sideblog for untagged stuff

ROUND 2 — Match 35 of 138

Clarisse La Rue (Percy Jackson)

Problematic because: "She refused to fight in a major battle, leading to many people dying needlessly. She also is a bully and an asshole, particularly to the main character." Propaganda: 1. "Firstly, her story parallels the one of Achilles, in a very lesbian way (yuri!!). Also is fat, buff and hot, she has daddy issues and she also has a tragic backstory. She is a very flawed character, who is often motivated by a desire to prove herself, particularly to her father." 2. "Had a doomed lesbian situationship that mirrored Achilles and Patroclus. She also has a ton of daddy issues and wants her father to be proud of her, despite the fact that he probably never will be, no matter what she does."

vs. Sahar (Luna Story)

Problematic because: "Invaded his home of Nobilunia with an army of demons out of jealousy, killing most of the guard, cursing the two MCs, and turning everyone else into trees; when the MCs managed to break the curse he came back as a demon himself to (try to) finish the job" Propaganda: "They used to be friends 😭 He and the MCs were childhood friends until he got cursed by an evil wizard and “the seeds of darkness began to grow in his heart”; after his demon form is defeated he disguises himself to help one MC save the other; there’s a mysterious helpful wizard in a hood that helped the other defeat the demon, that is somewhat implied to also be Sahar’s ghost — this requires the demon to be a separate being but that’s pretty plausible as well, they have very distinct character designs."

ROUND 2 — Match 39 of 138

Cullen Rutherford (Dragon Age)

Problematic because: "He starts as a Templar, meaning he’s part of the religious/military order that imprisons and controls mages, and after the Circle Tower disaster in Origins he’s traumatised enough that his answer is basically “kill all the mages, don’t risk saving any of them.” Then DA2 puts him in Kirkwall, one of the worst places in Thedas to be a mage, as Meredith’s second-in-command. The Gallows is already a nightmare, Meredith is already getting worse, and Cullen spends a long time backing the system before he finally draws a line. He has the infamous view that mages can’t really be treated like ordinary people because they’re too dangerous, and his own Inquisition dialogue has him admit he wanted mages locked away, trusted they were being treated reasonably, and “should have done more.” He isn’t Meredith, but he helped Meredith’s system function for years before deciding it had gone too far." "Either committed crimes against mages who were imprisoned at the Circle he was in charge of, or looked the other while while his men did. This includes verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and nonconsensual lobotomies. His "redemption arc" was abysmally written and his crimes were swept under the rug. Also, his voice actor is a terrible person." Propaganda: 1. "Cullen is compelling because his redemption arc only works if you don’t sand off how bad he was. He isn’t just a shy ex-templar with a desk, a dog, and a lyrium problem. He was part of the machinery that kept mages afraid, and for a long time he believed in that machinery because it made the world feel safer to him. I like him best when the story treats that seriously: the trauma, the prejudice, the shame, the fact that stepping away from Meredith at the end doesn’t magically undo years of looking the other way. His Inquisition version is interesting because he’s trying, not because he was secretly harmless all along." 2. "cullen is best when people let him be messy. like yes he’s sweet in inquisition, yes the romance is cute, yes i also enjoy awkward war table man, but this is still the guy who went from “annul the circle” to “meredith’s knight-captain” before he got anywhere near “maybe i was wrong.” that’s the good stuff. give me the cullen who has to actually live with what he believed and what he enabled, not the version where we pretend he was just standing nearby looking sad." 3. "His reasons behind the treatment of mages were completely justified in his eyes. Before Kinloch Hold he did what he had to but never went out of his way to abuse mages (and never had after) but when the blood mages killed his colleagues and tortured him, he became wary and even paranoid. He upholstered their abuse in Kirkwall but when he disavowed himself from the Templars in Inquisition he started getting better. It doesn't solve the abuses he allowed in Kirkwall because of his paranoia (which was kind of justified, blood mages were everywhere then) but him seeing mages as equals in the inquisition despite his fear is good development." 4. "I think Cullen looking the other way while other people committed crimes is even juicer than him doing the crimes himself, because it gives him the comfort of plausible deniability, the fantasy that he is still a good man, at least until he is forced to contend with the cold hard truth. And while his arc in the games was written poorly, I think there's a lot of potential there in terms of how much indoctrination plays a role in that kind of behavior. If Cullen has been trained to be anti-mage since childhood, and those beliefs were reinforced by torture and trauma, and then stoked into fanaticism by the people who were supposed to help him recover, how much of what he did as a result is his responsibility? In no way do I feel he should be let off the hook for what he's done, and there's no way to answer objectively where the line is, but the question is an interesting one, and it's a shame that most people either write him off as a predator or as completely blameless instead of digging into that gray area."

