#and also yeah representation. how many ace characters can you name??

[thickest-slimiest-malware]

lapidot shippers when learning peridot is confirmed asexual and aromantic: i do not see it

[olderthannetfic]

I know about the origins of the Bechdel Test, but I do think it's inaccurate to say it's not meant as a criticism of movies that don't do that. I think that when people stop thinking in binary terms of "is this feminist?" or "is this anti-feminist?" and instead look at things more holistically, that you can recognize both that a character like Mako Mori is great, a step in the right direction for female characters in action movies and especially WOC, go forth and stan her and write all the fanfic you want.... but yeah, it is also a valid criticism of the movie (and many others like it) that she doesn't talk to or have relationships with any other woman in the film.

I think one thing to help people realize just HOW much of women's lives are being left out of media representation when we never talk to other named women about something other than a man in movies, is to just think about your own life. I talk to my mom every day, and if we are not talking about my stepdad or my brother-in-law (and I don't think we've ever had a conversation that wasn't at least IN PART not about them or another man), then it passes the test. I'm a professor and when I talk to a female student about her homework or project (which is, again, something that happens pretty much every day I teach), that's passing the test. If I order food from a female cashier and she has a name tag, that's passing the Bechdel Test! It's literally just constant for the vast majority of women on the planet, and that's what's being left out of our stories.

Like, I like the takes I've seen about how part of the joke in Dykes to Watch Out For is that this is *particularly* alienating to lesbians - as a lesbian myself I agree - but I also think it should be frustrating to straight and bi and ace women as well, because like unless you are like exclusively interacting with your husband or male relatives every single day + you work in a workplace where you are literally the only woman, you are almost certainly passing the test constantly. That's a pretty big part of women's lives that Hollywood is leaving out!

But I think it's important to view it as just one piece of the discussion about feminism and women's representation in film, not the final judge on if a film is feminist or not. Which it wasn't intended to be - as you said, it was mostly a joke on the extreme maleness of 80s action movies. Honestly, I do not miss those days on Tumblr where people were obsessed with declaring certain movies/TV shows/other fandoms they liked as "feminist" or "anti-feminist" and the really bizarre granular discussions people would have between two works that BOTH had a long way to go in terms of representing women. I remember people in the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom would use this to argue about if the original anime or Brotherhood/the manga was better - when both have some fantastic female supporting characters, but are ultimately male-centered stories where even a lot of those women's lives and stories are centered around their male love interests and family members. It's better than a lot of shounen, but if that's your bar for feminism - either version - you have a long way to go (and need to watch WAY more anime because there's sooooo much of it that is female-centric). I also remember people coming up with other tests that were blatantly silly: like I thought the Mako Mori test about "if a woman has a motivation/story that isn't centered on a man" was fair because it did point out a legitimate criticism, but there was that ridiculous "Tauriel Test" where it was "a woman who is good at her job." And it was entirely about someone just disliking that movie critics and feminist commentators alike were down on the Hobbit movie trilogy, which a) were bad movies, sorry you have bad taste, b) are absolutely not where you should focus your attention if you're so concerned about women's representation in film, Tolkein has always been a sausage fest! And her big thing was being mad that people thought Judi Dench's M in Skyfall was a better female character, and so she arbitrarily decided she was "bad at her job" and Tauriel was "good at her job" even though that's completely subjective and can be challenged in both cases.... but also, once again, why are you looking to the fucking JAMES BOND franchise for movie feminism! There's nothing like comparing the relative "feminism levels" of JAMES BOND and LOTR to make it obvious that this is 100% about validating your subjective taste preferences by giving it a "progressive" excuse, not actually about feminism and not actually caring about women's representation beyond how it makes you look good. And yet SO many people took that transparently stupid post seriously. I'd see professional articles mention the Tauriel Test as "one of the new tests" like there was anything serious about it.

And then on the flip side, over-reliance on the Bechdel Test alone led to some clueless conclusions especially in anime fandom, given that anime has an abundance of shows that exclusively feature female characters in school clubs being cute, where those characters are nonetheless two-dimensional archetypes designed for the male gaze. Someone like fandomsandfeminism did a presentation at an anime con that called one of those types of shows "feminist" and some Japanese user eviscerated it, but that just led to the equally shallow fandom analysis of "everything a Japanese person says about anime is automatically more valid" and "any Westerner who wants to criticize anime on feminist/progressive grounds is culturally appropriating and ultimately coming from a place of ignorance, even if they literally have a degree in Asian studies."

Wow, this turned into a rant about the history of bad "feminist media criticism" on this website. Sorry about that, I think I had a point in here somewhere. I guess that the Bechdel Test is indeed a joke and those origins should be understood, but also, I don't think it's wrong to say that it identifies a real problem and one that people could probably take MORE seriously than they do - but as just one part of the conversation, not the Feminism Litmus Test, and certainly not as a dick-measuring contest about whose fandom gets them more progressive brownie points.

--

I think as long as we grasp that the joke is "The bar is so far under the ground that we might as well go home and eat popcorn there", it's fine.

The real issue with the test is that people started thinking a pass was meaningful.

If you say something like "X% of 2020s movies can't even manage this weaksauce level of women existing", that's a meaningful statistic. Even if you got a couple of data points wrong, you're not factually wrong enough for it to matter because X is going to be some massive, massive percentage, and the overall trend is so clear.

But a pass is nothing to celebrate, and that's where we went wrong.

Like you say, litigating which of two big franchises that barely do anything with women wins on tumblr points is idiocy.

I think people are so unaware of what media that genuinely centers women even looks like that it's hard for them to even begin having a discussion.

I personally have been a massive fujoshi type from adolescence, and media that centers female characters isn't actually what I typically want. (Though media that is by and for women and that doesn't give a fuck what men think of this is.) I am also not much of a fan of slice of life in general...

But when I was coming out and figuring my shit out, being able to go buy collections of Dykes to Watch Out For was incredibly valuable to me.

Ditto the other lesbian comic books that were just sitting there in the bookstore. I'm sure if I went back and reread them all now, I could find things to nitpick or ways they were more for lesbians and less for me as a bi girl, but the really distinctive thing they did was let me exist in a world where media isn't all 80s sausagefest action movies where women are not people.

In fact, they were a world where men don't matter terribly much—not because they're dramatically rejecting men in some facile and reactionary way but because... who cares? They just had other priorities... and this was normal.

It feels like people who've never taken a vacation from really mainstream media just have no concept of what it would feel like to exist in some other space.

And I think that's a pity even if, like me, they later choose to go read mostly BL later instead of focusing on female characters or they genuinely love trash 80s action movies despite everything wrong with them. It's not just sexist media that's the issue: it's that feeling like the fish can't see the water it's swimming in.

[magnorious]

On so-called "ace-erasure" in the Hazbin Fandom

I feel compelled to say something, as a proud ace, regarding the maelstrom of hate and bullying surrounding a fandom I just dipped my toe into, but it concerns the broader concept of fanfic and fanart as a whole.

Y’all. It’s a cartoon. They’re not real people, they’re not based on real people, they exist to be entertainment and to make you smile and sing along and root for their success.

It’s funny how you can look at any straight, cis male in a movie or TV show – whether he be in a happy, healthy straight relationship or otherwise, and the fandom drags his sexuality through the woodchipper in the name of fanfiction.

Oh but there’s queerbating, they’re totally gay even if the writers refuse to admit it. Oh but it’s just for fun. Oh but it’s just wish-fulfillment, it’s not doing any harm. They’re just fictional characters.

Excuse after excuse after excuse for raunchy art and sordid storytelling that can boil over into hating on not only the female characters in these men’s lives, but their female actors.

And yet.

God forbid you drag an ace’s sexuality through the mud for the same exact harmless, wish-fulfilling reasons. Or anyone who isn’t cisgender and straight.

Oh but it’s queer-erasure. It's different because there's already not enough of us and we have to fight for what we have.

No. It’s not. Because you’re not the writer. It’s not your show. So long as the person who made the character proudly defends them and respectfully depicts them, then it’s not erasing anything. Otherwise the thousands upon thousands of wailing fans would have turned some of the most iconic men of fiction into proud gay icons simply by wishing it so.

The whole point of fanfic is being able to see situations, circumstances, and relationships in a what-if scenario. Yes we know this character is straight, or gay, or bi, or pan, or ace or aro, but what if they weren’t for just a few thousand words? Yes we know this is how it happened on screen, but what if it happened a little differently?

It’s supposed to be fun.

I love ace representation. There’s not enough of it and there needs to be more. I want to be able to say See! We exist! Look at us go! with the rest of you.

I also respect shippers doing whatever they damn well please because no matter what they say or do, I can re-watch the show and still see my ace on screen unblemished (as can all the straight viewers who cling to their straight heroes).

Is the motto of fanfic not “don’t like, don’t read?” The amount of nasty comments on incredible art is insane. Don’t like? Don’t look. You’re the one with egg on your face wasting your time and effort typing out and posting that nasty comment. You don’t like it? Scroll on past. Ignore the art and deprive it of the attention the artist posted it for because it’s fanart of fictional characters.

Is this post going to make a difference? No. Am I inviting my own slew of nasty time-wasting comments? Yes. But as an ace who saw an ace and does actually appreciate (if not agree with) the potential in all these what-if scenarios in the right, specific circumstances, I’m fervently siding with those artists who just wanted to draw something pretty and share it with the world.

It’s entertainment. It’s just for fun. Do you really, seriously want this fandom to be looked on from a distance as “oh yeah the violent, bullying nerds that take a cartoon musical way too seriously”? Instead of, I don’t know, “Hey, I want to watch this cool show and peruse some awesome fan content because I can’t get enough of what little we were given, look at how many wonderful options there are.”

[gemsofgreece]

This may be a question someone has already asked, but what are your thoughts on the landscapes in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, if you have played it?

I have answered a similar question but not this one! I have actually not played the game but because of the previous ask and the aesthetics and the frequent greece representation discussions here, I am somewhat acquainted with it.

AC Odyssey is actually quite accurate, with some pros and cons. One thing we can all agree upon is that the developers worked their asses off to create a beautiful world, genuinely inspired by or representing Greece. While watching it, I can also tell they wanted to show some little known facts about Greek geomorphology. In order to achieve this, they overdid a bit in some aspects and they deviated from other, more known characteristics, which they perhaps incorrectly ditched as stereotypes . In short, some elements are accurate, some are idealised and some are overlooked or undersold:

+ By watching relevant videos on YouTube, navigating your character does feel like exploring the Greek landscape. Many of the locations , although digital and fantastical, feel very oddly familiar.

+ The developers emphasized most on a little known fact about the country; it is very rugged, mountainous and rocky. This thing where your character goes up, down, up, down, up, down, up and again down and then up an irregular hill, well that's the genuine painful but also very rewarding experience of walking in the Greek countryside.

+ They nailed it with the vegetation, if they took inspiration from South Greece. This combo of sparse forest with low vegetation, sometimes interrupted by rocky terrain was beautifully done.

+ Some criticise it a bit for adding architectural elements of different ancient eras but I actually like this. It is a game, it blends elements beautifully and they are still Greek, so what's the problem... Although it surely could do with less wood and more stone in its place.

+ The light is beautiful in this game. They knowingly played with it as Greece promotes this as one of its attractions: the whole Greek sun, Land of Light etc. But, yeah, the way light is used in this game often reminds me of beautiful sunlit or sunset views in the country.

+/- It is beautiful but of course idealised how in AC Odyssey apparently all seasons co-exist in Greece. It's an eternal spring with spots of vibrant autumn and there's always winter in the mountains. Summer ironically got the short end, you can perhaps see it in the occasional brownish low vegetation at best. It is however a nice change from everyone thinking Greece is a tropical country. It's a temperate country, it's just that it doesn't experience the seasons all at once lol And of course if someone wants to visit the Greek countryside in its most AC-like time, they have to come to Greece in spring, ideally April and May, and not in July and August like most tourists. Someone might say "thanks Captain Obvious" to this but I have received plenty comments under photos wondering why the grassland wasn't flowery like in the image when they went in August so I feel like I have to say this.

