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canonmisogynyvictimstournament · 1 year

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PROPAGANDA

KATHERINA MINOLA (THE TAMING OF THE SHREW) (CW: Domestic Abuse)

1.) We had to read this for English my senior year. I got so mad at the way she’s treated. She’s the titular “shrew” of the play. She has to be married off before her younger sister can get married, because that makes sense.

Then the most dogshit man imaginable comes along, and everybody thinks they’re perfect. He literally gaslights her and denies her food and water.

Fuck Petruchio and Katherine Minola deserved better!

2.) Literally the whole play is about how she is so awful that the main guy needs to change her entire personality, which he does as a challenge not because he likes her, and then proceeds to her abuse her for the rest of the play. Yet, he is portrayed as the hero, not a villain and she is shown to have “improved” at the end. People will say, oh it’s open to interpretation, it can be played different ways, it’s satire, but i don’t find abuse funny and there is a distinct lack of commentary in the play to count as satire imo. Taming of the Shrew is a tragedy not a comedy, I will die on this hill. Kate deserves better!

3.) The title isn’t joking, ya’ll. She literally gets broken like a rebellious feral animal and it’s treated as a happy ending.

ORIHIME INOUE (BLEACH) (CW: Child Abuse, Ableism)

1.) Her powers were incredibly versatile but only ever used for healing or defense. She had offensive capabilities too, but as she isn’t an aggressive person, they were barely ever used. Her healing power isn’t so much healing as it is “rejecting” the existence of something. This power could have been so insanely strong, to the point that even one of the show’s major antagonists remarked on how frightening it was, but as I said, it was only ever used for healing, and her personality held her back from using it as an attack. She was kidnapped by said antagonist for an entire arc. I’m not even going to get into the amount of times she was used for fanservice. Fandom opinion on her varies WILDLY.

2.) I realized I hadn’t added enough the first time, but I also don’t know how much I added the first so:

She’s introduced as a character to be saved. Most are, though, even the boys and men in this arc It’s also mentioned in the manga that she had horribly abusive parents, to the point the second her brother turned 18 her grabbed her and ran. This fact is removed in the anime. The evil ghost attacking her turns out to be the degraded ghost of her brother.

She in general, in light hearted moments, spends a lot of time being sexualized. Of the minor characters (as in under 18), she is the one that is sexualized the most. Usually against her will, with people making creepy remarks (despite not wearing very revealing clothes… Which Is true to life. It’s because she has big breasts).

She then gets cool abilities, but she’s the only one of the group not to get a big fight in the Soul Society arc.

She is then the SECOND female character in need of a big rescue arc (while I agree with how it was written for both female characters, intertwined with the other ones’ ingrained following of a horrible system and neglect by her adopted family and for Orihime a desire to prevent any friends from dying, the fact is the third major arc like this has a male character “defect”. So rescued are only for the girlies). During that arc she goes through a lot of psychological horror and pain that I will defend her choices in to the end. She is built up, in that arc, however, as someone whose healing abilities aren’t really healing and instead rejection of reality/rewriting reality. She is also built up as the person who may be able to destroy the Nebulously Powerful artificat that was at the center of this arc and the twist motive of the antagonists in the previous arc. And… Nothing happens. She doesn’t get to do it.

She gets some cool things in the next smaller arc, but also gets psychically fucked with (while all of them do, she doesn’t get to have the power ups or later fights. And her previous arc was her just… Being psychologically tortured).

The end arc is complex because, yes, it was rushed because the creator was injured. But her “cool” moment -while a triumph and circling back to character development - is that she gets to be in a duo-fight briefly with the main character. Not the last fight against this boss. And she never gets to do anything cool with objects or breaking things, both which would fall under her being a pacifist still.

I disagree with a lot of discourse about her being infantalized, because she seems very ADHD-I coded, as someone who has that. That doesn’t mean the author meant her more than just a “weird” girl, especially with how the state of ADHD treatment is in Japan . So we can throw in some ableism. Which gets me to the anime adaptation.

The anime was made by Studio Pierrot, which has a reputation with adapting female characters from manga to anime. Esp cially in shonen anime.They DID infantalize her (ex, changing a daydream comment from about the main guy to pee and poop??), including removing many of her daydreams and context, changing her intro scene, removing more introspective moments (she is very emotionally intelligent in the manga), and removing moments with the main protagonist. The latter is an issue because they added moments with another female character, which implies their attachment to either is solely in favor of romantic scenes with the male lead

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: Ichigo looking to the side. Someone off screen says "I… Ichigo!" Panel 2: Someone standing in front of Orihime between her and some shadows indicating people. There is a sound effect "SHOOM". Panel 3: Orihime smiles. There is a sound effect "SHOOM". Panel 4: A close up shot of Orihime's breasts. There is a sound effect "ZOOM". Panel 5: A character (Ichigo?) with stars for eyes blushes, clasps his hands, and shouts "Heaven!! I'm in heaven!!" followed by a heart. Panel 6: A distant shot of Orihime and the person standing in front of her. There's a mark of action off to their left and the sound effect "FWUP". Panel 7: Two other characters say "He… flew?!" Panel 8: A close up of a shoe as someone lands on something with the sound effect "TUMP"]

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: A shot looking down at Orihime from an angle. She's dressed in a baseball uniform and shouts "Yeah! C'mon, Tatsuki, give it to me!" followed by a heart. Panel 2: A shot of stairs with an arrow pointing to someone labeled "Kon". Kon is Bleach's mascot character. Someone off screen says "Th… …That's!" and Orihime says "Hey!" Panel 3: On the left is a close up of Orihime's breasts with an arrow pointing to them. In the bottom center right is Kon with his paw over his mouth. He thinks "Orihime!!!" There is a sound effect "BOOM" behind Kon. Panel 4: White text on a black background. The text reads "target 1: Orihime Inoue". Panel 5: A distant shot of Kon going down the stairs. He thinks "Yes! I'll play the innocent stuffed animal that just happens to be lying on the ground in front of her. Panel 6: A close up of Kon with his paw in front of his mouth. He thinks "She's got the heart of the Virgin Mary, so… …She's bound to pick me up and hug me and nestle me in the valley of paradise!!"]

(Cleanser that isn't relevant to propaganda that follows up on the previous:

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: The mascot character Kon is blushing and is in front of a large soccer ball. He thinks "And then I'll be umm-ummm-umm…" Panel 2: Kon gets hit by the soccer ball with the sound effect "WAP" Panel 3: On the right is a character after they kicked the ball. They're shouting "Dragon Bazooka!!!" There's a note by the speech bubble that that's the name of the shot. On the left is Kon getting hit by the soccer ball with an arrow pointing to him. There's a sound effect "THWAK". Panel 4: In the foreground is the soccer ball driving Kon forward. In the background is Orihime standing at home base of a baseball field; she's standing with a baseball bat ready to swing. Action lines indicate that Kon and the ball are moving toward her. Panel 5: A close up of a distressed Kon. Panel 6: A close up of a smiling Orihime. Across panels 4 to 6 is a speech bubble of Kon's saying "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH"]

yes she hits him with the bat in the following page)

[Description ID: A character hugs Orihime from behind and grabs breasts while shouting "Morning, Orihime!!!" and while Orihime gasps. Orihime kicks said character in the face.]

[Description ID: A panel of Orihime; someone off-screen says "Her powers violate divine law."]

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: Orihime stands in front of a dark doorway with hands reaching out of them. Panel 2: Close up of an eye. Panel 3: A woman with black pigtails grabs Orihime from behind and covers Orihime's mouth with her hand. There is a sound effect "WHAP".]

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: Woman with black pigtails tells Orihime "You're finished."" Panel 2: Close up of woman's face. She says "I'm going to take back everything you took from me!!" Panel 3: The woman tears off Orihime's sleeve with the sound effect "SRIP".]

(Had some supposed Orihime fans - saying that as a huge Orihime fan myself - claim this wasn't misogynistic as hell because "girls do that in real life")

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: A man with a bucket tells a distressed and blushing Orihime "Oh. Be careful with that dress. It's designed so that when you close the middle, they pop out from either side." Orihime shouts "WAAAAAA!!!" Panel 2: A character shoves their hand upwards through Orihime's cleavage so that it's sticking out from between them. The character says "Okay, it's okay. Don't cry, don't cry." There is a sound effect "SHPA." Orihime has tears in her eyes and is blushing in a distressed way. Panel 3: Orihime shouts "WAAA!!!" off screen. Ichigo has a distressed or shocked face with a blush and says "Y…".]

(How an antagonist in the Hueco Mundo arc restrains her)

And one of those scenes weirdly changed and infantilized from manga to anime (these are both the official releases, not fan translations). They're not the only one but they're the easiest to show:

Manga:

[Description ID: Manga page. Panel 1: POV shot of Ichigo looking down at presumably Orihime. Panel 2: Orihime blushes with closed eyes and says "Oh no, Ichigo!! Close-quarters combat!!" There are two sound effects: "WHOMP" and "ZING" Panel 3: A shot of from behind Orihime stands on her knees and shouting "Ow!!" A man in the foreground asks her "Orihime! Are you all right, Orihime?!!"]

Anime:

[Description ID: Anime screenshot. Orihime is lying on the ground asleep while a man looks down on her. She says "No… Not Poo-san, it's Pee-tan…!"]

3.) In the arc that literally centers around her, she is described as having a power that infringes on the territory of God because she can Reject events from happening (this usually manifests in her "rejecting" people's wounds giving her pretty much The Perfect healing ability). There is a lot of emphasis placed on this and on her personal arc about how she feels pretty weak and useless compared to her friends, so she figures out that there is something that Only She Can Do! Which is, Reject the Macguffin from ever existing. And guess what she never gets the opportunity to do? And instead watches her LI (the main character) fight multiple people on her behalf and literally die in front of her and resurrect himself through sheer force of HIS will, not hers? (Like, OK, granted that sheer force of will was born out of his strong desire to save her, but it still isn't anything SHE did.)

In later arcs, she does get more of an upgrade power-wise but it's nowhere near the scale that was implied earlier on. (this might be more because it's a difficult thing to write around if it's really that OP, but I still side-eye it a bit) And in the final arc, she's given a pretty sexualized outfit that's both given explicit attention and also played for laughs, but in a way that feels very much at HER expense.

#polls #round 3 #week 6 #new #cw domestic abuse #cw child abuse #cw ableism

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gojo-kisser-9000 · 5 months

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Anon that bullied you about Sukuna. You can call me whatever. Think of me as something that may or may not exist.

“The clouds overshadowed everything, yet light still managed to escape them, illuminating the one good thing he had at the moment.”

What time of year is it? And what time of day is it? Certain animals make certain noises depending on the time. Since it appears to be the evening the Evening Cicada would be a good pick. It’s associated wuth melancholy and tragedy.

