#Also if we could explore the concept of gender. i get it Star Wars is barely ready for bisexuality on screen BUT

[farfartothewestofeverywhere]

if Oscar and John ever actually come back to Star Wars it better canonize their feelings for each other AND have an on-screen kiss.

[tokidokifish]

using star trek versions of my blorbos to pitch MY post-ds9 series, which would be another station trek taking place in the gamma quadrant, where starfleet would have set up a new deep-space base in order to assist (and oversee) the dominion's integration with the galaxy as a whole. i felt like there are so many interesting dominion races with really fucked stories that would be sooooo interesting to look more deeply into, and there would be a whole new quadrant of species and stories to get into! BEHOLD MY VISION!

also vorta get tails bc they deserve them. :) lemurs. :)

anyhow here's a breakdown of the blorbos in question tho obviously i've talked about most of them before:

commander nehn tanith: first officer and the lucky thirteenth host of an extremely unlucky symbiont that keeps getting its hosts killed at young ages. while the tanith symbiont makes her feel like she's have a constant, low-grade panic attack, nehn herself is a confident, capable young woman who sincerely believes wholeheartedly in the utopian ideals of the federation. obvi we would need a starfleet presence there and nehn, certainly, would be there out of a genuine interest in furthering galactic cooperation, but there would be a lotta good meat for stories about federation personnel who simply aren't ready to just forgive and forget and would never be willing to see changelings as anything other than deceptive.

junpei: dominion representative, who volunteered out of duty and definitely not a lot of potentially sacrilegiously intense feelings he shares with the first of his jem'hadar. i really feel like there's SOOOO much untapped potential with the vorta - the concept of them trying to find their places in the dominion after the war, whether some would start to try and move away and establish independence or if they would double-down on worshiping their gods. junpei is also trans in his original narrative and i think THAT would be interesting to explore from a vorta standpoint. i don't honestly think the founders would care about something as meaningless as solid gender presentation, but i also don't think vorta would be expected to like... consider things like that. they were merely tools, made in a specific way to best serve the founders and disposable beyond that; anything else would be a deviation.

and of course with the vorta come the jem'hadar, and THEM finding potential places to interact with the galaxy as something other than soldiers. curing their dependence on ketracel-white! finding out how long they can ACTUALLY live. jem'hadar deciding to be writers, or artists, or craftsmen. IT WOULD BE SO GOOD.

lieutenant, junior grade?? vannerly ch'vaulk: like odo, vannerly is one of the hundred changelings that were sent out into the galaxy at large. in his case, vennerly ended up on andoria, where he managed to successfully (or mostly - he could never pull off the antenna) assimilate with the native people, and even eventually joined starfleet as a xenobiologist - but no one is really sure where he stands now, since he DID pass all his tests but he was lying the entire time. i'm super interested in the concept of the other hundred changelings - we've met odo, who desperately wanted to return home, and laas, who definitely did NOT, and i imagine a lot of them have similarly complicated feelings about it. in vannerly's case, he spent most of his time just trying to fit in and keep his head down, and then he had the knowledge of the rest of his species crash into his life in the worst way possible, and he would be torn between the temptation to join them and the fear of losing the individuality he's come to desire. also we could do way more weird gender stuff because it's not the 90s and i'm not a coward.

anyhow thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[capybaraonabicycle]

I'll send it in as an ask bc replying in tags is too much of a hassle now, bit basically it was one of the best doctor/rose fics i've ever read, and i failed to save it and now i can't find it anywhere no matter how hard i try. Worst thing is, i can't even remember if o read it in English or in Russian, i was so invested in the story and the writing was so organic the language kind of melted away, it was projected directly into my brain. It had a motiff with stargazing and images you see on the Moon, so i think it was rpobably called something like Moon Rabbit, but there's nothing on ao3 with that title.

It starts with Rose and Ten golfing (i think) somewhere in space, and it's early days for Ten so Rose didn't have time to adjust to the change so she's a bit apprehensive and keeps trying to see Nine in him and it was all tied up into the Moon imagery somehow? Suddenly she gets a call from Mickey telling her to come home asap and not tell the Doctor, so she does, and there's Nine (!) alive and well. They meet up in secret from Ten and he tells her that "no Rose wtf i didn't just transform into another dude, i was beamed away from the TARDIS and this one's an imposter (basically confirming all of her fears from just after the regeneration) and he's civil with Mickey? couldn't be me" (ok this part i might've imagined afterwards lmao, but it's basically right, he convinces Rose by perfecrly matching Nine's character, which, for Rose, is more Doctor-y than Ten ever was so the latter has to be the fake one right?)

There's this whole angsty thing about how she missed him and how hard it was for her to adjust to the regeneration, and the matter of trust was explored really well bc she doesn't really know who to trust like 70% of the fic, and then there's the Doctor (Ten, who's the real one obv) who is hurt by the fact that she would just go against him like that but he understands why she would do that, the dynamics and emotions were just *chef's kiss*

Turns out that "Nine" is a unique model of a TARDIS from the Time War so it can shapeshift and pretend better than other TARDIS's apparently and also read minds (that's how it's able to trick Rose). Also turns out that TARDIS's could be male or female (i wasn't with the author on this one) and this new TARDIS was male and our TARDIS was female, so when the dude learned that most of the TARDIS's were gone after the war he came to the conclusion that he had to breed to make new TARDIS babies? (i'm even less with the author here, but when i'm describing it it sounds even worse than i remember, it was much more elegant and i guess reasonable in the original text) Of course our TARDIS doesn't want that bc the process kinda sucks, i guess it was dangerous for her? i don't remember. But yeah, once the Doctor and Rose sort their thing out they have to hunt the dude TARDIS down and get rid of him. At the end he passes through time i guess and an early human glimpses him in the sky like a fallen star and comes up with a fictional story about a warrior and a maiden this warrior was chasing or something, and that's how humanity started making stories.

This fic is SO GOOD despite the weird bits, and i will forever be sad that i didn't think to bookmark it or something. I'll leave this here, firstly bc i think it answers some of the questions you might have and retelling is better than nothing, and secondly because maybe someone will see this post and recognise the fic - unlikely but i can't pass up this chance of finding it

Oh wow that sounds amazing! Mostly the trust part! It would be SO easy to make a companion doubt that the other is the Doctor when you can perfectly pose as an incarnation they know better. Because they're human and us humans, we like to cling to what we know. That concept is just - Idk I feel like it's slightly blowing my mind and now I really want to read this fic.

I agree on the TARDIS thing. In my mind it is uncommon for a TARDIS to have a gender at all. I believe 'our' TARDIS does have a gender but she just ran with it and picked one because the human strays kept going on about it. So her gender's basically 'she/her' - pronouns plus the colour blue with some mischief sprinkled in - or something; you know what I mean.

Plus, I am a tentative fan of the loom thing so if timelords already don't get 'born' I do not believe TARDIS-s would mate for reproduction at all. I would rather assume a TARDIS gets made when there's an imbalance in the space-time-continuum on the quantic level that gets augmented by randomly appearing resonance and then the moment the TARDIS appears it has always been existing since the dawn of time. Or something along those lines. Probably the process can be fabricated some way and timelords have perfected exploiting it. Like they do.

Not like I have been thinking much about TARDIS genders OR reproduction, tbh. In my mind they just are 🤷‍♀️

Anyway, apart from those points that fic sounds absolutely amazing and I think I would also love those moon metaphors. So if someone knows it and could send it to us, that would be great? <3

I also totally get the 'I have no idea what language this was in' feeling, I have that all the time. Not with dw fic though because so far I have read 1 work in German and 1 work in translated Russian and half a work in French and all the other times I strictly stick to English. It just works better in that language for me and there is an abundance of fic in English anyway :) We are so blessed to be in a huge fandom. Although a tiny one WOULD make finding your fic a lot easier.

[experiment-000]

My Top 10 Ships of 2020

It's been a weird year but I've seen other people doing this. Plus this year I've been way more into gen fics (love a bit of found family especially in clone wars and marvel) than anything shippy. So I genuinely don't know what imma put on here aside from two ships for sure. Sorry this post is super long idk how to do the below the cut thing and I've had this app for 5 years...

10) Viktor Nikiforov and Yuuri Katsuki - Yuri!!! On Ice

It was a real toss up between this, supercorp, kanera and wolfstar cos they're all very integral ships to my fan heart but this son because of the Yuri on Ice fandom's rebirth this year. I've never stopped shipping this, never stopped reading fanfic of them for any extended period of time, they're still my most bookmarked ship on ao3 (although I think now star wars - all media types may have overtaken them for fandom). They were one of the first things I watched where the queer ship I loved became canon and I can't wait for the film (and hopefully someday a season 2). Heck I even made my mum watch Yuri on Ice with me so I think that says it all.

9) Edelgard Von Hresvelg and female Byleth - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

My first fire emblem game was fates when I was like 14 (and finally gay awake lol). I was so disappointed that I had to be with a guy character because the only female option was kinda creepy and also I wouldn't get the character of kana. So when three houses came out I was so happy because finally there were beautiful incredible female characters my female byleth could romance (I'm so sorry mlm you deserved so much more than you got). I got the game as soon as it came out (had to search a lot of shops let me tell you) and started on black eagles. I was actually kinda disappointed back in 2019. I didn't like the explore the monastery bit (still find it kinda tedious) and the battle mechanics weren't quite the same as fates (no pairing up?! Aka my main battle technique for protecting the weaker units). So I got like 20 hours in and put it down. Came back to it in lockdown and finally finished it! I'm so proud of myself I virtually never finish games. And I fully fell in love with the useless lesbian edelgard in the process. When I started back playing in 2020 I was like eh I wish I'd picked a different character to romance (like shes an emperor that's morally very shady) but then the romance stuff started with edelgard and I fell the heck in love.

8) Cory Matthews and Shawn Hunter (and Topanga Lawrence) - Boy Meets World

Disney+ was released in the UK this year and I finally got the opportunity to watch boy meets world in its best quality (aka not on YouTube). I watched it back when I was like 12 or 13 and it's such a nostalgic show for me. Watching it again I still absolutely adore it (and my bi ass was low-key crushing on Shawn especially in chick like me - I'm 18 btw and I got so scared for a sec but rider strong was 18 when chick like me came out so it's fine woah). And of course now I see the possibilities of the beautiful Cory and Shawn relationship like they were so bromance it was basically romance and throw in topanga it's the perfect ot3 (but I'm also fine with just Cory and Shawn or just Cory and Topanga). Read some good fanfic for them this year. My favourite was one about Shawn stealing makeup and stuff and exploring gender (need more fics like this I'm biiii).

7) Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes - Marvel Cinematic Universe

I rewatched all the MCU films this year too. And got really into Peter parker whump and irondad. Plus my eternal obsession with identity and relationship reveals of course led me from Spiderman identity reveals (and found family cuteness) to stucky coming out. Especially when it involves the internet and social media. Not my favourite ship but it's been significant to my year due to the sheer amount of marvel stuff I've read.

6) Satine Kryze and Obi Wan Kenobi - Star Wars

I rewatched clone wars in prep for season 7 and wow Satine's death was sad and sudden. She first appeared in S2 E13 I think and just the sheer sexual tension of their bickering. "The sarcasm of a soldier. The delusion of a dreamer." Just ugnnhhh my bi ass can't take much more of this. And Anakin just sipping his wine in the background grinning. And I fully believe korkie is a Kenobi.

5) Commander Cody and Obi Wan Kenobi - Star Wars

I am very much an Obi wan multishipper. I don't really have a favourite but I fully believe he was with satine and Quinlan in his life. I don't think be would've actually done anything with Cody because of the whole superior officer thing. And this probably isn't even my favourite Obi wan ship - that honour probably goes to quinobi or obitine. However the most popular ships in the fandom are codywan, quiobi and obikin. No offence to anyone who ships these they're just personally not to my taste, but I can't stand quiobi, and obikin I find only slightly more tolerable and I think that's just because there's so much obikin content so if I like the concept of a fic that happens to be obikin I'll read it. I'm just not a fan of the mentor/student relationships. So I generally favoured the codywan fics when there was shipping involved meaning I read a lot of them this year. Needed that nice fix it content post season 7.

4) Zuko and Katara - Avatar: the Last Airbender

Again I am a multishipper I have nothing against zukka it's cute. But I'm a zutara shipper first and foremost because when I first watched avatar I was like 13 and denying my gayness and gayness in general so I shipped the straight things and the straight things only. Most of these ships I stopped shipping - dramione, spuffy, some my little pony ones which we don't talk about. Zutara stayed. (I have nothing against any of the things I used to ship I just stopped shipping them so much/shipped new things more). I've continuously shipped zutara since I first watched avatar even if I didn't necessarily spend that much time on it it has always been here as one of my favourite ships. It has such good fanfic I swear including my favourite ever fanfic from any fandom - love thy enemy. Plus like the black games (reread this for the millionth time this year), a delicate subterfuge (which I read for the first time this year and damn it's so good) and so many more. With the avatar resurgence this year I haven't actually rewatched avatar aside from my normal random episode every now and then when I feel like it. But there's been a lot of avatar on my dash from people I follow getting into it and people I followed for avatar returning so naturally I returned to the fandom and read quite a lot of fanfic. I also read just a lot of avatar gen fics which were great at the whole found family thing I've been so obsessed with this year.

3) Catra and Adora - She Ra and the Princesses of Power

Catradora is canon! They kissed! What more is there to say. Arguably they should've been top but I never shipped them that much since I was always very much a multishipper when it came to she ra so yes I was very happy it became canon because we actually won for once but also I've never read much fanfic for them etc. But they are very much a dynamic I love and watching she ra all again in prep for season 5 I really enjoyed the build up of their relationship. The other two only go above because Buffy is my favourite show ever and damn there's some good fuffy fanfic and Aphra and Tolvan is both fresh in my mind and star wars owns me. Would love some catradora fic recs btw if anyone has them tho.

2) Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I didn't realise it was last year that I got super into them but according to my ao3 bookmarks it was lol. 2020 I swear it's lasted an eternity. I got into them about a month before lockdown (which feels like another lifetime). I've loved Buffy since I first watched it when I was 13. It's arguably still my favourite TV show. I've been through a lot of ships for Buffy - bangel to spuffy and now fuffy. I still think angel and her were a beautiful ship back in season 2 and especially in the angel episode I will remember you. But faith and Buffy had so much chemistry in season 3 - she would've been a fresh start for Buffy and the amount of fix it fics I read I swear. My favourite has to be one where they met in LA during Anne and how that changed everything feat Buffy's internal homophobia.

1) Cheili Lona Aphra and Magna Tolvan - Star Wars

I read Darth Vader (2015) and Doctor Aphra (2016) for the first time at the end of 2020 (got a comic subscription which has served me very well already I've nearly finished the star wars canon comics). Just to see canon queer ladies in star wars was so magical for me as a queer lady. I didn't think star wars would be so overt yet as to have a queer kiss in canon (even if it's in the comics) and especially not with the main character of arguably their main comic series. Now we just gotta hope that we'll get it in live action someday soon. They weren't the ship I consumed the most content of in 2020 but they were the highlight of my 2020 because star wars did that and I finally found out about it

Honourable mentions: Vivian and Elle - Legally Blonde, Candace and Vanessa - Phineas and Ferb, Stevie and Alex - Wizards of Waverly Place, Xander and Spike - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I actually don't ship this but damn some authors are good - this was the ship that made me realise I don't need to like a ship if the author is good enough to write it well), Eli Vanto and Mitth'raw'nuruodo - Star Wars (started reading the books last year but finished this year and only started with fanfic this year), Villanelle and Eve - Killing Eve, Kanan and Hera - Star Wars, Barriss and Ahsoka - Star Wars, Remus and Sirius - Harry Potter, Kara and Lena - Supergirl (let's hope this becomes canon next year!) (Those last four are ones I've shipped forever some of my og ships but nothing particularly big has happened for me this year with them so)

I got Disney+ this year so rewatched a fair few things from my youth and though hey my obsession with that character may have been a little gay.

[likealittleheartbeat]

The Queer Platonic Love of Aang & Zuko

Friend. What a weighty and intimate word in Avatar The Last Airbender. The series’ “found family” is iconic at this point, and is literally established as a “family” by Katara in the third episode. She pulls Aang back from the outrage of the Avatar state, saying “Monk Gyatso and the other monks may be gone, but you still have a family. Sokka and I, we’re your family now.”

 As I’ve said before, establishing this central safety net of trusted people is essential to Aang’s healing. Still, it’s interesting to me that they insist on this group as a “family” rather than something that might emphasize “friendship.” Something along the lines of ‘we’re your friends and we’re here with you.’ I can think of several animated shows that have done as much successfully. The show withholds the word “friend” for another purpose. I’ll happily admit that Aang and the others describe each other as “friends” throughout the series, but rarely is the use of the word (through pacing, repetition, or emotional context) given a sense of gravity in those moments. 

