#like. the problem with a flamboyant gay character isn’t that they’re flamboyant

[princessmuk]

Here is the most simple problem every human experiences: If you are not familiar with X group, then any individual member of that group must represent the whole.

Your sister likes horses? Well, every girl must like horses then.

You meet someone from a different country that has a strange quirk? Well, everyone from that country must be like that.

Your gay friend is bad at math? Well, every gay person must be bad at math.

Your friend of X race has great skin? Well, every member of that race must have great skin, too.

This happens to everyone. Everyone. Trying to act like it doesn’t happen to you just stops you from examining your biases. And yeah, when you learn more about the world, it can be easy to make assumptions so you can more easily understand and interact with it. Cultural customs, trends, and characteristics are useful.

But with assumption comes bias and prejudice. And assumptions cannot lead you forever.

That is why you need to delve deeper. Expose yourself to different cultures and ways of thinking. Meet people who are different than you. Listen to them. Find media from their cultures, separate the stereotypes from the culture.

One does not represent the whole. Every human being is unique.

[keepittoyourshelf]

I’ve been thinking far too much lately, about BG3 of course because the hyper fixation is only just starting to wane now after 4 months.

Anyways, I am tired of certain members of the fan community inferring that women players shouldn’t pursue Astarion because he shows a clear preference for men. I don’t disagree that in-game dialogue that I have personally seen re: his past dalliances have shown them to be exclusively male. I am not sure if that was a conscious choice on the part of writers, but if it was, I suspect it has more to do with driving home the canonicity of his identity as a queer character in general than it does saying he’s a gay character that can choose to be with women only if the player forces him to.

It’s funny that nobody raises this issue with Halsin, another enthusiastically pansexual character, and I would bet my life on the reason behind that being that Halsin is your stereotypical burly outwardly masculine character, whereas Astarionis decidedly foppish and more delicate in appearance.

Boiled down it seems like a lot of people think that body hair and a messy hairdo makes a canonically pansexual male character “less gay” than another and therefore a more valid romantic option for women.

I’m not going to get into how there is so much more to Astarion (or Halsin for that matter) than his physicality. But certain types of people (i.e. neckbeards and incels) can’t wrap their head around the fact that a character that moves beyond the borders of their limited, one dimensional concept of masculinity could be enthusiastic about fucking a woman. I’m not excluding people that are members of the homosexual community that might be advocating for the fact that Astarion is clearly gay either. They’re a problem too just in smaller numbers.

I mean this poor, wonderful vampire man, so obviously in need of love, is literally accepting all comers (no pun intended I know Astarion hates puns) and because he’s flamboyant and pretty it’s somehow less believable?

I dunno, I get that people are overprotective of stuff they love and there’s this weird instinct to claim things so your obsession seems somehow more validated or whatever. And I probably would feel stupid having daydreams about gay men wanting to sleep with me (real or fake) if they were explicitly stated to be gay.

Astarion’s pansexuality isn’t implied, it’s confirmed, so don’t piss in my cornflakes and let me enjoy playing out the vampire romance dreams I’ve been harboring since I first read Interview With the Vampire in 1994. Like this is the closest I’ll ever get to realizing my dream of Lestat being real and me getting to make out with him and have him tell me I’m pretty so let me just have it for fuck’s sake.

Interesting side note about Lestat, he is yet another character who shows overwhelming textual evidence of being what some would consider gay (flamboyant, dramatic, into fashion) yet can appreciate and enjoy the beauty of women as well. For whatever reason though folks seem to think women have less of a “claim” over Astarion than Lestat, so whatever.

Tldr: Astarion is a man of prodigious appetites, and sometimes he wants tits and pussy and that’s okay.

They’re both hot, they both want my Tav, so fuck off.

[feitanswife]

How to make a rune factory game:

You will need at least one of each of the following:

Amnesiac protagonist who may or may not be incredibly important

Protag’s eccentric sidekick who everyone will either immediately fall in love with or find incredibly annoying

The same rich people that are in every town in this country, these fuckers breed like rabbits wHY ARE THERE SO MANY OF THEM?

Rich character’s sidekick, who is very obviously in witness protection and doing an awful job hiding it.

Some guy whose traumatic backstory is about to become everyone else’s problem

A furry of some kind

A character who really SHOULD be a marriage candidate but isn’t for some reason

A character who really shouldn’t be a marriage candidate but is (bonus points if they’re just genuinely in love with a different character)

A flamboyant gay man who gets kneecapped by the homophobic writers

A mean bisexual woman who gets kneecapped by the homophobic writers

Someone whose entire existence fucks with the games worldbuilding (bonus points if they indicate a location or religion that doesn’t make sense in universe or contradicts previously established lore)

Last minute addition to the cast, possibly evil or maybe just kind of an asshole.

Someone who is almost impossible to marry for literally no reason

Some guy we met last game

[notcapableofbeingtheguy]

Hiii I love bcs so much but I still haven't decided for myself if I feel queerbaited or not (re Gus, mostly, like I just want to be Acknowledged by the universe in a way straight audiences can't ignore you know?); do you ever get frustrated by this/know people who talked about it on tumblr/do you know of more subtle nods like that Patrick Fabian thing...

(Bf hasn't seen bcs and I have nobody to talk to about it u_u so hiiii)

Hiiii! Thanks for asking this and sorry for the response time. I wrote like a ten page essay on why what BBC Sherlock did was so wrong so I also hate queerbaiting and I totally feel you. I don’t talk about it very much on here because having invested a lot of energy into pulling for queer ships/characters that didn’t pan out ina previous period of my life, it’s not where I currently try to center my experience of media, especially when there’s so much about BCS that’s just so wonderful to celebrate (tldr I’m just trying to meme around and have a good time rn)— but you are totally right that there is a very frustrating problem in the gilliverse with queer rep (there isn’t any), and it’s worth talking about so I’ll throw in my two cents.

I tend to categorize content that lacks explicit canon queer rep, but has queer coded characters into two varieties:

1) classic straight people shit. Writers are too heteronormative/homophobic to even think about having queer characters. They are not aware of/concerned with their queer audience. Any queer coding that arises in such content/any characters that are read as implicitly queer is largely accidental. We (queer viewers) know how to easily recognize common signs of queerness but the writers don’t, and so when these things get into their scripts and characters, it’s not intentional. They’re just reflecting what they see in the world (which happens to include queer vibes, queer codes, queer narratives, because those EXIST in the world), and trying to write characters who feel varied and unique— and traits that often clock as queer (e.g. gender deviance, a witty/flirtatious edge, flamboyance in men and stoicism in women) tend to make for compelling and real feeling characters. They don’t have the awareness to understand how those things read to an audience— they think they’re just writing saucy straight people.

2) Queerbaiting. Writers are aware of queer themes and queer codes, and of the potential queer flavor they can give characters. They are aware they have a potential or actual queer audience, to whom these codes and themes will speak. They want to write characters who have a queer flavor, for whatever reason (courting a queer/liberal audience, because they think it’s “funny” (which may not even be something they consciously clock as homophobic), or simply as part of an attempt to write characters who feel varied and unique, as I mentioned above), BUT they also INTENTIONALLY don’t want to write queer representation for whatever reason (e.g. marketability to a conservative audience, their own homophobia).

(((Bonus #3 would be content written by queer people/allies who are living under censorship of some kind that makes it impossible for them to state their characters are queer explicitly. But this doesn’t apply to the gilliverse so we’ll ignore this for now)))

Obviously the major difference between these two types of rep comes in the intentions of the writers—do they know they’re writing queer coded characters or not, is it intentional? And this can sometimes be difficult to parse.

When I watched Breaking Bad, I assumed Gus’s writing was an instance of type 1. These were straight people who had no idea they had written a very gay man. And when I watch type 1 shows, they mostly don’t bother me. I get to have a laugh out of making a character queer with the fandom, and know there’s nothing to really be done about it. Yes, not having queer characters is homophobic, but the act of queer coding some of their characters itself wasn’t intentional, and so it doesn’t really add to my ire.

