I’m sorry if you disagree with me, but I just want to understand that I am not trying to attack anyone who hates Ironwood. Like Adrien, I don’t hate the character entirely, I just don’t like the way he is handled, and simply prefer his fanon self over what we got in canon.

[pray4jensen]

wow, you pointed out things that i just went 'not for me' and made me realize 'not for me' because it is actually bad. (ex i don't like billy - duh. because he's a despicable, self-serving, unapologetic misogynist; he's john 2.0) then you brought up what it will put jensen through and reminded me of what misha said about playing paul bernardo. so, yikes. now i'm worried about jensen on top of hating this show. thx. but good to know i'm not alone in not liking it. -🐍

yeah. i know there are people out there warning fans that jensen won’t play a nice guy, or that believe that we’re calling this show bad because it shows amoral things, but that’s not really the case here. the show isn’t bad because we’re straight-laced. the show is bad because it’s bad.

take for example another violent show: the walking dead. i’ve watched every season happily for the most part. it’s easily ten times more graphic than the boys. there are characters who seem to be evil incarnate, who do absolutely despicable things, who have their own sad backstory for why they are the way that they are, and who at times may even appear morally grey. 

but unlike the boys, for the most part, the walking dead show does not glorify violence. for the most part, the walking dead treads a fine line between glorification and justification of that violence, and oftentimes, it stays within the better moral boundary. it doesn’t excuse the actions of its characters: you know they’re bad, the show knows they’re bad, and there is nothing happening trying to convince you otherwise. violence is ugly and the walking dead never lets you forget it.

this is the difference between a good show like the walking dead and a bad show like the boys. there are ways to show characters who embody abject evil, ways to show violence, but where a meaningful message is still carried to the audience. the boys doesn’t really have a meaningful message; it’s violence on top of rape on top of racism on top of so many other unpalatable things. and sure, we can argue that just because the boys doesn’t seek to convey good things, it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. except...what is the purpose of media if not to carry forth something positive or informative? why did the ending of spn seem so terrible? because it carried a meaningless message at its end, that suffering results in more suffering, and one might even say that looking at it like that, ultimately, spn had no message at all. good stories always have meaningful messages.

i mean, i can ramble on forever about the other things that irk me about the boys: the villainization of queer male characters, the misogyny, the racism, so on and so forth. but i don’t think we even have to look at it that deeply because the show itself is not that deep. things are happening and why they’re happening on the show seems to have no rhyme or reason to it. they’re just doing things for the sake of doing things. it’s sad really, because sometimes when watching the show, i glimpse what it could have been, which only reinforces what it’s not.    

[amaraudermind]

This might get a little rambly, but I personally really struggle to understand character apologists.

Now, I do want to preface by clarifying that I am not saying anything against liking villains, or characters who have done bad things. And I am not saying anything against the idea that characters have the capacity to be redeemed.

I also want to clarify that I am not talking about--especially in the context of comics--being upset about story lines that never should have existed that are entirely out of character, and make characters into people they are not. That is a completely different rant for another day.

What I am specifically confused about is reducing characters who have done truly horrible things down to “adorable little cinnamon rolls”.

I just....do not see the point? Like, why like this character, why care so deeply for them...if you’re just going to strip away everything that gave them depth and character and made them interesting?

I love morally ambiguous characters. I love characters who are morally grey, who make dubious decisions. I like characters who straight up do things that are wrong, alongside doing things that are good. I adore characters who make horrible decisions in the pursuit of good intentions. I love them because they are interesting. I love seeing how their stories play out. I love playing around with the idea of their character, with what decisions they would make in various scenarios, writing how they interact with others.

I like villains. I like a lot of villains. Because they are interesting, and it’s fascinating to dive into their motivations, into their actions, to try to discern why they are doing what they do. Because sometimes, I find myself being able to see myself agreeing with them, I can see making similar choices to them if I weren’t careful, and it’s terrifying but exhilarating and important to recognize. I like villains because sometimes I cannot find one shred of humanity in them, and I want to continue picking them apart until I do, until I see what makes them a person just any other, who’s been hurt and has fallen so far into their pain. Because I want to understand if this monster who takes joy in others’ pain has any remorse left in them. I like villains because sometimes I come across those who I just cannot find it in me to do anything but hate them, and I admire the writing and the characterization that sets them up as a perfect foil to the hero.

But I don’t understand acting like they’ve never done anything wrong. I don’t understand trying to absolve them of all their faults. I don’t understand trying to claim them morally superior to everyone around them.

Why take away everything that they have done? Why destroy everything that has made them who they are?

Why take ignore the fact that this character has done horrible things in their past? What good does their long and arduous redemption arc serve if they were never in need of redemption?

Why take away the idea that this character makes horrid choices? What interest does their constant moral battle that they wage with every choice hold if they never make the wrong move?

Why act as though the villain has never hurt anyone? What use is everything they have done and gone through if their exploits never existed?

I just...I don’t even know if I’m really explaining myself correctly. Some of my favourite characters are extremely morally complex. But I just feel like almost every time I see people talking about those characters, it’s either from the idea that they are incapable of good, or that they are incapable of being evil. And it honestly is really disheartening to see such incredible characters boiled down to unshakably evil or unerringly pure.

Anyway, yeah. That’s where I am right now.

[onebadwinter]

Magneto Tropes

Taken from here

Adaptation Dye-Job: In the comics, he has been shown to have had white hair for the vast majority of his adult life, presumably as a side-effect of his mutation. In the films, he's introduced with grey hair (though only because, lacking Comic-Book Time, the screenwriters had to make him the realistic age of a Holocaust survivor) and he has dark brown hair as a younger man in the prequels.