However, three scenes in the series rely heavily on the word “friend,” and each scene connects Aang more and more profoundly with Zuko, eventually revealing that the show’s entire plot hinges on the friendship between these two boys. In a series so latent with symbolism, what do we make of these star-crossed friends? The relationship between Aang and Zuko, I want to suggest, is meant to explore Platonic Love in all its depth, especially within a masculine culture that not only devalues it, but views its queer implications as inherently dangerous to the dominant power structures of an empire.

Get ready zukaang fans for a long-ass atla meta analysis...

“If we knew each other back then, do you think we could’ve been friends, too?”

The first time the word “friend” is uttered between them, Aang is perched on a branch, waiting for Zuko (who is laid out on a bed of leaves the Avatar made for him) to wake up after his blue spirit rescue. “You know what the worst part about being born over a hundred years ago is?” Aang waxes, “I miss all the friends I used to hang out with. Before the war started I used to always visit my friend Kuzon. The two of us, we'd get in and out of so much trouble together. He was one of the best friends I ever had...and he was from the Fire Nation, just like you. If we knew each other back then do you think we could have been friends too?” The scene stood out for me when I first watched it for the melancholy and stillness. We are not given a flashback like we did when Aang talked about Bumi or Gyatso in earlier episodes. We have to sit with Aang’s loss of a male friend. It echoes a veteran’s loss of a war buddy more than anything a western audience would expect in a children’s show about the power of friendship. Instead of simply mourning, Aang invites Zuko into the past with him. He invites Zuko to imagine a time before the war, a land of innocence, where they could live together. And between them there is a moment of reflection given to this invitation (...until Zuko shoots a fucking fire blast at Aang). 

The wistful mood returns when the two boys arrive back to their respective beds. Aang is asked by a loopy fevered Sokka if he made any “friends” on his trip, to which Aang sadly replies, “No, I don’t think I did” before tucking away to sleep. Aang’s mournful moments often stand out against his bubbly personality, but this moment stands out moreso because its the final moment for Aang in the episode. For the first time, he doesn’t receive comfort in his dejection. He doesn’t even confide in his peers. The solemnity and secrecy of this failed “friendship” is remarkable. 

It’s in the next symbolic gesture that I think Avatar reveals what’s at stake in the concept of “friendship.” Zuko, in the next scene, lays down to rest after his adventurous night, looks pensively at the fire nation flag in his room, and then turns his back on it. We realize, especially after the previous revelations in “The Storm,” that Aang’s gestures of “friendship” have caused Zuko to doubt the authority of the Fire Nation.

Now all three remaining nations have misogynistic tendencies, but the Fire Nation celebrates a specific brand of toxic masculinity, and Zuko longs to emulate it even after it has rejected and scarred him. In the episode, “The Storm,” which directly precedes “The Blue Spirit,” we see how Zuko failed to replicate masculinity’s demands. In a room of men, he disregards honorifics to speak out in the name of care and concern for people’s well-being over strategy. Though the war room was all men, we later see that The Fire Nation does not exclude women from participating in this form of toxic masculinity. (Shoutout to Azula, one of the best tragic villains of all time!) This gender parity prevents disgraced men, like Zuko, from retaining pride of place above women. So Zuko’s loving act and refusal to fight his father puts him at the lowest of the low in the social hierarchy of the Fire Nation, completely emasculated and unworthy of respect.

Since then, Zuko has been seeking to restore himself by imitating the unfeeling men of the war room and his unfeeling sister, barking orders and demands at his crew. The final redemptive act for this purpose, of course, is to capture the Avatar, who’s very being seems to counteract the violent masculinity at the heart of the Fire Nation. In most contemporary Euro-American understandings, Aang is by no means masculine. He’s openly affectionate, emotional, giggly, and supportive of everyone in his life, regardless of gender. He practices pacifism and vegetarianism, and his hobbies include dancing and jewelry-making. And, foremost, he has no interest in wielding power. (@rickthaniel has an awesome piece about Aang’s relationship to gender norms and feminism). 

In addition to the perceived femininity of Aang’s behavior, he’s equally aligned with immaturity. Aang’s childishness is emphasized in the title of the first episode, “The Boy in the Iceberg,” and then in the second episode when Zuko remarks, “you’re just a kid.” Aang, as a flying boy literally preserved against adulthood, also draws a comparison to another eternally boyish imp in the western canon: Peter Pan. This comparison becomes more explicit in “The Ember Island Players.” His theatrical parallel is a self-described “incurable trickster” played by a woman hoisted on wires mimicking theatrical productions of Peter Pan. The comparison draws together the conjunction of femininity and immaturity Aang represents to the Fire Nation.

When Zuko is offered friendship and affection by Aang, then, he faces a paradigm-shifting internal conflict. To choose this person, regardless of his spiritual status, as a “friend,” Zuko must relate himself to what he perceives as Aang’s femininity and immaturity, further demeaning himself in the eyes of his father and Fire Nation culture. The banished prince would need to submit to the softness for which he’s been abused and banished. This narrative of abuse and banishment for perceived effeminate qualities lends itself easily enough to parallels with a specific queer narrative, that of a young person kicked out of their house for their sexuality and/or gender deviance. 

I want to point out that Aang’s backstory, too, can be read through a queer lens. Although the genocide of the air nomads more explicitly parallels the experiences of victims to imperial and colonial violence, I can also see how the loss of culture, history, friends, and mentors for a young effiminate boy can evoke the experience of queer men after the AIDs pandemic and the government’s damning indifference. In fact, colonial violence and the enforcement of rigid gender roles have historically travelled hand-in-hand. Power structures at home echo the power structures of a government. Deviance from the dominant norms disrupt the rigid structures of the empire. Aang’s background highlights how cultures based in something besides hierarchy and dominance, whether they be queer cultures or indigenous societies, threaten the logic of imperialism, and thus become targets of reform, neglect, and aggression by the expanding empire and its citizens. Survivors are left, as Aang was, shuffling through the remnants, searching for some ravaged piece of history to cling to.

We begin the series, then, with two queer-coded boys, one a survivor of broad political violence, the other a survivor of more intimate domestic abuse, and both reeling from the ways the Fire Nation has stigmatized sensitivity. But the queer narrative extends beyond the tragic backstories toward possibility and hope. The concept of platonic love proposed here, though it does not manifest until later, is a prospect that will bring peace to the two boys' grief-stricken hearts and to the whole world.

“Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?”

“Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?” Toph asks before the four members of the group hold hands. Since Toph previously mourned her friendless childhood, it’s easy to appreciate this line for its hopefulness regarding the four central members of the Gaang. They long to appreciate that they’re all connected. As touching as this is, the soul-mated ‘friendship’ concept is actually uniquely applicable to Aang and Zuko.

When does Toph ask the question specifically? It’s after hearing the story of Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin: how their once intimate friendship fell apart; how Fire Lord Sozin began, undaunted, the genocidal attack on Airbenders. After recounting the tale, Aang, the reincarnation of Avatar Roku, excitedly explains to the group the moral that every person is capable of great good and evil. While that moral could easily be ascribed to many people in the series, the connective tissue is stretched directly to Zuko in a parallel storyline. Reading a secret history composed by his grandfather Sozin, Zuko discovers that he is not only the grandson of the empirical firelord but of Avatar Roku, as well. We see how the rift between the Sozin and Roku echoed down across history to separate the airbending culture from the fire nation, and, on a more human level, to separate Aang from Zuko. The two boys find themselves divided by their ancestors’ choices— and connected by Avatar Roku’s legacy. 

This is what takes their “friendship” from simply a matter of the character’s preferences to something fated, something unique from the other friendships. The rest of the found family is positioned as circumstantial in their relationship to Aang and one another. Yeah, it’d be cool if they were all connected in past and future lives, but the audience receives no indicators in the series that it’s necessarily true. Only faith holds them together, which allows room for an appreciation that your “found family” friendships might simply be the trusted people you discovered along the way. 

Zuko’s friendship is characterized differently. Both his struggle to befriend Aang and his eventual “friendship” are explicitly destined by the story of Roku and Sozin. After this episode, the series depends upon Zuko’s ability to mend the divide inside himself, which can only be done by mending the divide between him and Aang. Their inheritance symbolizes this dynamic exactly. As the reincarnation of Avatar Roku, Aang can be understood as the beneficiary of Avatar Roku’s wisdom (he should not, as many jokingly suggest, be considered as any kind of biological relation of Roku or Zuko).  Zuko, on the other hand, has inherited Roku’s genealogy in the Fire Nation. These two pieces of Roku must be brought together in order to revive Roku’s legacy of firebending founded on something besides aggression. 

In addition to making the ideals of Roku whole again, the two boys must tend to the broken “friendship” between the two men. As the Avatar and the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, Aang and Zuko parallel Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin precisely. The narrative of the latter pair places destiny precisely in the hands of the former. And since both Aang and Roku expressed the desire for “friendship,” it falls in the lap of the corresponding royal to give up their imperial dreams so they can gain something more peaceful and intimate. For Zuko, this now can only be accomplished when he heals the rift within himself. 

Importantly, both the previous friendship and the destined friendship between Zuko and Aang are between two men. The coming-of-age genre has proliferated the trope of homosociality (friendship between individuals of the same sex) and its eventual decline brought on by maturity and heterosexual romance. (Check out the beautiful and quick rundown of classic examples, from Anne of Green Gables to Dead Poet’s Society, made by @greetingsprophet ). The story of Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin replicates this established narrative. 

We see them playing, sparring, and joking intimately with one another. The two as young adults were intimately connected, the series explains, “sharing many things including a birthday.” Eventually their intimacy is interrupted by their worldly responsibilities and the spectre of heterosexual romance on Roku’s part.

Now, It’s not a huge leap for one to wonder if Sozin longed for something stronger in their “friendship.” We see no female romantic interests for Sozin. Instead, he continues to demonstrate his platonic allegiance to Roku. When Roku prepares to leave for his Avatar training, Sozin walks into his room and gives him his crown prince headpiece, a gesture of unique devotion that positions his friendship above his politics (which harkens to Plato and EM Forster’s ideas about platonic love that I’ll discuss in Part 3). 

One might note, too, how the wedding between Roku and his childhood sweetheart provides the setting for the escalation of Sozin’s violence. “On wedding days,” Sozin writes, “we look to the future with optimism and joy. I had my own vision for a brighter future...” He then pulls Roku away from his bride for a personal conversation, briefly recapturing the earlier homosocial dynamic with his friend. Sozin describes his affection for their intertwined lives. Then he links their shared happiness to the current prosperity of the Fire Nation. He imagines the expansion of the Fire Nation, which would also expand on the relationship between him and Roku. But the Avatar refuses the offer and returns to his wife, insisting on the value of traditional boundaries (both the pact of marriage and the strict division of the four nations). The abandonment of the homosocial relationship by Roku sets the site for the unmitigated empirical ambitions of Sozin. One wonders how history might’ve been altered had the two men’s relationship been sanctified and upheld. How might’ve Roku persuaded Sozin in his empirical ambitions if he had remained in a closer relationship to his friend? In their final encounter, Sozin reacts vengefully to his former platonic love: he lets Roku die protecting the home the Avatar shared with his wife. Sozin’s choice solidifies the divide between them, and makes the grief he’s experienced since Roku left him into actual death.

Instead of Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin finding a resolution, Aang and Zuko are ordained to reverse their friendship’s disintegration. Yes, they must heal the rift in the world created by the Fire Nation’s aggression, but Aang and Zuko must also reverse the tradition of lost homosociality within a culture of unrelenting machismo. Despite Avatar: the Last Airbender’s ties to the coming-of-age genre, the arc of Aang and Zuko’s “friendship” counters one of its most prominent tropes. “Some friendships are so strong they can transcend lifetimes,” Roku says, and it’s precisely this platonic ideal that draws Zuko and Aang towards one another in ways that are revolutionary both in their world and in the traditions of our’s. To come together, as two matured boys, to form an adult platonic love that can persist into adulthood.

“And now we’re friends.”

Which brings us to the consummation of Aang and Zuko’s “friendship.” Having resolved their previous hostilities and having neutralized the outside forces that would rather them dead than together, Aang and Zuko can finally embrace and define their relationship as “friendship.” Now, if we look closely at Zuko’s expression, we’ll notice a pause, before he smiles and reiterates Aang’s comment. My initial response, with my zukaang shipping goggles on extra tightly, was that Zuko just got friend-zoned and was a little disappointed before accepting Aang’s friendship. When I took a step back, I considered that we are given this moment of reflection to recognize Zuko’s journey, his initial belligerent response to the idea of befriending the Avatar. When he accepts the term of ‘friend,’ he reveals the growth he’s undergone that’s brought peace to the world. With these two possibilities laid out, I want to offer that they might coexist. That the word ‘friend’ might feel to Zuko and the audience so small and limited and yet simultaneously powerful. The pause can hint at the importance of “friendship” and signal something more. This reading emboldens the queer concept of “friendship” that undergirds their relationship. That the hug that follows might be meant to define the depth of the platonic love that is at the very heart of the series.

Saving a hugging declaration of “friendship” for the announcement of peace in the series is quietly revolutionary. In the twentieth century, male characters could connect in battle, on competitive teams, and through crime. “In the war film, a soldier can hold his buddy — as long as his buddy is dying on the battlefield. In the western, Butch Cassidy can wash the Sundance Kid’s naked flesh — as long as it is wounded. In the boxing film, a trainer can rub the well-developed torso and sinewy back of his protege — as long as it is bruised. In the crime film, a mob lieutenant can embrace his boss like a lover — as long as he is riddled with bullets,” writes Kent Brintnall. Aang and Zuko’s hug starkly contrasts this kind of masculine intimacy. The show suggests that environments shaped by dominance, conflict, coercion, or harm, though seemingly productive in drawing people and especially men together, actually desecrate “friendships.” Only in a climate of humility, diplomacy, and peace can one make a true ‘friend.’

In situating the’ “friendship” between two matured males in a time of peace, the writers hearken back to older concepts of homosocial relationships in our fiction. As Hanya Yanagihara has described the Romantic concepts of friendship that pervaded fiction before the 1900s. In her book, A Little Life, Yanagihara renews this concept for the twenty-first century with a special appreciation for the queerness that one must accept in order for platonic love to thrive into adulthood. She writes, “Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together day after day bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.” Aang and Zuko’s relationship, despite a history that would keep them apart, reclaims this kind of friendship. Their hearts, bound together by an empyrean platonic love, are protected from the political and familial loyalties that would otherwise embroil them. 

In addition to Yanagihara, another author that coats the word ‘friend’ with similar gravity and longing to Avatar is E.M. Forster, who braids platonic friendship in his writing with homoeroticism and political revolution. In Forster’s novel Maurice (originally written in 1914 but published posthumously in 1971 due to Britain’s criminalization of male homsexuality), the titular character asks a lower class male lover lying in bed with him,  “Did you ever dream you had a friend, Alec? Someone to last your whole life and you his? I suppose such a thing can’t happen outside of sleep.” The confession, tinged with grief and providence as it is, could easily reside in Aang’s first monologue to Zuko in “The Blue Spirit.”

 Platonic love as a topic is at the heart of Maurice. Plato’s “Symposium,” from which the term platonic love derives, is even directly referenced in the book and connected with “the unspeakable vice of the Greeks”— slang for homosexual acts. For Forster, the sanction of platonic love, both the homosocial aspect and the latent homosexuality, reveals a culture’s liberation. “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend,” Forster wrote in his essay “What I Believe,”, “I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” This echoes a sentiment of philial love described by Plato. 

Rather than revolutionary ideals, for Forster friendships, and specifically friendships that disregard homophobia, provide the foundation for peace, equality, and democratic proliferation. When Aang and Zuko embrace, they are embodying this ideal.  Platonic love and the word “friend” have a history intertwined with queer romantic love, and, while I won’t argue that Avatar attempts to directly evoke this, I will suggest that the series consciously leaves room for this association. Now, the show certainly makes no attempt to imply anything romantic between Zuko and Aang within the timeline we witness (nor any same sex characters, which reflects cultural expectations in the 2000s). And for good reason, the age gap would be notably icky, to use the technical term. (You might note, however, that the show actually allows for crushes to extend upwardly across the same age gap, when Toph accidentally reveals her affection for Sokka to Suki in “The Serpent’s Pass.”) Despite connecting queer friendships to the history of ‘platonic love,’ Avatar provides two critiques to platonic love for audiences to absorb. One is the pederasty with which Plato defined his ultimate form of love in his Symposium. Fans rightfully comment on the age gap between Aang and Zuko as something preventative to shipping them together. And beyond the fact of their ages, Aang’s youthfulness is emphatic, as I remarked earlier. Aang and Zuko are prevented from consummating their platonic love until both are deemed mature in the last moments of the series. And even then, their relationship is directed toward future development rather than conclusion. Instead of cutting away, they are allowed to exit their scene together toward a speech about hope and peace. This stands in stark opposition to the permanence of Aang and Katara’s kiss. The platonic love in Avatar, the kind EM Forster cherishes, is relegated to adulthood as opposed to other kinds of boyish friendships. The conclusion of Avatar, at least for me, actually feels especially satisfying because it settles our characters in the “new era of love and peace.” It is a beginning, and it feels more expansive than the actions the characters choose to take in the episode. Even as our characters conclude three seasons of narrative tension as the sun sets and “The End” appears on the screen, it feels instead as if their stories can finally begin. The characters are allowed to simply exist for the first time. Yes, Aang and Katara or Zuko and Mai are allowed to embrace and kiss, but it’s because the pressures of empiricism have finally been banished. They are now allowed to try things and fail and make mistakes and explore. Things don’t feel rigid or permanent, whether that be one’s identity or one’s relationships.

