#And I know I didn’t go in-depth with all the nuances of specific stuff but I wanted this post to be somewhat short and to the point

[fandomsoda]

Last night someone said something that was somewhat yikesy and it just got blind likes and stuff from everyone else.

This is not a call-out post. This is not here to belittle or shame the person in question and I hope that is understood. I’m currently working on a much larger post to address this issue broadly because it is an issue that is bigger than one person’s bad take and I already have attempted to explain why the take is… wrong and very evident of a lack of understanding of how the topic at hand works because I see it from many people.

but y’all I am pretty disappointed. Because everyone just sat there and accepted that claim. And it shows y’all have a lot of learning to do when it comes to understanding of the caveats of life and social issues and oppression.

For now I will just say this.

A member of a minority making a member of the majority uncomfortable or being rude to them regarding their identity IS NOT EQUAL TO OPPRESSION. Is it nice? Probably not. Should a minority person have to be polite in order to have what they say be valid? Hell no. Are there times where what’s being said is wrong? Yes. Are the majority person’s feelings hurt? Maybe. Is that oppression? No.

There is no heterophobia, there is no cisphoba, to my knowledge y’all seem to understand that. So you should understand it regarding other situations. Because that group has the systematic upper hand, it’s punching up, not punching down.

of course there are always complexities and caveats and exceptions to rules, but broadly that’s how it usually works.

And insinuating that minorities fighting back or being somewhat rude to their oppressors is “oppression” is not only insensitive and offensive, it is downright harmful to that minority. It might hurt their feelings, it might not be nice, hell it might even be too cruel or wrong, but it’s still not oppression. And I know people who hold this take are not intentionally being harmful or cruel and I know you may feel the urge to defend yourself, that’s human, but stop and wait before getting defensive. Understand that you are not under attack. No one is calling you a bad person. And chances are that you aren’t. You are simply being criticized. And I know that can be hard to handle, but in order to grow and become better people and better at understanding the world around us we must be willing to accept that sometimes we are wrong.

That’s all for now but this is just a small, specific part of a wider issue I’m noticing.

Do better, people. I understand you’re gonna make mistakes and mistakes are a part of learning but you’ve gotta be willing to learn and understand the matter. Because if you don’t learn now from someone who is being very gentle about it, you might have to learn it later from someone who is not nearly as patient or nice. Or you may never learn at all. And that’s not good either.

final note- please do not attempt to go looking for and shame the “someone” in question. Do not mention them in the notes either if you know who I may be referring to. They have responded very well to this criticism and should not be attacked for something they are willing to get better on.

[galedekarios]

i'm reading a new interview tim downie gave about gale and it offers some of tim's own headcanons about gale, as well as tim's thoughts and insights on gale's character:

Nerds & Beyond: I like that you mentioned that the game is full of rounded characters because they are, they all have different aspects that make them feel real. I adore that Gale specifically is so serious and studious, but at the same time he has this really playful side — he often jokes about how he was a mischievous youth, he encourages other people like Arabella to do so, he understands when The Dark Urge first mentions their violent thoughts. There is a lot of nuance and depth there. But the quality that I love with Gale most is that obviously he is very ill when we first meet him – not that we know immediately – and he’s dealing with a lot of chronic pain. I find him incredibly selfless because he takes that day-to-day head on to help the party, which is an aspect I feel continues to show throughout the three acts. What’s your favorite quality of Gale’s, or what did you take away from him? Tim Downie: It’s so interesting hearing you say that, because I had so many different feedbacks about what people take from the character and sometimes things really surprise you. It’s interesting hearing that such and such has taken that particular aspect, because there are broad things like “He’s funny,” and that’s quite nice, that’s a nice trait, though not one you necessarily get to see that much. It’s so interesting hearing other people’s views about what they take from Gale.  The idea of dealing with chronic pain I found really interesting and an interesting subplot to play, and that was the great thing about doing something like this is that it is so unbelievably nuanced. You have so many layers that just keep going and going and going, as much as we all contain multitudes within ourselves. We all deal with these things, but only certain things pop up to the surface at any given point.  What did I take from Gale, though? I liked his studiousness. I would imagine that he was probably bullied as a kid for it, and he was probably a bit of a joker because he was bullied, and he uses that as a defense. But an even bigger defense for him is “I now know stuff that I didn’t before,” and that’s a power. It’s very similar to when you are being bullied and you’re the funny one – that’s your power, that’s your thing. “I may not be able to hurt you in a traditional sense, but I can say things that will make you feel pain,” which is a very different thing because you physically can’t go after them.  That’s the wonderful thing about acting and this character as well is being able to explore all these things that you might not have, that you might have gone, “I’m not gonna look at that again, I don’t want to deal with that,” and then it brings it up again and it’s like, “Oh, this is actually quite cathartic,” to re-explore these these moments of sorrow and loss and how you deal with grief and things like that and heartbreak and how you get over that.  It’s not all just tears, you do try and make a joke of it.

i really like that they are addressing the topic of gale's chronic pain. it's something that doesn't get addressed often, not even in the game itself.

i also found his answer as to why people might connect to gale very nice:

Nerds & Beyond: Gale is the most popular origin character to play as. What is it about him that you think allows so many different players to connect with him to the depths the fandom has? Tim Downie: I really don’t know. I think you’d have to ask the players that, ‘cause I don’t know, to be quite honest with you. He’s a wizard, and who wouldn’t want to be a wizard at the end of the day? I always say the difference between wizards and sorcerers is that sorcerers just pretend – they just assume they know what they’re doing, but a wizard has really learned this trade. And so there’s that kind of weight of knowledge and learning, which I would love to play as and be for a length of time.  I think it’s also the frailties. I like characters, and a lot of people do I’m assuming, that have flaws, otherwise you’ve made them completely unapproachable. To be completely superhuman or completely extraordinary at something then removes the humanity from it because it becomes like, “Well, that’s never gonna happen.” But when there’s a flaw, when there’s, “Oh, I’ve got that wrong, too,” or like, “My knees hurt” as you say, or “I’ve got a bit of a headache. I really don’t want to do this,” “You’re really annoying me, this is very annoying, could you please hurry up?” or “Stop licking the damn thing,” it’s always those moments that are fun because it shows what we’re all thinking at that point, it removes it from almost archetype and stereotype and it becomes human in a way.

gale is approachable and likeable, has flaws, but is genuinely nice. i think that very much sums up his character.

this bit here made me laugh:

Nerds & Beyond: When you’re talking about those different layers in the humanity building, I think one of the most important aspects in this game is the more “background” or passive dialogue, so dialogue that is prompted in the world and not in the cut scenes.  For instance — the first time I made Gale sneak he immediately complained about his knees, and it was such a real moment where he was just like, “Oh, don’t make me do this. This is not what I’m here for, I’ve got bad knees and I’m not made for this.” Did you have any of those background lines or moments that stick out as being particularly fun to craft?  Tim Downie: I remember the first time I ever had to do waiting, I found it infinitely interesting in so many ways. The idea that I did actually just have to wait and just actually, “Hmm…” Those little things I find really funny because they’re probably the closest to me that the character ever gets. His waiting mannerisms are kind of very English – slightly annoyed and I’m not going to show it to you though because we’re all being very nice, but I’ll do it with a huff and a slightly sarcastic, “Well, that’s great. Another 20 minutes. That’s great.” Those kinds of sentiments I found wonderful and incredibly fun, and funny, to do. 

if you want to read the whole interview for yourself, you can do so here!

[soullessjack]

so before I conk out for the night I wanna try and explain all the more complicated stuff with baby!jack and like, how exactly it is more complicated, because not only do I think my own temper tends to make me address it very accusingly and in bad-faith, but also it’s just important to know in the long run. I really hope this is actually worth it because I am sadly very used to wasting my words on people who do not want to listen and also because I’m sleepy and delaying it to make this.

•••

first and foremost, jack being autistic was not something anybody in the show was planning or intending for his character. it wasn’t something alcal had in his head to portray jack and it wasn’t something he was directed to portray. jack is very much a case of what I call accidental autism, or having autism coding; all of the traits that were meant to indicate that he’s a supernatural being wound up aligning very well with autistic traits (as is the case with many nonhuman characters like robots or aliens). then, autistic people in the fandom pointed it out and made it a popular headcanon, which was then brought up to alcal at a convention and basically confirmed/canonized from there.

i wasn’t on tumblr in 2017 (unless you count opening link tabs from other websites) so I wasn’t “there” for babyjack, but you don’t really have to be there to get it. guy is chronologically three years old but an adult in every other way because supernatural creature logic, people wonder “hey what if he was his actual age.” and it’s cute for a little bit, it’s a chance for the poor heavily traumatized guy to catch a break. you see the appeal of that sort of content. nobody’s doing it with bad intentions or even the remotest idea of jack being autistic.

but even though I wasn’t on tumblr for jacks appearance on the show, again I did have minor access to tumblr posts via Pinterest and links, so I could see the “discussions” and whatever. and let me tell you. I was thirteen years old. in eighth grade. when he showed up. and even then I noticed this .. pattern? in the fanart and the talk and all and I remember specifically thinking “yeah I get it he’s baby, but can we actually talk about him” because literally nobody as far as I could see was doing it.

that was six-almost-seven years ago. I am now 19 years old, almost two years graduated from high school, and save for a few blogs (bless u for your work folks), there is still a shocking amount of ppl who just Do Not think about jack with any sort of nuance or complexity. who don’t even engage w his character unless he’s a babyI also didn’t keep up with babyjack cuz it never appealed to me in the first place, But as i got more engrossed in the fandom i saw that it pretty much became the only content being made for jacks character. no in depth discussion or actual canon fanart or anything like that for jack unless u go to a very tiny cobwebby corner of the fandom basically.

•••

if you’re wondering how this comes back to jack being autistic, don’t worry. this is the introduction to that topic. so reiterating the first two things:

in 2017 jack is immediately clocked as precious baby smol bean must protecc material and his whole age situation + all the trauma he basically speedruns leads to au’s where he matches his chronological age. poor boy never stood a chance at being examined critically as a complex person.

(also this is not a time-lined post but it’s very important to add 2017 to gauge the span of this content and also the internet fandom culture of that era).

somewhere down the line autistic fans pick up on Jack’s traits and connect it to our own traits. hashtag autistic jack kline is real and eventually it reaches the silly actor man alcal and the long short of his answer is “representation and having that kind of connection is important so if you think he’s autistic then he’s autistic.” canon by destiel rules basically

However, the entire time that jack is being recognized as autistic and praised/appreciated as representation, people are still going strong with baby!jack content, so strong in fact that it’s insisted as actual canon by some. and I kind of get it. they’re two lil headcanon niches and aren’t gonna cross paths a whole lot. but they still do because it’s the same character and people are sort of starting to connect the dots that Hey This Is Kind Of Weird. autism gang notices that baby gang’s reasoning for Jack being a baby (besides the age) is just his autistic traits. not great! not fun! people start making tiny criticisms of it here and there.

and of course there’s people in the fandom who want to Fuck The Guy and that totally does not pour gasoline on the fire when the discourse is about whether or not the Guy In Question is a mentally stunted large child or just a really autistic teenager.

.

I can’t finish this post I’m sorry I am Not going to bed at 3am again. TLDR every criticism is ignored and the babyjack people keep doing their thang and the really really annoying ones insist it’s canon and call u a pedophile if u want to fuck the guy and just refuse to really acknowledge that they are being ableist at the point in time after he is established to be autistic and also there’s multiple points in the show that literally make it so obvious he’s an adult but no. Ignore whatever u want to pretend he’s a baby.

TLDR again accidentally autistic character creates accidental ableism that people keep double downing on and NOW the general problem is that they are doubling down.

lastly. a LOT of you really and truly need to reconsider why the only way you are willing or able to engage with an autistic teenager character is if they are an infant with absolutely no semblance of personality or development from the actual show AND being specifically depicted this way in order to create the idea of your ship or found family being domestic AND you continuously ignore criticisms of it by autistic people who are telling you it is harmful and rooted in some bad shit. you really really truly genuinely no exaggeration really need to do some thinking about why the fuck you’re doing all that. Goodnight everybody

[sophieswundergarten]

Live Reaction of Sophie Being Utterly WRECKED by Chapter 13 of S.O.S.

@nobody33333333. I have no apologies or disclaimers. You Know What You Did.

OOOOHHHHHHHH. You have NO IDEA how ecstatic I am at reading this!! Going to have a hard time containing myself :D 

Already, Garrison is locked on to the psychic aspect of the situation. Makes you wonder what that tunnel vision is blocking from her?

Oh no. Ah, she thinks it’s Kate!! This is horrible.

Interesting that she still doesn’t want to brainsweep her, even though she’s scared.

NO. NO IT WASN’T A GOOD REASON. IT’S KATE!!!!!!

Man, just jumping straight into the deep end with all of the Garrison angst. I love you, Bods, but goodness gracious

I love that Jackson is just screaming at the top of his lungs like a maniac and then immediately drops to (attempting to be) professional when Curtain answers. Love me some Muppet Twins.

Also, side note, I adore how you’ve set it up so they all are guessing, and the suspicion mostly lands on Kate and Reynie. It’s so clever!!! Because everyone is working with different pieces of information, and so they’re making the wrong assumptions. It’s like that one fable with the blind men and the elephant.

NICHOLAS. Even if Milligan had been hurt by the Sender, That Doesn’t Mean You Are At Fault.

(You should know you’re a good author when I spend a good 64% of my time yelling at the characters, because you are just so skilled at writing their thoughts/personalities)

And Miss Perumal’s back!!! Oh, the way you write her is such a wonderful balance of protector and mother, she’d be my favourite to read if it didn’t change every five seconds.

Jeffers!!!

Poor SQ. He’s so hurt and angry but he’s trying to handle it “maturely” and he’s so alone. I want to hug him :( 

And the depth you added!!! All the little details and nuances you include, like the stuff about SQ wanting to go to college and Curtain’s anxiety over the whole situation, culminate in such a glorious emotional payoff that gives insight to the character being complex people who pretty much all have a sympathetic side. You are a genius for keeping track of all of it, and the pacing is just masterful.

He lied!! I know it isn’t helping in this direct situation, but I’m so proud of him!! (As opposed to the fairly simple and unadulterated relief I felt when watching the show)

Oh, and then you flip it. I want to root for the kids, obviously, but when you follow up every victory with Curtain’s desperate panic as his carefully crafted world is crumbling down around him, how can I?

And he immediately channels it to “productive” anger. Oh, I am scared for the kids.

Milligan!!!

I love how you can put words to Milligan’s protectiveness without making it seem like he doesn’t care about the other children.

