#and i'm a girl so no this is not about feminism it's about story/character assassination

[meraki-yao]

Okay I haven't watched the MCU in a while and honestly at this point all I care about is Bucky, Wanda, Loki and maybe Shangchi but I watched a summary of the baby Starlord episode and the Captain Carter episode of the new What-if (not really interested in watching the whole thing but Bucky's in it so yeah) and as a Cap girl who loves CATWS so much that it's one of my all-time favourite movie, what Marvel's doing to the whole Steve-Bucky-Peggy (that I've been having issues with since Endgame) is driving me insanely frustrated.

I fucking HATE it when people more or less lessen or ruin what was originally so well-written and performed in the original that serves to drive the character that led to them being so well loved

Like, stucky doesn't need to be queer romantic to be significant. (And I'm saying this as a Stucky shipper whose whole exposure to AO3 and Tumblr started with Stucky) It is a significant, important and heavy relationship REGARDLESS if it's platonic or romantic. Erasing that and forcefully making it Steggy doesn't work, drives the og audience away from Steggy and frankly, it's kind of homophobic

Also it's incredibly unfair that Steve's significance to Bucky remains while vice versa isn't, even though THAT'S ONE OF THE TWO DRIVING MOTIVATIONS OF ALL OF STEVE'S ACTIONS IN CACW. Are you really trying to convince me that a bond so deep that they've been inseparable all their lives since they were kids and well into their adulthood, is less significant, or is effective as a memory trigger (and I fucking studied the basic of memory recall) than the significant shorter Steggy romance? What the fuck????

I almost want to write a whole essay on the Steve-Bucky-Peggy relationship, but I currently have enough writing tasks (fics, emails, letters, essays) on my plate. I'll see if I wanna come back to it later.

[blandacheadcanons]

We could have a DLC based on Claudia's life as an assassin and madame, or Lydia Frye. The WW II is an interesting setting for a game and I loved her character

I'm still not over the fact that Aya was supposed to be the protagonist from Origins but they changed to not make the poor "macho men clients" to cry

*Before we get further into feminism, I want to make very, very clear: we love and support trans people here, ABOVE ALL ELSE. Terfs are templars.*

DLC would be cool, but I think it would still be the same thing that they're doing: treating female characters (and thus women as a whole) as second fiddle.

Their whole pattern so far has been "men are in the main games - the ones that we advertise, and reference, and build off of - and women are in that... Other Stuff. The side parts that don't get acknowledged."

I mean, raise your hand if you've listened to Assassin's Creed Gold (which still doesn't have a female assassin protag but does have a modern day woman).

Summarize the plot of ac liberation for me off the top of your head.

Who killed Mongke Khan in the series?

Do you know anything about Shao Jun that's not related to Ezio? I'm not even sure Ubisoft does.

And even when female characters do get to take the main stage, they have to share it! Usually extremely unevenly!

Aya, as you said, was meant to be the protagonist of origins but was sidelined for Bayek. Most of the time that you're playing as her, you're actually playing as a boat.

Evie and Jacob were supposed to share the spotlight evenly, but he ended up with 3 times as many missions as her. And there were diegetic, lyrical songs about the targets in the game, but all of them were for Jacob's targets! None for Evie's, unless you count the one for Roth, who they both fought.

Odyssey and Valhalla technically have canon fe.ale protagonists, but with a gender choice, and all or much of the advertising was for the male character.

Gender choices that don't even work in context. The explanations they gave us were. Just ... Bad...

The "the girl is the canon character" thing feels a bit like Rowling's tweets about Dumbledore and Hermione. Diet Allyship: all the fanfare of diversity in art with none of the commitment!

And the gender choice would be really cool with a Little rework. Like for the protagonist of that modern day game that people have been clamoring for. Or a genderfluid\genderqueer character.

The latter could even bring the disguise system from liberation in.

Or they could break off the multiplayer functions they had and make a fortnite-esc game with customizable or a variety of characters. In fact, weren't there whispers of them doing just that?

But nope. Cis men only, or weird, contrived reasons for why the machine that reads your DNA like a book has decided to make it a choose-your-own-adventure story.

