i've seen people argue that komaeda did nothing wrong. he's mentally ill so he can't be held accountable for his actions and if you say he's a villain you're literally being ableist
they might well have been; i think i either: 1. have seen an argument against shipping theta with anyone because he's childish/childlike/"child-coded" 2. have not seen this, but it's so plausible i'm mistaking my imagining of it for a memory also i definitely HAVE seen debates about whether shipping caboose is in any way okay. fhdgfhggdyufg what even the fuck i've definitely seen some Discourse in the dangan ronpa fandom but i haven't seen that. Spoiler: super dangan ronpa 2 SPOILERS what exactly about "trying to get 5 other teens killed by proxy in an inverted murder-suicide because you suspect they're Despair" can they say is "doing nothing wrong." what even the fuck. did they PLAY or even WATCH this game
I think the pedophilia thing was that if you, the reader, had written anything in any fandom that could be considered "pedophilia" by anti standards (like shipping two 17 year olds or whatever), then you had a scarlet P on your forehead and were forever unclean. Not necessarily RvB specific, because as you say, there's like one character (two if you count Theta, which I don't because AI fragment shenanigans) to be shipped.
Oh God, this mentality pisses me off so damn much. And being in the cesspit that is the SU fandom, I see it a lot. #look peridot and amethyst may essentially be the gem equivalent of shithead teenagers in terms of mentality #but that's not gonna stop me from shipping them #with each other AND with other characters #sure as hell not gonna stop me from drawing the occasional nude ame either because hot damn
I MEAN... i would argue komaeda isn't a villain because like. it's literally not true. he does bad shit but like. the dude is set up to play a similar role to togami and isn't the main antagonist of the series. he's manipulative but he's literally not a villain. people who say komaeda didn't do shit are like. 100% wrong. on the other hand I've seen a lot of people who make komaeda do shit worse than he did and it feels very ooc. ex: flirty, sexually pressuring, rapist komaeda is a pretty common thing and just because he can be an asshole doesn't mean he does... that kinda shit.
I think that's a depressingly common thing in fandom at large, ESPECIALLY the rapist thing. I've seen a lot of people insisting Damara is totally a rapist you guys because she gets creepily sexual a lot, even though it's heavily implied that she's doing that to mess with people due to the language barrier and her advances aren't genuine? And she's far from the only asshole character I've seen portrayed that way. Granted, she's arguably a villain, but still. You don't have to go around raping people to be a nasty piece of work!
fandom komaeda: i once went ran into a fic where komaeda skullfucked a lobotomized hinata while he was knocked out and ppl in the comments talked about how the writer made komaeda appropriately creepy (which like. if thats ur kink. but its not rly accurate lol) canon komaeda: literally couldn't even admit his crush without bailing out at the last second bc he doesn't like admitting shit about his feelings @Acey I think certain kinds of characters definitely attract it, especially if they have a kind of confident air to them? It's interesting because some characters don't even say anything sexual necessarily but get this characteristic attributed to them (iunno if anyone knows haikyuu, but for ex. I'm thinking oikawa). It's really unsettling when it creeps into common fandom interp like, everywhere. Like. outside of kink fic and into a lot of casual romantic fic or heck even fandom discourse
Yeah, there's a number of traits that tend to make characters likely candidates for being made local fanon rapists of various stripes. Villains in general are prime targets, then vocally sexual characters in general, then characters with either forceful personalities or manipulative/manipulative-seeming tendencies, ime? The "they're evil so obviously they'd also be a rapist" thing in particular is the bane of my goddamn existence, alongside the related "they were in a serious abusive situation so it must have included sexual abuse" trope you see in so many fanfics. I used to have conversations with a few friends about how utterly ridiculous some of the choices for fanon rapists out there were. (I'm still not sure I've seen any that quite edge out Suikoden II's Luca Blight for sheer "of all the villains to write as rapists, you chose this one?" factor.) ...oh for fuck's sake. I actually used to know the author of that fic and remember when they first posted it? And uh, my personal feelings about the person aside, they openly said that they wrote that fic because a) fuck yeah freaky kink stuff and b) they enjoyed the idea of writing That Infamous Fic for their fandom. Like, from my vague memory it was a well-written fic, yes, but... serious characterization clearly was not the point...