Adaptation Name Change: In the comics, his original name was Max Eisenhardt and Erik Lehnsherr was an alias. In the films Erik Lehnsherr is his real name and the alias he uses is Henryk Gurzsky. To be fair though, Max Eisenhardt was not revealed as his true comic book name until the 2008 miniseries X-Men: Magneto Testament, long after the first X-Men movie was released in 2000.

Adaptational Wimp: To varying degrees. Magneto's power set in the comics varies Depending on the Writer, but among his traditional powers are the ability to generate force fields and electromagnetic pulses, a resistance to telepaths and psychic attacks, and he's a genius in multiple scientific fields. In the film his powerset is scaled back to just control over metallic metals (though after Apocalypse's boost, he's capable of doing so on a global scale and maintaining a powerful forcefield), he needs his helmet to block out telepathy, and his scientific knowledge doesn't seem to be as extensive.

Affably Evil: With Xavier. They still play chess games together a good 40 years into their conflict with each other. Hell, if you are on his side, he is rather chatty and friendly to you.

Antagonist in Mourning: In X-Men: The Last Stand, he sincerely grieves over Xavier's death and cuts off his Dragon Pyro's irreverent talk about the deceased abruptly. As in most versions of X-Men, he and Xavier were very close friends who eventually found themselves on separate sides due to their ideological differences.

Anti-Hero:

Anti-Villain: Has an unquestionably sympathetic backstory and very good reason to believe that humans are out to eradicate the mutant race. However, he is a dangerous individual with few limits on his devotion and what must be done to ensure the survival of his kind. Even his best and oldest friend isn't safe from his extreme methods and beliefs.

The Atoner: Ian McKellen invokes this while discussing his character in the "Double Take: Xavier & Magneto" documentary on the X-Men: Days of Future Past Blu-Ray release."The Magneto that you see with me is a man of conscience, and a man with an unhappy life behind him. He's come through a great deal, and isn't taking on single-handedly, or even with the help of his Brotherhood, society as a whole. He's joined up again with his old friend, Professor X, and together, they're going to try to move things forward."

Badass Baritone: Both Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender pull this off.

Badass Cape: Part of his supervillain outfit is his iconic crimson cape.

Played straight in Dark Phoenix, where he makes a point that the Phoenix is dangerous, but his methods involve injuring anyone who gets in his way as he tries to kill Jean.

Subverted in X-Men: First Class and X2: X-Men United, where he seems to join the heroes against a common foe, but is ultimately revealed to have ulterior motives and turns against them in the end.

Badass Longcoat: Magneto typically wears a long black coat in civilian attire, such as his appearance at the mutant hearings in the first film, the attempt to stop Mystique in X-Men: Days of Future Past, and his Roaring Rampage of Revenge in Dark Phoenix.

Berserk Button: Does not like people who 'just follow orders’. This is heavily implied to be because it was the excuse many Nazi officials gave for their actions during the Nuremburg trials.

Big Bad:

Big Bad Ensemble:

Big Brother Instinct: By the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he had already begun to view Charles as a brother figure. When the Blackbird spiraled out of control, Erik used his body to shield Xavier from injury, and he immediately halted his attack on the American and Soviet naval forces when Charles was shot. Even after they become enemies, Erik continously shows both respect and affection for Charles, consitantly referring to him as ‘Old Friend’. He was immensely saddened by his death in X-Men: The Last Stand, and deeply insulted by those who where disrespectful to him. He would also routinely put his own life on the line to help or save Charles, and the two kept very close in their later years, despite often being on opposing sides of the battle field.

Big Good: Old Magneto shares the role with Charles Xavier in X-Men: Days of Future Past, acting as the wise, protective mentor of the future team. This is in sharp contrast with his younger self, whose bigotry almost catapults the world into an even worse timeline than the one they are currently living in.

Byronic Hero: In X-Men: First Class—morally troubled, emotionally damaged, attractive, and very charismatic about his pro-mutant beliefs. Particularly to some of the impressionable younger characters like Mystique.

The Chessmaster: Invoked several times. He is seen playing Chess with Charles Xavier several times throughout the original trilogy, and references Chess during his attack on Alcatraz, to his benefit as Juggernaut was about to pull a Leeroy Jenkins and would have been depowered in the first wave had Erik not stopped him. Erik (stopping Juggernaut): In Chess, the pawns go first. (the defenders reveal their plastic dart guns filled with the cure serum, leading to the first wave of attackers getting depowered) Erik: Hmm, plastic. They've learned. That's why the pawns go first.

Color Motifs: He dresses up in various shades of red and purple.

Combat Tentacles: He can turn metal cables and pipes into such things, the most notable in X-Men: First Class when he uses a cable to snag the telepathy-blocking helmet and pull it off Shaw’s head, enabling Xavier to take control.

Composite Character: Has Juggernaut's helmet in this adaptation. This makes sense, as this Magneto's twisted, Cain and Abel relationship with Charles (Juggernaut's brother in the comics) is played to the hilt.

Cool Helmet: Wears his famous telepathy-blocking helmet. Technology wired into the helmet prevents telepathic intrusion, making Magneto difficult to control or impossible to find via Cerebro.

The Corrupter: Although he convinces Raven to accept her mutant appearance, he also pushes her into committing murder against human enemies and truly becoming Mystique. Charles believes Erik is a large influence for Raven leaving him.

Cultured Badass: He speaks several languages, passionately discusses philosophy, shows considerable knowledge of politics and foreign cultures, and enjoys the occasional game of chess with Xavier.

Curb-Stomp Battle: Dishes these out to Wolverine on a regular basis. Wolverine's metal skeleton makes him nigh-unstoppable against other opponents but is a huge liability going up against Magneto, who either immobilizes him or flings him away (or both) with ease every time they encounter each other as foes. Even when he faces a time-displaced Logan lacking the adamantium in his bones, Erik still dispatches him and nearly drowns him by impaling Wolverine with metal pipes and flinging him into a river.

Dark and Troubled Past: "Holocaust survivor" is about as dark and troubled as it gets.