vs. Mae Borowski (Night in the Woods)

Problematic because: "Misses social cues in a way that actively fucks up her friend's night. Says insensitive things thinking they're helpful. Technically indirectly killed like 12 guys but I don't think many people would blame her for that one. Beat the shit out of a kid during a highschool softball game because she was having a mental breakdown" Propaganda: "Funny and kind and trying her best even when she fucks up (which she does often) also she plays the bass pretty good"

ROUND 2 — Match 48 of 138

Tabitha Scarlet (Scarlet Hollow)

Problematic because: "Owner of a Coal Mine, Anti Union, Planning to sacrifice her cousin in an evil ritual to save the town, she locked her boyfriend in an evil dungeon room in her manor, also she can shoot a guy in front of his mom and kill a pumpkin baby and manipulate her girlfriend into putting her cousin in a hole in certain routes." Propaganda: 1. "She's so interesting and tragic and was raised into the role she fulfils and doesn't see a way out. She lacks so many social skills and it's so fun to hang out with her and she wants to leave town but she can't because it's cursed and she cares so much. You can fix her." 2. "Worst girlboss of all time (affectionate). Incredibly amounts of depth that I cannot reasonably express without a long ass ramble. Presumably quite wealth and yet her house is falling apart and she owns four (4) cups, one of which is to hold the silverware. and how could I forget, that damn smile."

vs. Lorna Morello (Orange is the New Black)

Problematic because: "Repeatedly called a man she only dated once because she believed they were getting married, put a bomb under said man's car, broke out of jail to break into his house, put on his actual fiancée's wedding dress and took a bath in their house, told her new boyfriend the man she literally stalked treated her horribly (he didn't, they only really met once) and got her boyfriend + his friends to beat up her victim" Propaganda: "The way her story is set out is just so amazing. They don't show you straight away. She starts out as just a really fun character who's excited to get out of jail for her wedding. She talks constantly about it. And then we find out that there IS no wedding. She just thinks there is and has done some awful things. Plus she's also very clearly mentally ill and needs help. It's not a "she shouldn't be in jail" situation (she absolutely did know what she was doing, in her trial she was literally smiling and nodding lol), but. Girl really needed some therapy. And she genuinely seems like she'd be really fun to be around if she wasn't a dangerous stalker. She's really nice to Piper when they first meet, she's outgoing, etc. Honestly, that's what makes the reveal so devastating. What do you mean my perfect blorbo who could never do anything wrong did ALL THAT???"

ROUND 2 — Match 31 of 138

Genesis Rhapsodos (Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core)