But in Better Call Saul, it became clear to me the writers KNOW. I only started paying attention to behind the scenes stuff recently, so people are welcome to fill in the blanks there if writers have talked about this in a way before that makes their intentionality clear. BUT I saw some things on the show in season five that were an explicit nod to Gus being queer-coded, the foremost being:

This reads as a homophobic Lalo joke to me (in terms of writer intention— obviously we all know lalo is gay, mlm hostility, etc etc etc), not as a canonization of Gus/Max. And when writers JOKE about their queer-codes relationships, THAT is what makes my blood boil. It shows that they are actively aware of the coding, but will not take the step to make it explicit. It feels like I’m being taunted. The baiting metaphor is apt: you bite down on what you think is sustenance and instead you get stabbed in the mouth by a barbed metal hook. I hear “boyfriend,” and I invest emotionally (I’m hooked), but I never get anything from it— no kiss, no explicit acknowledgement of who Max was to Gus— and that hurts.

Now, we don’t know yet whether we’ll get a canon acknowledgment of Gus’s sexuality. Maybe the fountain/school he dedicated to Max was supposed to be that nod from the writers? If so, I guess I would understand that it comes in the context of a show where many things are implied and the writing is very restrained. I would still be frustrated, and it would still be homophobic, because it would be SO EASY to make Gus (or any character) explicitly queer in a way that wouldn’t need to feel heavy handed but that would be impossible for straight audiences to deny (straight characters mention their partners in scenes all the time!). But I could MAYBE see a piece of where the writers were coming from.

I’m not really keeping my hopes up, honestly. For either explicit canonization on screen, or explicit statements from the writers. 🤷‍♂️ it could happen. If it doesn’t, we’ve been queerbaited. Not egregiously, in my opinion. I think the writers realized Gus was queer coded late in the game, and were too skittish/homophobic to fully pivot (I think they have NO IDEA howard, lalo, nacho, et al. come across as queer, and those are type 1 mistakes). Which IS homophobic, but isn’t bone-rattling to me. Still, it sucks, because I would love to be seen and Acknowledged, like you said, rather than toyed with. I’d love for the best show on television, which is celebrated for its dynamic characters (many of whom are dynamic and interesting in part BECAUSE of their queer coding), to have explicit queer representation on it. But alas… I don’t think it’s gonna happen 😔

Gilligould prove me wrong challenge!!!

[transfemstarscream]

give me your unpopular starscream opinions queen. you seem to have actually good takes about them

AWH RIGHT! ! !

literally all fanon interpretations of starscream sort of suck ass. creepily sexualized nymphomaniac who everybody is very creepy towards? garbage. woobified helpless little cute seeker who everyone wants to hurt? garbage. angry bird gremlin with no other personality than just that? annoying. the fandom’s favorite one dimensional “mean and sassy”? terrible. if people should be able to enjoy things then i deserve to hate things.

low ranked seeker/scientist origin story > prince of vos/high ranked politician origin story. feels more meaningful and endearing.

jetfire/starscream as a concept is sweet but i don’t mind that a lot of official material never really tackled it after g1. i don’t like jetfire being reduced to some magical boyfriend who can fix all of star’s problems by the fans as well. i appreciate g1 actually trying to add depth to one of its characters but i think there’s better ways they’ve done that.

any attempt at trying to imply that starscream’s awfulness was only formed after meeting megatron makes them a lot more boring to me, honestly. don't like the idea of that at all. letting them be portrayed as a jackass even before the war is one of the best things cyberverse did with star.

starscream is best written when it's not the writer listing off symptoms of a personality disorder and thinking that calling starscream, an explicit abuse victim in the idw1 comics, "sexually aggressive" towards the woman they're spiteful towards is something a good thing. stop being weird about them, weirdos.

starscream is a tragic character, but not necessarily a sympathetic character. there’s a difference.

cybertron may not technically be my favorite, but i will stand by on cybertron starscream being the best starscream objectively.

tfp starscream bad okay. don’t like the design, don’t like the voice (sorry steve blum), story bad, character bad, etc. if they’re you’re favorite, by all means, but best starscream? really? like i don’t care how many “redemption” or tickle torture autobot starscream fanfictions you wrote. they’re not well written like come on…

rid2015 starscream’s arc isn’t that much better than a lot of rid2015’s story like people say, and i feel like people only praise it because it’s starscream. it’s nice that you’re self-aware about star’s issues, writers, but i prefer when something is actually done about them.

cyberverse starscream isn't really that good but like... i care about them, y'know? like that's my guy. that's my girl. you deserved so much better king. hope you're flying high and well.

starscream is one of the best examples of how bad people can be victims of abuse. material that tries to implement the idea that starscream was never mean at all until megatron and/or that “starscream was just a poor cinnamon roll who got corrupted :(“ enforces, although not always intentionally, that abuse victims are always 100% good, pure, and kind people at least before the abuse started and that you can’t really be a victim if you’re not conventionally appealing in personality.

starscream’s abuse is not black-and-white. you can believe they didn’t deserve any of it while also not trying to justify them hurting other people. you can still call starscream a bad person without implying that they deserved all that happened to them. you can talk about their abuse without the mentality that they’re either a perfect little babu or a malicious evil being put on cybertron by unicron himself and is incapable of feeling emotions. you guys……

starscream’s best foils are usually female characters. arcee, windblade, etc. hell even slipstream if we ignore the obvious weird joke she stems from. i like to ignore what mscott the writer's intent was with windblade and starscream's interactions in taao.

star is trans coded but not very good representation at all. their canonical body dysmorphia, although excellent in concept, is kind of shallow in-story and rather vague. their femininity being tied to why they’re considered freaky to a lot of bots is… not good and the fact the fandom plays it off like “stupid sexy starscream” and not the weirdly transmisogynistic attitude the canon has towards star is weird. smokescreen calling starscream “the stiletto-heeled freak” is not the progressive compliment you think it is.

starscream endures a lot of transmisogynistic and homophobic subtext/attitude placed on them that is perpetuated by both official material and the fandom alike; starscream’s likeliness to die in almost any continuity and them being thrown around by the “tough guys” + the fandom’s creepy obsession with inflating their flamboyancy/effeminity and freaky infatuation with their suffering (usually physically, but mentally as well) are connected and inherently tied to the gay/transfeminine coding they have.

let's not erase transmisogynistic undertones and try to shape it into something else to make it "progressive".

i got off into a tangent but these are opinions i've already wrote down some time ago so i hope you don't mind. anyway he's a good character.

[angelhummel]

Honestly Brittany is underhated in my opinion lmao. Like I was literally waiting for ages for someone to make a negative thread about I am unicorn on reddit so I could hate on her. Last time someone made a thread about that episode said "Kurt was an asshole to yell at Brittany. He could have kindly explained to her to remove the posters" like he did? But Brittany went to ahead and hung the posters anyway. :/

Oh hey we just watched that ep! And I hated it! I don't know if I'd call it the worse episode, but it made me more uncomfortable than Asian F and Pot o Gold, which we watched right after. Like I've never had that bad a reaction to that ep before but wow

KURT: Look, I don’t just want to be know has Kurt Hummel: Homo.

BRITTANY: What’s wrong with that? Look - 99% of the kids at school are either freaks or closet freaks. The captain of the football squad - he gets the job, but he doesn’t represent the people. That’s why we need a unicorn.

My sister asked me if I agreed with that sentiment (being sure to say "If it wasn't Brittany saying it, how would you feel?" bc that makes a difference lol) and my response was "What did she say? I just tune her out now"

I mean obviously the sentiment isn't wrong. How often do we say that almost any one of the glee clubbers would be a better leader or representative than flop hudson. I just feel like Brittany is feeding into a larger problem that I have with season 3 in regards to Kurt

Which is just how they make so many jokes about Kurt being more flamboyant and girly than he actually is. Rachel saying she wants to see Kurt in a bridesmaid’s dress. Finn saying "What's with the sparkly jacket i thought you were kurt" but then he also has a comment in s2 about "sequined riding pants". but when has kurt ever wore sequins or sparkles outside of mercedes's dreamgirls fantasy number?? and having actual adults talk about how he isn't sexy enough (call the police) and laughing him out of an audition bc he's sooo fucking gay ha ha. i kinda talk about it here if you wanna read more unrelated angry rambling

Anyway all that to say. Kurt is not straight passing! He doesn’t need to be! He’s bold, theatrical, he loves fashion, he loves Broadway, and that’s great! But the pink sparkly unicorn stuff is something Brittany tried to force on him.

Kurt loves Judy Garland. He wanted to pay tribute to her with his campaign posters, hearkening back to her Blackglama fur coat ad. Something that references a beloved icon of the queer community, and fashion history at the same time. Two things that are very Kurt

But with Brittany, all nuance and clever reference is gone. She puts ruby slippers in the goody bag, just because they’re sparkly and flamboyant. They reference Judy in the most cliche and obvious way possible. Even if someone wants to claim it was her own version of a clever reference, she still has more pointless stuff in there as well. Unicorns, a teletubby, hair bands?? What does any of this have to do with Kurt or what he likes or represents?