Dark Messiah: In X-Men: Days of Future Past, his younger self prepares to kill Nixon while declaring mutant supremacy in front of a live broadcast.

Deadpan Snarker: The biggest one in the series, natch. X2: X-Men United is largely his snark-fest at everyone else's expense.

Death Glare: Young Magneto, portrayed by Fassbender, gives a calm murderous look killing the Nazis and Shaw, and also ripping a filling tooth from a banker in X-Men: First Class. Also, a good stare carrying the RFK Stadium towards the White House in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Demoted to Dragon: He isn't the leader of the supervillain team in X-Men: Apocalypse; this time around, he plays second fiddle to Apocalypse.  He becomes The Starscream and pulls a Heel–Face Turn, though.

Determinator: In the '70s, he asks Logan how fighting him for years has worked out for him and Logan responds they're both "survivors" which only serves to motivate Erik to later demonstrate how much more powerful he is than the Wolverine later on when he runs metal pipes through his body and leaves him to drown, muttering contemptuously, "so much for survival."

Disappeared Dad: To Quicksilver. Despite them sharing a few scenes and Quicksilver entering the plot of X-Men: Apocalypse just to find him, Magneto shows no signs of recognizing him.

Dissonant Serenity: He's disturbingly calm, even cheerful, during the scene in the bar in Argentina, just before he murders three ex-Nazi's.

Doesn't Like Guns: His younger self uses guns when he needs to, while the older Magneto sneers at them. This is partly because of his background as a holocaust survivor, and partly because humans rely on guns to fight, and he sees it as a sign of their inferiority. Of course, that's a bit hypocritical when he has the power of magnetism, and those who don't possess such an advantage have to defend themselves somehow.

Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto Us: His motive in almost every movie is to wipe out humanity before they can do the same to mutantkind.

Emotional Powers:

Enemy Mine:

Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Despite all that he's done, his love for his mother is one of his defining characteristics. Unfortunately, it's also the reason why he killed Shaw in cold blood, truly becoming Magneto.

Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He does care deeply for certain characters - in the prequel films most obvously for Charles and Mystique. The memory of the good times he and Charles shared in their youth is enough to make him turn on Apocalypse, while Hank informing him of Mystique's death at Jean's hands sends him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.

Even Evil Has Standards: Magneto always considered Xavier a friend and never wanted him dead. In X3 when Pyro says he would have done so if Magneto ordered it, Magneto is clearly angered at the idea. Whatever their qualms, neither wanted the other dead.

Evil Former Friend: Naturally while remaining on Friendly Enemy terms with Charles Xavier, the X-Men and Brotherhood are at great conflict in the majority of films regardless.

Evil Genius: With truly amazing schemes. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, he was able to steal a file containing the details of the Sentinels, after reading it over he was somehow able to reprogram them while inserting metal tracks within the bodies.

Extra-ore-dinary: His impressive mutant ability to control metal. Guns are a joke to him and throughout the films he's accomplished feats capable of lifting a submarine from water, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the RFK Stadium, the last without showing any real sign of effort. In X-Men: Apocalypse thanks to Apocalypse's enhancement he's shown ripping practically every metallic structure on the planet apart via control of the world's magnetic field and with Jean, putting the Xavier Institute back together from scratch.

Fantastic Radiation Shielding: His helmet protects him from various mutants' psychic powers.

Faux Affably Evil: If you aren't on his side, he can be downright terrifying and still sound unfailingly polite. When Pyro expresses disappointment that he wasn't the one to kill Professor X, Magneto gives him a rather grandfatherly talking-to...with an unspoken, but very real assurance that the next ill words Pyro speaks of Charles Xavier would be his last.

First-Name Basis: In the films, just like in the comics, he and Charles Xavier always use their first names when speaking to or about each other. Only a handful of others are on a first-name basis with them.

Foil:

Freudian Excuse: A former victim of the Holocaust believing humanity will subjugate mutants the same way.

Friendly Enemy: To Charles Xavier. Their relationship stretches the definition of "friendly" about as far as it will go but it's there. They have the utmost respect for one another and used to be close companions but just about every differing point between them comes from a place of vitriolic and passionate division (to the point both refuse to see a future where the other's point of view can exist, it is a mutually exclusive matter of black-and-white difference in opinion).

The Fundamentalist: Without a doubt believes mutants are the superior species and humans will fight against their extinction.

Gaining the Will to Kill: When he meets Raven in X-Men: Days of Future Past, he appears noticeably distressed before picking up a gun and apologizing then claiming mutants will never be safe with her alive before shooting at her.

Heel–Face Revolving Door: His moral standing across the films has variously been Nominal Hero, Anti-Hero, Anti-Villain, The Atoner, and Well-Intentioned Extremist. Magneto is rarely a straight villain and even more rarely a straight hero, but in the meantime he wavers all the way between the two.

Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: In Dark Phoenix, he starts off as a neutral figure, and then dons his trademark helmet when he becomes an antagonist shortly afterward. He teams up with the X-Men at the beginning of the third act right after his helmet is destroyed in a fight.

Heterosexual Life-Partners:

He Who Fights Monsters:

Hijacked by Ganon: He has a tendency to hijack the plans of the villains of the films in retaliation against them.

Hoist by His Own Petard: Invokes this on so many occasions, such as threatening dozens of policemen with their own guns,  using Dark Cerebro to kill all humans after it was just used in an attempt to kill all mutants, as well as killing multiple soldiers by pulling off the pins on their grenades, hurling missiles at ships that just fired them, and  using the Sentinels during the DisasterousDemonstration in the past to attack the spectators.

Humans Are Bastards: Believing humans will continue to grow and despise mutants he maintains this belief. Though it doesn't really help his case when he keeps doing actions that make people fear him.

