LEAVE BRITTANY ALOOOONE (or: Defensiveness of Fictional Characters)

I definitely get this way about Optimus Prime, and to a lesser extent the Autobots in general. I've gotten into knock-down fandom spats with someone who I think does the exact same thing, just with a very different interpretation of Optimus to my own. Also, several of my most trusted friends do this with Megatron, or Starscream, and the Decepticons. I think it's bound to happen reasonably often in Transformers because the entire way the story is set up pitches two rival factions, each with their own reasonably developed moral code and ideals (at least on a meta level), against each other - the whole franchise is built on that ideological conflict. And even though the Decepticons are the Designated Bad Guys, there is enough in most of the continuities - especially the modern ones - to explain and support the Decepticons' moral framework despite their Bad Guy status.

Personally, I wear the Autobot hat, and quite strongly. I identify incredibly strongly with TFP and G1 Optimi, particularly the former; he's basically me if I was a giant alien robot, only slightly better at holding up under immense stress. We share an intellectually-dominated worldview, a moral code that seems to come from somewhere between felt conviction and careful thought, very blunted emotional affect, and an equally blunted sense of empathy paired with high compassion. When I see Optimus, there's a large part of my mind that points and says, "Hey look, it's Me."

Which means that when Optimus - and the faction he represents - gets criticised, that same part of me takes it personally. Because, as far as it's concerned, it IS personal.

Unfortunately for me, I've got a very strong negative reaction to being criticised. I tend to think I Know Best, and while I've deliberately cultivated an ability to stay calm and listen to critique, it's admittedly partially just for the show of maturity. I very seldom end up listening to the critique I get, unless I've already started to see the holes in my plan/actions myself. Since I was quite young, I've felt that it's important to actually think about the critique I get, even if I think it's stupid. Again, unfortunately, I've never been able to get rid of that immediate swamp of shame and 'fuck you I do what I want' that can last for days or weeks after the criticism in question.

I've talked to a couple of my friends who sit on the stanning horse for various fictional characters, and the one common thread is that they feel a sense of identity or kinship with those characters. For some of them it's an anxiety or trauma issue. For others it's seeing a character they see as an inspiration or a source of strength being criticised, and that feels like a criticism of the things they want and the values they hold in life. For me, there's also kind of an intellectual fuck you in there - I've come to this conclusion through long and careful thought, and if you disagree with that then I tend to take that disagreement as an attack on the quality of my thought itself, as my mind and intelligence are the things about me that I am most proud of.

This is kind of a stream of consciousness ramble, so hopefully it makes sense lmao

 

adding my samehats here, specifically for Asch the Bloody from Tales of the Abyss because hello understated PTSD and trust issues son

I've been RPing him for four years now (god) and it is honestly well known in my tumblr circle that I will just. show up and fight you for being wrong about him. Which honestly is a very Aschlike reaction in and of itself so you can see why I'm attached. Aside from Kintsugi, playing him has been KIND OF my primary means of sorting my Abuse Shit, so, you know.

 

SAME HAT

like to the point where people who post bad cronus discourse have apparently begun warning each other about me pre-emptively

 

my fandom is sadly too small for more than one person to be wrong about Asch at once, usually

thank god I don't identify with Jade though, Jade Discourse is a Mess (this is about abyss jade not homestuck jade ftr)

 

I am way to conflict-avoident to start fights but I basically vagueblog every time I see shitty Nepeta characterization. Which is almost all of it. Like even people I really like get Nepeta wrong, she is either too moe blob or too murderhappy or just a shitty one note "what if the tiny cute one smoked pot and swore isn't that transgressive lolololol" joke. Just goddamn why can't people treat her like a character with agency like they treat everyone else i understand she's a bit character but if you manage to make full fledged characters out of Feferi or half the goddamn dancestors why can't you manage it with her
Don't get me started on the Disciple. It's impossible, there's no point, she gets about one line of Supportive Female Friend in every PsiiSuff fic out there and that is about it.

 

I've gotten better over the years at emotionally and literally backing away from fandom fights, and in general realizing that if randos criticize something I care about, well, I don't need to worry about it, do I? But oh my god was that realization hard won.