(-) It is wonderful when you're navigating your character but I watched a video with the game's map in the eagle's eye view and I realised that the AC Odyssey Greece is a tad repetitive and less diverse. Essentially it's a bunch of islands that are VERY rugged with a snowcapped mountain and a few bays. While, again, this is part of what Greece looks like, the country is actually way more diverse.

(-) Namely, the rugged emphasis was overdone after a while. If Greece is over 80% rugged and mountainous, which is the official estimation, AC Greece is like 101%. Greece has flatter islands, wider valleys and smoother hills as well. Again, what AC shows is very accurate but overexaggerated. I already talked about how good the vegetation is. However, it resembles the south mainland. Some islands have less vegetation. Northern and central mainland as well as many islands have actually quite denser vegetation than the one depicted in the game. Again, the game is accurate but way less diverse.

(-) The map is not accurate. There’s just Athens, right? And then islands after islands, which all have mainland characteristics. But they clearly weren’t going for accuracy there.

(-) The biggest foul IMO was surprisingly the beaches. AC Odyssey did the Greek beaches no justice at all. The most accurate thing about them is that AC coastline is very indented with bays and coves. That's accurate. However, I was disappointed by the repetition again as well as the sea colour which I found nice but much plainer than that of the actual Greek waters. It was always a little turqoise in the first couple meters and then a regular blue. Greek waters can be turqoise for much longer distances or have a striking azul or sapphire or darker blue colour, all of which were greatly missed in the game. I missed the famous - if stereotype-y - blue and white aesthetic of the country. Of course the houses are modern so they couldn't be in the game but the blue&white also feature in the sea / waves and sky / clouds so...

Ignore the town but this type of blue is greatly missed in a game about Greece IMO.

Also some beaches looked way too tropical. Greece has a few subtropical beaches but the AC ones didn't look very accurate. Sometimes I thought it was a small bay in a Caribbean island. This is quite odd coming from the guys who worked so hard on other less known facts about the country's geomorphology.

(-) Elysium might be stunning but it is not Greek looking. Unfortunately, the Niagara falls are in Canada. The rock formations however, as well as several others in the game, seem to be inspired by Meteora.

So below I did some comparisons between AC Odyssey and real Greece. Keep in mind that these are just similar-looking images I managed to find on google. I do not know where the developers actually based their inspiration.

South Pindus

Ancient Olympia

Meteora

Mt Pelion

Cape Sounion

Dimitsana

Lake Plastira

Kerkyra (Corfu) island

Vikos gorge

Kalavryta

I found many other familiar looking locations but they were too generic i.e a small stream, a hill, a farm, and I got a little lost with all this searching because there are many places that could look like that. Lol I just realised I didn't use even one AC beach - AC beaches get rekt

Anyway, in short, I believe AC Odyssey does a very solid and hard work in its Greece portrayal - all my complaints are basically nitpicking that doesn't bother me (save for the beaches). Of course there is also the gamification and colour filters that create all these otherwordly vibes but those are to be expected from a game of course.

[demadogs]

Of course the Duffers knew how everyone would be freaking out. Out of all the battles in Stranger Things, the one in which Stranger Things is sort of an ace under Netflix's sleeve against Disney gotta be the biggest one and Netflix is just trying to keep on top of Disney, making ST a trend topic is just the way to do so, even more because Disney just premiered Obi-Wan. Both series premiered a day apart, that's probably why s4 was cut in two too... and the thing is the feud with Disney is one of the main reasons i believe they might go through with Byler. Disney has been cowarding about having lgbt characters and will erase them from existence if they can (which - spoiler - happened twice just in Dr. Strange 2). On the other hand Netflix gets a bit of backlash about havibg so many queer characters, but they are more open to lgbt characters getting what they want (cue to the success of Heartstopper and how they renewed it for not 1 but 2 more seasons already only a month after its initial release). I know ST is way too mainstream at this point and a lot of people who watch it might not care about the lgbt community, but the fact that Will may be gay was thrown into the story from the very beginning which means people still watching came into season 2 already expecting something could happen on that matter. It only grew stronger as the seasons went by. Not for nothing many are complaining about Mike's cold behavior towards E* this season. It's the little things that make me believe this might still happen.

yeah i guess there is a whole other business side to it that i never considered but i dont agree with all of this. i dont think the duffers had any of netflix’s competitors in mind when deciding to go through with byler. i think if that was true then all the queercoding we’ve seen wouldnt have been there because it would be a random marketing decision, not a progressive character arc. and disney has nothing to do with why they divided it up, they did that because 13 hours of content dropped all at once would be a bit much.

the rest of this ask has nothing to do with byler i just kinda went off about gay media and couldnt stop.

disney is pretty shit when it comes to lgbt characters. when the force awakens came out people loved the idea of finnpoe and even the actors stated multiple times that theyd be so on board with that but when the last jedi came out if i remember correctly i think they barely had any screen time together? i think there was one kinda wholesome moment at the beginning and then nothing the whole rest of the movie. and yet they had two unnamed girls kiss for one second that was edited out in multiple countries and had the nerve to call it “representation”.

that being said, i do have beef with netflix about their lgbt representation too. every single one of my favorite wlw shows on netflix has been canceled. the mlm ones fucking skyrocket but they always cancel the girl ones and it pisses me off. i am not okay with this, everything sucks, one day at a time, trinkets, like fucking COME ON!!!!!

i will never be over them canceling ianowt and everything sucks. both have very appropriate names for how i felt about them being canceled. ianowt had such a cool supernatural plot and i loved the cast so much and everything sucks was just fucking adorable with the super popular girl getting with the nerdy shy girl in the 90s. i loved it and it had so much more potential. they also canceled one day at a time which is such a fucking funny show. it’s a good comedy that casually has a lesbian lead and its just genuinely hilarious. i wrote a paper about this show my freshman year of college.

another thing was in the end of the fucking world. listen i LOVE this show with all my heart. i did a semester long project on it and i have the comic its based on, but in season one there was a whole lesbian cop side plot and they completely threw it out in season two!!! you didnt even see those characters again!! its so fucking annoying thats my only complaint about that show.

i know not EVERY wlw netflix show has been canceled, but too many of them have. i’ll always be pissed about ianowt because that was supernatural and lesbian and theres just not enough shows that have that. give me more superpower lesbians.

thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[sobdasha]

i’ve been rereading a lot of my favorite stuff for months now

since I'm lacking in spoons for library trips

And when I was cottoning on to the fact that I have, in fact, been autistic all along, one of the things I realized is that the connecting thread between the kinds of stories and kinds of characters that I like is in fact that they display autistic or autistic-adjacent traits. I had realized this, come up with a lot of examples. I knew this.

Haha yeah as I'm actually rereading the things the evidence is damning that I did not come even close to understanding the full depth of it.

~ Taucris Ithesta is Autistic and Other Adjacent Things re: Leckie's Novels ~

Actually let's start with The Raven Tower because you can't actually argue with me about autistic Siat.

Siat actively avoids eye contact, is """shy""", speaks too softly, has an excellent grasp of humor, likes rocks as a special interest, likes to collect rocks, likes to sort rocks, likes to line up rocks, has one (1) bff to conduct social interactions for her, notices patterns, is good at learning, and is considered disabled by society's standards.

Ughhhhh all that talk about rocks makes me sad all over again that I pitched my rock collection when I moved out (I saved the best fossils, though).

(ETA: I have since bought more rocks because polished gemstones with carvings on them make for great stims, I am very pleased with me)

Okay so now that that's been established, let's talk about Strength and Patience of the Hill.

Because this rock gets me. Originally I figured it was probably, y'know, like with Ancillary Justice Leckie's given me an ace-aro main character and I can identify with that as an ace-aro. But unlike Breq, who very much loves people and wants to take care of them and found family etc, Strength and Patience of the Hill doesn't give much of a shit about people. With some exceptions of people that are it's people, how dare you mess with them, Strength and Patience of the Hill will kick your ass. Although even then I'm not sure Strength and Patience is all that great at taking care of people. Also Strength and Patience of the Hill is very much absorbed in its own selfishness, very much consumed with his own internal world, and I am also a jerk like that so it was very relatable.

(Yes I am using multiple pronouns because one of my many favorite parts of the book signing was watching everyone scramble over pronouns for a rock because "It never came up so I never figured it out" and I'm pretty sure Strength and Patience doesn't even use pronouns because why would you need a gendered pronoun to refer to yourself??? You don't even need a name to refer to yourself, actually I'm pretty sure Strength and Patience doesn't actually consider itself to have a name.)

So it made sense that this rock just really gets me. I know it's bad when the majority of representation for ace-aro characters is stereotypical robots or rocks or aliens (oooh or sentient space rocks wait wAIT now that I've said that I've just realized the Myriad is the definition of a Crystal Gem, pffft) or whatever but honestly I don't care because I just really identify with the robots??? So I really liked it, YMMV.

(It's probably also bad if the trend for autistically-coded characters is just stereotypical robots or rocks or aliens or whatever too but like honestly a big autistic #mood is feeling like you are a robot or an alien or whatever so maybe that's why I'm not offended???)

My point being that Strength and Patience of the Hill displays a lot of autistic traits and is therefore very relatable, in this Ted Talk I will.

Strength and Patience of the Hill processes things slowly. She will come up with the perfect retort and tell you 5 years later with absolutely no context.

It loves daydreaming, staring at things, noticing patterns, and enjoying quiet and solitude. It loves thinking about why things are the way they are. Look I have fantasized about what if I could exist as just a pair of eyeballs and a mind floating around in space, observing things, thinking things, and not having to actually interact with the world, and I'm pretty sure this rock is living that life. (Until y'know it gets told life doesn't work like that.)

Despite his slow processing speed, and taking a while to learn language, Strength and Patience of the Hill is good at learning things, and I feel like it's the kind of sort-of-sideways, context-based accumulation of knowledge that I learn through as well.

Strength and Patience of the Hill has one (1) friend, and through the Myriad it benefits from the fact that the Myriad has an actual social circle, without having to put forth any effort of maintaining friends on its own, which is 100% the way to do it.

Strength and Patience of the Hill tends to attract the other "quirky" kids--that is, my impression is that the people who become his priests tend to be those people who look at the world a little differently, those people on the fringes. Trans people, autistic people, people with other disabilities.

Strength and Patience of the Hill trying to explain the state of affairs in Vastai to Eolo: "Okay so my first memory I can recall is…" No, okay, no, I know, it's just literally how the narrative has to be told, I'm not criticizing, but that doesn't make it any less reminiscent of "autistic person trying to explain a simple thing but starts in with 10 pages of context first to ensure the over-explanation makes sense" (haha that's why I consistently got stuck training endless new hires, I'm literally so bad at it that I'm the best in the department and I hate life).

Difficulty understanding other's feelings/points of view/circumstances (I know it's because he's a rock and a god but that doesn't make it any less relatable), hmmm what else…

Oh right, a typical interaction with Strength and Patience of the Hill:

Person: (gives offering) Strength and Patience: (offering is accepted because the transaction literally occurred, no need to respond) Person: "(asks petition)" Strength and Patience: ... Strength and Patience: wait Strength and Patience: what Strength and Patience: wait was I supposed to do something else Strength and Patience: did you ask something of me? Strength and Patience: I don't understand what you asked????? Strength and Patience: it's been an entire year now it's too awkward Strength and Patience: i'm sure it's. Fine. Strength and Patience: It's fine. (rinse and repeat)

Like I said, this rock gets me.

(Haha I was reading through my notes from the book signing and I found "Strength + Patience doesn't give a shit about balance, Strength + Patience is just selfish, which it manifests as apathy, which is why this rock gets me. All of my best interpersonal traits also spring from not giving a fuck and waiting ppl to go away faster lol" and why is that, oh because ~I'm~ ~autistic~ pfffft)

I started this post a while ago and this was as far as I got and I don't remember if I had more??? Time to talk about Taucris probably!!!