Hypocrite:

Magneto is responsible for the main conflict in X-Men, as he intends to sacrifice Rogue to power a machine capable of turning normal humans into mutants, but is unaware that the artificial mutations are unstable and will kill the affected.

In X-Men: The Last Stand, Magneto builds an army and prepares to attack Alcatraz island, where a cure for mutations is being developed. His efforts lead him to recruit the unstable Phoenix, who goes on a rampage during the film's climax and causes countless deaths.

Magneto shares the antagonistic role with Stryker in X2: X-Men United, but their goals are opposite of each other: the former intends to use the machine called Dark Cerebro to rid the world of normal humans, whereas the latter intends to do the same to the mutants.

Trask, Mystique and a younger version of Magneto are the main villains of X-Men: Days of Future Past. Trask invented the Sentinels, mutant-hunting machines that turned the world into an apocalyptic dystopia. Mystique goes on trying to get revenge on Trask by killing him after seeing the pictures of her deceased fellow mutants. Magneto opposes both Mystique and Trask by promoting his own ideals of supremacy, which only serve to amplify humanity's fear of mutants and push the Sentinel program forward.

In X-Men: First Class upon seeing the mansion Charles grew up in.Erik: Honestly Charles, I don't know how you survived living in such hardship.

In the original X-Men, when Magneto has the X-Men trapped and bound within the Statue of Liberty, he points out a foolish tactical error on Scott's part with withering contempt.Cyclops: Storm, fry him! Magneto: Oh yes, a bolt of lightning into a huge copper conductor. I thought you lived at a school.

He also really enjoys mocking Wolverine in general.Magneto: Why do you always think it's all about you?

In X-Men: First Class, he is originally only able to use his powers when extremely angry. The first two times, it involves maternal separation. However, he can't properly focus it until Charles coaches him to concentrate on happier emotions.

In X-Men: Apocalypse, his power hike into Physical God territory is initially assumed to be Apocalypse enhancing him like the other Horsemen, but Charles contradicts this, contemptuously asserting that all Apocalypse has done is tap into his rage and pain.

X2: X-Men United: He and Mystique team-up with the X-Men to stop a human villain from killing all mutants. Right up until he decides to invert the attack and have all the non-Mutants killed instead.

X-Men: Days of Future Past: He and Xavier unite against the Sentinels that threaten all of mutantkind with extinction. Although he ends up attempting his own plans for mutant superiority and, ironically enough, winds up jeopardizing the plan to save mutantkind.

Dark Phoenix: Magneto initially attempts to kill Jean for killing Mystique, but he and his lieutenants join forces with the X-Men to fight the D'Bari when they come for the Phoenix Force in the climax.

In X-Men: Days of Future Past, while the public and most other characters refer to him and Raven (Mystique) by their mutant code names, Charles and Hank still remain on a first name basis with both of them, and vice versa. This is also presumably true for Alex, who still addresses his former ally as Erik.

X-Men: First Class: He and Charles are juxtaposed in their respective Argentinian bar and Oxford pub scenes. The sober Lehnsherr is all business when he's hunting down Nazis, and he murders three men (including the bartender) in cold blood after taunting his prey. The inebriated Xavier is the life of a party when he and his fellow graduate students celebrate the successful defense of his PhD thesis, and he later tries to flirt with Agent MacTaggert. Producer Bryan Singer gives a very basic summary of their differences in the "Magneto the Survivor" featurette:"Ultimately, they come from different places. Erik Lehnsherr is a victim of the Holocaust, he probably left the war with nothing, and is very much a solitary man, while Xavier had a life of privilege, became a professor at Oxford, was surrounded by peers, has an intimate relationship with Mystique since childhood, so he's quite loved, and therefore quite idealistic, less embittered, and just has a very different view from Lehnsherr."

X-Men: Days of Future Past:

Both past and future Magneto contrast each other in the film. 1973 Magneto continues to move forward with mutant supremacy and attacking Charles and his group, while future Magneto was fighting to protect both mankind and mutants while lamenting his pointless struggles with Charles in their younger years. Past Erik is very much on his own, but his elderly counterpart is a valuable team member.

Past Magneto and Past Xavier were both inactive and isolated in between 1963 and 1973 (the former due to imprisonment, the latter due to depression). Erik shows signs of wanting to repair some of their previous friendship, but a bitter Charles isn't interested for the most part. Magneto tries to kill Mystique while Xavier tries to protect her. Hank remains unwaveringly devoted to Charles, but Erik loses Mystique's loyalty after the murder attempt. In X-Men: First Class, Erik personified "rage" while Charles embodied "serenity," but their roles are reversed in 1973. Xavier is now the one who is full of pain and anger, and therefore has great trouble wielding his telepathy, whereas Magneto is (relatively) calm and controlled, still possessing great mastery over his power despite being deprived of metal for a decade. (We even see Erik adopt a meditation pose in his prison cell, which makes him appear Zen-like.)

Wolverine and the younger Magneto are violent individuals who love Xavier, but whereas Jerk with a Heart of Gold Logan possesses Undying Loyalty towards Charles, Jerk with a Heart of Jerk Erik is quick to betray him, until he finally does the reverse and pulls a Heel–Face Turn in X-Men: Apocalypse.

X-Men: Apocalypse: After he loses his family, he's in so much grief that he's willing to follow Apocalypse, who convinces Erik that he's God, and God has granted Magneto a divine purpose.

The version of Magneto from the second timeline in particular embodies this trope, having changed sides eight separate times over the course of the series.note

Considering that his and Charles' friendship only lasted a couple months, at most, in X-Men: First Class, it was unusually intimate on an emotional level.

Played straight in X-Men: Days of Future Past, with his older self and Professor X (the moment where they're holding hands is the closest that we've seen them since First Class), but averted with their younger selves. In 1973, Charles never once calls him "friend" (although Erik uses the endearment twice), which goes to show how broken their relationship is.