The fact that she immediately fixates on her bucket, instead of even thanking Milligan as I’d guess she normally would, has always stuck with me. Because it is the epitome of Kate’s relationship with her bucket: She needs to have it, it is where she derives comfort and safety, and it just drives me up a wall because it’s what she’s supposed to be getting from him, and what she probably would be feeling if she let herself stop and think about it. But she’s been on her own for so long that she can’t stop and let herself accept the help and reassurance from him. She needs to keep going.

And Milligan just supports her!! He doesn’t really understand the bucket specifically, but he loves her and so he’s willing to help her in whatever way she needs. And, the thing is, he kind of does understand, at least, better than she knows. The symbolism here is amazing, not least because it’s foreshadowing about their relationship. It’s like that one thing, “When you live through something incredibly hard and you survive, you become the person who would have saved you then” or something. Milligan is helping her in the way that he could have been helped, in being caught, in being saved from having to face the cliff and escape alone, and in helping her understand who she is.

It’s just… SO GOOD!!! You communicate it so well, and I keep rereading that bit over and over again because I love it. The emotion that is woven throughout is so intense, and so pure and lovely!! Agh, you have a very good gift with words, my friend.

And he offers to get her a new bucket!! And he tells her how much he loves her!! And how she’s always welcome. You’re going to make me cry :( 

The horrible, horrible, beautiful contrast of how much he wants Kate to be loved and valued, and how he keeps thinking about how crazy it is that someone “abandoned” her.

Wait. Wait, Milligan is being reminded of Curtain!!! Oh, Constance and her situation and Kate and it all makes him think of his friend. The element of abandonment again. I— I do not have the words for how I feel about this. But It Is A Lot.

OH. OH YOU THINK THIS IS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO HAVE A PARENT??? KATE??????

Ah, man, it’s heartbreaking that she is weirded out by having someone, specifically an adult, care if she fell off a cliff. That’s, like, The Lowest Bar

 I am once again feeling the Milk Urge to consume drywall!!!!!!

She’s so surprised!! She’s totally thrown off that they (and, again, Milligan specifically) would go to such lengths to keep them safe!!! What!!!

You Write The Wetheralls In Such A Way That Makes Me Want To Screech But Please Know That I Am Hugging You As Hard As I Possibly Can In My Mind

Ah, yes, The Blue Beret EventTM

Nicholas is so lost, and he’s just as hurt as Curtain, but he won’t allow himself to see it because he feels so guilty.

And he doesn’t trust himself!!! He is letting other people direct him, but that’s why everything is falling apart. They don’t know the full situation, that’s one of the lonely things about being a genius; you can’t always rely on just anyone, because they don’t see things the way you do. And then Miss Perumal says a new thing and throws him off again!!

Goodness, the way you write that little paragraph of his confusion and confliction is exquisite.

I like the bit about how Miss Perumal needs to go home to her mother! The wording, and Nicholas’ reflection on it really hits home that part of her personality!! (I think you added that, but, regardless, reading through it in your style gives a better perspective on both characters, and their relationship to one another!)

Ajasdhgjkasdghkjdsajk And he’s so worried about Miss Perumal’s family (EXHILARATED with how you had him automatically include Reynie), once again missing the point of how it affects him!!!

The Stenographer!!! I like him. Does he have a name? I feel like it should be… Martin. Or Tyler. Or maybe Raphael. I don’t know, but he’s neat. Sorry for my goofy little tangent, you just have this fantastic skill for making me emotional over side characters and background people, so I’m preparing myself, in case :) 

And the way you add in the “Squeak”s!! Ooh, I could feel the agitation and anxiety building in myself just from reading it, and of course, Curtain is going to be super sensitive to that, because he needs everything to be under his control and Just So.

Which leads him to make ridiculous demands of his poor stenographer.

Reynie!! He’s trying so hard to work around all of his worry and tell the truth, even if in little bits.

STOPMINDGAMINGTHECHILDLEDROPHTA

As much as I’d like to give Curtain credit for being a human polygraph machine as he seems to think he is, Reynie is just garbage at lying. So am I, kid, don’t worry about it. But it is funny how the scene can be interpreted either as Curtain being super good at his job and making Reynie nervous, or Reynie doing his best but just being stuck in a situation he isn’t suited for. THIS is what I keep saying about your writing: I sympathise equally with all the characters and am deeply invested in each and every one of them, regardless of if I even remembered they existed from the show.

THE STAR THING IS BACK

(Okay, I know that was from the show, but you keep building up to/creating this star motif and it is driving me bonkers I Love It)

Noooooo, he thinks it’s Nicholas trying to hurt him!!!!! Why must you tear me apart in this way

“Reynie Muldoon was intelligent. He was. Curtain could admit that. But he didn’t have Sticky’s gift” You are so good at balancing all of the characters, it’s insane. Mentioning the other kids when writing from a single one’s perspective or even from an adult’s is so cool, because it reinforces the concept of them being connected, and relying on each other. Oh, man, it’s just awesome to see!!!

Poor Jeffers, he’s just getting put in awkward positions even without his bumbling buffoonery.

NO. Ah, I forgot the Implications of Jackson, Jillson, and Martina being friends, no this is awful

AKJSFHJFKHDDSKJKJHDGSHKJDG BODS

I am going to. Just. Combust on the spot HOW DARE YOU

Okay. Okay I am going to RantTM now and you’re just going to have to DEAL for yanking my heart out by the strings and then stomping it into the ground

Y O U   C A N   S E E   T H E M   L O S I N G   I T.  

You can see, even in such a short bit, how Curtain’s brainwashing is creating a conflict with what they personally have come to believe. They feel betrayed and confused and scared, and the line “Dr. Curtain had always been there for them, and someone as smart and as generous as him would never lie”, but he would!!! AND HE DID!!!!!

And they love Martina, of course, but now that the floor has dropped out from under them they turn to each other, because that’s all they have left. Curtain isn’t going to comfort them, he’s not going to be a source of kindness and support, he’s too Busy And Important. But, they are still, without really thinking about it, going to rely on him even more, because now that Martina “betrayed” them, he’s the only person who has “been there for them” (And, again, we see the sort of mindset they have of being more of a single unit, because of how close they are. They don’t consider each other an outside human, but rather a vital component of themself)

And the fact that they don’t even realise the need to distance themselves from Martina and throw her under the bus is because Curtain is manipulating them and mistreating them!!! They feel like it’s a rational reaction, because of course the man they’ve spent their whole lives working to repay for the fantastic service of occasionally being polite to them is the good guy. When faced with their own facts and decisions, and years of Curtain’s lies, they don’t know where to turn!!!

“Jackson and Jillson lifted their heads and looked sadly at each other. Martina had tricked them into being her friends? Well, they supposed in light of this evidence, there couldn’t be any other explanation” HE’S DOING THE SAME THING HE DOES TO SQ!!!! WHAT!!! HOW CAN YOU BE SO CARELESS TO NOT EVEN GRANT THEM THE KINDNESS OF PRETENDING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR PAIN LIKE YOU DO WITH YOUR OWN SON. NO, YOU JUST DO THE BAD STUFF THAT’LL HURT THEM, BUT BOY WILL IT MAKE THEM COMPLIANT. PRESENTING YOURSELF AS THE ONLY SAFE OPTION DOESN’T MAKE IT LOYALTY

Okay. Going to try and calm down now. But Marie Curie’s Notebook, Bods, did you have to do that to me?

Madge Perspective!!

Constance and Madge rivalry is one of my favourite things to come out of this, and it is slightly making up for the gaping hole in my heart from the last passage

I appreciate that you gave her a reason for not giving the note to Reynie!! This actually makes a lot of sense and works so awesomely with the continuity :D 

AND SHE GOES TO TAKE SQ’S SANDWICH I LOVE HER

AND HE RECOGNISES HER THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE

Oh, and now it’s sad again. You’re giving me whiplash with all this, I swear…

Ah, no. I knew this had to happen but it doesn’t make it any less painful, especially to read through in your writing.

Somehow, the fact that “You’re not nice at all” was such a cutting remark for both of the boys speaks volumes about them.

The way you keep leveraging their age differences as something SQ is ashamed of!!! I’ve moved on from the drywall and am unscrewing and consuming my light bulbs. Just— AGH. I can’t think of the words to get this feeling across properly… SQ was being vulnerable, and opening himself up to someone who could really understand him, and now he’s being made to feel ashamed over it for things that are not his fault!! WHAT???

And Reynie is trying so incredibly hard!!!! Oh, this was one of my absolute least favourite parts of the show, it just hurts so much and it reminds me of that bit in the books when SQ tells Sticky that the best thing to do was “not to have cheated in the past”. The best thing would be if they could have somehow avoided this situation, because of how it hurt both of them :( 

Nice detail about SQ’s tutors!!

Oh, but the poor boy’s so hurt. AND IT WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THIS BAD IF CURTAIN HADN’T BEEN INSTILLING SUCH RIDICULOUS CONCEPTS INTO HIS KID FOR YEARS

Jeepers Has Jeeped It Up Again

And now Curtain is spiralling!! Part of me is like “The nerve of him, after he just destroyed several children”, but, alas, your writing has gotten to me again and I actually feel kind of bad for him

Nicholas isn’t laughing at you, you GRASSHOPPER, he’s CRYING because he LOVES YOU

And Garrison is having to bear so much of his anger. It’s that other thing, the one about how you treat people close to you worse because you trust them to love you anyway? Except BAD because they’ve both been through so much it’s just getting wildly more unhealthy by the day

“Now all she could do was hope that whatever psychics and spies were crawling about the Institute were able to get their job done before Curtain found them” It’s so weird how she doesn’t have the information necessary in the slightest, but somehow she’s kind of closer to the truth than Curtain is

(This isn’t important in the slightest, and not to undercut the drama and tension of this scene, but I hate that stupid hallway painting outside Curtain’s office with a PASSION)

Ooooh, the way you sprinkle little hints of doubt into SQ’s thoughts is absolutely fantastic. And painful. Very Painful.

Reynie’s so scared but you know he wouldn’t really blame SQ even if he did get brainswept

The way you added SQ’s backstory with the Helpers!! That’s so cool!! Oh my heavens, I am in love with how you added that!!!!

THIS CHILD IS SO EMPATHETIC WORRY ABOUT YOUR OWN SELF REYNARD

Now, just because I don’t think Reynie, as a small, incredibly stressed child, should be overly worried about SQ doesn’t mean I am not worried, oh my word. This Child!!! Needs A Hug!!!! Now!!!!

Jeeps.

But, the thing is, Curtain is so upset!! And he’s not upset because his Evil Villain Mastermind plan is going awry, he’s upset because the (Astoundingly Unhealthy) coping mechanisms are failing him! It makes me want to Pat Him On The Back, because I don’t think a hug would end well

MAYBE MARTINA WOULD BE FRIENDS WITH HIM IF YOU LET HIM TALK TO PEOPLE

But, really, Curtain would probably hate Martina as an influence on SQ because she’d challenge him

“Would you care to reconsider that answer, son?” And you wonder why the kid’s got trust issues

And this is it!!! Oh, Bods, I am Vibrating. Curtain’s emotional dam is cracking and it’s going to go so terribly but I wish he’d just work it out Lands Sakes Alive

It’s so infuriating that he’s being such a funky little oxymoronic moron and forcing himself not to feel emotions by thinking about people he cares about

AKJFHDHGJKGSDHJGKJGKJKHJGKJHGSKJHDKJHDGSKJSDG

DOCTOR GARRISON????????

I’m going to have a heart attack one of these days, Heavens to Betsy

SQ!!! AND THE SECRET LAB!!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING!!!!

Oh, Milligan is so proud of Kate!! As he should be!! You write him going into these cute detail spirals whenever he thinks about Kate, and it’s so sweet!! I love it :) 

Just the small scenes you add to fill in what we see in the show are gorgeous!!! They make me fantastically happy to read

Oh, Jackson and Jillson. They really need to discover their own personalities. Someone please save them from themselves (And Curtain)

(Quick Note: The word “falcon” has a tiny little typo in it. Nothing to worry about, I just thought you might want to know)

ONCE AGAIN. HOW IS CURTAIN ACTUALLY KIND OF CLOSE BUT SO OFF THE MARK??????

Erika!!

BODS I AM SHAKING YOU BY THE SHOULDERS I AM CRYING AND MELTING INTO THE FLOOR THROWING UP FROM THE PURE EMOTION HOW COULD YOU DO THIS I AM ABOUT TO LOSE MY MIND HOW DARE YOU HOW COULD YOU DO THIS THIS IS THE END FOR ME

ASKJKHJDGSKHJDSGKJDGKJGDFKJHFGKJHDGKJHDSGJKL

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I DO NOT HAVE THE WORDS TO ARTICULATE THIS I AM BANGING MY FACE INTO THE WALL BODS PLEASE KNOW IF I WAS EVEN ANYWHERE NEAR YOU I WOULD BE BRAVING THE STREETS TO DRIVE TO YOUR HOUSE AND CRY ON YOUR COUCH. AFTER I EAT ALL YOUR LIGHT BULBS.

The thing about SQ hiding in the woods!! The bird ice cream!!!

THE FACT THAT SQ CAN’T QUITE REMEMBER THE LAST TIME HE WAS GIVEN THE ICE CREAM

NO. I DON’T TRUST HIM “MAILING OUT” THE APPLICATIONS. CURTAIN MAY LOVE HIS SON BUT HE IS OBVIOUSLY  HORRENDOUSLY MISGUIDED AND KIND OF COWARDLY OH MY HEAVENS. NIKOLA TESLA AND HIS COILS I AM ABOUT TO LOSE IT.

Okay. Okayokayokayokayokayokayokay. Listen. If this is a pattern (Which it’s seeming pretty likely), then there’s a whole other side that’s probably unintentional!!! Whenever Curtain brainsweeps SQ, which I’m assuming happens every couple of years, then Curtain gets all concerned and is much more careful with SQ because A) He feels bad, and B) SQ is super disoriented and out of it. WHICH MEANS THAT IT REINFORCES IN SQ’S MIND THAT HIS DAD IS THE ONE TO RELY ON WHEN IN STATES OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS. WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO ME

Oh, Oh Garrison. You are worth more than just throwing up and downing pain meds to try and get through life. 