Problematic because: "He’s a First Class SOLDIER, which means he’s one of Shinra’s elite enhanced fighters, and after finding out he’s a failed experiment from Project G and his body is deteriorating, he deserts with a bunch of SOLDIER members and starts the Genesis War. Shinra is obviously awful, but Genesis isnt exactly running a clean little resistance movement here - Hollander uses Genesis’ cells to turn deserters, soldiers, and monsters into Genesis Copies, and those copies make up a whole army that attacks people while also degrading because of the same messed-up science that’s killing him. He also drags basically everyone around him into his search for a cure. He attacks Shinra, helps Hollander get away, goes after Hojo, and later starts chasing Sephiroth/Zack/Cloud because he thinks their cells might fix him. His whole thing is understandable on one level, because he was literally created and discarded by Shinra, but he handles it by making his identity crisis everyone else’s problem. He also shows up in the Nibelheim reactor and tells Sephiroth about Project S/Jenova while asking for his cells, which is maybe not the best thing to drop on your unstable friend in the middle of a cursed science basement. And then there’s Banora, his hometown, where Zack and Tseng find the place overrun by Genesis Copies and Shinra machines, plus Genesis’ parents’ graves. The exact blame around Banora is messy because Shinra bombs the village afterward too, but Genesis is still standing there being cryptic, insulting his dead parents, summoning Bahamut, and generally making the whole thing ten times worse instead of communicating like a normal person for once in his life." Propaganda: 1. "Genesis is one of those characters I like partly because he’s annoying. I mean that affectionately. He is dramatic, petty, obsessed with being a hero, constantly quoting LOVELESS, and somehow convinced that every conversation would be improved by turning it into a literature recital. But underneath all of that, there’s a genuinely interesting character: a man raised as a success story who finds out he was actually a failed experiment, and that his body is breaking down because of choices other people made before he was even born. I don’t think he’s secretly reasonable, but I do think his anger makes sense. Shinra used him, lied to him, and then would have thrown him away the second he became inconvenient. The problem is that Genesis responds to being dehumanised by dehumanising other people right back. He wants a cure, he wants meaning, he wants to be special, and he’s willing to pull Angeal, Sephiroth, Zack, Cloud, and half of Shinra into the fallout. He’s ridiculous, but he’s ridiculous in a way that fits Crisis Core perfectly." 2. "he’s messy and insecure and constantly trying to make himself feel important because the truth makes him feel disposable. he wants to be the hero of the poem so badly, and the sad/funny part is that everyone around him is stuck in a completely different genre. zack is trying to save people, angeal is drowning in guilt, sephiroth is one bad basement away from disaster, and genesis is over here like “act iv will explain everything.”" 3. "he’s genuinely tragic if you take him seriously, but he’s also very funny if you don’t. this man discovers he’s dying because of shinra science and immediately becomes everyone’s group project. angeal has to deal with him. sephiroth has to deal with him. zack has to deal with him. hollander is somehow involved, which is never a sign that your life is going well. even the apples are plot-relevant"

vs. Mary (Ib)

Problematic because: "She’s basically a lonely painting-child who just wants to leave the Fabricated World and be a real girl, which is sad, but she also goes about it by trying to replace Garry, stalks/attacks the others once her secret is out, and can get very willing to let people die if it means she gets Ib to herself. Garry discovers she’s actually one of Guertena’s paintings, not a normal lost child, and once he knows, Mary becomes desperate enough to try to remove him from the equation. Her goal is understandable in the saddest way possible - she wants friends, the real world, candy, beaches, normal life. The problem is that she decides Ib is her way out, and Garry is just the obstacle. Depending on the ending, she can trap Ib and Garry in the Doll Room forever, give Garry’s rose to the Lady in Blue to be destroyed, and throw away his lighter so they can’t burn her painting. In the more common good-ending path, Ib and Garry have to burn Mary’s painting to stop her following Ib into the real world, which is also why she works so well - she’s dangerous, selfish, and scary, but the thing you have to do to beat her still feels horrible because she’s a childlike creation trying to survive too." Propaganda: 1. "Mary is one of those characters where I can’t fully hate her, even when she’s doing terrible things. She’s a painting trapped in a nightmare gallery, surrounded by other works of art, reading about things like the beach and sweets and friendship without ever actually getting to have them. Then Ib appears - a real girl, kind, close to her age, someone Mary can imagine escaping with. Of course she clings too hard. Of course Garry becomes a threat in her mind. That doesn’t make her innocent, because she does try to get rid of him and she can be genuinely frightening once she’s cornered, but I like her because the horror is also really sad. Mary isn’t some grand mastermind, she’s a lonely little girl-shaped painting who wants to be chosen, and when she realises she might not be, she panics in the worst possible direction." 2. "honestly i feel bad for her!! she didn’t ask to be made as a painting. she didn’t ask to be stuck in guertena’s weird murder gallery forever. she just wants to go outside and have a normal life."