X-Men: Director Bryan Singer explains in the September 2000 issue of SFX:"...the paradox in Magneto's character is that he was the victim and then becomes the aggressor. It's like he's slowly become these people who persecuted him and murdered his family right in front of him. He became embittered. You get angry enough and you start forgetting."

X-Men: First Class: He hates Shaw and wants to kill him, but he eventually embraces Shaw's beliefs about mutant supremacy. It's even spelled out through the villain wearing the same helmet that Magneto is associated with. Justified at the crucial moment because he separates revenge from his ideals, which is why he's able to compliment Shaw's vision while still hating the man to his core. Shaw the man wronged him terribly, but Shaw the visionary is inspirational.

X2: X-Men United: After stopping Stryker's plan to kill all mutants with a fake Cerebro, he decides to reprogram the machine to kill regular humans instead.

X-Men: Days of Future Past: Young Magneto hijacks the Sentinels to attempt killing both Bolivar Trask and President Nixon.

X-Men: First Class features a variation: once Erik kills Shaw, he basically embraces his evil nature and attempts to wipe out the American and Soviet fleets.

Despite claiming to help his fellow mutants, Magneto has no qualms on attacking and even killing other mutants who stand in the way of his anti-human crusade.

Magneto is motivated by his memories of enduring the Holocaust during World War II and believes mutants will be subjected to the same treatment as the Jews in Nazi Germany if they do not fight back. This leads to him falling victim to He Who Fights Monsters, becoming a genocidal racist just as bad as the Nazis.

In X-Men, he is willing to sacrifice Rogue but not himself in the advancement of his cause. Beautifully called out by Wolverine, who tells him: "You're so full of shit. If you were really so righteous, it would be you up in that thing." Erik levitates away without replying, but the expression on his face makes it clear the remark hit home.

At the climax of X-Men: Days of Future Past, his past-self sics a Sentinel on Wolverine and Beast, after a grand speech about how he will protect mutantkind.

In Dark Phoenix he tells Jean about the futility of killing for revenge, and how it never made the pain he felt go away. Then, when he finds out Jean killed Mystique, he almost immediately decides to kill her in revenge - though that could simply be the difference between knowing it intellectually and his emotional reaction.

   I-Y

Improvised Weapon: As long as it's metal, Magneto's powers let him use anything as a weapon. He has killed people with such things as a coin and a locket.

I Did What I Had to Do: In X-Men: Days of Future Past, he tells Raven he tried to kill her because he was aware of the impending Sentinel menace and came to the conclusion that the only way to prevent it would be if she was permanently dispatched.

I Hate Past Me: In X-Men: Days of Future Past right before Kitty sends Wolverine back in time, he worries that his and Charles' past-selves won't understand the nightmarish situation in the Bad Future and be able to fix things. Erik: It's not [Wolverine] I'm worried about, it's us. We were young, we didn't know any better.

Ineffectual Loner: Was one in X-Men: First Class until Charles convinced him he could do better with friends of his own, and in the ending he begins building his brotherhood of mutants.

I Was Quite a Looker: He was a classic example of Tall, Dark, and Handsome when he was a young man (and he has aged gracefully over the years).

Jerkass Has a Point: He did make the fair point towards Charles that he grew up with Raven, and shouldn't have entirely claimed responsibility for raising her, which did in part drive her away from him.

Just the Way You Are: In X-Men: First Class, he is able to persuade Raven to his side finding her mutant appearance to be "perfection" in contrast to Charles and Hank, who feel she should look more "normal" to gain acceptance within society.

Karma Houdini:

Kick the Son of a Bitch: Some of his victims include Nazis, Sebastian Shaw and the corrupt, violent slob in charge of his prison cell. He also chained William Stryker back up and left him to die at the end of X2: X-Men United.

Knight Templar: Wants to stop mutant prejudice... by subjugating humans.

Lean and Mean: Magneto seems to have little-to-no fat on his body. It makes sense, given that he's a Holocaust survivor who spent his early life on the road.

Loner-Turned-Friend: In X-Men: First Class when he met Charles Xavier and his group.

Made of Iron: His younger self is quite capable of taking a beating. In X-Men: First Class he gets thrown off a boat by Emma Frost in diamond form and was being thrown across a room by Shaw crashing into mirrors. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, he took head injuries from Beast and nearly drowned before restraining him only needing a head stitching after - a head stitching he performed himself while examining the schematics of the Sentinel's and without even twitching at the pain. His older self also survived a blast from Cyclops in the first film, and in X-Men: Days of Future Past continued to protect the group from the Sentinels with a shard having pierced his abdomen.

Manipulative Bastard: Best demonstrated as he convinces Pyro and in the prequel series, Raven, to defect to his side.

Meaningful Name: Erik means "ruler" and Lehnsherr can be roughly translated as "feudal lord" (lehn = fief, herr = master). Magneto's birth name betrays his ambition to rule over humans.

Mook Horror Show: Several films have him performing one.

Motive Rant: Delivers one to Senator Kelly after capturing him in X-Men.Magneto: Are you a god-fearing man, senator? That's such a strange phrase. I've always thought of God as a teacher, as a bringer of light, wisdom, and understanding; you see, I think what you really are afraid of is me. Me and my kind, the Brotherhood of Mutants. Though it's not so surprising really. Mankind has always feared what it doesn't understand. Well, don't fear God, Senator, and certainly don't fear me. (in an undertone) Not anymore.

My Greatest Failure: The death of Xavier in X-Men: The Last Stand, which he directly caused by awakening Dark Phoenix.Magneto: Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you'll ever know. My single greatest regret is that he had to die for our dream to live.

My God, What Have I Done?: X-Men: The Last Stand features him saying the line, when he finds himself on the other side of the Mutants vs. Humans war he's been pushing for, and Phoenix finally goes crazy and starts killing people.