“Megumi pulls Yuji in for a kiss, guiding the knife he had hidden into Yuji’s back.”

Aggresive mimicry is when a hunting strategy involves luring prey with mimicry. Sometimes this results as a predator pretending to be a potential mate. You might do good with an animal metaphor here. And expanding on how being the predator makes Megumi feel worse.

“A few seconds left of life, and all Yuji can do is cling to Megumi. “Fushiguro- I don’t want to die… I don’t wanna die…!” He cries, clinging on tighter as he cried. The next moments were a blur.”

This would be a good time to compare the wails to a dying prey animal. Megumi canonically likes documentaries and animals. He’ll probably call a particularly brutal scene from one.

““Wake up.” He gently shakes the corpse, only then realizing the blood that stained his clothes and his hands.”

Megumi might compare himself to a dog that has caught the car and doesn’t know what to do. Might even get angry that Yuji didn’t fight back more.

“Megumi, doing whatever he could to protect Yuji, would lay down his life, here and now. “With this treasure I summon-”

Running with the dog metaphor this would be more like food aggression. Yuji is his kill and no one else is allowed to have it. He might not even summon Mahoraga because that would mean it would eat Yuji too. You could do something where he summons the Divine Dogs and he looks more beast-like than they do.

“The curse that had consumed Yuji’s body was approached slowly. It wasn’t stupid, it knew this wasn’t a fight that would be easily won. However, the escape it planned was cut short, the curse known as Itadori Yuji, had grabbed a hold of it. It didn’t even give it a second thought before consuming the curse whole. Just as it had done to his body.”

This would be a great time to remark on how Megumi turned his prey into an apex predator, almost like a manifestation of his carnal hunger.

“Fushiguro Megumi couldn’t come to terms with his death, and in the end, cursed him. The guilt he carried from his actions would keep him alive. All because loving in the world they were forced to live in was a cruel act.”

Can expand on how nature is cruel and operates on brutal cycles of consumption. Also ties it more into Buddhist stuff this series is based on.

I guess my notes are mostly. Be the insufferable gothic lit writer you’ve always wanted to be! (I’m making bold assumptions here but it’s ok to be weird with it.)

Recovered enough from surgery to respond 🙏🙏 truly living the life of an AO3 author now.

You are my savior, anon that bullies me every chapter leak. I’ll do some revisions when I find my google doc of this fic, then I’ll post it on AO3 and never update it.

Big fan of parallels but I forget to add them unless it’s a Big thing I’m emphasizing (typically seen in the RPs I do rather than fics 💔💔)

Also thank you for helping me develop my writing in general 🫶🫶 I’m using it to make children cry over fictional characters I’ve created, as you intended

#anonymous #asks

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yomiurinikei · 1 year

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utsuro?

brief emeto joke that’s the only cw i think? anyways. this fucking guy…..

- My identity hc for them

iiii….. think his whole “nothing matters because i get whatever i want” had already set in by the time he would’ve really started getting interested in other people? i don’t really have identity hcs for him i don’t think he actually exists. collective hallucination by the entire sdra cast.

also i think the divine luck got him gender affirming healthcare. but anyways.

- Thoughts on their home life/family

i hope his parents explode ! anyways i wonder if utsuro (prior to his no emotions no attachment era) was like damn i’ll find some people to actually love and respect me!! and sure enough found a couple willing to love and dote on him w/o knowing about his divine luck but he got paranoid and dipped out because he felt he was forcing them into it and they actually hated him.

- How i feel about their canonical writing/handling

underutilized sorry. sooo much more could’ve been said could have been done et cetera. the ramifications of the divine luck are underused his coming back in sdra2 was underused etc etc. there’s sooo much that could be said with him and it’s so easy to do it is the smallest fucking reach and linuj is like. this is utsuro he is like kamakura but with divine luck :). and everyone was like omg so true!! and he’s reduced down and isn’t handled with actual depth. like. there’s Reasons for why he is the way he is. aaa!

- The one thing i’d want to make canon about them

system. for utsuro specifically i think he struggles a lot with detachment and has frequent dissociative episodes. he’s not quite prone to third person/out of body episodes but i think he struggles with orienting himself in the world (spatial awareness) and staying aware of his surroundings.

- My number one favorite ship for them

*looks up from where i’m poking utsuro with a stick while in the rain* huh.

- …Now everyone else i ship with them

*goes back to poking at him*

- The thing i will NEVER ship

utsutai. im pretty much chilling with whatever else (above answers were just me conveying that idgaf im neutral whatever happens happens!) but i think reading their interactions as romantic is a disservice to their characters. like if u look at them and go yeah there was romantic love and desire to date here. ?????

- a dynamic/relationship i wish was explored more (in canon, or in fandom)

was trying to think of smthn and i think we should chat about utsuros feelings on mikako more. she tries to get him yeeted in ch5 as we all know and also there’s everything with pre game and it’s just. ??? why do we not address this. alsoooo i’ve yet to see like. a non despair/post game/etc au or fic or anything that portrays utsuros vibe with the voids/cou in a way i enjoy. so. …. maybe i need to read more fic tho

- thoughts on their design (appearance-wise)

cute! sometimes it looks a bit off to me but i think that’s just a matter of hues/undertones. i reaaaally like his color palette in sdra2, it hits right there. i’ll always think the color choices of the uniform were a bit silly but ultimately it looks cute!! in dra it’s just a weird mix of warm hues vs gray undertones (this applies to like.. skin and hair not just clothes) but sdra2 looks very nice!!!

- A music-related thought- a song that reminds me of them, or what their music taste is, etc

AGH. hold it in, and beady eyes on the horizon, both by jukebox the ghost. i don’t want to talk about it tho. i have nothing else to say. im gonna go throw up over beta.

#utsuro #yomis ask meme

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prinxlyart · 4 years

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How do you think some of the other parents would react to the blight parents journey to redemption/being fully redeemed? I think it would certainly be shoking at first and they'd be skeptical because of how much of a reputation the blights have built

Ooooo this is a good one I like it okay let’s see

Willow’s Dads

I think Willow’s dads have an especially sour attitude towards the Blight parents just because of Willow’s personal history with Amity and those 7 years of non-stop depression their daughter suffered because of Alador and Odalia’s actions. They’re extremely skeptical of the Blights trying to “turn over a new leaf” and are convinced they’re only saying so because they want to get something out of it. They’re also both especially protective of the Blight children after they’d originally escaped the manor simply because what the ever loving fuck did those two sorry excuses for witches think they were doing to these kids???????

After Willow explains why Amity stopped being her friend all those years ago, her dads sort of. Accidentally adopt? Amity? Sort of? They legit tell her that she’s welcome to stay with them any time and for as long as she needs if she ever has any trouble, etc etc, and no joke they offered their little 2-bedroom flat to the blight kids when they were first discussing their escape plans. They wanted to be absolutely certain these kids would have a safe place to go the moment they flew the coop.

They love Luz. No question. Okay, maybe one question: why is she so insistent that she try to make those good for nothing Blight Socialites see the error of their ways? Their heads are so far up their own vain asses; they consider Luz’s newest quest to be an impossible one. They’re rather surprised when Luz reports back that her talk with the Blight parents actually went in her favor. They still won’t believe it until they see it though, which Luz concedes is fair. It’s not until Camila (who they also love) also reports back weeks later that she made them cry and that they bound themselves in an everlasting oath to Luz that they were going to do better that they finally believe it.

They defo still don’t like it, but yknow. They’re trying? Which is more than they could say of most of their childrens’ lives? And it’s extremely tense; even though all of the Blight children are adults now, these two Very Good Dads (still with no names; please Dana I’m begging you) find themselves acting as chaperones occasionally to the Blight kids when they meet up with their parents. Usually when it involves Amity (as she’s the future daughter in law), but they also don’t hesitate when Edric or Emira ask for their backup as well.

Viney’s Parent(s)

I’ve seen a lot of fanfics where Viney only has one parent and I don’t know why that’s so common. Regardless, Viney’s parent(s) would be fucking livid at the Blight parents. Not only did they openly criticize their daughter (viney) to her face, but also just the years of shitty parenting they inflicted upon their daughter in law and her siblings??? Super not okay. In fact, they were so spiteful, it was a common theme muttered under their breath at Viney and Emira’s wedding. Viney’s parent(s) could almost constantly be heard whispering something about how glad they were that Odalia and Alador weren’t there or how disapproving they would’ve been at any display of affection the newlyweds would share. Long story short, they fucking hate the Blight parents. Where Willow’s dads are much like Willow in that they would let their anger simply simmer and fester like a dark storm on the horizon, Viney’s parent(s) would be the vicious winds of the storm fast-approaching.

Similarly to Willow’s parents, they offer the Blight kids their home if they ever need it. I’m not sure if Viney has siblings or not but regardless, they’d figure out at least three different bedroom solutions for the Blight kids if they ever needed their help with anything.

As much as Viney’s parent(s) love the Blight kids and want to protect them, they actually find planning Viney and Emira’s wedding as the only parent(s) rather difficult. Although that lasts for all of five minutes before the doors are blown off their hinges and Willow and Luz’s parents (and parental figures) burst in like a super hero squad. These adults all want to make sure all of the Blight kids are happy, not just the one that associates with their respective daughters. It just adds fuel to the fire when all of these parental figures show up and the Blight parents don’t.

When they do show up while they’re all trying to plan out our girls’ triad wedding, Viney’s parent(s) have nothing but cold, venomous hatred in their heart(s). How dare they try to reinsert themselves into Amity’s life at a time like this???? It actually takes everyone in attendance of this wedding planning meeting to keep them from just ripping the Blights to shreds where they stood.

Everyone Loves and Respects Camila Noceda. It’s like an unspoken law in the Boiling Isles (and probably also in the human realm, but we’re not there rn). As soon as Camila explains why the Blight parents are even allowed to be at the meeting is because of their willingness to change and the effort they’ve already put in to making amends with their children, Viney’s parent(s) back down. But they don’t stop seething.

I don’t think they truly believe the Blights are in it for their family and not for some other ulterior motive until the day of the wedding. Like, it literally takes Alador walking his daughter down the aisle and taking his seat and just dissolving into tears for them to actually believe they’re here for their daughter. They see Odalia holding his hand tightly and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief which is more emotion than they’ve ever seen from Odalia Blight ever. They’re only finally convinced that the Blight parents are capable of changing during the wedding itself. After that point they go much easier on them.

Luz’s Family

I think Eda and Lilith have more personal ties with the Blight parents. We know they all at least went to school together and likely have interacted in the past. Lilith much more recently as the Ex-Head of the Emperor’s Coven and likely actively checking in with other coven heads and their immediate subordinates while also attending to her coven leader duties. I think if they hadn’t been witnesses to Camila ripping them to shreds, they would find it hard to believe too.

