#but we stan a complicated girlboss

[wingsofhcpe]

Mar's BBC vs Book Canon Musketeers Assession: a Short Yet Comprehensive Guide

(read under the cut!)

bbc d'Artagnan: baby. has not done anything wrong in his life ever, actual angel, just very stupid.

vs

book d'Artagnan: has the power of god and anime on his side, most annoying little bitch you'll ever meet, broke, has a stupid horse, perpetually single.

*

bbc Athos: depressed older brother figure that's not-so-secretly very soft and loving of his found family and would die to protect them, also still horny for one Milady de Winter. Carries the communal garrison braincell.

vs

book Athos: drunk misogynist who yearns for death and whose only reason to live is his son Raoul. All his braincells have committed self-murder.

*

bbc Porthos: feisty ray of sunshine who has never had a single evil thought in that silly head of his, actually quite clever, complicated and emotional, deserves the world.

vs

book Porthos: vainest person you'll ever meet, doesn't know when to shut up, sugar baby who cares only about himself (and maybe Aramis), has not had a single intelligent thought in his entire existence.

*

bbc Aramis: cinnamon roll, golden retriever, actually quite clever, troublemaker who can't keep it in his pants, lovable self-sacrificial idiot who would get himself killed in a heartbeat to save his loved ones, brightest smile in all of Paris. Invented bisexuality.

vs

book Aramis: mean, edgy, probably secretly a vampire, would sell you to satan for one (1) corn chip, one bad day away from going on a murder spree. Also invented bisexuality.

*

bbc Treville: exasperated dad.

vs

book Treville: extremely exasperated dad.

*

bbc Cardinal: genius evil mastermind played by Peter Capaldi.

vs

book Cardinal: genius evil mastermind sadly not played by Peter Capaldi.

*

bbc Rochefort: worst person you'll ever fucking meet, arguably the only downgrade in the show.

vs

book Rochefort: sneaky lil bastard that's also the bestieTM, we stan.

*

bbc Constance: feminist icon, beautiful queen I'd kill and die for, gaslight gatekeep girlboss.

vs

book Constance: she's just there and then she dies ig.

*

bbc Milady: my cunning evil murderwife, would die for her, deserves the world.

vs

book Milady: actually I believe Athos should have strangled her with his own hands, fuck her.

*

bbc Bonacieux: evil greasy little man, fuck him.

vs

book Bonacieux: he's just... kinda... there I guess? Idk man Dumas looked at the Bonacieuxs and went "nah".

*

bbc Louis: annoying little shit but he's kinda cute and nice sometimes

vs

book Louis: manchild, just There ig.

*

bbc Anne: radiant angel who has done nothing wrong in her life ever and she's also perfection itself.

vs

book Anne: literal drama queen.

*

BONUS ROUND- GRIMAUD

bbc Grimaud: hot evil emo dude, idk what his problem was tho

vs

book Grimaud: actually he just doesn't get paid enough for this shit so if he wanted to murder Athos like in the show I'd understand that lmao

[wetcatspellcaster]

an academic conference presentation 👀👀 fellow lolth apologist 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

hahahahahahaha! we stan one girlboss (I'm also a massive fan of her hot malewife, Keptolo. Who is literally God of Men You Call Babygirl. I know this to be true.)

I did a series of conference presentations about Lolth, based on my thesis chapter that's about drow and their representation/renegotiation in D&D actual play more specifically (there's this wider question of 'no longer evil - good! but because hot? - more complicated!' that seems to be happening. I'm not saying Essek Thelyss, but I am). In the first half of the chapter, I argue that drow are essentially the monsters in which you can see the gendered and racial biases of D&D most clearly, bc it's both like 'eww non-white people and eww women in power' while also being like "👀👀 but women in power with whips though". It's some classic Orientalism, lads!

Because of this, Lolth is so hot and interesting! I personally think she's Gygax's interpretation of Lilith in Hebrew/Biblical mythology, as a woman who betrayed the elves' Best Boi and then became the mistress and progenitor of a realm of monsters as a result. I feel like her monstrosity is very determined by viewing her exclusively through this conservative, Christian, white-male gaze. Like yes, I know D&D tells you she's super evil, but those 'universal assumptions' only work when you ignore the obvious biases of who wrote them into the imaginary world.

Anyway, my thesis can be summarised as: 'RIP straight men, but I think a court intrigue schemer who fell from grace is hot, actually. I'm built different.' - Quite literally, in some cases, because I think once you detach drow matriarchy from Gygax's and co's fearful yet sexy fetishisation, you can take it in many interesting directions.

If I ever play in a non-homebrewed D&D campaign, I will be playing a cleric of Keptolo, who essentially follows her god's footsteps and stans any hot women who can step on them.

[ooops-i-arted]

I am so tired of Ahsoka!

She wasn't needed and now she is literally everywhere. I go on on any social media and serach for Prequel Trilogy stuff and I can't go 1 minute without seeing something about her, when she wasn't even in the films. I honestly am so mad that I wasn't part of the fandom before Ahsoka was created because she kinda becomes "the most important person for Anakin (fuck you Obi-Wan and Padme)".

