It Means "To Cut"

i see this with way too many female characters in general, not just with Jax ( and i don't just mean poorly written ones, but ones people have a valid reason to not like much, like Vidia from Tinkerbell ), and i'm kinda sick of it.

if you're female character is a bad person, let her be a bad person and face the consequences of that.

even if she's not a bad person, let her make mistakes, receive consequences, and then have a resolution.

they're literally never misunderstood. people try to help and understand them all the time. they just usually don't want that.

that's not being misunderstood, that's being difficult bc you wanna be broody and edgy and sad to justify making everyone else's life difficult on purpose.

the only characters i've seen that are misunderstood are women that don't fit into the mold sexist people ( commonly men ) want them to fit, disabled characters, and genuinely kind-hearted characters who are somehow always believed to have ulterior motives.

for example, i like Azula. i relate to her (to an extent). but i will openly admit that she's an abuser. because she is. she abused her brother, she abused her friends, and she's also a sadistic war criminal who singlehandedly conquered an entire kingdom. she's manipulative, she has no concern for human life and has never expressed remorse for her actions.

i won't make excuses for Azula simply because i empathize with her, and i also won't downplay her actions by beating around the bush and calling her "flawed" or saying vague shit like "she pushes people away". she was abusive and toxic, simple as that.

similarly, i like Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz (to everyone who thinks i just despise queer women). i think she's a very compelling character. but i can still freely admit that she was toxic. she hurt a bunch of people who were very close to her, she permanently injured Volleyball, she abandoned Spinel for hundreds of years, and she traumatized the Crystal Gems and Steven for life. she was definitely more of a morally grey character than pure evil, but that doesn't mean she didn't do terrible things.

it's easy to call a character flawed or morally grey. everyone is flawed, and everyone is morally grey to some extent. no one is perfect, no one is pure good or pure evil.

it's a lot harder to admit that a character you like is abusive or a rapist, or anything that clearly defines them as a terrible person, especially if you relate to that character.

and the thing is, relating to characters like Jax or Catra doesn't necessarily mean that you're an abuser too. i relate to both these characters, to some extent. i can empathize with Jax's fear of vulnerability and intimacy. i can relate to Catra's experience with abuse and her trust issues and self-loathing.

you can like villains, you can relate to them and it doesn't make you a terrible person. but i feel like a lot of fans get way too defensive because they see themselves in this character so much that any critique the characters faces feels like a personal attack.

it's also good to introspect sometimes. do you display some of these destructive habits? have you hurt people in your life? what is it about this character that hits close to home, and how can you avoid ending up like them?

Every single person on this planet thinks about dark and taboo things. It's literally the most normal thing in the world.

idk, I just think it's innately wrong to call anybody unlovable for their gender; didn't realize that'd be controversial. At the same time though, treating people as less worthy of care and compassion for something so simple seems to be depressingly normalized, so much so that I didn't always bat an eye at it.

It ain't right, yall deserve love too, and care, and tenderness, and affection. Don't for a second feel that you don't.

Someone asked for a few tips regarding coloring skin tones so I threw this together real quick lol.