DE: The fly in your soup

[bjornwilde]

Today marks the first in a trilogy of linked DEs and comes from aberration :

Do you have any opinions/feelings on your characters that are uncommon/unpopular in their fandoms?

Comments

[never_shall_yield]

HAHAHA OH MY GOD.

It's impossible to hold any opinions whatsoever about Javert and/or Valjean without being unpopular in some way. You're either a Javert Apologist, Wrong About Javert or oppressing Jean Valjean by liking Javert at all. If you write Valjean as anything other than a quiet man striving to do his best, with moments of badassery, then you are Wrong About Valjean and immediately condemned to being Wrong forever, and slagged off in the anon memes created for this purpose.

As such, every single opinion I have on either of them is Wrong, and unpopular in some way.

(Les Mis fandom may come off as harsh in this. That's because it kinda is...and the JVJ half of it is probably calmer than the Amis side, though Gen would know more about that than me. But! It's only a hard fandom because people care, and there are fans who are really well-read, and study the book at high academic levels, and whatnot. Plus, there are so many adaptions, and interpretations, and actors involved, to argue about; no one's going to be able to have opinions that are popular all the time.)

[genarti]

(I don't know if it's calmer, or if it's just that things get expressed differently. I mean, I honestly don't know, because I'm pretty peripheral to the JVJ half. But as you say! If I didn't like Les Mis fandom, I would not be in it -- and I'm never in fandoms properly, I usually run away from them at high speed to only read fic I'm recced, so there's a lot in this one that I really do appreciate.

It's just that there are a lot of people caring strongly, in lots of different ways, about lots of different versions, and with lots of perspectives and ways of interacting with fandom, and some of them mesh better with mine than others. So, basically, what you said!)

[damncompass]

1. I think I'm pretty much the entirety of the Joshua Donovan fandom, so possibly my great love for Joshua is uncommon. Also, I think he's hella underused and underrated as a character.

2. I don't really ship Helena/Myka. Which puts me at odds with 75% of the Warehouse 13 fandom. I could go into my reasons, but I just don't think they really work as a lasting couple. One of Helena's conquests, sure, but what Myka needs is someone who's less broken.

3. VALENTINE WIGGIN IS NOT WEAK, OK? I've been fighting the Ender fandom for years on that one. Empathic does not mean weak. Rumour has it that I actually reminded Card about that fact. (I have fairly good evidence that he's read my Valentine threads at Milliways)

4. Fantine... I don't honestly know much about the Les Mis fandom other than what I've seen here. Anyone else more connected to the fandom have ideas?

5. And now, for my new/old character: MARK. Kinda like Helena, I don't ship him with Roger. I don't think either of them would take that risk. Something platonic and sexless, I could possibly get behind, but not fucking like rabbits.

[genarti]

I haven't seen much Fantine-related drama, though it may be that I'm just not looking in the right corners. Mostly what I've seen is the usual fandom tendency to forget that female characters exist, in favor of arguing about which dudes are sleeping with which other dudes. :-/

[bcgphoenix]

I actually like Gaeta and think he had more motivation for the mutiny beyond "oh he's just bitter he lost his leg?" *weak grin*

(Being in fandom during the mutiny arc was INTERESTING, let me tell you.)

[1stwitness]

Gaeta's whole arc, to me, was about what happens to an idealist who gets caught up above his head.

[daringyoungman]

(COMICS)Dick is not promiscuous!

Fandom (and Chuck Dixon) seems to think he's the JLA's bicycle, but he's just not. He's a massively hopeless romantic-slash-serial monogamist who just wants a stable girlfriend! Kory was the best thing that ever happened to him, and he lost that, and ever since he's been trying to replace that. Including being kind of clingy/disrespectful of boundaries with Babs, and latching onto Helena. He slept with Helena once and thought they were now boyfriend/girlfriend.

Ming you, he is an insatiable flirt. That dog.

*unrepentant Dick/Kory shipper*

-eta- Young Justice Dick *is* a total manwhore, though. And there's nothing wrong with that! Except that he's in love with Kaldur, obviously.

[sdelmonte]

Hmmmmm. So in some ways, Dick is like Jim Kirk (see below)?

I'm a Dick/Babs shipper but possibly only because I missed Dick/Kory in its prime.

Actually, I wanted Dick/Clancy.

[sdelmonte]

I don't think Knox HAS a fandom. There is someone on the AV Club's message boards named Alexander Knox (who is of course a big comic book reader), and I think he is the extent of my pup's fandom. I keep waiting for someone to include Knox in a Batman property. It isn't happening. At this point, he's forgotten and the 1989 Batman film is a small part of the bigger picture.

I sort of diverge in terms of Kirk, as a lot of people insist he's the world's biggest ego and its greatest babehound. Even though even Bones wonders about Jim's animal magnetism in Star Trek VI, Jim didn't sleep with nearly as many women as people think, and he actually had a tendency to fall in love too easily and end up heartbroken. As for his ego...yeah, he has one. But it's tempered at least in his old age.