Ideally, within the morality of the series (at least as it appears to us with no regard for whatever limits or self-censorship occurred due to its era of production and child-friendly requirements), “friends'' are maintained alongside romantic partnerships. Both Zuko and Aang’s separate romantic relationships blossom within the same episode that they declare their “friendship.” In fact, a vital plotline is the development of Zuko’s relationship with Aang’s romantic interest. While anyone in the fandom is well aware of the popular interpretation of romantic affection between Zuko and Katara because of their shared narrative, I have to point out that romantic feelings across the series are made extremely explicit through statements, blushes, and kisses. Zuko’s relationship with Katara can be better understood in the light of the coming-of-age counternarrative. While the love interest often serves as a catalyst for separation for a homosocial relationship, the friendly relationship with Aang’s love interest—seeking her forgiveness, respecting her power, calling on her support, etc—is vital for Zuko to ultimately create an environment of peace in which he and Aang can fulfill their destined “friendship.” In fact, we can look at Katara’s femininity as the most important device for manifesting Aang and Zuko’s eventual union. It’s her rage against misogyny that frees Aang from his iceberg, midwifing him into the world again after his arrested development, the complete opposite of a Wendy figure. It’s her arms that hold Aang in the pieta after his death in the Crossroads of Destiny, positioning her as a divine God-bearer. Afterwards, its her hands that resurrect Aang so that they together can fulfill his destiny. It will be these same hands with this same holy water that resurrect Zuko in the finale. Only through Katara’s decided blessing could Aang and Zuko proceed toward the fated reunion of their souls.

The importance of this critical relationship to femininity becomes relevant to a scene in “Emerald Island Players” that one might note as an outstanding moment of gay panic. Zuko and Aang, watching their counterparts on stage, cringe and shrink when, upon being saved by The Blue Spirit character in the play, Aang’s performer declares “My hero!” Instead of the assumption of homophobia, I wonder whether we might read Aang and Zuko’s responses as discomfort with the misogynistic heterosexual dynamics the declaration represents. Across the board, Avatar subverted the damsel in distress trope. There’s a-whole-nother essay to be written on all the ways it goes about this work, but the events in “The Blue Spirit” certainly speak to this subversion. It’s quite explicit that Zuko, after breaking Aang’s chains, is equally dependent on Aang for their escape. And, by the end of the actual episode, the savior role is reversed as Aang drags an unconscious Zuko away from certain death. To depict these events within the simplistic “damsel in distress” scenario, as The Ember Island Players do, positions Aang as a subordinately feminized colonial subject, denies him his agency, and depicts the relationship as something merely romantic, devoid of the equalizing platonic force that actually empowers them. The moment in the play is uncomfortable for Aang and Zuko because it makes Zuko the hero and Aang the helpless object. Aang is explicit about his embarrassment over his feminized and infantilized depiction in the play. And Zuko, newly reformed, is embarrassed to see, on one hand, his villainy throughout the play and, on the other hand, see how his character is positioned as made out as a savior to the person who has actually saved him.

At the heart of the series is not the idea of a chosen one or savior. Instead, we are saved by the ability for one person to see themselves in another person and to feel that same person equally understands their own soul. This is the ideal of platonic love. Platonic love between two matured boys—two boys with whose memories and bodies bare the scars of their queer sensitivities—is an essential part of the future of peace. Many fans have a sense of this, labeling the relationship as “brotp” and “platonic soulmates.” I simply encourage people to acknowledge that platonic love, especially in this context, is not a limit. There is no “no homo” joke here. When we remark on the platonic love between Zuko and Aang (and across media more generally) we are precisely making room for friendship, romance, and whatever else it could mean, whatever else it might become. While I find Legend of Korra lacking and in some ways detrimental to appreciating the original series, it’s finale interestingly parallels and extends this reading of platonic love in a sapphic vein. And most recently, She ra Princess of Power was able to even more explicitly realize these dynamics in the relationship between Adora and Catra. Let’s simply acknowledge that Aang and Zuko’s relationship blazed the trail: that peace, happiness, hope, and freedom could all hinge on a “friendship,” because a “friend” was never supposed to be set apart from or less than other kinds of relationships. For the ways it disregards gender, disregards individualism, disregards dominion, platonic love is the foundation of any meaningful relationship. And a meaningful relationship is the foundation for a more peaceful world.  *Author’s note: I’m just tired of sitting on this and trying to edit it. It’s not perfect. I don’t touch on all the symbolism and nuances in the show and in the character’s relationships. And this is not meant to negate any ships. It’s actually, quite the opposite. This is a show about growth and change and mistakes and complexity. Hopefully you can at least appreciate this angle even if you don’t vibe with every piece of analysis here. I just have no chill and need to put this out there so I can let my obsession cool down a bit. Enjoy <3

[tlbodine]

A Horror History of Werewolves

As far as horror icons are concerned, werewolves are among the oldest of all monsters. References to man-to-wolf transformations show up as early as the Epic of Gilgamesh, making them pretty much as old as storytelling itself. And, unlike many other movie monsters, werewolves trace their folkloric roots to a time when people truly believed in and feared these creatures. 

But for a creature with such a storied past, the modern werewolf has quite the crisis of identity. Thanks to an absolute deluge of romance novels featuring sometimes-furry love interests, the contemporary idea of “werewolf” is decidedly de-fanged. So how did we get here? Where did they come from, where are they going, and can werewolves ever be terrifying again? 

Werewolves in Folklore and Legend 

Ancient Greece was full of werewolf stories. Herodotus wrote of a nomadic tribe from Scythia (part of modern-day Russia) who changed into wolves for a portion of the year. This was most likely a response to the Proto-Indo-European societies living in that region at the time -- a group whose warrior class would sometimes don animal pelts and were said to call on the spirit of animals to aid them in battle (the concept of the berserker has the same roots -- just bears rather than wolves).

In Arcadia, there was a local legend about King Lycaon, who was turned to a wolf as punishment for serving human meat to Zeus (exact details of the event vary between accounts, but cannibalism and crimes-against-the-gods are a common theme). Pliny the Elder wrote of werewolves as well, explaining that those who make a sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus would be turned to wolves but could resume human form years later if they abstained from eating human meat in that time.

By the time we reach the Medieval period in Europe, werewolf stories were widespread and frequently associated with witchcraft. Lycanthropy could be either a curse laid upon someone or a transformation undergone by someone practicing witchcraft, but either way was bad news in the eyes of the church. For several centuries, witch-hunts would aggressively seek out anyone suspected of transforming into a wolf.

One particularly well-known werewolf trial was for Peter Stumpp in 1589. Stumpp, known as "The Werewolf of Bedburg," confessed to killing and eating fourteen children and two pregnant women while in the form of a wolf after donning a belt given to him by the Devil. Granted, this confession came on the tail-end of extensive public torture, so it may not be precisely reliable. His daughter and mistress were also executed in a public and brutal way during the same trial.

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? 

The thing you have to understand when studying folklore is that, for many centuries, wolves were the apex predator of Europe. While wolf attacks on humans have been exceedingly rare in North America, wolves in Europe have historically been much bolder -- or, at least, there are more numerous reports of man-eating wolves in those regions. Between 1362 and 1918, roughly 7,600 people were reportedly killed by wolves in France alone, which may have some bearing on the local werewolf tradition of the loup-garou.

For people living in rural areas, subsisting as farmers or hunters, wolves posed a genuine existential threat. Large, intelligent, utilizing teamwork and more than capable of outwitting the average human, wolves are a compelling villain. Which is probably why they show up so frequently in fairytales, from Little Red Riding Hood to Peter and the Wolf to The Three Little Pigs.

Early Werewolf Fiction 

Vampires have Dracula and zombies have I Am Legend, but there really is no clear singular book to point to as the "First Great Werewolf Novel." Perhaps by the time the novel was really taking off as an artform, werewolves had lost some of their appeal. After all, widespread literacy and reading-for-pleasure went hand-in-hand with advancements in civilization. For city-dwellers in Victorian England, for example, the threat of a wolf eating you alive probably seemed quite remote.

Don't get me wrong -- there were some Gothic novels featuring werewolves, like Sutherland Menzies' Hugues, The Wer-Wolf, or G.W.M. Reynolds' Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, or even The Wolf Leader by Alexandre Dumas. But these are not books that have entered the popular conscience by any means. I doubt most people have ever heard of them, much less read them.

No -- I would argue that the closest thing we have, thematically, to a Great Werewolf Novel is in fact The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Written in 1886, the Gothic novella tells the story of a scientist who, wanting to engage in certain unnamed vices without detection, created a serum that would allow him to transform into another person. That alter-ego, Mr. Hyde, was selfish, violent, and ultimately uncontrollable -- and after taking over the body on its own terms and committing a murder or two, the only way to stop Hyde’s re-emergence was suicide. 

Although not about werewolves, per se, Jekyll & Hyde touches on many themes that we'll see come up time and again in werewolf media up through the present day: toxic masculinity, the dual nature of man, leading a double life, and the ultimate tragedy of allowing one's base instincts/animal nature to run wild. Against a backdrop of Victorian sexual repression and a rapidly shifting concept of humanity's relationship to nature, it makes sense that these themes would resonate deeply (and find a new home in werewolf media).

It is also worth mentioning Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, published in 1933. Set against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian war and subsequent military battles, the book utilizes a werewolf as a plot device for exploring political turmoil. A #1 bestseller in its day, the book was a big influence on the sci-fi and mystery pulp scene of the 1940s and 50s, and is still considered one of the best werewolf novels of its ilk.

From Silver Bullets to Silver Screens 

What werewolf representation lacks in novels, it makes up for in film. Werewolves have been a surprisingly enduring feature of film from its early days, due perhaps to just how much fun transformation sequences are to film. From camera tricks to makeup crews and animatronics design, werewolf movies create a lot of unique opportunities for special effects -- and for early film audiences especially (who were not yet jaded to movie magic), these on-screen metamorphoses must have elicited true awe. 

The Wolf Man (1941) really kicked off the trend. Featuring Lon Chaney Jr. as the titular wolf-man, the film was cutting-edge for its time in the special effects department. The creature design is the most memorable thing about the film, which has an otherwise forgettable plot -- but it captured viewer attention enough to bring Chaney back many times over for sequels and Universal Monster mash-ups. 

The Wolf Man and 1944's Cry of the Werewolf draw on that problematic Hollywood staple, "The Gypsy Curse(tm)" for their world-building. Fortunately, werewolf media would drift away from that trope pretty quickly; curses lost their appeal, but “bite as mode of transmission” would remain an essential part of werewolf mythos. 

In 1957, I Was a Teenage Werewolf was released as a classic double-header drive-in flick that's nevertheless worth a watch for its parallels between werewolfism and male aggression (a theme we'll see come up again and again). Guy Endore's novel got the Hammer Film treatment for 1961's The Curse of the Werewolf, but it wasn't until the 1970s when werewolf media really exploded: The Beast Must Die, The Legend of the Wolf Woman, The Fury of the Wolfman, Scream of the Wolf, Werewolves on Wheels and many more besides.

Hmmm, werewolves exploding in popularity around the same time as women's liberation was dramatically redefining gender roles and threatening the cultural concept of masculinity? Nah, must be a coincidence.

The 1980s brought with it even more werewolf movies, including some of the best-known in the genre: The Howling (1981), Teen Wolf (1985), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and The Company of Wolves (1984). Differing widely in their tone and treatment of werewolf canon, the films would establish more of a spiderweb than a linear taxonomy.

That spilled over into the 1990s as well. The Howling franchise went deep, with at least seven films that I can think of. Wolf, a 1994 release starring Jack Nicholson is especially worth a watch for its themes of dark romantic horror. 

By the 2000s, we get a proper grab-bag of werewolf options. There is of course the Underworld series, with its overwrought "vampires vs lycans" world-building. There's also Skin Walkers, which tries very hard to be Underworld (and fails miserably at even that low bar). But there's also Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps, arguably two of the finest werewolf movies of all time -- albeit in extremely different ways and for very different reasons.

Dog Soldiers is a straightforward monster movie pitting soldiers against ravenous werewolves. The wolves could just as easily have been subbed out with vampires or zombies -- there is nothing uniquely wolfish about them on a thematic level -- but the creature design is unique and the film itself is mastefully made and entertaining.

Ginger Snaps is the first werewolf movie I can think of that tackles lycanthropy from a female point of view. Although The Company of Wolves has a strong feminist angle, it is still very much a film about male sexuality and aggression. Ginger Snaps, on the other hand, likens werewolfism to female puberty -- a comparison that frankly makes a lot of sense.

The Werewolf as Sex Object 

There are quite literally thousands of werewolf romance novels on the market, with more coming in each day. But the origins of this trend are a bit fuzzier to make out (no pun intended). 

Everyone can mostly agree that Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire was the turning-point for sympathetic vampires -- and paranormal romance as a whole. But where do werewolves enter the mix? Possibly with Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter books, which feature the titular character in a relationship with a werewolf (and some vampires, and were-leopards, and...many other things). With the first book released in 1993, the Anita Blake series seems to pre-date similar books in its ilk. 

Blood and Chocolate (1997) by Annette Curtis Klause delivers a YA-focused version of the classic “I’m a werewolf in high school crushing on a mortal boy”; that same year, Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the small screen, and although the primary focus was vampires, there is a main werewolf character (and romancing him around the challenges of his wolfishness is a big plot point for the characters involved). And Buffy, of course, paved the way for Twilight in 2005. From there, werewolves were poised to become a staple of the ever-more-popular urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre. 

“Sexy werewolf” as a trope may have its roots in other traditions like the beastly bridegroom (eg, Beauty and the Beast) and the demon lover (eg, Labyrinth), which we can talk about another time. But there’s one other ingredient in this recipe that needs to be discussed. And, oh yes, we’re going there. 

Alpha/Beta/Omegaverse 

By now you might be familiar with the concept of the Omegaverse thanks to the illuminating Lindsay Ellis video on the topic (and the current ongoing lawsuit). If not, well, just watch the video. It’ll be easier than trying to explain it all. (Warning for NSFW topics). 

But the tl;dr is that A/B/O or Omegaverse is a genre of (generally erotic) romance utilizing the classical understanding of wolf pack hierarchy. Never mind that science has long since disproven the stratification of authority in wolf packs; the popular conscious is still intrigued by the concept of a society where some people are powerful alphas and some people are timid omegas and that’s just The Way Things Are. 

What’s interesting about the Omegaverse in regards to werewolf fiction is that, as near as I’ve been able to discover, it’s actually a case of convergent evolution. A/B/O as a genre seems to trace its roots to Star Trek fanfiction in the 1960s, where Kirk/Spock couplings popularized ideas like heat cycles. From there, the trope seems to weave its way through various fandoms, exploding in popularity in the Supernatural fandom. 

What seems to have happened is that the confluence of A/B/O kink dynamics merging with urban fantasy werewolf social structure set off a popular niche for werewolf romance to truly thrive. 

It’s important to remember that, throughout folklore, werewolves were not viewed as being part of werewolf societies. Werewolves were humans who achieved wolf form through a curse or witchcraft, causing them to transform into murderous monsters -- but there was no “werewolf pack,” and certainly no social hierarchy involving werewolf alphas exerting their dominance over weaker pack members. That element is a purely modern one rooted as much in our misunderstanding of wolf pack dynamics as in our very human desire for power hierarchies. 

So Where Do We Go From Here? 

I don’t think sexy werewolf stories are going anywhere anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no room left in horror for werewolves to resume their monstrous roots. 

Thematically, werewolves have done a lot of heavy lifting over the centuries. They hold up a mirror to humanity to represent our own animal nature. They embody themes of toxic masculinity, aggression, primal sexuality, and the struggle of the id and ego. Werewolf attack as sexual violence is an obvious but powerful metaphor for trauma, leaving the victim transformed. Werewolves as predators hiding in plain sight among civilization have never been more relevant than in our #MeToo moment of history. 

Can werewolves still be frightening? Absolutely. 

As long as human nature remains conflicted, there will always be room at the table for man-beasts and horrifying transfigurations. 

--

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[marta-bee]

On Fanworks as Commodities

I've been thinking lately about commodification and how it applies to fandom.

 At the risk of giving an unhelpful circular explanation, commodification just means treating something like a commodity when it really isn't. And by commodity, I mean the kind of good or service that it's the kind of thing we can "reduce" to market terms. A loaf of bread is a commodity. So is a house or the services of an accountant- you're not losing anything or "debasing" anyone when you suggest these things can be bought and sold.