It's a bit sad since she could have been a cool character. Just make her master someone else and don't make her the most special and powerful Jedi. And if they wanted to make her a padawan of a "special" master than maybe introduce a new Jedi who idk maybe left the Jedi Order long ago and now they return because of the Clone Wars. This would mean that: a) Ahsoka still has a "special" master b) because she is trained by a master who only recently returned to the order she has training different than any other padawan c)due to her master she has controversial opinions on some Jedi customs. This could be a good point of conflict for her character (do I listen to my master or the Order) and also doesn't make unnecessary changes in the story of film characters (Anakin, Padme, Obi-Wan and others).

Honestly, I think that when you do a serial for a beloved film you should ensure that the characters you fit with what the films tell us. The Jedi Council didn't want to make Anakin a master, so why would they give him a padawan. As ignorant as they could sometimes be, I think that connecting "Anakin is not mature enough to be master" with "Anakin is not mature enough to have a padawan". It's really something I think they would notice.

I 👏 HAVE 👏 BEEN 👏 SAYING 👏 THIS 👏 FOR 👏 YEARS 👏

She is COMPLETELY unnecessary to Anakin's story and always was. Every story beat she supposedly fulfills is already fulfilled by another character. I kinda wonder if it was an attempt at whitewashing Anakin's character (Lucas was involved in TCW and apparently wanting Anakin to be more appealing from what I heard, and this was back when the prequels and Hayden were NOT as loved as they were now because my generation wasn't as huge a fandom voice as the old OT-loving guard) and making him more appealing but no. Anakin is a human garbage can and that's what makes him such a compelling and interesting character!!!

I honestly would probably be a huge Ahsoka stan if TCW was envisioned as its own thing and focused on her as a character on her own instead of making her Anakin's Most Specialest Beloved Padawan Who Is Best At Everything (She Can Even Fight Grievous omg!!!). Back then we were so starved for female characters, we had Leia and some Padme mainstream but that was it (you only knew about Mara Jade in Legends and she wasn't in the mainstream merch or anything from what I recall), and much as I love a good dies-of-sadness joke, Padme is often simplified to that and shoved aside even though she's a really cool and complicated character in her own right. I will give Ahsoka credit for blazing the way for female characters to be more included in Star Wars, but it falls flat when she's just propped up as Coolest Wisest Bestest Jedi-but-not-a-Jedi-actually-she's-better-than-the-Order Girlboss. Now we're back to Only One Female Character Above All Others. (Rey and Rose were ruined with bad writing, Hera and Sabine are wonderful but definitely not mainstream (and probably being butchered in the show), Gina Carano ruined our chances of any more Cara content, Peli was just a cameo last season, and Bo-Karen also got the Always Right Beloved TCW Girlboss Treatment.)

Imo the Council was pretty much always on the money with Anakin (at least with what they knew of him - they didn't know of the Tusken murder spree for example) and there's no way Anakin was ever ready for a Padawan or that anyone in their right mind would give him one. In MY episode III fanfiction when Favored Main Character Got A Padawan, Obi-Wan got the Padawan because he had more experience teaching, even at 12 I knew Anakin had no business teaching anyone. Also, it was NEVER previously canon that Padawans were assigned. Masters chose them as in the Jedi Apprentice series. I will NEVER let that go. Ahsoka being assigned to Anakin was so contrived.

[crash476]

Conspiracies and the Problem of Peggy Carter

I bounced really hard off the Captain Carter version of Peggy Carter. For me, it felt like the triumph of her style over any quality she had as a character. I’ve spoken about this before, but I think giving Peggy dementia robbed her of her voice, unable to speak to her past, and thus providing a blank canvas for the writer and audience to use with as they will.

My biggest critique of Peggy’s fans have been this sense that they love her aesthetic and the platitudes over the substance of the character. She became 2010s girlboss. The Agent Carter series did provide the potential to further explore her as a character. It could give her a past pre-dating Steve, show the history of SHIELD, show her as a leader, and delve into the moral complexities of the MCU intelligence side. But that never happened. The show was canceled after two seasons and all we had left was a very marketable aesthetic.

We have some vague notions of what she did during her time as director of SHIELD, but nothing substantial. Then Endgame happened, Chris Evans left for other projects, and the Russos, Markus and McFeely seemed to have scrambled for a way to write out Steve. Steve’s exit seemed like an afterthought at best. As a consequence, whatever lore Peggy had in the main MCU timeline got completely thrown out. This is because Steve Rogers is a heroic paragon and his designated love interest must be above reproach. She is little more than a sexy lamp and when Captain Carter got attention in the What If... series, well she’s even more marketable now! 

The thing that gets me about Peggy’s haters is the level of reaching done to justify their dislike. I’ll get to some of my critiques on how Disney/Marvel Studios handle the espionage side of the MCU (not well). But stay with me here. I need to do some comic book history. 

The MCU Peggy Carter is an amalgamation of a number of love interests Steve’s had over his publication run. Earth-616 Peggy is a retcon love interest. She was introduced in 1966 after Steve’s book was essentially rebooted. Captain America was popular during WWII, but the initial post-war years weren’t kind to superhero comics. Atlas Comics (who later rebranded as Marvel Comics in 1961) tried to rebrand Steve from a Nazi puncher to a Commie smasher that went over like a lead balloon. His book was canceled in 1954 and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby revived Steve in 1964. They came up with the “on ice” backstory we saw in the TFA. The 50s Cap was explained as having been a succession of other characters acting as Steve, such as Jeffrey Mace (Patriot), William Naslund (Spirit of ‘76), and most infamously by William Burnside. 