[jalebi-weds-bluetooth]

Hi JWB!!

How are you doing? I haven't been around much lately but everytime I catch up on stugf on Tumblr you are having some amazing discussions. You are simply awesome 🤩🤩👌👌♥️

Hope you are having a great and healthy year and wishing you a Happy Valentine's a day in advance because you bring so much love, light and happiness to my life.

I have been meaning to ask this for a long time. Have you seen "Asshiqana" its a series by Gul Khan on Hotstar. Its very soap operatic and is a love story set in backdrop of crime and conspiracy. Though it has many problematic tropes and sometimes too many twists and turns which require healthy suspension of disbelief the treatment of certain sequences is beautiful. The lead pair are beautiful and have great chemistry which makes it good to watch but the way the FL breaks stereotypes and calls out patriarchy is something I haven't seen in a long time. It does get preachy at times but overall its something that was needed. Could have been handled better but its start and I love it. The FL and the brother of the ML are two awesome characters. He worships his elder brother but what is beautiful is that he shows him the mirror each time and higliights his 1940 ki thinking brilliantly. Also while the ML is chauvinistic he knows it and slowly is coming to terms with falling for a girl who is against everything he believes in. So thats refreshing.

Anyhow, I just wanted to know what you think about it.

Cheers

Hey!

I'm doing better love <3 How're you? Haha thanks for the love. Thank you and happy belated Valentine's to you too <3 You're honestly super sweet.

I'm aware of Aashiquana. I am glad you are enjoying the show. One thing that I often dislike about 4Lions shows nowadays is that they talk about feminism while showing patriarchy. The female leads will have big "dialogues" but I determine liberalism by seeing what happens with the female lead herself. Is she subjected to sexism and patriarchy by the elders? Misogyny and misguided rage by the hero? Is her character always assassinated, do her career dreams ever come true?

Thus her shows end up being preachy and cringey instead of revolutionary.

I've captured little bits of it and it seems interesting. As you've mentioned above the heroine and the hero's brother look delightful. But the whole concept of a chauvinistic man becoming better because of the woman he loves is dated and far from reality.

If a chauvinistic man is 'better' to the woman he loves or that he needs a woman in his concern to be affected by patriarchy to understand how terrible chauvinism is, then that is not changing. And that is not improvement.

So I'm turned off Aashiquana for the male lead and his terrible Amma/grandmaa/bua (I have no idea who that woman is but she lives in 1930s).

Like I don't think I could've liked IPK if Dadi (Subhadra) was a character from the beginning. And Arnav wasn't ever a "women shouldn't do this". His issues with Khushi wasn't ever gender based. He was more like "let me live, let everyone live, and for fuck's sake stop obsessing with marriage cause it's no use ruining two lives"

Which he was right about...

And honestly I am tired of women playing roles where they've to 'correct' the men. It exhausted me in Shaurya Aur Anokhi Ki Kahaani (non 4 Lions show) and every other telly show.

Also wtf is the female leads names? What happened to Zoya, Anika, Gauri, Meera and all?

But I do like Aashiqana's heroines dialogues. Probably that's it. However, don't let my rant ruin your viewing experience - if you're enjoying it, please keep enjoying it!

Love,

Jalebi

[katatonicimpression]

Marauders #27

This was somehow a culmination of all the bad things in the series but also the best things....? I'll explain.

The bad:

1. Lourdes:

The horses are back. I literally said "fuck you" out loud when I saw them.

More seriously. Look at this dialogue. What does Lourdes' education have to do with anything? She was an accomplished, fully grown businesswoman in her own ri-

Oh.

So Duggan's retconned Lourdes' career to make her only be successful after Emma helped her. Wow. Such feminism.

2. Sebastian:

This is pretty bad you guys. I think this insert sums it up.

What we see here more of the same character assassination we've seen the whole time. More cartoonish sexism. There are a few flashes of good character writing - yes, he would conceptualise government as corporations and see that as a positive thing. And the email about Shinobi is genuinely fun.

Likewise this is funny. "Will somebody please take this child away from me."