(I'm skipping Ancillary Justice etc for now because I do want to make a post about that but like there's just. So much. In those books. It's masking all the way down. So it can be its own post. One day.)

Because I waited so long I forgot what I was going to write so I'll just grab the book and flip through and comment as I see things.

To start off with: Taucris and adulthood. I've seen other people pick up primarily on the gender aspect of it--that Taucris waited until almost 25 to take her adult name because she she never figured out what her gender was (non- uhhhhhh what's the word for binary when it's three and not two? Non-tri-something Taucris in a society with 3 options but all 3 options are gendered? I'll go with that.) What really resonated for me was that Taucris waited until almost 25 to take her adult name because she never felt like an adult. And I get that ~everyone feels that way~ but I feel like it's Different for Taucris in the same way it's Different for me. Anyway I feel like no matter which aspect you choose, it's probably an autistic vibe.

Also Taucris seems to have a bit of a flat affect? She seems very serious (both in body language and in speech), and kind of intense sometimes when she talks, and Ingray notes how Taucris usually doesn't smile (she smiles with Ingray because Ingray makes her comfortable) and has always been """shy""".

Also Taucris...talks strangely? I am not sure exactly how to explain it. It's not written badly or anything, it's...you know how sometimes you suddenly sit back and look at dialogue and go no one speaks like this and it throws you out of the story because you dropped your suspension of disbelief? Taucris kind of gives me that feeling, and only Taucris. Almost like her speech is a little bit stilted? Awkward? She's very serious and matter of fact and says things like "You've always been so kind to me" with a straight face. But it doesn't feel like a """bad writing""" (quotation marks for subjectivity) thing. But I notice it every time I read her dialogue… I think it's just that Taucris is autistic and awkward and that's how she speaks. Also I think she's adorable.

Police work is Taucris' special interest. So much so that that's the entire reason she became an adult, so she could engage in her special interest better. She's ~weird~ for her single-minded interest and her interest in a job below her ~status~ and she doesn't care, she set her heart on this anyway, volunteering and interning so on.

Oh that was something else I was going to talk about--Taucris mentions feeling like she doesn't have her shit together, not like Ingray (who also doesn't feel she has her shit together. Kind of like "no one really feels like an adult). But Taucris seems quite calm and capable in Planetary Security. I don't know if this is just masking, but...I really hope that she does feel that way in her job. That because it's her special interest, that helps balance out the stress of being alive and simultaneously employed full-time. That because she's been volunteering and interning here so long, she's been familiar with the office and it wasn't a stressful transition. That she acts confident because she feels competent and respected. Taucris may look calm and cool and collected on the outside and be screaming on the inside but I hope she actually feels pretty good on the inside too.

I would also like to say that I like Taucris' nother. Despite what Danach implies, I get the picture from Taucris that e is supportive of Taucris' personality and interests even when e doesn't get it. E indulged her interest in police work, e didn't understand why Taucris wasn't taking an adult name but tried to be patient about it...so I assume that also means that e was understanding of all of Taucris quirks and stims and particularities. E's been a good support system while Taucris' peers have not.

(Except for Ingray, Taucris' one (1) friend.)

I like Taucris' relationship with Deputy Chief Veret too--the way Taucris quietly manages breakfast so e doesn't have to think about it or be put out (this is The Love Language to me, not being inconvenienced, and I feel that this is part of my personality because my personality is autistic, so). I don't know why specifically Taucris does this, but all the reasons I could come up with feel very wholesome. Taucris respects Veret as her boss and as a person. Taucris is empathetic and thoughtful (she doesn't like Danach but she tries to consider and understand where he's coming from; Taucris isn't Hatli but she considers Veret's fasting etc to be valid rather than a choice of superstition). Taucris' situation is different but she knows that it doesn't feel good to be treated as weird, to be sneered at because you don't act the way people expect you to. Taucris, being autistic, maybe has a lot of experience with "perfectly good foods" she won't eat. Taucris strikes me as someone who observes quietly, and considers carefully, and maybe takes a long time to make up her mind but when she moves it's deliberately and not carelessly. Which is, to me, a masking trait.

In the quantum version of this post I was going to write everything so polished and lay out my points so nicely but clearly that didn't happen and I don't know where to end this and I'm sure I didn't even explain things that well so I'll just say, I feel it was very autistic of Taucris in the last chapter to just be like "well IDK what you want from me and rather than expending massive effort trying to suss it out and guessing wrong I'll just be direct: I know you can't talk about what happened so I won't ask you about what happened unless you want me to ask you about what happened in which case you should say so and I will ask but I think maybe you just need to watch a movie with me instead."

[electro-elemena]

Random thoughts I just had about death note

this is very stream of consciousness and was written in google notes, so sorry for the format and grammar but I just need this to be out there. Also if some parts sound like they're spoken out loud it's because they were lmao

- media needs to be interesting (check)

- if you disagree with me go look at Ryuk and then come back

- love the concept of death note. Very *chef's kiss*

- tickles the part of my brain that likes unlikely and outlandish theories and scenarios

- however enjoyable media also has to be:

- not insufferable... Sufferable you could say

- OR insufferable enough to make it funny

- death note accomplishes the condition of the second

- never finished it, realized i was running out of fucks to give and looked for a reason to give more fucks or stop giving fucks

- spoiled the ending for myself, if you've seen the ending you know why

- spoiler alert for an old ass piece of media... Y'all have your reasons and if this bit doesn't fervently convince you to watch it then it will do whatever the opposite of that is

- misa dies too. Which is unfair

- she's a boss ass bitch and a whole model??? Like

- okay tangent

- light is not a good protagonist

- I'll take a potato chip... And eat it

- he's supposed to be one of those gradual unreliable narrators

- but past the first episode you immediately realize that he is in fact a horrible person

- you could argue that the capacity to kill people without consequence given to a teenage boy was destined to corrupt him

- and that's a cynical and bleh boring take

- (but likely)

- but tbh it takes a dormant god complex in the first place for him to turn out the way he did. He obviously already thought he was better than others

- loners are only loners if everyone thinks they're worse than everyone else or they think they're better than everyone else

- chicken or the egg first sometimes y'know

- so like if you have the death note to a kind person they'd like write down Jeff bezos or something and then hand it back

- or! They could be like "i don't trust you with this" to ryuk and just keep it (but secretly be like saving it for later in case they want to kill someone else with no consequences)

- or maybe they're just in love with ryuk. Which like. I'll squint at you, and judge you silently for, but won't say anything, because I'm a nice person and not because you possess the ability to kill me without consequences whenever

- anyways so he's a bad protagonist and objectively evil

- i say this even though I usually like the villains. I love the hero but I like the villains too

- i won't condone their actions but I'll think they're hot or cool or something

- cuz i always side with the protagonist, when they're not insufferable (wonder who that could be)

- but mass genocide is one of those rare things that's not "oh this is good but it could be gray if done for the wrong reasons" or "oh this is bad but it could be gray if done for the wrong reasons" it's very "no. This is not ambiguous. Throw the whole person away"

- far less forgivable than mass genocide, however, is how he's not down bad for misa

- like??? The only reasons I can think of for him to have been written like this are

- 1) he's gay or ace and they wrote him like that as queer coding and secret representation

- cuz i know that there are many characters like that and you will never KNOW if he is or isn't

- unless like the mangaka... What's his name... Comes out on Twitter and says so

Mini tangent

- i can not for the life of me remember asian names

- i was practically raised by anime and i still can not remember them

- does not matter how much I love the character or person. I will forget it at least once or twice

- every time someone mentions a mangaka i have to check the database

- i think it's mainly because I haven't learned any asian languages, and that's the only reason I'm referring to them as asian and not specifying, because asian languages have a lot of common denominators that they don't share with western ones

- anyways I can't pronounce them so I can't remember them

- or i think I can pronounce them and then the real pronunciation is just waiting to pounce on me and make me feel like an idiot

- had that ever happened to you? I mispronounced the word cicada until I was... 17

- i was walking with my best friend outside

- which never happened because we were hermits and we never left the cave

- and I'm like "oh you can hear the ciSAHdas"

- and he was like "..."

- "you can hear the what?"

- and it's funny that out of the two of us, the AP student was the one that didn't know how to pronounce ciSAHdas

- did i just say that right? Fuck

- ciKEIdas

- anyways Carson did not do well in school, because he's the type of person that, if he does not give a fuck, he simply will not do whatever you ask

- no matter what reason you have

- so the old ass institution that "educated--

- mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!

- "educated" millions of people crumbled at his feet, like the true being of chaos that he is

- although you could argue that it didn't do me any favors either, since, well, here i am

- and at least he knew how to pronounce cicadas! Damn!

Death note (ctd)

- anyways back to death note because we weren't FINISHED

- so he's gay or ace. My vote is for gay because of his relationship with L

- and L was another character that was treated poorly, he's way better than the early death that he got because he decided to be kind and less suspicious and i HATE that they did him like that

- for a show called death note they really did get death wrong

- funny how everyone around light ends up dying horribly

- you could argue that's because of the death not but I like to think it's because he's just that shitty of a person

- so back to light and how he's super fruity, there's actually a scene where misa is throwing herself on him as usual

- and i don't remember what she's saying, like i can't remember most of her lines

- and i don't know if that means I like her more or less than i would have

- anyways she's saying something suggestive to him looking hot as usual and he starts thinking about L

- like LMAO

- bestie, the closet is made of GLASS

- it is transparent. We can all tell

- 2) reason he could be written to treat misa like that is because it's a ha ha funny that he can't be bothered to give her the time of day, when she's a model

- he's murder sexual. He wants world domination, not pussy

- this is also a reason he could be considered ace but I just think an enemies to lovers with L is more interesting so that's my personal favorite

- anyways there's another scene where she's once again chasing after this toxic ass man

- which. Her main flaw is her absolute dog water taste in men

- so she's trying to get him to like her

- and he thinks

- LMAO

- he thinks "never before have I been provoked to HIT a woman"

- and he says it exactly like that

- which is hilarious for many reasons

- first of all

- i don't BELIEVE you

- you mean to tell me?? That with HIS PERSONALITY?? no woman had ever pissed him off as much as one being in love with him

- which, by the way, gay

- i would like to think this is possible not because of the previously mentioned "maybe he was a good person before given this power" bleh bullshit

- but because all the women had understood he was a fuckwad before interacting with him

- like they sent it to the group chat. The group chat? Yeah the group chat

- they were like bro. This dude? Bad news

- walk parallel to him at all times. Do NOT intersect

- cross the street if you see him walking towards you

- this is also why i like to think incels exist

- like they were already going to be bad and women just knew that and avoided them

- an alternative theory to the group chat phenomenon is that women instinctively knew. Like an edm... That's not the right word

- i know the word and that's not the right word

- e d... e p...

- like the thing you throw out as like a pokeball and it just makes all the electronics stop working

- like they take a break

- electromagnetic... Pulse... EMP!

- so that was sent to every woman's brain instinctively and they just avoided him

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

Okay don't read this if you don't want to cause it's probably gotta get a little ranty and I'm just gonna pour some thoughts I've been having these past few days. I'm not gonna even tag this so I hope it gets lost in the Tumblr oblivion lol

So, one of the many things I've learnt in this website, probably the most important one, is that representation matters. A lot. And also, I've been reminiscing about a post that was going around 2019 I think? About what would your Skam season would be. I don't even remember what I answered to that, I didn't even gave it much thought.

But 2020 was a lot, it made me think about a lot of stuff, and I even started writing a new book precisely because representation matters, and I had never seen a character like myself in any medium. That's why I want to return to that "what would your Skam season be about" question, and re-examine it, under the principle that everyone, including myself (that was hard to wrap my head around lol) deserves that representation too.