And I suppose the fact that I love what I've seen of the current funy Teen Titans cartoons puts me at odds with fans who loved the first series and hate the new one. I loved the first series, too. But the funny version is, well, funny. And has the original cast. And is just plain fun. Is it the original? No. Would I like to see it back. Yes. Does the new one demean old? Not one bit. Besides, I have a screengrab of Cyborg in a hat. How can you go wrong with that?

[newredshoes]

Terrible temper = dumb. No, really, do you know how hard it is to find fic about Hotspur that isn't painting him as some sort of inarticulate spoiled hooligan? Like, privileged I will absolutely give you, but the rest of it... sigh.

[camwyn]

I stay very far away from most of my fandoms, because I fear them. I do not know what the popular and unpopular opinions are, for the most part. I can tell you that while I freely admit Fallout New Vegas is probably a better game, I personally liked the story and the setting in Fallout 3 better. I also think that it is perfectly possible to call yourself a Fallout fan without denouncing FO3 and New Vegas (as the old school top-down isometric-grid made-by-Interplay fans tend to do) or thinking that the original games were weird/not good (as I'm told some of the FO3/NV fans do).

I also admit to a certain measure of not being sure whether I actually want to see Half-Life 3 made or not. At this point, I'm not sure anything Valve could make could live up to the fans' hopes and expectations, and frankly I'm dreading the possibility that Valve's HL team decides to end the series with an End of Evangelion-style WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK ending- so I may be the only Half-Life fan around who doesn't actually want to see HL 3 confirmed.

[vance_prime]

My understanding is that End of Evangelion was basically Hideaki Anno spiraling into clinical depression and taking it out on his audience rather than getting therapy. No, if Valve fucks up HL 3, it's gonna be by making it so you can't defeat the Combine without buying a bunch of stupid hats.

[genarti]

Ahahahahaha.

Thor is not dumb, oblivious, poptart-obsessed, inclined to talking loudly about his sex life, an overgrown golden retriever (I mean, in some ways yes, but only in some), ZOMG MEAN to Loki, or inclined to demand that everyone else forgive Loki everything. These opinions put me at odds with 90% of people who write Thor in fic.

Enjolras... oh lordy. Okay, no, the main way in which I am at odds with other people in book-specific fandom is that I don't ship the juggernaut pairing; I find Enjolras and Grantaire's dynamic complicated and fascinating, but I do not want them to be boyfriends, and I do not think Enjolras wants them to be boyfriends. (Whether even Grantaire does is a complicated question, and that one I will leave to Becca.) So that's fairly unpopular/uncommon for people in the Amis side of fandom! Wider fandom, let's not talk about. As Write says, it's a big fandom with a bunch of STRONG OPINIONS and STRONG FACTIONS, and a lot of adaptations with different takes on the characters to draw on, and there's no way to hold opinions on some characters without being unpopular in some way. I write aggressively Hugo-specific stuff and skate by the edges of the wank, mostly.

Trowa... hmm. I'm not sure! I ship him with the fandom-popular pairing, for once, so there's that out of the way. There's a lot of badly written Trowa fic out there, but that's not the same thing.

Clare: I have no idea what Claymore fandom at large is up to, or how my opinions on Clare stack up against fanon.

Regan has no fandom. (Regan barely has canon, to be fair.)

River, again, is in a fandom I have never paid all that much attention to in a broader sense, and it's not a terribly active fandom nowadays... Oh, I can say very definitely that I am not a Tamcest shipper, and that was a big thing for a while. Augh.

[never_shall_yield]

So that's fairly unpopular/uncommon for people in the Amis side of fandom!


*hands you award for biggest understatement of the century* :D

I always get a bit taken aback by how vehemently some people will defend it, as if it is canon. Weirdly, I saw one post where the person said they hadn't read the book, but claimed E/R was 'obvious' from the film alone. Which...idk, I'm a 'live and let live' member of fandom, but that seemed far out.

[lady_bols]

I don't think Sherlock is a virgin, and I don't think he's madly in love with John. At least, not in that way. Both of these opinions can get you tarred and feathered in certain corners of the Internet.

[damncompass]

*waves the flag of 'I don't ship the main ship of my fandom*

Welcome to the club. I have a few shields here if you need one.

[bbq_platypus]

...Huh. You know, I don't have very many unpopular opinions about the characters I play. Odd, since I've got unpopular opinions in a lot of things I'm a fan of.

Jim: I don't think Blazing Saddles really even HAS a "fandom," per se. Just a lot of people who've seen the movie and like it. Not too many people talk about it on the Internet. And I can pretty much guarantee you I'm the only person RPing as the Waco Kid.

