#but this is not a shipping post

[padmenaberriens]

about the queen's trilogy #1

i read the queen's trilogy (queen's shadow, queen's peril and queen's hope) a few months ago and i have some opinions that i've already shared with some friends who agreed with what i have to say! i remind everyone that it is exclusively MY opinion, from someone who has padmé as her favorite character and who felt very frustrated reading this trilogy.

i will never take away from ek johnston's fantastic writing, it's really very good (especially in the epilogues, in the book the writing is more common but it's still easy to read and that's a good thing), but my problems are what she did with padmé and her 'development'. i feel like the book has interesting narratives, but never goes too deep into it. of course, there are things that shouldn't be covered, like in queen's peril when it's about qui-gon's burial and there's a quick passage about what he meant to padmé. really, it was a simple and direct take, it wouldn't need any further elaboration because it's something simple.

but there's one thing that's not simple: padmé's emotions. understand me, i'm not saying that the book didn't narrate this, it did, it just didn't narrate it well enough. i love tsabin's character, her reflections and life philosophies are very interesting. it's just that the premise of the book is about queen amidala, senator amidala, about padmé amidala naberrie. having thoughts, speeches and moments about tsabin is extremely necessary too, after all, she was the closest handmaid to padmé with probably the most mixed feelings about her work. but i feel that many moments where tsabin's emotions were worked on, padmé's were not and these moments about sabé could have been used to be about padmé (which is, technically, the main narrative of the books).

It's very interesting to have the narrative about the tsabin, but I feel that even that is not worked on completely or clearly. I feel like Sabé was a character that EK felt safer working with because she didn't have enough content, but I still have frustration about not having enough of Padmé's emotions as a HUMAN. The construction of the persona she created as a queen and as a senator is extremely important, this work was really good, but I feel that the excerpts and paragraphs that portrayed Padmé were not enough. She is such a complex character, but even in her own book they didn't pay enough attention to her! this is very annoying, especially when Padmé is an extremely underestimated character and when she has the chance to show all her anguish, fears, dreams and despair it is shown from just one side.

i like read the narratives of thoughts she has, like how sad she is to see her handmaids (especially sabé) leave, but… and the rest? there are THREE books about her, so i want three books that explore what she felt at each stage of her life! It's extremely important that they focused on the issue of the handmaids of naboo, i'm even in favor of a book entirely about them, but i really wish her personality and impulsiveness had been explored more. padmé is not a perfect character, she is full of flaws and that's why i love her. maybe if the book had focused more on certain points about her reasons for being who she was during star wars, some moments would have been understood and not taken as script flaws (like her taking care of anakin after the tusken massacre or her death in revenge for the sith). i feel that tsabin's emotions and personality were explored more than padmé's.

another thing that bothers me deeply is when people take handmaids relationships as something especially romantic. for me, the focus should be: girls can love, girls can have friends, girls SHOULD love others and it doesn't always have to be romantic. what Sabé feels for padmé is something that is extremely open to various interpretations, my interpretation is a bit extensive and is not limited to just romantic love (which i think is a shame, and in my opinion, hinders the development of tsabin as a character). it's something so much deeper, so beautiful and poetic, but it's not always necessarily romantic. when ALL the handmaids say “my hands are yours” it’s not about loving each other with the intention of marriage and all (well, we have saché and yané but im talking about they relationship with padmé!), it’s about dedicating yourself to each other. honestly, this whole culture of shipping and wanting to bring couples together ruins a lot of things and that is included in this book. i understand some people, obviously, interpret sabé's love as something romantic, but limit it exclusively to that? no, my goodness, never! tsabin is a character who, amazingly, lived being someone's shadow for years, but still when they insist on talking about padmé to tsabin they only attribute the romantic and 'cute' side of it all. this complaint is perhaps more for the fandom than the books themselves, but i think if the writing had been more specific about tsabin's insecurities or how she managed to love herself and evolve later, people would interpret it differently (when i said this i want to say: people would interpret it not ONLY as a romantic love).

i'm never saying that it's wrong to like character y with character x, no! i'm just saying that i find the view that love is just about romance limiting, and that it is extremely problematic to attribute women to a single type of love as if that were a woman's role. of course, not everyone who likes sabédala, for example, thinks too much about it, sometimes they just want wlw representation and that's okay (although almost no one talks about saché and yané… they are married and have children, but where are the people talking about them? anyway! they should be talked about more), but tbh i can't take this ship seriously due to the fact that padmé never loved her in any other way and this is mentioned in the books.

i love the anguish that surrounds padmé's relationships, a lot is said about the tragedy of anakin skywalker, but what about the tragedy that surrounds padmé amidala? the people she trusts most left at some point in her life, the only person she loved romantically was possessed by darkness, she didn't even have the chance to raise her own children! are you seeing? reflections like these could have been covered in depth in the book, padmé is an extremely deep character and little is said about her. anyway! these were my complaints, maybe i'll say more and if you want to discuss or ask me something i'll definitely be willing to talk. kisses, seen you'll soon with more star wars (maybe hot) takes!