Anyway, during the 50s, Bucky got shot and was replaced by Steve’s then girlfriend, Betsy Ross (then known as Betty and later goes by the code names Agent 13 and Golden Girl). She is THE original love interest and first appeared in Captain America Comics #1, published in December 1940, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. She basically did everything in the 40s comics that Peggy in the 60s (and the MCU by extension) was said to have done. The reason you’ve never heard of her is because of Betty Ross Banner - The Hulk’s main love interest. 40s Betsy got retconned into a relationship with Jeffrey Mace (one of the guys who was a retconned 50s Cap) and now lives in a retirement home.

Sharon and Peggy Carter get introduced in 1966. Sharon’s got a complicated story that we don’t have time to unpack so I’ll just say, Sharon is messy and that’s good. I think it’s good that she’s the Power Broker. Steve later dated glass-blower turned lawyer Bernie Rosenthal, who was introduced in 1980. He’s had an on/off relationship with former villainess Rachel Leighton, aka Diamondback (who was introduced in 1985). And there were romances with fellow super heroines like The Black Widow, Wasp, Rogue, and The Scarlet Witch.

Now we move onto the conspiracy theory Peggy Carter haters adore: Cynthia Glass. 

Cynthia “Cindy” Glass was created in 1991 by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguir for The Adventures of Captain America #1 - #4. She had four total appearances before she was killed. There was apparently a guid book for the MCU where she was mentioned as an inspiration for MCU Peggy, but I’d like to see those receipts before I make a call on the veracity of the claim. But I can see why the Peggy haters claim her as the true inspiration of MCU Peggy. Cynthia kind of looks like Hayley Atwell (if you squint) and is revealed to be a Nazi double agent who gets shot. 

Look, if you don’t like a character (and maybe their actor, too), it’s fine. Just don’t fuck with them and move on, don’t make up shit about a character being a secret Nazi when there’s no actual proof. And don’t say that Cynthia Glass was Cap’s first love when she was a clear retcon that completely contradicts previously established canon regarding Betsy Ross and Peggy Carter. Especially when anyone can look up the publication history. At most MCU Peggy kind of looks like Cynthia and met Steve just before he got the serum. The decision to keep Atwell’s brown hair could easily have come down to “she looks better as a brunette.” Film production decisions are often not that deep. 

Peggy Carter was probably the most convenient love interest to adapt for TFA. She doesn’t have Betsy’s name problem. Sharon needs to be established as being Peggy’s niece to explain why they look so similar. You need to justify a face-turn for Rachel. And the only people who know about Cynthia Glass are those who read the original limited run she was in during the early 90s as it looks like it wasn’t collected into a trade paperback until 2018. Again, film production devisions are not often not that deep.

So now we get to my critiques of how Disney/Marvel Studios have handled Peggy and just the spy genre in general. Spy fiction can vary wildly in terms of tone and just how heroic the protagonist is, but generally the genre leans towards a cynical world view. This is fueled by the author’s own politics, and by their own experiences if they worked in intelligence themselves (ie: John le Carré and Graham Greene). The genre also borrows heavily from hardboiled detectives (think the works of Raymond Chandler) and film noir. In any case, the protagonist is, at best, an anti-hero and sometimes a terrible one. The nature of intelligence work requires moral compromises, both in and out of fiction. If you actually look into how that world operates, it’s honestly more like organized crime backed by a nation’s treasury and given the fig leaf of respectability because you’re “fighting for a cause.” 

This runs headlong into the MCU retcons when it comes to Peggy. By making SHIELD older than originally implied and putting Peggy in charge during the early days, she now has a fuck ton of skeletons in her closet. The problem is that Disney will never produce anything that is critical of the US government or could be as cynical as the spy genre demands. Yes, there was Agents of SHIELD, but that show (and I say this with love) has more in common with NCIS than The Sandbaggers or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Disney is too scared of biting the hand that feeds. They’re scared of getting cut off from Pentagon money. This is Disney’s lone fear, and it shows how toothless The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was. They just come up to the edge of valid critic, actually showing how the empire works.

Bringing this back to the problem Peggy, because the Russos, Markus and McFeely needed her to be morally pure so she could be Steve’s perfect love interest. She can’t have a past, red on her ledger, or anything that puts her into a compromised position. It’s probably why Steve goes back to 1949 and gets with Peggy before SHIELD really starts. That way, Peggy hasn’t done anything wrong. The audience is asked to forget about Zola and the HYDRA infiltration (though it’s never explained what she knew when). The Bucky situation is a bit different, and the Cynthia Glass conspiracy requires you to forget that in universe the Winter Soldier is treated as an urban legend within the intelligence community. Natasha brings up in TWS that no one can agree if he’s real. Given the few crumbs we have on Peggy’s tenure as director of SHIELD, the most I’m willing to say is that she might have know that the Winter Soldier was real. But with hindsight, I think the HYDRA infiltration was pulled off badly. 

Like if I had my way, the Peggy Steve meets after he’s unfrozen would be played by an older actress like Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, or the late Diana Rigg. That way she can speak for herself in the present. If I had my way, Agent Carter would have lasted longer and Peggy would have become something along the lines of DC’s Amanda Waller mixed with Dench’s M with a dash of George Smiley’s moral grounding. We could get a more accurate understanding of Peggy and SHIELD and even if you still don’t like her, she’s still a character with actual depth. And maybe Captain Carter would just be a fun “what if...” and not a free mulligan. 

Cause it really feels like Disney wants to wipe the slate clean and rewrite Peggy as a morally uncomplicated heroine who can be Steve’s un-problematic girlfriend.