Leela: The closest thing I have to an unpopular opinion that relates in some way to Leela is my belief that The Sun Makers is NOT a right-wing story. I mean, sure, you can view it that way if you focus on the part with the taxes and ignore everything else in it, but it's also about the fusion of state and corporate interests and oppression of the working class, and the Doctor saves the day by helping to incite a proletarian revolution. Robert Holmes was not a Marxist, obviously, but he certainly can't be pigeonholed as a Tory, either.

I imagine whatever controversy exists surrounding Leela would have to do with the Gallifrey line of audios, which I'm not at all far into. Part of the reason why it's slow going is that Gallifreyan politics bore me a little. Pretty much everybody agrees with me that Leela staying with Andred on Gallifrey makes no goddamn sense, though from what I've seen, future writers and fandom have done their best with what they were given.

Caius and Garyn: I'm a member of the esoteric "Deep Lore" segment of Elder Scrolls fandom. Some people don't like this part of lore - usually people who are unusually infatuated with the idea that some made-up events are more real than others. (Even if I cared about "canonicity," it's not as if most of these theories aren't backed up in some way by clues and texts that appear in-game). But my views generally fit in with fan orthodoxy. Most Elder Scrolls fans are either on board with deeplore or are unaware that it even exists.

One opinion I do have: I don't think the final fate of the Nerevarine will be revealed in a future Elder Scrolls game. I think that the big epic that Michael Kirkbride is releasing in a few months will take care of that. I do have a suspicion of what his/her final fate was (becoming the Second Amaranth), and I'm not the only one who believes it. Many, many others disagree, though, and to be honest, I almost expect to get Jossed on this.

Kane: Here's where I'd almost like to say I'm part of that subset of C&C fandom that is insistent on the fact that the Brotherhood of Nod is a terrorist organization and not to be admired. And sure, they basically are. I mean, I understand the basis behind this contrarian impulse - they kill people. Lots of people. And subject them to medical experiments. Still, I have to go along with fan orthodoxy here - evil as their methods are, Nod is just so much more interesting and fun. My views on how the canon fits together (or more accurately, how it doesn't) might spark some debate, though. I don't think anyone is going to take umbrage with my decision to ignore Tiberian Twilight, though.

My real crackpot theory about Kane is one I'm still working on, concerning the question of whether Kane is the actual Biblical Cain or just an alien from space. (Short answer: why not both?)

[bjornwilde]

I don't really hang out at forums so most of this is going to be based on what I see on Tumblr or what is published.

Jessica Drew: I hate Clint/Jess. It had its cute moments but over all the pairing did nothing for me. I also like her as an agent of S.W.O.R.D. I'm really on the fence about her and Carol as a couple. I know in the past I've loved it and thought there was a subtext there but I also am not a fan of how any close relationship has to be romantic.

Thalia: Shipping her with anyone, but especially Luke. They may have grow to be that way had things been different but I see them as more brother/sister than romantic. Also any boy ship after Titan's Curse would involve her breaking an oath and she just doesn't do that. That said, I can see an argument for her and Nico if he didn't already have a crush.

Hank: About the only thing I can think of is fans thinking he hates Raven, or thinks she manipulated him, post canon. The Hank (in my head) that is left with the broken pieces *knows* he is as much to blame as she is, if not more to blame.

Mulan: I don't think she loves Philip in a romantic way, I think she sees him as a shield brother. I also don't do OT3s.

Andrea Nash: Apparently some fans didn't think she deserved her own book. This comes from the Good Reads group and is why I don't post there. I don't need to shank people on the internet. ; p

[alas_a_llama]

Yugo - tbh, the only thing I can think of is that a lot of people in fandom think that Phoenix can be redeemed with enough care and love, and I'm not certain he can. Yugo is flufflesdorable, it's true, and Phoenix is very similar to Yugo and clearly a lot more empathetic and affectionate than the average Phantom, but Phoenix has a habit of snapping and trying to commit mass murder with absolutely no warning signs. I think that represents a pretty massive barrier to any redemptive process.

Sherral is so minor that he has no fandom.

Idk, what are fandom's opinions on Wan?

[unglitched]

No, Vanellope does not belong on the "Disney Princesses" roster, because SHE DELIBERATELY CHOSE NOT TO BE A PRINCESS. WHY DOES EVERYONE WANT TO INVALIDATE THAT CHOICE.

[camwyn]

For the same reason Mulan in the Disney Princesses line (never mind that she's not even marrying a nobleman, let alone a prince or king) is depicted in the dress they stuffed her into for the matchmaker catastrophe at the start of the movie. They want girly and BY GOD they'll ignore everything awesome about the character in order to get their girly.

[gavin62truck]

When I used to lurk on the Television Without Pity boards while "Rescue Me" was on the air, people really loved to hate Tommy. I can't blame them, really, but when it got to the point where people started to complain that they couldn't watch the show anymore because they hated him so much, I was just like...okay, just change the channel then. They got too frustrated with his alcoholism and his repeated failure to get his shit together family-wise, and that's why they didn't like him. And to me, that constant struggle is what Tommy is all about, period. They didn't see anything redeemable about him. I did, and still do. So he's not the most lovable, endearing character like Lou (everyone loved Lou), but I rooted for him because he didn't get that love.