So, the season would be centered around the "shame" that the main would have, a medical condition / illness I have since I was born. It's a very rare one - only 0, 14% of the world's population has it, and it is a taboo subject that is also very uncomfortable for me to talk about (the last time I tried was in front of my therapist, it was the first and only time I bursted into tears with her and couldn't tell her in the end). It also doesn't help that, everytime it is mentioned, be it irl, on the internet or in media, is always used as a joke. That's why I won't actually tell what it is in this post, I just can't. But the season would center around how that medical condition can basically impact and condition every aspect of one's life, even if it's in a subtle, invisible way, especially when talking about romance. There would be a love interest (I for once would love a Skam season with no love interest, but my condition is related to all of that and it makes sense that a love interest would make everything worse; I consider myself a romantic person but I'm also scared shitless of finding someone who loves me); and so it could also show some ace rep, which is always nice.

Apart from the illness and its effects on all aspects of the main's life, another topic I rarely see outside of medical dramas, is the feeling that you're broken, that you were just born defectuous, and that you are never gonna get a normal life, even though you long for it. This could be reflected in the main just getting more and more illnesses and defects in their bodies as the season progresses: apart from that condition, I was born one month early, had to have heart surgery when I was a baby, have hearing problems (that recently have gotten worse, if they continue like this I might need hearing aids), for a while I was insulinorresistent, and I have an "hígado graso", idk how to translate that to English, but it's something in the liver that is common in people that drink lots of beer (I don't drink alcohol at all). And also there's the fucking syndrome. I was born with nearly all of the symptoms of a syndrom, I'm not gonna say the name cause one of the symptoms is the taboo illness, and you could Google it.

But yeah, I think the season would mainly be about that. I know they are really really tough topics to talk about, especially the taboo one, but hey, one can dream. For now, at least I have the book I'm writing :)

[intheoryowl]

Diversity in KOTLC

[While commenting on this post please don't post spoilers for Unlocked just yet. Thanks. This post may contain legacy spoilers. This post is a repost of my Wattpad post that I made in Sunflower Crown called Diversity in KOTLC, so if you’ve seen this already please feel free to skip it. This post lines up with MLK day, but it was originally posted in reaction to Shannon Messenger announcing the live action movies.]

[Edit: Okay, after typing this post up I realize that there are a few more characters that are POC, but they’re not prominent at all, so the representation is still miniscule. They were mentioned, like, twice throughout the entire series. So, my point still stands.]

What's one thing you notice about the photo above?

Oh, yeah. All the characters are white, expect for the last three in the photo, which are all conveniently tacked onto the end.

Let's address the elephant in the room for everyone in the Keeper of the Lost Cities fandom. Recently, I've been thinking a lot about how little diversity there is within the cast, especially within the main group. I've been meaning to make a post about this since the #BLM movement started up, but I never got around to it.

I've found that a lot of the people in the fandom have been incredibly shy about having this conversation, but I think it's really time we have it. The cast contains very little diversity.

Disclaimer: Before anyone comes at me for this post, I'd like to first say that I've  been a huge KOTLC fan and a big fan of Shannon Messenger's work for a  long time. This isn't meant to be any sort of hate post, but instead a conversation I think we all need to have.

Let's start with the format of the art up above^.

First of all, out of eight characters 3 of them are POCs (or not white). Wylie isn't even in the main group/doesn't really enter the story until much later in the series. The same goes for Linh and Tam. They're all tacked onto the end of the photo, like they're just add-ons.

These three characters are the only characters I know the race of that are POC characters. Out of the entire series. Yes, the entire series. [And I would say that's the case for most people that aren't superfans or recently phased out of the series before art was starting to be released.] I wouldn't say I'm the biggest fan out there, but there aren't that many prominent characters in KOTLC, and just about every single one of them is white.

It feels like a last-ditch throw in when Shannon Messenger went *oops I forgot about diversity entirely!!*. I mean, think about it. Tam, Linh, and Wylie entered the series later on than everyone else.

The lack of diversity, quite frankly, I find ridiculous. And not even just because there are three characters out of eight in that photo (one of which that is POC isn't even in the main group, nevermind the original main group) are POC, and prominent characters. Not only is there a lack of diversity when it comes to race/features that aren't white, but Shannon Messenger also includes exactly zero LGBTQ+ representation throughout the entire series. There is nothing hinted, nothing said. Gender norms are never addressed in the story, and that's fine. But for there to be no gay/pan/aro/ace/freaking anything on the spectrum representation?? No trans representation? Non-binary? Hello??? I get that when she started the series LGBTQ+ characters might not have been something you saw in every single book, but even as new characters are added in we see absolutely no LGBTQ+ representation still. There's not even anyone questioning their sexuality or their gender identity. Nowadays, that's not only a huge part of being a teenager (I would know, I'm one), but also just something you would think is key in the identity of a character.

As a writer, when I start writing a book, one of the first things I do is make sure I know who I want my characters to be. Gender identity, race, sexuality, all of this - these are such fundamental parts to a character. Truthfully, i don't understand how you could just overlook them whatsoever. It's a choice you have to make, not a default setting that's already been turned on for you. I think - even to someone incredibly racist - that as an author writing a book, one would be aware of the outward appearance of their characters? Or the fact that all of the characters had one very certain thing in common? It's hard to miss, frankly, and it looks really bad.

There's really no excuse for it at the end of the day. You can't explain away the facts, and the facts are that the lack of diversity within KOTLC is concerning.

With KOTLC as well, the book doesn't even center around identity for the most part. It's fantasy, and that's what runs the plot, not someone's struggles with race. It really would've been just that easy for Shannon Messenger to throw in a few POC characters or people that weren't straight, maybe mention it in passing, and be done with it and we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Another thing I'd like to bring up is the microaggressive character arcs of Linh and Tam song, the only two out of the entire central friend group that are diverse characters. (they appear to have some sort of asian heritage, in case you never caught that. But I bet you did with their very distinctly Chinese last names.) When Tam and Linh first appear in the book, they're suspected delinquents and exiled for crimes to a school of people that have been outcasted from society. They're seen as outsiders. During the story, we see the both of them climbing their way up in the ranks through hard work & connections. unlike everyone else who is going to Foxfire from the start, and we don't see them as nobility at first at all. Not only do the twins come into the story late, but they start out being pinned as supposed criminals (for going to their school which they were wrongly exiled to) and being the underdogs.

Twins are also scorned and families in the Lost Cities with twins are highly stigmatized. Same thing, the only two Asian characters in the entire series and they're the ones who have to be scorned instead of the white ones.

I'm sorry, but that rubs me the wrong way. it seems incredibly microaggressive to me. You're telling me that the only two characters of color [in the main group] are portrayed this way by accident? You couldn't have chosen any one of your fourteen white characters to play the role? Please.

Also, this might be a reach, but is there colorism also present in the KOTLC cast? The type of Asian that Linh and Tam seem to be (Eastern - Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc) have a very light skin tone. Throughout all of KOTLC, the only skin tone darker than white is Wylie's character, who is obviously African-American. There is no one that looks Latina [okay, there is, it's Jensi who was mentioned twice in the first two books and never again], a different kind of Asian,  Romanian, Indian, Middle Eastern, nothing. Actually, you know what, it's not a reach. You're telling me that objectively based on facts, there is only one character out of the entire KOTLC universe that's skin tone is darker than paper? That's the standard?

To that I say: get outta here.

I'm not convinced that Shannon Messenger - as much as I love and adore her writing and her book series - ever truly cared about diversity and inclusivity among her characters. There's no representation other than straight, white, male, female, two Asians, and a single African American character (out of anyone who actually matters). That's it. Statistically speaking.

That's ridiculous.

[This is a later edit: someone in the comments also pointed out that the Lost Cities are located all over the world, meaning that having a mainly white cast also is whitewashing? This only gets worse the more you think about it, ugh.]

I understand that the majority of the KOTLC fanbase is very young. Believe me, I do. I'm probably one of the older fans that has been here for a while/still is here. Most people my age have moved on to fangirling over the Umbrella Academy or something. I get it. But I do believe that even twelve year olds can understand what I'm saying, stay informed, spread awareness, and think critically.  

One of the reasons I think Shannon hasn't been called out nearly as much for the lack of diversity and representation in her stories is because she has such a young readerbase. That's fine. I don't expect people that are ten and twelve to be thinking about any of this. It never occurred to me at the age, so why would it occur to you unless someone else brought it up first?

That said, now that I have brought it up, I think that the least you can do is have conversations with your friends, tag a few people, and think critically about the casts of your favorite books/people you stan. If you're not speaking up, it makes you look like you don't care that there's absolutely zero representation and diversity in the KOTLC series. And you should care.

Keeper of the Lost Cities is a very white, straight series. What does this mean? It means that it's inherently racist, likely colorist, and not currently supportive of any LGBTQ+ people on any LGBTQ+ spectrum. People out there just like you (if you're white) aren't seeing themselves in stories or media. Instead, they're being told that only if you have European heritage or a lighter skin tone can you be a hero. It's harmful. And we need to speak out against it.

[Not to mention that there are no different body types. This post was just on core character identity, and nothing else. As my friend StickyCarpet put in a conversation, what about religions? Do all elves believe the same things? There's very little identity variation between characters beyond their personalities.]

The reason I want to speak out so strongly now, is because as you may know, KOTLC is being made into a live-action series of movies. On screen, it's going to be even more visible and in-your-face that there's no representation. You know what that says to everyone who wasn't represented at least a little bit (or well)? It says we don't see you because we don't approve of who you are, which is just such an awful message to send. In the movies, it's going to be super important for especially younger readers to see themselves on screen. I don't want these movies to just be another movie chock-full of straight white people. It's time for change. This was never something that should've been the standard, so we need to try extremely hard to change it.

By no means will that magically fix or amend the fact that Shannon Messenger chose to put just about zero diversity into the story in the first place, but it will at least show that she's trying beyond throwing a few new characters with different skin tones in after people start calling her out for it.

Keeper of the Lost Cities is my favorite or second favorite series, and it was (and always will be) a huge part of my childhood. I'm a huge fan of the series myself, but I want to make my opinion on this subject very clear and encourage you to form your own opinion on it. I don't have instagram or socials, but I do have a large platform on Wattpad to spread awareness with. Please spread the message.

Please, if you can, tag people from the fandom in the comments. Share this post. Reblog it on tumblr or post it on instagram. We need to get the conversation started. It's not enough to just sit here and pretend like we're all okay with the fact that the series we all love is grossly unrepresentative/not diverse.

In the external link, you will find a carrd leading to Ways to Help & be a part of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, including ways that don't involve money. In my bio, there's a link that goes to all crisis resources around the globe with links to causes. Please feel free to share and utilize both links.

Thank you very much for reading & (hopefully) spreading the message/awareness with me! Your favorite series and author(?) possibly being racist is something that's harder to come to terms with, even for me at my age, so please don't blame yourself for everything and just try to help as much as you can ♡

[Please feel free to reblog and repost on any platform anywhere as necessary. Spreading the message regardless is much appreciated!]

[bandicoot88]

My Cyberpunk 2077 thoughts...

Gonna go into some spoilers, which I’ll hide under the cut, tho for now, I will share what I thought of the game. I finished my original playthrough a while back now, and did a second, with my same V but with a few different choices (and going back so I could take a bunch of snaps in photo mode, as you may have seen!)

  The game is definetely overhyped tho. Did I enjoy myself? Yes, but the game could’ve been better had it been worked on either more, or taken a step back... and made sure the game ran nicely. There are problems with it, and I’ll share this video here from videogamedunkey who does a good job of explaining the good and bad:

    The length of the game:

  Too short. For about 2 days I was doing side quests only to look for Brendan and Theo, voiced by Bryan Dechart and Ameila Rose Blaire, and even then, I felt like the story just... ends. When I went to do the final mission, I actually didn’t realize it was the final mission. It does say a point of no return, and I’ve experienced that once before in a game, but I just thought it’d be a really long mission, not the end of the game.