I wish Milligan, or even Curtain when he was slightly more stable, was there to care about her

(This might be me off on a mad as a March hare tangent, but is there a possibility for Garrison’s headache being because she is also a bit psychic?? I’m probably super wrong, but I am also absolutely bouncing off the walls with all of the Brain Bees you’ve given me)

And Curtain still makes her vegan food. Even though she doesn’t fully get it, and Curtain is being all crazy, he still cares about her it makes me so sad

ASHJHHHJKDSG I’m willing to bet that this is also the first time in a while she’s gotten any compliments at all, aside from the children

She’s trying to be a good person!!! But she’s also awfully conflicted like everyone else in this miserable disaster of a decaying friend group, and so it’s going badly!!! I also feel like someone might need to talk to her about her social struggles, because if she’d just stop trying to force herself to be some kind of muddied idealised hypothetical version of herself, then she might get somewhere

(And also if Curtain got off her back a little. I don’t know, I just feel like it says something about her that she has the easier time talking to children out of everyone else)

Martina!!!

Oh, she’s probably also falling apart because either she’s a fugitive and Jackson and Jillson betray her or she’s absolved and Kate’s in the wrong

The dual reactions!!!! The confusion!!! THE FACT THAT NOBODY ACTUALLY KNOWS WHAT’S GOING ON

ASFKKJDS He’s leaving them in the Waiting Room overnight??? I can’t remember if that happened in the show, but, overkill much??

Oh, and Milligan is having a crisis over being a horrible person, and then has no time to breathe as he’s absolutely panicked over what’s going to happen to Kate

DOCTOR GARRISON????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

…

Bods. Buddy, Bud, Nobody, Bods.

I Am Going To Start Weeping Openly As Soon As I Finish Stealing All Of Your Left Socks

THE SIGNATURE NOBODY GUT-PUNCH ENDING

WHOOOO

I hope you know that I am wrecked, and I will never, ever be able to move past this. Seriously. I am going to remember this fic for the rest of my life, and I am just. Beyond words.

[Despite being at a loss for words, Sophie proceeded to yell and climb the walls for the next forty-five minutes]

I am going to. Just. This is insane!!! You have broken my brain!!! The Bees have been flash-frozen and are dropping like rocks!!! I can’t even process All That.

I NEED YOU TO UNDERSTAND THAT I AM ABOUT TO EXPLODE BECAUSE THIS HAS BEEN SO, SO GOOD AND GRAND AND I COMMEND YOU AS A WRITER AND A CREATIVE AND A HUMAN BUT ALSO I AM GOING TO SCREAM NOW

One of these days I’m going to have to write a full-blown essay, or, like, make a PowerPoint about how I have been emotionally devastated because your writing has fully cemented itself as a fundamental part of my personality.

Just. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of these days I am going to learn the words to get across to you how much this means with me and how Full Of Emotion I Am

Oh, goodness, I need to go to sleep.

I couldn’t wait and I really wanted to read it, but my “reviews” have become less coherent commentaries and more “live” reactions, and there was so much going on that I needed to get all of my thoughts out immediately.

Thank you, thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou, thank you, Thank You, from the bottom of my heart, for this. This chapter, this fic, this entirety of you existing. Thank you so much

Alright, I’m going to try and sleep now, as if I am ever going to recover from this :)

[afatlotofchance]

Warning about a disturbed kink artist

I announced I had a lot to talk about - and I will first talk of the bad stuff. Before the end of the year I want to make three posts talking about (or revealing) bad stuff I encountered or that happened to me, that shaped my relationship to this whole kink side of the Internet, and maybe as a warning for you all, to avoid the things I fell into head first. 

I want to do it before the end of the year to wash away all those demons with the old year. I’ll keep all the positive stuff for next year - new post new me. That’s why I call these posts “exorcizing posts”.

And I will begin with the baddest stuff that happened to me, the worst. 

I wanted to make this post for YEARS now, but I always ended up not doing it - because this post is about accusing someone. And when you accuse someone on the Internet, no matter how certain you are, you always fear to create some sort of Internet war - and when you are tired, exhausted, depressed you don’t have the strength to deal with such a drama. Now that I have the strength to do so I need to do it - not just because this person kind of ruined my whole kink experience on DA but also because if anyone else falls for their nice facade they might end up being hit just as hard as I was.

And the person I will accuse is now known on DeviantArt as ChubbyChisaki, though he used to go by other names (like MalisofMakt if I recall well? Or something liek that, MalisofMask or the like). 

I first met him on DeviantArt. He was a new kink artist, I found some of his work, I faved it, commented it, we talked. The thing, from the start, is that I didn’t like his art at first. If you look at his art today, it is much better than what he used to draw. He had his anatomy extremely weird, the faces he drew were disturbing, there was a problem with depth - all of which resulting in weird if not creepy looking pictures most of the time. BUT, and here is the important nuance - this uniquely bizarre style worked extremely well whenever he had to illustrate an alien or an otherwordly creature, and he had cool, out-there, out-the-box ideas and bizarre concepts. I am always down for new, bizarre concepts in the kink world, you know that - and he was clearly a beginning artist, so I wasn’t going to be hard on him. You know, just encourage a bit, say a few kind words, etc... But this resulted in regular chatting as he liked the kink writing I did at the time.

And then he generously did an illustration for one of my kink projects at the time, and it was such a cool picture, I loved it and it was fitting perfectly my project. Of course this made me more encline to be kind with the guy - who didn’t seem like a bad guy at all! In fact, he invited me to join a specific Discord kink roleplay server (which I’ll talk about in another exorcizing post) and while my experience there wasn’t good, he was one of the only guys I could relate to, talk to casually and with who I could have a good roleplaying experience.

But there was one big problem... You see I had entered a fake birthday date on my DA, and on the date of this fake birthday, he sent me a gift. An illustration as a gift. The thing however was that it was an illustration of two of his characters that I didn’t know anything about - an elf rider and his horse. A bit unusual to send someone a gift of characters they don’t know anything about, but still a nice try right? Well... there was also the fact that the “weird/creepy artstyle” he had at his beginnings was in full force. I mean the horse and the elf were both widely smiling and it was done in a quite disturbing way. There is a horror artist on DA illustrating creepypastas and the like whose artstyle reminded me of his - but hey, it is a gift it is done with a nice intention, of course I did not criticize the piece or told the artist I actually didn’t like it at all and felt it was a disturbing visual. BUT THEN... when he described the characters to me he mentionned that there was something he wasn’t sure he could tell me about them. I kind of joked “Well, as long as they don’t fuck each other!”. 

... Guess what was the thing he didn’t dare tell me? Yes, as he admitted, he had offered me the character of an elf who was in a romantic and sexual relationship with his horse. He tried to defend it with the fact that the horse was a sentient, intelligent magical being that could speak. But I still WASN’T happy because the guy HAD GIVEN ME FUCKING ZOOPHILIA AS A BIRTHDAY GIFT. And being an animal-lover, this was a HUGE insult to me. I did lash out at him making it clear how angry and disturbed and pissed off I was (and if you recall I did have a small rant on Tumblr, even though at the time I didn’t mention his name to keep his anonymity). But then... I also said to him I was ready to let it go if he didn’t pull something like that again.

Why? I can hear myself shout at my past self. Why did you let go someone disturbed enough to offer you zoophilia as a birthday gift? Because I was too kind damnit! The zoophilia thing came out of the blue, outside of that he did just fairly usual weight gain kink, he didn’t seem disturbed or unbalanced in any way, and he had made it clear that he wanted to avoid actually doing clear zoophilia (making the horse a sentient, consenting magical being). I hoped that the guy just wanted to make an unusual pair of character and didn’t realize how disturbing and perverse he had made the situation, and... what can I say I was young and naive and had hope in humanity. I thought I could just lecture him on how bad this was, teach him it was wrong and help him be better, you know?

There was only one thing he begged me to do: post the birthday art in my DA gallery. As a sort of peace-making I did, and we agreed not to talk about this again. Just move on for better things. 

Now years passed by, I ended up not talking regularly with this guy anymore, I stopped being active on DA... and other artists asked me to remove some of the pieces they did for me as commissions from my DA gallery because they didn’t want to go public, so this lead me to reconsider the art I had on my DA account. And I found back the piece. This cursed piece that still looked disturbing all these years after, that I had moved to some deep buried folder on my gallery. I realized I didn’t want this picture on my gallery anymore. So I deleted it.

If you follow me for quite some times you might recall that I had an insane attack on my DA. Some crazy guy kept creating fake accounts just to leave insults and nonsensical comments on my DA account. Each time I blocked the account but a new fake account popped up with more threats and swear words. Well, the fact these attacks started happening soon after I deleted the cursed zoophilia picture made me think that it was the artist now known as ChubbyChisaki.

But I wasn’t sure yet... so I tried to do a few tests here and there. For example, while fighting off the attacks I left some notes to the artist, and I compared the time when he answered and the time the swearing-troll flooded my account with insults. The times matched. And if this wasn’t enough, while deleting all the disturbing and dirty comments I noticed recurring things popping up. Elements that proved it was ChubbyChisaki. Either he purposefully left these clues thinking he was clever and was signing his crime like a super-villain ; either he was so full of a mad rage he didn’t realize that he was giving away his identity. And these comments either made EXPLICIT horses references (such as a wordplay that was repeated in a few of them “The end is not neigh”), either dropped the names of ChubbyChisaki’s OCs (the name “Caleb” was dropped numerous times throughout comments, and Caleb was one of his recurring OCs). 

All of this leads me to truly and strongly believe that ChubbyChisaki, upon seeing I had deleted the picture he had made for me, got in a form of disturbing madness and thought he could vent by just harassing me anonymously. I should have known getting involved with someone who thought a fantasy version of zoophilia was an okay thing to do would end up biting me back...

To end this post I want to actually explain to you why this harassing was especially bad. Why it was what really pushed me off DeviantArt for so long. Why it was probably a big part of what killed my activity on all things kink. It was hundreds of comments by the hour. Many of them just being swear words and insults directed at me ; some beings just nonsensical words and letters thrown in for the purpose of flooding my comment section as fast as he could - I had to go on a constant struggle to ban each new account that popped up to clog my comments, especially since I am in Europe so time slots aren’t the same as other parts of the world, and the person left comments everywhere, on my different posts, on my personal account, sometimes even on posts of other kink artists I recently commented on. But this wasn’t the worst part... the worst part was the GIFs. This insane harasser spent time adding tons and tons of GIFs. GIFs of people and animals either taking a dump, either vomitting. On my kink account, where I hid to be able to indulge my personal pleasures, where I hoped to see an unusual form of beauty and where I could just cast away the masks... now there was just extremely visual and repulsive images of vomit and defecation everywhere. I had to erase maybe a hundred of those GIFs. I felt sick for days. Even just recalling that now I feel depressed and sick in the stomach. 

I wanted to call him out, to denounce him, to warn people that you might be confronted with a disturbed zoophiliac who will throw temper tantrums like some little brat and then smear your accounts with feces and vomit (literaly)... But first I had to rest from the exhaustion this fight with madness was, and then my own life got me busy - and I had the evidence I needed to be convinced, but I feared they would be too thin to be seriously considered by other people. A name of an OC dropped in a few comments, horse puns that happen to coincide with the removing of an illustration about an horse, times of activities that matched the suspected culprit and the harassing... But I don’t care anymore. This should have been done a long time ago, and all I hope is that he didn’t ruin the life of any other people in between. 

One year or so ago I stumbled back upon his page at random and I discovered that he was now a very active, very busy member of the DA kink community, taking commissions and being faved by a lot of people. And I didn’t act then. I was foolish, but again - fear of throwing an Internet drama. I am however convinced that he was the culprit behind this display of pure, dangerous lunacy and I am convinced that he is a deeply disturbed individual under a nice facade. 

[citrina-posts]

Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!

[ashesandhalefire]

would love to hear your complicated feelings on the michael/sanders scene in context!

okay so this is messy because my thoughts are still a little all over the place, but the issues i had were specifically with the new power reveal, and they were basically 1) the way they've handled the pod squad gaining new abilities, and 2) the decision to give michael in particular this ability and backstory

i wish the reasoning was more nuanced and meaningful but a lot of it is just "i don't vibe with this" and "i think it's dumb" lmao

so i'm starting to get less and less impressed with how they're rolling out this "aliens can have more than one skill" idea. sometimes the concept comes across as Very Sexy but the execution less so. i wanted to actually see them learning these new skills. i wanted to see them tutoring each other and practicing and doing stuff wrong and getting frustrated and feeling weird trying to learn powers that are different from the ones that have been a part of them for their whole lives. but isobel's telekinesis was really the only new skill that got any screen time, and i think michael was only sort of grudgingly there for one scene of it. healing hasn't been mentioned (to my recollection?), and mindscape practice has been mostly off-screen and it seemed more about deflection in case they were pulled into jones's mindscape and less about learning to influence people. and now it's starting to feel like we're just sort of rolling out new full-fledged abilities left and right. like, there are really only three or so, but it feels like oprah is behind the scenes going YOU GET A POWER AND YOU GET A POWER and doesn't feel as organic as i'd like it to feel. and at least reading auras and telepathy have mindscape vibes and feel like natural extensions of that power. but why is firebending now a whole new subset of powers? what are the limits of these alien abilities? how many more undiscovered powers are there? and that's not even mentioning the proficiency with swords. that feels like a decently unique kind of weapon to fight with, but it doesn't require any practice. we just dig that sucker up and the spirit of mom says "fuck 'em up, girlie." who cares if jones has been fighting with it for decades (centuries? i'm unclear on the length of this guy's life lol). he's not good enough to beat a really motivated novice. anyway! now we're saying that michael has secretly been able to jump into heads and control people for ten years but he doesn't use the power because he's terrified that it makes him evil and his siblings will be disgusted with him. and despite the fact that he hasn't practiced this power in ten years, a large part of the "beat the bad guy" plan hinges on his being able to overpower jones's control of the sheriff, meaning that the incident at eighteen isn't being looked at as a fluke when a new power manifests. we're just assuming michael has this fully developed mind control ability lying dormant in his brain. we lay out that michael did this thing, redefined his whole life by this new trauma, and, after a quick pep talk with his pseudo-dad, has processed his fears of his inherent evil enough to confess to his siblings and subject himself to using the power. all in like six minutes of screen time. and his siblings are entirely unaffected by this. they're not like... what??? you lied about a secret power for years??? they're just like [PSA voice, mentor putting a hand on mentee's shoulder] you could never be bad, michael. we love you. and then he DOESN'T EVEN DO IT. he just hops into the mindscape like anyone else could've done and says "pls don't shoot my friends :(" and the sheriff says okay and stops "letting" jones control her. why was this a good way to roll out this new power??? so the whole point of the reveal that michael has this mind control power apparently didn't even have anything to do with the sheriff subplot because he didn't actually use this power to resolve that problem. for now - until it comes back again, which based on some of the other subplots this season is not a guarantee - it was just to heap more trauma on his shoulders and legitimize this "woe is me, i'm a horrible monster!!" yarn they keep trying to spin without actually showing him do anything Truly Bad or Mildly Morally Gray. the sanders conversation is a rehashing of the alex convo from earlier where someone has to insist to michael that his genetics don't make him inherently evil. and the alex one was more effective for me because it was in the immediate aftermath of this massive revelation about who his father was AND michael

thought he was about to get murdered. he was spinning out. but having it happen again like eight episodes later - after michael still hasn't actually done anything to lend some legitimacy to his fears that his bloodline is Unavoidably Evil - doesn't have the same emotional impact. the worst things michael has ever done with his powers were shown back in the first half of s1, and he's be almost entirely reformed since then. so to set up whatever michael/jones showdown must be coming our way, we get the introduction of this ability that michael has never even so much as hinted at having before, and we get the reveal that it has colored how he looks at himself since he was eighteen. what. michael saying that his religious extremist family tried to perform an exorcism on him and couldn't and dallas inferring that he started to believe he was the demon was a good exchange. we already knew about that incident, but michael played it off as no big deal during 1x06. the new conversation helps him to relate to dallas, finds them some common ground, establishes trust, and makes the true emotional depth of what happened to michael explicit. having michael redefine all of his emotional struggles for the last ten years through the lens of "actually i found out that i have the same ability as the alien that possessed my sister and made her kill three girls in front of me, and it has made me view myself as fundamentally evil since that day" is such a bad rewrite of his history. was the history of horribly abusive foster homes insufficient in explaining michael's self-worth issues? was being the victim of a hate crime not enough trauma? was the witnessing and covering up of two separate murders that derailed his entire academic future not enough to make michael question his own goodness or value? why would it be necessary to add this mind control element to really make him feel bad about stuff?