[the_lioness]

Yes! I have many feelings about Alanna/George. Not that they get married, mind. I love them as a couple. I love the glimpses of their relationship we get in the other quartets. I fully agree that Alanna/Jon would NEVER work out and in fact might have led to some sort of international incident for Tortall.

No, what bothers me is HOW Alanna and George end up together. George spends most of canon lurking in the background, waiting for Alanna and being very upfront about it with stolen kisses and whatnot. He's sweet, sure, and undeniably her best friend, but even Tammy (because she is awesome) has acknowledged that in retrospect George can come off a bit stalker-ish. I didn't pick up on that as a child, but I can't unsee it now.

Alanna definitely has some Issues when it comes to romantic relationships. At the end of canon, she has lost one lover and set up another with his future queen. Thayet comes to Alanna in the desert where she's taking some time to clear her head and makes sure it's okay with Alanna that Thayet and Jon get married. They have this whole conversation about how Alanna wonders if there is someone for her, and the narration acknowledges she's getting lonely and a bit maudlin. She starts weaving a blanket for George and thinking.

I liked that. She was starting to realize how much George meant to her, and that she might want to have a future with him. Great!

But then George effectively makes that choice for her by showing up in her tent and not being dead or engaged to her friend. It has ALWAYS bothered me that Alanna of all people, with all her hangups about romantic relationship dynamics and her freedom, didn't make the choice to ride hellbent to Pirate's Swoop and tell George she was ready on her own terms. It would be so awesome! She could dip him a la Darcy in Thor 2! Or something.

When I was younger I always thought the ending wasn't fair to George; now I think it wasn't completely fair to Alanna.

It was reasoning like this that in some way led to Alanna/Adam, which in turn led to a LOT of anonymous and ANGRY IMs from Alanna/George shippers back in the day!

[1stwitness]

*pokes* If you're up for it, I think we still have a thread and also you have an email.

[themightyspazz]

I am probably the only Voodoo roleplayer in the entirety of the internets. I have seen exactly one fic with him in it that was passably well-written, and that was an NCIS crossover on AO3. So there's not too many opinions on him to begin with. He is one of the more popular characters in the series, if the producers are to be believed (for a given value of "popular").

I don't really pay attention to the RDR fandom, so I couldn't tell you if my opinions on John were unpopular or not.

Mako...jeezus. Okay, personally? I think he is in no way suited for a romantic relationship of any sort, and won't be until he matures significantly. Yes, matures - being the big brother doesn't automatically get him his man card.

I also think the way Bryke write him makes him a huge Creator's Pet/Gary Stu, that Makorra and Masami should stay sunk goddammit, and that his job as a cop should reflect a lot more on his character than it does in canon.

And he shouldn't be a fucking motorbike cop six months into the job.

I think that people who think of Connor as boring really need to keep his backstory in mind. It's hard to see your mother die when you're only four and not suffer some sort of emotional dampening as a result.

[aberration]

I just assumed Asami taught him how to drive a motorbike. Which I know isn't the point, but.

[minkhollow]

I pretty much am the extent of Villains By Necessity fandom; there's a few other people out there, but they really only turn up during Yuletide season. If there were a bigger fandom, I don't know if my interpretation of Cata would be necessarily popular (perhaps especially the part where my headcanon is her youngest daughter trains as an assassin herself, for the express purpose of confronting her mother - also I realised that bar-time, that girl is SEVEN YEARS OLD now).

Claudia: I vastly prefer the timeline her debut episode is based around to any attempt to retcon her age since then. And I'm certainly not going to do all the backstory contortions the show threw out there in late S4. (As for the biggest of those, I don't think the fandom has an opinion on it and won't until there's more canon to go on. For RP purposes, NOPE NOPE NOPE MOTHERFUCKING NOPE; for fic purposes, I'll be saying the same thing unless the show handles it sublimely well. Pretty much decided I want a redemption arc or nothing.)

Apollo: I don't know how much Percy fandom plays around with the gods, but I doubt there's much attention paid to the myth-canonical fact that he's cheerfully bisexual. (Knowing Riordan's approach to his characters, I'm sure that's background-canon, even if it never comes up anywhere.)

Imp: ...I pay attention to him at all? I've also written him as gay more than once (Disc RP canon and a random lgbtfest fic); I'd imagine everyone else in fandom would go "BUT SUSAN!" if it came to that, but dude, that clearly went nowhere in the books...

Regulus: I don't think he's as much of a bully as some people write him. But I'm also far from the only one interested in getting him out of the mess canon backed him into. I may be one of few people who wants to bring Narcissa along for the ride, though, and I hven't seen anyone else have him take Divination. Then again, I haven't seen anyone else use a non-Trelawney-style Divination professor, either.
(Also, specific to the Neverwhere crossover I wrote ages ago where time got wonky, as it sometimes does when London Below's a factor... I kinda ship Regulus/Luna, in the context of that story.)