 But what about surrogacy pregnancy? This is the question Elizabeth Anderson asked in her philosophy paper, "Is Women's Labor a Commodity?" (This is where I first encountered the concept.) She asks what exactly is being sold when we pay a woman to go through a pregnancy and then give up the resulting child to someone else. Anderson said if it's the child that's being sold that seems obviously inappropriate- we rightly consider a human person as the kind of thing you can't just buy and sell- but she also argued even if the woman is just selling the use of her body for a period of time (say, implantation and surrogacy pregnancy of a fetus conceived through in vitro fertilization of the adults who will become the legal parents), there's still something lost. The argument is, pregnancy naturally (at least usually) forms a loving bond between mother and child, which a surrogate woman would wisely try to avoid; otherwise giving up the baby would be that much harder. In effect, it encourages her to alienate herself from the products of her pregnancy. It degrades the commercial surrogate, turns her into an emotionless, contextless factory. And it degrades women who might lovingly serve as surrogates (say, for a sister or friend) because it turns their gift into something indistinguishable from a market transaction.

 That's the argument, anyway. Once I found it convincing but these days, I have my doubts. For instance, I don't see any problem saying commercial surrogacy is a different kind of process than surrogacy offered as a gift to someone you know. Even if the result is the same, they seem like very different beasts. I'm also uncomfortable with this idea that certain kinds of work just can't be ethically paid for. Because this usually comes up with "caring" work, which is most often done by women even these days, it becomes too easy to not help bear the costs of that work. We can expect, say, a nurse to care about her patient even though she's paid a salary; is it so wrong if a child who quits her job to care for a sick parent to also be paid for her sacrifice?

 That's more a criticism of how the concept is applied, though. I think it's applied too quickly, and in ways that turn it into an either/or, where this doesn't need to be the case. I still think the basic idea has a lot going for it. We do give the market too much power to answer questions it really isn't well suited for. Healthcare, for instance; it needs to be paid for, but not in a way that keeps people from accessing it who need it, or even lets those who can pay get to it more quickly. And maybe market pressures can make it more efficient, to a point, but we really shouldn't reduce it to something that can be bought and sold and understand entirely on those terms.

So, what does all this have to do with fandom? Well, I'm of a different fannish generation than a lot of you young whippersnappers- I first got involved in fannish circles with the Lord of the Rings movies back in the original 2000s. This was pre-AO3 and pre-Tumblr, and only a few years after Anne Rice got ff.net to disallow all fanfic based on her novels. We posted our disclaimers about not owning the characters for a reason and professed our poverty because we believed (or feared at least) we could be sued by the canon's authors. I was mostly in the Tolkien fandom, and it was well known that the estate was never going to authorize fanfic, commercial or otherwise. They state as much on their website, though I can't remember how long that Q&A has existed in its current format.

 That gave us a lovely little commercial-free zone. If you couldn't sell your own work commercially, then you could give up all pretenses of success along the normal capitalistic lines and delve into areas that just would never have been very marketable in traditional publishing. Tolkien fandom itself was pretty conservative but I know other fandoms went much further in this regard, exploring genres that just would never be marketable especially before the niche and self-financed publishing the internet opened up for a lot of authors. If the law wouldn't let you do what you wanted to do anyway, why not become utterly ungovernable? So, fanfic became (for me at least) art about art rather than filthy lucre. We were doing what we did because we loved it, and as gifts for our friends, and as a way to be something that wasn't quite allowed in the "normal" culture for whatever reason- even just because we were women daring to make time for our weird little hobbies. It was glorious. And we worked hard enough in other areas of our life that we had the $$$ to indulge in this. We didn't need to be paid, and even if you offered to pay us for our works, we'd likely get a bit insulted and insist that wasn't what this was about at all.

I was told more than once by family that I was good enough to be a "real writer" and didn't I want to do my own thing. So yes, I did get a bit miffed and lean in to my identity of fanfic-writing as hobby not intended as a career.

 And I'll be honest: when I see people advertising for commissions or celebrating fan-authors going "professional" as if this is necessarily a step up from unpaid fannish work, I often have this old framework in the back of my head. And it's not really fair. For one thing, I was in college in the early 2000's and so even when we didn't have a lot of cash, we expected to soon get day jobs where we could afford to live comfortably and still afford our hobbies. The housing market crash and the Great Recession changed all of that, as did work opportunities like Instacart and Uber. For a lot of people even a few years younger than me, everything became a side-hustle and there just wasn't this expectation a hobby could be a hobby. I get that there's a lot of privilege entering into that.

 On top of which, there's all kinds of gender issues: professional artists, predominantly men, have been painting and selling drawings of comic book characters for years. Star Trek and Star Wars affiliated novels, and Sherlock Holmes pastiches (as opposed to fanfic), again written primarily by men, are also very much a thing. Hell, so are Renaissance artists and the patron system that was built off of. And of course, just because you sometimes produce fanworks just to sell and still do the less commercial work just for yourself if you ever want to. There's no real conflict in that. And it's not like producing art to sell is at all wrong. But to me it does feel like that kind of art is different than what I fancy I do, back when I occasionally wrote. :-) And I probably am more aware of this than I should be, because my backdrop is different from a lot of fans younger than myself, and really do try not to let my situation turn into a blind spot.

 Even so, I worry and struggle to find the balance between letting art turn a profit and be reduced to a strictly commercial venture. It's never been anything I've been even remotely drawn to do, and human nature being what it is, I probably do think more highly of the kind of thing I'd choose to do. But I don't want to be unfair, and I don't want to think just because art is paid for and written/drawn to order, it's some sort of assembly-line output with no heart put into it by the writer and artist. Just like an artisan shoemaker might take great pride in his art and work his hardest on each shoe he crafts, even if he must sell it to make ends meet. Somehow, I suspect thinking about this in terms of commodification, the dangers of evaluating artistry using market standards and the ways in which it can still have a value beyond commodity even if it’s bought and sold, might help. But I've not quit worked out what insight that kind of thought would provide, if any.

Do you think there's a special value in fandom or art generally that's not made to be bought and sold? Or am I perhaps making too big a deal over nothing and revealing myself to be an old fuddy-duddy in the process. (It's always a possibility!) I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts if you have any to share.

[firelord-frowny]

If you like ~good storytelling~, unique plotlines, ~diverse~ casts in terms of not just gender and race, but also in personality, and if you like ~contraversial~ subjects explored with tact and objectivity, and you enjoy or even just Don’t Not-Enjoy sci fi, please please PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE watch Star Trek omfg. 

I can only speak on TNG, DS9, and Voyager, but they’re all SO freaking beautiful, and they reflect a looooot of the artistic values that I know are popular amongst the kinds of people I associate with. 

TNG is great if you’re hella into ~concepts~ being explored in depth. Though the characters are all interesting and have compelling development in their own right, my opinion is that TNG is less character-driven, and more concept-driven. Episodes are more about analyzing points of view on complicated and sometimes contraversial subjects - poverty vs wealth, exploitation, racism, religious intolerance, adoption, war, judicial systems, capital punishment, grief, etc. Also, TNG is pretty well-suited to picking and choosing which episodes you want to watch. You don’t necessarily need to start from the beginning and watch everything in chronological order in order to understand each episode.

DS9 is great if you love interpersonal relationships and the ways in which they develop. Though there’s still a LOT of ~big concepts~ being explored and navigated and investigated, much more time is spent on how those big concepts affect people’s personal relationships with their friends, family, coworkers, etc... the series is set during a transitionary period between one alien race, the Cardassians, finally being driven out from controlling/oppressing another alien race, the Bajorans. The character’s relationships are all heavily impacted and influenced by the political climate and history. The types of relationships include parent/child, best friends, romantic partners, bosses and employees, spiritual leaders and the people who look up to them, etc. There’s also a HELLA prominent religious aspect, as the Bajoran’s are generally super devout to deities they call “prophets,” which non-Bajoran’s usually refer to as “wormhole aliens,” because the prohpets are Actual Proven Life Forms that reside within a wormhole, and are known to have at least some degree of omnipotence and ability to influence people and events. So, I guess you could say that compared to TNG, DS9 is more about culture, and TNG is more about philosophy. In DS9, it’s a bit more important to actually start from the beginning and watch everything in order. 

Then, there’s Voyager. Voyager has a reputation of being one of the Least Good shows in the Star Trek franchise, but honestly, the rest of the franchise is so damn good that even the Least Good serises are still pretty damn good. 

Voyager is unique in that the ~Federation~ and Star Fleet are both pretty absent, and the whole series works toward one overarching goal, as opposed to TNG and DS9, neither of which had any major predetermined goal that carried on throughout the seasons. I’d say it’s a bit more similar to TNG than to DS9 in that it’s less character-driven and more plot-driven. I think morality is a bit more of a factor than it is in TNG or DS9. The Main Plot is that the crew of Starship Voyager gets marooned several thousand lightyears away from Earth. They’re so far away that even if they were able to travel at full warp-speed all the way back home, it would still take them 75 years to get there. So, they’re faced with a lot of moral and ethical dilemmas as they try to seek out ways to get home sooner. 

I at first didn’t understand why Voyager was held in lower esteem than other Star Treks, but now that I’m well into season 5 of 7*, I think I understand where it falls short to a lot of people. Or at least, there are reasons why I think it falls short of my tastes. Though Star Trek pretty much exists to explore moral philosophy from every angle they can think of, Voyager is a bit... preachy in it’s approach sometimes. A TNG episode about, say abortion, approaches the issue in a manner that explores ~all sides~ of the argument in a fair, generally unbiased manner. The characters have their own opinions about what’s right and wrong, and they often disagree with each other, but the narrative itself doesn’t seem to promote one ideal over the other, and allows the viewer to decide their own opinion about the issue. A Voyager episode about abortion, however, seems to be actively promoting one perspective, and most of the characters ultimately end up agreeing with it. Basically, I think Voyager sometimes has an ~agenda~, which feels offputting just because the other Star Treks do such a good job at keeping a neutral, tactful narrative. I also think Voyager panders more to sex appeal than the other shows. Like, TNG and DS9 both had super beautiful women in their casts, but there wasn’t much specific attention drawn to their beauty. Voyager, on the other hand, makes more of a point to ~accentuate~ the hotness of certain female cast members. But even then, it’s not to a degree that I would consider bothersome. 

So, I guess one reason why Voyager wasn’t as well-recieved as TNG or DS9 is because it has a few cliche or mildly problematic and ~typical~ narrative elements that are common in most shows, but that Star Trek was known for rising above. People like Star Trek specifically because it doesn’t cater to the whims and values of mainstream television. But like. It’s still good. 

I so so so so so so so recommend them. Like wow. 

You’ll find, in the early seasons of TNG especially, that the visual effects, the sets, and the fight scenes and action sequences are SO FUCKING BAD lmfao like WOW. we really are spoiled in 2020 beause that shit was laughably horrendous. But it’s TOTALLY forgiveable considering all the other things that are amazing about it.

[renegadehoneybee]

2, 4, 5, pick any you want to answer

Ooooh, thank you for the ask!! <3 <3 <3  2. What's a character that you dislike? Dislike for writing reasons? Alex, i get why they integrated her with the Jody plotline to set up Wayward Sisters, but honestly i would’ve preferred to spend that time developing Claire further (and honestly, i did not get anywhere near enough Claire & Jody, OR have Claire & Donna do a hunt???? Iconic. Can you imagine???)  Dislike because they’re terrible in-universe? I feel like the common answer here would be John. The neglect and child abuse is just difficult to see past, especially given the long-term effects his actions have on both of his sons (and the various people they then go on to interact with). I just. I don’t like John Winchester.  4. What spinoff would you have liked from the show? THE BANES TWINS. Twigs, Twine, and Tasha Banes would have been a phenomenal backdoor pilot AND i think there was a lot of opportunity there to have further exploration into magic as a concept. I also just really loved Max and Alicia, and i think there was so much opportunity to delve further into those characters and their relationship and dynamics, especially the plot that gets set up with Max having damned himself to bring Alicia back. 

Also potentially fantastic opportunity to have like, a different atmospheric vibe for the show. I may be misremembering but i think when they call Mary they mention being in Louisiana, and i like the idea of contrasting a sort of southern gothic backdrop with Max and Alicia as these very modern characters, both aesthetically and in terms of who they are. Being really cognizant of the role of race and sexual/gender identity in how they occupy space in (many predominantly white) small towns and suburban areas. The conflicts and insecurity that sometimes results from them traveling areas where they aren’t safe, not because of monsters but because of other humans. It’s a more explicitly dark take on the supernatural-americana-road trip vibe, because it’s very much outright suffused with this country’s terrible struggle with racism. In fact, there would definitely be opportunities to examine the history and legacies of concepts within the genre that have really racist connotations--the glorification of pre-civil war america, the legacy of segregation, even, i think in season 2 of the Max and Alicia Banes series that exists in my head, moving to other locations set in the midwest, west coast, and the north and exploring and contrasting how these issues are different and the same. I mean, racism certainly isn’t exclusive to the south, and in some ways i think it’s more insidious in places where people think prejudice is either gone, at least where they are, or that it’s not their/a problem. 

And i mean here’s the thing too right, Max is a witch, Alicia technically isn’t human. The big problematic element of hunting as a white paramilitary fantasy eradicating “the other” can be subverted if we (”we” lol this is all in my head, @kripke like i’m the showrunner now) correctly handle how their identities 1) impact their approach to hunting and b) we reconsider/reframe the power dynamics. Max and Alicia don’t hunt on the fringes of society, seeking out monsters that threaten traditional family values/structures, their hunting focuses on targeting monsters that abuse the power they hold over others. And more often than not, that kind of power is derived from institutions (everyone from the man that abuses his wife and kids to the pharma CEO insider-trading), which often not just permit, but actively facilitate the abuse of power in order to preserve it (and the existing order). I think what makes a monster is not being an “other” (it can’t be, if our protagonists are “others” but are not monsters), but rather having power and using that power to exploit weaker/less powerful individuals. The natural foil that Max and Alicia provide is to show people using their power to protect others, especially the vulnerable/institutionally disadvantaged.

At the same time, i think they’re both a lot of fun, and the show would definitely have some lighthearted elements to allow the characters to develop through positive experiences as well as through struggle. For Max, I’d say a long-term, slowburn love interest, and for Alicia i could see two directions, one could be a mentor-figure (as a means of exploring and later reconciling how Alicia felt disconnected from her mother, in some ways, because she doesn’t have magic) kinda cast in a similar mold as Rowena (who i love). Another potential option is a bestie, personally i think there should be more representations of positive female friendship in tv and movies, and i really think it could be interesting for Alicia to bond with another non-human character (maybe there’s dramatic tension between her and Max because he brought her back and she’s unsure what that means for her personhood to be contingent on his magic, and we have a character going through a parallel struggle with notions of personhood, free will, and control of one’s own life).  But, of course, they will never make this show.  Sorry, this one turned into a really long answer because once i started thinking about this i had to write out my thoughts.  5. Favourite character that appeared in only 1 episode? I mean. Hester. Iconic homophobic queen, she told Dean that the very touch of him corrupts, from the moment Castiel laid a hand on him in hell, he was lost. She was onscreen for like 70 seconds, dropped That Line, and then died. Seriously who the fuck wrote that dialogue???  Dealer’s choice: 26. Cutest scenes in the show? I already wrote you an entire essay no one wanted about the secret spinoff that lives in my head starring the Banes twins. So. I’ll try to keep this short(ish).  Tombstone, Dean and Cas in the car, with the hat, i made you watch it? Cas introducing himself as agent Val Kilmer. Just. Overall a scene that was so soft and dorky and sweet.  Any scene involving Cas and Jack together. I love their dynamic and sometimes i cannot believe they really gave the gay angel a baby.  Full disclosure, I am a Cas girl (gender neutral), but I love Dean. So much. Any scene where he’s interacting with kids (Dead in the Water, the scenes with Ben, the scene where he takes Jack fishing) honestly just feels so heartbreakingly sweet. Elder sister syndrome really is being baby crazy but also not having kids because you’re like, too unstable for them. 

Anyway thank you for the ask!! <3 

[scifrey]

In February of 2017 I had the great pleasure of addressing the Grant MacEwan University English Department with a keynote speech titled “Your Voice is Valid.”

This speech was all about Mary Sues, fandom, and marginalized voices, and is a direct response to the negative reactions that media texts receive when they announce a protagonist that is deemed to be a "Mary Sue".

In the intervening years I think the message of my talk has become even more vital to creators, so I thought I’d record a  new video of the speech to share with a wider audience.

 If you liked this video, you can find more of my writing advice on my website.

Read the full speech on Wattpad, or below:

(Text may not match the video exactly as I did alter some of the phrasing.)

*

My friends, I have a declaration to make. A promise. A vow, if you will. And it is this:

If I hear one more basement-dwelling troll call the lead female protagonist of a genre film a ‘Mary Sue’ one more time, I’m going to scream.