And obviously there is nothing wrong with being the most flamboyant gay person you want to be. Pink and sparkles and rainbows obviously aren’t bad on their own. Not trying to sound like the shitty old “Gay people I respect vs gay people I don’t respect” meme. It’s just. Every gay person is more than their sexuality. No matter how flamboyant they are, how they dress, how many rainbows they wanna slap on everything. That’s still a whole person. Just bc all YOU see is a giant rainbow flag, that doesn’t mean that’s all they are

Brittany thinks being gay is nothing but pink unicorns and rainbow glitter. How is that any different from the shit Karofsky or Azimio or any other bully says about Kurt?? At the end of the day it’s just someone trying to cram him in a tiny little box that he is far too big, too bold, too nuanced to fit into 

I mean god fucking forbid, but imagine if Brittany was “helping” Mercedes run for president like this. Telling her that being black should be her main personality trait, and filling a goody bag with items that are Brittany’s idea of what being “black” means to HER 💀💀 (I mean anybody with common sense could see it was insane, but her stans would react the same way and make Mercedes the bad guy when she reacted poorly bc what else is new lol)

And all her dumbass unicorn talk literally made Kurt start to dislike that part of himself! Like he’s always been bullied for it but he was still unapologetically himself. But Brittany’s campaign idea contributed to Kurt thinking he needed to change himself, and saying he was tired of being a unicorn. And in s3 he starts wearing more drab colors and all these sweaters and capes and he’s bundling himself up like he’s protecting himself and it makes me sad. And they bring in a completely new character that looks like Kurt just to call Kurt ugly and a girl and make fun of him. It drives me up a fucking wall! Season 3 is so awful to Kurt i literally can’t stand it. And it all starts with Brittany :) Thanks for that. Girl power!

And after dealing with the pain and humiliation of literally being laughed out of an audition BY MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY for being “too gay” Kurt is faced with the bright pink unicorn posters with his face on him that say “This is your box! This is all you will ever be!” and wow i can’t imagine why he’d be upset with Brittany for that!! Who’da thunk??? Brittany was a selfish idiot for hanging them up. Kurt had every right to be upset. And Santana was an idiot for invalidating Kurt’s feelings and just boosting Brittany up when she was obviously in the wrong. But that’s Br*ttana for you :)

I’m not even happy about Kurt “accepting” the posters and hanging them up himself and making that his campaign theme. That’s the version of Kurt that someone else made up in their head. That’s not him. He is so much more than Brittany’s tiny little brain could ever even comprehend lol. So yeah. I hate her :)

[normal-thoughts-official]

not to be writing about high school fucking musical in the year of our lord 2020 but i feel like the most criminally underrated aspect of chyan is that their characters have quite literally the same core

meaning, they are both very loyal, in such a way that they allow themselves to be overshadowed by people with less talent than them

troy is the captain of the basketball team. but he's not what brings the team together. dont get me wrong, he's not a bad captain. you see that in Getcha Head In The Game and Work It Out, he's actually pretty good at getting people to follow him and he can take a basketball practice on his own. he's good

but chad's better

chad's the one who keeps morale up. chad's the one who devises important plans and strategies. chad's the one who can get everyone to agree with him and set their plans in motion. in hsm1, all the other basketball players are constantly following his lead. whether they're sabotaging troy or apologizing to him and trying to make it better, theyre always following chad. they talk a big game about how they need troy to keep the team together, but in all 3 movies there's a point where troy is angsting and ends up leaving the team to its own devices, and honestly, they turned out to be pretty damn fine without him dedicating himself to them, every time. in fact, it looks like other characters wouldnt even have had a problem with troy fucking off to do his thing if chad weren't there to convince them that they needed troy

i firmly believe that the reason troy is captain and not him is (racism and favoritism for being the coach's son aside) precisely because chad always hyped troy up. that is shown subtly in many ways. even as chad was the one to scream "what team?" he always had his hands on troy's shoulders. when they went to party in hsm1, chad put troy on top and had him be carried. he gave troy the game ball. he said "who voted troy team captain?" to which their teammates replied "we do". it always looked to me like what made the basketball team flock around troy wasnt troy himself, but chad. and chad was such a great leader in that sense that no one ever realized that, maybe not even himself. he was just good at getting people together to follow a common goal, see themselves as a team, and set them on a same path. but he channeled that to troy, instead of allowing himself to be seen as the actual leader. almost as if he couldn't believe, himself, that he had the means for that, so he had to say that it was troy who brought them together, make troy the face of the team, because he couldn't see himself as it (and there's probably a good chunk of racism and internalized racism coming into play here)

(also, not to excuse the hsm1 bullshit, but that might explain why he was so pissed that troy wanted to sing. because deep down, he knew that he was bringing the team together, and that he cared more than troy, and maybe he felt like troy wasnt doing justice to his role as team captain because he knew that that role wasn't rightfully troy's, and he felt betrayed because he quite literally gave troy that position)

(again, not excusing it, and i think all of this happened on a subconscious level, and it's not really troy's fault that this happened - he's too stupid to be this manipulative lbr, i think it's more that white privilege blinded him to what was happening - but i think it was definitely there)

ryan follows a similar theme. again, it's not that sharpay isn't talented. she's very talented as a singer and performer

but he's more

he's a better dancer, he has more stage presence, he's a better actor and he channels way more emotion than she does. plus he actually coreographs and creates artistically, and it's clear to me that, while sharpay loves the spotlight, he loves the art. not to acknowledge hsm3 canon, but he got the juilliard scholarship. he coreographed all the musical for their prom. he coreographed with like a thousand wildcats in hsm2 and actually got them all to do a pretty rad job. he even got the dumb anti musical jocks to participate, and do it well

but well, sharpay always overshadowed him because, quite frankly, he let her, same as chad (i mean she had a more active role in purposefully overshadowing him than troy did chad but still). that's actually acknowledged in canon so i dont feel like i need to expand a lot on it, but sharpay purposefully put ryan down and tried to dull his light and he let her, because he had this weird sense that he needed to do this with her

(i dont really know why, but i theorize that it might be because doing theatre with sharpay makes the fact that hes the Gay Theatre Kid slightly less visible. like, if he's doing this whole gimmick with sharpay, they're the weird art twins, but if he's alone, he's the artsy gay guy. sharpay taking all the attention is even kind of good, because the attention on him for what he does would be all but 100% negative. also, we see in hsm2 that his father has this thing with him and always trying to adjust his hat and change his outfits and other small micromanaging attitudes that show that he's not 100% comfortable with who ryan is and how he expresses himself. but if ryan is helping sharpay, then it's a bit more bearable for him, because its not his son, flamboyant twinkle town kid, its his son and daughter, artistic duo)

anyway. and its funny because in hsm2, when they got all gay for each other, they both were kind of forcefully ripped away from the shadow casters. and ryan realized for the first time that he thrived and did just as well, maybe better, without sharpay, but chad didn't. ryan emancipated himself from sharpay (or well, began to, because its not that easy, but it was a huge step), but chad didn't emancipate himself from troy. in fact, i think his association with him may have gotten stronger

and it would be so interesting to me to see more fics where they bond over that, and help each other realize that they do stand up on their own, and that they deserve recognition for their talents and to spread their wings. it would be particularly nice to see chad realize that he's been sabotaging himself this whole time, and watch him grow more confident and aware of his capabilities and use them to bring himself up along with the team, instead of standing in the sidelines after carrying them on his back

it would be beautiful to see them bond over that and grow and flourish together

[nightphans]

characters nora did wrong:

kevin - my boy was ABUSED his entire life and used exy as a coping mechanism. he deserves better than to just be the exy-obsessed alcoholic asshole.

nicky- he literally went through conversion therapy ??? like he’s done so much for the twins too, sacrificed his LIFE in germany just to keep them safe. but nora makes him predatory and makes his character revolve around being a flamboyant twink ???? there was literally no need to make him predatory, and that’s just further instilling the ‘gay men are predators ‘ stereotype. he deserved better . oh and also he was super flirty with everyone ? which isn’t a problem but i very much doubt he’d be unfaithful to erik because he loves that man with his whole ass hurt, so clarifying that they’re in an open relationship would’ve been good too :)

aaron- JUST BECAUSE NEIL DOESNT LIKE HIM DOESNT MEAN HE’S UNFORGIVABLE??? his homophobia was instilled by tilda and luther (probably ) and thats not his fault ??? give him that redemption arc and let him realise what he was taught is wrong ??? also he’s almost ridiculed for mourning for his mother??? yes she was abusive. yes that’s not in excusable, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love her? lemme tell you, my mum is abusive. i hate her guts, but she’s still my mum and i still love her and i KNOW she’s wrong but ?? i would mourn her dead regardless???