Whether or not they believe it, they have very little faith in Alador and Odalia’s ability to actually change much. Or at least, Lilith has the least amount of faith. Eda’s got faith in the Nocedas wedgie-ing those stuck-up Blights into acting like civil witches. And if anyone can melt some ice-cold hearts, it’s the Nocedas. Eda trusts her girls.

Lilith doesn’t not trust them, she’s just worked professionally with them in essentially the same office as them (probably different departments) for the last 20-30 years and hasn’t seen them change once. They seemed somewhat happier in the workplace after their children were first born, but they kept themselves strictly professional at all times. Unless, of course, they were bragging about what new accomplishment their children had achieved. All this to say, the Blight were not so easily swayed.

I think between the Bligjt parents and Lilith there’s a lot of like? Reciprocal Validation in their progress to be Better? Like, Alador and Odalia look to Lilith as a sort of example for someone that used to be in their position thats spent the last several years working hard to change all of that and be worthy of Luz and Eda’s time and attention (and respect. Sometimes Luz still struggles with that one). Lilith sees the Blights’ progress from the view point of someone that’s gone through those same struggles of unlearning everything you thought you knew and building it back up into something more healthy, and she lets them know that they’re doing well, at least compared to her when she was in that same place however many years ago. Idk if the Blights and the Clawthornes were ever friends during school but I like to believe that at least during the hard parts of the Blights redeeming themselves, they do make a real friend in Lilith as someone that understands exactly the mental place they’re coming out of and trying so hard to fix.

Eda generally keeps to herself when it comes to the Blight parents. She loves the Blight kids, of course, one of them is head over heels for her own kid and she’s been a proud bystander watching their relationship flourish over the years. She’s fiercely protective of the Blight kids; any time any of them show up at the Owl house with distressed looks, she immediately puts a kettle to boil and starts prepping some tea before they can even start hashing out what new complicated BS they’ve got stirring in their noggins. She started doing this as a way to not have to deal with teenage hormones because when did her house become a teenager safe-haven??????? But then continued it over the years because all the kids found comfort in the small act of love and care. Even though Emira and Viney are married by the time the Blight parents begin their Redemption Journey, Emira will still stop by the Owl House from time to time and just sit and have tea with Eda (as a fellow trouble-maker, Eda feels a special kinship with the twins. She never minded the Twins’ presence in the Owl House despite all her complaining that her House had turned into a teenage clubhouse).

Any time the subject of Alador and Odalia comes up in conversation, Eda just sits back and crosses her arms and shockingly, remains silent. She knows it means a lot to so many of them; Luz and Camila seem especially invested and she cares for those Blight kids more than she’d ever admit out loud, but she’s not here to get involved. She’ll quietly support her kid’s noble efforts and be on standby in case shit hits the fan, but otherwise she wants nothing to do with the Blight parents.

King is surprisingly observant when he wants to be. He can see just how much this means to Luz and to Amity and knows that while teasing here and there might be okay, he would respect their wishes to continue trying to make the Blight parents decent people again. But that doesn’t mean he likes Alador or Odalia. He, just like Eda, had been among the ones the Blight kids had turned to when they were at their lowest points and seeking comfort over the years. He’s acted as those kids’ teddy bear for years. He only wants them to be happy (he insists it’s so he can stop being the Family Snot Rag but everyone knows it’s because he loves them). So he, like eda, remains silent whenever the topic of the Blight Parents comes up in conversation.

King and Eda defo talk shit about the Blight parents when it’s just the two of them. They will rant for hours about how shitty the Blight parents are and how undeserving they are of this second chance that Luz is giving to them. Whenever other people bring them up, Eda and King will exchange glances and eye rolls. King will often go to Eda’s lap (if she’s sitting) and pretend to nap on her. He’s actually listening and gripping Eda’s dress in his claws as a reminder to Eda to not say anything. Eda does the same under the guise of petting him; she’ll run her fingers through his fur and just grip tightly whenever she feels him starting to grow agitated under her hand. They don’t like the situation, but they also don’t need to be part of it.

Camila’s so fucking tired you guys. She’s long since accepted that her daughter lives in the Demon Realm and that the demons living here tend to only be different in physiology compared to humans or witches. Otherwise, they’re exactly the same as any other person.

No, the true demons, Camila’s discovered, are those like the Blight parents. Those that neglect their children in favor of something so frivolous as social standing and at the same time, thrust ridiculous expectations on their children to behave in the same way such a social standing would require. Withholding affection as something to be earned rather than giving it as the basic need children require. As if their love was something to work for like Luz doing all of her chores (and not forgetting them) for a month to earn a new book. She’s disgusted to say the least. But! Luz is her whole world. And the Blight children are a part of her world. Putting in the work to change the Blight parents for the better rather than just writing them off as a lost cause is something that means a lot to Luz (and by extension, the Blight kids who Camila’s adopted in her mind. She adores Amity and loves watching Eda interact with the twins). So she’s ready to put in that effort. If only so she can scream at them to their faces about the million ways they’ve fucked up and get away with it.

Camila doesn’t....like Alador and Odalia, just sort of on principle. If anything, she pities them. What sort of lives have they led where they think treating their children so horribly was even an option? As she helps guide them into being decent people, she does get to witness their actual personalities break through the tough exteriors they’d crafted for themselves. Alador is a dork. Odalia is quite smart despite her dumb life choices. Both are extremely talented in the magic paths they’ve pursued. Alador is like every man ever and cracks dad jokes that literally only Luz (and sometimes Edric) finds funny. Odalia has a quick-witted kind of humor that you have to stop and think about before it sinks in what she’s said.

It takes a long time for Camila to actually be able to stand their presence, but I think she tolerates them by the time their daughters’ wedding takes place. After that point it’s a matter of chipping away at those stony exteriors they made decades ago to get their real personalities out into the sunshine. By the time those masks are gone, Camila finds she actually doesn’t mind them being around. She’s okay with them being in-laws. I’m not sure if they ever become like. Friends? But they certainly come to a point of mutual respect. Eventually.

Thank you so much anon!! This was a super cool thought exercise :0

#prinxly inquiries #anonymous #the owl house #toh headcanons #oh boy hang on here we go #luz noceda #camila noceda #edalyn clawthorne #lilith clawthorne #toh king #willow park #willow’s dads #toh viney #Viney’s parent(s)#this took me all week to write #mostly because I’ve been tired as hell lately #but also because I’m making up characters whole cloth because they don’t exist in canon yet

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 3 years

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Whats about Malleus that made you dislike him? Just curious.

I’ve mentioned some of these points before, but just so they’re all in one place, I’ll repeat those. (There are main story spoilers ahead!)

Please bear in mind that these are just my opinions; it’s fine if you think differently than me, just please respect my right to dislike a character, as I am respecting your right to like them.

The most minor complaint I have is how he looks. Malleus is drawn and modeled prettily, much like the other characters, but I’m not a fan of his design (especially the haircut) or his color scheme itself. They’re just not to my personal tastes. His dorm uniform, school uniform, and PE uniform are the worst offenders, as they all match in colors (neon green and black), so they all muddle together and make him look not all that distinctive. At least with other students that have similar colors as their clothes, their eyes are an accent color (Riddle, Ruggie, etc.) or their hair is a shade that is distinctive enough from their clothes (Sebek, Azul, etc.). I understand that black is considered a noble and important color for the Draconias and that the neon green is supposed to reference Maleficient’s own colors and fire, but... I still don’t like either color.

I dislike the tropes that are typically associated with Malleus so, by proxy, I dislike Malleus. I prefer the “looks harmless, could kill you” types more than the “looks like he could kill you, is actually soft on the inside” types or the “looks like he could kill you, can actually kill you” types,. The whole “befriending a lonely, monstrous prince” thing isn’t appealing to me either. Those types of characters naturally lend themselves to another trope, the “I can fix him” trope, which is another one I have never cared for. I’m here to make you worse, not better 😤 Because of the type of character Malleus is, I don’t find the “cute” things he does to be endearing either, I just see them as “okay, he did a thing” or “I guess he’s experiencing it for the first time, so good for him”.

I say this semi-jokingly, but I seem to have “anti main guy” syndrome. Like I mentioned before, I’m super not into the dorm leaders, I much prefer the vices. The same extends to other forms of media. For some reason, I almost never gravitate toward the most marketed characters... I always seem to like the “helper” type characters or very minor/side characters like the mob students or like... Najma 😂 I can’t really explain why, but it’s probably because I like seeing how they support or hold up the main cast, or how they operate on the sidelines when the attention is not on them.

I understand why Malleus acts the way he does, but I can’t personally empathize with his brand of loneliness. I’m sure that I’ve also been lonely at times, but I’ve never been lonely because I’m so powerful, important, and scary that others avoid me or forget my existence altogether. That’s why I say I can’t empathize with Malleus’s “brand”. Loneliness and fear of loving my loved ones in general, sure, I can definitely relate to that. Malleus’s general circumstances though, I can’t.

I don’t like how much Malleus and Yuu’s friendship is “pushed” or tried to be sold to me (both in the main story canon and within the fandom). I feel like it is disproportionate to how much time we actually get to see and interact with him in the game. I know they’re probably feeding us tidbits now to build for the tragedy of book 7 (which might have Yuu and Malleus’s friendship come into play), but... I don’t know. I can’t get immersed in the sections where we hang out with Malleus because realistically, if I’m meant to self insert as Yuu, I would never call him a friend. I’ve spent too little time with this random guy that just walks by my dorm at night to really know what he’s truly like. And the fact that Malleus just goes along with it because it amuses him to see a human that’s naive enough to not know what he is... It gives me weird vibes, and I’m not for it.

Malleus just bores me. To me, that’s the worse thing a character can be: boring. Fiction exists to entertain and amuse, right? Yet every time I have to read Malleus’s lines, I don’t feel anything. I’m not saying his reactions should be over-the-top, but I’d like it if they could get a small chuckle out of me every now and again. Even with other calm, composed or quiet characters, at least I can get a kick out of them trying to contain the rowdier characters. The same doesn’t hold true for me for Malleus. He is powerful, he can fix any problem with the snap of his fingers or just by chastising Sebek the troublemaker. It seems like nothing can faze him because of how elevated his status and power is, and so his reactions to things are so... blunted and not fun to read.

Going off of my last point, the stakes are low, almost nonexistent. I will acknowledge that sometimes I do like overpowered characters, but only when they are given interesting and unique backstories or personalities which at least help to offset how much power they have. However, I find the discrepancy between Malleus and his peers to be too vast (like, he’s one of THE top 5 strongest magicians not in just NRC but in the WORLD), and without any apparent drawbacks or restrictions on his power (that we know of yet), Malleus is in ZERO apparent danger and I find it annoying that people keep acting like he is (looking at you, Sebek even if I generally like Sebek) when he’s just fine on his own. I know he’ll always come out on top because he can easily take others down, I know what the outcome will be. It’s not enjoyable if I can see the ending coming from a mile away, it’s not enjoyable if I know the character will suffer no consequences from their actions. This may change in book 7 (since we are all expecting Malleus to OB and to learn more about his weaknesses then), but that doesn’t excuse all the other content (vignettes, events) where he is just overpowered as hell and “they’re just building up hype for the main story” doesn’t hold as much water.