Red: I don't ship Ruby/Whale. They are absolutely the best kind of bros, and I'll give the fandom credit for 'Frankenwolf' as a very clever ship name, but... I don't ship it.

Woolly: Not many people in-fandom do stuff with him, but enough that he got given the first name of William well before the show went 'yeah, David Wolcott, now he ded from pirates.' Myka's diction is so unclear the wiki (still using William) both says Woolly died of pirates and some other random person named David died of pirates, but I ultimately decided it was indeed Woolly.
His first name being David is actually how he ended up being Jewish. It'll be interesting to see how that goes over with the fandom at large if/when I write something with him based on this headcanon (the only fic I've done with him was well in advance of the pirates thing).

[herr_bookman]

Despite being creepy and entitled and desirous of the villain's powers, I think Autor has value. *pats* His "breaking" won't make him a better person, nor was it designed to. I think he's a big ball of insecurities which breeds a false haughtiness, and that his desperation stems from loneliness.

He is eclipsed in both fandom and the show, which is a shame as the creators clearly loved all of their side characters, given how detailed each one is.

[sunbaked_baker]

I think he's a big ball of insecurities which breeds a false haughtiness...

And this is why Rae has hope for him. >_>

<3

[death_gone_mad]

Hah, I have only found one other person willing to RP Amascut :D

I have only read bits and pieces of fic about Amascut, so I don't know much about what the storywriting part of fandom thinks about her. They seem to respect that she isn't so crazy that she is effectively a dumb smash and bash villain. She is sometimes even someone cerebral who knows how to survive through the worst situations, sometimes even a helpful, but very scary, ally in a fight against other gods or eldritch horrors. So yay, we agree there. But where I think we disagree is the cause of her shift from Goddess of Rebirth to Goddess of Destruction. Most of fandom (now) thinks that one mahjarrat, Sliske, was the cause of it and somehow captured and tortured Amascut to get revenge on her brother Icthlarin. I really doubt that -- power levels are a big obstacle to that and Amascut was not portrayed as naive even before her turn. I think it was due to the collective (inadvertent) efforts of all the mahjarrat and their use of necromancy to torture captured enemies of the Kharidian state.

I also disagree with most people's assessment that the Kharidian/Menaphite pantheon is unimportant to the story and I dread how the end of Amascut's story is going to be handled. Most of fandom can't wait to kill her or find out how she will be redeemed, but... both are going to need extraordinary explanations for why it hasn't happened before.

Most people think the Zanaris Fairies are insignificant and Fairy Fixit moreso. But come on! They control the weather and a major teleportation network that goes places that make you wonder how and why fairies would ever go there, and Fixit is in charge of keeping that network going. She's one of the few NPCs that actually messes with technology and not just pure magic. The development of technology is supposedly a major plot point for upcoming canon. And then Zanaris is supposed to eclipse the sun and cause big doomy things sometime in the future. Bah, whatever.

[aberration]

Wow guys, I looked at my own question this morning and was like "what... thinking... brain..." so go all of you.

OKAY.

Elle... so I sort of maybe kind of sometimes have a thing for lady characters fandom hates, and fandom really hated Elle for a while. I will say even before canon reeeeeally went off the deep end she was a problematic character, and I kind of took her to ... do those things in a way I was okay with. But most of the hatred directed at her by far was straight up lady-hating, so. It's hard to think of opinions in particularly I necessarily disagreed with, because often it wasn't that I viewed her a different way, I just saw fandom's reviling her for being a sociopath (while um, loving Sylar) as holy double standard Batman. (Though there were the occasional 'she's a Mary Sue' rumblings and okay????? I think that's when I firmly gave up on that term forever.) And then season 3 happened in which haha forget childhood abuse, it was really a guy that caused her fucked-up-ness, and whatever. Weirdly I think she actually got more fandom support post-season 3, maybe because more people had come around to hating the show and recognized that her storyline made no sense.

Asami weirdly has a similar track from outright despised by fandom to sort of vaguely more accepted, also sort of on a track of "well, that was... a place for that storyline to go" and I guess the ultimate confirmation that she was not really an villain and would not become one just because her boyfriend was kind of a jerk oh no. And there's the basic sort of shit she gets for wearing makeup and being involved in a love triangle no one actually wants, and of course a Mary Sue because that never gets old. (I'm not even touching the shipping stuff.) I do have particular opinions on Asami I think are... reflected in the first season, anyway, even if some of the themes I want to use her for are at this point, I'll acknowledge, not really in canon but whatever. A lot of people pretty quickly buy into the sheltered rich girl trope of her that I think canon actually actively averted (she unabashedly asks a boy out, responds to a truck being in her path by telling Bolin to EARTHBEND A RAMP SO SHE CAN JUMP OVER IT WTF, and basically tricks her father into thinking she's on his side so she can electrocute him) - she's not free of pampered sensibilities (how do you have so much shit to bring to the Air Temple, really), but she's not a little shrinking violet or otherwise particularly delicate, either. Basically I think some people make her this sort of dainty uberfeminine contrast to Korra, and I think she is a foil for Korra, just in a more nuanced way. Her talent with mechanics and relative emotional reservedness also contrast with Korra, but are also traits that are generally more masculine-coded. (Or are like everything just reviled in women - Korra's irrational and bratty for being openly emotional, Asami's cold or a robot for being emotionally contained. Yay!)