I’m sure you’ve all seen this all before. A major science fiction, fantasy, video game, novel, or comic franchise or publisher announces a new title. Said new title features a lead protagonist who is female, or a person of color, or is not able-bodied, or is non-neurotypical, or is LGBTQA+.

It might be the new Iron Man or Spider-man, who are both young black teenagers in the comics now, or the Lt. Michael Burnham of Star Trek: Discovery, or the new Ms. Marvel, a Muslim girl. It could be Jyn Erso, the female lead of the latest Star Wars film or Chirrut, her blind companion. It could be the deaf FBI Director Gordon Cole from Twin Peaks or Clint Barton from Fraction and Aja’s Hawkeye graphic novel series. It could be Sara, of Dragon Age fame or Samantha Traynor from Mass Effect, both lesbians, or Dorian also from Dragon Age, who is both a person of color and flamboyantly queer. Maybe it’s Lt. Stamets and Dr. Hugh Culber, played by Anthony Rapp of (best known for his time as Mark in Rent) and Wilson Cruz, both open out gay men playing openly out gay men in a romantic relationship in Star Trek Discovery. It could be Captain Christopher Pike, from both the original Star Trek series and the reboot film, who uses a wheelchair and assistive devices to communicate. Or maybe it’s Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, fights with a prosthetic arm in the comics, or Iron Man, whose suit serves as Tony Stark’s ego-tastic pacemaker.

And generally, the audience cheers at this announcement. Yay for diversity! Yay for representation! Yay for working to make the worlds we consume look more like the world we live in! Yay!

But there’s a certain segment of the fan population that does not celebrate.

I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about.

This certain brand of fan-person gets all up in arms on social media. They whine. They complain. They say that it’s not appropriate to change the gender, race, orientation, or physical abilities of a fictional creation, or just protest their inclusion to begin with. They decry the erosion of creativity in service of neo-liberalism, overreaching political-correctness, and femi-nazis. (Sorry, sorry – the femi-“alt-right”).

It’s not realistic. “Women can’t survive in space,” they say, “It’s just a fact.” (That is a direct quote, by the way.) “Superheroes can’t be black,” they say. “Video game characters shouldn’t have a sexual orientation,” unless – it seems - that sexual orientation is straight and the game serves to support a male gaze ogling at half-dressed pixilated prostitutes.

“And strong female characters have to wear boob armor. It’s just natural,” they say.

These fan persons predict the end of civilization because things are no longer being done the way they’ve always been done. “There’s nothing wrong with the system,” they say. “So don’t you dare change it.”

And to enforce this opinion, to ensure that it’s really, really clear just how much contempt this certain segment of the fan population holds for any lead protagonist that isn’t a white, heterosexual, able-bodied, neurotypical, cismale, they do everything they can to tear down them down.

They do this by calling that character a ‘Mary Sue.’

When fan fiction author Paula Smith first used the term ‘Mary Sue’ in her 1973 story A Trekkie’s Tale, she was making a commentary on the frequent appearance of original characters in Star Trek fan fiction. Now, I’m going to hazard that most of these characters existed as a masturbatory avatar – wanna bone Spock? (And, um, you know, let’s face it who didn’t?) They you write a story where a character representing you gets to bone Spock.

And if they weren’t a sexual fantasy, then they were an adventure fantasy. Wanna be an officer on the Enterprise? Well, it’s the flagship of the Starfleet, so you better be good enough to get there. Chekov was the youngest navigator in Starfleet history, Uhura is the most tonally sensitive officer in linguistics, and Jim Kirk’s genius burned like a magnesium flare – your self-representative character would have to keep up to earn thier place on that bridge. This led to a slew of hyper sexualized, physically idealized, and unrealistically competent author-based characters populating the fan fiction of the time.

But inserting a trumped-up version of yourself into a narrative wasn’t invented in the 1970s. Aeneas was totally Virgil’s Mary Sue in his Iliad knock off. Dante was such a fanboy of the The Bible that he wrote himself into an adventure exploring it. Robin Hood’s merry men and King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table kept growing in number and characteristics with each retelling. Even painters have inserted themselves into commissioned pictures for centuries.

This isn’t new. This is not a recent human impulse.

But what Paula Smith and the Mary Sue-writing fan ficcers didn’t know at the time was that they were crystallizing what it means to be an engaged consumer of media texts, instead of just a passive one. They had isolated and labelled what it means to be so affected by a story, to love it so much that this same love bubbles up out of you and you have to do something about it, either in play, or in art. For example: in pretending to be a ninja turtle on the play ground, or in trying to recreate the perfect version of a star fleet uniform to wear, or in creating art and making comics depicting your favorite moments or further adventures of the characters you love, or writing stories that encompass missing moments from the narratives.

‘Mary Sues’ are, at their center, a celebration of putting oneself and one’s own heart, and one’s own enjoyment of a media text, first.

Before I talk about why this certain segment of the fan population deploys the term ‘Mary Sue’ the way it does, let’s take a closer look at this impulse for participatory play.

Here’s the sixty four thousand dollar question: where do ‘Mary Sues’ come from?

I’d like you take a moment to think back at the sorts of games you enjoyed when you were about seven years old. Think back. Picture yourself outside, playing with your siblings, or the neighbour’s kids or you cousins. What are you doing? Playing ball games, chase games, and probably something with a narrative? Are you Power Rangers? Are you flying to Neverland with Peter Pan? Are you fighting Dementors and Death Eaters at Hogwarts? Are you the newest members of One Direction, are you Jem and the Holograms or the Misfits? Are you running around collecting Pokémon back before running around and collecting Pokémon IRL was a thing?

That, guys, gals and non-binary pals, is where Mary Sues come from. That’s it. It’s as easy as that.

As a child you didn’t know that modern literary tradition pooh-poohs self-analogous characters, or that realism was required for depth of character. All you knew was that you wanted to be a part of that story, right.  If you wanted to be a train with Thomas and Friends, then you were a train. If you wanted to be a magic pony from Equestria, you were a pony. Or, you know, if you were trying to appease two friends at once, then you were a pony-train.

Self-insert in childhood games teach kids the concept of elastic play, and this essential ability to imagine oneself in skins that are not one’s own, and to stretch and reshape narratives is what breeds creativity and storytelling. It shapes compassion.

Now, think of your early stories. As a child we all told and wrote stories about doing what, to us, were mundane everyday things - like getting ice cream with the fictional characters we know and love.

My friend’s three year old tells his father bed time stories about going on walks through Home Hardware with his friends, the anthropomorphized versions of the local taco food truck and the commuter train his dad takes to work every morning. He doesn’t recognize the difference between real and fictional people (or for him, in this case, the stand-ins that are the figures that loom large in his life right now as a three year old obsessed with massive machines). When you ask him to tell you a story, he talks about these fictions as if they’re real. And he does not hesitate to insert himself into the tale. “I did this. I did that. We went there and then had this for lunch.” He is present in all his own stories because, at this age, he understands the world only from his limited personal POV.

As we grow up, we do learn to differentiate between fantasy and reality. But, I posit that we never truly loose that “me too!” mentality. We see something amazing happening on the screen, or on the page, or on a playing field, and we want to be there, a part of it.

So we sort ourselves into Hogwarts Houses. We choose hockey teams to love, and we wear their jerseys.  We buy ball caps from our favorite breweries. We line up for hours to be the first to watch a new release or to buy a certain smartphone. We collect stamps and baseball cards and first editions of Jane Austen and Dan Brown. We want to be a part of it. Our capitalist, consumer society tells us to prove our love with our dollars, and we do it.

And for fan creators, we want to be a part of it so badly that we’re willing to make more of it. Not for profit, but for sheer love. And for the early writers, the newbies, the blossoming beginners, Mary Sues are where they generally start. Because those are the sorts of stories they’ve been telling yourselves for years already.

But as we get older, as we consume more media texts and find more things to adore, we begin to notice a dearth of representation – you’re not pony trains in our minds any more. We have a better idea of what we look like. And we don’t see it. The glorious fantasy diversity of our childhoods is stripped away, narratives are codified by the mainstream media texts we consume, and people stop looking like us.

I’m reminded of a story I read on Tumblr, of a young black author living in Africa – whose name, I’m afraid, I wasn’t able to find when I went back to look for it, so my apologies to her. The story is about the first time she tried to write a fairytale in elementary school. She made her protagonist a little white girl, and when she was asked why she hadn’t chosen to make the protagonist back, this author realized that it hadn’t even occurred to her that she was allowed make her lead black. Even though she was surrounded by people of color, the adventures, and romance, and magic in everything she consumed only happened to the white folks. She did not know she was allowed to make people like her the heroes because she had never seen it.

This is not natural. This is nurture, not nature. This is learned behavior. And this is hegemony.

No child grows up believing they don’t have place in the story. This is something were are taught. And this is something that we are taught by the media texts we consume.

I do want to pause and make a point here. There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with writing a narrative from the heterosexual, able bodied, neurotypical, white cismale POV in and of itself. I think we all have stories that we know and love that feature that particular flavor of protagonist. And people from that community deserve to tell their stories as much as folks from any other community.

The problem comes from a reality where when it’s the only narrative. The default narrative. The factory setting. When people who don’t see themselves reflected in the narrative nonetheless feel obligated to write such stories, instead of their own. When they are told and taught that it is the only story worth telling. ‎

There’s this really great essay by Ika Willis, and it’s called “. And I think it’s the one – one of the most important pieces of writing not only on Mary Sues, but on the dire need for representation in general.

In the essay, Willis talks about Mary Sues – beyond being masturbatory adventure avatars for young people just coming into their own sexuality, or avatars to go on adventures with – but as voice avatars. Mary Sues, when wielded with self-awareness, deliberateness, and precision, can force a wedge into the narrative, crack it open, and provide a space for marginalized identities and voices in a media-text that otherwise silences and ignores them.

This is done one of two ways. First: by jamming in a diverse Mary Sue, and making the characters and the world acknowledge and work with that diversity. Or, second: by co-opting a pre-existing character and overlaying a new identity on them while retaining their essential characterization. For example, by writing a story where Bilbo Baggins is non-binary, but still thinking that adventures are messy, dirty things. Or making Sherlock Holmes deaf, but still perfectly capable of solving all the crimes. Or making James Potter Indian, so that the Dursleys prejudiced against Harry not only for his magic, but also for his skin color. Or making Ariel the mermaid wrestle with severe body dysphoria, or Commander Sheppard suffer from severe PTSD.

I like to call this voice avatar Mary Sue a ‘Meta-Sue’, because when authors have evolved enough in their storytelling abilities to consciously deploy Mary Sues as a deliberate trope, they’re doing so on a self-aware, meta-textual level.

So that is where Mary Sues comes from.

But what is a Mary Sue? How can you point at a character and say, “Yes, that is – definitively – a Mary Sue”.

Mary Sues can generally be characterized as:

-Too perfect, or unrealistically skilled. They shouldn’t be able to do all the things they do, or know all the things they know, as easily as they do or know them. For reasons of the plot expedience, they learn too fast, and are able to perform feats that other characters in their world who have studied or trained longer and harder find difficult. For example, Neo in The Matrix.

-They are the black hole of every plot – every major quest or goal of the pre-existing characters warps to include or be about them; every character wants to befriend them, or romance them, or sleep with them, and every villain wants to possess them, or kill them, or sleep with them. This makes sense, as why write a character into the world if you’re not going to have something very important happen to them? So, for example, like Neo in The Matrix.

-A Mary Sue, because it’s usually written by a neophyte author who’s been taught that characters need flaws, has some sort of melodramatic, angsty tragic back-story that, while on the surface seems to motivate them into action, because of lack of experience in creating a follow-through of emotional motivation, doesn’t actually affect their mental health or ability to trust or be happy or in love. For example, like the emotional arc of Neo in The Matrix.

– A Mary Sue saves the day. This goes back to that impulse to be the center of the story. Like Neo in The Matrix.

-And lastly, Mary Sues come from outside the group. They’re from the ‘real world’, like you and I, or have somehow discovered the hero’s secret identity and must be folded into the team, or are a new recruit, or are a sort of previously undiscovered stand-alone Chosen One. Like, for example, Neo in The Matrix.

Now, as I’ve said, there’s actually nothing inherently wrong with writing a Mary Sue. Neo is a Mary Sue, but The Matrix is still a really engaging and well written film. And simply by virtue of the fact that an individual with ingrained cultural foundations is writing a story, that story is inherently rooted in that writer’s lived life and experiences. As much as a writer may try to either highlight or downplay it, each character and story they create has some of themselves in it. The first impulse of storytelling is to talk about oneself. We write about ourselves, only the more we write, the more skilled we become at disguising the sliver of us-ness in a character, folding it into something different and unique. We, as storytellers, as humans, empathize with protagonists and fictional characters constantly – we love putting our feet into other people’s shoes. It’s how we understand and engage with the world.

And we as writers tap into our own emotions in order to describe them on the page. We take slices of our lives – our experiences, our memories, our friend’s verbal tics or hand gestures, aunt Brenda’s way of making tea, Uncle Rudy’s way having a pipe after dinner, that time Grannie got lost at the zoo – and we weave them together into a golem that we call a character, which comes to life with a bit of literary magic. I mean, allow me to be sparklingly reductionist for a second, but in the most basic sense, every character is a Mary Sue.

It’s just a matter of whether the writer has evolved to the point  in their craft that they’ve learned to animate that golem with the sliver of self-ness hidden deep enough that it is unrecognizable as self-ness, but still recognizable as human-ness.

For years, mainstream western media has featured characters that were primarily heterosexual, able bodied, neurotypical, white cismales. And, regrettably, because of that, this flavor of human is now assumed to be the default for a character. When people from other communities speak up requesting other flavours, for characters for whom the imbedded sliver of humanity remains just as poignant and relatable, but the outer shell is of a different variety, this is when that certain segment of the fan population looses their cool.

That certain segment of the fan population has been telling us for years that if we don’t like what we see on TV or in video games, or in books, or comics, or on the stage, that we should just go make our own stuff. And now we are.

“Make your own stuff,” they say, and then follow it up with: “What’s with all this political correctness gone wild? Uhg. This stuff is all just Mary Sue garbage.”

Well, yes. Of course it is. That’s the point.

But why are they saying it like that?

Because they mean it in a derogatory sense.

They don’t mean it in the way that Paula Smith meant it – a little bit belittling but mostly fun; a bemused celebration of why we love putting ourselves into the stories and worlds we enjoy. They don’t mean it the way that Willis means it – a deliberate and knowing way to shove the previously marginalized into the center. They don’t even mean it the way that I mean it in my own work - as a tool for carefully deconstructing and discussing character and narrative with a character and from within a narrative.

When a certain segment of the fan population talks about ‘Mary Sue’, they mean to weaponize it. To make it a stand-in for the worse thing that a character can be: bland, predictable, and too-perfect. Which, granted, many Mary Sues are. But not all of them. And a character doesn’t have to be a Mary Sue to be done badly, either.

When this certain segment of the fan population says ‘Mary Sue’, they’re trying to shame the creators for deviating from the norm - the white, the heterosexual, the able bodied, the neurotypical, the straight cismale.

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “I don’t believe people like this are interesting enough to be the lead character in a story.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “I don’t think there’s any need to listen to that voice. They’re not interesting enough.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “This character is not what I am used to a.k.a. not like me, and I’m gonna whine about it.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “Even though kids from all over the world, from many different cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds have had to grow up learning to identify with characters who don’t look or think like them, identifying with characters who don’t look or think like me is hard and I don’t wanna.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: ”Even though I’ve grown up in a position of privilege and power, and even though publishing and producing diverse stories with diverse casts doesn’t actually cut into the proportionate representation that I receive, and never will, I am nonetheless scared that I’ll never see people like me in media texts ever again.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “Considering my fellow human beings as fellow human beings worthy of having stories about them and their own experiences, in their own voices, is hard and I don’t wanna do it.”

When this certain segment of the population says ‘Mary Sue,’ what they’re really saying is: “I only want stories about me.”

They call leads ‘Mary Sues’ so people will stop writing them and instead write… well, their version of a ‘Mary Sue.’ The character that is representative of their lived experiences, their power and masturbatory fantasies, their physical appearance, their sexual awakenings, their cultural identity, their voice, their kind of narratives.

Missing, of course, that the point of revisionist and inclusive narratives aren’t to shove out previous incarnations, but to coexist alongside them. It’s not taking away one entrée and offering only another – it’s building a buffet.

Okay, so who actually cares if these trolls call these diverse characters Mary Sues?

Well, unfortunately, because this certain segment of the population have traditionally been the group most listened-to by the mainstream media creators and the big money, their opinions have power. (Never mind that they’re not actually the biggest group of consumers anymore, nor no longer the most vocal.)

So, this is where you come in.

You have the power to take the Mary Sue from the edge of the narrative and into the centre. And you do can do this by normalizing it. Think back to that author who didn’t think little black girls were allowed to be the heroes of fairy tales. Now imagine how much different her inner world, her imagination might have been at the stage when she was first learning to understand her own self-worth, if she had seen faces like hers on the television, in comics, in games, and on the written page every day of her life.