and if ANYONE was going to get a story that dealt with struggles with consent and mental control, why was it not isobel?? why was it not that holding the turquoise enhanced her abilities and enabled her to control people, and she was TERRIFIED of that because of noah?? her consent was violated horribly, and she has struggled horribly with respecting the consent of others. this needed to be her ability to develop and deal with! giving it to michael fully developed also feels like a very handwavey, last minute choice. if this was planned from the beginning, why is this the first that the audience has heard about it? he says he never mentioned it because of isobel, which explains why isobel and max don't know about it. but why doesn't the audience know about it? in s1, michael is adamant that liz leave town. if isobel couldn't get her to go, why didn't michael sneak off and make her leave? why didn't he force her to forget (if that's within the purview of the power)? sure, he doesn't like having this power. but he's also more than willing to sacrifice himself for his siblings. wouldn't a little unethical behavior be worth saving them from experimentation? also if michael has been able to force people to do things all along, where was that energy when alex got kidnapped? why is torturing flint in a basement less inherently evil than just compelling him to tell the truth or compelling helena to let alex and charlie go? i know not everything can be planned from the beginning. but there was no reason this power had to be written like this. it didn't have to be something michael knew he had. but they chose to insert it into his history, and i feel like that was a bad call. - positives about the scene dad!sanders supremacy michael needs a dad figure who's like "you're a good person, you dumbass" and straight up LAUGHS at his assertion that he's evil.

[vickyvicarious]

So having just finished watching The Bank Shot Job, I have realized another thing I adore about Hardison.

His confidence.

And not just in his computer skills. Those are obviously well-founded and given his reputation it makes total sense he'd be cocky and overconfident about them. Except it isn't overconfidence, is it, when he always backs it up.

No, what struck me here was his confidence with people. He isn't a grifter like Sophie, he isn't an especially great actor. He says ridiculous stuff like "we just got back from handling a chupacabra situation" and overacts his emotions to the point of comedy. His characters aren't necessarily very nuanced. But he gets away with it, every time, and why? Because he is so confident in himself, he railroads right over the logical part of people's brains going "....wait a minute."

One of my favorite early scenes from the Mile High Job is when Hardison enters the elevator as a janitor, blatantly blocks the other guy from coming in, changes clothes on the way up, and then accuses the guy of being racist so he doesn't catch on to Hardison being the same guy. He SAW his face, he KNEW it was the same person. Hardison raised a fuss, talked quickly and over top of him, then got out while he was still reeling.

And even that guy, by the end of the episode, didn't question that Hardison worked in the building for a while before this. He gets people so caught up in his pace that they just go along with him, and that is carried purely by his confidence.

We see it with the whole crew to some extent, of course. While Parker is the one most obviously worried about grifting, everyone has their own moments when they hesitate. Still they all have confidence and plow through to achieve their objective - but none with Hardison's flair. He never just takes up space, he owns it.

And part of it is simply the fact that he is such a genius. He knows it, and uses it, and his skill, intelligence, and creative mind help him through everything. But it would be so so easy to go the route of having the genius hacker be socially awkward or have confidence issues when compared to someone like Eliot. And Hardison just never does.

He proudly proclaims "age of the geek, baby," gets annoyed at Eliot mocking the geek stereotypes. He likes all the typical geeky stuff (scifi, WoW, Doctor Who have been specifically namedropped already) and isn't as comfortable in a physical altercation. There are other things that make him feel out of his depths too, on occasion. But that doesn't seem to bother him on any deep level, he doesn't feel lessened by it. Someone's gotta beat up the injured guy and he's fine with it being him, he says. And he isn't actually a skinny weakling, just not well versed in fighting.

Just as Eliot subverts the gruff manly tropes with his interest in cooking and his respect for the women he's slept with, or Sophie with the femme fatale being the mother figure, Hardison subverts the socially awkward genius and the hacker uncomfortable outside of their computers. He dislikes when the option to solve things with hacking is taken away from him, sure, but the same goes for everyone else on the team with their respective skills and they all face situations where they have to adapt.

The writers made a very deliberate choice to make Hardison, not just NOT awkward, but very comfortable with people. He has fun with his cons, throwing in silly and ridiculous details for his own amusement, grinning at people, befriending them easily. They write him being taught how to get along with people into his backstory, and it's not just to contrast with Parker or support her learning how to connect with others though that is a part of it. I'm sure meta on his emotional intelligence and his relationship with her has been written, most notably the "pretzels are waiting for you whenever you want them" scene, and that all holds true.

Hardison is a genius. He's pretty young, which could also play into this usually, the overconfidence of youth (except he never faces a harsh lesson and loses that confidence, not really - gets less brash maybe, more technique, but doesn't lose that base layer of confidence). He is skilled with computers, but he is also well-rounded. Not just in the 'exposition-dropping because I'm smart and I know a lot of stuff' way, though that too. He is an artist, a musician, he likes to learn and likes to create and likes to share his work with people. He is not at all a loner, and flashbacks show that even if he didn't always have close friends he wasn't an introvert.

He knows his talents (and they are many) and believes in himself so much, and it's so clearly not some act covering deep insecurities, that whenever he does hesitate or doubt himself the scene instantly gains so much more weight. It doesn't happen often; it doesn't need to. (Not in any major way, not more than the usual moments of uncertainty the entire crew has on occasion.) But when he does really doubt himself, we really do feel it - and then the others reassure him because he always comes through, and then he does just that. Because it isn't false confidence at all, just honest skill at the end of the day.

After he shows Sophie the edited footage of the bank robbery in this episode (done on the fly, out in the open, while ordering around the cops), she teasingly tells him, "You're still a geek."

Hardison just grins and says, "Power of the geek." He knows that is not an insult. Even if someone ever said it to him meaning it as one, he would know they were wrong and wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Because he knows his own capabilities, trusts in himself, and walks confidently through life.

(And the whole team are so good about supporting one another and, teasing arguments aside, clearly respecting one another's skills. They all are wonderful with this but I especially want to thank Hardison's Nana because she clearly did so much right by him.)

[sokkagatekeeper]

I think with zukka it’s the exact opposite as soulmates like in every way these two should’ve never even met let alone connect but they did and they do and they balance each other out in so many ways... them being together isnt fulfilling some serious destiny them being together is being able to let their guard down and being who they were never allowed to be: youthful, and playful... essentially when I think of zukka I think of laughter and the heaviness one’s heart feels when they’re nearly overwhelmed with happiness. No fate, no destiny, no titles... just being.

i think that in order to break down what sokka and zuko’s relationship means in relation to soulmates especially interpreting this relationship as romantic, we need to start with the basics. get ready for a long and probably pretty wordy ride.

let's start with the meaning of the word “soulmate” specifically in fandom. the most common perception of a soulmate in fandom is that your soulmate is quite literally the other half of your soul, meaning that without this romantic interest you are somehow incomplete. now, what the hell is a soul? according to my dear friend google, a soul is “the spirit or the essence of a person, and the part of the person that makes them who they are and will be even after death.” is it even possible to split a soul in half? well, in my opinion everyone in fandom is essentially insane, so i’d rather say that no, it is not possible for a soulmate to be the other part of your soul, or for another person fictional or otherwise to complete you as another person, fictional or otherwise (when it's fictional, a soulmate can add depth and nuance, maybe?? but not complete. what the fuck does complete even mean). i have a more interesting interpretation of the meaning of a soulmate at hand, specifically because my first language is spanish: the closest thing to the word “soulmate” in spanish is alma gemela, literally “twin soul.” i believe it is much more interesting to interpret a soulmate as a person whose soul is a mirror to yours, or a reflection. a complement. the notion that someone is perfect and made for you romantically is essentially full of shit and a very lazy mindset, but anyway. 

if we’re talking about being destined to meet a person, or being different faces of the same coin, or stuff like that, then of course this is a thing in fiction. aang and zuko and katara are definitely soulmates in terms of being destined to meet and change each other in a meaningful and earth-shattering way. the concepts of destiny and fate are not only an actual thing in atla, but also very prominent and loud in themes and narrative, and in the mindsets and beliefs of the characters themselves; it heavily influences their actions and approach to other characters, especially zuko. from his perspective, zuko’s dynamic with aang throughout the show and in general (meaning before and after he joined the gaang) is in part shaped by his sense of morality, and in part by his belief that his destiny is somehow intertwined with aang’s (he was right, of course), similarly to how katara approached aang (too, as a beacon of hope) or even how she saw zuko as a definitive enemy (in contrast to how sokka saw zuko as pretty much a fool and a recurrent inconvenience) aang, katara, and zuko’s dynamics with each other are all somehow related to destiny, the general concept of soulmates as a mirror of your soul, whether consciously or unconsciously. this is part of what makes them the central thematic trio and the heart of the show.

knowing all this, let’s go back to sokka and zuko. in short, as i’ve said before, to each other they are just… some guys. to elaborate, to sokka, zuko was just 1) some guy in the way, another inconvenience that occasionally got in between him and in his business with the avatar, whom he didn’t respect at all and didn’t think of as an enemy, 2) just some guy to be wary of for all of the aforementioned reasons, and 3) some guy, but cool and nice and a friend, possibly a love interest?? idk we’ll see!! meanwhile to zuko, sokka was 1) some guy in the way, another inconvenience that occasionally got in between him and in his business with the avatar, whom he didn’t respect at all and didn’t think of as an enemy, 2) some guy, who is amazing and cool and he will break into a prison with him because why not?? so we can safely say, while there are direct parallels between them and are definitely connected in some spiritual way (as are all of the gaang, in my opinion!!), sokka and zuko themselves do not know that. the weight of being meant-to-be in their relationship is nonexistent, and i definitely agree that they can relax around each other in that sense, especially zuko (who believes in destiny therefore i mention him a lot, in comparison to sokka who does not believe in destiny therefore doesn’t carry the weight of anf his relationships being shaped by it which. they arguably are, as it is a story that was predefined, but that’s for another day). it’s been talked about that the most compelling thing about sokka and zuko’s relationship revolves around the concept of choice. the boiling rock is the only life-changing field trip that zuko was initially denied, but insisted on going anyway. he decided to go out of pure selflessness, solely to help sokka, in contrast to him being quite literally required to go as aang’s teacher/to prove himself and get katara off his back (as well as other subconsious reasons, that, too, for another day). zuko went with sokka because he thought he was dope, and as we all know zuko cannot do anything half-way so he decided he would die for the guy (valid of him, by the way). their entire relationship is just subversion after subversion after subversion.

it’s also related to sokka being just some guy, not only as he believes himself to be but also how sokka is pretty much the fourth part of the thematic triangle that aang katara and zuko have going on. he balances each of their pure hearts and idealism with a sharp mind and bitchy but useful pessimism. sokka being just some guy to zuko’s deuteragonist is the thematic equivalent of sokka being a main character and suki being a secondary character. it works because the weight of universal forces just isn’t there, and it works better than (in my opinion!!) katara and zuko or (to a lesser degree) aang and katara being romantically involved for the same reasons.

and anyway. when it comes to fandom interpretation, it’s very easy to think of every parallelism/symbolism as a sign of two characters being meant to be together romantically, or whatever. and while it is fun, most parallels (at least among the gaang) are mostly to show how the characters are able to understand and connect with each other whether romantically or platonically (and the destiny in fiction thing i’m too tired to talk about again), so the parallels between sokka and zuko are not entirely irrelevant to their romantic potential — people are also quick to think every parallel/trope/catchy line about their relationship is shallow and stupid and soulmates suck anyway!! and therefore i’m asking you all to calm down and find a middle ground. not every parallel/trope/etc is romantic and not every parallel/trope/etc is dumb and irrelevant. when it comes to the infamous “prince and the fool” for example, some people take it as the ultimate proof of their love and some think it’s utter nonsense and a cheap version of the zvtara’s moon/sun dynamic. and both of them are wrong!! “the prince and the fool” is in fact pretty much like “the wise and the brave” of katara and sokka. it is merely a descriptive of the way they act with each other, the way their differences balance each other, the way they contrast each other, etc etc. they do work as descriptive on their own, but not as well as they work when put together; yes, sokka is wise, but how wise? what is the standard for him to be considered wise, or even the opposite? sokka being wise works in terms of aesthetic, character, dynamic, etc etc, only if katara is being brave right besides him. zuko is a prince, sure, but what else is there? what is the alternative? you can call sokka a fool (and you would be wrong, by the way) but what does that word alone bring to his character? 

to conclude, i believe the thing about sokka and zuko’s relationship is that there’s nothing definitive to it by universal order — or rather, while it might exist, it's definitely to a lesser degree than other relationships in their lives, therefore the characters themselves don't notice it and there's no pressure to fulfill any prophecies; they just are, and they just do. you can have a passionate and true love without it being the sole meaning of your existence, or your sole motivation and priority in your life. it’s clear that in case they were romantically involved they wouldn’t even be the person they love the most (as it is very clear the person sokka loves the most is katara (!!!), while zuko’s is probably iroh?? idk). i believe the best part of a romantic relationship between sokka and zuko is that they are just some guys, maybe not to the universe but to each other. if they have to choose each other as they do, if they just get each other as well as they do, who care about each other a shit ton even if not any more than their other friends and family but just a little differently, while they aren’t canonically soulmates the way aang and zuko or aang and katara are (while the potential is there) i’d go as far as to say they are some sort of kindred spirits. i think it all depends on how you define soulmates, really.

