THE FLIRTATION WAS TOO STRONG!!!: Reading between the lines
“You waiting for me?”
did you miss me?
“No.”
no (yes, but i won’t say i did)
[hesitant disappointment. trying to find the words.]
(i’m hurt. have i lost you?)
“I bet he told you I was dead”
I know he’s trying to separate us
“Diamondback got to you, didn’t he?”
Did it work? Are you with him now? Do you love him?
“No he didn’t it.”
No! That’s not what I said! I missed you okay!
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME ON THIS FINE THURSDAY MORNING?
OKAY OKAY OKAY LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS SCENE!
I thought the first time I watched that part with Shades in the elevator that Diamondback was going to kill him. I kept thinking even after he killed Zip that he wouldn’t make it out of that episode alive.
AND THEN THE FIRST THING HE DOES IS HE GOES TO MARIAH!
Why? Because he trusts her. I and after he that I was like “fucking hell he might actually have a chance” because I knew Mariah would help him and take care of him.
And when he gives her the bottle he was putting his life in her hands.That’s how I knew they were ride or die right there! And my villain-loving shipper heart was like:
And I’ve been that way ever since.
I was thinking about how he worked for her well-being. He never told Diamondback Mariah killed Cornell (though he did say they used Candace to pin the murder on Luke).
When I was watching ep13 yesterday (correct me if I’m wrong) he got the phone and he didn’t tell Mariah. She had Alex get Them I down and she was playing politician, but as far as I recall there was not a moment of “oh I have Misty’s phone and this is what I’m gonna do” which if you watch Mariah’s interrogation scene, it seemingly comes as a bit of a surprise to her.
Long story short, he took care of business for Mariah. He just went and did what needed to be done. Shades essentially acted alone in Candace’s murder.
****people who have the misfortune of never sailing on a villain ship are missing out on one of life’s great pleasures****
Yes he helped her and he came to her when he needed her help and he did both of those things because he was over the moon for her. I love ships that are built on that type of trust and respect. Especially when it’s with villains.
Because its like “why can’t I be schemefully evil and also a lover?”
So many of Shades’ conversations were just about scheming and what might happen.
Also villain ships get that “you and me against the world” feel to them
This idea that people should never relate to villains is so bizarre to me? Like? A villain that’s 0% relatable is a failed villain because part of the horror of villains is the way you see the steps that led them to where they are.
A good villain should leave you wondering what, exactly, separates you and the protagonist from them. A good villain should make you feel empathy, should make you understand how they got to be where they are, should be a little bit uncomfortably close-to-home. That’s what makes villains interesting
(Something Rukmini Pande said in the @fansplaining Race and Fandom podcast reminded me of this old meta I never got around to posting, so here it is, updated for 2016. Contains spoilers for In the Flesh series 2 (you can watch the whole series on Hulu). Thanks to @psmith73 for input and feedback!)
The Bad Guy of Color
In movies and on TV, we’re used to seeing people of color – especially men of color – as bad guys. You’ve got your drug lords, your terrorists, and your gang leaders (but not the “cool” white-friendly kind like mafia kingpins or bikers), all in a variety of shades of brown and black. As a rule, Bad Guys of Color have a few things in common: They’re scary (like, white folks’ worst nightmare scary), they’re The Other against white protagonists, and they’re not sympathetic characters.
Most of the time, there is no attempt to make us sympathize with the BGOC, because it might make it hard for us to watch them die, sometimes by the dozen. Usually, they don’t even give us a reason to hate them (exceptions, like Victor Sweet in John Singleton’s Four Brothers, who is shown as fully unsympathetic when he treats another Black man like a dog, are usually Black-written characters).
These are not the captivating villains. They’re not the Negan, The Governor, the Walter White, let alone the Loki, Joker, or Kylo Ren. They’re undeveloped, nondimensional, and more than a little racist.
When a person of color is written as a sympathetic villain, a developed character, they should be sympathized with, right? Especially if the character isn’t, as they say, defined by race?
This is literally such a good piece of writing and something I’ve thought about a lot and didn’t know how to address exactly, especially because the few times I’ve kinda spoken up for Maxine I’ve gotten “But she killed Amy/works for Victus!!” as a response – Which really demonstrates the point being made here. Maxine is a wonderfully written character and I adore her. While it’s questionable at best that the only recurring nonwhite character is an antagonist, she’s interesting and well written and given a very, very in-depth character and personality and motives, more so I’d say than other antagonists in the series.
