LEAVE BRITTANY ALOOOONE (or: Defensiveness of Fictional Characters)

It was specifically the Fallout games they were contrasting with Dragon Age. Which, fuck, people can have preferences that are counter to mine, but at least stick with the same genre if you're going to do that. (Afaik, they'd never played an Elder Scrolls game in their life.)

They specifically hunted out the friends that played Dragon Age to complain about this shit about, too. And made vague posts every time one of us reblogged Dragon Age shit. And complained about how these crappy games had more of a presence on their dash than Fallout 2 content or whatever. It was infuriating, because they were shaming us for daring to enjoy something they clearly did not like.

 

... I hope they weren't surprised when their asses got dropped.

I mean I don't like a lot of the Common Tumblr Fandoms at any given time, but that doesn't mean I'm shitty about it. I just get hopelessly bored by, for a current example, the mundane-modern of Yuri on Ice.

 

WOW EXCUSE THEM BUT THEY ARE WRONG

... *coughs* I guess you can tell one of the characters I get super defensive over, huh? *fades back into the bushes, muttering about people who bitch about Fenris being 'whiny' because apparently slavery and sexual trauma is something you should just ~get over~*

 

I don't know. "Don't like, don't read/watch/play" is generally good advice. We live in a world where there is literally more entertainment available than any single person could take in even if they didn't have to sleep, work/school, or eat. I don't understand why anyone wastes their precious time in a living body seeking out and/or sticking with things that are supposed to be fun that they don't actually enjoy.

 

i just read an undertale meta theorizing that literally all the gaster fanon is wrong and i am... offended??? even though i didn't make any of the fanon??? and i never thought i was that invested in gaster anyway???

what the fuck???

 

Reminds me of the time like 20 years ago when I walked into an anime club meeting with a very new and very expensive and very pretty Sailor Moon doll to show off and some asshole started dissing Sailor Moon.

I literally looked at him and said "What the fuck is wrong with you? I'm walking in here with a doll I just bought and am thrilled with and you're trying to ruin my fun? You don't have to like what I like but don't be an asshole about it."

 

That's because you missed the memo that fandom is for sneering disdain of other fans only

... isn't it?

 

GOD I FUCKING HATE PEOPLE WHO DO THAT SORT OF PERFORMATIVE DISDAIN FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S ENJOYMENT
especially whenever people try to do "deconstruction" fics that are just them going "I DIDN'T LIKE (INSERT MEDIA HERE) SO I GOTTA SHOW YOU PLEBS THAT YOU'RE BEING STUPID FOR NOT HATING IT LIKE ME"
like, chill and let people enjoy things instead of mocking them for it

on the topic of things i am unreasonably defensive over, both geist: the sin eaters and the dresden files. like, yes, i understand that geist is not to everyone's tastes and is a bit wonky, but calling it a "broken unplayable trashheap of a game" is just stupid. and like, yes the dresden files are Problematic TM but seriously? you do not need to sit around and call canonically pretty decent interactions between characters twisted and abusive because you can't let anything from the books not be bitched about.

 

That shit's just rude.

 

ok this post got really personal... ...if you want the highlights, it turns out i'm just really defensive of 'pathetic' abuse victims and idk characters whose abuse is a footnote to their fandom or to their canon. i could add more thoughts but i've put in a lot.

I know I'm super defensive of Claptrap and Asriel/Flowey as characters. Defensiveness in general just seems to come from... both me relating to a character, and feeling like the character is hated for the wrong reasons. There's characters where I don't care about whether or not someone likes them, but when I hear their reasoning it frustrates me.

Claptrap is like that... for me, really obviously nd character who was created to be made fun of. He reminds me of a younger me, so a lot of defensiveness comes from there. Not just that, but... realistically, a lot of bad shit happens to him that the fandom makes fun of, and the fandom pulls a lot of the same jokes that the series does. It's frustrating to me that Claptrap is a character no one would take me seriously about if I talked about his role meta wise too... especially since a lot of the people who wouldn't take me seriously are often super defensive about other fictional characters, heck even characters who play in butt monkey-ish roles like Claptrap.

On the other hand... I could write an essay about the ways I'm defensive about Flowey/Asriel...

I'm defensive because his role as a character is often treated as shallow, and his character is often divided into two halves. I'm tired of 'satanic flower' and 'sweet sweet never done wrong' child versions of this character. This is something I mainly ignore, what can you do. But you'll find very few people who care about Flowey if you ask them, who is the first character I fell in love with in Undertale and my long lasting favourite.