#Malleus Draconia #Azul Ashengrotto #Ruggie Bucchi #Sebek Zigvolt #Riddle Rosehearts #notes from the writing raven #Najma Viper #spoilers

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frosted-night · 3 years

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Jack Frost Designs Review

Yes it’s finally his time. This is going to include his book designs including previous incarnations in said books. There are more movie concept designs than book so, let’s dig in shall we?

This was in fact the first ever Jack Joyce designed while he came up with The Guardians Of Childhood. He even comes with his own backstory! (Which was cut. Sorry Joyce posts walls of text so it’s a girthy read.)

So instead of a young mischievous trickster, we got a much more depressing story of Jack. (Jack by default is sad obviously) but this one... It kind of hits differently and almost reminds me of the story he crafted for Pitch. A dad who tried to defend his family but through tragic events was ripped from them and changed completely. Design wise, he’s a lot more tree than snow. There doesn’t exist a colored version of this so we’ll never know if he sported winter and dull dead leaf colors rather than grassy greens.This Jack has a weird presence to him, I can’t put my finger on it. Rating: 6/10 He’s really neat! Just a little too Autumn feeling rather than a blend of both Autumn and Winter.

Nightlight feels like the baby evolution if Jack was a pokemon and that's what I’m gonna stick with. Below is a more recent version of him colored.

In all honesty that one is easier on the eyes proportion wise because sometimes Joyce has ‘interesting’ anatomy choices but we aint going into that today. It’s interesting how his hair somehow looks shorter and longer than Jack’s at the same time. Could be because the longer strands float seamlessly but star boy hair physics what can ya do. It’s a little hard to tell what is his skin and what is his armor, so that is a casuality in making a character only have one or two colors in their color scheme. I love other artist’s depictions of Nightlight but the canon one feels a little weak color wise. Rating: 5/10 Sorry, get some better LEDs and then come back.

Here we have a book Jack but I can’t entirely recall if this was used in the books or not. I digress. This design looks like him still wearing very Nightlight-esque armor/clothing and slowly growing into his new persona as Jack Frost. The intricacies are hard to make out but we’ll work with it. This one is very interesting to me because he very much looks like an older teen close to young adult. His hair looks very fluffy too. Not many complaints about this one but not much praise either.

Rating: 6/10 Not great but doesn’t stand out that much.

Remember when I said Joyce had ‘interesting’ anatomy decisions? Jack looks like he has half a head here and it bothers me GREATLY. This is the adult Jack design he went with. Supposedly he likes the opera and he sure looks it. This! Exists!! Kind of wish it didn’t. The outfit is nice but it just doesn’t fit Jack as a whole. This just screams to me that it’s someone else with a similar-ish hairstyle.

Rating: 3/10 Guess he’d be the...Phantom Of The Opera. (I’ll go home and so should he.)

And finally the final Jack. This is the one that almost exactly resembles the Jack we got in the movies(Probably because it was made after the movie but w/e) but just add a cape on him. I can’t really tell if hes got a hoodie and a cape, or just a cloak+hood on top of a sweatshirt. It isn’t too important because my thoughts on this one are obvious. Rating: 10/10 Edna Mode would have a field day with you boy.

MOVIE DESIGN TIME

Joyce claims this is a design he drafted when Leonardo DiCaprio was considered to voice Jack and I can kind of see that with how his face is drawn here. This Jack looks a lot more like a warrior and less of that trickster look. I can’t say I’m a fan of the weird antenna his hood has but his sword is really cool looking.

Rating: 4/10 Nice bow and sword but it can’t save your fashion choices.

This looks like a lanky 11-13 year old who would put rocks or slugs in my shoes and relish in my disgust. He has the exact look of a snot nose kid and I’m unsure how to feel about it.

His various hairstyles drafted here sort of make him softer looking or just more of a snot nose, no in between. Maybe even an Anime Protagonist.

The top right one almost looks like Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon if you squint. It’ll be a little hard to rate them all as one individual but why not.

Rating: 5/10 I don’t hate them but they aren’t my cup of tea.

AH- IS THAT A FUCKIN GREMLIN?

Oh wait no it isn’t he looks like a 10 year old. Whatever don’t feed him after midnight. The staff’s design of not being shaped like a G is an interesting tidbit but the whole design looks like he’s really young or like a troll etc. This Jack looks like he thinks girls have cooties uses outdated slang.

Rating: 4/10 This is me being generous.

It honestly looks like he hiked his pants up all the way to his chest. A late teen with horrid fashion choices once again. Not many other thoughts here.

Rating: 2/10 Get a sweater on or something.

This is one is very interesting looking to me. His clothes looked a lot more leather based and very human-like. The tatters, tears and frays all make him look like he was a victim of an accident that never changed his clothes. It makes me wonder if this Jack had the same death as the final movie Jack or something else entirely. Either way, this one looks like hes a mid to late teen which really adds to my intrigue.

This was another image that greatly resembled the design so I included it here. It almost looks like his skin is blue here which is pretty neat to me at least. He’s also got leaf motifs here, which from the first Jack design Joyce made, we can see a pattern here.

Rating: 8 /10 I was originally weirded out by his head but now its not so bad.

This Jack is definitely dressed more like a nature boy rather than him having human influenced fashion and it’s an appealing touch. The tiny leaf sprouting from his staff is also kind of cute since the designers seemed to want to put leafs somewhere on his designs. His hairstyle is also very cute but it reminds me of Sasuke Uchiha in a sense. (Not a setback for me at least)

Rating: 7/10 13 year old Jack is going thru a phase.

I thought this Jack didn’t show up again in story boards but I was wrong!

They look a little different from each other but just similar enough to pair together, so bare with me. The first one obviously has looser pants, slightly longer sleeves and got his leaf motif going. This second Jack is a VERY green. It gives the impression that this Jack made his clothes out of plants and natural materials. Again I’m not wholly sure if greens fit his color scheme but they sure went for it for a while. I can’t say I’m a fan of it because it heavily reminds me of Peter Pan.

However a very similar looking Jack could be found in this storyboard. It doesn’t look as green as the other storyboards made it out to be and looks more like dead grass. Which is a pretty nice touch.

Rating: 5/10 I don’t hate it but it just doesn’t vibe yknow.

Speaking of a vibe...hoo this certainly has one. This Jack isn’t old but certainly doesn’t look very young, maybe in the 20-30 range, thats just me. He has facial features that remind me of Pitch but resembles the Jack Frost of Santa Clause 3

That being said, I wondered if him looking similar to Pitch was in the storyline of them being brothers.(Which was a scrapped thing, who knew.) He’s a bit more menacing in this design but certainly seems like he relishes in his work.

Rating: 4/10 I’d make it a lower score but I gotta give it props

NOW THIS JACK IS KINDA INTERESTING. This one looks like he’s 16 and going through a grunge phase. He’s gonna play Nirvana loudly and not turn it down even if you tell him too. His staff itself has mini icicles hanging off of it and leafs look stuck to his shirt. Did you glue or staple those on Jack? His hair also looks much longer than his other designs and I kind of dig it( Shut up I’m bias.) I’m not wholly sure why else this design has stuck with me but it just has something about it that I just love. I wish there was a full body drawing of it.

(He also kinda has the same hair as the Jack Frost in Runescape but I wont go on about that hoo hoo)

Rating: 9/10 *Bad Boy by Cascada plays in the distance*

This one definitely feels like middleschooler trying to be in a band. His sticks just resemble drumsticks to me what can I say. I’m a big fan of his shoes and his color scheme screams a hibernating tree in winter. His hair also looks like it’s covered in frost rather than it being wholly white, which is very neat!! He looks like he wants to fight but has slight hesitance. Overall a very balanced Jack.

Rating: 8/10 He’s ready for band practice

Not many thoughts here, I just found these tiny Jack designs cute. His hoodie being a jacket instead just adds to the charm of this one.

No talk to him he angy.

Rating: 6/10 fun sized boi

Now this Jack resembles the one earlier that dressed entirely in leather brown colors, however he clearly is different than that one. I’m gonna say it, he looks like a zombie or undead in this design and its pretty fucking gnarly. I don’t know whats going on with his hair but I’m gonna assume it’s just the wind making it look like that. He just has the vibe that he was once human but was turned into something else entirely. It isnt in uncanny territory but borders that. This version of Jack meeting Pitch and the others would have been *very* interesting. Rating: 7/10 Eat a twinkie Jack you’ll feel better.

The final design! I can’t complain much about this one. The way his staff subtly has a G shape and a hexagon(his signature shape) is a wonderful touch. Additionally, the way the frost is gathered mostly where his hand is such an intricate detail. His signature hoodie is iconic at this point so I can’t bad mouth that either.(I can’t anyway because there's no complaints from me here.) Although, I never understood the leather straps that his pants had or their functions. I couldn’t find any colonial outfits that resembled Jack’s pants so its a total mystery to me at least.

And I can’t go on about this design until I mention the snowflake pattern in his eyes

Pure beauty. It’s at a hue of blue that almost looks impossible to have, combined with the electric blue color of the snowflake in his eyes. The amount of detail in this movie amazes me to this day. Rating: One Great Blizzard <3/10

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syn0vial · 4 years

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Top 5 Boba moments 🥺

ohh fun! :D i’m gonna go in chronological order for these, just for organization’s sake. i’m also going to try and only include moments i haven’t talked much about before, just to keep things fun and fresh!

1. freeing the sea mice: starting from the very first boba fett junior novel the fight to survive, bc, well, chronological order! i like this moment bc it really emphasizes how innocent boba used to be. basically, there’s an aquarium with an eel in the fett’s kamino apartment and while jango and zam are off making bad decisions on coruscant, boba is tasked with it feeding aquatic rodents called “sea-mice” to the eel, something he’s never had to do before. but he doesn’t like doing it. the sea-mice always seem to trust him when he picks them up and he feels guilty for betraying them by feeding them to the eel. so, one day, he decides it’s going to be different. that morning, he feeds the eel his own breakfast (which is like, both sweet and hilarious, like honey did you really just throw your lunchables into an eel’s tank bc you wanted to make sure it was fed even while you’re out here freeing feeder mice? A+ for good intentions, F- for knowledge of how animals work) and tries to free a few of the sea-mice into kamino’s oceans. unfortunately, they don’t survive. the next day, boba reluctantly goes back to feeding the mice to the eel, telling one before he drops it in, “sorry; life is hard on the small and the weak,” echoing a saying of his father’s. this then becomes horrible foreshadowing for the rest of the series, in which boba is orphaned and suddenly finds himself being preyed upon by all sorts of antagonists. i know it’s a kids’ series and it’s Not That Deep, but i do really like that there’s a parallel created between boba and the mouse and the implication of the series as a whole that boba fett didn’t become a notorious hunter because he was always that way, but specifically because he started out as prey. also, it’s kind of hilarious in retrospect that boba felt compassion for rodents, but literally days later attempted to take obi-wan’s life without hesitation. kid’s really got his priorities in order.