seth - homeboy literally was just there to get killed off. rip seth. even made him an asshole so we wouldn’t care that much? barely had his teammates mourn for him??

riko- controversial but. i hate riko’s guts and all bUt he was like neglected and shit and probably abused by tetsuji too? nora made him like the whole ass villain . imagine if it had been more blamed on tetsuji and riko wasn’t such an asshole and tried to escape like kevin? idk just a thought

SHIPS nora did wrong :

renison- self explanatory. their chemistry in the later books was SO EVIDENT ??? but nora just writes them off as straight ?? just say u hate wlw and go 😳😳

kevin and thea - in fanon, not so bad. they humanise thea more and separate her from the ravens. but in canon? this shit PROBLEMATIC AF. thea is a constant reminder of the ravens, she even wears a raven necklace ffs !! also wasn’t she in her final year at evermore when kevin was in his first? 😐😐 this ship kinda just seemed like a way to write kevin off as straight once kandreil found its way out of the final draft

andreil - let them say ily and get married 😤😤aLso andrew never heals or smiles ??? fuck off. obviously he doesn’t recover fully but i’m sure he does a bit??? that’s pretty shitty saying he never gets better? leave my mans ALONE and give him this. he’s suffered so much, let him be happy.

keremy- not saying it should be endgame butttt it was pretty obvious kevin had a crush on him but that was just ignored so-

i would say jerejean but that seems unlikely to happen during the events of aftg because jean needs time to heal. ( in the future i could see it definetely thought!! )and i don’t know if nora said anything about them in the extra content or not

that’s all i can think of rn but add more in reblogs !!!

[lavander-aavaros]

How come you don't see Adam's writing as a pattern of homophobic tropes? It feels like people think they have to defend it because people think "I like this, so admitting it's still bigoted means I'm a bad person, so I'll say it's not homophobic". Just because villains like this are the status quo does not mean it's not homophobic when the traits specific to flamboyant gay men are used to demonize them and show them as freaks and weirdos, never someone to love.

Anon. Look at me. Adam is not demonized. You’re not supposed to hate him. You’re not supposed to be disgusted by him. Director Utsumi has said countless times how much she loves him.

*sigh* where am I even supposed to go with this?

1. He’s not the only queer character in the show. Langa literally admits to having a crush on Reki. Yes, that’s an important thing to consider when making claims of “homophobia”. Showcasing only “pure and good queer people” is not the best rabbit whole to fall down

2. He’s not demonized. His story is about healing. He gets better. The rest of the cast, while weary of him, accepts him and wants to see him get better. Cherry and Joe waited around for 8 years because they wanted to see him get better. Ever after he hurt them, they’re still willing to give him a chance

You’re perfectly valid for disliking him but the show itself continuously hammers home the fact that Adam is hurt and needs help and can get better. The show itself does not hate or demonize him. If you dislike him, that’s a you problem

“when the traits specific to flamboyant gay men are used to demonize them and show them as freaks and weirdos, never someone to love” I’m just repeating myself at this point but that’s why episode 12 is so important. The other characters DO love him. Cherry and Joe who waited for him for 8 years, Langa who showed him how to have fun again, Tadashi who stayed by his side all these years

He’s supposed to come off as creepy and unsettling at first. He’s the antagonist. They gave him Dio’s voice actor for a reason! And then you’re supposed to learn more about him and recontextualize the information you were given about him. The same way that Shadow is literally “The Antihero of the S community” and later joins the main squad

“Never someone to love” they say as if “love” isn’t literally part of this name

[marvelslut16]

I Promise

Pairing: Stanley Uris x Bowers!Reader (young) 

Request/synopsis: “Hi! If you’re still writing Stanley Uris, could you write a little childhood piece taking place during the first movie where the reader is one of the bullies’ little sister and hates what her brother and his friends are doing to the losers and starts to hanging out with them and the boys make fun of Stan because it’s obvious that he likes her and one day they’re walking and end up on the kissing bridge and he just starts rambling to her about something he saw and she interrupts him by kissing him”

Word count: 4,390 I think I got carried away

Warnings: Swearing. Mentions of attempted murder? Use of the term flamer, it means flamboyant gay, Stan is called that by Patrick in the books. Mentions a lewd act that happens in the book as well. Violence from a brother. Bullying. Some angst? Pennywise, that should definitely be a warning lmao.  Blood/gore/violence, typical for the IT fandom. Sort of mentions character death.

A/N: Sorry if this wasn’t exactly what you wanted, I tried to do this request justice (since it was my first! Thank you to the anon that asked for it!) but I definitely took it on an angsty ride lol. I definitely focused more on Henry and the time in the sewers than I originally planned.  Sorry this took so long as well, I wasn’t sure how to fit all of my ideas together. I really like how this turned out, but it’s also like two in the morning so there could be typos. 

Do you like being Henry's little sister? Of course not. Siblings or not, Henry treats you like shit too, at least he has the decency to keep it behind closed doors. On top of that, everyone avoids you, expecting you to be just like your brother or Greta. Greta is relatively nice to you, or as nice as demon spawn can be, she never makes fun of you or bullies you, she even tries to include you in her shit. Thinking, like everyone, that Henry actually likes you; and this way she can make a good impression and he can finally ask her out. 

You walk out of the front doors of the school on the last day to see your lovely brother and his idiot friends teasing Stan and his group of friends, stealing the curly-haired boys kippah. Richie, being his typical self, starts screaming and insulting Henry, making him angrier. Henry takes said anger out on Stan, pushing him to the ground and pulling his leg back to kick the smaller boy in the side. 

“Hey!” you scream and rush over to the scene, before you can realize what you're doing. 

“Come to defend your boyfriend?” your brother sneers before laughing like a lunatic. 

“Back off Henry,” you glare at him, stepping between him and Stan. You can hear the poor boy behind you struggling to stand up.

“Or what?” Henry leans in, face inches from yours. He has never made his dislike for you public, even his friends are shocked by his actions. “You gonna run home and tell Dad?”

“Tempting,” you push him away from your face, mindful that your father is on duty somewhere in the ocean of students. As he’s distracted by the shove, you yank the kippah free from his grasp. “You want them, you go through me.”

“That can be arranged,” he grits his teeth, gesturing for his friends to grab you. 

They look shocked for a second, before Belch wraps his large arms around your middle to hold you back. Your brother smirks at you as he advances on Stan, preparing to punch him. Your pleas for him to stop advancing on the loser’s, as they’re dubbed, fall on deaf ears. 

“Let go of me you creep!” you yell at Belch, before slamming your foot down on his. He lets go of you before bouncing around in pain, like a stupid cartoon character. You run between Henry and the Losers, but not before he can shove Richie to the ground. “Go home Henry,” you shove his chest again. 

“You can’t make me,” he flips open his switchblade as he advances on you. The rest of the world seems to still and all you can think is will Henry really hurt you? You hear the muffled cries from the boys behind you get louder with each step your brother takes towards you.

“What’s going on here?” your dad's voice cuts through the haze, Henry backs off and hides his knife before Dad can see. 

“I was just offering her a ride home,” Henry scowls as he turns to your father.

“And I was telling him that I was going to go hang out with my friends,” you use your thumb to point at the boys behind you. Your Dad eyes them wearily before ultimately coming to the conclusion that they’re a harmless group of nerds. He nods at you and sends Henry a small glare that if you blink you’ll miss before heading back the way he came. 

“Watch yourself,” Henry warns before making his way to Belch’s car, friends in tow. You let out a sigh as they drive away, shoulders slumping as your adrenaline wears off.

“I think this belongs to you,” you smile at Stan, handing him his kippah.

“Thanks,” he breathes, he looks like he wants to continue speaking but no words come out. As he grabs the kippah from you, his fingers brush against yours and a blush creeps up his cheeks. You grin at how adorable he is. 

“Are you guys okay?” you glance between him and Richie. Stan just nods and Richie rolls his eyes at the doe eyed look his friend is giving you. 