Nazi Hunter: He spends the first twenty minutes or so of his screentime in X-Men: First Class tracking down and killing Nazis. In fact, his reason for joining the X-Men is so that he can find and kill Sebastian Shaw, the mutant Nazi who killed his mother.

The Needs of the Many: In X-Men: Days of Future Past.Erik: Forgive me Mystique, as long as you're out there we'll never be safe.

Never Be Hurt Again: He is both a Holocaust Survivor and mutant "lab rat" which pushes him towards Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto Us regarding mutant suppression by the humans.

New Era Speech: Gets one in Days of Future Past, delivered on national television before the Presidential cabinet.Magneto: You built these weapons to destroy us. Why? Because you are afraid of our gifts. Because we are different. Humanity has always feared that which is different. Well, I'm here to tell you, to tell the world, you're right to fear us. We are the future. We are the ones who will inherit this earth, and anyone who stands in our way will suffer the same fate as these men you see before you. Today was meant to be a display of your power. Instead I give you a glimpse of the devastation my race can unleash upon yours. Let this be a warning to the world. And to my mutant brothers and sisters out there, I say this; no more hiding, no more suffering. You have lived in the shadows in shame and fear for too long. Come out, join me. Fight together in the brotherhood of our kind. A new tomorrow, that starts today.

Nice Hat: Occasionally wears a fedora while in civilian garb, as shown in X-Men when he attends the hearing on mutants at the beginning of the film and in X-Men: Days of Future Past when he raids the vault for his helmet.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Attacking Mystique at the Paris Peace Conference bought Bolivar Trask a couple extra days and gets Nixon to fund the Sentinel program, but his betrayal and attack on the White House sets up a situation where a mutant is seen saving Nixon's life on live TV. Mystique performs a Heel–Face Turn, Nixon cancels the Sentinel program, and the Bad Future is averted.

Nightmare Fetishist: Everyone in X-Men: First Class, tells Raven that her true form as Mystique is horrifying, but Eric tells her that she is beautiful as she is, and that taking on a more normal looking appearance is wasteful of her powers, and limits her concentration against unexpected attacks. In X-Men: The Last Stand however, when Mystique shields Magneto from being struck by darts containing the Mutant Cure, he coldly abandons her now that she's human, regretfully telling Pyro that she used to be "so beautiful."

Noble Demon: At his fundamental core, Magneto wishes to protect innocent minorities from genocidal persecution at the hands of murderous racists, no matter what it takes.

Not So Different:

Outliving One's Offspring: His daughter is killed by Polish policemen in one of the most heartbreaking moments of the whole film franchise.

Overarching Villain: Magneto is the central antagonist of the first trilogy. In the prequels, he usurps the role of Big Bad from Shaw and Trask, before pulling a Heel–Face Turn at the very end of X-Men: Apocalypse. However, he comes to oppose the X-Men once again in the following film, only to ultimately join their battle against Vuk during the climax.

Parental Abandonment: His father is nowhere to be seen, and his mother is executed before him by Shaw to try and induce his magnetism powers.

Pet the Dog: He was the first person in Raven's life that complimented and truly admired her natural blue form. Also, upon reveal he compliments Hank, although it isn't met with a kind reaction from Beast, who believed he was being mocked.

Physical God: While always immensely powerful, he becomes this in X-Men: Apocalypse, being on the verge of tearing apart the planet (as one character puts it, "destroying everything built since the Bronze Age") while maintaining an impenetrable forcefield. Moreover, Charles implies that unlike the other Horsemen, Apocalypse didn't actually enhance him, he just tapped into his rage and pain, meaning that he had this potential all along.

Power Floats: Can fly by manipulating the Earth's magnetic field.

Pre-Mortem One-Liner: He delivers one to Sebastion Shaw as Charles holds control of Shaw's body."This is what we're going to do. [holds up the coin] I am going to count to three and I'm going to move the coin. One. [moves the coin towards Shaw's head] Two. Three." [puts the coin through Shaw's head, Charles screams].

Protagonist Journey to Villain: X-Men: First Class revolves around him seeking revenge for the murder of his mother and his increasing acceptance of mutant supremacy.

Red and Black and Evil All Over: His outfits typically have a lot of dark red and dark grey. The dark grey is accentuated in the older Magneto's costumes.

Red Oni, Blue Oni: In X-Men: First Class, he is rather hot-headed while Charles is more level-headed. ''Empire'' magazine even color-coded the front covers of their May 2011 issue accordingly.◊

Roaring Rampage of Revenge:

Rousing Speech: On several occasions he's persuaded mutants to follow his cause and fight along himself. Most notably, when he attacked the white house and on a live broadcast declared mutants come out of hiding because they are more powerful than the humans who would try to eliminate them. This is after he discredited the Sentinel program and held the president cabinet at gun point.

Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: In X-Men: First Class, he is the Manly Man to Charles' Sensitive Guy. They display this dynamic in their personalities (Anti-Hero vs. All-Loving Hero) and physique (Tall, Dark, and Handsome vs. Pretty Boy) as well as their philosophies and methods (Pay Evil unto Evil vs. Wide-Eyed Idealist).

Shut Up, Kirk!: Delivered one to Xavier in X-Men: First Class.Xavier: There are thousands of men on those ships. Good, honest, innocent men! They're just following orders. Erik: I've been at the mercy of men just following orders. Never again.

Slasher Smile: He sports a brief one when he rips iron from a guard's body in X2.

Slave Brand: The tattoo number of a Nazi concentration camp he carries upon his forearm, which he has brought attention towards to serve as a reminder for human cruelty.

At the end of X-Men United, he escapes after attempting to wipe out all non-mutants.

At the end of The Last Stand, he sneaks away when the Dark Phoenix awakens and realizes on his own that the effects of the mutant cure are only temporary.