And not just one or two heroes, but a broad spectrum of characters that run the gamut from hero to villain, from fragile to powerful, from straight to gay, and every other kind of intersectional identity.

You have the power to give children the ability to see themselves.

Multi-faceted representation normalizes the marginalized.

And if you have the privilege to be part of the passing member of the mainstream, then weaponize your privilege. Refuse to work with publishers, or websites, or conventions that don’t also support diverse creators. Put diverse characters in your work, and do so thoughtfully and with the input of the people from the community you are portraying. And if you’re given the opportunity to submit or speak at an event, offer to share the microphone.

The first thing I did when actor Burn Gorman got a Twitter account was to Tweet him  my thanks for saving the world in Pacific Rim while on a cane. As someone who isn’t as mobile as the heroes I see in action films - who knows for a fact that when the zombie apocalypse comes I will not be a-able to outrun the monsters – it meant so much to me that his character was not only an integral and vital member of the team who cancelled the apocalypse, but also that not once in the film did someone call him a cripple, or tell him he couldn’t participate because of his disability, or leave him behind.

Diversity matters.

Not because it’s a trendy hashtag, or a way to sell media texts to a locked-down niche market, but because every single human being deserves to be told that they have a voice worth listening to; a life worth celebrating and showcasing in a narrative; a reality worth acknowledging and accepting and protecting; emotions that are worth exploring and validating; intelligence that is worth investing in and listening to; and a capacity to love that is worth adoring.

White, heterosexual, neurotypical, able-bodied cismales are not the only people on the planet who are human.

And you have a right to tell your story your way.

Calling something a ‘Mary Sue’ in order to dismiss it out of hand, as an excuse to hate something before even seeing it, is how the trolls bury your Narrative and your Identity.  We are storytellers, all of us. Every person in this room. Whether your wheel house is in fiction, or academia, or narrative non-fiction, we impart knowledge and offer experience through the written word, through the telling of tales, through leading a reader from one thought to another.

And we none of deserve to be shouted down, talked over, or dismissed. No one can tell you that your story isn’t worth telling. Of course it is. It’s yours.

And don’t let anyone call your characters, or your work, or you a ’Mary Sue’ in the derogatory sense ever again. Or I am going to scream.

[quartusbellum-blog]

SARA for the role of REGULUS BLACK using the faceclaim NICOLE MAINES. 

I am very excited about your portrayal of this character! Not only have you given life to the plots hinted at in the skeleton, but you’ve threaded new layers of meaning into Regulus’ story. I can’t wait to see them explored on the dash! 

ooc details

Name: Sara

Age: im a fandom grandparent

Pronouns: they/them

Activity Level: I’m around every day and enjoy making a mess of things in game

Other: No triggers though my character might end up triggering others. I’ll make sure to tag.

Acknowledgement: I acknowledge that the themes of this game may include triggering elements. I also acknowledge that my character may be harmed, coerced, or even killed (with player’s consent) during paras/events or may cause harm to or kill others during paras/events. Yep here4themess

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general ic details

Name: Regulus Arcturus Black

Age: 19 | January 23rd

Ships: Regulus is rather aromantic in manner so a romantic is unlikely. Even still, I’d be happy to try any ships, any nonromantic ships etc.  Warning: please read the whole app prior to seeking a ship with Regulus given that any sort of romantic/nonromantic/sexual ship might contain triggering experiences.

TBH my dream ships are probably more found family/family oriented… polyamorous with an asexual asshole who is a little skew?

Gender/Pronouns: publicly Regulus is still he/him but there will be a blending and fucking up of pronouns as Regulus explores and comprehends her gender (likely ultimate ending but nonbinary is also possible). This is different then how i sometimes write trans characters because in this game one aspect of her narrative will be the concept of growing up and understanding she can be who she wants to be. Even if Regulus knew from a young age (which not all trans people do), Regulus would have innately rejected the idea because of the pride his mother has(d) in having the two heirs at a cost. This became even more pressing when Sirius left his role as heir and it landed to Regulus–suddenly Regulus’ choices shrank even more. Its only in death that she has started to comprehend that there are choices now.

So pronouns will be flying ALL THE WAYS but mostly reflecting how the character is presenting EXTERNALLY to others. FC will remain static but may not be used all the time due to the lack of stable presentation.

For this app He/Him were used exclusively as up until perhaps the past year Regulus presented exclusively as he/him.

Headcanon for transitioning Attisgalli Corrective Draught.

Face Claim: please provide two face claim options.

Nicole Maines

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bio questions

Please note, while this game is “canon” up until the start of the Wizarding War it does not stay canon and it’s quite divergent at the start of the game.

biography:

The Black Family is too old of a family line not to have gotten… muddled (never muddied) in the past. It shows on the family tree in little notations (a dark red swirl like an ink blot on their shoulder for vampire) or in burn-marks where a person used to be (for scum of the earth traitor). Sometimes, Regulus’ mother sniffed when explaining this, certain family members couldn’t do what needed to be done.

A little pruning never hurt anyone–not any more then a little cultivating did.

Regulus and Sirius Black might have been half brothers but that was simply the most prudent action their parents could take to make absolutely certain the bloodline continued. Sure, children that shared both parents blood would have been ideal but with Druella only providing girls and Orion not providing any… Walburga Black was always very good at problem solving. Perhaps the only problem she failed to solve was her eldest son Sirius–or maybe she almost fixed it with Regulus.

If Sirius Black was loud and brash and bright–Regulus was the opposite. He was a late talker and when he did start talking it was almost always a last mumbled as a last resort. It wasn’t that Regulus wasn’t intelligent but that he struggled to organize his thoughts and provide them to others–something that continued through childhood, through Hogwarts, and beyond. He preferred chess and finding patterns within potions, charms, and even Quidditch to social obligations.

Prone to being misunderstood when he did attempt to make friends (he wasn’t threatening that girl, he was warning her so she wouldn’t be hurt), Regulus over values any and all friends or family he has. As such, any disowning, death, or friendship breakup has been taken incredibly personally. Its no excuse, and Regulus knows that now more then ever, but the need for connection and purpose helped drive his passion for Voldemort. Regulus believed in what Voldemort was fighting, becoming a Death Eater would provide a structure that Regulus knew he would need outside of Hogwarts while learning how to manage the Black family vaults and investments, and there was a social aspect, too.

For all that Regulus was good at strategy and understanding how seemingly fragmented pieces of information fit together: he was too slow to understand what Voldemort’s real goals were and what they ultimately meant for his family (and the wizarding world, but his family, of course, was paramount). Regulus Black never woke up one day and started believing muggleborns were ‘okay’ or that his innate belief system was wrong. He woke up one day and realized that the few people he cared about were in danger in a way they did not, could not, understand.

The vampire blood was easy to get, although he hardly thought it would work. He had long since been in the habit of visiting Narcissa and feeding the prisoner James Potter. Adding a fail safe into James’ layers of memory charms was not easy but necessary. Most likely, even with the blood, even with over a month of planning, Regulus was certain he was going to die.

Which he did. It just didn’t stick.

It’s been almost a year since then and Regulus isn’t sure if it was the potion, the vampire blood, the way he died, or if he’s finally just turning into his mother’s child in ways he never wanted to–but Regulus Black can’t seem to get a grip on his emotions, or his tongue, the way he used to. In some ways, though, its a relief–like finally being able to peel off an ill-fitting skin for something new.

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my character is:

Please Provide the Following

A Belief that is Wrong

Please Describe a Belief your character has that is wrong. It can be something we, as players, know is wrong (ex. prejudice against werewolves ).  Alternatively: How is your character lying to themselves (and how is is it shown externally).

Regulus has always had something about organization and if he thinks about it too much even he would have to acknowledge that it’s a lie. But Regulus generally doesn’t pay that much attention to the reality surrounding these habits, only the relief it brings him. His clothes are always pressed–even in his closet of a space with the Radical Alliance. The robes are cleaned, and charmed pressed, and hunt up in a very specific order. His bed is exactly one inch from the left wall. The trunk he keeps things in is under the bed and must not touch any of the posts or the wall. He keeps things perfectly separated inside the trunk. He counted the flur de lis on the carpet between his and Sirius’ bedrooms over and over and over again as a child. He can tell anyone how many panes of glass are in the windows at Hogwarts and even differentiate between wings of the castle. These habits (because, of course, that’s all they are, all they will ever be) didn’t start out so all encompassing but as Regulus grew up, as life became more complicated, choices too limited, finding ways to control it (even illogical ones) seemed to be the only answer.

If things are clean enough. If things are the right number. If he stops counting at the right moment, if he taps the right pattern : everything will be fine. There’s arithmancy in everything, he tells himself, because life has always been more bearable when he believes it to be true.

Job

Is Regulus Black Doing Anything? He isn’t sure, really. Certainly he doesn’t have a job–he’s never worked a traditional job a day in his life! He’s no longer a Death Eater. Can he continue to look after his family’s finances if he is, in a sense, dead?

Does he want to be alive? –Regulus wonders this sometimes, believing it not to be any sort of suicidal ideation but a simple, obvious question. Should he be alive? The answer is no.

Does he want to be–he doesn’t know.

As far as anyone knows (particularly Remus but also Marcus and Narcissa), Regulus Black has no job and is doing nothing but trying to pour his scrambled eggs of brain and impulse control back into some semblance of viability. Underneath that, Regulus Black is trying to pour his scrambled eggs of brain and impulse control back into some semblance of viability…and remember just what his next steps were supposed to be regarding the horcrux.

ooc questions

Writing Sample:

He’s at the stairs. Not the grand stars at the front of the house that fork and twist along the side of the foyer–but the back stairs. Servants stairs his mother would hiss if she saw them except none of their family have ever employed household staff.

House elves are bad enough, his mother says in his ear and Regulus jerks, expecting to feel her breath on his cheek but–nothing. Its nothing.

“I’ve food for the prisoner.” He says but its pointless because no one is listening. No one has been listening since Peter Pettigrew. Since Dumbledore. Since James. It is a mistake but they haven’t realized it yet.

He’s stood too long, frozen above the narrow staircase with a silver tray. Someone will see you–the thought hisses through his mind and Regulus knows, suddenly, with a clarity he’s been lacking: its not real. It’s not a part of this. A dream? The idea s fleeting and wilts under a brush of light as the curtains behind him are pulled open.

“Then go ahead, darling.” Narcissa says.  

The memory jerks, skitters, speeds up.

“I’ve food for the prisoner.” He says. “I’ve food for–”

Regulus is down stairs and the food is gone, shoved to the side. The lip of the tray is pressed into his ankle but Regulus ignores it because–James.

“Listen to me,” Regulus is saying. It’s strange, like none of this is real because he can’t feel any of it. The words fall from his mouth because where is his tongue? His wand is tight in his left hand, the swirls carved into its handle cutting into his palm. He should smell blood, he thinks.  

There’s nothing, though. The room is bleary with weak autumn light from a small window about ten feet above them. There’s a bed but James isn’t allowed to use it. He’s on the floor. Regulus is on the floor. No, he’s straddling James–James can’t move during this or else–or else.

James tenses under him and Regulus grabs a fist full of James’ fraying robes. “This is serious.” The robes are too tattered to bruise when Regulus’ jerks them. He can’t strangle James (and wouldn’t even if it would be a mercy)

“Why should I?” James, the fucker–it had been a month and he still had that smirk except there’s blood at the corner and this time (not the first time) Regulus can feel his stomach growl at the sight of it.

“It’s important.” Regulus has his wand pressed at James’ temple and his mouth brushes James’ cheek when he leans in to whisper. “You’ll thank me later.”

Regulus Black has never been good at mind magic.

When Regulus wakes up, he tastes salt water and bile.

Exploration:

Please share three things you’d like to explore. This could be a character changing sides, darker themes, or basic fiction tropes.

Family Lines: I think this game provides a particularly interesting set of circumstances regarding possible family lines. First there’s Narcissa and her condition–how did that happen? Possibly Regulus, trying to manage his life post cave and fucking up again ( or maybe it was a blessing?) I like to headcanon that maybe Alphard was a vampire and thats where the blood came from (open to other options). Speaking of, how has Walburga doing? And then there’s, of course, Sirius and all the brother’s baggage which is made even more complicated as (if this set up is accepted) Regulus sort of used Sirius’ best friend as a last will and testament–not that James remembers it yet. Last, … does Regulus even count as a live anymore and if not who has inherited ?

A Family Curse: The Black family has never exactly been known for its cool head and steady hands but Regulus, for all his somewhat muffled anxieties, has mostly stood out as awkward but not particularly memorable. In fact, it’s safe to say without his last name (and grades) Regulus probably wouldn’t have gotten much notice at all. That has largely changed now, although Regulus has trouble pin pointing why and how. There are a lot of factors, many of which no one else knows, and Regulus should care about that. He should be highly concerned–but those concerns evaporate before he can even generate a game plan to consider addressing it. Most seem to assume that its just Regulus taking after his mother. TLDR I’m interested in seeing what information he drops (likely not entirely clearly) without thinking it through and how the changes in demeanor and method impact both those who grew up with Regulus Black and those who didn’t. Don’t worry about wangst, I’m much more interested in throwing weird or intense tings at others then have Regulus mope.

Choices mixed in with all of that, Regulus has found himself well and truly on his own about making choices for the first time in his life. Sure, Remus might have ideas on what he should do, and Sirius, and Marcus, and Narcissa—but all of them have different goals, different expectations of what Regulus could do and in the end, Regulus doesn’t have to do anything. At the onset the only thing he does know is that he must do something about the horcrux…but how? When, where, and why? I want to see how different interactions with various characters might influence those choices and how Regulus handles managing his own reigns ow for better or for worse.

Gender: its so easy to boil gender and trans experience into one narrative but so often things are far…messier then that. Regulus is a character who hasn’t felt the ability to think overly hard (or pursue if he has thought of it) alternatives to gender even if the Wix Community at large is accepting (people turn into frogs, after all). This game provides a unique chance to explore gender through the lense of a character who is learning and failing and not overly confident (or overly feminine) but genuine in that (at least) if nothing else. Also, does being a vampire effect Attisgalli Corrective Draught?

Extras:

Anything else you’d like to provide?

[mothermaidenclone-blog]

Solo: A Star Wars Story or I Don’t Know What I Expected From A Movie Named After One Bloke

The newest additions to the ever expanding Star Wars pantheon have left me with mixed feelings: the official episodes have been thoroughly enjoyable with vastly improved female representation, but Solo: A Star Wars Story has joined Rogue One in having some great moments, but being a let down for the ladies overall. Solo in particular ticked so many boxes on my list of The Bad Things™ that can be inflicted on female characters.

*Solo: A Star Wars Story spoilers follow*

Arguably the main female character is Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), the childhood sweetheart of the eponymous Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich), if that’s an appropriate term for young lovers trying to escape the darkest depths of crime, subjugation and despair together. We are introduced to the couple with their relationship already well established, and see only one brief, tender moment between the pair before their action packed escape sequence begins. Qi’ra’s failed flight from her and Han’s oppressors was the first of many tragic fates to befall the women of this film that I felt as a predictive pang in my chest before it happened. It was clear that Han needed to suffer this loss to develop in the way that the franchise has already determined that he will, so there was no way that Qi’ra was making it out of that spaceport with him. Thus, so far in the film she is a device to explain Han’s motivations more than she is a character.

In the elapsing time before we meet Qi’ra again she has suffered many unseen but suggested horrors, but she nevertheless reappears looking glamorous at a lavish party on the luxury yacht of crime boss Dryden Vos (Paul Bethany). Before anyone gets too excited, however, she is very much his possession rather than ally, colleague or even employee - she is literally branded by him so as not to leave any doubt about her situation. When she finally escapes Dryden’s clutches by murdering him at the end of the movie, she is awarded one, brief moment of caressing the evil office chair where we can believe that, however deplorable her situation, at least she is the boss now. Alas, it is not to be; our parting view of Qi’ra is a conversation she has with her new overlord, who is Darth Maul (Sam Witwer) for some baffling reason. He states, “Qi’ra, you and I will her working much more closely from now on,” in a gravelly, creepy whisper, closing Qi’ra’s part in this story with her being passed from the possession of one evil man to another.

Qi’ra’s defeat of Dryden, despite it being the desperate, split-second act of someone clutching at survival, is framed as an act of betrayal. This concept haunts Qi’ra throughout Solo; Han’s new best friend/mentor/father figure, Beckett (Woody Harrelson) is constantly suggesting that Qi’ra cannot be trusted, despite turning out to be a turncoat himself. Qi’ra is portrayed as that awful stereotype of a woman who’ll make you believe she’s in love with you to take advantage of you somehow, then throw you under the bus the moment she’s finished with you, probably winking over her shoulder at you and shrugging, before slinking away in some sort of cocktail dress. All of this is compounded by the fact that several characters, including Beckett and Qi’ra herself, keep implying that Han will no longer love Qi’ra if he knows the things she’s done, when he’s spent the intervening years since he last saw her stealing, shooting and cheating his way around the galaxy. Why is it okay for him to have a shady past, but not her? This reputation is completely unjustified when she appears to make very similar life choices to Han, but he is portrayed as a plucky survivor and loveable rogue rather than a double-crosser or back-stabber.