What I get particularly defensive of is the fact his relationship with Chara is super implied to be unhealthy, and yet every time someone mentions this 100 people will contradict it because they love Chara. It's not wrong to love Chara. I love Chara while acknowledging they fucked up. I think because Asriel... really truly reminds me of an abusive friendship I had as a kid, and me becoming a more bitter person as a result, this hits me very deeply. Kids can abuse kids. Abuse can be unintentional. And if I say that their relationship was 'toxic' people accept this more readily... because abuse has become a loaded word in discussions. Abuse means 'and I don't forgive this character', abuse means 'and this character didn't have redeeming aspects to them'. And in Chara's case, of course, they deserve love and people helping them regardless. If they're a kid and don't know how to form relationships and hurt people they care about, it's going to cause issues for them too. Chara is interpretative. But you have Asriel echo all these... codependent, troubled lines... pressured into saying 'of course I'd never doubt you', and being coerced into a plan. You have him base his self worth around Chara and wanting to just... be more like that kind of person. I don't know. People really work to push all this under the rug and say that this overwhelming evidence that their relationship had issues is bad to acknowledge.

(I love Chara as someone who fantasized about revenge when I was a kid. I feel I understand them. But I don't feel like I should have to confess I really love Chara to highlight what they did)

I feel like every time I actually do relate to a character who's a victim of abuse, their abuser is somehow a more relevant character for people to love. I find myself running into this. Abuse victims who aren't taken seriously. again and again... To a degree, I think that's true with Claptrap who is a joke character and abused severely for laughs. Although different, it's this... I get defensive over abused characters who... aren't the type of person we should 'take seriously'. I guess that's ultimately why I end up so frustrated and defensive. It often hits a personal note. I guess I see myself in the 'pathetic' type of abuse victim.

Idk, as much as it pains me, UT fandom reminds me of ye old Homestuck days when I'd say 'Tavros' and 50 people would say... 'Vriska', etc etc.

 

I am unable to comment re: Claptrap as I am barely familiar with Borderlands, but yep, the relationship between Chara and Asriel is obviously unhealthy, and they are both clearly messed up kids and Asriel is messed up mainly because of Chara, and acknowledging that doesn't make Chara the devil or mean that their relationship with Asriel has to be ignored or downplayed in order to make them redeemable. But... Tumblr fandom will be Tumblr fandom, I guess.

 

I had something similar happen a while back. I was wearing my Aradiabot shirt, and some girls started chatting with me about Homestuck, and this third girl that was with their group just rolled her eyes and was like "ugh, I hate Aradia," and it's like. Did I ask you? No. No, I did not ask you, fuck off.

 

i have had to physically stop myself from getting into Internet Confrontations when i see people interpreting my bird son whirl Incorrectly

but i get most defensive about starscream because YES, YES HE IS TERRIBLE AND HE HAS DONE SO MANY BAD THINGS BUT!! stop treating him like a joke he is doing his best and he has been through so much and STOP LAUGHING WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO HIM!!! stop!!! leave him alone!!!!! let him grow as a person without getting dragged back down every time he makes some progress!!!!!

*bangs pots and pans* BE NICER TO STARSCREAM!!!!!

oh also soundwave has never done anything wrong, ever, in his entire life. ever. he's a good boy. if anyone has any evidence to the contrary i
1) Do Not Want To Hear It
2) Will Not Acknowledge It
3) Am Fully Prepared To Take You To Court If Pressed

 

ive been searching for a specific emoticon to express my anger but i can't find it so i had to fall back on an old neopets emoticon that ALMOST expresses how i feel but NOT QUITE and i blame YOU for this, spock "spock" andawe

 

spock "spockandawe" andawe

 

I am so glad this thread exists. I lived Vriska from the very point she was introduced and later brainbent!vriska helped me come to terms with my bpd/npd. Even today when homestuxk is dead, i have to deal with people shitting on me for just liking her, let alone identfying with her

 

does getting reminded of antis whenever i think too much about the player being a bad guy in undertale (and feeling much better when i think about it as though frisk and chara are the only ones in frisk's head) count as LEAVE BRITTANY ALONE?

it's kinda weird, though, 'cause, like, i also like to think of myself, when engaging with fiction, as just a semi-omniscient viewer. i'm not in the story, even if i am making choices about how it goes, i'm just watching the actual characters do their thing and making my character interact with them.

 

hi hello i am very, very particular about how my faves get written, because it gets me right in the "someone is wrong on the internet!" heh
i do it most for karkat, dave, and jade, but honestly i will get down and dirty in the mudpit of internet slapfights for a pretty big chunk of the homestuck characters >>;;
stop being wrooooooooooooooooooong about my faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaves god damn it!

i have a type for characters that appeal to me, and i can look back through everything i've ever been into and pinpoint that Type in nearly all my faves. i will fight to the death about keeping the snarky, quick-witted, insecure douchebags snarky, quick-witted, insecure douchebags. probably because i am a snarky insecure douchebag? but nothing rustles my jimmies faster than woobifying or, worse, bad snark. level up your retort game before trying to write the world champions of wordplay!

it's also probably partially that someone i knew was, uh, Very Vocal about how if your characterization wasn't nigh-indistinguishable from hussie's then you shouldn't do it at all, because there's a gut reaction of "IF I GOTTA BE PERFECT YOU DO TOO, INTERNET RANDO" even if i do know that's mean and doesn't help anyone (hence why i try and wrangle my LEAVE BRITTANY ALOOOONE impulses in most cases)