[thelovelybitten]

HII so TY SO SO much for rebloggin my stendy (kinda??) FIC!! :DDD im super glad u enjoyed it and i loved readin all the lil hashtag thingies ??!!! i would've responded to the reblog but im still not too sure how tumblr works,, or how to dm folks. BUT JUST TY SO MUCH! it means the world to me <33

of course !!! I loved it so so much :’) (dw abt Tumblr, at first it’s a doozy but you’ll get the hang of it !!) (I also write everything and anything in my tags, so thank u haha)

I know ur fic was more Wendy-centric for her development and character, (which, thank you—we love girlboss Wendy, I love her so) but the stendy got me really hooked just because of the way you wrote them ! I like being able to see their flaws as a couple—without wendy being perceived as a total bitch (like some anti’s in the fandom paint her out to be) and Stan being honest with his feelings instead of completely neglecting/ghosting her like he does. In the fic, Wendy does prioritize her life so she can build a life with Stan, but she doesn’t realize she’s hurting him in the process. It’s how the two of them should be written. They do have toxic traits in the show that are very questionable ( their jealousy, for starters… stan’s dependency on her, wendy’s insecurity with everything stan does that’s not controllable…) but it’s times like in this writing where they do grow a bit and finally accept they don’t work out. It’s extremely hard on them because they’ve been so co-dependent that they can’t see life without the other.

on that same coin however, people need to understand that they can work together but they have such big contrasts and complications that they have to work on for the relationship they want.

sometimes they just. need to be on their own to figure that out. and that’s why this story ended up being so good because Wendy found her worth and now knows what and who she is without him.

they need to take care—find themselves before they can have someone else.

Wendy needed this. She’s such an activist in the show and in this story…Stan at the time just wasn’t helping like she thought he was. And he knew. He needed to let go.

Wendy is her own self at the end. It’s so nice to see. We love character development and to see her find confidence in who Wendy Testaburger is and will continue to be.

it was really refreshing, really. thank u <3 thank u for giving wendy depth bc that’s my baby girl and I love her forever

FOR MY FOLLOWERS READ THIS FIC IMMEDIATELY >:(

(P.S. I’m also just a stendy lovebot, I’ll take my crumbs even if not intentional, lol) (they get back together in my mind but that what stories are for—different interpretations).

:)

[sokkastyles]

On some level, I can understand where Azula stans are coming from, and I mainly blame the recent shows and movies that have been released. For a long time villains have just been evil with no remorse as presented in media, but recently we have seen movies that are like "hey actually this guy isn't that bad and they are a prodict of their surroundings and its not their fault they are evil" like the movie malefecent or alice into the looking glass. Not to mention, redemption arcs are super popular like Loki, kylo Ren, catra, and the diamonds from Steven Universe. I specifically named these character because i feel like they have done so much bad that it will take a lot more than just a sorry and a tragic backstory to make up for all the bad they did. Maybe Loki is okay, but he did some really terrible things, and i am on the fence about him. Not to mention the joker sympathy that has been rampant for a while because of the movie blaming society, and that is someone completely irredeemable except for the Harley Quinn show, apparently, but that is a comedy.

What im trying to say though is that there doesnt seem to be just straight up villains now and consatnt blaming of outside forces for a the bad villains do saying it's not there fault because they only blew up a children's hospital because they were hurting, not to mention medias constant depiction of toxic relationships and friendships that keep getting talked about like they are completely normal. I know some Azula stans are just kike that but some i fell are misinformed and seem to surround themselves with so many like minded individuals that they truly believe what they think is true and are hard pressed to change their opinion. (Also, pretty privilege exists)

Well, redemption arcs and villains with complex stories are hardly new. I haven't seen the most recent MCU stuff but has Loki been redeemed? In the comics, and in Norse mythology, he has always been something of an antihero, a character who would be good or bad depending on the occasion. I grew up on comic books and those kinds of characters frequently occur there. Magneto is another example of a character who would sometimes side with the good guys but also inevitably go back to being a villain. They're complicated characters with sympathetic pasts, but their pasts don't excuse their actions. And there's an important distinction there that I think is lost on a lot of people. Another example that comes to mind is Billy from Stranger Things, who I often see idolized on tumblr as if he had become a hero by the end of the story, or should have, just because he had a sad background and then sacrificed himself for the heroes. His death, and life, were tragic, and we understand by the end why he was the way he was, but he was still an awful, unpleasant person, and the show never suggests that we should see him as good now, nor should it.

A lot of the examples you mention with female villains I blame on the rise of liberal "girlboss" feminism. That goes with what you say about pretty privilege. Pop culture "feminism" wants to convince you that being pretty is empowering, the weaponized femininity thing, eyeliner so sharp you can kill a man, etc. When in reality, we're still catering to patriarchal ideas of desirability. And what's especially insidious about this kind of feminism is that it's often other women or other marginalized groups who are the targets of it. Pop culture puts this stuff out to pander to women by presenting a "feminist" ideal that is still non-threatening to the status quo. The idea that Azula or Harley Quinn, who in her first appearance in BTAS was a character who became a villain due to being manipulated and abused by a man, are empowering female characters is bananas. That's not to say they are bad female characters, and Harley is another comic book character who has always been likeable for her propensity to gleefully straddle the line between hero and villain, but I despise the girlbossification of these kinds of characters the same way I despise people making them into poor widdle innocent victims.