2. standing up to jabba the hutt: this is from the junior novel boba fett: hunted, which is my favorite of the junior novels for him. in the story, boba pretends a short-statured adult by concealing his face with his father’s helmet and attempts to find work from jabba the hutt. however, when he finally gets an audience with jabba, jabba indeed offers to bring him back to his palace—as an indentured servant. and this freaking, like, eleven-year-old, staring down the criminal kingpin of tatooine with no weapons and no armor besides a too-big helmet, snaps at jabba the hutt, “my debt to you? what do i owe you for?” naturally, he is immediately set upon by one of jabba’s guards, and, well, i’ll let you read the rest :D

Boba had no time to think. He acted.

Without a sound, he leaped to one side. The Drovian’s knife whistled harmlessly through the air where, a nanosecond before, Boba had been.

“Huh?” gaped the hulking alien.

A small table stood near the viewscreen. Boba grabbed the table and swung it in front of himself, fending off the Drovian’s blade. Jabba himself watched, laughing coarsely.

“You will pay for this!” croaked the Drovian.

As the guard bore down on him, Boba thrust the table upward. The knife stuck in the wood surface. While the Drovian struggled to free his weapon, Boba pushed the table up farther. Then, he darted sideways, kicking at the lumbering guard’s knees. With a groaning thud, the Drovian stumbled and fell. Jabba’s guests laughed as Boba turned to breathlessly face Jabba.

“I am no one’s slave or servant!” Boba said. “I will work for you, for a price—but I will name that price!”

like, this kid really just brought down an armed adult with nothing but an end table AND finishes it off with a badass line defending his autonomy and defying jabba the hutt! definitely one of my favorite moments from the junior novels.

3. the Look he exchanges with lando while han is being tortured in the background

look, idk why this is so funny to me, but it is. lando’s just so full of loathing for this man who is complicit in forcing him to betray han and boba’s just like “you got shit to say to me. or nah?” he’s such a fucking asshole, i love it.

4. staying conscious just long enough to express his displeasure with the situation in iiiiii think the mandalorian armor, idk it’s been awhile: this story takes place post-RoTJ, after boba has escaped the sarlacc pit, killing it in the process, and is being gradually regaining his strength with the help of fellow bounty hunter dengar and amnesiac former slave neelah. at this point in the story, he’s still quite weak and spends most of his time slipping in and out of consciousness. unfortunately, some of boba’s enemies find out he’s still alive and just start fucking carpet-bombing their general location, so dengar and neelah go “shit, we need a bomb shelter, stat!”...and then slowly turn to look at the subterranean corpse of the sarlacc pit. they thus drag boba’s unconscious body back into the pit so they can all hunker down and wait out the bombs. except, surprise, surprise! the sarlacc ain’t completely dead. one of its giant tentacles starts attacking the group and is succeeding in getting the upper hand over dengar and neelah, when suddenly, boba wakes up. takes a look around and realizes where he is. and then grabs the nearest blaster and just goes apeshit firing on the tentacle, finally managing to kill it. too exhausted to talk, he then turns and fixes dengar with the angriest, most hate-filled glare the man has ever seen... and then promptly passes out. i remember just dissolving into giggles the first time i read that scene. just the mental image of boba fett giving dengar the scariest fucking “why the fuck did you fucking bring me back here” deathglare in the galaxy and then immediately losing consciousness. energy well-spent, boba.

5. that time boba did a mission completely in his underwear for no discernible reason, because daniel keys moran: this one’s just like. so delightfully bizarre that i’m not even going to try justifying it logically bc literally the only reason it exists was bc renowned EU author and certified mad man daniel keys moran really wanted to give boba his strong female character moment, because he deserves it. so, in this subplot, boba is tracking this devaronian war criminal who is holed up in a safehouse equipped with security systems that are triggered by the presence of, like, metal. which means boba can’t wear his armor plates and can’t use any blasters or other gadgetry. so boba loads up a compound bow and knife and makes to hunt this guy down. now, what about his armor? obviously, the most logical thing to do would be to just remove the metal plates and hunt in his flight suit. or, if that isn’t satisfactory, go out and buy like, leather armor or something? or just clothes? BUT NOPE. boba apparently goes, “well, if i can’t wear my armor, i’m not gonna wear ANYTHING” and just. does the entire mission in his underwear. he tracks and stalks this man, shoots him with an arrow, and then chases him down with a knife, ALL IN HIS UNDERWEAR. daniel keys moran even goes so far as to explicitly specify that these ain’t no long-johns, either. he’s like, “and the underwear...... MAINLY COVERED HIS DICK.” LIKE, DANIEL? DANIEL? HOW IS IT THAT OUT OF THE TWO BOBA FETT STORIES YOU’VE WRITTEN, BOTH OF THEM MENTION HIS DICK IN SOME CAPACITY? DANIEL? WHO KEEPS LETTING YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS??? and, like, can you imagine being this poor devaronian? you’re just living your fugitive war criminal life when an arrow hits you in the shoulder and boba fucking fett comes sprinting out of the woods at you in his underwear with a knife? what the fuck. this was canon at one point. what the fuck.

#boba fett #in which you can tell i wrote this list in the hours leading up to bed-time #by how increasingly unhinged it becomes lmao #the EU was a wild place #lastwordbeforetheend

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caspersscareschool · 2 years

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since youre a fellow trans mitsuri enjoyer, i thought id ask, but how would you personally go about making her a trans woman in the story while still taking in consideration her canonical themes, narratives, and the time period? (may or may not be looking for ideas on how to make mitsuri trans in my rewrite lol)

HIIIII OTHER SOLACE HIHIHI OMG i forgot to finish answering this sorry but HI. SO.

first a disclaimer: i am not transfem and am by no means an authority on experiences like this, so girl followers are welcome to correct me on anything or chime in. also i’m having trouble articulating myself rn so this might not make sense

i actually think being trans fits really neatly into mitsuri's existing narrative: no matter how bright and bubbly and feminine she is on the inside, she always feels like her body is too big, too strange, to fit in the tiny box of conventional womanhood, and society never treats her like a woman. being a woman to her means being worthy of love--the same giddy, abundant, unconditional love she pours out into the world--and everyone tells her she has to make herself smaller and smaller to fit into this microscopic box. love, to her, is innate and and abundant and unconditional to everyone but her until her friends show her otherwise

she probably came out from a very young age, and since i'm pretty sure her family is decently well-off, i think her parents are very supportive, especially her dad, which is why she has so many nice clothes and stuff like that. i think she wanted to get married so badly at first, not just out of love, but to prove that she could be a wife, and everything that supposedly entails: she could be small, she could be quiet, she could be obedient. she could fit into this box if she tried hard enough. she starved herself for that, and it still wasn't enough. i think her parents support her in getting married just because they want her to do what makes her happy, plus i guess it was a thing of the time for girls to get married young and they didn’t want to suggest she couldn’t do it or something. idk

a lot of her journey in loving herself has to do with defining womanhood on her own terms and transforming her idea of femininity from a prison to a playground. like. i don’t think she had to fall in love to realize that she possesses the same unique, beautiful light that she sees in everyone else, she lights up a room just by being there, and she doesn’t have to apologize for taking up space . idk

but yeah. mitsuri's entire character arc IMMEDIATELY struck me as a very straightforward allegory for transfemininity, but ik a lot of other marginalized women have versions of this experience of being alienated from a narrow definition of womanhood too, which is why her whole character holds so much unrealized potential. idk if any of this was helpful at all but basically i think you could do a lot with her. i rlly need to catch up on your rewrite lol

sort of unrelated, but i think gender ties really strongly into sanemi's values as well, in that he forged his own definition of manhood by the negative space his father left and his desire to protect his family. but that void only grew as they lost more and more, which is why he acts much larger than life and holds other men to such an impossible standard of strength and responsibility, considering anyone who falls short of it either pathetic or deliberately cruel, while being more likely to respect and trust women upon meeting them. he and mitsuri both hold themselves to unrealistic expectations based on cartoonish ideas of gender roles and viewing them as trans adds a layer of nuance to their existing character arcs imo and i wish they interacted more because of that <//3

#this is word vomit sorry #kny

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vickyvicarious · 3 years

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Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List

Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.

This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:

PROS

References

Continuity

Nate

Representation

Themes

New Characters

General Vibe

CONS

'Maker and Fixer'

Episode Twins

Sophie's Stagefright

Thiefsome

You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.

PROS

References

There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.

We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.

Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.

Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.

Continuity

Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.

It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.

Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.

There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.

Nate

Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.

Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.

Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.

That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.

Representation

Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!

Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)

Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.

Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.

Themes

I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).

New Characters

Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.

As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.

General Vibe

A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.

CONS (no, not that kind)

'Maker and Fixer'

So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.

Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.

Episode Twins

This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.

Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.

The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.

The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.

I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.

The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.

Sophie's Stagefright

Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.

This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.

Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.

I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.

Thiefsome

...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.

The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.

The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.

But then there was this.

I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.

Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.

Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.

But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.

But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.

Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.

And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.

It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.

Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.

That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.

#leverage #leverage redemption #leverage spoilers #leverage meta #my meta #this turned into a BIG ol ramble #i planned to write like a couple of sentences for each point but noooo

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ravenkinnie · 3 years

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TW: Drugs, substance abuse, murder, violence, the Punisher

Another potentially unpopular opinion I've seen on here (and one that I'll actually rant about) is that, Jason is the only good vigilante in the Batfam because he kills people (think the direct quote is "unlike those other feckless bitches" and something like "when you get saved by Red Hood, you know that you'll never have to worry about getting attacked by the same person again". I don't know how to explain to people that killing the type of criminals Jason killed in canon is wrong and harmful (thinking about the 80 Blackgate prisoners he poisoned - hmm you know the American prison system is pretty fucked up i'm sure they all totally belonged there /s). Like. Jason killing the Joker is one thing, but he literally hasn't killed the Joker - Dick did that, Bruce tried to, but Jason hasn't. But like some people make it out like oh, Jason being a killer is fine because he only kills people that deserve it - who, tell me who he's killing? Sex offenders and drug dealers seems to be the most common reply. And I won't touch the sex offenders but drug dealers? Have you heard of the War on Drugs? Have you seen what happens when people in power decide it's okay to openly promote the killing of drug dealers? I don't understand why people think it's fine for Jason Todd to go around killing drug dealers, as if they don't have families, don't have other things that put them in a bad situation. There's a reason why cops in the US (idk if they do this elsewhere) use the Punisher skull as their emblem - and if you advocate for a Jason Todd that punishes criminals, don't be surprised when the right wing weaponizes him against minorities and the red hood helmet starts to get painted on cop cars.