But in general, duggan has a really poor grasp on this character and the whole lourdes retcon is just uncomfortable. You want to root against the abuser, but you also don't accept that he did abuse her because it was so poorly written. And it's not like duggan!lourdes has any unique charm that makes you care about her, sorry.

Oh and this panel. Duggan's fem dom fixation strikes again. Honestly, out of context it's a pretty apt Shaw panel.

3. Bobby:

Jesus this was lazy. I'll rant about this separately at some point but at the moment just let the record state that I'm unhappy with it.

The surprisingly great:

4. Pyro and Bishop:

So this is what duggan had been going for.

This is a really fun action scene and the comedy really works? He builds on the joke, the line about the novels, the twist that pyro didn't make this up, the gag about jumping off the side. It's really good and it makes you wonder what this series could have been like if they'd achieved this energy all the way through.

I also appreciate pyro doing something more with his powers than just shooting things with a flame-thrower.

The meh:

5. Christian:

So this ties into the Bobby thing. He just rocks up and says he's leaving. For Christian himself, this isn't a problem as he's a less important character.

But what is this? Oh, is he resolving his issues with his relationship with his dad? Dealing with past abuse? If so, this is LITERALLY the first time this has come up the entire series.

Also he doesn't actually need a mutant name. Loads of them don't have one. That's not a problem to be fixed. It's fine.

6. Kate:

This is a petty thing but... Kate's looking for technical solutions to her gate problem. She commits some light treason to do so (bringing in Reed Richards and sharing krakoan tech with him). I bring it up because this kind of misses the point.

Kate not being able to use the gates isn't (or shouldn't be) a very literal, technical in-universe obstacle. It's an emotional conflict. Any changes (any progress in finding a solution) should come with a character beat. And this didn't.

On the plus side, I liked her, Emma and Lourdes on the boat. Like with the Bishop and pyro stuff before, it feels like a more fully realised version of the team dynamic. Also this is the first time Duggan's pulled off the alcohol joke effectively imo. It's funny, it's got a good rhythm to it. I enjoyed it.

7. Callisto, Masque etc:

This neatly tied things up I guess.... I just didn't care about that evil child. Similarly to the Lourdes thing, the retcon is so badly conceived AND implemented that I was just never on board for this story line.

Closing thoughts:

Wow this series was a disappointment you guys.

Like, really bad idk what to tell you.

Terrible, cheap attempts at girl-power that just circle back around to feeling sexist again

Pointless bad retcons that improve nothing

Routinely undermining any narrative tension

Poor pacing and plotting

Ignoring and/or erasing the canon abuse of queer male characters.

Straight-washing queer male characters.

Sidelining the gay man from the team antics because only the two "straight" dudes can have banter

Sidelining the Black characters in favour of retconning in sympathetic backstories for villainous white women

...

....

OK I'll stop but just because I'll be here all day.

I don't want to make this into something it's not. The series had a lot of really good ideas and, to be fair, a lot of the more pernicious things I mentioned aren't immediately obvious. They're also, if I'm being completely honest, milder in reality than what it sounds like when I list it like that.

All in all, there are things that Duggan's Marauders did that I liked, but I'm really glad it's over. Hopefully, the reshuffling will work out well for these characters.

But I'm not holding my breath.

[lizziestudieshistory]

Books of 2021 - September

I successfully completed the Magical Readathon (MR) prompts! I didn't actually finish the tbr I set up I did swap out book that still met the prompts. Honestly, I'm shocked I was so restrained!

Emma by Jane Austen

Emma was, obviously, a reread for me - and a second reread in one year so I’m just not going to say anything about it. I have no new thoughts, just 🥰🥰🥰

MR - The Mist of Solitude

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

I have a lot of issues with Peter Pan, and I’m not sure I have the space to talk about it here. I won’t promise to elaborate on this in a full review because I have a VERY LONG backlist to write at this point... I might do one in the next 5 years!

However, I feel that Peter Pan isn’t aging well in terms of race, feminism, etc. For me it was an uncomfortable read and these issues got in the way of me enjoying the story, particularly when it came to Wendy and the Native American tribe who live in Neverland. The language Barrie uses and the ideas around gender roles doesn’t come across well in the 21st century.