Another woman who receives a very raw deal in Solo is Val (Thandie Newton), Beckett’s lover. Initially, her inclusion seems wonderful as she is a middle-aged black woman portrayed as a crack-shot marksman and highly capable career criminal. However, any joy at this representational success is as short lived as Val herself, who promptly sacrifices herself in an explosion to destroy a bridge during a train heist. Her death is particularly annoying for a number of reasons; firstly, it’s the classic - and my least favourite - move of killing a woman to legitimise a male display of emotion and serve as motivation for said man and secondly, they don’t even pull off the robbery! Han is forced to dump the cargo mere minutes later, so Val’s death is totally in vain. It’s a reckless waste of such a promising character.

It’s not just human women who are at risk of sudden death in Solo, as proved by L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), a female droid. L3-37 is the source of much of the comedy in Solo; some of it generated by her, such as her dry and anarchistic personality, but she is also the butt of some of it, mainly in the form of her assertions that Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) is in love with her. The audience is clearly supposed to find this idea ludicrous and laughable, sharing many a rolled eye with characters on screen. However, when L3-37 is inevitably caught in the cross fire - because it seems like none of the women are getting out of this film in one piece - Lando runs to her side, cradles her broken body and weeps. It did seem as though Lando actually had feelings for L3-37, and there was a moment of hope when her memory was to be implanted into the computer aboard the Millennium Falcon. I thought Solo was going to do a really cool thing where it explored how we fall in love with a person, not a body, so Lando could continue to explore his relationship with L3-37, no matter what physical form she took. Nope, she becomes an inanimate map and that’s the end of that.

The only woman who survives Solo relatively unscathed is Enfys Nest (Erin Kellyman), who the audience and cast believe to be a man for the vast majority of the film. Enfys is a fearsome pirate who leads the band of criminals known as the Cloud-Riders. As well as being portrayed as a man - achieved through heavy armour and a voice modulator - Enfys is presented as a villain for most of Solo. She is an antagonist, a rival marauder foiling Han’s plans and fighting for the same resources and prizes that he seeks. However, before the grand final face-off, Enfys not only reveals her true gender, but also her age - she is much younger than the audience was led to believe - as well as her alignment; she is a rebel and a freedom fighter rather than a selfish bandit. This reveal could be seen as something of a punchline, a vaguely comedic switcheroo that pulls the rug out from under not only Han, but the audience as well, and we all have a good laugh at how he was beaten by a girl. However, I’m going to take my victories where I can and celebrate the portrayal of a young woman as an accomplished warrior, leader and strategist, as well as basically the most principled person in this whole movie.

Two other credited female characters exist in Solo. One is the Chanteuse Aurodia Ventafoli (Sema-Tawi Smart), an incredibly glamorous black singer who appears to be somewhat cybernetically enhanced to improve her voice further. The other is Lady Proxima (Linda Hunt), a literal evil giant worm who exploits enslaved children to support a life of crime. So that’s pretty much the definition of “you win some, you lose some” then.

Overall, the women in Solo: A Star Wars Story, despite being capable in their various fields, are mostly exploited, enslaved, downtrodden and, eventually, murdered. This is particularly and personally such a shame for Solo, because “heist” and “getting the team together” are two of my favourite kinds of film, and I’m a huge Star Wars fan. I’m sure I can’t be the only female devotee who grew up with the franchise and became hugely excited by the new episodes, which have finally given women their rightful and glorious place in a galaxy far, far away, only to be bitterly let down by the bad things that happen to women in the spin-offs. I am left with no choice but to, like everyone’s favourite princess, live in hope.

And now for some asides:

The robot rebellion was basically the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

Can we have more Northeners in Star Wars please? I thoroughly enjoyed that accent inclusion.

Okay, so, this pissed me off for the whole film. Lando’s hangers in his cloak closet were the least practical thing ever! They were completely enclosed, so he would have had to take everything off the rail to reach whatever was at the back. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

[fyrapartnersearch]

The next Wild Hunt commences.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Phew, let's try this again shall we? I've received great many responses which positively surprised me :) I've managed to find some partners, but most of the people who contacted me, just sent me a friend request on Discord without even writing me a message. This gives me nothing to work with. Please, I implore you, if you want to start a RP partnership with me, write me a detailed email first! Describe yourself, your ideas and preferences. I want to get to know you before we move to another platform to chat OOC, alright? 

And for the future, do NOT ghost me! Thank you :) I’ll keep it short and sweet for my introduction. I am Fenry, but you may address me as Fen. Obviously this is not my real name but I would like to keep a pseudonym as my identity until I get to know my partner better. 



I am 25 years and that means adult themes and topics will be included

Female

Over 10 years of roleplaying experience

Masters graduate

I live in CET, Europe

Prefers doubling, though I can make exceptions

We can exchange more information once I’ve received your message. I love talking outside of the Roleplay for some brainstorming and plotting for the story. Plus, making new friends never hurts.

Now to the actual topic what I am looking for in a partner.

Please read before you message me!

Thank you.



My roleplaying partner must be above the age of 18, preferably 20+. 
I don’t care which gender honestly, as long as the Roleplay and friendship is good I am all for it. Contact me with a small introduction. Tell me about yourself, what you’re ideas are, how long you’ve been writing and your limits. I want to know more about you, assess your character before we move to anything else. It would otherwise come off as impersonal. 



The qualities I prefer in an RP buddy are: 


Mature

Dedicated

Detailed

Literate

Frequent (which doesn’t mean that you need to send me 5 messages per day. 2-3 times per week is absolutely fine since I am not able to respond as much either)

Flexible

We all have real, social lives outside of the roleplaying world. I understand when you’re not able to reply as fast all of the time, because it is not much different for me either. I will try to respond at least 4-5 times a week. If it’s a good week, my replying rate will increase depending on the given situation. If there’s work ahead or any sort of obstacle that might get in the way of our exchange, I will let you know as soon as I possibly can! I promise you this! 
But I also hope you do the same when there’s something that might cause a hiatus.




I am looking for LONGTERM and CONTINUOS Roleplays! My partner should be very committed because otherwise, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense and we might as well drop it.





When it comes to my writing style and preferences, I will list these things here for you to read.

Writing: I am a multi-paragraph sort of writer, which means that frequently, my writing will exceed at least 500 words, and upward of 1000+ words. I love detail in description, and I am actively seeking someone of the same infamy. Generally, I tend to write in the 3rd person. I’ve also tested the waters of 1st person but found it fairly awkward, if not, jarring so I’d rather keep it with 3rd person.

Pairings: I openly play characters of both genders, preferable m x f pairings, but I am open to m x m and f x f relationships as well. I have more experience with m x f relationships, so I might excel in this category more than I would do with the others. However, like I said, do not let this deter you. Very much open to other sexual orientations and preferences. Romance and intimate erotic scenes are always a part of the story, so if you are someone who prefers fading to black, I am afraid to tell you that my request isn’t something for you. This is not negotiable, sorry.

Genres: I am versatile when it comes to genres and settings that I like to play in. Supernatural is my absolute jam, especially urban and gothic fantasy, maybe even a bit of mythology as well? 
Anything involving vampires, werewolves, demons, witches, shape shifters, aliens, mutants, other urban creature of folklore, given some sort of modern day spun, is absolutely perfect for me. I also really love science fiction in its many forms. Primarily, I take my sci-fi craving inspirations from Star Wars, Mass Effect, and even Destiny (even though I did not really enjoy the games…). Another genre that I’ve vast interest in includes that of the superhero genre. I’m a big fan of both Marvel and DC fandom, and the concept of having humans with abilities, anything of that short would be awesome to do. Against, these would be with original characters on my part. I’m not as fond of general real-life or general modern day genres and themes without a good, complex idea attached to it.

Characters: Faceclaims, GIFs, drawings, mood boards or just a plain physical description is absolutely welcome / sufficient. I am not someone who necessarily needs a face claim for a character in order ‘to get the picture’. There are many instances where I could not find a suiting match for my character’s definition, so I resorted to drawing them myself or leaving it with a simple description. 
Characters should have flaws - that is a no brainer obviously, since nobody likes a Mary Sue / Gary Stu - but also some unique traits that make them stand out and remain memorable. I take inspiration from JK Rowling or George R.R. Martin for example as each of their character remains very unique and unforgettable in my opinion. They definitely did something right and I want to emulate that, so don’t be afraid to be rather bold with your character creation. Let your imagination run wild and surprise me with your ideas!

World building & plotting: An active roleplayer is wanted in this category, without a doubt. I love to world-build, but I tend to lose interest when I am the only one who puts in the effort into it. I can’t do the thinking for two people, so I implore you to at least share the burden (which should not be regarded as such because roleplaying is a fun hobby and nothing more). Too often I find people shying away from it in this regard. If I feel that I’m carrying the weight of the world-building part with specific ideas, I will end the Roleplay in immediately. And consider that the world building is just the tip of the beginning, so from that, I’ll be able to see whether we’ll be a match or not. Because we’d be starting from scratch with whatever we do, it would be a big relief to have someone who doesn’t mind letting ideas flow to set up the universe that we will be roleplaying in.

Content: I find writing erotic, dramatic or action packed scenes very enjoyable. I don’t hinder myself when certain subjects are mentioned that may be uncomfortable for the general public. But then again, as a reminder, a Roleplay is not reality but fiction. For example situations that heavily imply and involve brutality, mayhem, psychological and physical torture are things that need exploration.

Characters should be fully fleshed out, even the not so pretty parts of one’s personality and actions. There is no black and white, but a wide ranging spectrum of grey areas. A story does not always end well and life is never fair, so to implement this into a Roleplay, it would make a fantastic and very exciting story. Nothing is ever certain, people have their ups and downs… we shouldn’t make an exception here. I am not afraid to delve into even more sinister areas such as psychological trauma if its needed to further the story. I want to be as transparent as I possibly can. I have very few limits. The only subjects I will not touch, or rather avoid are heavy graphic rape scenes, bestiality, necrophilia and pedophilia. Other than that everything is fair game. What I also find quite fascinating is describing someone’s mental as well as physical transformation, ascending to a higher or lower state of being, etc. The process of metamorphosis, may it be the manipulation or corruption of someone… it all is quite eerie and at the same time, intriguing. It all leads to the progression of the story, so be warned that we won’t be walking on egg shells here. 


The story will not be solely centred on dark themes. I love me a mixture of everything, including drama, fluff, angst, action, comedy, romance, adventure, mystery and so forth.


Let’s lighten up a bit, kay? :)

The ones I’ve marked in bold are the ones I am currently itching for the most.




Original plots I am absolutely craving for are:




Genres:


anything mafia related

crimes in remote locations

small towns and supernatural happenings

post apocalyptic/dystopia

supernatural/modern fantasy (demons and devils, monster x hunter)

southern/mid western gothic

murder mystery (small town or big city)

modern/dark fairy tale retellings

sci-fi/cyberpunk

emotionally charged/dark and gritty

superpowers/gifted

unresolved sexual tension/slow burn

mythology

redemption

action

Pairings:

age gaps (non pedophiliac)

friend x best friend’s older sibling

enemies to lovers

cop x criminal

friends turned lovers/pining

grumpy x sunshine

dark hearted man melting for the innocent woman

reunited old lovers and/or friends

boss x employee

neighbours

mentor x mentee

hitman x victim

hurt/comfort

height differences

pet names

rich x poor (or noble and peasant / different social classes)

The Fandoms I am willing to do, although I prefer to make something original:

Films & television:

Marvel cinematic universe

Pacific Rim

Castlevania

Game of Thrones

Riverdale

Young Justice

Voltron

Constantine

Harry Potter

Star Wars

Games: 

Witcher III

Devil May Cry

Bayonetta

God of War

Star Wars

Dark Souls

My Roleplaying platform is mostly on email or google docs! I also would like to keep in touch with my partner over a different medium, preferably Discord.

 To contact me use these links here:


EMAIL: mynioncosplay@gmail.com

DISCORD: Fenry#4086


Find me there.

Here are two passwords that you can use in the headline so I know what you want to role-play.


*For ORIGINAL Roleplay, the password is:  Follow me and you shall be

free *For CANON Roleplay, the password is:  I will follow you until the end

#original #OC #supernatural(original, not TV) #longterm #email #googledocs #paragraph #detailed #partner #dedicated #fantasy #canon #doubling #chat #friend 

[starkiller-queen]

@i-believe-in-mycroft-holmes ➡️ @ayysexual-armitage

Hi all, I just wanted to let everyone know I’ve finally changed my URL! Seeing as this blog has become Hux Star Wars centric, it was definitely time.

I’ve also been able to do a lot of internet research this summer. While browsing and reading various articles, I realized that I’m on the asexual spectrum. The more personal accounts/stories I read, the more my own life experiences seemed to make sense. When the realization dawned on me, I felt enlightened - everything just clicked!

I personally identify as a heteroromantic demisexual. This means that I can enjoy a romantic relationship with someone of the opposite gender (a male, in my case), but I will not even begin to feel any sexual attraction toward my partner until a strong emotional bond is created between us. I personally do not get attached to others easily, and it takes me a long time to become emotionally invested in a potential romantic partner. However, everyone is different and the time it takes for this bond to develop depends on the person(s) and circumstances!

So far, I have come out to two of my closest family members and of course all of you lovely people! My family accepted what I told them without a fuss, although I do feel one relative understands the concept better than the other. I’m just really glad that I had the opportunity to explore this part of me.

Before I sign off, I also want to address the Hux part of my new URL. Since there is such an unfortunate lack of asexual representation (I’m 20 and I barely knew anything about the ace spectrum until now), I find myself projecting my thoughts/feelings onto Hux very often. I know he’s a baddie, but he’s fun to like because he’s not real.

We all know Hux lives for his work. He’s intense, he’s a perfectionist, and he lives a solitary life in order to accomplish his goals. As far as the fandom knows, he has never had a loving relationship. I like to imagine that he just doesn’t understand the hype about having a significant other (and of course, sex). He has speeches to write, cats to pet - a relationship holds no appeal for him when he’s comfortable doing what he does best. For most of his teen/adult life, he has probably thought himself above everyone else for not giving in to such needs. Maybe, just maybe, the right person would make him question his old beliefs if they could gain his trust...

[erhiem]

Feather muthaland, Bibimutha’s songs play as if she is rebuilding her confidence in real time.

Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr, Aamna Ijaz/NPR; Courtesy of Muthaboard

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Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr, Aamna Ijaz/NPR; Courtesy of Muthaboard

Feather muthaland, Bibimutha’s songs play as if she is rebuilding her confidence in real time.

Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr, Aamna Ijaz/NPR; Courtesy of Muthaboard

NPR Music Turning the Tables A project envisioned to challenge sexist and exclusionary conversations about musical greatness. So far we’ve focused on reversing traditional, patriarchal best-of-lists and popular music history. But this time, it’s personal. For 2021, we’re digging into our own relationships to record the records we love, asking: How do we know as listeners when a piece of music is important to us? How can we break free from institutional pressures on our tastes in keeping with the lessons of history? What exactly does it mean to create a personal canon? Essays in this series will explore our unique relationship with our favorite albums, from unmatched classics by major stars to sub-cultural gamechangers and personal revelations. Because the way some music holds a central place in our lives is not just a reflection of how we develop our tastes, but of how we approach the world.

In April, two days after my partner got his second COVID-19 vaccination dose, a friend sent us an invitation to celebrate his birthday at a bar. “I’m not sure,” I said, citing CDC guidelines to wait at least two weeks before socializing. But I had another idea. While some dreamed of nail salon appointments as a return to normalcy, and others fled to Airbnbs on the outskirts, I suggested making a noise on the phone once again with the crew, three Geminis and Taurus.

Our first time together was in 2019, which we regarded as a rite of passage, playing Kendrick Lamar good kid, maed city (an epic, if not prestige update for the specific soundtrack) as our visions began to blur. More than anything, I noticed how the psychedelic influences calmed the ticking urgency I felt on a daily basis in order to make productive use of my time. That kind of urgency became too much to bear last year: With the world still in a pandemic holding pattern, I was also eyeing my 35th birthday in June, and I needed to answer questions from family incessantly. Didn’t feel closer – to where my career was headed, or whether I would have children, and if so – than it was ten years ago. Naturally, I didn’t tell this to my friend.

While I certainly yearned for pre-pandemic normalcy, or perhaps a time where my age was not nearly as consequential, I was also inspired by muthaland, Chattanooga, Tenn., the first album of 2020 by rapper Bibimutha. muthaland Helping me take myself out of this pressure to live up to everyone’s expectations. The album begins by promising a good time; In the opening skit, a game show contestant swallows an acid tab to enter Bibimutha’s world. This realm of her imagination ends up as a tangle of feelings and thoughts, where not a single factor – not her career or single motherhood – completely defines who she is.