I wrote a paper on the Norwegian prison system which rehabilitates and releases even the "worst" of criminals and just... I live in the US and it seems like we (specifically white people) have such little compassion for anyone who commits crime. Even after the War on Drugs, even after we learned it was a scam, people fall for the crime and punishment rhetoric time after time. Like I live in a suburb where people are so scared of drug dealers my mom literally called our neighbor because someone cut through our yard (and she thought he looked high or something idk). Which I get it, my cousin died from a fentanyl overdose, I understand you don't want that near your kids. But incarcerating or killing drug dealers is not the answer, and I can't stand it when people take that stance on Jason. You can try to explain the 8 drug dealer heads in a duffle bag any way you want, but at the end of the day, I think the batfamily fandom needs to be more careful addressing this issue because demonizing drugs/drug dealers/drug users is literally one of the ways the American government destroys black communities.

And to think, the Jason Todd stan that this opinion came from replied to me because I commented on how Jason likes to run around in Dick's old clothes - something that has absolutely no bearing on his morals, other than he's thrifty which is a good thing actually, something like 85% of clothes ends up in landfills. Sorry for the rant, you asked for it. Sorry if anyone who sees this likes Jason Todd and is offended, you're not bad for liking him, he has an interesting story, just please don't advocate for murdering common criminals, specifically drug dealers.

AAAHHH NOO BUT IVE SEEN SOME OF MY MOOTS DISCUSS THIS BEFORE

sorry it's late and fucking hot I don't have the most comprehensive reply dbdnhd and I do acknowledge that at the end of the day this is fiction but opinions real people hold come from SOMEWHERE - and I think we have a very ingrained belief that crime/bad deed has to be punished and that there are good and evil people and good people only do bad things when influenced by evil people which is exactly the core of jason's belief - and that's interesting for a batfam character, a former robin!! I like when him and bruce are contrasted based on ethics but I don't like when it's meant to show that jason is right and bruce is wrong

batman is an extremely popular and fascinating character because at his core lies the idea that systems that are in place to 'protect' people are corrupt and it's down to individuals who can do something to go against them and look out for others - that's something that will resonate with people even if irl solution can't be to dress up as a bat and beat tf outta people shdhhshs

I have two points to make here:

a) I'm straight up a fucking anarchist who lives in the woods, thinks aliens are listening, and doesn't trust the government but I don't believe systems are corrupt, I believe they operate the way they are meant to operate to punish and control the populations that the system needs to be controlled to keep up the status quo - war on drugs is such a good example for that. drug dealer also exists as this boogeyman, this idea of an evil person waiting to corrupt and destroy the good people but the fact is: people don't get addicted to drugs bc drug dealers exist, people get addicted to drugs because something, not someone, compels them to do drugs, because something (literal us gov) introduced drugs to their communities and drug dealers are just tiny pawns in that game. additionally, many dealers are addicts themselves who got roped into selling to pay for their own use or who got pushed into the margins of society so much that drug trade is the only way to survive they can find

there are like, whole papers and books and thesis done on this so I'm not gonna act like I can analyse it in a tumblr post dhshsjsj but yeah people who think jason is right usually show this weird superiority of 'oh batman doesnt get how to fix gotham like jason does' and like... no, jason gets played like a fiddle by the system the way people he kills do, and whatever he does will always just hit the other pawns and never reach those actually at the top, those who are profitting from finding scapegoats

and like, batman comics don't have to address that bc it's comics, you can write small lmao but don't argue that jason is somehow more enlightened than bruce for killing

b) this brings a question of, if we decide that there has to be punishment for every crime, who gets to decide what punishment is right for what crime? cause there's not a single person who's infallible enough to dictate what the best approach is in every situation

and batman works best as a traumatised man who's loves his city sm he tries to work however he can to protect people from corrupt systems and offer them second chances wherever he can bc that's who batman is at his core - batman is not a punisher he is a protector and he should never be pushed into a role of the punisher bc he's not edgy enough

also bitches are so hard acting like they would kill every villain cause rip to batman but I'm different, y'all are too scared to tell the waitress your order is wrong shut the fuck up lmao the closest any of y'all have been to being batman is getting your ass beat behind the club on a saturday by brenda in her boohoo jumpsuit

#asks #drugs tw #long post

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cant-think-of-anything · 3 years

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I think part of the reason that there’s such a dissonance between what kind of character Matthew is ~supposed~ to have and what kind of poor traits shine through, especially in his treatment of Alastair, is not just because of CC’s poor handling of alcoholism (and, in my opinion, mental health issues and depression) but also because: Our first introduction to these characters happened a long ways before some major changes to TLH.

Namely… Alastair and Cordelia were basically white in CC’s original planning. There’s just no way around that. Their flower cards, where they’re not just whitewashed but purely white, prove that (and they STILL haven’t been updated, by the way.)

Also, Alastair’s hair: in CoG it was dyed blond, and CC wrote it off implicitly as a racism thing when she decided he was Persian (which I guess happened after the short story where we met Alastair and before TLH) , which would have been fine it if it was an arc written better. Except, I don’t think she realized that it would make Matthew’s comments about Alastair inherently and obviously racist, being a white author. And I doubt that it will be dealt with and named or even acknowledged outright in the final TLH installment.

Kind of the same thing with Cordelia. I’m not saying POC can’t have like red hair because obviously POC don’t come in a prepackaged set of five or six traits that are all configured randomly, but something has always rubbed me the wrong way about the way that CC writes the majority of her POC and especially WOC as exotic. I mean, Kamala as a character is to me a special favorite (even though CC did her dirty and didn’t do a good job portraying her character or intersectional identity) but I rolled my eyes so hard when she had lighter brown or “amber” eyes in canon or officially commissioned art. With Cordelia, I know CC once said she uses henna to redden her hair which is great for her, and I guess I have less of a bone to pick with that because it’s semi(?) realistic, but still. Also the fact that so much of her description as a beautiful person comes from her hair. Again that’s cool, and women of color should be loved wholly including being loved for the parts of them that they freely change (such as Cordelia’s hair) but… the proportion of the fixation on her hair as what makes her lovely rubs me the wrong way sometimes. I feel like it’s sometimes an out from CC making the ~scandalous~ decision that a woman of color can be beautiful because of the traits she is born with. Idk it’s just for me I had this long standing repulsion towards my colorings and my facial structure and white girls would tell me I was whiny about it and then I finally began to piece together things like “Eurocentric beauty standards.”

Going on a tangent slightly, but something else that bothered me was when Anna insulted Cordelia after buying her those dresses and everyone kinda treating it as a compliment? And just cause Cordelia, a fictional teenager, didn’t get mad about it doesn’t mean readers of color can’t see the underlying racism behind “Cordelia looks MUCH better in these dresses which are SUITED for her skin tone.”

I think that narrative could have been handled much better: if it was Cordelia picking out her own clothes as an act of maturity and self-realization and ownership, if Cordelia herself said (in a different way lol) “Damn right I can wear lavender ruffles if I want to and crimp my hair but I’m not going to let white fashion prevent me from outshining everyone because dark skinned women INVENTED jewel tones.” And I think some people will argue that Cordelia’s context makes this too self aware of a development but I would say that it would have been a powerful part of her development outside of her relationships, especially considering that she’s supposed to be a main protagonist. Full arcs for the win baby!

But even aside from all that what bothered me about Anna’s dresses was the fact that it was a white woman showing the “truth” or the “right way” or “saving” a woman of color, a trope which I don’t think CC intended but committed nonetheless. I think from a white author POV the thinking was “Anna is such a free bohemian who lives true to herself and she’s going to help Cordelia become that way too,” which irks me because I feel like that just worked against CC in terms of POC rep and also because that same ideology is used in an attempt to make Anna’s treatment of Kamala justified even though Anna as an out person, with racial and economic privilege and the support of an extensive and powerful family network, pressured and tormented Kamala into coming out.

I have a lot of thoughts on that relationship, mainly: it shouldn’t have been dragged out this long because from the beginning, Every Exquisite Thing, it was clear they were looking for different things. And if CC had left it at that and let them go on their separate ways after a week of knowing each other that would have been fine: Kamala can’t do an out and proud relationship and Anna doesn’t want secrecy, so they’ll develop on their own. And then later Kamala’s pursuit of Anna in the actual TLH books was I think meant to be a thing about “the lengths you’ll go for true love” but it felt forced. Honestly… It just feels icky. like this woman of color is just so hung up on this white woman who abuses her repeatedly and can’t handle her own misogyny and internalizations. And I hate that because both had such awesome potential! To me it’s less that I dislike Anna ( I’d need a whole other post to explain that) and more that I dislike CC for wanting so bad to claim sapphic rep but not wanting to put in the effort to portray it effectively- and pretty much all that entails is writing the relationship without acting like it exists in a pseudo-vacuum where the history and realities of interracial relationships and queerphobia don’t exist in the way we obviously recognize and experience.

And characters like Cordelia and Alastair are amazing and have so much potential; I think the true origin of the problems with their portrayal is that they weren’t really intended as POC or even queer representation in the first place. I don’t know if Cassie would have taken a different approach to her characterization had she known Alastair would be a brown gay man when she first introduced him, but I hope it would have at least made her more conscientious of the inherent application of colonialism and racism in her storytelling from that point onward.

I want to finally add that I’m not saying any portrayal of racism is bad. I’m saying that the racism in the story is not part of a conscious framework that critiques racism appropriately. I think CC wrote the beginnings of the narrative, decided she was going to develop the diversity point content, and then either didn’t look back at the older content to analyze it and the other (white characters) through a new lens of race and outsiderness and queer personhood, or she looked at it and didn’t know what to do with it, or looked at it and didn’t care.

Sorry this got so long! Thanks for listening.

- A.

I feel like CC handled everything poorly in regards to characters who had a lot of potential.

The fact that Cordelia and Alastair are both originally white and it's so obvious in the way every bit of racism is handled by the characters. Matthew's comments in CLS are very important and they should've been handled with the same severity that Alastair's words were. CC changing the characters to POC was a big decision and when she did so she should've went back and actually read her own material. I can assure you that it will not be handled in CHOT, my expectations for CC recognizing the importance and gravity in the words she writes regarding racism or any of her "implied racism" bullshit have gone to the ground.

