I feel like a thing I wish was more generally acknowledged across fandoms is that "I don't find this character sympathetic" and "This character was not intended to be sympathetic" are obviously connected but are, ultimately, two completely different statements that may not overlap at all.
Ultimately what you think about any given character is a completely subjective issue that has no right or wrong answer. The narrative may be trying to evoke sympathy for them, and you may just feel that it flat-out was not successful in doing that. You may look the author straight in the eye and say "Nope, I see what you're trying to do, but f*ck this guy actually, he's The Worst and that's all there is to it". And no one can tell you that you're wrong for doing so.
But when it comes to picking up on what the story is trying to do, whether you ultimately think it did a good job or not, I would argue there's at least some measure of objective reality. And I feel like people sometimes end up conflating them, so you end up with these posts like "I can't believe people sympathize with this character when the story clearly just wants you to hate them!" and it's like... yeah, I think people sympathize with this character because the story is very clearly and intentionally painting them as sympathetic. I could point you at a dozen different scenes that are clearly meant to evoke sympathy for This Character. You don't have to have found any of it compelling, but at a certain point recognizing it's there is a simple matter of reading comprehension.
i have spinner brainrot
Credit to @nilla-waifu for this hilarious idea
everytime someone downplays how bad pre-UA bakudeku was an angel loses it's fucking wings
izuku's hero costume is soo funny to me. like i genuinely wonder what the support companies were thinking when reworking the thing like. ah yes this child clearly wants to be an absolutely terrifying bunny. no worries we got you.
Why does the HEALTH merch store go so hard?
Let’s give this app a go since instagram is pretty much dead for artists 🫰
Too many people forget that David Shield orchestrated a terrorist attack ON HIMSELF to steal research data from the government so his """""friend""""" could be big and stwong again 🥺
Dave.
Buddy.
THAT'S SO ILLEGAL-
If I was desperate for kudos I would not be out here posting villain ships, minor character rarepairs, and other deeply unpopular ships.
I know how to write popular fic. I know how to farm kudos. That's not what I'm here for.
"Readers need to remember that authors don't know a reader liked their fic unless the reader tells them by leaving a kudos or a comment" does not mean "waahhh waahhh I need attention!"
It means "even if writers write purely for themselves, if you don't bother to interact with writers when you do enjoy their work, they might stop posting and just keep their work to themselves."
"If you enjoy a work you should kudos or comment" is not aimed at the people who aren't reading the fanfiction in question.
"If you enjoy a work you should kudos or comment" is not aimed at the people who did not enjoy the fanfiction in question.
"If you enjoy a work you should kudos or comment" is aimed at people who read a fanfiction, enjoyed it, and then didn't bother to even do the bare minimum to share their excitement about it with the work's creator, even though that excitement is literally the only thing they get in return for posting their work.
Fanfiction authors write because they enjoy writing. They post because they want to form a connection with the people who enjoyed their work.
This is not an attempt to scold anyone, I literally don't care if I get kudos or not. It's simply an attempt to remind people that fanfiction is a community, and fan authors can't read your mind.
came up with the headcanon that Fuyumi likes to knit and well, one thing led to another…
So this kind of dialogue from Rei really put me off when these chapters first came out. But it's significantly less jarring after the later context and after just gaining more life experience.
The Hellish Todoroki Family Subplot can be viewed as an allegory for the different responses to abuse. For that allegory to be complete, someone had to stay with/prop up Enji because some victims of domestic violence choose not to leave even when given a real opportunity to do so.
And though it seems counterintuitive, it actually makes the most sense for Rei to fulfill this role than any of the Todoroki children. Look, I've met more domestic violence survivors than most people. It's an unfortunate trend but from observation, the most severely abused are the ones more likely to return to their abusers.
However, it's still annoying that Rei's portion of the narrative is primarily covering for Endeavor. Rei making bad life decisions isn't the problem. The issue is there needed to be more from Rei to make this not feel like abuse apologia.
There were plot points from canon to work with to accomplish that. Rei was raised by a clan that was eugenicist and was selling off its members including herself to maintain its lifestyle. Did Rei grow up in an abusive household making it difficult for her to grapple with the severity of Enji's actions? Was she numb to Enji's quirk marriage scheme because everyone in her family was involved in quirk eugenics? Enji visited Rei and left flowers but there was nothing to indicate that any of the Himuras visited. Does she lean on Enji because the Himuras abandoned her?
Having the domestic abuse victim who was still hospitalized from that abuse say everyone should give Endeavor a chance actually without more context just feels gross. The dialogue itself isn't the problem. Given the sensitivity needed to properly handle an issue like domestic violence, more was needed to show that what Rei said here shouldn't be taken at face value.