“I’d say we didn’t need your help, but Stan the man here certainly liked being your damsel in distress,” Richie smacks a hand on Stan’s shoulder and laughs, you soon join in. Stan smacks the boy with the glasses harder than you think anyone realized he could. “Ow, that fucking hurt” Richie whines, rubbing his arm and sulking off to Eddie. 

“D-do y-y-you wan-nt to go-o to the qu-qu-quarry wi-with us?” Bill asks and Richie smirks at the idea.

“I should go before Henry gets even more mad,” you play with the hem of your shirt. “But thank you for asking.”

“Please,” Richie clasps his hands and blinks dramatically at you, sticking his bottom lip out in an over dramatic pout. 

“Why not?” you grin at the losers, but at Stan the most. 

--

Over the following weeks you grow closer to the boys; Bev, Mike, and Ben too when they join the losers club. One day the eight of you are at the quarry trying to ignore the whole killer clown thing. Stan looks nervous about jumping into the water, even though you’ve seen him do it multiple times already. So you decide to grab his hand and pull him down with you withput warning. He lets out a high pitched screech that you almost can’t hear over the wind whipping past you. 

Once you and Stan, the last two to jump down, break the water's surface Richie grabs Eddie repeatedly screaming the word chicken and shaking the smaller boy. Bev grabs Ben’s hand to which he grins at. Richie and Bill share a look before the stuttering boy wades over to you. 

“W-w-will you b-be my par-pa-partner?” Bill smiles at you, his eyes sparkling in the sunlight. 

“Of course!” you smile at your friend, happy that the group accepted you quickly even though you’re a Bowers. You don’t see the glare Stan is sending Bill as he pairs up with Mike. Richie smirks at the rest of the group, you and Stan oblivious to the looks they send each other and their plan to make Stan so jealous he tells you how he feels. 

--

“So Stan,” Richie sings.

“No,” Stan says, watching you and Bev ride your bikes to your house for a sleepover. Her dad was worse than normal lately and she needed an escape, and you loved the escape it created from your brother. 

“I never asked my fucking question,” the boy with the coke-bottle glasses pouts.

“Because nothing good ever comes out of your mouth,” Stan deadpans, finally turning to look at his friends. You rode past the curve at the end of the road effectively taking you out of Stan’s line of sight, so he had no reason not to look at his friends now. 

“You were holding hands with (Y/N),” Eddie speaks up from Richie’s side. “Which is just fucking disgusting! Do you know how many germs-”

 His voice is cut off when Richie slaps his hand over the smaller boy's mouth. The look of terror on the hypochondriac’s face is one that Richie won’t stop laughing at for years to come. 

“She pulled me off the ledge,” Stanley rolls his eyes, suppressing a blush as he remembers how soft and warm your hand was. “It meant nothing.”

“And big Bill doesn’t fucking stutter,” Richie rolls his brown eyes, which look like googly eyes since they’re magnified by his glasses. 

“What?” Stan asks looking at the road in front of him, not wanting his friends to see how red his face and ears are. 

“I thought we were coming up with obvious lies,” Richie shrugs. “You’ve been in fucking love with her since you two got paired up at the beginning of the damn school year.”

“Have not!” Stan tries to lie, but his face darkens three shades deeper. The red instantly gives his obvious feelings away to his smirking friends. 

“It’s that or you have rosacea,” Edidie looks up at the Jewish boy with mock innocent eyes. “Because your cheeks are bright red every time you're around her.” Stan doesn’t respond because he knows they’re right, so he just walks away from them.

--

“Do you like Stan?” Bev giggles at the sleepover. The two of you had been talking about her and Ben prior to the question. 

“Yeah,” you mumble, looking down at your hands resting in your lap. “He’s so nice, and so sweet, and so caring. Plus, he went out of his way to help me when I was confused in class this year.”

“Yeah-” you cut off the redhead. 

“And the way his curls fall in front of his eyes when he’s leaning forward, so he has to angrily huff at it to try to blow the curl away. And the way his face scrunches up all adorably when he’s concentrating on a hard problem.”

Before you can continue fawning over your friend, your door slams open. It hits the wall behind it with a loud crack, where you later find a hole in the wall the handle created. In the doorway is a pissed off Henry, steam practically shooting out of his ears. 

“I thought I told you to stay away from him and the rest of those fucking losers?” he shouts, you’re dad isn’t here to hear him. “And now I hear you talking about that damn flamer with the schools slut no less.”

“Funny that you call Stan a flamer,” you smirk at your brother as you stand from the bed, subtly stepping in front of  Bev so she’s behind you and away from your brother's wrath. “When Patrick gave you a hand job.” 

“How the fuck did you hear about that?” he slams his fist into the wall beside him, knocking off a framed photo of a bird Stan had sketched for you during the school year. 

“I saw it with my own two eyes, dumb ass,” you sneer at him. “Next time you want to get a hand job from your boyfriend, don’t do it at the dump.”

“I’m gonna kill you,” he roars, closing in on you. Bev lets out a small gasp behind you, you feel bad she has to witness this. Especially when she came here to get away from her dad.

“Go ahead, then run off to get your oral from him,” you laugh. Before Henry can do anything else, the front door opens and your dad calls for you two. You sigh in relief as your older brother storms out of your room. You and Bev never bring up what was said or what just happened. 

--

You got separated from Stan while in Neibolt, but luckily Bill was with you. The horrors you all faced in that run down house will forever haunt each and every one of you. You’re shaking slightly as Stan and you cling onto each other as the two of you walk out of that horrendous place. 

You gasp loudly and hide your face in Stan’s chest as Bill punches Richie in the face. Your body starts to shake slightly without your permission, being taken back to when Henry punched the wall a few days prior. Bev pulls you into her side as Stan and Mike help Richie up. Bill goes for Richie again, but Ben holds him back. Richie yells back in retaliation.

“Stop,” you whimper, body trembling worse. Visions of your dad and Henry yelling at each other and shoving one another flash through your mind. A memory of Henry punching the locker beside your head when you were the last two in school floats to the forefront of your mind. “Please.”

Stan immediately rushes over to you and pulls you into his chest, you don’t care if he finds out about your feelings anymore as you grip onto his striped polo. He’s an anchor in the storm of your mind. Even when Henry isn’t around, he’s still lurking in the back of your mind making sure he can hurt you. The rest of the group stops what they’re doing for a minute to glance at the two of you before walking in two separate directions. Bev gives your shoulder a reassuring squeeze as she leaves. 

“How about I walk you home? Stan offers, rubbing his hand in a calming motion on your back. 

“Can we go on a walk instead?” you ask nervously, pulling away slightly. He keeps his arms wrapped around you as he studies your face. He keeps his arm around your shoulder as you walk through the park. 

You and Stan take a seat in front of  the giant Paul Bunyan statue, soaking up the summer sun and the sounds of the birds singing. For the next several hours you and Stan lay side by side on the grass as he points out different birds and tells you about them. Your heart pounds every time your fingers brush against each other as they lay in between you. Your body and heart are aching to slip your fingers through his, but your mind is telling you no. You ultimately listen to your mind, feeling dissatisfied with yourself at the awkward wave he gives you as he drops you off at your house. 

--

The days where the losers are fighting rush by, each of them spent doing something with Stan. before you know it, it’s nearing the end of the summer and Pennywise is gone. You reluctantly take part in the blood oath, wanting to leave this town as soon as you turn eighteen and never look back. But you would do anything for your friends, even risk your life for them again. As you're hugging Bev goodbye, you can’t believe she’s really leaving, Stan comes up beside you. 

“Will you go on a walk with me?” Stan asks timidly, not meeting your eyes. The puffy bandages around his face make your heart lurch at the thought of how much pain he must have endured. 

“Sure,” you nod even though he’s staring at the ground in front of his feet. Bev gives you a smile and a slight shove in encouragement. You give her one last smile as you start off down the trail, Stan taking long strides to catch up. 

“What happens now?” Stan asks, his fingers brush against yours as you walk side by side. 

“My aunt’s moving here, so I’m staying,” you don’t turn to look at him, scared to face more disappointment. 

You stop walking when you two reach the kissing bridge, not that you expected anything to happen, but it was a nice view. You look down to see the small S inside the heart you carved earlier in the year, it sits near Richie’s R + E. You absentmindedly rub your wrist, Henry had grabbed you so hard he bruised you when he caught you with his missing switchblade. But it was worth it, in twenty or thirty years from now those markings would still be there, your own little mark on history. 