As someone who’s been in the fandom for a long time, the sad truth is that most of the time, Maxine isn’t even talked about. People love to joke about Gary Kendall and Bill Macy being awful, or write long insightful metas about their behavior, but most of the time Maxine isn’t even brought up, it’s like she doesn’t exist. And when she is – like this piece says – she’s treated as the worst of the worst lowest of the low most terrible character in the world when she’s loads more interesting and sympathetic than a character like abusive lying bigoted scumbag Gary and violently homophobic abusive father Bill.
Anyway I don’t have any other commentary but I felt I would add that since like I said I’ve thought about this a lot. I’m really glad this is being discussed.
I think it’s really important to talk about how different people have different power fantasies.
For example:
For some people, the idea of someone redeeming a villain is a power fantasy.
For other people, the idea of a villain being defeated is a power fantasy.
And for other people, the idea of a character owning their villainy is a power fantasy.
I would argue a lot of fandom conflicts re: villains come from people being unable to see that their fantasies, which put them in control of a narrative (and all three of these are designed to give the author or reader control of the narrative in different ways) are someone else’s horror stories.
….this explains SO MUCH.
Also: it’s not necessarily a power fantasy as such, but for some people the necessary life-affirming fantasy is being the one who gets redeemed. Not to continually be a terrible person and get away with it, but to feel oneself to be a terrible person and have a chance to stop being terrible.
And god knows that’s a horror story to anyone who has been victimized by a terrible person and repeatedly told that the terrible person deserves another chance more than they themself deserve either vindication or protection.
(It perhaps bears repeating that arguing over whose view is right is drastically missing the point.)
THIS!! THIS RIGHT HERE IS WHY I LOVE ZUKO AND FAITH SO MUCH
The problem is more that a whole other group of people see themselves in the villain too much and want to see them continue without being condemned by the narrative or the protagonists. They basically want the forgiveness part without actual effort of the villain to be redeemed. But they still talk about that as redemption
It also can vary depending on the villain. Some villains are redemption fantasies, others are power fantasies and others are defeat fantasies for me.
It`s such a thin line between the good man and the…bad
Was inspired after watching “Confrontation” storyboard test by @arythusa, her “The Glass Scientists” comic are one of my favorite adaptations of Jekyll and Hyde story.
(Finally I`m posting something after two years of absence!)
these people who police what people write fic about and declare everything even remotely ““dark”” as “problematic”… what do yall write about? if you even write anything at all and don’t just sit around complaining? like when you take out character conflict, morally grey characters, villains with dimensions past “evil villain”, Bad Things™ happening, high risks, canon-typical nasty shit, and any sex that isn’t missionary with the lights off, what do you have left? what do you write about? what do you read? and how do you deal with being so boring?
Yeah not writing paedophilic erotica means ur a basic vanilla bitch! What even else is there to write about!
Oh no stories that aren’t about hardcore erotic sex that I can’t get off to are bad boring stories :((( Go read 50 shades lmao they made books for y’all.
yall if you read “character conflict, morally grey characters, villains with dimensions past “evil villain”, Bad Things™ happening, high risks, canon-typical nasty shit, and any sex that isn’t missionary with the lights off” and instantly think “pedophilia” that’s between u & god ain’t got nothing to do with me
My original story has gone through so many drafts throughout the years and I’m still adding and subtracting things from it. But there’s a basic direction the story is going and there’s enough flexibility for me to take or add concepts.
It’s…..a very common way to write….lmao.
I’m completely redoing a fic I wrote almost three years ago so I feel this
I’ve had this story since elementary school and the evolution of it is hilarious.
I had one from Middle School that was about a supersoldier named Fen who ended up leaving the despotic organization he was a part of and joined a rebellion. It’s similar enough to Finn’s story that, if I did want to publish it, I’d be worried now people would think I ripped it off. I still plan on writing something in the same verse though.
So, I’m complete trash because my main character used to be the hero then I turned him into a villain because I feel like villain POVs are a thing that needs to happen more. He’s not a mustache twirler though, he has his reasons and it does put him in a moral dilemma.
I also put him with one of the heroines and he messes up horribly with her
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Like I said I’m trash.
I like villain protags and I’m not ashamed about it.
I also am not a fan of mustache twirlers myself. Part of the reason why I’m rewriting my old fic is that I made the villain too much of a mustache twirler and the hero was more goody goody than he is in the source material. I also added some POVs for the villain.
I’m definitely with you there. I’m pretty picky about villains since they tend to be my faves.
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