[veg-hotwings]

Thinking about Spinner holding an inconscious (or barely awake, severely injured) Tomura in his arms and being overly protective over him, like his sword is drawn, his eyes enraged and he's growling at anyone around, threatening them not to come closer 🤍💚

[carefulzombie]

gf fandom in 2016: if you so much as hint - even jokingly! - about the nature of ford and bill’s relationship being anything other than platonic (and even then you NEED to give a disclaimer that bill is manipulating him!) then you support abusive relationships

gf fandom in 2024:

[ottosbigtop]

I think we as a society should bring back brotps. I think we should be weirder about characters being friends the same way people are weird about ships. Make those two characters who interacted once or twice besties. Make it difficult for them to get rid of each other even if they want to. Go nuts

[mangozic]

my dead goth son and his friendly neighborhood personified concept of insanity

[alexbutrandomthoughts]

"Can't two guys be just friends?" If they stop looking at each other like that then sure

[sangled]

shipping win! they have different but equally terrible coping mechanisms

[seenthisepisode]

no offence but the reason tumblr is “dying” is, well, yes, of course the cursed like/reblog ratio and the change in user behaviour (because of people being used to how instagram and tiktok work) BUT also the lack of weekly shows. i say it with my whole chest, they don't produce captivating and engaging stupid weekly tv shows anymore because streaming killed that so you have spikes of activity here when Something happens in general fandom or up to three days after a new season of whatever drops and then it's a wasteland. this is obviously an old woman yelling at a cloud missing supernatural and the vampire diaries and pretty little liars and all these other shows type of post but honestly give me back weekly tv shows where i have something to watch for 40 minutes almost every day of the week after work so then i can read and reblog it on tumblr give it back for the sake of my sanity

[just-prompt-things]

best trope and you can fight me over it (i abuse this so hard with my ocs)

[midydoof]

This was my request fill for the One Piece Fanwork Exchange back in April that I posted on AO3. The zosan prompt was "two pining idiots"

I've been debating for months whether to post it on tumblr since long vertical comics often don't look good in the thumbnails, still not sure I'm too happy with that bit.

[bitty-bytes]

"Your boyfriend is evil!" "Your boyfriend is cruel and horrifying!" Well, he's a joy to me. Maybe it's a you problem.

[proselles]

alex hirsch was really just so pissed that no one saw his epic old man yaoi that he went and wrote a whole new book and made a whole website specifically to show meticulous evidence that this weird old man fucked a triangle.

he really said what were ford and bill really doing in that pocket dimension they shared, hm? did you ever think of that? oh - you think it was just chess? hm. interesting. i dont.

the ultimate rare pair shipper. i have never seen a creator do this before. absolutely fascinating at every angle.

[havi-fart]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH YAAYYYY

to fight my artblock i decided to redraw some gerard p donelan comics as ds9. but once i started i could not stop....

so heres all deep space 9 of them. lol. again the poses and captions are lifted straight from his comics all i did was put space guys on there! please enjoy

(id in alt text btw!)

[lotus-pear]

SIGHHHH BSD REREAD…................I MISS THEM SO MUCH :(((

[valtsv]

[fox-mulder-gets-pegged]

I just wanna say bc I KNOW you're somewhere on tumblr, to the teenage girl who attended Take Your Kid To Work Day at an office building in Ontario, Canada circa 2013 and had a conversation with a middle aged woman in which you showed her your Black Veil Brides fanart and fanfics and ship content and told her about different fanfic tropes including a/b/o verse bc she happened to know who Panic! at The Disco and Fallout Boy were and thus you felt the need to show her your bandblr ship art, that was my fucking mother and I had to clarify all that to her including looking my mother in the eye and trying to explain a/b/o verse without sounding like a lunatic.

It's been 10 years and I still regularly sent evil energies in your direction. Since you'd be probably two years younger than me and thus legally an adult now, please know if this post reaches you it's on sight.