The heroization of the joker comes from red pill weirdos primarily, and those have also existed for a long time. See Fight Club for another example, but anyone with a brain knows that Tyler Durden is the bad guy, and that the stuff he's spewing about being woke and masculine is all just nonsense in the end. So I don't necessarily buy that it's all media's fault that people don't understand the point of these characters.

And there are absolutely still just "straight up villains." The obvious answer just by looking at ATLA is Ozai, but even then, the show still does a lot to tell us why he is the way he is, and implies he was once a victim of his family not unlike Zuko or Azula. People often ignore that, especially Azula stans who make such a distinction between Ozai and Azula in order to prove that Azula deserves redemption. I'm not saying that Azula and Ozai are the same in terms of how much sympathy the narrative gives them, by the way, just that I think it's odd that one is seen as so much more redeemable than the other, when their backstories are so similar. Ozai often gets labeled as one dimensional not because he is less complex than Azula, but because people don't want to see him redeemed and are uncomfortable with the idea, so they want to see him as less complex and more villainous. Which to me misses the point of the fire family dynamic and how the cycle of violence was perpetuated in that family.

[eclipsecrowned]

Mina discourse is if she’s a girlboss or evil witch no in between methinks -Stella // @versin-surfin

Either her trauma/the fact she targets rich men makes the serial murder and abuse of her own power Morally Correct Actually, or God Forbid Women Have Flaws/Not Be Saints. One camp thinks she gets a free pass. One camp thinks she's just a flatly written villain. Neither is correct.

What we have in actuality. is a jumble of trauma, genuine good intentions, lack of oversight, and getting drunk on power. She's complex and complicated and does a lot of good as much as she does bad. However, knowing comic fandom, that would be lost on a lot of both stans and antis for her, were she canon.

The real Mina is somewhere between the poles. Maybe her stopping criminals dead -- literally -- is in service to a greater aim, but the fact she does it extrajudicially and while abusing her power over vulnerable patients makes moot any claim she has to righteousness. Maybe she is a self-righteous bitch, but she's also bankrolling a lot of good in the city, and looking out for those that get left behind in the scramble.

But that's all way to complex for a fandom to understand and also I lay it out plainly where a canon Mina would probably be dealing with a minimum of 40-30 years of published content by myriad writers with differing opinions and aims when putting her to paper.

[antiloreolympus]

11 Anti LO Asks

1. I feel like when RS was drafting this story she wanted Hades and Persephone to be on a united front with dealing with their issues and conflicts instead of having conflicts with one another to get over to make them look “perfect”. However the flaw with that, is when the outside characters (Minthe, Hera, Hecate, Thanatos, etc) criticize their relationship were not proven they’re wrong. Thanatos said it was nepotism and it was. Not only is hades covering for Persephone who isn’t even working as an intern just sitting cozy in his office while she’s wanted for the police, but staying at his place also. Shady much? Minthe knew something was up with Persephone and she was more than right, not only does she train Persephone the day after Persephone kisses her ex she learns that Persephone commuted a genocide. Hecate and Hera are worries for Persephone for her reputation and being young and naive. Persephone is young and naive and can’t make friends at school because hades took some kids eye out. Over and over RS proves these characters right and not make me root for the main couple because they’re just bad and for each other. And remember when Tori and the yellow girl student (from persephones class) mentioned Persephone is sleeping her way to the top? She’s just smooching her way to the top guys it’s fine. Persephone should receive punishment for killing a bunch of people, turning a nymph into a plant with more than just community service and hades should stay the hell away from Persephone. I hate how RS used “the immortal dating pool is small” excuse but that doesn’t mean a 19 year old should fix a 2000 year old man’s issues 

2. wish persephone would just be evil. shes not a girlboss if she was girlboss whys she always like "im sowwy 🥺" and "i wish i wasnt a bad girl 😭🥺" like no. just be evil. and not in the "hi im a murderer 😁" way in the "i am a fully fleshed out character that has complicated actions and can stand on my own 😐" way.

3. just off how many LO episodes there are now, and if they roughly follow the same 25 episode count for each volume, then you'd have to buy well over SEVEN books just off the current count of 180+ eps. Seeing as it's going past 200 eps, then that's even more. now let's say you get the hardcovers, so thats over 300 dollars for all the current eps you cant easily read for free instead. more so, the art and writing gets worse the longer it goes on, so what incentive is there to buy these anyway?

4. does ... does rachel know the whole point to helios in the hxp myth was that hes the most unbiased source and will always be honest? along with him and apollo they legit cant lie. why would she purposely make him a liar? to be another stupid fake antagonist to hxp? he was one of the few people in myth who supported them?

5. what i find so annoying about lo stans is they act like critique of LO is somehow against some poor underdog and we should stop picking on her (which isnt what critique is). Rachel is NOT some nobody getting unwarranted hate for her indie project. she has millions of readers, she's a published writer, she has merch, even (minor) awards, and much more. stop acting like she's some helpless nobody who needs protection. she's a professional in the industry, not a child in of a white knight.

6. im probably wrong here but i heard someone say hebe in lo is permanently stuck as a child? tell me thats not true :(

From OP: I haven’t seen any confirmation that Hebe will stay as a child.

7. i get why rachel doesnt do it because she herself cantt depict realistic couples well, but s2 hxp is so boring??? like its a romance, the conflict should be in the romance, and while the couple wasn't the source for it in s1, you get why they weren't an item because of other factors. but s2, now that theyre together, theyre just too functional, you know what i mean? they have nothing in conflict, including minthe being turned into a plant! like how did they get stale once they became a couple?