[kachinnate]

,,,,okay i know i just said i wasn’t going to talk about the deh movie but actually yeah imma talk about it for just a sec bc y’all actually make me legitimately distressed sajkfndsmjkgds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQ_A0H1otc i dont have the braincells to do a shot by shot analysis right now but here’s what we’re lookin at

under a readmore because ghhhhhhh

firstly, let me lead with this: yes, from what we know, there’s a lot of things wrong with this movie. 

the worst, in my humble opinion, being the bts treatment of the (very few) actors of color, and the lack altogether of any production team members of color. that’s something that should be acknowledged, talked about, and fucking dug into especially at the current fucking period of time we’re living in. it’s unsurprising, but disgusting nonetheless, and it set this movie up for failure from the very beginning. i’m a white person so by no means so i feel inclined or like i have any authority in saying what one should feel wrt all of that, however i will say if there’s to be a boycott in not watching this movie, that should 100% be the reason why. it’s fully poc’s choice whether or not to forgive the production team or give this movie a chance for the irredeemable shit it did in regards to handling the movie’s production. the movie imo definitely doesn’t deserve their forgiveness, but again, that is not for me to say. 

there’s some little things too that i can’t fully think of off the top of my head - like, the whole making larry connor’s stepdad thing fucking irks me, for example, but, like...... listen.

if you know me like at all, you know my favorite word is nuance.

so, i’m going to say it outright: the way you people are approaching this three minute trailer shows literally.... none?? no nuance ??? is it no-nuance november over here or ???? like i’m begging you i’m BEGGING YOU to put aside your pre-determined prejudices against this movie and like stop pretending to be a renowned film critic for ten seconds because it’s really not as outright fucking abysmal as you are saying!! and also it’s possible to have opinions that aren’t completely fucking polarized to one side because guess what, the deh movie? a piece of media! what is the shit y’all are constantly preaching about having the ability to consume media critically ? because you’re trying to cancel a fucking trailer based on the contents of the trailer alone !!!!! hello !!!!!!!!

media is bound to be problematic. if y’all were as quick to judge any movie as you did this one, guess what you wouldn’t be watching any movies like ever <3 

anyway lets get into the parts that are probably going to get me cancelled lmao 

ben platt - listen. LISTEN. listen i know he’s too old to be reprising evan we ALL know he’s too old to be reprising evan i’ve heard this same argument since the announcement was made we get it we all know. haha he’s a grandpa yes bestie ur so right ur so funny wow. i do agree that we should’ve maybe had a not-ben-platt evan moment but here’s some things to keep in mind: the arguments of “oooh ABF is right there !!!!!!” 1. who’s to say he was available? 2. the environment of a movie is so, SO much different than that of a musical -- as much as you wanna pretend you know everything from just a trailer, there’s no way of knowing what scenes were added that might’ve made the movie like.. idk possibly more intense story-wise not even COUNTING the fact that just inherently a movie set is different than a musical one? like yes ben platt might be just being used as a device but that’s probably not the sole and only reason. Also, if i see One (1) more comment about his FUCKING HAIR 😃 first of all it’s not that deep like... if you’re so distracted by an actor having their hair different that’s on you, but going as far as to call it bad or distracting or being like Vehemently a way about it? y’all i know it’s most likely not your intention but that is literally just ben platt’s natural fuckin ETHNICALLY JEWISH hair sajknfgkjds!!!! i’m not the first to make this point, but like dsjnfkjdsg!??! y’all are being so mean about it and for WHAT? again, maybe not intentional, but it reads as like high key Very antisemetic and you should.... maybe not 😳 be that way

connor. the thing about a trailer is that they don’t show you all the scenes because they want you to come see the movie. right? can we agree on that? all the connor scenes in the trailer had SEVERAL hard cuts, omitting a lot of the scene -- like the computer lab scene! we see the beginning of it, there’s a VERY obvious hard cut, and then he’s running out! in my opinion my first watch through of this trailer i had a very like “:// hmm all these actors feel a lil like dry”, but man oh man the comments ive seen about connor. holy shit guys. this boy gets 7 minutes of stage time in the actual musical, and the whole thing is we DON’T KNOW VERY MUCH ABOUT HIM. not to burst your bubble, and i by no means hate connor, i love me some good connor lives fics and stuff, but everything we write with connor being alive? that is !! speculation on our part !!!! those are headcanons and us using the little context we have!! connor doesn’t have any significant development IN THE SOURCE MATERIAL that is being adapted into a movie !!! you 1. can’t fully judge a character with already limited screentime in a 3 minute trailer, 2. can’t really call what connor has canonically in the musical as in depth character development !! what is his arc then !!!! he pushes evan, goes to the computer lab, has an outcast loner kid moment, gets upset, takes the letter, DIES. sorry stans, that’s just how it is !! and, AND, everything in between, all the idiosyncracies, that depends on the actor playing connor! speaking of, you know who the actor is playing connor in the movie? that’s right, colton ryan! so, i don’t know, maybe... have some trust in the process, in an actor who ALREADY has played connor on broadway???? and also trust that you will get more connor content then u are seeing from a 3 minute trailer!! dhgnijsdg and some of the comments on like his appearance specifically? like are you really made that he doesn’t have long hair?? they kept his nails and his rings but nahhh the hair was apparently a MUST HAVE (even though like.. not all connor actors on broadway always had/have long hair but w/e).. REGARDLESS. tldr on THAT , the movie would have to do a pretty shitty job if they want to take something from someone who doesn’t have much to begin with and i think y’all are being extremely harsh on this point 

jared. honestly i’m a bit worried too about the like... name change, because it does have the potential to be taking out some representation, but... they did change the name to fit the actor’s ethnicity? it’s a really [hmm] topic because, again, from a trailer and from what we have been told we don’t KNOW a lot of the context, but i think it’s important to remember that uh.. jewish people aren’t just? always white ?? there’s a possibility they changed the last name to fit with the [ethnicity] while keeping him jewish?? ofc there’s the possibility that they Didn’t and ... again hm that’s its own thing altogether but just reiterates the point that you can’t knock a whole movie just based on the trailer. you can’t talk about things you know nothing about. 

alana. same thing as before, you can’t.... completely bash a character based on a 3 minute trailer. there was discussion about how she seemed ‘shy’ when talking to evan, which like.. maybe she is but also that scene was them talking in a library like if u actually take notice of what’s happening in the scene jdskngsd though i do share the general consensus with many others that she won’t get a lot of screen-time but that’s neither here nor there 😔 moving on

scenes and the setting. one of the things i was most like.. tentative about in regards to a switch from a musical to a movie was how they were like... going to do certain scenes? naturally, a lot has to be different when we’re going from a minimal stage set to an entire movie with like.. settings. there are going to be new scenes because a movie lends to have like, physical places that aren’t just [evan’s bedroom] and [murphy kitchen] and [implied school]. so new scenes, new conversations, slightly different pacing.. this is all to be expected right like are y’all geneuinely surprised here or ........

there’s a lot we aren’t seeing yet because this is a TRAILER. again i already mentioned this re: connor but like... again, y’all are making some Claims that just... fucking outlandish. there are so many moments in the trailer that are very obvious Hard Cuts. you don’t have all the information yet. you are angry at a tiny fragment of something that is confusing you because you don’t have all the context. is there a chance that some of this shit is just genuinely Bad? yeah but you really cannot 100000% say it with your chest and gauge it without seeing the movie and understanding what that scene is in context. lowkey uhhh saw some jokes about the zoe scene in the car and :’))) ? jesus? christ????

concluding thoughts because my brain hurts but like. you don’t have to like the movie. you don’t have to WATCH the movie. like all media if you choose to consume the movie you should do so with some CRITICAL THOUGHT. but, just like the novel (and i do not want to have any discussions about that i don’t care if you think it’s good Or bad that’s not what this is about) you guys are going in this WANTING to believe it’s bad and completely polarizing your thoughts on what this is going to be. yeah, maybe there shouldn’t be a movie. i genuinely think we could’ve gone without. but it’s just a piece of media, it’s not a progression like all your (musical is good, novel is bad, MOVIE IS WORSE OH NO) posts are suggesting. they are all just. different pieces of media stemming from a source. at the end of the day it’s just a fucking movie. if you already hate it so much, guess what? you don’t have to watch it! you don’t have to put so much needless fucking hate into a 3 MINUTE TRAILER. you can stop being performative and dissing it for its poor treatment of POC while then going on to make fun of ben platt’s hair and just targeting a different group like! please !!!

i’m not trying to be a fuckin’ advocate for this movie because there’s so much opportunity for it to suck, i do Not have high hopes for it, and i’m not even really sure i want to watch it (i bought the novel when it came out and have yet to read it, and i’m sure the movie will like.. elicit very similar vibes from me lsdngjkdsg like im just not uhhh feeling it) but y’know what? watching the trailer did not bring forth the fucking onslaught of hatred in me that apparently has fuckin posessed all of y’all and like djnsgjksdg plagued my dashboard for this whole evening. don’t come into my inbox trying to like.. argue with me about this (preemptively im turning off anon because i like i Can’t lmao) this is just like... a rant i needed to get out of me real quick. 

SO. tldr for now: have critical thought about shit you consume, there’s no ethical consumption under [the film industry], you can’t judge a movie entirely on its trailer, and y’all need to calm the fuck down 

[dreamylyfe-x]

of all the things they could make mickey and ian fight over, why are the writers going with 2 so OOC storylines in the final season? the show never framed ian as seeing mickey's illegal income as not "real" work before. and mickey was never the slacker type, so why now? and mickey would never vague about monogamy. i'm so confused. if they gotta fight, why not over something in character and meaningful. this just feels like writers being mean to the fans, making us sit thru all this nonsense

Hey! Thanks for the ask. Made my (very weird and stressful) day. 

I’m going to be disappointing right off the jump and say that I don’t actually think any of this is OOC, per say. But. In GENERAL. Shameless is not the show it was. I think this is very normal for long-running shows. Take Friends: When you get into the back half of that show’s extensive catalogue, is starts to feel like the characters are a Xerox of a Xerox. Early season Monica is a bit OCD, and a clean freak who loves to be in charge -- but she’s also warm, and hospitable and emotionally available to her friends. Late season Monica is often a coked-out squirrel-woman who loses her mind if someone moves a pillow. That’s quality isn’t out of character, but it’s no longer being balanced with the warm and supportive woman we initially met. I think a bit of that might be “we already know you either like or hate Monica, so we’re just giving you the stuff that’s funny and/or dramatic. We got 22 minutes and six characters and we don’t have to build that other shit anymore.” 

I think that’s happening with Mickey and Gallavich. And I don’t think that’s weird for a) a show that has run this long and b) a character who was gone and then returned. They are giving us a Mickey that has always existed -- unbound by traditional manners, aggressive, blunt and obsessed with Ian Gallagher -- but we aren’t getting much of the Mickey who curls up with Ian at the worst time of his life and kisses his forehead. We aren’t getting all the verbal confirmation of Big Feelings they gave us when he came back in season 7. We aren’t seeing Ian and Mickey as a team, which is a big part of their mid-seasons dynamic. I think that makes people feel like these arguments are OOC, when they’re arguably reasonable issues, but aren’t being given a ton of nuance, or balance. 

Aside: There’s some balance in how the actors are playing the intimacy and the physical affection. The little touches and kisses are appreciated by me. 

So to dig into the OOC stuff -- first of all, it makes total sense to me that they’d have issues about the role crime plays in their lives together. I love that Ian never gave a damn that Mickey is a straight up criminal. But every time Ian lost Mickey, it was because the law intervened. When Mickey is not incarcerated, he’s with Ian. Ian is no longer 16, no one is a juvenile offender, Mickey was given a devastating sentence in season 6 -- 16 years -- Ian was 18! That was his entire living memory, if not more. They are married now, against considerable odds, and I completely understand why Ian doesn’t want Mickey to risk going back to jail. 

Likewise, I get why Mickey doesn’t want to do what Ian is doing. Mickey does not have the temperament for minimum wage jobs. He has a longstanding history of thinking it’s absolute bullshit to work hard for no money. Particularly when he’s smart enough, skilled enough and ballsy enough to make a LOT of money in an afternoon just by spotting an opportunity. 

Mickey has never SAID this on the show, but in canon we have seen him go to prison four times. Once, because Ian’s unhinged spurned groomer shot him; once because Mickey CHOSE to headbutt a cop so he could go to prison and avoid his dad; once because Mickey was consumed with a need to avenge Ian; and finally because Ian got himself tossed in prison, so Mickey CHOSE to join him. If Mickey has confidence that he won't go to prison if Ian isn’t a factor... Not the craziest idea. 

So -- writers spitballing ideas for Gallavich conflict? I think that’s a pretty good one. Two clear sides that both have merit. I’ve already written a bit about my thoughts on the monogamy issues... first, I’ve always figured they were monogam-ish, to reference Dan Savage. They are faithful to each other while they’re together, and when they are separated (usually by prison!) they aren’t. This isn’t the first time Mickey has voiced a lack of interest in being monogamous -- most notably “Great. Now we’re in a horror movie.” Mickey isn’t a traditionalist and I don’t think he feels like this is a make-or-break issue. But MOSTLY? 

MOSTLY. 

I really and truly believe what I’m about to say... 

Mostly Mickey wanted to do what Ian wanted. 

If he legit didn’t want monogamy he wouldn’t have tried to cheat of Ian’s paper. He didn’t like that “write it down and flip the paper” game. He wanted to match Ian’s answer. So he took a guess and he was wrong about what Ian -- who had literally just told him he found the concept of the rest of his life overwhelming -- had written. 

This is my head cannon: I think he liked that Ian wrote down monogamy. This is not my head canon: they are SUPER sweet to each other in the next scene. I am not convinced that the monogamy debate is going to be much of a thing beyond that scene. And I understand that, for a lot of people, that scene was extremely unpleasant. To me, personally, it made sense for it to come up. But I think it’s settled. I think they’re done with it. 

The one place where I’m like “What is this?” is the slacker stuff. I mean, I can meta why Mickey might be afraid of failure or whatever, but it’d be mostly head cannon. They haven’t given us a ton to build on there. The best we got is “Stop disappointing the people you love!” being what motivated Mickey to do something he didn’t want to do. But Mickey was right, if he thought that interview was going to be a disaster. Mickey knows himself and he is painfully aware of his limitations. 