  There’s too many side missions I feel, and as mentioned in the video, a lot of copy and paste kinds which are boring, while some are worth doing, but you can’t tell which is which until you visit those locations.

  Game machanics:

  I’m an easily confused person, but I still felt like the game doesn’t really explain... much. All this tech, upgrades, add-ons, abilities, weapons, hacking, and WHY THE FUCK AM I OVERHEATING!? Like... did anyone else feel overwhelmed? I’d be hours and hours into the game, and I still didn’t know what did what. Heck, there’s stuff now I still don’t understand, like... consumerables. I never use them, EVER!

  I just find them kinda pointless, and they’re fucking everywhere, which is probably my problem because I pick EVERYTHING up. I just wanted the game to explian things better. Even BOTW just throws you into the wildness with little to go on, but it’s easy to pick up and understand once you know how (yes, I know the games are totally different, but CP77 could’ve learned something from games such as that on how to introduce players on how to literally play their game).

  Crafting:

  Did anyone actually craft in this game? I crafted very little, and by that I mean I crafted a few grenades to use. I thought weapons could be upgraded, but I was wrong I think, and legendary weapons could be crafted instead? Either way, I never found enough material to craft anything legendary, and with how often I looted... something ain’t right there.

  Selling stuff:

  On PS4, it’s a fucking nightmare. It’s sooooo slow. It would’ve been nice to have an option like ‘sell all commons/whites’ or selecting multiple items and then go ‘sell’. But no, you have to sell each item individually, and with how the game performs on PS4 currently... yeah, not fun.

  SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The story:

Confusing. I got the impression that Arasaka were the bad guys, since y’know... killing Jackie, the son killing the father, etc. Then Takemura enters the scene, thinks we’re the killers, then we both get attacked by robo ninjas, who I haven’t got a fucking clue are, and then... Takemura is trying to save me. When it said ‘finish him off’, I thought it meant Takemura (I think I ignored the prompt, thinking Takemura would die in that moment).

I also kept getting confused on character names within the Arasaka’s, namely Saburo and Yorinobu, constantly getting lost on what and who Takemura was referring to, but I think that’s a me problem and not the fault of the game.

Romances:

  I still have yet to romance someone, but my first encounter with a romancable character was Panam. Little did I know... that she’s straight, so my female V cannot romance her. So. Lame. There’s 4 romances in the game, and we’re limited to 2 per gender? Judy is nice, but I really liked Panam... Why not just make them all bi so from a player perspective, there’s more choice? That’s what Joytoys are, with Skye and Angel as prime examples. Just put the gay/lesbian representation in game elsewhere, but not with romancable characters that are limited, because that’s just lame to me. AC Odyssey didn’t have that problem... It’s really not difficult. According to a YouTube comment on Kerry’s romance, in the Cyberpunk board game, Kerry was bisexual anyway, so... what gives?

Character deaths:

I hated that Jackie died. Seriously? That lovable goof giant just killed off in the most anticlimatic and lame way? If you’re gonna kill off such a great character, at least go out with a bang. The guy didn’t get enough screen time and he was such a lively character in the doom of gloom of Cyberpunk’s world.

It also sucked that T-Bug and Dex died too. T-Bug... how did she even die? The game doesn’t explin anything, and the way she went off comms like that made me think that we’d see her late, as I didn’t realize she was actually dead for a good while, expecting her to make contact at some point.

As for Dex... yes, he did screw us over, but I still liked him. The way he talked, his voice, his style... I just felt he could’ve had more to give.

Then there’s Takemura, another death that I thought had to happen, but the game fucks him over by giving no indication that he could’ve been saved. According to the PS4 trophies, it says 0.8% had Takemura get his revenge for Saburo’s death near the end of the game, so... hardly anyone knew he could be saved.

They couldn’t have done like a decision that could’ve saved him? If they didn’t want to make it obvious, fine, don’t label literally “save Takemura” and “leave Takemura”, but have a decision there at least. Or, explain at some point in the game (maybe near the beginning) that following what the mission says doesn’t have to be taken so literally. When gamers are told by a mission on what to do, they do. How would we ever know to crawl in a tiny hole and find Takemura that way? Again, I assumed we’d meet up later, waiting... waiting... Hanako makes no mention of him whatsoever, and eventually I realized he was dead. Even called him on his phone to confirm it. So lame...

  Smelting legendary weapons:

  I think I accidentally smelted down Johnny’s Revolver, and I fucking loved that thing! The damage, the sound, the awesome reload animation... So now on my other playthrough I’m gonna try and not mess that up. How on Earth are Johnny’s clothes non-sellable/smeltable, but his gun is? How do you mess that up!? Let me mark certain weapons so I don’t accidentally sell them. Again, CP77 can learn from other games...

  Buying cars:

  I’ve bought... one car, and I hate that buying cars are labelled as side missions. Why would I want to buy a hoard of cars? I’m not made of money? I can’t just spend 22k on a car I don’t even really want, especially when I got Johnny’s car, and the bikes of Jackie and Scorpion. Just... have a single place where you can go to buy cars instead of littering the map. I read somewhere that buying cars is the Corpo path only, but I’m not sure?

  The endings:

  I think the ending I got was a common one. I understand there are 5 endings? I chose to go back to Earth and... eventually die I guess, because I didn’t trust Arasaka. I picked the other choice to see what happens, and I wish there was some explaination. You’re just stuck in some program, waiting for a body? If one will even be available? I felt like both endings kinda sucked, and dare I say, the ending you can get much earlier sitting on the roof was oddly more satisfying to me, because you get an actual cutscene with Johnny, and overall, it’s just a nice heart to heart moment. Sure, it’s sad, but there was emotion. The other 2 common endings just felt empty to me. I still have to watch the other, more rare endings.

  Okay I’m done. This is mostly a big rant, but I did still like the game. It just wasn’t ready for release, even after 8 years, and it did had problems, outside of bugs and performance issues.

[bethd0456]

hellooo lovely! i loved reading your response to my last ask - apparently tumblr is messing up my asks bc a lot of them haven’t been going through :( but let’s hope this one does! i’ve been seeing that you watch cherry magic, and it’s one of my favourite shows at the moment!! 💘 who’s your favourite character? mine is kurosawa personally, i relate so much to him and his gayness. also udon chan, the cutest little cat! what did you think of the last ep, wasn’t it so cute!!! (1/2)

i hope you’re doing well!!! i also wanted to ask what your favourite shows and ships are! i already have a vague idea formulating just by browsing through your blog and over our shared love of cherry magic, but i’d looove to hear your thoughts and your favourites!! wishing you the bestest day! 💘 - your secret santa (2/2)

Hiiiii!!!! I hope life is treating you well!

Omg I'm so glad you enjoyed reading it! I hope you're ready for this MASSIVE answer and you don't get too bored reading this one!

CHERRY MAGIC!!!!!! It instantly became a comfort show for me, as it did for many others!

ADACHIADACHIADACHIADACHI. Adachi is 100% my fave. I never fully understood what a comfort character was. I was like, "yeah! I love Tine also!" But. Adachi is the definition of comfort for me. I see so much of myself in him! Everyone sees him and is like "babie. Must protecc." And honestly? Me too. How can one character be so damn CUTE??!?!? One of my favourite moments is him seeing Kurosawa after the almost-kiss. He just like, sees him, and gets so panicked 🥺 the way his arms just flail about makes me smile like an idiot.

But like, on a deeper level, this drama makes me believe I'm worthy of love. The idea that someone like Kurosawa could be THAT infatuated with you, even though you're an awkward virgin lmao. The point of watching these dramas is to get lost in a story, right? See a situation you want so badly but you know will never realistically happen? The entire premise of the show is just really enticing to me. I am Adachi, Adachi is me. Also, the thing he said in ep6 about not having a clear dream in life? Yeah. I felt that. I'm so envious of people who have passions they work so hard for, it gives them a form of purpose. Like Adachi, sometimes I feel like I'm living in a "daze". I feel like I don't really have any specific passions or skills that I want to develop into a career. Sometimes I just wish I had ambition. Adachi makes me feel so seen and like I'm not the only person who feels like this. The kinds of characters that usually make good protagonists are characters with a clear goal/passion. In most shows this obviously really works, but I can never relate to them personally. It's really special for me to see a character who's similar to me in this way.

Kurosawa is such an amazing character too!!!!! His gay little heart 🥺 on another level, he's just so?? Respectful??? 7. YEARS. 7 years of pining and he holds himself back so well!! He's been waiting for this relationship for so long but is so patient, willing to take things slowly for Adachi. He flirts shamelessly (as he should) but never to the point where Adachi was too uncomfortable.

He cares so much about Adachi :(. But also, even before he liked Adachi, he could tell he was uncomfortable with the drinking thing, so he DOWNED the wine lmao. Clearly he's just a lovely person all round who's really socially aware.

As for other characters:

• Udon my baby!!!! The cutest cat ever!! I love animals sm :(((

• Tsuge's chaotic energy is iconic

• Minato a lovely little dance machine :))

• Rokaku deserves the world, my excitable kiss interruptor :(((

• Fujisaki my love! She's so soft and cute!! Also ace coded how iconic

I ADORED ep8!!! I LIVE for established Adasawa! Adachi coming out to Tsuge :((( I'm so proud of Adachi coming to terms with his feelings and being confident enough to share his relationship with his closest friend. Coming out is not easy and he did so well 🥺

Adachi and Tsuge are so useless bless them 😂 Kurosawa really said "well I guess I have to take these two socially awkward disasters under my wing." Adachi and Tsuge are such a chaotic duo, I love that they can communicate just by touching each other, and omg when Kurosawa said his name Tsuge was "wait maybe I know everything about you already" and if that isn't friendship idk what is

Also Kurosawa making up a poem in his head about Adachi???? Peak romance. Also iconic. I'M A SUCKER FOR HAND HOLDING SCENES SO I DIED. "I like him. I like him. I like him!!" HOW CUTE CAN YOU GET FJKHDSHSKSK

I also got another arm flailing moment when Kurosawa almost got the wrong idea about Adachi and Tsuge!! CAN ADACHI STOP BEING SO CUTE MY HEART CAN'T TAKE IT. How on earth his boyfriend is still alive I have no idea.

There are so many other shows and ships I love. I feel like I'll probably miss some, but here we go. These aren't rankings at all, just like, lists lol.

Show list:

1. 2gether

This show means so much to me. It was the first time I watched a bl week by week and it made it so much more special?? I valued scenes so much more than when I binge shows and they would like, look at each other and I'd have a heart attack. They made the first part of my quarantine bearable bc I always had something to look forward to every Friday. I actually really enjoyed quarantine overall as an introvert (not to be insensitive about the literal deaths the pandemic has caused), but I really enjoyed constantly thinking about how long it was until Friday. I'm massively emotionally attached to all of the characters in this show you have no idea. Every single one. The found family of it all,, the way all of the characters have relationships. Still2gether did a phenomenal job of showcasing all of the unexpected but very welcome dynamics and relationships, platonic and romantic alike. I could blabber about this show for so long I'll spare u for now

2. YYY

Is it well written? No. Did I enjoy it anyway?? You know it! I told you how much I love the found family trope. UGH. THIS FAMILY. Also, seeing the feminine side of the LGBT+ community represented positively warmed my heart. There needs to be more bls that do that! Celebrate femininity!! There's nothing wrong with being camp as fuck! It's so much fun!!! This show made me so happy :))

3. Start up

I'm currently obsessed. It's my first Kdrama and holy shit this is what the hype is about. The budget!! The acting! Top notch. On a sad note I really wish bls got that much funding behind them. My heart aches for a complicated story with fully developed characters and plotlines, that just happens to have a gay main couple/character. Wishful thinking for now at least. Anyways, I'm massively emotionally attached to Halmeoni and Jipyeong. Team Jipyeong all the way (even tho Dalmi's obviously gonna end up with Dosan, and I'm happy for them!). All I need is a happy ending for my darling Jipyeong. Please give him one. Also, if anything happens to Halmeoni I will WEEP.