8. i just cant take any plot, relationship, or character "development" in LO seriously (esp if its the characters not being ~perfect~ and actually being realistically written) because i just know it'll be retconned in a week or two, because rachel lacks a backbone to stick to any writing choice and her fans have no sense of reading comprehension, so theyll complain and she'll bend over to appease them. the writing in lo was always weak, but its only gotten worse the more "fan input" she takes in.

9. the wild part to me is literally the majority of the issues in lo are just stuff rachel didnt need to add. she didnt need to make persephone 19. she didnt need to add in sexual assault, she didnt need to make hades a slave owner. she didnt need to add in the aow. she didnt need to add 30+ plots she cant keep track of. she didnt need to make hera a cheater. she didnt need to have apollo, leto, thetis, etc there, and it goes on. like she questions who made her write this? look in the mirror!

-----FP Spoilers/Mention-----

10. FP mention

It really annoys me that it looks like Persephone's only concern about her SA is "Will Hades still love me even if I'm damaged? 🥺🥺”

I know that we saw her being disstressed about being pregnant because of her SA and that she said that she doesn't feel comfortable being around him but all that is just mentioned when she's around Apollo or he's mentioned somehow, we never see her feeling bad about her body as she says, nor we see her having bad days she's always happy and almost sexually available for Hades and it's never brought up unless it's for ✨the drama✨ or making Hades look like a "perfect man" for respecting her boundaries (that's just the bare minimun jfc) or just to make Hades and Persephone closer

Like jfc she was talking about her trauma and how she feels about Apollo and suddenly there's a joke about Hades wanting to kill him and then Helios appears and there's unfunny jokes about it?? Same vibe as Persephone talking about her nymphs friends death in the same episode where there's a fart joke and that "oops a maybe-underage-Perse is naked!!! So funny" scene

11. fp// no offense but rachel seriously going with leto is the cause of apollo's sexual assaulting ways was legit such a stupid and cruel idea that i thought "no, surely rachel wouldnt stoop that low to try and get out of her bad writing choices" and yet??? someone pray for her editor, they need it.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Hello! I loved your writings about the french revolution and how its inappropriate to idealize it as a socialist uprising that ended inequality, and how Marie Antoinette has been unjustly vilified. That’s why I really want you to watch this video: https://popular-c-c.tumblr.com/post/182180796160/i-uhhhh-got-a-little-heated-about-sofia-coppolas and tell me your opinion on it. The video is mostly about the depiction of Marie Antoinette in Coppola’s movie, which the reviewer hates. It more or less says that Marie deserves no sympathy for living an opulent lifestyle at the cost of poor peasants. Both the reviewer and many in the notes heap a lot of vitriol towards Marie, saying she was callous, selfish and uncaring. I would want to hear your opinion on it. 

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

Oh boy.

So, first of all, I’m not a Marie Antoinette stan. I try not to be an anybody stan, in terms of history, especially not monarchs. Humans are complicated, and humans who make decisions from the perspective of an absolute hereditary ruler are DEFINITELY going to do things a citizen of a 21st-century republic finds appalling.

But I do think there’s a lot of misunderstanding happening in this video.

Misunderstanding on the part of the reviewer, who thinks the point of the Coppola movie is to make MA out to be a flawless #girlboss- which I never got from it at all. Misunderstanding on the part of some of the media outlets the reviewer cites- I don’t think I’ve cringed so hard in weeks as I did at seeing “Marie Antoinette was super-feminist!!!!” headlines. Just a lot of missing the point all around

I found the movie to be, overall, a pretty balanced take. yes, it’s from her perspective, but the viewer already KNOWS the French people are starving. it’s the understood undercurrent beneath all the balls and shopping sprees, the construction of the Hameau de la Reine and the wacky all-night parties. I found myself equally dazzled by all the glitz and gritting my teeth over it. you know where it’s coming from, and you know where the story is going. I don’t think Coppola intended it to be an uncomplicated Yas Queen portrayal

MA denies ever having said “let them eat cake” as she’s being fussed over by multiple servants. the message I got there was definitely “it’s not as bad as the press made out, but...um....”

I also think it DOES matter whether she said it. or, more specifically, the real historical truth of her words and actions. not because I want her to be held up as a feminist icon or excused for everything. but because she has become a cultural symbol of selfish opulence, and her husband hasn’t

how many times has M*lania Tr*mp been called “Marie Antoinette?” I can’t even count. her husband has been compared to MA, too. but not once have I ever heard “oh, that’s so Louis XVI of them!” not once has a quote attributed to him become pop culture shorthand for spoiled, out-of-touch rich people. he hurt his people just as much as she did, if not more. and yet, he’s not the one we use in our critiques and caricatures

he did every bit as much to bankrupt the country by getting involved in the American Revolution as she did with her “retail therapy.” and I think it says a lot about misogyny in pop history that she’s the one we pin all the blame on

(now, I do want to be clear re: my previous posts- I’m not a FrRev scholar. and obviously, yes, the people had legitimate grievances against the monarchy and things urgently needed to change. what I’ve said in the past- and what I still think -is that idolizing the French Revolution is a mistake, because it really didn’t end well for anybody)

(also they had an emperor again less than a decade after things quieted down)

(it’s just not a great model for a revolution, no matter how you look at it)

[ouyangzizhensdad]

i've debated with myself so much about madam yu and saw you rt that post defending her and i read it but it still didn't sit right with me, i'm not chinese but i am from one of those taugh love mom cultures and still find her extra bad, i asked a few chinese people who don't stan the book and they were horrified at the defense and said that it was not normal, sure she shows regular ch mom characteristics but she's like the hyperbole of a ch mom so does anyone own the monopoly of wha's normal?

