Thoughts on Wasp? I like the idea of cats joining that turn out that the Clans aren’t great… but also it feels… weird? Like it seems like another “lazy cat bad” on some levels. I don’t mind him not joining the Clans but these “outsider learns they’re not fit for the Clans” things always give me a pause from the Erins. Also interested in how you would handle him!
Moonkitti's video on him is really well worded, if you haven't seen it yet. I do think he's different from the way that other books tend to portray outsiders in that they are saying that he was driven away by the xenophobia of the Clans... but.
They still make him extremely disinterested in Clan life while he's in ThunderClan. I think that was a massive blunder to write, if the thing they're trying to say is "XENOPHOBIA PREVENTS OTHERWISE ENTHUSIASTIC MIGRATION"
It would have hit harder if it was Wafflepaw who tried to run to RiverClan, got assaulted, and then didn't want to be a Clan cat anymore.
Wafflepaw WANTS to be a warrior. Wasp did not. It reads more like Wasp getting hate crime'd was a "last straw" more than THE reason why he won't stay.
That's where you're getting that vibe they're saying "lazy cat bad," imo. It's a bit different from usual, but it still seems like the narrative is saying that Wasp really didn't belong here anyway.
(no, Nightheart's moment where he looks at the camera and says "he could have been fine!" doesn't change that they showed, in their text, with the actions they wrote, that Wasp was not enjoying being part of the Clans anyway. If that was their intended thesis, their writing was sloppy.)
It feels especially weird that Bee didn't go with Frostpaw. Bee was the character with a lot more setup and that strange dream. A lot of people were confusing Bee and Wasp when the book first came out and I don't blame them.
Most importantly, you can't talk about Wasp without also mentioning one of THE worst lines I think has ever been written into a Warrior Cats book. The part where tigerHeartstar says, "Those cats who just committed a hate crime were perfectly good people before the evil dictator took over. If we kill the evil dictator, I'm sure they'll CHANGE BACK"
I'm still REELING. Fuck you MEAAAN "CHANGE BACK????" CHANGE BACK? LIKE BEING A BIGOT IS UNCOMFORTABLE SHOES???
CHANGE BACK... me bringing my evil dollars up to the villain store and exchanging it for racism coins... change back...
So when I get around to it, I'm going to evaluate if Wasp is even actually necessary in the form he's in. BB is already about xenophobia and bigotry and the harm it does. Frostpaw has no shortage of examples to witness what Thistle Law is, and what it does to those excluded from Clan Culture.
When I first made my Family Tree for RiverClan, I actually ended up making Splashstar's MOM, Havenpelt, an ex-rogue. I think seeing him order a hate crime against his own mother would be a LOT more impactful here, actually.
What Frostpaw DOES need is allies and friends. I'm already starting by expanding her little "DND Party," a word I'm using to affectionately refer to some cats who will be following her home from her pilgrimage to the Park. 99% chance that Nightheart is going to become a permanent member of this party, joining RiverClan at the end of ASC. Waffle will be another. She'll probably also pick up a Tribe cat.
Wasp will be on this party, but I won't decide what happens to them until I see what that last book has in store. Who knows, he might come back (though I hope not, run as far away from these ghouls as possible Wasp!!)
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Even if Rowling wasn't completely off the holocaust denying deep-end, the way she wrote those wizard books kind of pisses me off now that i'm older because they have so much potential to be better than they actually were.
Like, middle school me was eating that shit up for a reason, you don't become one of the most popular authors in the world who created one of the most well-known pieces of literature in the world off of dumb luck. There were things she did right. Unfortunately , now that i'm older I can see everything she did wrong. And my writer's brain mixed with my ego is telling me that I could make it better.
Implant a heavier theme of the wizarding world's patronizing bullshit and entitlement. Like seriously, the complete unwarranted superiority complex that these chuckle fucks have is obnoxious beyond belief. Even middle school me knew that there was no good reason to keep magic away from the people they made up a slur for. Maybe that should have been the main theme of the books.
Seriously, it ties in so well with the evil wizard supremacy sublot. The solution to systemic discrimination is not to get rid of bigoted people. It's to tear down those systems entirely. The wizarding world seriously needs a status quo shake up.
Revamp the house elves or just cut them out entirely. Just don't fucking justify slavery. IT'S NOT THAT HARD!!!
Maybe this is lefist brain talking but do not make Harry grow up to be a fucking magic cop. In fact, I would have had made the Aurors be unbelievably awful and corrupt, just like a real cops!
Give the characters of color less racist names.
Stop describing your female villains as "mannish"
The greedy goblin banker theme is one of the most disgustingly antisemetic things i've ever had the displeasure of putting up with. What the fuck is wrong with you Joanne!? I would just cut that shit out.
The violent fatphobia grosses me out so much. When I was little I wanted Dudley to get a PROPER redemption arc so bad and not be abused for his weight. In fact , if I were Rowling, I would have added in a sublot about Dudley discovering his own magic to and having to unlearn the shit his parents taught him, as well as deal with their painful rejection of him. That would've been really cool.
Apparently lycanthropy was supposed to be a metaphor for HIV??? Ew, Joanne. No. It's like she never talked to a gay man in her life.
The "love" potions piss me off SO BAD. Voldemort's mother was not in love. She was a rapist. I would change that up entirely.
Snape is not a hero. He was an incel in a hate group. Acknowledge him as such and don't have Harry name his fucking kid after him.
Hey, quick question, why does the school have a blood supremacist house???? Why was this allowed??? Why did she write Slytherin to just be openly discriminatory towards mixed blood kids????