A lot of fandom also thought Asami should have been an Equalist or sympathetic to Equalist motivations, which I really vehemently disagree with. And I have really particular opinions on her relationship with her father, which include that I think some people dismiss that it's not... a particularly healthy indicator when a person tries to murder someone they purportedly love, even if that someone is doing things to they strongly disagree with. Which - I do think they thought they had a very close and loving relationship up until that point, but that kind of step indicates that the relationship at least on his end was really rooted in Asami's ability to be everything he expected of her and crumbled the moment she failed in that. Which... isn't great. (My headcanon is that Hiroshi and Asami are very similar to the point that they think in nearly identical ways - like if you put the same set of objects in front of them, they'd look at and handle the objects in the same way and in the same order, and make all the same remarks, to the point that it would be unnerving. So it was particularly shocking for them when each did something the other wasn't expecting, though ONLY ONE OF THEM RESORTED TO MURDER, GEEZ.)

(And then there's second season Asami... which. Dudes, she can be emotionally resilient and resourceful or an idiot and and emotionally rattled, but she can't be both depending on what's plot convenient for you, ugh.)

So... Katara! I don't like Zutara and I do actually like as-adults Kataang, so. I also think Katara gets shit when she's ever anything but mature and perfect at everything (which of course, ironic). But I think what sticks out to me the most was when I'd see her get hate for threatening to kill Zuko after he joined the Gaang, which is hilarious to me because my reaction to that was "YES BEST EVER I LOVE YOU." Erm.

My current unpopular Leslie opinion is that I don't think she'd uproot from Pawnee even when things are shitty for her there, but.

Hiccup... I really wish I didn't have to say this, and really I'm someone who's generally open about shipping, or at least willing to say live and let live on the matter. But. He does not like Toothess that way, okay?

Pretty much the only part of Adventure Time fandom I see much of is the Marceline/PB shippers, and... I'm okay with this. And there is no Grim Fandango fandom I'm aware of aside from a couple sites and some awesome fanartists.

[gavin62truck]

He does not like Toothess that way, okay?

WHAT NO *crying*

[hasthehighground]

/starts laughing.

I just... do I have opinions about my pups that AREN'T unpopular in fandom? (Yes, a fair number.)

MCU!Clint: mostly well-adjusted (despite relationship insecurities); works well with others; is an adult; isn't straight (basically fandom is divided: those who think he acts like an adult and is well-adjusted generally think it's impossible he could like guys or work well with others; those who think he could work well with others and/or like guys tend to write him as crippled by his insecurities, and very emotionally "young"). Also he's a giant dork.

Quatre: He's actually competent. Sh--shock? He acts like someone raised to be a CEO, but his sparkliness is TOTALLY GENUINE and not some cold fake act to garner attention. He just loves everyone okay. Also he's a giant dork.

Legolas: Elf sexuality, fandom, do you get it. (Answer is: n-- no, mostly not, which is ENTIRELY FAIR as I shouldn't have expected fandom to've read every essay by Tolkien. But unfairly, I tend to. Basically, Legolas won't feel sexual attraction until/unless he meets the person he'll marry. He has lots of romantic-platonic crushes though.) I also have feelings on gender in Mirkwood, which I won't get into as my Legolas maps pretty close to cis by western!human understanding. He's also a giant dork, which a lot of movie fandom doesn't realize ):. He sasses Gandalf!! Canonically! ... A lot!

Melinda May: Is actually capable of having romantic attachments. Also, she is gorgeous and amazing and not the desexualized mother figure good lord fandom (ALSO having a sexuality + badass competence DOESN'T mean she CAN'T be a mother/mother figure. srsly fandom? srsly?). Also she's a giant dork. >.>

Chuck: I-- don't know Pacific Rim fandom, really? A lot of them agree with me on Chuck (angry, a jerk, but a lot of his anger is reasonable) from what I've seen, but casual viewers often think of Chuck as just the random antagonist vs. the kid trying futily to fight against his destiny. ALSO HE'S A GIANT DORK this is a running theme.

Darcy Lewis: Has actual competence, in spades. Is not taser-happy, but is willing to use it in self-defense. I think most of fandom acknowledges her dorkitude.

that's probably the most relevant :).

[inlovewithwords]

Quatre: YES.