4. Cherry magic is obviously here but I've ranted about that enough already 😂

5. 3 will be free

I would never have expected gmm to make a series like this! But they went and did THAT. Wild. It was such a healthy representation of a poly relationship. The themes of feminism were so well handled and powerful, the chemistry was off the CHARTS, I was hooked from start to finish! Time for a rewatch? I think so.

6. Feel good

Not an Asian drama, but still gay as FUCK. It's written by my wife Mae Martin who also stars in it, and I have to say, it blew me away. Story time!! My friend irl recommended it to me without saying it was Mae, so I was like "okay sure I'll put it on my to watch list I guess" without much motivation to watch it. But as soon as I found out it was Mae I watched it and I've never looked back lol. Once I finished I sent my friend a splurge of messages about my feelings. The series touches on issues like addiction, sexuality and gender. "I'm not a boy. I'm not even a girl. I'm like a failed version of both." That shit HURT.

There's a scene near the end which has really stayed with me. So Mae's character is a comedian and she does a set making jokes about the stuff that happened in the series and oh my GOD. The way I CRIED. It made me realise that people who make jokes about their experiences are using humour as a coping mechanism and when people say "Haha I have daddy issues isn't it funny" we have to remember to be respectful. It's never okay to make jokes about someone else's trauma. Don't make a big deal of it but just don't be a dick.

Anyways I could go on but would 100% recommend this series!

7. HIStory 2 crossing the line

My first bl! This series is the reason I'm so obsessed with bl lmao. The main couple are so soft :( this little series will always hold a special place in my heart!

8. Sotus

My first gmm series, we've come a long way. I miss Kong and Arthit :(

9. Dark blue kiss

Such a brilliant series. I trust P'Aof (director) with my life. This series touches on issues that are so important and deserve to be talked about so much more in bls. This is what happens when you let LGBT people tell LGBT stories! They do it with such care and love!! One of my favourite lines is "I may like men, but I'll never like your brother." One of my biggest let peeves is "I don't like men, I only like x." Like, I get the business behind it, they don't want to make the character gay to make them available for girls to fantasise about. Which is disgusting. But Mork really said "no. ❤" and I LOVE IT.

10. The shipper

I could go on and on about how underrated I think this series is. This series took over from 2gether on Fridays, and while I didn't think about this series constantly like I did with 2gether, this series made my quarantine brighter. Fridays meant I was gonna laugh at least once and forget about life just for a short while. The humour in this series is so fucking dumb lmao, but I'm here for it.

I've seen people talk about the shipper as a bl but I disagree. I think it's better described as a series with bl aspects. The main themes are friendship, family, dealing with loss, respecting boundaries of people you admire, and one of the main messages is about making sure the people close to you know how much they mean to you. Don't get me wrong, the majority of the series is over the top humour, but by the end of it I was personally really attached to the characters and their feelings. Overall I really enjoyed this series but I don't see anyone properly talk about it :(

11. Gaya sa pelikula

A series made by gay people for gay people. Shows like this are so important. This show really healed my soul with how brilliant the representation was :(( "remember we talked about microagressions" the way that means Vlad is constantly educating Karl about LGBT stuff, UGH. SO GOOD. Also this show has the most realistic representation of a crush I've ever seen lmao, soft Vlad is the best Vlad.

12. My engineer

My happy little Saturday show :( I miss the shit writing, shit acting and soft story of this series so much. I'm so fond of this series, I watched it after the horrible ep12 of 2gether and it really made me happy. I'm looking forward to season 2, but Ramking's novel goes DOWNHILL from here on. I know tricreation wouldn't allow the final chapter's scenes, but the entire story is so problematic and unenjoyable :(. The only valid scene is King's coming out scene but that's literally it. And the collar scene can stay lmao.

13. Oxygen

Another soft saturday series! I love this series so much, all of the couples are so bloody healthy and it makes me so happy. The communication is amazing!! THIS is how you show healthy relationships!!!

14. The gifted

S1 was so amazing!! I loved all of it! The only part of s2 we'll talk about is timegracethird. Time best boy!! Grace a feminist queen! When future Grace said they would be friends for a long time that made me so happy :(( also pangwave canon

15. Until we meet again

So I talked about the healthy relationships in oxygen. But uwma really showed the healthiest relationship ever. DeanPharm are just the softest little humans :( I would die for Pharm. He's the closest I got to a comfort character before Adachi. I just have to PROTECT HIM. My motherly instincts really kick in when I see him lmao.

The storyline of this series is just breathtaking. And the ending? I don't think I've ever cried that much. At all. It was so fucking beautiful 🥺

16. My gear and your gown

I really liked this show! Honestly I don't think I'll ever rewatch it but I definitely enjoyed it. The way Pai just seemed to breathe freely for the first time when his parents accepted his sexuality :(((( my baby :( also purefolk were brilliant

Ship list:

1. Saratine

These two are the definition of romance. They mean the fucking world to me. The fact that their story is apparently gonna be continued in some form makes me so. So. Happy. I cannot begin to describe it. My bet is on a special episode and ugh I'm so EXCITED.

2. Aini

Thonhonchonlatee in general is enjoyable but I don't like Thon at all. It's such a shame bc I was so excited for Khaotung and Podd to be in a series together :((. BUT. Aini have grabbed my heart. I knew they would bc miketap are brilliant, but wow. They're so gay my little babies :( miketap are just so natural and comfortable to watch. I love their chemistry so muuuuuuch

3. Sunmork

Coffee boyfriends :( I miss them so bloody much

4. Ramking

One of my fave ships. As I mentioned, I'm apprehensive about s2, but s1 ramking is such a beautiful story. It's just about 2 boys falling in love, no complications. Plant boy who's afraid of dogs falls in love with quiet boy who loves dogs but is afraid of children. Iconic. Also chemistry outsold, I THINK ABOUT THE KISS CONSTANTLY. When I mentioned the acting is shit in this series (shit is harsh, I mean awkward), I did not mean Perth and Lay in the slightest. They really nailed their roles and I loved it.

5. Professor Layton x Claire

You 100% won't get this reference but I grew up with the Professor Layton games and holy shit do they hold up. They're so amazingly written with beautiful stories and the most lovable characters in the world. Layton's intellect, loving nature and surprising athleticism are admirable. Adachi is the character I relate to most, but if I was gonna choose a character to comfort me irl, Layton's your man. His voice is so comforting by nature. I'm blabbering at this point but the point is him and Claire are the only het pairing that matters.

These are just the ships that I felt should be separate from their shows. I love all of the ships from the shows I mentioned.

Oof this got horrifically long, I haven't had a proper chance to rant about most of these shows so I really let it out lol. I hope you've watched at least some of these shows and I didn't just rant to u about 12 shows you've never heard of 😂

I hope you have a wonderful day love!!!!

[wellesleyunderground]

WU Reviews: Never Have I Ever reviewed by Shelly Anand ‘08 (@shellypolitik) & Shloka Ananthanarayanan '08 (@shlokes)

Shloka: Oh where to begin? I binged through this show in a few hours and would happily have spent my whole week bingeing through more seasons. I went into this with high expectations, and incredibly, they were all exceeded. 

First off, the reason I was most excited for this show is that it is based on a South Indian family. You never see South Indians on TV - even when Mindy Kaling was on The Office, she was the generic North Indian “Kelly Kapoor.” So to have a character named Devi Vishwakumar (a name that all the non-brown folk pronounce fully all the time without complaining!) was a revelation. As a Shloka Ananthanarayanan, I am here for this.

Shelly: Completely agree. So many depictions of Indians, whether in American media or in Bollywood, are hegemonized by North Indians and Punjabis (Mindy’s use of “Kapoor” in the Office, a Punjabi last name). It’s not only a disservice to the diversity of the subcontinent and India but also a disservice to North Indians who are super ignorant and unaware of languages and cultures of South India. I really enjoyed learning words in this show, like kanna, which I quickly learned is the Tamil term of endearment for a loved one or a child like “beta” in Hindi.

Shloka: My heart melted every time someone would say “kanna.” I have family members who say it all the time but it was so refreshing to see it casually deployed on screen. This might also explain why one of my all-time favorite Bollywood movies as a child was Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke, because the heroine played a South Indian and had a few lines in Tamil when she was talking to her father. It was the first time I felt represented in Bollywood. 

Coming back to the show, there’s some pretty incisive commentary about what it means to be a brown person outside the motherland. In Episode 4, which is centered around Devi and her family attending Ganesh Puja, we get to delve deep into how Devi sometimes feels “too Indian” and then at other times is “not Indian enough.” It’s the classic immigrant dilemma.  All three actresses who form the core trio of this show are spectacular, and each of them represent different stages of assimilation, all of which I thoroughly related to. As someone who only moved to the States in high school, I was not as American as Devi, who was born and raised here, though after all these years, I’ve definitely gotten there. I’m not as Indian as her mom, Nalini, or her cousin, Kamala, who both grew up in India, but like Kamala, who moved to the US for her engineering degree at Caltech, I can relate to her gradual Americanization. 

Shelly: Episode 4 was definitely one of my favorite episodes, particularly John McEnroe’s describing and explaining the phenomenon that is the “Indian auntie.” Devi’s experience as the daughter of Indian immigrants was really reminiscent of my experience growing up though I have to say she encounters way less bullying, which speaks so much perhaps to the area she is living in and the times we are living in. It was refreshing to see a show where almost all of the main characters are people of color including the popular cute guy she is lusting after. 

I was a bit surprised though about the whole ABCD trope (American Born Confused Desi). I would hope that kids of Indian origin growing up today would feel more comfortable with their culture and identity than they were when I was growing up. I was also surprised that they decided to depict parents as immigrants rather than second generation Indian Americans since so many South Asian kids in school now are third generation like my kids.

There has been some critical commentary about the show as well. In Episode 4, Nalini discourages Kamala from sitting next to a woman who married a Muslim. This same woman later tells Kamala that she is divorced and she should have just married a Hindu like she was supposed to. Showing the pervasive anti-Muslim bias is so real and true for Hindu communties and Hindu American communities but there was no follow up or push back.

Then Nalini makes a seemingly pro Modi comment stating that asking a pandit to take an uber was like asking Modi to use postmates. 

With everything happening in India right now, I definitely picked up on these two moments in this episode. But I really didn’t expect Mindy to address these issues in a meaningful way. While other Indian American celebrities like Hari Kondabolu and Padma Lakshmi condemned the Citizenship Amendment Act and the killing of Muslims in Delhi earlier this year, Mindy remained mostly silent. 

I also saw some folks tweeting about the issue of caste representation. I am not familiar with how caste is manifested in the Tamil Hindu community but I learned from another Tamil Hindu on Twitter that this family is pretty explicitly Brahmin. Caste is one of the major points of oppression within the Hindu community that has not been dealt with in a meaningful way and there is much work to be done to eliminate caste bias as well as ensure representation of Dalits, Bahujans, and Adivasis in media both in India and here in the US.

All that being said, my favorite response to all the critiques of Mindy’s show was  something along the lines of “it’s Mindy Kaling, wtf did you expect, a Naxalite uprising?” 

Shloka: Yeah, I never expected a nuanced take on issues affecting India today - this is a show built largely around Mindy’s worldview, which has always been decidedly apolitical. So while agreed on all those points, that is NOT why anyone should be watching this show. You know why you should be watching?  All the jokes. So many one-liners, so many rich layers of hilarity. At one point when someone asks Devi’s mom if she could turn the AC on, she gets angry, declaring “there are people in Siberia who would kill to be this hot!” I giggled for a good long while over that one. This is a show that really revels in well-observed and precise humor, which is what I demand from all my comedies. 