Hi there anon, 

This is only my pov and I cannot speak from the perspectives of Chinese and Chinese diasporic people, nor for the people who wrote on the topic of Yu-furen (I can only speak of how I interpreted the posts I came across).

My understanding of the situation, however, is that they are not attempting to do with these posts what you are suggesting. You ask “does anyone own the monopoly of what’s normal”, which suggests you believe the posts meant to give a definitive answer on what is ‘normal’ behaviour, when in reality the posts seem to have been made with the opposite aim in mind: to remind people who do not share the cultural background of the intended audience of MDZS that there does not exist a single definition of what constitute “normal” behaviour and that fandom discussions dissecting every single action or word of Yu-furen’s toward any character to portray them as “clear signs of abuse” has been difficult to stomach and might even feel imperialistic for people who have been raised by parents who came from a cultural background where some of these very behaviours are not regarded as abusive.  

These posts, in general, have also seemed to attempt first to explain the nuances of Yu-furen’s relationship to WWX, which often gets wrongfully portrayed as her unequivocally being his adoptive mother or a legal guardian. She is not a mother figure to him and does not act toward him from that position. These have also aimed to remind people that the behaviours and care we feel are “owed” to “children” as a group are spatiotemporally specific, and influenced by a variety of factors--in this case, WWX being the child of a servant and a disciple of the sect. By reminding people that, in her position, in that specific spatiotemporal moment, Yu-furen would have been allowed to be much more extreme in her disciplining or could have simply refused to let WWX stay in Lotus Pier, what I feel these posters are doing is not telling Westerners that they personally think it would be appropriate behaviour towards a child, but rather highlighting that this means something wrt how Yu-furen is characterised in the context of the novel considering that the intended audience of the novel would be aware of that reality. Differently put, that it suggests a framing of Yu-furen as someone that does bark more than she bites even if she does bite. And aside from the irrelevant surface-level readings of Yu-furen as a sort of “girlboss” that seem to originate mostly from the CQL-verse in any case, I’ve never seen anyone suggest that she is irreproachable. All the serious analyses I’ve seen acknowledge that Yu-furen is meant to be a complicated figure or acknowledge that she abuses her authority in the sect by giving WWX punishments she does not bestow on other disciples. What they seem to disagree with is the ways western fans make sweeping generalisations and accusations without the relevant context, which comes off to them as insensitive and coming from a place of cultural ignorance.

Maybe it is time for a discussion that humanist thought, that which underlines so much of our modern understanding of rights and social progress, flattens spatiotemporal differences (or, as they often talked about, cultural differences), staying deeply rooted in Western supremacy when it aims to provide a single answer to what is right and what is a right. It can verge very easily into the evangelical and the imperialistic: we have only to look at the influence of the “global” LGBT movement has had on erasing  localised social organisations and identity markers by superposing themselves unto them as more intelligible ideas through which to barter for rights with the political class. Or worst, by having the “global” LGBT movement frame localised expressions of queerness as not progressive enough or harmful (sometimes I think back at Gaudio’s ethnography of queer men in the Hausa-speaking region of northern Nigeria, and how the men who took on the penetrative role in sex  generally switch to self-reference and being referenced in a feminine way and using “women’s talk”, and thinking “wow, they would be so cancelled or condescended to by tumblr kids 😬”). 

The point of this tangent is not to underline that everything about humanism or its influences on modern life are bad, but that it is an intellectual “tool” that can be do harm and be imperialistic and racist (since it is generally the White, Christian-adjacent, Western standards that are posited as the moral truth that defies differences in cultures and material contexts). And most of the discussions of what “adults” owe to “children” (ideas that are generally treated as homogeneous and clear-cut across time and space, as apriori categories), of what rights are owed to children, exist within these frameworks. Or, they might exist within the framework of “science,” as if science itself cannot be influenced by Western imperialism and researchers’ biases. Reading western language acquisition research and comparing it with cross-cultural ethnographic sociolinguistic research on language acquisition really highlights how some of the science that informs “good parenting” in the West is incapable of realising how much the material and cultural context of the West influences the results that are supposedly controlled. 

Or, again, the idea that science can help us define clearly and once and for all where the line between shitty actions and abuse, or discipline and abuse, should be drawn, is to me one that cannot be dissociated from a belief that science can provide us with definite truths about our existence as social animals as if these sort of truths were not inherently positioned and negotiated. It is an uncomfortable idea, isn’t it, to realise that two people can be against abuse but at the same time not draw the line at the same place? How do we best grapple with the discovery that “abuse” is not an apriori category but rather one that is constructed according to varying forms of positioned and shifting knowledge and experience? I do not have an answer, but I certainly think that fandom arguments will probably not be the best place for that level of philosophical discussions. 