Vanyel from the Last Herald-Mage trilogy was the first gay man, depressed, and suicidal character I came across. His inner voice/thought patterns were also similar to mine in nebulous but very relatable ways, I still haven't run into many characters I have that reaction to. All this was a Big Fucking Deal to 13-y-o me, and I spent the next 3-4 years furiously arguing with anyone online who didn't agree that the trilogy was a work of literary genius. Which is hilarious both because- oh boy did those books have problems worthy of discussion, and that certain members of the fanbase had a reputation for reacting this way.

If something comes along and reaffirms your own worth as a person, lets you know that you aren't alone in your problems, even if you can't talk about them and hardly understand them yourself - it's powerful. It becomes more than a story you enjoy at that point. I'm guessing it's similar for most of the people in this thread, it's affirming to see yourself reflected in fiction, in a way that even hearing other people talk about their own similar experiences only partly captures.

Thankfully for everyone I don't go on "You are Wrong; in 3k+ words" rants anymore, but I still feel a bit attacked if people are discoursing about characters who've acted in incredibly similar ways to me. It's worse if it's stuff I also feel bad or insecure about, it's hard not to read it as confirmation that I Fucked Up. (I have banned myself from reading Lapis discourse. This was a wise decision that made being in the Steven Hell fandom so much more tolerable, highly recommended)

 

I get this way more with entire fictional works than specific characters. I used go out of my way to watch movies alone because I'd end up unconsciously processing other people's reactions with at least as much priority as my own. I wanted to know what *I* thought of the movie.

It's gotten better, and I've gotten better at handling it. Most people will accept a sincere "Oh, I like it!" even if they've begun a negative rant and clearly weren't expecting dissent. If they ask why and I don't feel like having much of a discussion, I'll usually follow up with "I just really enjoy it!" or "It makes me happy!" Usually that's enough. It doesn't leave a lot of room for argument that's not obviously ridiculous.

But there are occasional people who will persist beyond that, repeatedly and aggressively continuing to explain why they don't like the thing and it's dumb to like it because the thing is dumb. That will eventually make me very upset.

(No, close friend, I do not want to hear why you think Supergirl is stupid. I don't want to explain why I liked it because I don't want to hear why those reasons are stupid. I know you don't think that I am stupid, but it's hard not to feel that way when you're talking to me like that. Just please please please shut up. You are harshing my buzz and your withering derision may actually put our friendship in jeopardy.)

 

Like other people in this thread, I also think that the stan hat comes out for characters that people heavily identify with, to the point where defending them is like defending your own identity.

When I was really Stan prone as a teenager, I don't remember people getting into character discourse very much in the anime fandom. There was a little bit of it (I seem to remember Shampoo from Ranma 1/2 being a controversial character, but I didn't care about her).

If there had been raging debates about, say, Vanyel from the last Herald mage I would have stanned for him, but the internet didn't exist for me when I was 13-14 years old. I was right there with him the first time I read Magic's Pawn (for me it was the social isolation, depression, inward focus and the relationship with his mom. ( I just really wanted to be whisked away to a magic school where I could have friends and a purpose).

I spent more time projecting onto OCs, rather then characters that had to be shared with a huge number of people. I've had some luck with the idea that everyone's version of the character is different, so say my Gamzee was vastly different then someone else's Gamzee and their interpretation didn't affect my version of the character.

In practice...well, I still felt personally attacked from all the Gamzee hate that rolled out during the big fight with Terezi. I may have done some stanning because I felt attacked. My mental health was starting to deteriorate when I latched onto Gamzee, and I got really attached to this au version of him that I rped with a friend. He got mired up in a bad breakup with my best friend, but then that situation gradually got better and I didn't need him anymore. (Also, his canon development ended up being shitty, that didn't help).

There also seems to be hard limits on the kind of behavior I'll accept from even a very problematic fav. I remember being utterly repulsed by idea of Gamzee torturing Nepeta in this battle Royale au fic that someone described to me (I would feel neutrally toward that now, so I'm not sure of my reasoning at the time.). There was a few other things I was strongly against. I think it's worse when the character is continuously being attacked by the fandom, or when the character is doing things in canon that are close to contradicting your interpretation of them.

