From time to time I hear I'm too harsh on Gaz, or I exaggerate Gaz, or I this Gaz or I that Gaz, or OH! this one this one... I take Gaz "too seriously."

I can only wonder whether the countless multitudes who draw and write her completely annihilating Dib over a tin of soda, a scrap of pizza or a handful of cereal ever hear that THEY'RE taking her too seriously.

All people ever seem to get from all this is that I hate Gaz. Okay, guilty as charged, Your Honors... but there is a great deal more to it than that.

When I first got into this fandom, I kept finding fic after fic in which Gaz savagely brutalizes Dib over trifles... after which he acts as if she a) deserves or b) even needs, to be. "Protected." Adding my own angle on this howling absurdity was the only way I could keep my fist out of the screen.

The Gaz in my work is what other fans have already warped her into. God as my witness, I cannot see one single whit of difference between the way I write Gaz and the way just about every single other person here writes Gaz.

Yes, I fully realize Gaz is nowhere near this bad in canon. I am also fully aware that canon Dib is far from blameless. Their personalities clash so badly that they constantly rub each other the wrong way just by being themselves. Dib loves to talk as much as Gaz hates to listen. Where control is important to Gaz, Dib concludes, "What's yours is mine if I want to borrow it."

As well, for all the threats Gaz so freely uttered to both Dib and Zim throughout "The Wettening," the worst thing she actually did in that episode was draw a monster eating Dib. She MAY have dropped the water balloon on him at the end with aggressive intent, OR she may have done it to revive him, because as soon as it breaks over him he snaps out of his stupor. "NanoZim" is similarly ambiguous. MAYBE Gaz thought it was just another video game, or MAYBE Gaz realized the danger he was in.

Constructing both Mexican standoffs and elegant, brain-teasing "ally or enemy" ambiguities involving these two would be quite the writer's exercise, but is that what we see? No. What we DO see is Gaz hammering Dib into the floor time and time and (yawn) time again over soda/pizza/cereal. cuz liek zomfg taht awy itis wya teh funyer oer sumthign11! lolololol;o;poo

It appears some even take Gaz as some sort of poster girl for the women's movement. Oh, PUH-lease. Do NOT make me laugh my ass off. Gaz and all her ilk actually UNDERMINE feminism.

It's not enough to just have power; one must use it wisely, meaning only when necessary and only as far as one needs to. Gaz abuses not just Dib, but her own power as well, by exploiting her temper and stubbornness to serve only herself. Women and girls who act like her only justify the most repressive things the worst male chauvinists could ever say.

"Women and girls who act like her"? YES. See "Scars to Remember" written by Dib's Kat.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1911148/1/Scars_to_Remember

In Chapter 3, Gaz snarls, "Dib, get off the phone before I threaten your manhood." CHARRRRRRRRRMING. Then, a reviewer for that chapter actually posted that she would be trying that one on her OWN brother. "Only in cartoons"? Really. Don't some people only wish. This is the very opposite of peace between the sexes; it merely perpetuates the animosity and tension. I hate to speculate on how many Gaz fans may be doing similar things IRL without admitting it.

Hitting someone who is forbidden to hit you back is no braver than hitting someone who is UNABLE to hit you back.

Dib being older, and a boy at that, is expected to "defend" himself against this physical abuse somehow. Uh, how exactly is he supposed to do this? He can't very well raise a hand against her, that's for sure. The other characters would hate him (more), the viewers would hate him (more), and the fragile little wisp everybody is falling over themselves to protect would slaughter him.

For my part, I wonder why so many viewers (including a few who would DARE call themselves Dib fans!) cannot get enough of Gaz savaging him in ways canon never even comes close to, and for no apparent reason whatsoever beyond sheer sadism. Okay, I've had some pretty awful things happen to Gaz, but at least I'm not trying to claim they're "funny" somehow.

Even canon Gaz can go completely overboard with her infantile obsession with "Revenge!" putting Dib through endless hell over one miserable scrap of pizza as she did in "Battle Dib." Psst... the further Gaz's revenge goes beyond the original injury, the more injustice she herself is creating.

People actually admire Gaz's brutishness and vindictiveness and confuse them with being "cool." When did these loathsome traits suddenly become anything to admire or applaud? How would you react to Dib if it was HIM swaggering around bashing HER brains out over a few scraps of pizza? Somehow, I do not think "cool" is the first word that would come to anyone's mind.

Gaz's overweening zest for "PUNISHING" Dib leads me to wonder if she can take it quite as well as she can dish it out. Almost nobody ever writes this happening. In contrast, how many fics... to say nothing of episodes... end by punishing Dib many many many times over?

Very shortly after I got into this fandom, I started speaking up about this because I figured that if I waited for anybody else to do so, I would have one very long wait indeed. I still seem to be largely (though not quite completely) alone in this. If more people here got it about Gaz... that savaging her own brother over NOTHING! and then getting to hide behind behind the edict that Boys Don't Hit Girls makes her not any kind of "cool" or "admirable," but the lowest kind of a coward... then I could take down all these banners and give everyone a rest once in a while.

Check this out; IT'S AMAZING!: http:///deviation/42773041/ It's an illustration for "Puppy Love" done by Victoria Hughes. (Thanks again!!)

Oh, and I've got a page there too... http:///

I don't usually do this, but I'm happy to make an exception here:

-Slash is the descent into no longer being taken seriously as a fandom. Post this in your profile if you agree.