But whilst technically a comedy, this show is also incredibly serious and takes a deep dive into grief and mental health, topics that Indians are generally loath to explore. Devi sees a therapist to deal with her father’s recent death and while most of her therapy sessions are consumed by her sex-crazed high school hijinks, her therapist is always patiently pointing out that maybe what Devi really needs is to be processing her grief rather than distracting herself with boys and the pursuit of popularity. Everything gets incredibly emotional in the last two episodes and it’s a reminder that being stoic and just ignoring the things that make you feel bad are not effective ways of dealing with your emotions. 

Shelly: I was really happy with the way mental health and the way it’s still so taboo in the South Asian community was portrayed here. I wondered how much of Devi’s avoidance of talking about her father was her own trauma versus her discomfort because of her upbringing around talking about pain, feelings, and generally not being ok. You can tell her mother also pushed down her emotions and didn’t take the time to process her husband’s death. The scene when Nalini, Devi’s mother, goes to talk to Devi’s therapist is a powerful one. Recognizing that her daughter was in therapy but then dismissing therapy as being for “white people” is true for not only South Asians but many communities of color in the US. I was really glad to see mental health and the need for mental health treatment addressed in this show.

In summary - we both recommend Never Have I Ever. It does some things well, needs to work on a whole bunch of other things, but in the end, is a delightful binge watch with some much-needed South Asian representation. Give it a whirl and let us know what you think!

[silverwolf866]

Seriously not impressed with the second to last episode. Sure the fights got better but the writing took a nosedive again. The lead up to the qrow/clover/tyrian fight makes zero sense. The rwby vs ace ops even less so. Reminds me of the second half of volume 6. Good start, awful finish.

Honestly, for me, the whole of Volume 7 has been one giant disappointment. The only fights I liked were the ones from the second to last episode. 

From the beginning, this Volume has been really boring. There were many times where I would find myself looking at the time stamp and/or found myself getting physically tired. It was so draining. Really, the only times I seemed to enjoy myself were scenes involving Tyrian and Ironwood (and even some of the scenes with Jacques and Watts). 

The plot point involving team RWBY lying and going behind Ironwood’s back was stupid beyond reason. There could’ve been a reason why team RWBY would be mistrusting of Ironwood, but they never showed that. Instead, it comes across as them lying to him for no reason despite his complete trust in them. And their hypocrisy/double standards concerning lying and hiding the truth was obnoxious and really unlikable. 

A large majority of fans were gushing over Nora’s “sass” at Ironwood about hiding the truth, when she and everyone else were doing the exact same thing and hiding crucial things from him. 

And don’t even get me started on Miles and Kerry’s pathetic attempt at “political commentary” with the election of Dona- I mean Jaques Schnee and Robyn “Hill.” And how Jaques cheated via “hacking” by some third party. Also while we’re on that, Robyn was one the most boring addition to the cast. Her voice did not at all suit her character and her actions were so over the top and unreasonable. She doesn’t even come across as someone who’s a leader that’s worried about the “corruption” that plagued the city and chose her allies wisely, or something to that extent, rather, she just comes across like a total bitch. And when it came down to it, I was actually rooting for Jaques than her, because she was simply that unlikable. 

And some of you might say, “How can you can say that? Jaques is an abusive, corrupt, asshole!” But, that’s the point, as a villain/antagonist, I actually thought he was intimidating and fulfilled his role well (up until Weiss arrested him). My favorite scene with him was the part involving him, Ironwood, and Weiss. Where he went from angry and hostile to quietly calming himself down, adjusting his suit, before emotionally manipulating Weiss by simply saying, “You know… your mother was devastated when you left. You know how she gets… when she’s upset.” Before smugly smirking and turning away from her. That was such a chilling and good scene. He was entertaining as a villain. 

But Robyn… she’s supposed to be a person of the people but when is she ever being apart of the people outside of that one political speech during election day? We never see that. If anything, we always see her being hostile/antagonistic towards others. She’s supposed to also be based on Robin Hood, a vigilante hero. For example, just look at Disney’s Robin Hood, they did a much better job at that representation. You always see him helping the people one on one, actually showing him having relationships and having friendships with the characters. As well as the impact he has on the residents of Nottingham. 

Now granted, RWBY takes liberties with the fairytale characters they base their characters on. However, they tried to make Robyn a, more or less, one to one ratio with the symbolism/idea of Robin Hood. They basically tried to make her mirror the concept of Robin Hood as someone whose a hero for the people, but does it through unlawful and underhanded means. They say, but they never show, which is one of RWBY’s biggest problems. If all I see is Robyn picking fights with the main characters, even when they’re telling the truth and she knows that, on top of the fact that she’s being rude and name calling basically a kid to her (who wasn’t even rude to start with), what impression am I supposed to get from that? She’s just being unlikable at that point to me. And not even in a purposeful villainous/antagonist sort of way like Jaques.

Not to mention, that the whole Penny revival and Weiss’s character arc with her father has been really underwhelming. I didn’t care for it. It’s just… damn this Volume was a mess. Including the second to last chapter, as much as I loved the fight choreography the plot which lead up to and came out of it was really contrived and bullshit. For a lot of the reasons people have already stated (except for the queer bait stuff, come at me all you want, but I disagree with this), so I won’t get too much into that, especially since we still need to see the next episode and wait for the rest of its follow up, development and conclusion.

But yeah, this damn Volume has basically just been boring setups with disappointing payoffs. Not even Volume 5, for as terrible as that Volume was, was I met with such disappointment and in an unentertaining way. Even then, I never felt so physically and emotionally drained from watching Vol 5 as I did with this Volume. And it really sucks because for the longest time, since it was first introduced, out of all the places/arcs I was looking forward to was Atlas. And now that’s just been completely ruined. 

Like you said, Vol 6, while it had a bad second half, the first half was actually really good. And I was impressed overall that they were at least able to pull off a lot of good episodes in that Volume. So I was also really looking forward to this Volume because I was hoping to see if they finally caught back to form or start going back into the direction that was more familiar to the RWBY I fell in love with.

I don’t know man, I really hope the finale will be good. Cause if it turns out to be another shit show like this previous chapter I don’t know what I’m gonna do.

[the-queer-look]

Bi Visibility is important

Bisexuality is frequently overlooked in our culture, and all too often perceived negatively, either as someone who’s faking, or someone who isn’t really queer. However, bisexuality is just as valid as being gay, or trans, or ace. Bisexuals deserve to be more visible in our society, and more accepted by our community, regardless of the gender of their partners.

- K

Name: Jessie

Age: 24

Sexuality: Bisexual

Location: Newtown

Occupation/area of study: Studying Primary Education at the University of Sydney and president of the Queer Society at University of Sydney (Shades)

I identify as either bi, or pansexual,depending on who I’m talking to, and how they see bi and pan. I know that some people see pan as problematic because it originates in bisexuality as a way to be more inclusive of trans and non binary people, but also that bisexuality explicitly includes trans and non binary people anyway. I understand both points of view on the bi/pan debate, but arguing about the semantics doesn’t really interest me. Safe to say that I can find myself attracted to people at any point on the gender spectrum.

This is my second year as the president of shades(University of Sydney Queer Society), I’m graduating at the end of this years so I won’t be doing that anymore… Unless I do another degree, or PHD! *laughs* no, I’m definitely going to be teaching for a year or two before I come back to do any other study.

Being president of Shades just sort of fell into my hands when my friend finished uni. I had no idea what I was doing but just persisted because I really didn’t want Shades to die. It’s a very important society, especially for first year queers just coming out and having their first experience both at uni, and expressing their sexuality for the first time. Shades can be just a great experience for people to just come and be social, and be themselves.

When I was nineteenI was diagnosed with an eating disorder and went into hospital for a period of time. That whole part of my life was very long and awful, but my fashion also went through a really drastic change through every part of it.In the initial stages of it, when I’d lostan incredible amount of weight, I started buying all of these really tiny, tight clothes. But when my disorder became more about bingeing, I became very ashamed of my body, and would try to buy clothes that would hide it. But because I’m low key obsessed with looking cute, I had this mindset of “no! I must still look cute! Whilst also trying to hide my body!” So I went through this phase of long, flowing hippy skirts, with patterned throw overs. It was very personally necessary at the time, but I’ve definitely moved out of that phase. I kept the really cute ones though. One thing that has always stayed with me is just a little touch of punk creeping through to all of my aesthetics. Even now, going into teaching and needing to dress in a professional, “teacher” way, I’m very adamant about still being very me. For example, I refuse to get rid of, or hide my septum piercing because it’s such an integral part of my identity.

If my ex boyfriend ever reads this, I don’t think he’ll care, because he was very much around for it and knew what was going on. But he and I had what was very much an up and down, very toxic relationship. He cheated on me a bunch of times, and I didn’t cheat on him physically, but I definitely cheated on him emotionally with a girl in my high school. I think having feelings for her made me realise that I wasn’t straight. I went to an all girls high school and there were like two gays in our cohort, and I was wondering to myself “Do I just have a crush on them because I know that they’re gay? Okay.. but not everyone else in my cohort has a crush on them, and they’re offended by the fact that she has crushes on other people, but not only am I not offended by it, but I’m kinda into it?” which made me realise that yeah… girls… We never did anything physically though, my boyfriend and I were together until I was eighteen, and I don’t think I actually experimented with my sexuality until I was about nineteen.

I don’t think that my sexuality has had an impact on my way of presenting myself, but it’s hard because that was all close to the time that I was dealing with my eating disorder as well. I think a big part of my recovery was tied in with the fact that queer people generally don’t give to much of a shit about how other people perceive the way that they dress. It was a huge shift for me, queer people care about the way that they dress, but not what the general population thinks, and so much of my eating disorder was tied up in worry about what other people would think of me, and how I looked, so when I came to terms with my sexuality it also made dressing so much easier. I let go of other peoples perceptions of my body, and how I moved through the world because queerness is so liberating in that way so… It did… I made a mistake, coming to terms with my sexuality very much did shift the way that I dress.

Ithink that stereotypes within the lgbt community are still relevant, but that they’re much less relevant now that there’s so much more of an umbrella, and in think that people these days are far less likely to put themselves into a little box. I feel that they are necessary, especially in the beginnings of finding out about queerness and sexuality, because everyone wants to belong to something, and I think that stereotypesabout how to dress and present yourself help people to identify themselves, and be a part of something greater. Like a lot of people on your blog have said, it’s like a sign, or signifier to other people that are a part of that to let them know that we’re all queer together. I’m a bit biased, because I live in the inner west, but I feel that these days I go around Newtown and I have no idea if someone’s queer or not, because that very liberated, queer way of dressing has just spread everywhere, and has also let straight people feel that sense of liberation. Deviation from the norm (conservative, mainstream cishet presentation) is very important in queer history, because it has always been a bit of “going against the man” and rejecting the system.

There is a narrower understanding of queerness in media, which is why I feel it is so important, if you know anyone who is coming to terms with their gender or sexuality, to point them towards youtubers or people who are not very “in a box” about what sexuality and queerness is, because I think that it’s pretty normal when coming to terms with your sexuality to put it into the more known boxes before you kind of unravel what your own sexuality really is. It’s a good start, but I think it would be even better if we had more representations in the media of trans and non-binary people. Bisexuals even, you still don’t see many bi people in media, or if you do, it’s very sexualised and male gaze-y. Which isn’t helpful for young people coming to terms with their sexuality because it can kind of lead them to put themselves in a more narrow box, which can hurt them later on as they aren’t aware of these different ways to be. Going into teaching, I plan to be pushing as much as I can for a lot more stories where characters are not gender conforming, because the more opportunities that young people have when they’re younger to come to terms with their own gender and sexuality, the more they can avoid problems with mental health later on down the line.

For our generation, I feel that the internet has been extremely influential. Queerness in general feels so normalised in areas of the internet which is so crucial to me, and others for coming to terms with their sexuality. Things like Youtube are huge now, and I feel that queer representation on Youtube is growing and growing now, which can be a great resource.