There's a urge to furiously prop their identity in the face of new information. Gamzee is a great example because he took such a hard turn as a character in act 6. First he was mysterious and you could imagine all sorts of motivation for his actions and then he was suddenly Aranea's puppet to..some degree and then he was beating the hell out of Terezi. There was alot of fancy footwork and theorizing that had to be done in order to keep the traits I absolutely needed him to have in order to still feel connected to that character.

I remember before game over being dead certain that Gamzee would never hurt Karkat (Ha hahaha). At some point I had to just completely disregard Act 6 canon and just let my affection for him live on in fanworks. At the point the urge to stan dies because Canon doesn't relate to your love of the character anymore, they become like an OC. And other people's gamzee's are like slightly different OCs with shared traits.

I have one character right now who I might stan for. I've unfollowed people for their views on him, I've argued with several people over his actions and motivations. There are certain interpretations that I can only stand if the people who have them aren't insisting that they are canon. Don't try to tell me that he's shallow egoist who doesn't care about anybody but himself, I will fight you with paragraphs and screen captures.

There's a huge amount you can learn about a person by what characters they feel strongly about. Azurite really hit the nail on the head, it is nice to see parts of yourself reflected in a character. For me it's wonderful to see them accepted by others and succeed despite the shortcomings that we share (or because of them), or watch them let loose and have fun with evil traits that we have to keep in check in real life.

I wonder if all stannable characters share the stans weak spots or vulnerabilities, the things that we have a deep seeded urge to defend.

 

this is not the same but i sometimes get attached to being right about canon. to having interpretations that make sense and knowing all the facts, and convincing myself that i am a bad ficwriter or artist if i don't. but being attached to it doesn't really make me any better at it. it just means i've put a lot of my self-worth on it, and i will feel upset if i think i don't have sufficient mastery of it.

 

SAME HAT TO ALL OF THIS IN PARTICULAR THOOOOOOUUUUGGGGHHHHH

eta: and same hat to everything after, hot damn. @unknownanonymous especially that, holy shit solidarity, i can write fic before we know anything much about a canon/character/etc or after we already have all the relevant material to interpret, and for me there is no in-between because i hate getting jossed so fucking much.

for example, i actually wrote the very first posted lornester fic from fargo season 1, immediately after the first episode aired! and i was updating regularly and having fun!

...and then a couple episodes in it turned out the animal motif i'd chosen to emphasize--snakes and birds--was actually Wrong because lorne's animal motif ended up being wolves. i was so crushed and dispirited that i abandoned writing any further chapters of that fic and couldn't bring myself to write for anything except aus afterward (usually wrenchers or donmitri tbh, getting jossed literally turned me off of lornester even though it's a fantastic fucked up ship) because fuck what if i was Wrong about the symbolism again

 

I'm the same as @Verily in that I stan hard for an entire show, movie, book, ect rather than chsracters...I've been sitting here trying to think of any negativity aimed at my favorite characters that has upset me or felt personal, and...nothing. I will get mad at -isms aimed at characters, like ppl calling Isabella a slut, but I don't take it as an attack at me, just anger and annoyance at a sexist idiot being an idiot. Even the way over the line hate at Anders I don't get upset at, cause hey...he did terrible things! If anyone calls him a terrorist, like, I don't agree whstsoever but I get why they say it.

It's when they start saying Anders fans are terrorism apologists that I do get personally offended and upset. Saying a character is shitty..hey, thats like, just your opinion, man. Saying a characters fans are shitty? Fuuuck you!