>look inside

ROUND 2 — Match 23 of 138

Benedetto/Andrea Cavalcanti (The Count of Monte Cristo)

Problematic because: "this but with crimes" Propaganda: "imagine you're on trial and the prosecutor asked you why you killed a guy, and you turn to the prosecutor and say "I dunno, why did YOU kill a guy??" and then you pull out evidence that he did in fact try to kill a guy. same evidence proves that he's your dad. and that he was having an affair. and you do all that in a public court room."

vs. Madeline Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher)

Problematic because: "She's Roderick’s twin, Fortunato’s COO, and very much the brains behind a lot of the Usher empire’s colder decisions. She helps Roderick murder Rufus Griswold in 1979 by poisoning him with amontillado and walling him up alive inside Fortunato’s new building, then uses that to help clear the way for Roderick’s rise. That same night, she and Roderick accept Verna’s deal - wealth, power, and legal immunity, with the cost being that the entire Usher bloodline will die before the twins do. Roderick already has children at this point, so Madeline isn’t just gambling with some abstract future family. She knows there are actual kids attached to the bargain and still takes the deal. She’s also ruthless in the present in a way that’s quieter than Roderick’s big guilty confession but often just as ugly. She wants to push Fortunato into tech and AI, tries to position herself as CEO once Roderick’s illness makes him inconvenient, uses Lenore’s data as part of an AI consciousness project, and later convinces Roderick to overdose on Ligodone because she thinks his death might get her out of the bargain." Propaganda: "Madeline is awful, but I do think she’s the more interesting twin in a lot of ways because she understands the game earlier and more clearly than Roderick. Roderick spends so much time wanting to be loved, admired, forgiven, pitied. Madeline wants power, survival, control, and some version of immortality that doesn’t require anyone else’s approval. There’s something compelling about how little she bothers pretending she’s innocent. And honestly, part of me respects that she sees the family rot without dressing it up in sentiment. She knows Fortunato is a machine. She knows the Usher name is a transaction. She knows Verna’s bargain was a bargain, not a curse they randomly stumbled into. Her horror is that she keeps choosing the calculation anyway. She’s sharper than Roderick, which makes her worse in some ways, but it also makes her less pathetic."

ROUND 2 — Match 22 of 138

Garak (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

Problematic because: "worked for the space fascist lizard KGB" Propaganda: "there is truly so much going on with him. he was exiled from his home for mysterious reasons, he's gay, he kills people, they put a chip in his brain, at least 2 regimes want him dead, he is determined to escape exile and he wants to die but the twink doctor he's involved with won't let that happen. i don't want to spoil more than i already have"

vs. Kyubey (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

Problematic because: "manipulating young girls into contracts that force them to kill monsters until they themselves turn into monsters" Propaganda: "This behavior was ultimately not based on any form of malice, as they supposedly have no emotion(considered a rare mental illness for their kind) and they needed to harvest human girls to stall out the heat death of the universe. Plus they're just this unkillable little freak that will just consume their corpse as soon as they get into a new vessel, just to bother one of the girls that they're talking to."

Character A: *Accidentally spills something on her shirt and it leaves a stain*

*Looks around to see if anyone noticed.*

*Takes a few steps to the side, moving along the static background texture causing the stain to ‘slide’ away and not be visible anymore*

[later in the episode, a completely different scene with completely different framing]

Character A: *Walks along with the rest of the cast across the screen into the same spot on the screen where she was when she spilled on her shirt. The stain was on the same spot in the background texture this whole time she just happened to avoid it throughout the episode til now. This causes the stain to ‘slide’ onto her shirt again, but shes further from the ‘camera’ now so the stain covers way more of her shirt.*

Character B: *Points the stain out and laughs at her for managing to get such a huge stain on her clothes*

Character A: *Gets embarrassed and defensive saying it’s the shot composition’s fault*

Character C: *Looks up and scolds the animator for not doing the cast’s laundry between scenes*

Faceless animator from off screen: *Tries to make excuses about not having time and trying to meet the episode deadline*

Character C: *Crosses her arms and turns her head away, says she’s disappointed in them*

Offscreen animator’s giant hand: *Reluctantly grabs the static clothing texture and pulls it away*

Character A: *Her shirt clothing texture is replaced with blank white void. She gets embarrassed and tries to cover herself up as if she was naked*

[Cut to short live action sequence of the disembodied hand of the animator throwing the static texture cloth into the washing machine, adding stain remover and starting the machine.]