In Apocalypse, he murders a bunch of policemen and creates a magnetic field that caused a lot of damage across the globe, but is let off the hook because he helped kill En Sabah Nur. However, this could be explained by the fact that he's so powerful at this point that there's way to reasonably contain him.

In Dark Phoenix he instigates a battle against the X-Men in the streets of New York, including his ripping a subway train out the ground and using it as a battering ram against the D'Bari stronghold, all in an attempt to kill Jean, but later fights alongside the X-Men to save her after Charles manages to sway him. By the end of the film he's openly wandering the streets of Paris without any repercussions, and even invites Xavier to come to Genosha with him.

The Nazis at the bar in First Class.

The security guards in Days of Future Past when he reclaims his helmet, done while sharply dressed wearing shades and a fedora.

And in Apocalypse, he does it again to the policemen sent to bring him in after one of them accidentally kills his wife and daughter. With a locket.

In X-Men: First Class, when he confronts the villain Sebastian Shaw at the end: Erik Lehnsherr: If you're in there, I'd like you to know that I agree with every word you said. We are the future. But unfortunately, you killed my mother.

In X2: X-Men United, the first thing he does when he gets inside the second Cerebro? Instructs Jason Stryker to simply reverse the polarity on Professor X's mental attack to target humans instead of mutants rather than free Charles from Jason's mind control.

In X-Men: First Class, he hunts down Shaw and his Nazi underlings to exact revenge for the death of his mother. He succeeds in giving the latter ones horrific deaths, but is effortlessly defeated by Emma Frost when he tries to do the same to the former.

In X-Men: Apocalypse, he uses his family medallion to slaughter the whole Polish police squad that has been sent to arrest him after they killed his daughter and wife by accident. He then goes on to kill his co-workers at the steel plant after one of them denounced him. Apocalypse arrives just as Erik was about to kill them, and sucks them all into the floor.

In Dark Phoenix, after learning that Jean killed Raven in a case of Power Incontinence, he immediately grabs his old helmet and heads to New York to get revenge.

Slowly Slipping Into Evil: In the original trilogy, Magneto starts out as a Well-Intentioned Extremist bent on turning regular humans into mutants. Come X2, he instead wishes to commit genocide against mankind, but still cares about mutant lives. But he is at his worst in The Last Stand, where he recklessly chooses to sacrifice his troops in Alcatraz, comparing them to the pawns in a Chess game.

The Social Darwinist: He believes mutants are the superior species towards humans.

Start of Darkness: X-Men: First Class devotes itself to his gradual transformation into the human-hating supremacist he is today, courtesy of his past as a Holocaust survivor and his affinity with Shaw's ideology.

Stealth Pun: Michael Fassbender kept his natural auburn hair for the role in X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, which makes him... Erik the Red.note

Super Reflexes: In X-Men: First Class, he's fairly confident he can stop a bullet shot point blank from his head. Later, he more or less holds true to his claim by stopping a horde of missiles fired by the US and Russian army within several feet from the air to him, and deflecting bullets while being shot at by Moira MacTaggert.

Sympathetic Murderer: In First Class, his target being Shaw, who killed his mother and tortured him.

Tailor-Made Prison:

Tall, Dark, and Handsome: In his youth, as shown in the First Class trilogy.

Team Dad: In X-Men: First Class he was the more stern and less nurturing parental figure for the proto X-Men, opposite Charles' Team Mom. This is what makes the "Beach Divorce" scene so much more tragic.

Team Member in the Adaptation: He was never a Horsemen in the comics. This version also forms the Brotherhood by taking control of the Hellfire Club after killing Shaw.

That Man Is Dead:Xavier: Erik, don't join them. Magneto: Whatever it is you think you saw in me, I buried it with my family.

Time-Shifted Actor: He has been portrayed by four actors in three note different stages of his life.

Tired of Running: Inspires mutant followers to stop hiding and accept themselves, while turning on the humans who would target them.

Too Happy to Live: His life in Poland in Apocalypse looks too happy to last as he is spotted and unmasked by authorities and both his wife and daughter die tragically.

Took a Level in Badass: In First Class after Charles unlocks his full potential and in Apocalypse when the titular character gives him a boost.

Tragic Keepsake: When he first met Sebastian Shaw, he was asked to move a Nazi Coin in exchange for his mother's life but was unable to do so and she was murdered. He carried the coin for most of his life until he moved it through Shaw's head, killing him.

Tragic Villain: Possibly the archetypal example.Charles: Listen to me very carefully my friend... killing Shaw will not bring you peace.Erik: Peace was never an option.Erik: Is this what you want from me?! Is this what I am?

Tranquil Fury: In X-Men: First Class, his powers are manifested through anger, until Charles helps by telling him "true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity."

Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Shaw had Erik awaken control of his magnetism by murdering his mother.

Troubled, but Cute: In X-Men: First Class, pre-supervillainy, he is a Nazi-hunting Byronic Hero with an intensely Dark and Troubled Past (involving the Holocaust, loss of his parents, and being a victim of human experimentation) and bucketloads of trauma and cynicism. He also wears a leather jacket on a few occasions.

Villain Has a Point: Magneto believes humans and mutants can never co-exist and fears the crimes of the Holocaust will be repeated against mutants one day. The Bad Future in Days of Future Past shows he's absolutely right; humans have created the Sentinels to hunt down and exterminate mutants, who are being herded into camps to be killed or experimented on en masse. Far before then, however, in First Class the U.S. and Soviet fleets open fire on the assembled mutants at Cuba simply because they are mutants, making no distinction between the ones that just fought to save them and the ones that were trying to kill them. Even when mutants do things right by humans (Mystique saving President Nixon in Days of Future Past), humans still screw them over, as shown in Logan when the mutants are on the verge of extinction again.

Villainous Legacy: He ends up killing Shaw out of revenge, but he fully agrees with Shaw's goal; that is, Mutants needing supremacy over humans to thrive, and carries it over from him.