Because while golden eyes are obviously so easy to write when discussing discrimination obviously racism is out of the question /j

THAT'S EXACTLY IT, women of color in these books are so pathetically rare that on the rare occurrence that she does write them they should all be given these features that aren't as common in POC and written as more beautiful because of those features. I read CHOG after I became more appreciative of my ethnic features but if I had read this a year or so ago? Or even if I had read it after just feeling insecure in general? It would've been awful. The implication is that the lighter features in POC are the most beautiful, with Cordelia's red hair being put on a higher pedestal than her dark eyes and Kamala's eyes being focused on more than her hair (because I literally went back and counted the numbers to prove it and it's exactly what happens.)

I'm sure Cordelia's hair is stunning, but it's the way that when she's described (or more accurately being sexualized) it is just her hair and body that is shown, not the color of her skin or the color of her eyes.

God the pastel thing pisses me off so much. It's not even that Anna tells Cordelia that she would look better in darker colors it's that she says it suits her skin tone. Implying that anyone with brown skin should be barred from wearing pastels. And Kamala? In the few times she is described, she's wearing dark colors or champagne gold, never light blue or purple or pink WHICH HONESTLY SUITS HER PERSONALITY. It's also the way that the dresses Anna sent her are described to be more revealing- it's weird. Anna barely knew her when she started dictating everything that Cordelia could put on her body.

“Damn right I can wear lavender ruffles if I want to and crimp my hair but I’m not going to let white fashion prevent me from outshining everyone because dark skinned women INVENTED jewel tones.”

I literally would have loved that. It recognizes that she doesn't need to follow these "rules" on what to wear but still shows her choosing what she wants to wear without making all the darker skinned readers feel like they can't wear a certain color.

I think what some people fail to realize is that these books are also aimed at upper elementary and middle school and a middle schooler with dark skin reading something like that? In a book with characters they love? It's going to be so harmful

Someone else mentioned that CC said Kamanna's relationship was complicated because Kamala didn't defend Anna: Defend her FROM WHAT? Literally what is there to threaten Anna?

These books are filled with tokenism and then praised for it. The idea of Kamala X Anna has so much potential but they're portrayed in such a toxic way. Throughout the last through books Kamala puts herself through so much guilt and regret and turmoil just for Anna to literally use her, blame her, and cast her aside. And it's so fucking annoying because it pushes this idea that this woman of color who was terrified and in an extremely vulnerable position is in the wrong for choosing her safety and presents them as guilty and shameful for doing such a thing.

I would disagree, the portrayal of racism is bad, because it is used at random points in the story and never brought up again, if you interduce racism take it seriously it's not the kind of thing you're meant to half-ass in a book thousands of people will read

I agree on everything else though, so much of these books are incredibly harmful and they are presented to a young audience so it's overall just a gross situation

Thank you for the ask though! I loved answering this, if you ever have anything else you're more than welcome to come back <3

#kamala joshi #alastair carstairs #cordelia carstairs #tw racism #tw sexualization of minors #tw sexualization #anti anna lightwood #anon #asks #tw swearing #long post #tlh #anti cc #the last hours #let me know if i missed a tag #also let me know if i got anything wrong

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atruththatyoudeny · 3 years

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Happy 28th! I read shockingly little fic this month so I’m going to support some fic fests that are currently running.There are so many amazing new fics all around so make sure to check them out and leave lots of love for the authors ♥ @onedirectionbigbang: Big Bang Round 4 just finished this month but you can find a complete round up of all the fics on the blog | AO3 collection here @1daboficfest: you can also find some rare pair a/b/o’s here | AO3 collection here @hlmpregficfest: The mpreg fest just started posting last week | AO3 collection here @wipsanonymousfest: support authors to complete their wips here | AO3 collection here

The eight fics I actually finished this month are under the cut:

The Earl and His Duke | QuickedWeen | Regency - historical - friends to lovers - light angst - smut - 53k Lord Tomlinson, the elusive Duke of Leeds, has suddenly emerged in London for the first time in six years. He is believed to have been abroad. He is believed to have been widowed. He is believed to want to withdraw from society. Harry doesn’t know what is true and what isn’t. He only knows that the older brother of one of his best friends is back in town to stay, and that time has taken him from merely the most beautiful man Harry knew, to the most handsome man to ever walk the earth. A man whose gaze probably still skips over Harry like he doesn’t exist the same way it did when they were young.

Double Trouble | Beanno28 | mpreg - canon divergence - smut - 23k Exactly five minutes later, Harry walked out of the room with his head down, focusing on doing up the last of the buttons on his shirt. “There you are,” a familiar male voice startled Harry. “What were you… oh, I see you must have found some poor stagehand to sneak off with.” Harry smirked, thinking about his time with Louis, “I guess you could say that.” “You’d better make a quick stop in the bathroom before joining everyone else on the bus, you stink,” Paul, one of their security guards, advised. Or the one where Harry and Louis start secretly hooking up while on tour and Harry ends up pregnant.

eucalyptus | docklands | a/b/o - kid fic - scenting - lactation kink - breeding kink - 46k Harry didn't mean to get pregnant at all. When little Agnes comes along, his bachelor life takes a turn and he has to figure out how to single parent, with the occasional help from his best friend and co-worker, Zayn. Everything is running smoothly until Agnes starts acting strange, crying non-stop, sleeping at the most unconventional hours and not caring that she's ruining Harry's life. Her doctor says she's just an infant and that there's nothing wrong with her. Harry's instincts tell him the doctor's wrong and that he needs to seek a second opinion. Agnes' new paediatrician, Louis Tomlinson, is enthusiastic, passionate about his job and a little too charming for Harry's lonely heart to take. More than figuring out what's wrong with her, Louis ends up revealing secrets about Harry's life he had never even dreamed about.

Lunar Waltz | outropeace | a/b/o - 19th century - marriage of convenience - hate to love - mystery - enemies to lovers - angst - deception - smut - 57k “You want me to seduce an alpha,” Louis hissed. “I want you to marry an alpha. It’s the only way I could ever get back on my feet. You didn’t think a few dances at a ball would do anything to Alastair’s reputation or mine...” “And what if Alastair comes back? Have you thought about him in all of this? You’re going to marry him to an alpha he doesn’t even know!” “Oh he does know him, in fact... he’d be ecstatic to know he got to marry him.” Louis’ blood ran cold, already suspecting who was the alpha the earl was talking about. “Who is he?” he asked anyways, hating how fragile and almost scared his voice sounded. “Lord Harry Styles.” Louis' stomach dropped, the words came smelling like danger, sending a bolt of fear down his spine, the Earl wanted Louis to seduce The Duke of Death. Or Louis has to replace his (missing) twin brother and marry one of the most dangerous alphas of the kingdom.

Unveiled | phdmama | a/b/o - royalty - magic - 60k The train grinds to a halt and Harry leans forward in his eagerness to take it all in. It’s a gorgeous Spring day, the sky the same intense blue that he knows from home, which comforts him. There’s much here that looks almost familiar, but then so much that is new and strange to his eyes. The bustling station platform and winding streets beyond paved in cobblestones look much like home. There are vehicles ranging from small to very large, some with strange and unusual shapes of which he can only guess the purpose. But most surprising are the people. There is a crowd gathered, filled with men and women, some in what looks to be a military uniform, some in what must be the street clothes in this Land. There are no robes. And not a single one of them is veiled.

Stubborn Hearts | Rearviewdreamer | social worker Louis - kid fic - foster care - adoption - angst - 33k Louis’ job description as a child social worker doesn’t cover half of what he does, but he doesn’t mind going above and beyond and putting his whole heart into it, especially when it comes to Sydney.

The Money Mark | brightgolden | a/b/o - Sugar Daddy/Sugar Baby - exes to lovers - pining - nesting - age difference - smut - 52k Harry's heart beats faster in his chest as the name sinks in. The Tomlinson name is awfully familiar, and he isn’t sure how many rich Tomlinsons are out here in London, but he knew one. Seven years ago. Like all fine things in the world, Louis Tomlinson ages exceptionally well. OR Where Louis is Harry’s first sugar daddy who dumped him over text and their paths cross, seven years later.

Is it a sign? | bluegreenish | a/b/o - deaf character - 25k “Also, I didn’t mean it literally,” Harry continues his rambling, gesticulating to support his point. “You don’t owe me a beer and I surely don’t expect you to buy me anything, it was just to start a conversation but you’re obviously not interested in that. Which, again, maybe next time an omega, or anyone really, approaches you, you could convey -” To Harry’s surprise, he’s interrupted by the handsome stranger, who’s been weirdly fixated on his lips the whole time. What a creep! “You speak so fast, I can’t read your lips like this.” What? Harry’s frown deepens and he just stares at the man, waiting for him to explain. Because why the hell would he need to read Harry’s lips? They’re not in some detective movie. The man rolls his eyes at Harry’s obvious lack of understanding. “I’m deaf,” he huffs and points to his ear. And oh. Yikes. That’s kind of embarrassing. or, the one where Harry meets a certain handsome alpha at his sister's wedding and learns that speaking verbally doesn't have to be the only means of communication.

#28th appreciation #fic rec #my fic rec #my reads #monthly reads #monthly fic rec

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mcd-ms-rants · 3 years

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I can’t believe I started this blog asking for one note and you guys went way above and beyond that <3 <3

let’s do this shit *cracks knuckles*

also some of the points here might be in jumbled order cuz I just wrote them as soon as they came into my head

STUFF I DIDNT LIKE IN MYSTREET SEASON 2:

• ayyy home alone reference

• ok that’s not a bad thing

• WHERE IS LAURANCE. He had no reason to just disappear like that where did he go :(

(side note: I’m pretty sure that Jess was hospitalized during this time, so a lot of characters were cut out and the script was made shorter. so I think that’s why a few characters were scrapped.)

• isn’t llp supposed to be ‘sold out since forever’?? how do Aaron and Dante somehow win tickets FOR EVERYONE just by kissing?? ok sometimes shows or contests give free tickets...but only like one or two. Aphmau literally drags the whole street there

• in my opinion it is IMPOSSIBLE for a whole street’s worth of people to pack their stuff, grab essentials, drive to the airport, check in and get on the plane IN AN HOUR. especially considering that mystreet is the most chaotic street in existence

• why do all the boys swim shorts have the same damn pattern hello originality??

• DAMN TRAVIS GETS UP TO SOME FREAKY SHIT WHEN THE OTHERS ARENT HOME. he literally hires people to impersonate his friends and monologues as katelyn and I’m not even going to repeat those lines here they are CURSED😳😳 where did he even get Katelyn’s clothes from??