I think that bisexuals in heterosexual relationships are so important, but from my own experience, I feel that their heterosexual partners can feel an urge to squash that part of their identity, which makes me so sad. On the other hand, I know many bisexual people who then take the tack of compensating for their heterosexual relationship by becoming activists to make their identity as a queer person still feel relevant. For myself, I’m in a heterosexual relationship, but it doesn’t do anything to change the fact that I’m still bisexual. I did have a small crisis about my queerness early on, being the president of a queer society in a straight relationship, but now I see myself as a fairly important bisexual person, on a pretty big platform, promoting bi visibility and reminding people that bisexuals in heterosexual relationships are still a part of the lgbt community, especially now that my partner is passing more and more frequently, I’m just seen as a straight person. Two of my bosses at work are dating, both female, and since being with Jess, I cant find a way to drop into conversation with them that I’m also queer with it also feeling like a casual thing, rather than jumping up and down shouting “me too!”

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[wariofranchisefanblog]

My Support for Captain Syrup for Super Smash Bros Ultimate

It was only a matter of time until Syrup would get her turn, out of all the obvious candidates for a Wario newcomer to bring up. she's the one who people tend to be the most pessimistic about, especially since she has had no presence in Smash so far at all.

Despite this, I think that Syrup has a number of things going for her, that would make her a very appealing inclusion:

The Legacy of Wario Land

Sure, Wario Land has been MIA for far too long, but it's still a fairly big series, 6 main games, 2 spin off platformers and the WarioWare spin off series, along with the many times WL content has shown up in Nintendo games are nothing to scoff at.

There's also just how much this series has shaped it's main character. Wario is a Nintendo icon and greed, strength, love for garlic and even design details like the removal of his lazy eyes, the short sleeves or his pronounced muscles are all things that Wario Land introduced and were carried over into his appearences in other games.

Even if you only know Wario from something like Mario Tennis Aces, you still know a Wario who was shaped by the Wario Land series, not unlike how it is with modern Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Country.

So needless to say, this a series that deserves more representation then it has gotten so far.

The appeal of more Wario Land content

Wario Land has undeniably gotten the short end of the stick in Smash, with no stages, remixes (outside of Wario's victory theme) or even trophies to it's name, but Ultimate is showing a willingness to at least make Wario more representative of the series, by bringing back the Charge and changing his down throw animation, to make it properly resemble the Ground Pound.

None of this needs to translate into more Land content, but with Wario representing his own series anyways there is no point to not do it at all. Wario Land has a lot of great songs, locations or characters that can make for wonderful Smash content and they would be pretty much completely new to the series, unlike some other things like the oversaturation of DK Island Swing Remixes in For.

Plus, Wario Land is most well known for it's handheld outings and Game Boy/Color/Advance games more often then not tend to get overlooked in terms of content, so that's a niche that Syrup and Wario Land representation in general could easily fill.

Moveset Potential

Syrup much like Mona, Kat and Ana has several things to work with:

Taking note from Land 2, one obvious option would be to make her a mech fighter and while Bowser Jr already fills that niche, there is nothing saying we couldn't see further exploration of that idea.

She could very well on fight on-foot as well and use moves from various Wario Land mooks, perhaps even spawn some of them for some attacks.

There's also the option of assigning Wario Land mechanics to her that Wario doesn't use, like the power-up heads from Land 1 and Virtual Boy or shaking an opponent. There's also the matter of transformations, which to be fair, aren't entirely out of the question, since Syrup has endured at least one of them before:

but yeah, it's still a bit of a stretch to say she would totally turn into a vampire or spring or run across the stage with her butt on fire before getting fully engulfed by flames, for her moveset, even if it would be unique and represent a big aspect of Wario Land.

Wario won't have a change in moveset anytime soon, so Syrup would be a way to have a one that's far more close to Wario Land's mechanics, but it's not very reflective of Syrup herself, which makes it a double edged sword and why I'm more partial towards the first two options.

Following among Mario and Wario fans

It goes without saying that she is popular among Wario fans, but she has a very surprising following among Mario fans as well, being very much the Wario Land character that people will recognize. Her problem really comes more from a lack of confidence in her inclusion, rather then people not wanting her.

Not too much else to add here, previous history with Smash leaves me sceptical of her odds for inclusion, but Syrup is a great character who would have a lot of merit to include her and I will never not root for her.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Fall 2018 Anime Overview: Continuing Series- Golden Kamuy Season 2 and Banana Fish

Golden Kamuy Season 2

If you enjoyed the first season, this is pretty much more of the same, so check out my review of season one to know what to expect.

Though I guess you could say this portion of the season DOES lean even harder into weirdness than the first one did. There’s not many anime where you’ll see two dudes having the time of their lives modeling fashionable outfits made out of human skin, which include...crotch appendages...only in Golden Kamuy y’all.

Interestingly bizarreness tends to overlap with queerness a lot in this season and its hard to know how to feel about it. For instance, it’s definitely an unexpected revelation that dudes are attracted to Lieutenant Tsurumi like whoa. 

IDK apparently he’s a catch. Half of his subordinates are in love with him. It’s handled as comical and of course the dudes are mentally unbalanced weirdos (as is everyone in Golden Kamuy except Asirpa and Sugimoto only sometimes) and one of them dies, but the show is never overtly mean to them either. Nobody acts disgusted about it and when one character observes the attraction, he basically shrugs about it.

 Satoru Noda apparently also REALLY loose with his fixation with dudes muscles with this part of the story, to the point we got the beef-cakiest hotsprings episode I’ve ever seen, which includes an extended fight scene where the male characters were naked throughout. There’s also an entire scene where apparently otter meat is an aphrodisiac that causes the dudes to be really into each other, so they engage in nearly naked sumo wrestling.

This is all clearly supposed to be wacky and funny, but at the same time it’s pretty clear the mangaka must REALLY LIKE drawing these scenes of muscular, naked men, and I support him following his dreams. Also I won’t deny it’s refreshing to see a hot springs episode where not a single woman got objectified, but there was dude oglin’ a plenty. It healed me a little.

I guess while we’re talking about this show and its weird relationship with queerness I should reporting that my prediction was right and the trans woman I mentioned in the previous review did become an ally. Her transness hasn’t been bought up again (though for some reason the subs decided to switch to “he” despite sticking with “she” before) and her role is pretty minor, she does reveal she’s skilled in both cooking and surgery (because she likes dismembering people) and talks about how great it would be to see people murdered every so often, so pretty much more of the same.

And that’s really all there is to say. Golden Kamuy has only gotten weirder and the plot only more convoluted (I’m starting to have a hard time keeping track of the characters tbh), but it’s an entertaining story and there’s still characters with resonance and heart underneath it all (the scene where Sugimoto discusses his trauma from being in the war with Asirpa genuinely tugged a heartstring. These two are still great and have really settled into a kinda of adorable dad-daughter dynamic at this point) and the historical and cultural research that went into this story is still amazing. 

I can tell the anime’s still skipping a lot of the manga (most of volume 7 was completely skipped), but since the English release of the manga is so slow, I’m happy to watch it in the meantime. It helps that the show has a bangin’ soundtrack and and it managed to pull its ginormous cast together for some truly exciting and action packed final episodes that left me eager for more. 

Banana Fish (13-24)

Again, if you read my review for the first half of the show, you can basically expect more of the same, both with the good and especially the bad parts. We do get more downtime with Ash and Eiji’s relationship, and they continued to make me think this show would be so much better if it focused more on these quiet scenes rather than on piling as much trauma on Ash as it possibly can. 

I think this second half did allow me to see what was compelling about Ash and Eiji’s relationship and why it’s stayed with so many people. When Ash explained that he’s finally found someone who will love him without expecting anything in return, so of course he’s willing to do anything for that person, that got me in the heart. Ash is someone who has either been viewed as a threat or someone to exploit- he’s especially used to being treated like he’s nothing more than a body, a receptacle for desires. Eiji isn’t afraid of Ash, or in awe of him, and never asks anything of him other than for him to be okay and by his side. Ash genuinely can just be a dumb teenager with him while he can’t with anyone else. Eiji is an outsider, to Ash’s gang-bangin’ world, to his culture in general, and that allows him to see Ash as he truly is, just a kid who needs to get out of this mess.

The romantic in me really loves that concept, and as an ace person, I especially connect to the underlying implication that Eiji is a romantic partner who isn’t going to demand sex from Ash or try to force him into it. Though Ash’s implied desire to avoid sex almost certainly stems from trauma, I know how he feels in a broad sense. And I think it’s a thing a lot of women can relate to even if they aren’t ace, wanting to find a relationship where they aren’t used or objectified, so it goes back around to how Ash acts as kind of a representation for the anxieties and desires of (likely) the mangaka and many women despite being a male character, and I still find that very interesting. The scene where Ash has a complete breakdown and screams at his rapist while laughing hysterically was really affecting.

So there’s moments of real resonance here, but is it worth the bullshit surrounding it, which includes every single gay man being represented as a rapist, to the point a gay bar is connected to a child porn ring? The nasty implication that gay sex is inherently evil and non-consensual, and Ash and Eiji’s relationship is only okay because they’re not doing it is very strong, and as much as this ace appreciates a romance that doesn’t require sex, I don’t want it THIS way.

There’s also some SERIOUS anti-Semitic bullshit that I can’t believe MAPPA didn’t edit out in a couple episodes. Like it would have been so easy to cut. Also some more pretty rough scenes of black men being murdered (they’re extras this time at least, and the main black dude for this part of the anime miraculously manages to both survive and not be an offensive caricature. Also his name is Cain Blood which is the best name in this story, and possibly ever). 

The second half of the anime also involved some of the more absurd elements worsening. I got REALLY tired of every character commenting on how hot and amazing Ash is like. I GET IT.  Also Ash’s life of being sexually exploited somehow gives him the ability to seduce any man holding him captive, and every bad guy is down for raping a teenage boy, I guess. It’s actually again, a little surreal to see these tropes with a male character. I’m used to seeing hot female characters who’ve been through sexual trauma and have magic seduction powers and are endlessly drooled over...I almost want guys to watch these segments so they can see how uncomfortable it feels when the tables are turned. 

There’s also some really good examples of ACTUAL jarring tone shifts, where the anime really fails to land some of its attempts at a funny, light moment in the midst of really tense and tragic situations. I think it’s possible the manga managed this better, but I can’t imagine the “joke” where Ash has to crossdress and a male doctor gropes him and Ash punches him out cold and his friends chortle and tell him he’s not a gentle woman could ever be done in a non jarring way. Like, I don’t like sexual harassment humor in anime at the best of times, but it’s especially bad when the person who is harassed has been raped more times than he can count.  We’re expected to take that seriously, but not this, because Ash is in a dress? It’s also like, appalling that his friends who are fully aware of his history would laugh about him getting assaulted again. It’s a moment that feels like it comes from a completely different anime. 

So um, yeah. My conclusion is those resonant moments are not worth the bullshit. The ending really cemented this for me. I had an (admittedly overly flippant) reaction that kind of sums my feelings up. Let’s just say I HATE meaningless cruel tragedy for the sake of tragedy, and I especially hate the implication abuse victims can never find happiness. 

I can’t say Banana Fish is an anime I’ll think fondly of or recommend. I do still find the discussion about it interesting, much more interesting than the actual story (as presented in the anime, again, haven’t read the manga), tbh. And I can see the seeds of a good story there, and I can understand why fans would want to see a reboot that truly modernized the story, cutting out the worst stuff and giving it a better ending, while keeping the resonance of the main relationship and the good characters (I really did like Sing, and Yut Lung was interesting. Shorter and Skip both deserved way better. Also Jessica, who at least got to do something besides be victimized at the last minute. One whole female character got a few moments of agency. Hallelujah.) Maybe someday it will happen. 

In the meantime, there’s a bunch of cool articles on Banana Fish that are worth a read. All of the pieces published on animefeminist as well as this post on Otaku, She Wrote are really informative, illuminating, and break down a lot of the issues I found here.