I can understand why Peter Pan is so well loved and remains influential. I genuiely love the imagery involved in the story and a lot of the adaptations (Jason Isaacs as Captain Hook is just...perfection!) But the novel itself isn’t for me. I’m glad I’ve read it but I’m never coming back in this form - I’ll stick to the 2003 film, especially as a lot of my intertest in Peter Pan is centred around Captain Hook at this point, adolescent boys going feral is not something I’m particularly interested in to be honest...!

MR: Ashton Tree

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Tragically this was another disappointing read for me, I don’t enjoy ghost stories for the most part - however, everyone I’d spoken to about Henry James was convinced this was going to be my thing. It’s the gothic elements mixed with James’ language and open endings, that’s usually my cup of tea.

I just didn’t care about this one? I didn’t love James’ use of language (it felt over written), and the ambiguity just left me frustrated. I can see why people would enjoy it, and I understand why my mum in particular thought I’d like it, but it just wasn’t for me. I also found the main character incredibly unappealing to read about, so that definitely didn’t help!

MR: Ruin of Skye

Etiquette and Espionage, Curtsies and Conspiracies, and Waistcoats and Weponry by Gail Carriger (Finishing School #1, 2 & 3)

I’ve got reviews of this series already - somewhere in 2019 if you really want to go and find them - because these were rereads. This series makes me so happy. I’ve said several times that Miss Gail is my comfort read author. I pick up one of her books and I just enter my happy place, so there’s not a lot of critical thought going on when I talk about them.

If you want a fluffy (yet socially aware) romp about a teenaged girl attending a Victorian finishing school for assassins and spies then this is the series for you. They’re lighthearted, hilarious, and incredibly entertaining. They’re also very fast to read with some fantastic characters, seriously these books have the most accurate representations of teenaged girls I’ve read - minus the espionage of course!

MR: Orilium Academy Arc

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

I have mixed feelings about Jamaica Inn. I enjoyed reading it but I was still somewhat disappointed. I do think it was slightly inevitable, I ADORE Rebecca and whatever I ended up reading next from du Maurier wasn't going to live up to that book.

Jamaica Inn was a fun read, it was atmospheric and slightly creepy with similar vibes to Wuthering Heights! (Might be why I enjoyed the atmosphere now I think about it...!) It would make for a fantastic cosy winter evening read - you know where you curl up with a blanket, cup of tea, and the book to ignore the world for a few hours while it's cold and miserable outside? It's that kind of read.

However, the atmosphere was by far the best bit of this novel. The characters felt like flat puppets to facilitate the predictable plot... Nothing in this book was a surprise, I'd even managed to work out who was the ultimate bad guy as soon as they were introduced 🤦‍♀️ It's just not a book that keeps you guessing or engaged that much in the characters. Which is fine, I still loved the atmosphere and writing, but it's not a new favourite. It didn't make for a fantastic book club discussion either...

MR: Obsidian Falls

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings #3)

I need to talk about Lord of the Rings even less than I do about Emma... Obviously I adored it 😅 If you haven't read the trilogy yet do so!

I'll definitely be writing a reflection on annotating the entire Lord of the Rings so I'll leave all I have to say for that post.

MR: The Novice Path

Arm of the Sphinx by Josiah Bancroft (Books of Babel #2)

I did this book a disservice... I read it as I was annotating The Return of the King and I was on such a Tolkien high that I didn't Arm of the Sphinx the best chance to wow me. It did feel a bit lacklustre - but that is completely on me.

Arm of the Sphinx is a huge step up from Senlin Ascends, and I really liked Senlin Ascends! The world started to make sense, the character development was fabulous for everyone, there was more plot, and the pace gave us more time to ruminate on what was actually helping! This book was all round more coherent, the parts went together well (rather than feeling like 3 separate novellas), and I came to understand what the hell is going on. It's a fabulous second installment to the series, however, I struggled to connect to it? And it's completely because I read it next to Lord of the Rings, nothing can compete with Tolkien for me.