“I’m glad,” Stan says it so quietly he doesn’t think you’ll hear him, but you do. You glance up at him and immediately frown as you get a better look at the bandages wrapped around his face. It takes you back to the day in the sewers, the day he yelled at you. 

“Stan!” you scream in fear as you wade through the grey water. Your heart is pounding in your chest, this can’t be happening! You can’t lose him, not Stan. One minute he was with the group and the next he's gone. “What if IT got him?” your voice shakes in fear.

“You can’t think like that,” Richie says firmly, but you can hear the fear in his voice. 

Before you can respond you hear a scream, one eerily familiar to when you pulled Stan off the ledge at the quarry. “Stan!” you scream again as you run past your friends through the dark smelly sewers to find the curly haired boy that you care for. 

You reach the closed door at the end of the tunnel, opening the rusty metal on your own thanks to the adrenaline rush. Your friends' screams of Stanley get louder as they catch up to you. All six of you rush through the door and look for Stan in the large underground room. You walk around and come face to face with the creepy women from the painting he hates eating his face. A strangled sound somewhere between a gasp and a whimper escapes your mouth, alerting your friends that you found him. 

“What the fuck is that?” Richie asks as Eddie shines Stan’s discarded flashlight at the thing. The multiple rows of teeth finally let go of Stan and the lady looks at the lot of you.

“Get off of him!” you scream, reaching down beside you and grabbing a rusty pipe. You chuck the metal at the creature smacking it in the middle of the face, it opens its mouth and hisses at you before retreating. 

You all breathe a small sigh of release, until Pennywise peeks his head out from behind the corner. All six of you let out high pitched screams, but all you can think about is Stan’s safety not your own. As Pennywise hides behind the corner again you run and drop to your knees at Stan’s side, the rest of the boys quickly following suit. You reach out and touch his arm, muttering his name in a soft calming voice, but all he does is scream in terror. 

“Get off me!” he pushes six pairs of hands off of him as he scrambles away from you and the rest of the losers club. “You left me! You took me to Neibolt! You aren’t my friends!” 

“Stan, we were looking for you. We were so worried, I was so worried,” your hand gently touches his cheek, trying to see how much physical damage IT had caused.

“Get away from me!” he glares at you as he smacks your hand away from him. “You're no better than Henry! Worse than him! You tricked me into being your friend just so you could hurt me!”

You rip yourself away from the curly haired boy so fast you fall flat on your ass as you try to move away. You gasp and tears fill your eyes, Bill’s hand gently squeezes your shoulder. He had been with you at Neibolt, he saw that your fear was Henry. Your feelings for Stan were obvious, so the accusations made the rest of the boys angry at Stan for hurting you. Tears fall quickly from your cheeks as you stand and back away from the group. You need to get out of there, away from Stan, away from the pain. 

The rest of the losers back away from their friend and get ready to search for their favorite redhead. You all find Bev quickly, and you smirk as Ben kisses her to wake her up. Pennywise soon appears, attacking Bill first, the rest of you try to fight the clown but it doesn’t work.

“Let him go!” Bev’s plea reminds you of yours from earlier. 

“No, I’ll take him” IT shakes its head with a grin. The killer clown explains to the group how it will eat your flesh as it feasts on your fears. “I’ll take him and only him,” IT offers. 

“Leave,” Bill begs the losers.

“I’m gonna have to kill this fucking clown,” Richie complains. “Welcome to the losers club asshole!” he screams, hitting Pennywise in the face with a discarded baseball bat. 

Chaos erupts, everyone grabs for a weapon to fight the clown with. As everyone starts attacking IT with the garbage they found, IT manages to slip away. You all decide, stupidly, to split up and look for Pennywise. 

“Good morning sunshine,” Henry’s annoying voice whispers into your right ear, dialogue straight from an incident where he almost seriously injured you. “Dad’s not home.” You can hear the smirk in IT’s voice.

“This isn’t real! You aren’t Henry! You aren’t real!” you scream, the losers stop their search for the clown and watch on nervously. 

“It’s time to play sis!” IT laughs like a maniac as he walks in front of you, you're forced to stare up into IT’s eyes. Pennywise steps closer so you step back, which you do again and again. A replica of Henry’s switchblade pops open and is pointed directly at your gut. “Daddy dearest isn’t home to stop me!”

“Go through with it! Do it! Do what the real Henry never had the guts to do!” you scream at your brother- well Pennywise. He has you backed into a wall, switchblade dully pushing into you just above your navel. Your chest rising and falling rapidly as you pant, angry tears mixing with the heartbroken ones from earlier as you stare defiantly at the thing that had been after you and your friends all summer.  

IT backs away slowly, your brothers-Pennywise’s- head tilting to the side as he studies you. A grin too large to be humanly possible splits across Henry’s face, rows of teeth on display as IT laughs in delight. You see your friends inching closer to you and the clown, you make eye contact with Richie giving him a slight shake of your head. He sighs in defeat, grabbing both Stan and Eddie pulling them back, the rest of the losers halt when they realize what the trashmouth did. 

“You were easy to crack,” IT giggles loudly, shifting back into a clown. IT lifts a hand up, finger tracing your cheek down to your throat, stopping directly over your artery.   

“Take me and leave my friends alone!” you glare up at IT. 

As the clown goes to open its mouth, Ben comes out of nowhere and stabs IT right in the back. The rest of the losers start attacking IT again, the clown shifts from fear to fear in hopes of getting one of the losers to stop. It shifts to Bev’s father, so she stabs a rusty rod right down IT’s throat in order to make him go away. The clown convulses and backs away from the group. 

“That’s why you didn’t kill (Y/N) and Bev, because they weren’t afraid of you!” it’s the first time you’ve ever heard Bill not stutter. “We aren’t afraid of you. Now it’s your turn to be afraid, because you’ll starve.” IT flips itself into a hole that leads lower into the sewer system, letting go and disintegrating before Bill can whack IT with a pipe. 

You all stare in shock for a few moments before making your way out of the sewers and towards your homes. The losers all talking amongst themselves, all but you. you’re ahead of the group, wanting to put as much distance between you and Stan as you possibly can. Eddie too, he had already asked what you meant while Pennywise was still Henry. Two conversations you definitely didn’t want to have. 

“(Y/N/N)? You okay?” Stan’s distant and worried voice breaks you out of your memories. “Where were you just now?”

“I’m fine,” you lie and he can tell by the flash of pain that crosses your face. “Just thinking about the other day.”

“I didn’t mean what I said,” Stan frowns, turning away from the carvings on the wood to face you fully. “I wasn’t in the right head space-”

“It’s fine,” you murmur, fingers gently running over the S carved into the wood.

“No it isn’t,” he says firmly, you look at him with wide eyes. You weren’t expecting him to get so serious about it. “IT messed with my head, made me see things that weren’t true and I took it out on you.” 

“Stan, I get it. IT knew how to hurt us most,” you reach over and lightly wrap your hand around his in a reassuring gesture. He stares down at your joined hands for a moment, ears turning a vibrant red, before continuing with his explanation. 

“He showed me a vision of you and Bill kissing,” Stan flips his hand over and laces his fingers with yours. 

“What-” you’re eyebrows furrow as you watch his face grow from pink to red. 

“I like you, (Y/N). A lot. And when IT showed me that it broke my heart. Deep down I knew it wasn’t real, but it felt so real. I’ve liked you since the beginning of the school year, and I never had the guts to tell you. Because why would you like me? You could have any guy, how could you ever possibly want me-” you cut him off by gently pressing your lips to his. It’s a soft and fast peck, but you still pull away smiling. “What?”

“I like you too, you loser. For just as long, I was scared to say anything because of Henry,” you giggle at his shock, mouth open and eyes wide. “Close your mouth or you’ll catch flies.”

“Speaking of Henry,” Stan’s mouth snaps shut before his lips pull into a deep frown. “What did you mean back in the sewers?” You sigh, not wanting to admit it allowed. Stan pushes a strand of hair away from your face before cupping your cheek gently. 

“Henry thought I broke his Atari, so he screamed at me endlessly and threatened to kill me,” you admit softly, rage and sadness battle within Stan’s eyes as he takes in the information. “It wasn’t the first time he threatened that, but it seemed different that time. My dad had no idea, he only heard some of the yelling, which he screamed at Henry for doing. So that made Henry even more mad at me. But anyway, it turns out that it was Belch that broke it.”

“(Y/N),” Stan says softly, pulling you into his embrace. “I’ll never let anyone else hurt you.”