....I think what people forget a lot is that a good villan needs to have a strong sense of internal logic in order for them to be effective, compelling, interesting, ect. Don't just pile shit on for the evils, think about how this character views the world and why they do what they do. Like Sephiroth is a genocidal, brain fucking asshole, but he's not the type to commit, for example, petty thievery (or, for that matter, sexual assult imo.) Like its not a silly "even villans have standards" dr.doom crying at 9/11 type thing, its making sure that your villan is a character and not just a plot device
@keltena ok it's actually kind of hilarious you knew the author and that makes me laugh a bit, but yeah! it wasn't really the content of the fic that was my big gripe. It's been awhile since I read it and it's def a 'intended to be fucked up' deal. It's yeah, just that people were like... 'yep that's komaeda'. Like, the creepiest and most fucked up you can make Ko isn't necessarily the most accurate Ko even tho a lot of soft Kos aren't really the dude either. also it's interesting how often a character who's like, Problematique will get dismissed as having zero motives whatsoever. Like ex. w Ko there is a lot of people play up him being someone who just fucks with people for no reason when he clearly has a fucked up philosophy behind all his actions (even if it is hard to understand sometimes). (Though to be fair Ko is like, super nd and I find even the rare non-villain/controversial nd characters sometimes are handwaved as having all their actions be the result of mental health issues)
I believe it happened in Marvel Comics canon. One of those, "Author, I realize you mean well and don't want to come across as trivializing a real tragedy, but..."
Spoiler: cw: rape THIS. This so much. And like...sometimes it's not even the outright villains in a series who are actually likely to be like that? Like, I'd argue that Cronus isn't a villain per se, but IMO he's a much more likely potential rapist than most of the cast, with the exception of Mindfang canonically being one (and Aranea's actions being basically mind rape). He's not a good guy, but he's less of an outright VILLAIN than a lot of Homestuck characters, and yet he's still far more likely to go down that route than most of the villains! But that's not convenient for badfic writers who want to show that a character is Totes Evil U Guise. (I've actually seen more rapist!Damara stuff than rapist!Cronus stuff...which is kinda funny given the PXS thing, come to think of it.) And hell, I've even seen characters who are canonically good guys that could still convincingly be written like that? Although usually it's just used as shorthand for "this character is Actually Evil," so... Also, please ask me about the terrible fic I once read where Steven rapes Connie because that was uh...an experience.
I could see someone coming up with that if they didn't finish the game, since he dies well before you get his backstory, but. Yes. *"Sephiroth Mouse" flashbacks* But yeah, despite the soul-crushingness of the utter lack of content in my tiny fandom, I am sometimes very glad that it's so small because that has almost definitely spared me so much horrendous OOCness. Including "person is A Bad, they must do All the Bad Things."
If you have seen that argument, I'm pretty sure t had to have been entirely unnecessary/theoretical, because I've never seen Theta shipped... ever? Yeah I don't think I've ever seen any fic or art that includes him in a romantic or sexual capacity. And god, I'm not even surprised about Caboose. Because of course if you have brain damage it means you're automatically a child and can't consent or have romantic feelings, never mind that he's had multiple crushes in canon...
The Force Awakens' Finn does not need a redemption arc. His character arc is not and never will be a redemption arc. To get a redemption arc, you need to do something wrong. Finn was introduced refusing to do bad shit. What the hell is he supposed to be atoning for, what flaw is he supposed to be overcoming?? Being kidnapped and brainwashed from childhood and still not managing to slaughter innocent people?? Piss off with that nonsense, and piss off with the concurrent nonsense idea that a character cannot have a redemption arc if they've done a bad thing. Like, goddamn. The TFA fandom is so fucking lazy sometimes.
Mando dude bros are still horrifying, by the by. Worse yet are uneducated Mando dude bros. You claim to adore Traviss' work and yet you compare her Mandos to Spartans? She is on record stating that wasn't the basis. They are Celts, you idiots. not all military cultures are the same fucking thing jesus christ they are the least spartan assholes in the galaxy Now if you were talking about some other writer's Mandos or the current canon Mandos maybe you'd have something going for you. Maybe. Some of these portrayals have been Viking inspired, for example. But the Traviss Mandos? No. Leave my home.
@tinyhydra This reminds me of a discussion I saw where people argued recent Star Wars films were pro-facism because (in part) they portrayed a sympathetic fascist. ...They were talking about Finn.