Legolas: Yeah. :| Also, Gimli as his platonic, best-friendship co-pilot. I love that relationship okay. And soooooooooooooob elf sexuality plz to be learning it fandom.

Melinda May: .......I hope fandom is getting its opinions forcibly reversed by canon. IN. THE. FACE. And yes, absolutely agree with you.

Darcy: Fandom thinks she's not competent? Oh wait, fandom. SIGH.

[ceitfianna]

I tend to not dip too much into my various fandoms, so don't know a lot of how I differ. Though getting onto Tumblr has provided me at times more knowledge than I wished for.

Will: My Will is from an amalgamation of different canons and Will seems to be one of those characters that is changed in every new variation. So my Will isn't like anyone else's and I don't like Robin coming back from the Crusades, it doesn't fit in my head.

Charles: I hate fix it fics where he somehow doesn't get paralyzed, just no, he's Professor X, this is part of his identity. I clicked on one randomly and backbuttoned out so quickly. Also yes, he is emotional and short but none of this means he's weak or naive. He's a brilliant man who can be incredibly ruthless, its just that his ruthlessness doesn't look like Erik's. Charles and Erik are partners and equals in their relationship, this is why I love them. And Raven is his sister, she might be attracted to him but he doesn't see her that way at all, no.

Sameth: I pay attention to him, most of what I know of fandom is from the Yuletide fics that appear and he's rarely in them.

William: I've no idea. There's not a huge amount of Yuma fandom.

Moist: I don't ship him and Spike long term, I think they'd have some fun but work better as friends. I think he asked her out to see if he could do it because she's fun and dangerous. That is not good enough to build a marriage on and its Moist, marriage isn't something he would head towards anyway.

Demeter: She is not a horrible mother-in-law, she wants her daughter to be happy but that doesn't mean she has to actually like Hades. She's always forgotten when people seem to take on the myth or she becomes the worst mother-in-law ever, I don't get it.

Jane: I've yet to find anything in fandom that I disagree with, but another small fandom. Most of the output appears to be pretty graphics.

Tumnus: He and Lucy are friends, anything more than that just no, it makes my head hurt. After stumbling upon that, I haven't really ventured too much into the fandom. Well, I don't get the various incest shippers, I love sibling stuff but no.

The Pirate King: I don't even know if there is a fandom and I think when I app my new pup, he's going to be retired. Its been far too long since I played him.

[inlovewithwords]

== Tumnus, Charles, and that feeling about Sameth and no one paying attention.

[ashen_key]

*looks at Delia*

*looks at Jake Sully and Trudy*

*looks Natasha*

*bursts out laughing*

Delia is a very clever and ambitious girl who runs into the same walls Alanna was running from, and gets into a relationship with a very domineering and charming man who is AT MINIMUM twice her age (more likely, Duke Roger is in his mid-thirties to her just-out-of-the-convent sixteen when they hook up) who orders her to sleep with his younger cousin for some reason or another. Which she does, because she loves him. C'mon, fandom, she has Roger raised from the dead in a world where the gods walk around and talk to people - it'd have been easier and safer to cut her losses and marry someone else if she didn't care/was just after power. She did care. Way too much. She ends up doing very, very bad and illegal things (treason isn't a joke), but she's hardly evil.

Jake is a perpetual screw-up with impulse-control issues who LIKES not being an officer. He has a lot of self-awareness on this fact! Him being left in charge the Omaticaya is a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE IDEA in canon, aaaaand he knows it. Also he has a hell of a lot of issues tied into "belonging" and "being useful" after his injury that he hasn't even begun to deal with by the time canon rolls around. Hence why he clings to those who regard him as being useful and offering him a place - first Quartich and Trudy, and then the Omaticaya (and Trudy. Of the humans, he's most fond of Trudy.)

Trudy is not Air Force, fandom. Darlings. Babies. No. She is not ex-Air Force, she never used to fly fighter jets. Helicopters (or their equivalents) all the way. She is also SHOCKINGLY going to have ties to the humans on Pandora.

Natasha...Um. Um. Natasha does not dress entirely in black unless she's in mourning (CANON YELLOW LEATHER JACKET. CANON). She does not have a gun-rack on her otherwise blank wall. She does not read or even like Tolstoy's work, unless you mean Aleksey Tolstoy (and nor is reading Leo Tolstoy's work going to bring ANY KIND of enlightenment as to Natasha's thinking, fandom, no, she's a Soviet lady, please stop writing her ships doing that). She's a geek. She enjoys life, and pretty things. She's done a lot of bad shit, mostly of her own inclination and choice, and she's trying to make up for it...by continuing to do bad things in the interests of protecting the planet. Consistency isn't her strong point, and neither are morals. She does not make a habit of seduction - being quietly friendly and useful gets one far further, and any way, she's not everyone's type. She is better at hand-to-hand than Clint, why do I even have to say this, oh yes, fandom's issues with women. She has friends. She likes her boss. She's fairly well-adjusted, given everything. Bruce Banner/the Hulk is not the worst thing to ever happen to her (ask her, and she'll say the Nazi invasion of Stalingrad), but she still isn't going to like him just because he has fluffy hair SERIOUSLY FANDOM. Her relationship with Clint is built on foundations of friendship, dorkiness, mutual respect, and a love of Die Hard and pizza. Because dorks.