As for why are the writers DOING this? Well. Ok. Here’s what I think it is: 

1. Story is conflict. So they needed one. And “struggle to adjust to marriage” really isn’t a bad one. Specifically, figuring out how to be married when you have no role models and have a few social strikes against you is a good one. 

2. The writers are amused by Gallavich fighting. They think it’s entertaining. And while there are a lot of people out there for whom Gallavich is EVERYTHING, Shameless’s viewership is also made up of people who think Frank is hilarious. No one ever send me an ask about why Frank is hilarious. I will not be able to figure that one out and the research might kill me. We definitely don’t all agree on what is and is not funny. 

3. They’re going somewhere with it. At least a little. 

I don’t KNOW three is true, but here’s something I believe about John Welles. I think he’s a biiiiit of a sap. I think he probably wants to leave each Gallagher with something nice. I don't think his plan it to send everyone off on an ice floe to freeze to death. So I think (hope?) that what we’re going to see is three (maybe four?) episodes of Gallavich At Odds and then I think we’re going to move into them trying to work together to make lives together. And they will probably still fight, because that seems to be part of the Xerox of a Xerox of Gallavich. I’m sure many people will find that cringey and problematic and annoying -- but I also bet we get a few moments we love, here and there. 

I don’t think they’re trying to be mean to the fans, but I think it’s serving 8 characters ... Nope. 9. (I forgot Frank. I always forget about Frank.) ... and we aren’t going to get the depth and breadth we want. And most of that will be on the side where we see Gallavich loving each other, because at this point they expect us to KNOW that. And some of it’ll be Mickey’s internal life because they tend to focus on the Gallaghers. But I do fervently hope we get a little more of that other side of the coin. Because I absolutely agree that one side is more fun than the other. 

[legends-live-in-memories]

I Have Too Many Opinions. ep. 1

lmao. i got encouragement to post my opinions on fandom things and now i want to make a miniseries doing just that. so here i am. doing just that.

im putting it under the cut cuz this was 4 whole pages including the disclaimer. yes i put a disclaimer and i explain why.

Anyways, here is the first piece in what inevitably will become fandom info dump, this time on thomas astruc’s writing on miraculous ladybug. but only some of my opinions cuz we would be here all day otherwise.

So… a disclaimer before I begin… 

I do not hate Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir (yes i'm using their government name). I am quite a fan of the show actually despite its faults. I am also older than the intended audience but was obviously younger when the show first aired which is how my interest was piqued (the fact that its been 6 years and only 3 seasons says more about the show than me being a fan for that amount of time but also i never want to rush content creators cuz they're doing their best) and due to my age, there will be inherent bias in my approach of what i'm about to say as there is in EVERY opinion. The fact that it is an opinion should imply the presence of bias but most people tend to lack the critical thinking skills required to draw that conclusion ANYWAYS…

If I did hate the show I would not have this blog nor would I be even writing this because i tend to not give more than 2 seconds of thought to things i actively dislike (some of yall should give this a try) and i'm allowed to like things that are designed for an audience that i was originally a part of but grew out of. (I don't suddenly stop liking things because I'm older despite what many younger fans seem to believe about older audiences. I also don't need to be ‘allowed’ to do anything cuz i wasn't asking for permission anyways.)

This will not be character bashing, astruc bashing nor fandom bashing cuz, again, that would imply i hate any of those elements and if i did, i would not dedicate brainpower to them. Analyses and criticisms of media are fun and engaging and required if you wish to produce good enjoyable content. Now most of this should be already assumed and self-explanatory but people on the internet like to play morality roulette roll dice on purity culture and I rather have documentation that I am in fact not bullying fictional 14 year olds or a grown man. But alas, people get trigger happy whenever someone has less than 1000000% positive opinions on something they like and will throw out words they can't define (gaslight, baiting, toxic, problematic, gatekeep etc) in an attempt to defend their blind devotion, 

which is not needed, if you like something you never have to defend it, even if i don't like it. If you respond to anything I post saying you disagree with me, I will not argue with you. I won't debate back and forth and try to convince you that the things you like are wrong. Unless you are being absolutely tone deaf to what i'm saying, you wont get a negative reaction from me. So don't try to fish for a fight. Please. I got metaphorical hands for days and I'm mean, you don't want me hurting your feelings on the internet. Do yourself the favour. Difference of opinion is how we get diversification in media and is inherently a good thing. Now that that's out of the way, please don't ever let me have to say that again. I beg.

Now onto the fun stuff

I didn't know what I wanted as a first topic so my trusty internet friend @moonlitceleste suggested astruc’s writing… 

AND BOI do i got some opinions on ole tommy boi. Again I don't hate the dude. In fact, he has worked on a few shows that had defined my childhood, including but not limited to W.I.T.C.H. (all eps available on youtube for those interested, 2 seasons, general fun time all around).

So I don't think he’s scum of the earth but I do think his approach to writing mlb specifically has more misses than hits.

The first big miss is that he has no idea how to write 14 year old girls. At all. Almost every girl he has ever written feels like some terrible archetype built entirely for marketability and childish projection and pubescent self-insert (kind of). He has never been a 14 year old girl. I have. In fact when the show first aired, I WAS around the (assumed) age of the mlb characters. The behaviour he passes off as quirky or awkward or just the character’s genuine personality tend to perpetuate harmful stereotypes of teen girls found in the media and are never actually addressed as harmful. they just get swept under the rug. Marinette’s exuberant collage of teen heart throb model boi Adrien Agreste and her very painful almost fan worship she has of him (which flip flops like a paper sandal in the rain) being portrayed as a cute school girl crush uwu, Chloe being the y7 Regina George, Alya being the token best friend of colour with her ‘sassy’ personality (i want y'all to imagine me eyerolling so hard i bust a vessel in my eye), Kagami being the very damaging Perfect Asian Child stereotype. And before y'all get on your dusty soap box and defend going on about “BUT IT'S FOR CHILDREN”,,,, know this.

 i don’t give a solid fuck. 

Not one. 

Children arent stupid. Children are always going to remember the richy bitchy blonde who bullies the art kid, and the big kid, and the shy kid, and the non white kids, and was only nice to her equally rich white friend who she probably had a crush on or was only ever civil to her equally white lapdog. They're going to remember the half asian girl who was never allowed to actually be asian or the only black girl who existed solely as a soundboard for enabling bad habits or chastising the main character for the same habits she enables in the first place (boi aint THAT a topic for later). Like do i really need to explain that alya chastising marinette for taking max’s spot in gamer just to play with adrien rings absolutely hollow when she actively encourages her to sabotage the contest she’s in just so Kagami doesn't win?? Like I don't have to explain that right?? Again kids arent stupid and its quite something that Mari gets chastised for proving herself the best video game player regardless of her intentions just cuz it comes at the expense of max’s feelings/ego but is actively encouraged to sabotage not only kagami but herself by extension cuz kagami is ‘competition.’ Adrien is not a trophy to be won. And no I don't expect 14 yrs old to be perfect and to always make good decisions but these decisions are never addressed as being bad decisions. they get swept under the rug cuz those decisions were necessary for the ‘plot’ but astruc can barely keep characterization consistent and his characters suffer for it and it's the same children you preach are watching it that suffer as well. Cuz guess what? I KNOW 14 yr olds aren't like that cuz i've been there done that (this is the last time i'm saying that i promise) so I know astruc is just metaphorically throwing darts to figure out who says and does what without consideration for pre established personalities to drive the stalemate plot along. The same kids you say are watching this don't know that that's not how preteens work and will absorb and internalize those dynamics like baking soda and vinegar. Cata-fucking-strophically. 

And I haven't even gotten to the boys yet. Which honestly doesn't require much explanation anyways cuz they suffer the same fate as the girls. Tired archetypes with nothing to give them life. Nino falls into Adrien’s person of colour token best friend who dates the female lead’s person of colour token best friend so they can have cute double dates uwu. Except the plot goes nowhere and we have no inclination of romantic development beyond moments that only act to actively convince me to anti ship the lovesquare (i don't want to do that so i self indulge in fanon that actually cares about the characters and plot. may i interest you in True Sight on AO3?). Max is the residential nerd but it doesn't matter (cuz he and everyone are dumbed down for the sake of ‘plot’), kim is the sports jock (which interestingly subverts the asian comedic relief stereotype but only barely) and luka is cute older guy ™ that wears black nail polish and is in a band. The point of all this is to say there is no depth in the characters. It's especially blatantly obvious with the characters astruc doesn't like (chloe). Again, it being a show for kids is not an excuse to be absolved of putting effort into the characters you make.

This is one of the biggest misses astruc has. I haven't even gone into all the nuances of this particular miss. And i havent gone into how that works against him in the plot either. Mostly because the plot itself hasn't gone anywhere and partially because I wanted to go into the plot (or lack thereof) separately as its own miss. 

AND BOI is it a miss. 

SO home boy astruc wanted to reap the benefits of a serial show with ‘engaging’ plot without putting in any of the work to make a linear storyline and relying on the episodic format for, again, marketability. You can't have the best of both worlds, you are not Avatar: The Last Airbender. Which btw has a lot less episodes and a desired end goal that didn't involve top dollar. Legend of Korra did but that's not the point and it had its failings with that too. I challenge you, tell me how many episodes actually contribute towards a plot point or introduce new thematic elements to the show? Can you name them? I can and I'm going to include the plot points that moved the story in some direction if only temporarily. Yes only temporarily for some of these and i will explain later. (if you're in the server you already saw this list *wink*)

25/26. Origins- self explanatory, the beginning of the story, 

24. Volpina- introduction of the grimoire and Master Fu (kind of) and no, Lila is not a plot point,

28. The Collector- proper introduction of Master Fu,

37. Sapotis- introduction of Rena Rouge,

41. Syren- introduction of new aquatic power ups,

44. Anansi- introduction of Carapace,

47. Frozer- introduction of new ice power ups,

48/49. Style Queen- introduction of Queen Bee,

51/52. Heroes’ Day- introduction of Mayura and mass akumatization,

66. Startrain- introduction of Pegasus,

67. Kwami Buster- Marinette wears multiple miraculouses,

68. Feast- backstory as to how the miraculouses were lost,

69. Ikari Gozen- introduction of Ryuko,

70. Timetagger- introduction of Bunnyx,

71. Party Crasher- introduction of Roi Singe and Viperion,

73. Chat Blanc- alternate timeline that essentially means nothing but got a reaction out of fans anyways (myself included)

 77/78. Love Eater/Battle of Miraculous- Marinette becomes guardian and other heroes lose their miraculous,

New York Special- other heroes exist and there is an American miraculous box,

That's 21 episodes. 21 out of a heaping 78 plus 2 specials. Everything else was just your typical akuma of the day episode and everything that happened outside that had no lasting consequences on the plot thanks to the miraculous status quo. Was it entertaining to watch Lila stir the plot of the class dynamic? Hell yeah. Too bad it meant nothing by the end of the episode cuz we were struck with miraculous status quo. She literally doesn't appear again until Heroes Day. that is from episodes 25 all the way to 51, she means nothing and yet she is treated with the severity of a b-villain/rival thing. She means nothing by the end of Volpina if I'm being honest. She is only relevant for 20 mins of episode time she’s in then it's back to magic status quo that undoes any shift in dynamics and relationships. It's like Spongebob who can't get his driver’s license. The worst part is I actually like Lila and I wish the story treated her with the seriousness we as an audience are expected to treat her with. Despite being painfully inconsequential by the end of each of the 3?? 4?? episodes she’s in, it's entertaining to watch a character create drama just because. 

Too bad it means nothing.

Astruc is constantly building up suspense to something ‘important’ only for it to not deliver and fans are constantly having the rug pulled out from under us. Oblivio teased us with a reveal only that gets undone cuz memory akuma. Chat Blanc teased us with romantic development but that gets undone cuz time travel bullshit. Feast introduced more miraculous lore and the history of the guardians but that means nothing by the next episode or ever (i'm not including any reference to the season 4 trailer cuz i've been around the block a few times and im familiar with this lil dancy dance). Heroes Day teased us with a possible future team of heroes but that gets undone in Battle of Miraculous cuz ????? why?? (here's why; astruc was having a jolly ole time letting us know how irredeemable Chloe is at the expense of shooting his own stagnant plot in the foot. Again, discussion for later.)

Too bad anything that slightly swerves off course from the akuma of the day gets undone or ignored. Too bad nothing has any lasting consequence. I mean, if anything did, the episodes would have had a consistent order and release schedule so im not scrambling to watch the leaked ep in Portuguese or something while the french dub is two episodes behind while the english version hasnt even been dubbed. I really wonder how he plans to conclude the show when he’s so afraid to step out of the corner he painted himself in.

Again, not going into nuances. If you want you can ask for more specifics (i doubt anyone would) but this is really just a slightly detailed general overview of my opinions on astruc’s writing. 

I was going to include another miss in his approach to this show but imma save that for another time. 

How’s that for a ‘first’ post?

[jojosbizarreblog]

Hi! I don't know if you're taking requests, but if you are, I was wondering if I could get a small scenario set during part 4, where the Reader was a crusader and Jotaro needs her to help to catch Kira. But the reader herself is done with stands and all that jazz so she flat out refuses (and of course she ends up getting convinced to help!). Sorry if this is too specific... I like to go into detail with my requests ❤️

(Don’t apologize! It actually helps me out a lot when it goes in depth like this, so thank you! Hope you like it!)

(P. S. Zinnia flowers have a purpose in the title, trust me)

(P. P. S. It’s long. It’s angsty. Buckle up)

Zinnia Blossoms in Full Bloom (Jotaro x reader)

You opened up a little shop to get away from your past. Unfortunately it comes back to you through the visit of an old friend.

Opening the little flower shop outside of Morioh was arguably one of the best things that you’ve done. It was good to leave the old things behind, leaving behind the oozing monsters that threatened to drag you down and envelop you whole. Of course, you still kept in contact with some of your remaining friends, but it was difficult with them all over the globe. 

‘Fire Cherry Flowers’ was the name of the little shop, in honor of the ones who have passed. It was your way of remembering their life while you tried to forget the pain that came with their memories. Business was slow when you first opened but eventually, the shop gained popularity, and now you had no trouble keeping yourself busy.

You were getting ready to close up shop for the day, cleaning up the fallen flowers on the ground behind the counter, when the bell to the shop rang behind you. “In a moment!” You called. Straightening up, you started turning to the person. “I’m about to close up for the day, but what do you nee—” You froze as your eyes made contact with familiar ocean blue ones. 