To conclude, anon, I do want to acknowledge that your ask seems to come from a place of concern and perhaps even hurt. And that is perhaps why the posts from Chinese diasporic people in the fandom might appear to you as dismissive or flippant towards the interpretations of other fans of the novel. But perhaps without this prism of concern and/or hurt through which your perception of these analyses are filtered, you might have been able to notice a lot more nuance to their points than what your ask suggests. And that is not a criticism per se, but simply a reminder that, sometimes, some topics are difficult for us to approach clear-headed and to receive differing perspectives in good faith. In any case, I am certainly not the arbiter whose opinion on the topic will finally settle these debates, as such you might want in the future prefer to direct your questions (politely of course) to people who penned such analyses or who can speak from the relevant cultural perspective. If your aim in sending me this ask (because I reblogged a post you disagreed with) was to judge whether I passed your litmus test for being “morally just” to decide whether anything I have to say on any other topic is still worth paying attention to, well I suppose you now have your answer. 

[ispyspookymansion]

amanda for the character asks!!!

How I feel about this character

i looooove her she is so compelling to me she is so fucked up! shes a victim shes a killer shes a scared little girl she is vulnerable she is unstable she has the range! i think that shes just incredibly nuanced and her story, motivations, and actions are the most interesting to roll around in my brain. also shes hot

All the people I ship romantically with this character

im a lynnmanda stan thru and thru but as with anything in saw its less “romance” and more “lets see two people become tangled up and incredibly fucked up….together <3”

My non-romantic OTP for this character

very rockstar adam and amanda BESTIES. but also deeply fond of the lawrence and amanda relationship i have crafted in my mind they both need a family and he can be a sort of fatherish figure and lawrence wants to feel like hes helping ppl so it works out . they are buddies

My unpopular opinion about this character

calling amanda a lesbian is not unpopular HERE but i am doubling down on that. lawrence/amanda and hoffman/amanda shippers your days are numbered. also amanda IS a killer but she isnt just sadistic imo shes got a lot more going on like a philosophy of her own thats shaped by her trauma and experiences its complicated

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

i think killing amanda off in three was SIMPLY too soon why does hoffman get to be in 5 movies and she only gets 3 she is the original the blueprint shes my silly rabbit and she should have lived longer #misogyny #girlboss #lesbianismloses

but also i rlly wish we had gotten to see amanda interact more with other people like jill or lawrence or even hoffman just to give more insight into what she was like and how she differed from the rest of the people who knew and were a part of jigsaws games

send me a character!!

[seoafin]

i adore makima and while i do get rly uncomfortable when people try to be like “oh she’s not a groomer” due to my own past in being groomed, i don’t like how dazai or god forbid MORI arent held to the same standards. like yes makima is a groomer but she’s also a villain in a manga😭 it’s fine to hate her, people just need to be fair in comparison to male characters who exhibit the same characters but they won’t bc ✨misogyny✨ at the end of the day, she’s a rly well written character and a fictional one first and foremost. moralizing liking a villain is the dumbest thing the internet has ever come up with. anyways, stan our favorite evil girlboss !!!

valid!! i do think she did groom denji but it’s like...more complicated than that??? she's a literal demon first of all. like you said moralizing a villain is stupid as hell what are you going to do?? cancel them???? 😭

the amount of things you can get away with as a pretty male character is astounding!!! if that character was a girl she’d be crucified!!! i do think we need more evil female characters actually ❤️

[leximitchells]

Okay thoughts:

- so true of you to say Ben's stories always serve other characters! 🙏 the last time I genuinely think Ben's stories were about him was when he lost his hearing. the engagement/stas/wedding/jags has done absolutely nothing for his character bc rather than focus on him choosing callum and the consequences of going against phil, they decided to make it all about jags and by extension the panesars becoming more established on the square

- I'll honestly be baffled if lola isn't stuck in the house during the fire because they were hinting so hard?? unless the hints w ben talking to lola is because he's involved in the fire???

- shirley whacking phil w a baseball bat lmaooo. ive got a gun phil 2.0. although now this means ben will probably have a grudge against shirley because the show keeps him firmly glued to phils a*shole even when it doesn't make sense

- god I can't wait for janine to slag off a load of people at the pub. i actually want her to slag off ben lmao why not. let the girlbosses go up against each other, it'd be more interesting than gangsterenders.

- recently the fandoms been so intent on moral purity in who we're allowed to stan because of silly ship wars and a small group deciding that it's no longer cool to like ben, and i hope janine shakes that up good and proper.

okay MY thoughts:

- when ben chose callum over phil i was so ready to see ben build himself up as his own person separate from his dad for the first time in his life, but instead we’ve gotten him thinking callum was cheating on him with whitney????? the whole jags situation??????? and still living with stuart rainie and vi and just letting vi constantly berate him with homophobia (which even phil hasn’t done in a while)???????? what a mess

- i honestly want lola to be in the fire so badly (AND NOT DIE) but idk it’s feeling less likely to me now for some reason. i hope i’m wrong tho!

- oh my fucking god you’re so right he will absolutely take phil’s side and lose what little fun & good relationship he had with shirley 😭 that sucks

- you referring to ben as a girlboss just made me cackle 💀 you’re right tho i would love to see him and janine team up to gaslight gatekeep girlboss everyone in the pub

- if people keep saying that it’s bad to like ben bc of what he did to jags but then continue to stan janine…….. idk why i even check ee twt anymore bc i know all of their takes just make me mad. stick to tumblr where we use common sense and understand that characters are complicated and every soap character is morally grey. my blog title for the first year i had this blog was “ben mitchell contains multitudes” and ever since i changed it people seem to have forgotten that 🤔