Whatever the dad Weasely's name is, I would have played off his whole "weeb for nonmagical people" thing as more patronizing and accidentally insensitive than endearing. He reminds me of white moms who say konichiwa to the waiter at Chinese restaurants and think they're "cultured".
For the love of god, treat the female characters other than Hermione with an OUNCE of respect.
Now that I know more about animal welfare and the exotic pet industry, Hagrid kinda gets on my nerves. I would add a sublot about him learning to respect the boundaries of wild animals.
I can't think of anything else that ticks me off about the books right now but I will come back to this if I do.
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I have truly never seen so much discourse for a hero/anti-hero that kills until I started liking jason todd. I have literally never seen so many people get hate for not condemning a fictional character who kills bad guys until now its shocking! and I mean that literally
maybe I’m the one missing something but there are plenty of heroes (not antiheroes but HEROES) who exist that choose a lethal method and people take that in stride? the only way I can make sense of this is that people are so attached to batman and his mythos; they literally imprint on him and his thinking ?? and now any slight against him or challenge against his righteousness is taken as if its a slight against them.
at the end of the day, to me, you can still support jason being lethal because the fictional characters hes killing aren’t actually dead. in this sense, specifically, I don’t see why real life morals should be applied to a comic world. he’s not killing out of bigotry and if he was, I would get the controversy! but if you can agree with brutally beating and invasions of privacy in the dcu because it’s “morally correct” within the universe, I can’t see an argument against jason’s methods being morally wrong as valid unless those views are applied to every aspect of batman comics. if we did that, then everyone who continued reading these comics would be getting the same treatment jason todd fans do. you cannot hold one character accountable to real life moral views and not the other(s)!
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just finished watching star vs the forces of evil all the way through and realized something and suddenly i have a lot to say about it
i am aware that it is a kids show and they might not have intended for this but hear me out!!
there are obviously a ton of inconsistencies and unanswered questions posed by the ending and the sudden merging of worlds but we're not supposed to know!! the show spends four seasons spelling out many many things, one of them being how the presence of magic in any world is a double-edged sword: what happens when people reserve the use of that magic for, say, a monarchy; what can come from this structure governing a diverse population (ie mewmans and monsters) where the monarchy is entirely comprised of one faction of the population; the discomfort, growth, and radical change that it takes to get people to confront their own biases and accept a new reality. which is why the show ends with the "no magic" angle.
but another one of those pillars of central themes (or, i argue, THE central theme) is the crazy, wonderful, amazing, terrifying, uncomfortable and supernatural things that can happen when we connect with each other and relate to each other deeply. we see this in terms of the previous theme of magic, and in terms of mewmans and monsters, mainly through eclipsa: her struggle with being accepted by the public in season 4; her turbulent relationship with meteora in season 3 turning to her genuine deep love and admiration for her baby daughter; her attachment to and borderline obsession with freeing globgor and how, at the start, it governs nearly all of her decisions and actions as queen. we see it through moon literally building a community out of nothing in the middle of the forest because she simply can't help but care about people. (and river's subsequent complete adoration of her.)
but we also see it very often through the lens of star and marco. at first (and the vast majority of the time) it isn't even in a romantic manner--literally the day they meet, they are already fighting in sync, a pattern that continues throughout the first season--they finish each other's sentences, etc etc etc. and it could be argued that a lot of that is a direct result of the blood moon ball, where their souls are (theoretically) bound together at the ripe age of fourteen. but whether or not it was a magical curse (again, the role of magic and its positive and negative effects in life) doesn't matter in the end. to me, it is simply a story of two people who have something real and beautiful and powerful, and how the presence of magic first hinders but then helps them uphold that.
we're not supposed to know what happens after the worlds merge because we're supposed to believe that by the power of friendship or love or any combination of the two they will figure it out. it's because of that very power that they've always figured it out in the past!! the ending raises a ton of good and important questions about worldbuilding, society, etc but we're not supposed to care about those questions; at the very least, we're supposed to accept that they themselves don't care about those questions. there's a reason the last scene is the two reconnecting: it is clearly ALL that they care about. and that's beautiful!!!
literally everywhere you turn in this show, basically every single plotline or arc you can think of, boils down to people (or not-people) loving, wanting to love, wanting to be loved, wanting to be accepted, wanting to feel connection. ex: ludo didn't get love as a child and so resorts to commanding respect to cope, and the only way he's able to snap out of this cycle is when dennis finds him and they both experience the first real loving connection either of them have ever had. meteora knew nothing of her family history growing up and was taught that everything natural about her should be shunned and suppressed, and the only times we see her drop or even soften her guard before the end of season 3 are when she is trying to foster a connection with rasticore (which doesn't go well) or when she finally finds eclipsa and is overjoyed at the prospect of true, unflinching motherly love. tom starts the show obsessed with star, driven solely by the idea that someone who once loved him might be able to do so again, and as the show progresses he not only learns to control his anger issues but learns how to respect both her and himself in doing so, leading to a relationship that is visibly much more healthy the second time around.
star and marco are another example of how this concept is done so beautifully, and an example of the fundamental idea that fierce and true love shouldn't break a world, it should make it. and i think the ending aims to show that. we know that there is a story after the one we stop seeing, and we know it's one that's going to be driven by empathy and connection and hope, and to a certain extent (especially in a kids show) isn't that all you ever need??
tldr: at its core svtfoe is yet another piece of media about the otherworldly power of human connection which is why the ending is Like That
(i'm aware this is a contrarian take and i'm sorry in advance i just like to be positive)
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