“(Y/n),” Jotaro said. He still looked as handsome as ever, decked out in a long white coat and matching pants, almost like what he wore ten years ago. You couldn’t help but remember all those nights spent with the others, long lost memories.

You swallowed thickly. “Jotaro. What brings you here?”

“I need your help.”

“How about we sit down for some tea,” you said. “I’m closing up the shop, so we can sit in the backroom and you can tell me what’s going on.” You two parted on good terms all those years ago. He left Morioh to pursue his dreams of becoming a marine biologist while you stayed near to apprentice under a skilled gardener, learning about the nuances of plants.

He nodded and hovered in a corner of the shop as you bustled around, locking doors and turning off lights. You beckoned him to your back room, where a little stove accompanied by a table and chairs occupied the area. Tea was made in a few short minutes and you sat down across from him, setting down two cups.

“What brings you here?” You asked him, nursing the warm cup between your hands.

Jotaro sighed and took a sip of his tea. “There have been murder cases popping up around Morioh lately.”

You nodded. “That’s right... I overheard it in the news. What has that got to do with you needing my help anyway?”

“We believe it’s the work of a Stand user.”

Frowning, you told him, “Jotaro, you can’t be serious. I told you guys that I’m done with all that Stand business.”

“I know. I’m working with a few others, but it’s better to have more seasoned people to help us with this.”

You slammed the cup down, face shadowed by your hair. “I can’t! Stands have caused me nothing but pain! I’m done with that Jotaro, that life is over for me.”

“Please,” Jotaro said. “I’m begging you, (y/n). I know it hurts, I feel it too. I spend nights remembering their deaths, it hurts so damn much.”

You paused as a lone tear trickled down his face. Jotaro never talked about his feelings and showed them even less. Even when they were close to bursting. He must’ve really been desperate. You sighed and blinked away your own tears. “Let me think about it,” you said, even though you knew what your answer was. Scribbling down your address, you handed it to him and said, “Come back tomorrow.”

Jotaro nodded and set the teacup down. You stood there alone in the backroom as he left. The chime of the bell was the only thing heard before the silence overtook your shop.

Well, time to get ready for tomorrow. Who knew what laid ahead.

The car rumbled as you stared out the windows at the familiar sights that passed you. Buildings that were still so similar despite the ten-year difference.

The old cream parlor. Whose maraschino cherries were something Noriaki often gushed about

That ramen shop that had great sushi. Something Avdol would’ve loved. Perhaps even Iggy too.

Next to you, Jotaro was focused on the road. You couldn’t help but scan his features over. Soft dark hair, a sharp jawline, striking aquamarine eyes. Perhaps Noriaki was right when he told you that you had a crush on Jotaro. You’d thought the feelings would have been gone by now, but absence makes the heart grow fonder, you supposed.

His phone rang, somewhere in his coat’s pocket, and Jotaro fumbled to take it out and answer it. “Dr. Kujo speaking,” he said. You watched as Jotaro shrank back from the multiple loud voices screeching over the speaker. “Yare yare daze, I leave you three alone for one moment, and trouble’s already found you. I’m only a few minutes away so try not to burn down my hotel room.”

Jotaro sighed as he hung up, stuffing the phone back into his pocket. You raise an inquisitive eyebrow at him. “People you working with?” You asked.

“You could say that. I’m more of a babysitter for them though.”

You shook your head. What the hell did you get dragged into now?

The car rolled to a stop in front of a hotel. “We’re here, let’s go.”

You grabbed your bag and followed Jotaro as he briskly walked through the lobby and up the stairs, questions in your head. What sort of people was Jotaro working with? Detectives? Criminal investigators?

Your expectations were quickly dashed when he opened the door to three teenagers. Two of them were sporting pompadours, though one had quite a sizable one. Both were screaming their heads off, trying to yank a jar off of the one with a smaller pompadour. The last one, who was comically short, was sitting in the hotel’s armchair, watching the chaos in front of him.

None of them heard you two enter, too stuck up in their troubles. They didn’t notice the dangerous aura Jotaro was giving off either. You looked at him and said, “Are you shitting me? Jotaro are these who you’re working with????”

The screaming stopped and all eyes zoned in on you. The previously screaming teens straightened up, hiding the jar behind their back. Jotaro gave a long-suffering sigh as he shut the door behind you two.

“Jotaro!” The one with the larger pompadour beamed. “Who’s this?”

“This is (y/n) (l/n). She’s a friend of mine and a former Crusader.”

You nodded at them. The shortest one stood up and walked to you, sticking out his hand. “My name is Koichi Hirose, nice to meet you.”

Taking his hand in yours you gave him a smile. “Nice to meet you too.”

The larger pompadour wearing teen pushed Koichi aside, grinning at you. “I’m Josuke Higashitaka, Jotaro’s uncle! That’s my friend Okuyasu Nijimura!”

You blanked. He looked seventeen at the oldest. How did he end up being Jotaro’s uncle? You squinted at him and then Jotaro, trying to pick out any similarities. “What the fuck happened when I was out?” You asked Jotaro.

“Joseph got busy,” was his reply.

Sighing you turned back to the teen and nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Josuke.”

Josuke brightened. “You said you were a former Crusader, right??? What was it like, traveling across Egypt???”

Oh god.

Nights under stars. Making fun of each other. Two limp objects and a canid body in Polnareff’s arms. A crumpled water tower.

You forced a smile to hide the inky blackness seeping through your heart. “It was hell and high heaven at the same time.”

Josuke frowned at the cryptic phrase but was stopped from asking any more questions when something shattered and Okuyasu screamed. You winced at the volume and wondered how Jotaro managed to work with them.

“Crazy Diamond!” Josuke yelled. A being appeared and you blanked.

His Stand...

Oh god oh god oh god.

You flinched as Jotaro’s hand came to rest upon your shoulder. He turned your attention away from whatever was happening with the teens. “Will you be alright?”

Swallowing thickly, you replied, “There’s... going to be some adjustments needed.”

He sighed a straightened up, walking to the now quieter teens and ushering them out the door. “Come back tomorrow,” he barked. “We’ll work on some more stuff next time.”

The door shut with a resounding slam, leaving peace and silence at last. You found yourself drawn to the balcony overlooking Morioh. Jotaro’s presence settled next to you and you two stared at the little town below.

“Josuke’s Stand...” you began tentatively.

From the corner of your vision, you could see Jotaro give a shart nod. “I know. I promise that it’s different from his.”

You nodded stiffly. “Alright.”

“Hey... do you want to go to that ice cream parlor we passed?”

Your heart clenched at the unexpected question. “The one that Noriaki swore up and down had the best maraschino cherries?”

There was the barest hint of a smile in Jotaro’s reply. “Yeah... we did promise to try it out when we got back. Never got around to it.”

“I’m in,” you agreed. “We do need to fulfill our promise after all.”

“Alright. We’ll head over there tomorrow, then we’ll get to work on the case.”

That was it for the conversation between you two as a breeze passed over the quiet bubble that had set in.

In that quiet, you couldn’t help but reminisce about those long gone.

[Zinnia is a symbol of endurance. It also symbolizes lasting friendships, goodness, and remembrance.]

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

you’ve talked a little bit about this wrt dan, but i’m curious: what are your favorite seasons/arcs for the main gg characters? (serena, blair, dan, nate, jenny, vanessa) cause everyone’s personalities tended to uh, shift a bit from season to season and storyline to storyline, and i’m wondering which eras of those characters were your favorite?

oh, so i sat on this question for a very long time, and spent a ton of time thinking over it. here we go! 

i loved the way serena was written in s1 and s2. she was so full of joy despite all the difficult things she’d endured, so bubbly and warm and... lively is ALWAYS the adjective that comes to mind for serena, despite how it’s a terrible pun. but yeah! she had an energy to her that was very childlike & genuine, and i loved that about her - despite the things she’d endured, she was so full of light (?? how do i describe this.) i know that serena’s arc gets notably more tragic s3 onwards, but i feel like the way she was written lost a bit of depth s3 onwards as well. she had a sharp wit, and a good sense of humour, she was playful and... most notably, she had this little giggle? that she literally NEVER does in the later seasons, which makes me sad?? she stopped laughing like a child at the age of, what, 19?? idk. in s1 & s2 serena had so many layers, and i feel like as the seasons went on they tried to, uh. keep only the surface layers? they didn’t really do justice to the character they started out with.

my answer for vanessa is actually the exact same, with slight modifications. vanessa’s energy in s1 and s2 was unparalleled. literally the best. i loved her and the way she was critical of everything and YET so ready to learn. compared to all these rich, privileged, white people... her presence was just SO good and so important to me, because the way she was so critical of the uber rich was something nobody else really was, and i think that perspective WAS valuable and should’ve remained, haha. idk what it was about s3, but i feel like they didn’t keep the crux of who vanessa was? it wasn’t a BAD vanessa season as much as an incomplete one. i felt they could’ve done so much more with a character like vanessa.... she’s so vibrant and full of life! and the way s3 was for her was very surface. and then in s4 they just demolished her character entirely. i’ve said it before, i’ll say it again: what jenny, juliet and vanessa did in 4x09 was TOTALLY out of character for vanessa. she would never, ever do that. and by the time s4 came around... someone else said this, i don’t remember who. but they said that vanessa was basically being used as a plot device more than as a character. notice how she’s always in the right place at the right time to overhear the right thing? it’s a travesty, because vanessa was just..... so significant to me. like her being there added so much value & even changed the tone of the show imo.

my blair feelings are very complicated. i think she’s fascinating, and i love leighton & her performance. i love book blair so much more than show blair, and idk why or how to explain it. i mentioned this in that post where i ranked the characters, but while watching blair in high school specifically i can’t EVER forget that she would probably hatecrime me, and even when she’s out of school she is still supremely racist at times. i actually liked blair best in s5 - and i know she was going thru ~tragic~ stuff (i think they dialled the tragedy too high actually, like, blair had TOO MUCH on her plate and from a storytelling point of view it was... ambitious, to say the least, to hope to bring all out of that out on tv) but like, keeping her tragedy aside. her capacity for kindness and care really shone thru while she was with dan, and i liked how the d/b relationship took her out of her comfort zone and her “but im a Waldorf!” bubble and let her, idk, be a person. i liked her in s4, too. i feel like blair is a really good, nuanced, fleshed out character as blair, and the way she clung to being a waldorf combined with her rich-white-girl privilege got kind of boring after a while because like. she’s not like louis? her character has so much depth. her character doesn’t need to be reduced to a title, because she’s SO much more than that.

i feel like i need to do a lot more rewatching when it comes to dan because i CANNOT be objective about him. he reminds me far too much of myself!!! down to his flaws and his mistakes and his issues –  i was a precocious little shit in high school at times in very similar ways to dan, i like to think i’ve grown out of that (& am perpetually making an effort TO grow out of falling into those patterns) & that’s what i want for dan, too. dan’s arc feels real to me, because a lot of it is my arc, too. feeling lonely, out of place & unaccepted in high school --> being a popular kid in college… that hits really close to home. s1 & s2 are important seasons to me because i’m extremely protective of awkward, trying-his-best high school dan (he can be awful at times, but he can be earnest and sincere, too!) i feel like s4 is actually the best dan season – took me a while to get here, but halfway thru my s2 rewatch that’s how i’m leaning. but dan’s arc was very interesting to me, and i wish they’d kept his heart. trying to retcon him as evil fell absolutely flat to me, like. who are you convincing! one of my friends and i were joking about how georgie blackmailed dan into pretending to be gossip girl (she obviously has dirt on him that nobody else does.) anyway. dan’s arc felt pretty true until the end of s4. i wasn’t a big fan of how he was written in s5, i felt like something had been taken away from his character, but i don’t know how to say it better. you’re right though, i have gone over this a lot! so i’m not going to break my head over it, ‘cause we’re already a thousand words in and i still have nate and jenny to go.

speaking of jenny, though: i think dan’s storylines REALLY needed more of a big brother arc. the way he was characterised, especially in s1, was very “i would kill a man for my baby sister” and i have NO idea where that went or why they got rid of it. (actually, i do have some idea. fucking chip wiskers apologism & elevation of chair over literally anything else. sigh)

okay, now speaking of jenny in terms of jenny. i liked her s1 arc, like, her trying to make friends with these people & trying to keep her morals and realising she can’t do both was interesting. i think that should’ve been that with her clashes with girls in constance, though. and afterwards, either nothing happens, or she transfers out of constance, etc. jenny’s s2 arc makes me sad – she was exploited and treated like dirt in so many ways :( the jenny/agnes was interesting in s2, though, and there’s no way to interpret it that ISN’T lesbian. i’ve always felt like jenny’s feelings for nate in s2 are very comphet. jenny’s s3 arc made me even sadder than her s2 arc- she was alienating all her friends one by one, making everyone hate her, and just…… spiralling. she really needed a better support system. her s4 arc made no sense. like. why did she come back in the city to fuck with serena like that? it didn’t feel right.

yeah, all that said… i feel like there are many super intriguing elements of jenny’s storylines and arcs, like, even within canon events if things had been executed differently, it could’ve been actually good/empowering. but the writers hated jenny. and this show was never a feminist show.

ah, so… nate. he started out as a flake in s1 & s2. that’s his whole thing. he doesn’t know who he wants to be / how to get what he wants / how to get where he wants. he takes people for granted. he isn’t dependable or reliable, he lets people down (most notably, blair & vanessa.) and he means well, sure! but his life is like amber and he’s trapped in it. he doesn’t follow his heart, he’s too busy trying to please the wrong people, etc etc. in s3 he’s suddenly so ready for commitment, which always breaks my heart because vanessa!!! but anyway. s3 has a shift in his character, possibly him getting dumped at prom and realising that high school is over and one thing that tethered him to his family (being a kid, being a high schooler, being a minor, whatever) –  one big thing that held him there is gone. so it makes sense that he starts trying to be his own person. i like s3 nate, and s4 nate. we see nate sort of gradually try and be a moral compass, and it’s interesting to me. when i write d/n fic something i really focus on is dan finding nate dependable, and i think that’s a value that builds in nate over time. nate of season 1 is not dependable, nope, no way. but nate of s4 seems like a decent friend to have. in s5 and s6 they more or less threw his entire arc to the wind and gave him so many shitty storylines (sage spence, wtf? nate would not do this. he’s been on the opposite end of this before, he would not carry the pattern forward, ffs.)

idk. this almost hit 1.7k, LMAO. i hope it made some amount of sense!

[words-writ-in-starlight]

I'm thinking of reading Kencyrath, but I'm not sure whether i'll like it. What do you like about the series? Who would you recommend it for?