[Time passes. Cut to disembodied hand tapping its fingers impatiently right before the washing machine dings complete. The hand throws it in the dryer. Resumes tapping impatiently]

[Time Passes. Cut to disembodied hand seemingly being asleep, then the dryer dings waking them up. Hand takes texture out of the dryer. Starts bringing the texture back to the set.]

Character C, offscreen: *Shouts at the animator demanding they iron it too*

[Cut to disembodied hand frantically ironing the texture.]

[Cut back to animated scene with main cast still at the same scene. Character A is still embarrassed and trying to cover herself up. Character B is asleep and loudly cartoonishly snoring. Character C is looking up at where ‘the animator’ is, impatiently tapping her foot and scowling]

Disembodied Hand: *Frantically tries to put the texture back in place. Accidentally puts it on upside down.*

Character C, scowling: *Raises an eyebrow*

Disembodied hand: *Frantically rearranges the texture and finally gets it in place correctly*

Character C, eyebrow still raised: *Asks if they’re forgetting something*

Disembodied hand, ‘standing’ on the ‘ground’ of the scene with its middle and ring finger posed as legs and its pointer and pinky as arms: *Goes into dogeza pose and desperately apologizes*

Character C: *Accepts apology, but gives a threatening warning not to let it happen again*

Disembodied hand: *’Runs’ offscreen frantically*

ROUND 2 — Match 20 of 138

Solas (Dragon Age)

Problematic because: "He's the man who joins the Inquisition as your quiet Fade expert, helps save the world, judges your chairs, maybe romances your Lavellan, and then reveals he’s actually Fen’Harel, the ancient elven figure who created the Veil in the first place. The Veil is the thing separating the physical world from the Fade, and making it tore the old elven world apart. Now he wants to remove it again, even though he knows doing that would destroy the world everyone currently lives in. “Sorry, your reality and lives are the mistake I need to fix” is a pretty wild position to take. He also gave his orb to Corypheus, expecting Corypheus to unlock it and die in the process, which instead leads to the Conclave explosion, the Breach in the sky, demons pouring into the world, and a lot of people dying because Solas thought he could control the outcome. Then there’s the lying, the spies inside the Inquisition, the way he walks away from people who trusted him, and the fact that Trespasser makes it very clear he still intends to go through with his plan. Cole and Solas’ dialogue also confirms that Felassan was his friend/agent and that Solas killed him after he failed to get the eluvian passphrase, which is one of those details that says a lot about how far Solas is willing to go when someone gets in the way of the larger goal." Propaganda: "He can be gentle with spirits, thoughtful with the Inquisitor, genuinely funny in that dry little way, and then you remember he’s also sitting on secrets that would make half the room draw weapons. I like him because he forces the question of whether regret means anything if you keep choosing harm anyway. He knows what he did. He knows what he’s about to do. He’s sad about it, which is interesting, but he is still doing it."

vs. Hornet (Hollow Knight: Silksong)

Problematic because: "racist towards flies :/" Propaganda: "hornet is genuinely the most well-written video game protagonist i have ever known who fully avoids the "blank slate" trope. she's written in such a way that anything you as the player can make her do makes sense as something she would do, but she still manages to feel like her own person in spite of that. there's some really clever ludonarrative resonance going on where in order to unlock the path to the true ending, where hornet starts to show character development away from pure pragmatism towards a hero who finds intrinsic value in helping others, you need to complete certain quests that you would only complete if you were genuinely invested in the setting and its characters. since hornet is the only returning character from the original hollow knight before this point, the player undergoes the process of learning to care about the inhabitants of pharloom in all the same ways that she does. there's other stuff i like about her too, but this is the main reason right now."

“Omg, I love these! They go up to size 6X AND they have pockets?! Wow!! But do you have anything longer?”

Sure do, no problem!!

“YES these are great!!! But what about.. longer?”

I gotcha!! Comin’ right up!

"Now that's what I'm talkin' about! But... how about if I'm feeling like it's the kinda day where I need my clothing to be bifurcated???"

Never fear, joggers are here!