Visionary Villain: He wants to create a world safe for mutants by any means necessary.

The Unfettered: If it means the safety of mutants he'll kill anyone from the President or even Mystique.

Was It Really Worth It?: His future self ultimately regrets fighting Charles for so long, and wishes he had some of those years back.

We Can Rule Together: An open door he extends to any mutant willing to see things his way, all the way up to and including Professor Xavier himself. Some accept and the ones who don't usually swing to Xavier's point of view.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: He has always been the archetypal example in comics and the films faithfully live up to that. He puts forth a big effort to allow mutants to come out of hiding and gain acceptance of themselves but at the same time opposes humans who would threaten them, believing war is inevitable. His plan in X-Men, is actually rather benevolent and would finally end the division between Mutants and the rest of Mankind, while sacrificing only Rogue to make it work. It's a good plan (though not necessarily one that would work in the long run), it's just a shame his machine doesn't work!

We Used to Be Friends: The whole premise of X-Men: First Class is to show how he and Charles Xavier became friends and then ended up on opposite sides with different ideals.

What the Hell Are You?: In X-Men: First Class, we have the following conversation:Former Nazi Officer: [in German] Who—what are you?Erik: [in English] Let's just say I'm Frankenstein's Monster... and I'm looking for my creator.

What the Hell, Hero?: In X-Men: Days of Future Past, his past self goes into an outburst about how fellow mutants were being killed left and right while Young Charles has been in hiding with Hank. Erik: Angel, Azazel, Emma, Banshee. Mutant brothers and sisters, all dead! Countless others, experimented on! Butchered! Where were you, Charles?! We were supposed to protect them! Where were you when your own people needed you?! Hiding! You and Hank! Pretending to be something you're not! You abandoned us all!

Wicked Cultured: Mags always enjoy a good game of chess with Xavier or listening to classical music.

With Us or Against Us: Concerning the mutants who choose to fight with him or against him, namely the X-men.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Each film of the new timeline keeps piling on the trauma that fuels his rage. In First Class he was a Holocaust survivor who had to watch his mother die in front of his eyes, and worse, it was because he couldn't consciously use his powers at the time. In Days of Future Past the Brotherhood were killed and experimented on by Trask Industries. In Apocalypse, after giving living in peace a chance, his wife and daughter are killed after his cover is blown as a mutant. All of this leads to him becoming an extremist willing to kill countless numbers of people. Highlighted in X-Men: First Class and arguably even more so in X-Men: Apocalypse, since he's quite literally out to destroy the world.

Worthy Opponent: He and Xavier have this relationship. Magneto: Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you will ever know. My single greatest regret is that he had to die for our dream to live.

Would Hit a Girl:

Would Hurt a Child: In X-Men: The Last Stand, he orders Juggernaut to kill Leech.

You Are Number 6: In X-Men: First Class, he outs himself as a holocaust survivor to some Nazis he was amicably chatting with (and planning to kill). When they asked for the names of his parents, being from the same town, he answered that they "had no names—they were stolen from them" before showing his own concentration camp number. Violence ensues.

You Are What You Hate: He hates Nazis due to being a survivor of the Holocaust, but ultimately embraces racism against non-mutants, this is highlighted in X-Men: First Class.

You Killed My Father: In X-Men: First Class, when he kills Schmidt/Shaw despite agreeing with his Mutant Supremacist ideals because Schmidt killed his mother in front of him as a child.Magneto: I want you to know I agree with everything you just said. We are the future. But, unfortunately... you killed my mother.

Younger Than They Look: In X-Men: First Class, Erik is around the same age as Charles (late twenties/early thirties), but the former appears considerably older because Michael Fassbender looks older than his actual age (he has a lot of lines on his face) while the baby-faced James McAvoy looks younger despite there being a only two-year age gap between the two actors. This can be Handwaved as Erik ageing prematurely because of the trauma and starvation he experienced during World War II.

Also, an alias Magneto himself used once, during the "Trial of Gambit" debacle. And one a Shiar spy on Earth used. Not so much a Stealth Pun as a Mythology Gag.

As an older man, however, his reflexes have notably slowed, as shown X-Men: Days of Future Past, when it takes him several moments to respond to and restrain a thrashing Logan - long enough for him to gash Kitty - and he doesn't quite catch all of the X-Jet's shrapnel.

At the end of X-Men, Magneto is locked in a cell made entirely of plastic. He got out in X2: X-Men United, thanks to Mystique giving one of his guards an "iron supplement," actually at least half a pound of the stuff, in liquid form. In real life, this would have given him iron poisoning, but he didn't survive long enough to find that out.

Subverted in X-Men: Days of Future Past. The concrete cell under the Pentagon was not built specifically for him, but simply constructed that way because steel was being rationed at the time. It still holds him quite well, though.

X-Men: First Class: The film ends with him outright proclaiming that he prefers his new moniker: Magneto.

X-Men: Apocalypse: Charles pleads with him not to join Apocalypse, but Lehnsherr has already reclaimed his Magneto persona.

Even when he genuinely tries to find peace in X-Men: Apocalypse,  his family is killed triggering an epic Rage Against the Heavens moment.

X-Men: He forcibly places Rogue into his machine, knowing full well that it will kill her.

X-Men: First Class:

X-Men: Days of Future Past: He would have murdered Mystique if it weren't for Beast's timely intervention.

Dark Phoenix: He attempts to murder Jean when he learns she killed Mystique. Later on, he finds himself alone against Vuk on the Mutant Containment Unit's train, uses his power to pick up every remaining gun, and empties them all into her at point-blank range. Thanks to Vuk's innate Healing Factor and getting an upgrade from absorbing the Phoenix, she blows this off without a scratch.

He cracks Emma Frost's crystalline neck after she refuses to cooperate.

He nearly strangles Moira to death with her own military dog tags, although Xavier manages to talk him out of it.