• how does the mys gang take Zane, who (im pretty sure) wasn’t even in the house where Garroth and Dante were when Dante broke down the door, but forget to take Travis, who literally lives IN THEIR BASEMENT IN THE SAME HOUSE. for the record HOW DO THEY FORGET LAURANCE. this makes no sense (I don’t really remember this part well so if zane is actually there then ignore me :) thanks)

• garroth saying ahoy matey kills me every time

• I feel like lucinda really got shoved to the side in this season. she barely has any relevant lines that aren’t just filler

• ok there’s a gay couple here it’s Guy and Nate. but isn’t this way of representing them heavily stereotyped?? a twink and a buff guy. Seems like a stereotype to me and I don’t like it because of that

• also arent ivy and teony supposed to be lesbian?? this would have been nice...IF WE ACTUALLY GOT TO SEE THEM ASIDE FROM LIKE TWO EPISODES. Stop making characters disappear :( I get that not every character can be major but they were like the only decently written lgbtq+ representation this show has plus teony is a dark-skinned beauty and you cannot convince me otherwise. she’s underrated

• I bring to you better lgbtq+ representation: Garrance

• admit it it would’ve been SO MUCH BETTER even tho Laurance wasn’t actually in s2 at least do it in s1

• we need more nb and lgbtq+ representation I’ll say this again and again

• when Aph sees Ivy there’s no mention of her being in a jury of any kind in pdh. Same with Katelyn and Jeffory actually, even Ivan in s3. If these people weren’t in the jury then who was??

• i love mcd Dante but WTF HAPPENED HERE. His character is a mess and not the good kind. he is dumb, flirty and a cheater since highschool and instead of learning from his mistake of cheating in pdh he decides to DO IT AGAIN. And I don’t see anyone else in the cast point this out or tell him not to?? Why??

• HOW TF DO ZANE’S PANTS EVEN FALL DOWN?? he legit goes down a baby water slide and boom theyre gone. Aphmau doesn’t lose her clothes while going down a roller caster water slide that GOES INTO THE SEA so HOW DOES HE?? If they were that loose they would’ve fallen off while he was walking. which they didn’t. Also doesn’t water make your clothes stick to your skin and not the other way around? Ya hello can someone please explain

The next four points are not actually bad things i found them funny in a stupid way but also how tf did they even happen:

• I’m not even going to BOTHER deciphering the physics behind Travis setting the house on fire, having said fire coming into contact with explosive feathers, and yeeting him thousands of miles away into llp

• no seriously how is he still alive

• and why is he allowed to stay?? isn’t this place sold out since forever??

• wow celeste has the power to swim thousands of miles away to llp as well seriously what does she eat??

ok let’s get back to it

• doesnt Katelyn throw Travis off a roof some time in this season, or was it s1? Either way that’s not cool

• the talk between Travis and katelyn was very much needed. I’m very glad it was written in but feel as though it could have been written a bit better. also Katelyn doesn’t even realize what shes doing isn’t ok till here in canon which I don’t like because it makes her seem ignorant or airheaded and I know she isn’t like that. she’s better than that. she should have been at least a bit aware of it since s1

• AND THIS WHOLE TALK WAS SHOVED ASIDE BCUZ AARON HAD TO ASK APH TO LIVE WITH HIM. am I the only one that feels this way? which is more important in your opinion?? there was nothing inherently wrong with this scene but the fact that THIS had more importance than the travlyn talk really upset me

• hello Gene :) the ONLY character with some decent development here. Give him a hand👏👏

let me make it known that I’m aware that this is supposed to be an anime style show so not everything will make logical sense but I’ve still put those points in cuz why not

and that’s all I can think of thanks for coming to my ted talk <3 <3

#zane ro'meave #garroth ro'meave #aphmau #mystreet #travis valkrum #katelyn the firefist #lucinda #aaron lycan #kawaii~chan #season 2 rant #here it is #basically #more lgbtq representation pls

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the-dragongirl · 4 years

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Hello tumblr. I have returned from a long period of inactivity, because I must bring the good word to the corner of the Star Wars fandom that used to be my main fannish home: there is a new era of Star Wars canon that was made just for our taste. It is called the High Republic.

WHAT IS THE HIGH REPUBLIC?

The High Republic is an giant multi-media project being carried out by the Lucasfilm story group to create a brand new era of Star Wars canon. It is set a few hundred years before the prequel era (so, a long time after the Old Republic era), in a period of peace and stability within the Republic. It currently includes several English language adult novels, a YA novel, two serialized comics, a manga, some short stories, and some short video blurbs published on facebook and youtube. A TV show for Disney+ has also been announced, but is a few years off. This project is unique in Star Wars, in that all of the different parts are being written together by one writing team, and are coordinated to tell a cohesive story. Also, what has been announced is just the beginning – they have stated that there will be three different sections of the High Republic, and everything we have had announced so far is just part one. As a note: this is an era for which there was NO pre-existing canon in Legends, so it is totally new territory.

OKAY, THAT’S NICE, BUT WHY SHOULD I BOTHER TO CHECK IT OUT?

There are SO many reasons why the High Republic is worth your time to explore. I will try to outline some of them here below the cut (without any significant spoilers).

IT IS A LOVE LETTER TO THE JEDI

This is the era for everyone who loves the Jedi and wants to understand how they got to the point they did in the prequel era. It shows Jedi at their best: saving people, working together, being completely in tune with the Force (in so many beautiful and original ways), demonstrating creativity and flexibility and being rewarded for it, actually thinking through the ethics of things like the mind trick, and DEALING with their emotions rather than repressing them. It shows us how the rigid Jedi culture was saw in the prequels was a corruption of something that was originally healthy and uplifting. Jedi in this era are allowed to be flawed, and to grow, and have a community that supports them in doing so. This is the Jedi culture so many of us created as fix it fic for the prequel era, but made canon.

IT IS AN ERA OF HOPE

There are some serious problems in the High Republic Era. Without spoilers, the era opens with a terrible humanitarian crisis, laid over the Republic equivalent of the New Deal from US history. We see a lot of examples of people doing their best to be good to each other, and working for a more just and kind galaxy. They acknowledge that things are not perfect, but people from many different backgrounds (Jedi, politicians, farmers, pilots, business people) work together to try and make things better. I don’t know about you all, but with the darkness we see in the world today, I NEED some of that optimism in my escapist media. The High Republic provides that.

IT WILL GIVE YOU FEELINGS

The existing material so far is structured to really let you emotionally invest in the characters and their struggles. Unlike with many eras of Star Wars canon, characterization is not sacrificed for the sake of plot (though never fear, there is PLENTY of plot). That means there is huge scope for empathy. I’m not going to lie; I cried within the first three chapters of Light of the Jedi, as did several other people I know. It is POIGNANT in a way that feels truly genuine.

IT IS FUN

The writing team understands that, in the end, Star Wars is space fantasy. If your space fantasy is nothing but serious, gritty grimdark, it becomes pretentious and unbearable. So, for all that there is some heavy content in the High Republic (VERY heavy content – the Nihil should really have their own content warning), it has many moments of levity that keep it from taking itself too seriously. For example, the High Republic made Jedi bodice rippers canon. Also, characters like Geode exist (yes, that rock there is a CHARACTER). The result is something which honors the spirit of Star Wars, and keeps you engaged without being tedious or ridiculously depressing.

THE WRITING TEAM HAS DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES

The main writing team consists of five people: Justina Ireland, Claudia Gray, Charles Soule, Daniel José Older, and Cavan Scott. You will note that includes two people of color, two women, and one out Queer person (in fact, one of the writers is all three of those things). This is a far cry from the white-cis-straight-man-dominated writing teams we have seen in the past. And when they bring in other people to the project, they make a point of looking for perspectives that aren’t represented on their team – for example, the manga is being co-written between Justina Ireland and Japanese writer Shima Shinya, and Ireland has stated in interviews that Shinya is taking the lead on the writing.

IT VALUES MEANINGFUL REPRESENTATION

That diverse writing team means a cast that looks WAY more like the real world than any other era of Star Wars we’ve seen, in terms of representation. There are multiple characters of color, who are both heroes and central to the story. There are at least five canonical queer characters to date (a MLM couple, an Ace character, and two NB character). [EDIT: Thank you @legok9 for letting me know about the NB characters]. Among binary gendered characters, there is a very even balance of men and women. The writing team has also stated that they will be incorporating more representation of disability in the works to come. And the story is so much better for it – representation is included here BECAUSE it makes for more creative, believable, and original storytelling.

IT IS ACCESSIBLE

Because of the multiple formats, and the fact that it doesn’t rely on you knowing any prior lore, the High Republic offers many avenues to engage for people with all kinds of needs. Know nothing about Star Wars canon and feel intimidated about catching up? The canon is all new in this era anyway, so you’re fine. Can’t handle flashing lights? No problem – the little bit of video content that exists is totally free from the strobing effects that caused seizure and sensory issues. Need purely audio content? You can still have a full experience of the High Republic with the gorgeously sound-scaped audiobooks. Don’t have the attention span for books or long movies? Then the comics are your friend.

THERE IS SOMETHING FOR ALL

Between the books aimed towards adults and teens (and their respective audiobooks), the kids books, the comics, the manga, the short stories, AND the eventual TV show on Disney+, there is going to be content in the High Republic that suits most audiences. And that is just what has been announced so far – there is still more to come for phases II and III. This isn’t Star Wars written towards one group or demographic – it is Star Wars for everyone.

DID I MENTION THE FANCY JEDI UNIFORMS?

Because cosplayers and fanartists? This is the era for you. We are getting Jedi in silks with elaborate gold embroidery. Jedi with jewelry other decorative elements. Even the practical field uniforms have tooled and embossed leather. If you want to draw or make Jedi that have some of that that sweet LoTR-esque high fantasy aesthetic, the High Republic has your back. (Not going to lie – I am ALREADY imagining the time travel AUs. Put Obi-Wan in fancy clothes!)

OKAY, YOU’VE SOLD ME. WHERE SHOULD I START?

I strongly recommend everyone looking to get into the High Republic (who is old enough to be on Tumblr) start with Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule. I alternated between the physical book and the audio book, and found it delightful in both formats. After that, you have a lot of options. You can read or listen to the audio book of the YA novel A Test of Courage by Justina Ireland. You can check out the currently running Star Wars: The High Republic comic from Marvel, or the Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures comic from IDW. Or you can skip straight to Into the Dark by Claudia Gray. Honestly, there is no wrong order to try out most of the High Republic.

IN CONLUSION

The High Republic is Star Wars written for people who DON’T want Star Wars to be a good ‘ol boys club for salty white dudes who don’t want to see anything but more of Luke Skywalker. It offers broad representation, and optimistic narrative, and whole bunch of awesome Jedi content. If you are someone who fell in love with Jedi in the prequel era, the High Republic will give you more of what you loved. And if you are totally new to Star Wars? The High Republic is here for you too.

So, go check it. And then go write fic for it (please, there are only, like, 14 fics on AO3, I am dying).

#star wars #the high republic #jedi #long post #recs #book recs #representation #seriously I cannot recommend this highly enough #everything about the high republic is so very tailored to what I love about star wars in general and Jedi specifically #also...sorry I had been absent here #I swear I still love you all #I just have limited interaction spoons these days and spend most of them on costuming stuff

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