“Promise?” you ask hopefully, could you really finally be happy? 

“I promise,” he kisses your forehead softly. “I know this isn’t great timing, but will you be my girlfriend?”

“I’d love to,” you grin at him, gently caressing the bandages as you pull him in for another kiss.

tags: @crimson-knuckled-queen​ @rexorangecouny​

[thattimdrakeguy]

New 52 TEEN TITANS #3 Read Along - The fact this got made is still shocking.

It’s been a while since I done one of these. It’s probably been since last year or so. This isn’t so much of a formal review where I try my best to explain why something doesn’t work, with tons of back references, or interviews, and contexts, and such. I might do some of that, but I’m mostly just writing this along the same time I continue to read it.

I’ve already done the first two issues, and if I can I’ll link them in the post somewhere.

Basically, this series gets about everything wrong about the returning Core Four for this reboot. They made Cassie the tomboy a “girly” thief, Conner the punky flirt a creepy emotionally numb stalker, Tim the insecure dork a super genius that blew up part of a freaking skyscraper, and Bart the teen with an attention span problem into an arrogant jerkwad loudmouth.

With the origins later given in the series, the boys are revealed to not reaally be the characters we knew at all in a more literal sense. This Conner is a clone of an alternate version of Jon, not Clark and Lex. This Tim Drake, is literally only Tim Drake in name only, as that’s the name this teen got in witness protection. And this Bart Allen, isn’t even related to Barry.

So these are versions of the characters that are them in literally name only, bar Cassie (sadly). Although, they’d later retconned Tim’s origin back (which doesn’t make sense). But what else can I compare them to but the originals?

--

A really common criticism of this series, and one that’s pretty dang valid in my opinion. Is just how unlikable everyone is-- or at least the Core Four, because I feel like we can all be honest and say that most people just read this for the Core Four, and sometimes Bunker. (Like Bart’s condescending here. Like “I’m Kid Flash, girl.” Maybe I’m just reading it too 1940s, but it comes off as really dickish.)

I mean seriously, how many people do you know talk abut Skitter? The original characters that Lobdell came up with are really hit and miss for me, mostly miss. Because I find Skitter so forgettable, that even though I’ve read the first few issues of this series just for entertainment value, I still forget she exists. She could’ve been so much more interesting, but he just doesn’t give her much.

To me, a good character has a personality that you can notice, grab onto, and have lots of unique stories with, that simply work, not even because it causes a great drama, but just because the perspective the character will have in any situation depending on the circumstance will be interesting.

Which is one of the reasons why I find Tim an interesting character, because his perspective is one that’s very interactive with any given circumstances but will still work for me. An insecure, super hero fanboy, that’s doing his best to be brave, but is secretly scared, with the cleverness to do things, but the anxiety that he can’t. Which the circumstances they give him, like having to make sure he proves he should be Robin, having parents at home, not feeling like he’s good enough, constantly seeing others better them him. It’ll just make him an interesting perspective to read from that won’t get too repetitive in any way that interferes with the enjoyment, because there’s a lot of levels you can take his harsh feelings, or things to interact with, that it won’t always be predictable what’s going to happen with him, and you want to read to see more.

With this series and quite a bunch of other original characters made, they have soap opera writing. Which works with fleshed out characters like the iconic 80s incarnation of the Teen Titans, but when the new characters don’t have a well-formed personality that you can really grab onto and gain constant interest and intrigue from, you just have a lame duck.

When your main character’s traits are “I’m angsty and sad”. No one is going to be able to invest themselves with that. They need to be more third dimensional and genuine to make them a character you want to pick up each issue for.

This series even with the old characters fails at that, by making them into absolute butchered heaps of rotted rump rather than their full personalities.

At least the art is pretty creative early on in it’s second page, I will give it that.

--

Then there’s Bunker--

--who I really want to like, but just can’t find myself enjoying.

A lot of these characters I’m unfamiliar with I want to like. They’re minority characters with very interesting concepts, but writing so flat that it ruins any chance of paying attention to them. A common curse when it comes to POC and a bad writer like Lobdell.

But Bunker actually has a personality, but the reason why I can’t find myself attaching myself to him is because he feels like an uncomfortable stereotype character. An outdated one that you’d see in the 80s or 90s to either seem inclusive or use as a joke rather than a true deal character.

Bunker is a flamboyant, religious, fashion involved, gay, Latino. Something that feels like you’d really bet he wouldn’t be if he wasn’t gay or Latino, because it’s just all based in stereotypes. Like if the pages weren’t colored, and you didn’t have the context he was gay, you’d probably still guess what he’s supposed to be just because of how much they involve stereotypes with him.

However, despite the stereotypes, he is the one most people can remember from this series beyond the core four, because he at least has a personality, and they actually try to build up a unique mystery to him, that would make you want to continue to know them.

And there is something about his confidence and religious beliefs, and determination that does feel very genuine, and makes you actually like him despite the stereotypes.

You want to know what makes you able to tell he’s a better made character than the other relatively new, to straight up new characters? You can actually talk about him, and have a lot more to say about them then his backstory, two personality traits, and angst. Even if his personality seems limited at first, they still write it in a way that’s genuine enough that you can get more out of it, a lot like what I was describing with Tim earlier. 

He still feels like a character that you could write a solo about, and with a good enough writer and personal life, would actually make for a very rereadable series, because you just enjoy seeing him on his journey, because it won’t always be the same exact things. He has loyal personality traits about him, but depending on his circumstances, it won’t be the same side of him you’re seeing, and it won’t feel contrived. He has potential to become a true third dimensional character, and not one that just feels like he looks like one, but isn’t really.

But that depends on where the writing goes with him-- and I can’t remember where it goes. But take away the dated stereotypes and there’s actual good potential with Bunker. Making your character feel like another decade’s minority caricature is kind of a turn off when it comes to feeling comfortable reading them.

Which is why some don’t tend to like him.

--

There’s not a lot to say about this quick page of Cassie, besides the fact they make her come across as apathetic and nuts. She’s also mildly sexualized given it looks like she’s posing for a fashion shoot and not just closing a door, which feels pretty typical of the team that made this book.

--

And because of Lobdell’s bizarre writing and tone changes, I don’t know if this is supposed to be taken as serious or comedy, because of how abrupt it is, and how a fight broke out right after and we find out the old guy is Tim somehow convincing someone he isn’t like-- 15? I think he’d be either 14 or 15, not because that’s how Lobdell intended him to be, because I believe in a now lost interview he said Tim was “probably” 16 or 17. However, they didn’t settle on Tim’s age till Damian was near thirteen, meaning Tim would’ve been either fourteen or fifteen here, depending if Damian was eleven as I remember, or ten at the start of the New 52.

And here’s some more out of character Tim, because New 52 is what you get when you skim through Red Robin without any context, and being edgy is still really popular with the teenage demographic at the time.

This is a Tim that blew up a building, is an incel towards Cassie, and is overall an arrogant prick.

How Lobdell thought anyone thought any of a good idea is beyond me, but I figure he’s just not self-aware enough to realize that he just made one of the most unlikable protagonists I’ve ever seen, and absolutely bastardized who was once a mega-fan-favorite.

Although, this is pretty cute and in-character. It’s something that definitely fits in with a classic Tim comic, but down let this make you think Lobdell knows how to write Tim, because he makes it really obvious all the time that he doesn’t really.

--

And that’s basically everything relevant that happens in this issue-- not a lot when you actually read it, and not just me spouting off the proverbial mouth as I try my best to mentally process this freaking comic.

Conner doesn’t even show up, most likely because he was the only one with a solo, that Lobdell was also writing (you can probably guess accurately what the quality of that was too).

A lot of it is just more of the same, and it’s tedious, although it’s tedious nature is not so much on Lobdell, as he’s said in interviews before that it was editorial or a publisher (I can’t remember to be honest) that made him not have them previously know each other. So he had to work from that.

Which goes to show just how much DC knows how their characters and teams work, given the reason why Young Justice worked so well was because Tim, Conner, and Bart, already had stories where they duo’d up, and teamed up before they were even official. Which allowed them to have a preconceived friendship, they could build dynamics that were naturally built off of their unique personalities, which made everything feel natural and good to go when they did have an official team comic.

Here you have a Tim, that’s supposed to be very much a rookie of only one year, acting like he’s the greatest protégé talent ever, searching out for metahumans and coincidentally running into them, just to make some kind of story that would explain them being together for a team.