[inlovewithwords]

Despite seeing the movie, don't know Avatar well, but I can see those two.

With Delia, isn't there a lot of caring more about her family's home than Tortall as a home in some way? Because that's not evil, just leads to really bad decisions for her. Does fandom at least acknowledge that?

Natasha: I generally far prefer your Nat to what little fandom can manage and what little I know, and you're aware of that. Just one question: .........what do you mean they think she'll like Bruce because of fluffy hair? That is-- what?

[protect_and_survey]

First, for this girl - yes. Simmons is horribly horribly bad at field op stuff. There's a reason that when the plane was taken hostage no one had to have a knife at her throat - one at Fitz's was QUITE ENOUGH, thanks. But she is not looking for a protector, nor is she likely to collapse sobbing after a stressful situation (Fandom, did you see FZZT? Mmm?). Also, I think I'm one of the very few people who doesn't ship Jemma with anyone on board the bus. Just. No. Stoppit.

Haymitch is not an idiot, nor is he a slacker - he'd given up by the time book canon rolls around, but once he realizes Katniss has half a prayer, he becomes a conniving bastard, even half-drunk. And after the events of Catching Fire, he becomes a vicious conniving bastard.

Clara - oh Clara. First off, while she makes horribly bad life choices, she kind of fails at being a damsel in distress. Please stop writing her as one. Also, I really really do not ship her with the Doctor - There's respect, and a bit of worry (he's alien, the most alien thing you'll ever meet, and somehow he fools people into not seeing that), and a whole lot of WHEE THE UNIVERSE IS FUN!, but no twu wuv.

...

The rest of mine are from canons either too minor to rile many feathers or are minor characters that don't get much mention.

[inlovewithwords]

I avoid fandom, and Doctor Who is hiiiigh on that list because oh god terrifying. But I expect that people confuse Clara's occasional flirtation with him--primarily very early--for twu wuv. My opinion is that she just found it fun to flirt, but I expect fandom doesn't do that. I don't know that she makes as many horrible life choices as all that, though. Difference between risky and horrible. But yes, I agree with the rest.

As for Simmons... I am more terrified of Marvel/MCU than of Whoniverse fandom. But I can see them doing that. And I am so sorry, because I definitely agree with you on that.

[inlovewithwords]

I will save the talk about how I view character from a fandom perspective for my journal or a later DE in this trilogy, if it comes up. Plus I might be signing my death warrant when I do. Baseline: I am terrified of fandoms because I will cry or feel angry most of the time if I pay attention. So I am probably wrong about people.

Henry: I have no idea what OUaT fandom thinks! I’m happy to remain this way.

Eriond: I don’t imagine his canon has much of a fandom, much less him. If anyone has an opinion, I probably think he’s brighter and more thoughtful and a little more mischievous than most would see him as. But no one cares but me.

Tavi: Uncommon opinion, I’m in Alera fandom at all. Sob. Anyway, of the rare players in it, character-wise (rather than general canon, that’s another story), the most prolific fic writer in the fandom focuses on Max and his family, and the only character I know of played in multiple places is Max (actually, one Max player dropped Tavi for Max because Tavi is too intensive). So… arguably actually focusing on Tavi is slightly less common. By an inch. But there’s no good yardstick, because again, almost empty fandom. So… neh. Not really a thing.

Lois Lane: I’d intended to answer in essay-worthy detail and about trends in DC/DC fandom/impressions from outside the fandom in general, not just Smallville. I hide from fandom so much that it is not fair to, and carry grudges primarily off hearsay. I will say that I avoid tags on AO3 that aren’t Clark/Lois, not just because it is my OTP. From what I’ve seen, fics that aren’t that tend to suck. They either turn her into a raging bitch/woobify/house-frau-ify/give her gross incompetence/shallow-ize her to break them up or prevent the pairing, or make her flaws not into what makes her character fun and interesting but a reason to hate and dump her to the side. Oh yeah, and they kill her just out of convenience too. She is not a damsel in distress; she gets into trouble doing the right thing. A lot of people get that wrong too.

...I expect an unpopular opinion of mine is 'dammit she is more than Clark's love interest.' But that's a suspicion. I almost hate that all my things I'm listing are related to 'shipping, thus god I swear it's not about my OTP. But fandom defines her by it so sharply. Nnngh.

So I don’t know, I am most likely in several minorities with her. I just don’t know enough, because I dislike screaming hordes and bad writing and unjustified departure from multiple characters’ characterization. I’ll leave it alone now. (And if I don't, I will Hulk-rage.)