My one genuine criticism for Arm of the Sphinx is the writing. In opening up to other perspectives, without having dedicated chapters for each character, Bancroft has a weird habit of fluidly moving between several different individual's thought processes within a single chapter. It made it hard to follow at times, I just didn't know who was thinking or seeing what in places and I was left confused.

This little issue aside I did really like this book, it was a marked improvement on the first novel, and I'd highly recommend the series so far. I'll definitely be continuing in the near future!

MR: Tower of Rumination

[tellywoodtrash]

Hey TT! Wishing well to you and yours! I just wanted to drop an appreciation note for you.

I'm the kind of person who can't watch things without engaging, and tellywood is the kinda guilty pleasure I can't really share with my friends because woh sab exclusively intelligent, highbrow, foreign cinema hi dekhte hain, which is fun, but I often need a break from that kinda content for my stressbusting. So when I watch lighter rom-com type stuff, or desi content, I tend to turn online for the social aspect of it all. But hey bhagwan, I've been in problematic fandoms before but ITV ka toh next hi level hai. Khoon jal jaata hai, in this cesspool of toxicity and misogyny. I am old enough to remember when IF used to be the main fandom space, and it used to piss me off and turn me off of entire shows. And aaj, IF has become the saner of the spaces looking at the asinine stuff on Twitter and Instagram...

Often, I'm not put off by the acts of the characters themselves- to make stories progress, occasional fuckups can be accepted in fiction. I don't love it, but I'm okay acknowledging it's problematic (and often criminal irl) and moving on from it. Asli gussa toh response dekh kar aata hai, which more often than not defends harassment, character assassination, and abuse of the FL by the ML just because he is 'in pain' or 'misunderstood' or has a 'heart of gold' or the FL is doing something mildly inconvenient which made her deserving of the disproportionate retribution. And this support comes from a demographic that's predominantly young girls- toh gusse ke saath saath fikar bhi ho jaati hai. Mission stressbusting: failed. Sometimes, reading all that makes me majorly second guess my own emotions, but then I see 'feminist' thrown about as an abuse and I remember that fandoms suck.

And then I found your blog a few years ago! And it's been jannat for my tellywood watching experience ever since. I love the fact that you watch and enjoy this content with us, while not shying away from your feminism, and calling out even characters you like for crossing lines, irrespective of their gender (but lbr, men cross way more lines in these shows). I so appreciate the balance you maintain here, and honestly this blog has become my one stop shop for desi content, be it for recommendations or discussions or opinions. Ab toh wohi dekhti hoon jo aap recommend kar dein, warna yeh saara space kaafi intimidating hai. One day, I shall find the mental fortitude to seal myself off from all non-Tumblr online fandoms and save myself the BP issues that come with it, tab tak ke liye thanks for being an oasis of rationality in this madness.

Love always ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Dearest lovely anon,

Thank you so so much for this wonderful message. So much of it resonated with me, and is why I created this blog in the first place. I too have IRL friends who don’t watch Tellywood and I just needed to get all these opinions outta me; but I was also so tired of the IF model where there’s too many people talking at once, but not having the conversations I wanted, and Twitter toh was never my forte coz brevity really isn’t my thing....... When I made the blog I wasn’t expecting it to turn into what it ultimately has, coz I felt so alone in the fandom, that no one was as obsessed the way I was (definitely waaaaaay more than the average watcher, but less than the online Tellywood fandom), but also enraged and angrily critical at the constant chutiyaapa that was even in my very favourite shows. Yes I really hate the misogyny and toxicity on the ML/families parts, but I also really hate the mostly one-dimensional way Tellywood FLs are written, with almost negligible complexity to them. So I just made this a space for me to go on my rambles (whether positive or negative) and to my surprise and delight, people responded to it. So as always, I guess this is just a hugeass thanks from me to everyone who likes and comments and sends asks, coz y’all really keep me wanting to keep on doing this. 🤗🤗🤗🥰🥰🥰✨✨✨

PS - I’m sure that there’s good stuff out there that I’m not watching (coz I’m me - a lazy POS who has to be in a VERY specific mood to watch something) so do consider checking out the recs my followers send in as well. Just coz I’m willfully missing out on quality content rn coz of my dheentness doesn’t mean it won’t be up your alley either! 😘😘😘