OKAY SO, first, the people I would recommend it to:

Anyone who read or watched more than half a book/four episodes of Game of Thrones--the Kencyrath has a similar list of trigger warnings, but commits much harder to the fantasy angle, and in my opinion deals more directly with the ethical problems raised by those trigger warnings

People who like those posts picking apart the minutiae of how high fantasy worlds work--the Kencyrath is one of the only series I’m familiar with that answers the question of “okay great you have a warrior race, so how does that actually work” with “it kind of doesn’t, everyone is starving half the time because we’re all warriors and our land can barely grow food, so if our mercenaries don’t get paid, we don’t eat”

People who like a mix of “low fantasy” moral questions (the first book is kind of like...hm, Lies of Locke Lamora?) with classic “high fantasy” political machinations and battles of good vs evil and such--the Kencyrath HAVE a grand sweeping destiny more or less on their doorstep, but they’ve sort of fallen down on the job about it

People who like books that deal with trauma recovery--Jame, the main character, spends most of her time trying to drag herself (and, ideally, her brother, cousin, and entire race) out of the cycle of abuse that they’ve all lived through, and every character has, to some extent, a trauma that shapes their actions one way or another

People who don’t mind a big cast as long as there are a couple main characters to focus on--the Kencyrath ends up being a pretty expansive cast, with a lot of schemes running at any given time, but it always revolves around Jame and her twin brother Tori

People who like complex societal worldbuilding and Loyalty Stuff--the Kendar/Highborn dynamic (warrior class/ruling class) is so wonderfully messed up and I love how seriously the books take both the advantages and massive pitfalls of that kind of society

People who listened to TAZ Balance and thought that the Hunger was really cool and terrifying and wanted a whole book series about the sequence where the world is fighting it

Anyone who ever read a standard high fantasy book with a Rambunctious Young Lady as the lead and went “this is fine, but if you’re going to spend 250 pages telling me that this girl is wild and uncontrollable, I would like to see her go completely feral, please”--Jame’s brain plays Yakety Sax 24/7 and you can TELL, so if you ever wanted a book where the Unladylike Lead Character goes genuinely apeshit, but also learns how to make friends and respect the value of traditionally feminine work even if it’s not for her

People I would recommend NOT read the Kencyrath:

Anyone who knows they are triggered by written discussion of assault, abuse, sexism, coercion, torture, flashbacks, racism, murder, or basically any other major trigger warning--I personally think the books deal with things pretty well, and they’re never grimdark, but they deal with a lot of incredibly heavy material, including child abuse, sexual assault, coercion, and torture.  If you know you have a major trigger that really messes you up when you read about it, please exercise caution and feel free to contact me for more details.  Also, if you have a specific trigger and want a different book recommendation, I have them on tap.  

Anyone who struggles to read or connect with “problematic” characters--pretty much every character in this series will EVENTUALLY do something you don’t like, including Jame.  The books go very hard on “who you are is defined by how you handle making an irreparable mistake,” so be prepared for that.  If this is your hard stop but everything else is fine, I would recommend the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie (spaceships and war crimes and found family), or something by Robin McKinley (mostly fantasy), especially the Damar books or Sunshine!

Anyone for whom incest between twins is a hard stop--the primary romantic relationship is Jame/Tori, and while I would consider it easily the healthiest relationship in the series, that’s the ship and you should be aware of it.  If this is your hard stop but everything else is fine, I would recommend the Captive Prince series by CS Pacat (political scheming and romance) or the Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden (fairy tale fantasy)!

The stuff I like about the series:

Jame.  I love that she’s allowed to be completely unhinged.  I love that she faces consequences for her actions.  I love her determination to slit reality open and lay it all out like a scientist in her search for the truth.  I love her willingness to face unpleasant realities, and I love the times when she can’t bear them and has to figure out how to deal.  I love every second she spends trying to figure out how honor works, and whether it’s even possible for a Highborn to be honorable, and how she can save her people without sacrificing who she is.  I love to watch people pick a fight with her and immediately learn the error of her ways.

Tori.  I know I pick on him a lot, and he deserves to be picked on, but Tori is really one of my favorite characters.  He struggles a lot more than Jame to move past their father’s abuse, and he makes a lot of genuinely harmful choices in the depths of that struggle, but I love watching the times where he wins.  It makes me frustrated beyond words when he caves to what he was taught, but I’m always elated when he can push past that and reveal the deeply loyal, sincerely honorable, incredibly good person that he became in spite of their father.  He’s a good leader, despite everyone’s best efforts, and I love to see him fight for his people.  Love to see him consider HIMSELF one of “his people” someday.

Kindrie.  I won’t say too much about him, except that I didn’t actually like him that much when I first read the books, for basically the exact reasons Jame didn’t like him much at first--he’s someone doing trauma recovery in the exact opposite way that I was comfortable with.  But god I love him so much, he is doing his best and his best is so much better than anyone would expect, from his past.  Truly the best boy in the Kencyrath, wise beyond his years and just insane enough to get into the disasters where he’s most needed.

The Kendar.  Instead of making this post 4k with individual bullet points about every Kendar I love, here is a brief litany.  I love Marc because he’s the only stable person in the Kencyrath.  I love Brier because she’s doing her best and it would be okay if everyone (including her) admitted that she doesn’t always know what that actually means.  I love Burr and Rue because their rabid determination to turn Tori and Jame (Confirmed Feral Cats) into real nobility will never NOT be funny to me.  I love Sheth Sharp-tongue because he’s the only person with his shit so together that not even Jame can ruffle him.  I love the Randir Kendar who didn’t move, at the start of Bound in Blood.  The Kendar are the most nuanced take on the concept of an eternally loyal warrior caste I’ve ever seen and I love them.

The Villains.  I believe I have established that I love a nuanced villain.  The Master is a pretty straight up and down villain figure, the voice of the darkness, John Hunger or Saruman or whatever else you might like to compare him to, but no one else is that simple.  I love the Dreamweaver, who didn’t know what she was doing and paid for it anyway.  I love Tyrandis, who knew what he was doing and did it and spent his eternity trying to fix it without breaking a single rule.  I do NOT love Caldane, but he’s a kind of viscerally real, slimy evil that is exceptionally well executed.  Likewise, I would like Rawneth to die, painfully, in short order, but godDAMN watching her chessboard unfold over the course of the books is hypnotic. The villains in this are GOOD, folks, and I like them.

I really need to wrap this up, so my last pick for what I like is Overpowered Characters.  I complain a lot about media that panics over powerful characters, and responds by taking that power away, or having unstable worldbuilding that means the character is weak when the narrative demands it.  The Kencyrath doesn’t do that.  Jame is bonkers powerful from day one, and pretty much maintains that level through the series.  Instead of focusing on characters building their power, like leveling in DnD, the Kencyrath focuses on the question of using power.  Jame’s power in the first book is terrifying not just because she’s insanely strong, but because she has no idea how to use it.  Likewise, Tori is determined pretty quickly to be at the same level that she is, but he’s in such deep denial that he’s as likely to kill himself as do anything useful.  It’s just very SATISFYING, okay, to have a series actually do interesting things with OP characters.  Sure, in a weird way Jame seems less like a magical nuke in book 8 than in book 1, but it’s because she’s not just throwing power around like someone playing darts blindfolded.  And watching her figure out how to harness her power into something useful is so gratifying.

[rotationalsymmetry]

General gripes about DS9 and gender (some spoilers) (content notes: some references to sexual abuse/trauma, and specifically spiritual abuse/sexual misconduct in religious leaders, also death/murder):

I swear to fuck these people do not know how to write female characters without shoehorning them into romance plotlines. (Or weird fucked up stuff, like when that Cardassian serial murderer kidnaps Kira.) Especially noticeable with Ziyal -- when Kira takes her to DS9, the writers apparently can't think of a single thing to do with a young woman other than ship her with a much older Cardassian. Then, she's starting to get her own life and make a name for her as an artist, and they fucking refridgerator her. The fuck. (And: the focus is on how her death affects Dukat, that fucker. Which, obviously sure it's going to affect him...but it's also going to affect Kira, who sees Ziyal as like a younger version of herself and was trying to protect her. And then Ziyal dies. That should have some sort of effect on Kira! And did no one else on the station make any sort of connection with her when she was there?) This is arguably not primarily a gender thing, but it is partly a gender thing: the show keeps demanding Kira find sympathy for her oppressors, over and over again. (This is a gripe fest: of course there's a lot of things about Kira's character that are done really well.) She keeps getting thrown in situations that show (some) Cardassians in more nuanced lights and that more or less force her into relationships with them, while meanwhile her old resistance cell friends all get killed off, her parents are dead, if she has any other family we don't hear about it, and she's basically left with no Bajoran friends even, as far as we know. She gets Bajoran lovers who... OK, about that. First, Vedek Bareil. Now, Bajorans are shown to have a pretty relaxed attitude towards their clergy (eg Kira is frequently rude to Winn even after she becomes Kai with apparently no consequences) -- but still. Vedek is roughly equivalent to, what, cardinal? He's high up in the heirarchy. And, he's put himself in a role of spiritual authority relative to Kira: she gets access to one of the Orbs through him. They've got a power imbalance and one that's connected to Kira's ability to do her religion. I don't care what the social norms are on Bajor that is 100% sexual misconduct on Bareil's part. If something went wrong in their relationship, it could fuck up Kira's connection to her faith. And in the show it's presented as no big deal.

(Star Trek seems to be aware of this when it comes to ship's captains! For all that Kirk notoriously fucks everyone, he never voluntarily (/outside of the mirror universe, outside of odd transporter malfunctions that split him into two parts, etc) came on to a crew member. But it's no less important for religious authorities.) (Also: this has nothing to do with celebacy. I'm fine with Bajoran religious figures being allowed to have sex and being allowed to have sex outside of marriage. But: a religious leader having a sexual relationship with someone who they're in a pastoral relationship to is wrong, and while Bareil isn't exactly Kira's pastor I think there is some level of, he's providing spiritual guidance to her. That means she's off limits to him, or should be. In the same way that bosses shouldn't fuck their direct reports, college professors shouldn't fuck their students, therapists definitely shouldn't fuck their patients, etc. Regardless of how they handle their sex life outside of those restrictions. And regardless of whether there's love involved or not -- romantic love absolutely does not make it better.) And then there's Shakaar, the former leader of her resistance cell. That she joined as a teenager. It's...yeah, it's been many years, yeah she's not directly under him any more, and yeah goodness knows a band of resistance fighters is probably not going to have a clearly written up sexual harassment policy so it's not necessarily unrealistic...it's not as blatantly "oh god no" as Bareil, but it's got some...is anyone thinking of potential abuse of power issues here? Anyone?

There was one episode where Jake and Nog were double-dating and it goes badly due to Ferengi, uh, gender roles not meshing well with Federation egalatarianism. And, then the rest of the episode is all about how they're going to repair their friendship. And I was thinking: we didn't see either female character either before or after, and why is a sexism issue being shown from the lens of "how can I, a nice guy, stay friends with my male friend who has sexism issues" and not "how am I, a young woman, going to deal with this affront to my basic personhood" or "how am I, a young woman, going to repair my friendship now that I talked my friend into a double date so I could date the guy I liked but his friend turned out to be garbage?" Like...out of all the potential relationships there, why is Jake's friendship with a guy with sexism issues (who's made it clear he's not going to change, at least as far as dating goes) the one presented as being in most need of preservation? I know, it's because Jake and Nog are more central characters and their friendship has been significant in the show for seasons now. But...that just brings up more questions. Like why does this show have a significant bro friendship between two teenage boys, but there's no friendship between two women (or between a woman and a man for that matter) that's given as much weight? There's some bonding between Kira and Dax, but it doesn't have the same presence and significance as Jake and Nog or, say, Miles and Julian. (I'm having first name/last name inconsistencies here. Ah well.) Keiko has no on-camera friendships. Kira has no on-camera friendships that have Jake & Nog or Julian & Miles weight. Dax maybe does with her Klingon buddies from Curzon's lifetime. (Benjamin Sisko also doesn't.) Ziyal could have, but doesn't. Molly could have, but doesn't. Miles doesn't seem to have any (on-camera or otherwise acknowledged) parent friends (like...there's one couple mentioned who can babysit Molly at times? That's it? We never even see them?), which is weird because fuck knows parenthood can make it hard to have any friends who aren't parents. Odo's got his weird frenemy thing with Quark. Garak has his standing lunch with Julian (if you read that as platonic, which ... yeah, there's not a lot of arguments for seeing it as platonic beyond "they're both men.") I am, don't get me wrong, extremely for showing male friendships. Very much for it. It's just...I want friendships that aren't between two guys also. And I want them to be shown as significant and meaningful and worth overcoming obstacles for. Friendships between women, friendships between people of the same race or culture (or alien species, since we are talking Star Trek here), friendships between men and women that aren't just a precursor to romance. And...parenting that isn't just...I want to see Keiko have problems with parenting that she overcomes with help from other people. I want to explore the emotional ramifications of Kira being a surrogate mom to Kirayoshi or being a semi adopted mom to Ziyal and then having her die. I want Kira to talk about how her own upbringing in times of famine and war and occupation affects her sense of her ability to potentially be a parent. I want a female character to calmly talk about her decision to not become a mother and have that decision be treated with the utmost respect. I want the sort of struggles that male characters have with parenting on the show, like Worf's difficulty connecting with his son or Benjamin's conflict over watching his son grow up and get less interested in spending time with his dad, be shown for female characters as well. And the joys, like when Benjamin remembers holding Jake as an infant, like when they reunite after Jake gets caught in a war zone. Rather than parenting be this thing that mom characters apparently do on autopilot without any internal conflict or feeling out of their depth or particular moments of joy and amazement. There's so many plot lines and moments and bits and pieces that could be amazing moments that give

mother characters balance and nuance and characterization, but they only ever get shown for fathers. (And this is not just Star Trek either...look at all the kids movies that are about father/son or father/daughter bonding, and somehow the moms...just aren't there. It's so good when there are single father storylines, just...where are all the mom storylines that could be like that?) And why do teenage boys get focus and their own stories (especially with Jake in DS9, but also TNG has Wesley Crusher and Alexander, and TOS had one story centering on a teenage boy) but girls either aren't there at all or don't get to have stories that are about them? Ziyal's stories aren't about her, she doesn't get to form her own friendships and only barely gets to develop an interest of her own before her life is taken away from her. Molly doesn't get stories that are about her. (And yeah, Molly's a lot younger than Jake, but those are still choices: DS9 could have been set when Molly was a teenager, or the show could have introduced a different teenage girl as a significant character, or Jake could have been a girl rather than a boy, or Benjamin could have had two children...)