Damn, I remember didn't even get upset when ppl started calling Cole akin to a rapist, I just was like 'well, you're fuckin' stupid' and stopped looking at the Cole tag. Honestly, I think... I think part of it is my lack of being able to identify so strongly with characters (at least in the way everyone else seems to) but most of it is, uh...that nobody's opinion of a character I like can make me feel bad about mine. Because mine is the right one. Literally my thought process is:
*gets told a negative opinion of chara I like*
Outward Me: Oh ok, well, different strokes for different folks, right?
Internal Voice Me: But I'm right and you're wrong, so I don't have to care about your opinion at all, byeee
Outward Me: I respect your right to think whatever you choose to think! :)

Omg, that's sooo arrogant but it's so true XD

 

I think the thing that really gets me is when people are specifically, provably wrong, and in a way that personally offends me. like, one of the specific examples from tvtropes that put me in the rage cage was some dingus trying to apply 'Heel-Face Revolving Door' to a character who goes from sleeper agent to badguy to goodguy. THERE IS NO REVOLVING THERE. THAT CHARACTER DID NOT START OUT 'GOOD'. BUT THE TROPE SOUNDS HILARIOUS, IF YOU KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT ANYTHING AND ARE A SCRUB

 

I get so weird about canon in some works. I think the weirdest I get is probably Tolkien, in that I am a diehard "the histories we have are biased and incomplete, and everything is canon, even the drafts" sort of fan. Because I took the meta-narrative of Tolkien to heart. Really to heart. So I get kind of cranky and snobbish about those "THIS IS THE TRUE CANON" types or the ones who don't care about it at all.

 

(Out of curiosity, where does the term 'stan' come from? I understand what it means from context, but I'd never seen it before I joined Kintsugi.)

I can really imagine people going either way on this. Personally, I think it would be the opposite for me. If I loved a character because I identified with their vulnerabilities, I'd either curl up in a little ball of self-loathing if confronted by hate, or I'd completely shake it off. If someone were being awful about Sollux, I'd probably die inside a little. If they were hating on Spike from Buffy, I might be rather offended but I'd probably mostly be like pfft yeah whatever.

For me, I'd be most likely to go berserk over characters I've latched onto whom I specifically don't see as sharing my weaknesses. Like 13 from House. It's not that I don't identify with her, but I see her more as someone I'd want to be, or at least be more like. I think she's really cool. An attack on her feels like an invalidation of my hopes and dreams, as well as my sense of what's cool.

If I admire a character and aspire to be more like them in some way, even if the character is overall horrible, my attachment to them often has to do with vulnerabilities I feel like a lesser person for having. I'm more likely to get irrational about those.

 

The characters I get that defensive over aren't the ones I relate to, typically. More just people who I feel deserve a chance and that I need to adamantly stand by that or my morals and ideals will be for nothing. Like defending Aranea or Chara's "rights" to redemption arcs becomes a sort of honor issue for me. And I'm very vulnerable when it comes to my sense of that. So it is a vulnerability but not one I share with the character.

 

there's a wikipedia article on the term

 

i didn't know this side of wikipedia existed before

i'm glad i know now

 

Ohhhhh that Stan. Suddenly everything has taken on a new shade of awful hilarity.

ETA: Also thank you!

 

I feel this omg. Idk if any of you remember, but for a time between when the Avengers and Winter Soldier came out (don't remember specifically, but it went on for months) there was a huge multi-way ship war in Marvel fandom that no one wanted to admit was a ship war, and a lot of it involved being very wrong about characters and mixing incidents from several uninvolved universes to make your point (on all sides). I was annoyed by this happening with Tony, Bucky and Natasha, but when it happened to Steve, I went into frothing rage mode and left the fandom for a while.

There's also an occasional tendency that affects my faves to transplant some of the nastier parts of a character's backstory onto a 'nicer' character so the author can write an abuse survivor as a complete woobie who has never done anything wrong, and this makes me so angry. Stop erasing my fave's reason to be angry. Stop enforcing the narrative that survivors are all uwu sad little angels.

 

Update: Apparently I will fight people over

Spoiler: Kingdom Hearts 2.8, specifically Back Cover

whether or not the Master of Masters is emotionally abusive to the Foretellers, and also whether that makes him evil. Because holy shit, that was Tangled-level blatant emotional abuse on all the Foretellers, not just Aced who he more openly tears down, and if you try to say he was just joking that is like grounds for an actual fight.

This is directly because it pings on my abuse triggers so you know. Not exactly defensiveness, pretty much the opposite thing, but god if I'm not ready to fight about it.