I first heard about Bibimutha in 2016. Not long before artists like art rocker Björk embraced her. Even in this crowded music landscape, it’s hard to forget an artist who names their debut EP after an iconic makeup palette, or whose moniker dates back to their mid-20s as having two sets of twins. The latter is considered a badge of honor. Early singles like “Rules” and “Rose” were the talk of a smoky-eyed relationship that could make women completely in agreement (“I’m not going to waste my waist, my thighs, my time, and all my energy/effort. Can *** * which just not for me”). The ambitious concepts he had in mind for his debut album also looked promising. his first thought, prosperity gospel, as a result of her love-hate relationship with televangelist pastor Joel Osteen (“He can sell any f****** thing and you’ll just spend your money,” she once said). Later, she stated that she planned to call the album Christine; It would be inspired by a relative who killed men who either betrayed her or abused her.

Yet I didn’t really connect with Bibimutha until we were both at the peak of our frustrations with our careers. In July 2020, Atlanta’s NPR affiliate WABE dropped under the map, a Southern hip-hop podcast that I co-host, just as overall podcast listenership began to return to pre-pandemic levels. and until muthaland Arriving last August, BbyMutha was completely disillusioned with the music industry. “After this album I’m never doing it again,” she said. This rap retirement announcement ended prematurely, although at the time, listeners mourned the lost potential. In muthalandLong after that tab swallowed one of the most indulgent rap fantasies of all time, BbyMutha is a next-gen LA chat with wordplay inspired by Gucci Mane, a rare woman who navigates traps and orders sex from across the gender spectrum. But Bibimutha also emphasizes in “Holographic” that the journey is a “rave with roaches” swirling around her house. At the height of her musical talent, she could still find a place where she falls short.

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As the oldest of my cousins, I spent most of my life in Maryland oriented around achievement and success, setting a good example. After graduating during the 2008 recession, the older I’ve gotten, the harder it felt to be, shortly thereafter separated from my first and only 9-to-5 to pursue a culture journalism career. moved to Atlanta for what seemed frivolous or self-indulgent before this “Essential workers” became part of our lexicon. (“My mom actually ran away from the Vietnam War when she was 16, so I could see” My Block: Atlanta For work, I’m not a s***,” i once joked.) I attributed my lack of hustle to this fear of failure which only intensified over the years. and before muthaland, I looked for music that helped me wrestle with or push through those feelings. open mike eagle dark comedy Soundtracked my uncomfortable entry into the gig economy after college. I still turn to trap jeezy songs Let’s get on this: Thug Inspiration 101 Or DouBoys Cashout’s “started out as an activist” for a momentary boost.

In the spring of 2019, I learned that this persistently worrying and ensuing fatigue had a name: generalized anxiety disorder. (I’ve kept it a secret from my family; my uncle once said that Asians “take too much pride in going to therapy,” as statistics following the Atlanta-area spa shooting would show.) As I tracked my sleep and panic attacks in one notebook after another, I learned that perfectionism—my once default answer to job interviews—is, “What’s your biggest weakness?” – not really to be seen in a positive light at all. Still, my mother’s way of asking “How are you?” Keeps “Are you busy?” and “Are you making money?” And I still answer “yes” every time. It has taken me almost all the time in the past two years to accept that self-awareness is still a work in progress.

Last December, my therapist gave me an exercise regimen that I still use today. In a moment of crisis, I write down the first negative thought that comes to mind (“I always make the wrong decisions,” “My career is coming back,” “Christmas is ruined”). Then I write through a reality check, as if interviewing myself: Are all these ideas true? Or is there evidence that this situation is not as dire as I had feared?

I recognize this train of thought muthaland. Songs like “Roaches Don’t Die” become anthemic because when Bibimutha brags and boasts, it’s like “You don’t f*** with who’s who with who’s government stamp and wic, huh?” Like what happens between songs. When she looks in the mirror and longs for the confident woman she once was (“I miss that b**** sometimes”) she descends on a personal statement in the face of “heavy metal”. “They see the truth when they see me / They see they aunt and they mom and grandma, gee,” she raps. “They look in a mirror, it ain’t clear / I’m afraid of everything being b*****.” At the end of “Scam Likely”, Bibimutha mocks the pseudo-awakening, drag race-savvy listeners who insist on having her as a role model (“And she makes me feel so empowered that ****** is empowered – and i up“). I get her reasoning: Role models seem impenetrable. Bibimutha’s songs sound like she’s rebuilding her confidence in real time.

During my last visit, my therapist told me to work on my definition and measures of success. I still don’t have concrete answers that translate into neat life goals, though maybe that’s an answer in itself. muthaland Teaching me to lower expectations that may read as plausible but ultimately prove untenable. Its themes confirm how I felt after my first 2019 visit, which is that scientists should revisit the psychological properties of hallucinations, even after decades of government-imposed stigma. Bibimutha’s lyrics demonstrate that motherhood, as it would be, cannot replace a sense of self. Neither would career ambitions, for that matter: muthalandThe most obvious nod to any kind of rap pantheon is “outro (skit 5).” Game show hosts thanks “sponsors” Boosie, Webby, and Diamond and Princess from Crime Mob — and then in 19 seconds, it’s over. muthaland otherwise completely untouched by discussion about Rap’s Mount RushmoreHow sales and clout factor into greatness. In how its soul-searching slowly unfolds during its hour-long runtime, the album is teaching me that position is not everything, but timing is.

In the flurry of excessive social activity between getting vaccinated and preparing myself for the Delta version, here’s what I’ll remember most:

The post-vaccination journey that finally took place on a Sunday in May. By 6 p.m. the effect was gone, though my partner reading the tarot gave to our friend, the second Gemini, didn’t wrap up until close to midnight.

The first time I heard BbyMutha’s “GoGo Yubari,” a harsh indictment against her baby daddy and the nature of how she became a baby mama: “Another violent story, another self-esteem destroyed.” BbyMutha released it in June, one of several loose and unreleased EPs from this year. muthaland. (Thank god she didn’t actually retire.)

Finally, a passing comment from a friend ahead of her 35th birthday this month. The keyword was “milestone”, with this weighted expectation we had already achieved, suggesting that all this was not enough. “I’m always here to talk about it,” I said, and I meant it. After the past year of working as a stand-in confidant of BbyMutha, I feel ashamed personally, or a shame at all.

christina lee is a music and culture writer living in Atlanta. She co-hosts the podcast under the map.

The post BbyMutha’s ‘Muthaland’ Is Teaching Me That Status Isn’t Everything : NPR appeared first on Spicy Celebrity News.

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

It seems Disney underestimated the power of the Dark Side of its fan base with the box office failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story. It shows a fracturing among viewers and how future movies will be received (or not received) by audiences around the world. The major issue with the fans isn't that people outright hate the new direction of the series but many are upset that the universe they know and love for long is changing before them. Some of those changes are for the better with new stronger female leads in the movies (which was needed) and then there are changes that for the worse such as changing the established lore of the force and cutting back the extended universe, which ironically took dozens of strong female characters with it. So yay! Progress?

So I plan to make the case for being critical of the new movies. I plan to also chastize those jerkoffs who decided to attack female actresses for being role models for young girls. I plan to make a rational argument for the removed content cut away by Disney writers. I also plan on talking about how we can bridge these divides and bring everyone back together. You might not agree with everything I say or maybe you will. Most people almost never share 100% of their opinions with another person which was kind of the problem in all this... dissent was widdled down to either or and those fans with legit criticisms were pushed into the camp of those assholes who hate women and the concept of social justice/equity. Because there was no discourse or room for dissent, Disney Ultimately gambled on that disgruntled fanbase not being as influential as it is and they were wrong.

No Room For Dissent

This is a common problem in society these days, where we view things in absolutes; be it politics, movies, religion and so on. Perhaps we have always been like that (I only been around since 1985) but it feels pretty bad these day especially in regards to politics being so divisive or movies that look to present more female roles and ethnic roles in their casts taking so much flak. While I might make some political parallels to create examples, I intend on focusing on the cultural divides taking place in these popular movies.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the tribal mentality that comes when critiquing a movie. Studios benefit from having a cultural high ground because it's easier to say “You’re being sexist or racist” instead of handling a critique and having to answer for poor choices they made while making the movie. I imagine this is what happened in the case of the Ghostbusters reboot, some people asked why the black character wasn't the scientist and the studio reacted with “Why don't you like women?” A kind of deflection mentality that avoided a valid critique of the movie and shames the critic from raising his or her voice again.

The blame also falls at the feet of the very worst patrons of our society. On one side you have the army of trolls of the web who are by far the worst people the interwebs (and the world) has to offer. These are the sort of guys who see any female lead role as an insult and seek out to harass them in the real world forcing the said actresses to abandon social media. These sort of people (most of them male) leave me gritting my teeth because this isn't so much a passion of a fandom they want to protect as it is a lifestyle of attacking people who are not them. Everything is a fucking battle and anything that progresses or enhances another race/gender/sexuality beyond their own is considered a threat to their manhood.

On the other side, we have people who you would call PC and they are sometimes PC to a fault. I tend to find myself agreeing with people on this side more often than not but even then we have our moments where I am wondering what the fuck the objective is. They become advocates for a worthwhile cause but become blinded to valid points or arguments. Back to Star Wars, I wondered why Admiral Holdo was even in the movie because she was killed right away and Akbar or Leia could have had the noble death. The response is defensive of the female role simply because it's a female role. Studios obviously love these advocates because they still don't have to answer the questions and its a private army of people to protect their franchise.

The last group is fans which is a wide spectrum of people from little girls who see Rey and get excited to see a girl kicking ass on the screen to long-term fans who have questions about the lore of the movies being changed or questions why the movie changed directions. Most of us reside here between the two extremes; the PC movie defenders who see the film as a tool to improve society and those little troll fuckers who want to see the world burn.

The failing in this discussion about the movie is the fact those two polar opposites dictated the discourse for the rest of us. You either accepted the movie as it was and enjoyed being on the moral high ground or join the trolls if you have any small critiques of the movie whatsoever. Perhaps we more moderate critics failed a bit by letting the trolls become the loudest voice in the room and let them write letters where they basically bashed women became the only thing people could see. Much like a peaceful protest where 97% of the people are there to say their piece with civility and clarity but its those 3% (the Trolls) throwing trash cans thru the window that get the cameras on them and they define the protest with the media coverage. 

I blame also the Directors and Disney for playing this absolutist mentality where they say anyone who is complaining about the movie is a baby, sexist, racist or some other insult. They didn't seem to want to have any criticism and why would they?! Having a golden franchise that can basically prints money and where you can say anyone who dissents against us is a bigot of some sort, is a hell of a defense. No one wants to be with the trolls and be labeled as chauvinist or racist but because there was no spectrum or room for dissent they ultimately pushed critics and concerned fans to that side.

Respecting The Lore/Establish A Vision

Disney may not realize this but they fucked up pretty bad by cutting away the extended universe. I understand WHY they did it; thousands of characters, hundreds of worlds, dozens of stories to consider compiled over 40 years? I imagine the collective writers of Disney who saw the scope of what other people had built together and collectively shit their pants. It's a massive undertaking to try and apply the lore in a way that fans might enjoy or explore plots that we would love to see executed. The problem is instead of looking at this expanded universe as a foundation to build their movies on, they decided to slice it away and leave nothing but the core movies and a cartoon. I will try and break down why that was a mistake.

Fans Invested Most of Their Time Into The SWEU

What they may have not realized is the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy was not where fans invested most of their time. Yes, we loved those movies for being the gateway into this great fictional universe but ultimately watching the 6 films would take only 13 hours. Knights of the Old Republic a single game of that Star Wars Universe (that they cut away), takes at least 28 to 48 hours to complete. Then you add on other games Knights of the Old Republic 2, The Old Republic MMO, Shadows of the Empire, Battlefront 1/2, The Force Unleashed, Rogue Squadron, Empire at War, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Jedi Academy, Republic Commando and so on you are now looking at hundreds of hours invested to a single play thru or more likely THOUSANDS of hours for true gamers play each game a few times.

This is where the true long-term fans who buy Star Wars merchandise over a lifetime instead of a holiday season reside. It stays fresh in our minds as books, comics, games, and yes the movies become part of regular media diet. Disney perhaps felt overwhelmed by it or perhaps wanted to reboot the universe decided to take the vast majority of where our love resides in the Star Wars Universe and scrapped it. Like it or not this is where they lost most of their following and since they did it just before the release of the The Last Jedi they have since been dealing with the fallout of loyal fans who feel betrayed and I am not talking just about the bitchy trolls from online either.

Removal of Strong Female Roles

I like seeing Ray as a strong female character and we all, of course, we all love Leia as well. There is no doubt the Star Wars movies while centered around some strong female characters have been pretty much been male-dominated for those first six films. So the change is not only warranted but welcomed.

What is a shame as while that was true for the movies it was far from the truth for the SWEU content where there were literally dozens of strong female leads they could have been explored by Disney.

Meetra Surik

Mara Jade

Bastila Shan

Mission Vao

Juno Eclipse

Iden Versio

Jaina Solo

Maris Brood

Visas Marr

Jan Ors

And so many more...

These women come different walks of life being the daughter of Han and Leia (Jaina Solo), plucky engineers who travel with a Wookie (Mission Vao), former Sith turned to the Light Side (Mara Jade), former Imperial Pilots and Soldiers fighting for the Rebellion (Juno and Iden), or even one of the most powerful Jedi’s in the Galaxy (Meetra Surik). I suppose what is best about them being fictional is that they still exist and if Disney wants to start mending bridges they should star readapting these characters into the canon universe.

The Best Stories Exist Before And After The Movies

I suppose for some the story of Skywalker family struggle was enough for them but the bigger stories existed long before the Empire/First Order and greatest conflict took place years after. The Mandalorian Wars, where warriors raider world after world forcing the Galactic Republic to step in. The Great Galactic War pitting the Sith against Jedi across the galaxy. The Invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong leaving trillions dead across hundreds of worlds and nearly destroying all life.

These stories are part of that extended universe and far more compelling than the recycled Death Star plot we saw in 4 of the 10 Star Wars movies. The audience craved to see the Jedi at their peak when they maintained peace across the universe, or they wish to see the Sith exist not in pairs but as an Empires themselves. If Disney wants to explore this franchise than embrace the stories that have not yet been shown on screen.

Establishing A Vision

Disney has enjoyed great success with the MCU and dozens of movies its created. They also managed to get their mittens on the Star Wars Universe and seek to milk it much the same. The problem is they don't seem to have a clear idea where they want to go with the movies or what they should do with it. I already discussed how complex the universe is with all its lore but you (Disney) have control over the movies. The rights to the toys, games, books, comics and films an like it or not we are at your mercy of where you decide to take it. 

I suppose I am advocating having a vision for the future of this series. Marvel Cinematic Universe works because the stories were planned out with a sort of climactic point to be explored (IE the Infinity Wars) so we know you can practice good foresight. On the other hand... John Carter, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the Lone Ranger display a carelessness of other franchises. Not trying to be mean, just stating a fact. We saw it happen with other movies like Batman in the 90′s where the objective was selling toys and not making a quality film that could encourage people to buy merchandise for decades. I guess what I am trying to say is Harry Potter this franchise, treat it with love and care that the fanboys and fangirls so we can go with you on this adventure into a galaxy far far away.

A Letter to You Troll Douchbags

Some of us critics truly love movies. We see the flaws as they are and we want to be able to say our views with other people around a table. I had my issues with the magical properties of the heart-shaped herb in Black Panther. I wish they continued Ghostbusters 3 with Oscar (Jason Gordon Lovitt) taking over and having some young black scientists (played by Donald Glover and Jessica Williams) being the Ghostbusters (and Role Models) in the movie. I have some issues with The Last Jedi and how they changed the flow of the movie from one director to the next but you little bitches keep making these debates about race and fucking gender every fucking time. You see a woman on screen and you write up a review of a movie that isn't even out yet because you’re somehow afraid of the 50 movies released over the year you somehow won't be represented.

Cut your fucking shit out you little pricks. We cant make honest critiques now because you’re the first fucking twits to review a film and all you spew is the vial fucking hate raging against everything that isn't you. Honestly, the rest of us just want to enjoy ourselves, we are grown up enough to know white isn't the only skin color in the seats of the movie theater and male isn't the only gender of a hero (we call them heroines) in movies.

I picked these movies on purpose because they were topical and I had my issues with them (and I have my issue with every movie save Shaun of the Dead which is fucking perfect). I wanted to write reviews that were balanced because I want to believe we can have that discourse again where we can chat why a movie works or doesn't work without the risk of having labels like sexist or racist applied to us because you want to act out. So please for the love of god either commit to shoving your head further up your ass so we can't hear you or pull your head out and join the rest of the world. Either way, I am tired of having to apologize and denounce your rhetoric... it's honestly fucking exhausting.

Regards Michael California