*wild cheering* /scene

ROUND 2 — Match 16 of 138

Byakuya Togami (Danganronpa)

Problematic because: "byakuya is what happens when a rich boy enters a murder game and decides the real tragedy is that everyone else is poor and annoying. he spends a lot of the first game treating the other trapped students like idiots, obstacles, or future corpses instead of people he should maybe cooperate with. like, everyone is locked in a school where the only way out is to kill someone and get away with it, and byakuya’s first instinct is still “interesting. i will now be unbearable.” the big obvious thing is chapter 2, where he messes with chihiro’s body/crime scene to make it look like the serial killer genocide jack did it, partly because he wants to test everyone and make the trial more interesting for himself. so yes, he sees a classmate dead and decides this is a fun little logic exercise. he also exposes toko’s secret in the trial, keeps using her obsession with him when it benefits him, and generally treats everyone’s fear and grief like it’s beneath him. he gets better later, but early-game byakuya is very much a human trust fund with glasses and no bedside manner." Propaganda: 1. "Byakuya is terrible at the start, but that’s what makes his arc fun. He walks into the killing game acting like he’s above everyone else, then has to slowly realise that being rich, clever, and smug doesn’t actually make him untouchable. I like that he doesn’t suddenly become nice in a fake way - he’s still rude, still arrogant, still Byakuya, but you can see him start taking the others more seriously and actually working with them instead of treating them like background characters in his personal survival story. He’s awful, but he’s useful awful, and sometimes that’s exactly what a cast needs." 2. "emotional range of a bank statement"

vs. Edelgard von Hresvelg (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)

Problematic because: "She's one of those characters where you can absolutely argue she has a point, but the methods are still a lot. Fodlan’s Crest/nobility system is awful, the Church is hiding history, and Edelgard herself was tortured as a child by the same faction she later ends up using for her war. But she still starts a continent-wide war to force her reforms through, and she’s very much willing to decide that everyone else’s lives can be thrown into the fire if the world that comes out the other side is better. As the Flame Emperor, she hires bandits to attack the students early on, works with the Death Knight, raids the Holy Tomb for Crest Stones, and keeps a working alliance with Those Who Slither in the Dark, even though they’re the people behind some of the worst experimentation and political violence in the setting. She hates them and does plan to turn on them eventually, but “I’ll use the evil mole cult until I can afford not to” is still a pretty questionable political strategy. And depending on the route, she can become the person who drags the entire continent through five years of war, conquers territory, treats classmates and former friends as acceptable losses, and in Azure Moon pushes herself into an even more monstrous form rather than surrender. I love her, but she is not just “girlboss emperor who wants equality.”" Propaganda: 1. "She’s one of the few characters where I can understand the argument and still be horrified by what she does with it. She’s right that Fodlan is rotten. Crests decide people’s worth, nobles inherit power they haven’t earned, the Church has shaped history around itself, and people like Edelgard and Lysithea are living proof that the system grinds children up when power wants something from them. But she takes a real injustice, responds with real conviction, and then makes herself the person who gets to decide what everyone else must endure for the future she wants. She lies, allies with monsters, starts a war, and keeps going even when the cost is horrific. She’s driven, wounded, brilliant, ruthless, and sometimes genuinely right." 2. "sorry but if you grow up being tortured into a political weapon, watch your siblings die, and then look around and see the church/nobility/crest system still being treated as basically fine, you are probably not going to become a chill reformist who writes polite letters. does that excuse everything? no. obviously no. she still starts the war, she still lies, she still uses people she knows are dangerous because she thinks she can beat them later. but i do think people flatten her when they act like she just woke up one day and chose conquest because she likes red capes. she’s trying to destroy the system that destroyed her. the tragedy is that she’s willing to destroy a lot of other people’s lives to do it." 3. "She is fascinating because every route makes you deal with a different version of her. On her own route, she’s the revolutionary you can understand and even support if you buy into the cost. On other routes, she’s the former classmate across the battlefield who has decided the war matters more than anyone’s personal feelings about it. She’s sympathetic, stubborn, terrifying, painfully young, and somehow both the person trying to end the Crest system and the person willing to use a faction of nightmare scientists to get there. Incredible character."