I’m not saying they have to redo the duo stuff again, because I’m pretty sure most readers already know their dynamics, and as for new readers, it doesn’t take a lot of time to say “We’re just good friends that like hanging out” does it? They have issue zeroes for each comic for a reason, they could’ve easily had a nice summary there if they wanted.

New 52′s obsession with trying to fit everything they can in, but have everyone still be relatively new, made everything a mess.

Like isn’t it weird that Superman only started being a super hero FOUR YEARS before Tim was? Doesn’t that sound entirely too squeezed in?

Then because they messed with the characters so much it works less for old readers as well. Like they have Tim, only a year in, acting like all the out of character elements of Red Robin, with an origin that’s a Bizarro styled mirror of his original one, with nothing that made him the popular character he used to be.

Same for the others.

New 52 is partially scary, because it shows just how little they know about what made them work.

I’m not against reboots in comics as a concept, they do need some modernization, and clean-ups every now and again, but you have to keep what works in there, or else the reboot will be a total failure. And paint-jobs and fan service like Rebirth aren’t gonna work either, when the heart of it all is still just so bad.

All this is a lot easier to say in hindsight, but DC Comics really has to work towards remembering their mistakes if they actually want to get better again. They’re doing a bit better at it, as forced and contrived as it can be sometimes. So they are getting somewhere.

But this is only the start of a Didio-less era. Looking like good things are coming, and little presents that truly make it seem true, is something that’s only going to last for a little bit. They have to still do the work, and learn what worked for their characters in the first place, and reremember who they all are.

Otherwise sales will just get worse again.

But I’m genuinely hoping they’ll at least begin to learn from mistakes. No one gets a win otherwise.

--

Oh, and he’s the entirety of the fight advertised on the cover. “Red Robin vs. Bunker”.

They stop fighting right after this.

It’s the comic book equivalent of clickbait if I’ve ever seen it in my entire life.

[garnetrena]

Double Trouble and representing nonbinary people by non-human characters

Season 4 of the She-Ra Netflix reboot came out this week and it counts a nonbinary character, Double Trouble, who is voiced by a nonbinary actor, Jacob Tobia. I was thrilled by the news, and so was most of the fandom. And I loved this flamboyant, dynamic and playful new character.

However, there's currently a discourse in the fandom about them - and I don't talk about the stupid enbyphobes who refuse to use their pronouns accurately. The problem is that Double Trouble is a shapeshifting lizard. Of course, it's relevant to the plot, and it's also a nod to the original She-Ra series. But it bugs me, and I'm going to explain why.

First, I must say that She-Ra is incredible towards queer representation. It's mostly because her creator, Noelle Stevenson, is a lesbian married to another woman, and stated that she knows how much representation matters.

So Spinarella and Netossa are canonically dating, Bow has two loving dads who also are brown-skinned, and Scorpia appears to have two moms as well. Here's for the canon part.

Many people also headcanon Bow and Perfuma Perfuma as trans people, Catra and Adora definitely have ex-girlfriends vibes, and Huntara seems to flirt with many other women. And that's just a few details in an ocean of gay content.

I'm really happy with it, but I think that the show could have handled nonbinary differently. It's very frequent to make non-human characters being nonbinary, and it's a problem for many reasons.

First, it gives the idea that gender binarity is deeply human, and that everyone who can't grasp it isn't one. Then, it also alienates the nonbinary community, because our main representation is about aliens, robots or monsters.

But I have a peculiar take about this last point. I don't think we should stop to make nonbinary aliens, robots, monsters, etc. On the contrary, I think that we should normalize the representation of at least aliens and robots as nonbinary beings.

Why? Because gender binarity is cultural and relative, and also very Occidental. There's no reason why they should subscribe to this. This is idea behind all the Gems of Steven Universe being nonbinary, for example.

Culturally, HomeWorld doesn't have the concept of gender at all. However, the Crystal Gems don't mind being perceived as women, have a female-presenting gender expression, and use she/her pronouns. But it's not their gender identity, and it's how Rebecca Sugar, creator of the show and nonbinary herself/themselves, feels as well.

Another example: Janet from The Good Place. She's "not a robot, not a girl", and she insists on it, even if she's female-presenting and uses she/her pronouns. And I think it's important to show this experience as well.

A character like Syd from One Day At A Time is very important too, because they're totally human, which is very much needed. But I think that the more the merrier, and we should celebrate each new nonbinary character.

The solution isn't to avoid having nonbinary characters. The solution is to create A LOT of nonbinary characters, especially human ones, and to diversify their representation.

[Transphobes, enbyphobes, TERFs, SWERFs, transmeds, truscums etc. DON'T INTERACT]

[cwartsy]

The reason people call hazbin hotel homophobic isn't because there are gay characters in hell. It's because of how the gay characters are portrayed. The gay man is a stereotypical sex obsessed "pervert", one of the main lesbians is man hating aggressive stereotype. These could've been fine if the creator was either a gay man, or a lesbian. Vivziepop is neither. She isn't reclaiming these stereotypes, she's reinforcing them because she thinks they're funny.

Okay before I get to my main points, I want to make a few smaller points that are really more like disclamers.

1: Forgive me for assuming but it seems like you thought I wrongly assumed why people think Hazbin Hotel is homophobic. I have seen people angry with Hazbin Hotel for the reason I talked about and I have seen people affected by it. And even though I don't agree with it, I can see why people would think this.

2: Ever since my last post on this topic, I've been a bit more mindful of how I word myself. Particularly when I use swaer words. I just want you to know I'm not trying to be aggressive or cuss you out. I was just trying to word this like a normal conversation. And who doesn't swear in conversation on a daily basis?

Admitabbly, these characters do have some of the traits that have unfortunately been used to stereotype gay men and lesiban women. But I don't see them that way.

I don't think Vaggie is a stereotype. Yes, she's aggressive to most of the men we see in the pilot and Angel even makes a joke about it. But all of those men that she was either aggressive or violent towards, she was so because she was genuinely angry with them (and in Alastor's case, fearful too) for genuine reasons.

The cameraman she punched insulted Charlie. Angel fucked her and Charlie over by turning the interview into a trainwreck and making them both look like fools. And Alastor's clearly dangerous and he's obviously targeted Charlie for something Vaggie can't forsee. She felt she needed to come across as a threat to Alastor to protect her loved one. And I know this is only shown once but she's just as aggressive towards women as she is towards men. Case in point;

I don't even think it's fair to assume Vaggie hates all men. Because not only does she never say anything that even implies that, none of her actions say that. They say, "How dare you call my girlfriend a stupid bitch.", "How dare you fuck up everything my girlfiend is striving for." and "If you think you can do anything to harm someone I love, I will fucking end you."

As for Angel, yes, he makes it blatant that he's gay, that he enjoys having sex with men and isn't shy about how often he has sex wih men. But to me, that makes sense.

Angel died in the 1940's. Being gay was illegal back then. He probably had to hide who he was for his entire life. So looking at how Angel is now, voluptuous and sometimes vulgar yet putting his sexuality on display for all to see, that to me, is an individual who is done with that shit. He probably has been for a very long time and he probably stopped trying to hide the moment he was sent to hell and realised he had nothing left to. So now, he is who he is to anyone and everyone. He refuses to hide any part of himself to pacify homophibes and gives a middle finger to anyone who has a problem with it. And anyone who'se been opressed and told they're wrong for being who they are has every right to do that.

And I do see that Angel has other traits about his personality that have been stereotyped as well. Like being feminine and flamboyant. But after reading a post written by @the-dionysian-one I also see that Angel being represented the way he is can be helpful to some people? I know, that sounds like it makes absolutely no sense but here me out.

Here is the post he made. It's kind of long so while, all of it is important, I do encourage you to read the whole thing, I'm going to show the parts that are relevant specifically to this;

We've improved as a society by refusing accept and disregarding stereotypes. But reading this made me think that we've been so anti-stereotype it's backfired to the point where men who genuinely are flamboyant and feminine and flirty and sexual are being made to feel bad about themselves. That's not right. Isn't the whole point of being pro LGBT to accept people as they are? I think we should accept these characters as as they are and remeber that they're characters in an overarching story. They're meant to be fleshed out and developed and in time, we will see there's more to them than a slutty gay man and an angry lesbian.

[itsclydebitches]

Wait what was the mess with Ilia/queer representation? I don't usually look into these things so I probably didn't hear or see people talking about it

Happy to explain! First, the obligatory disclaimer: Ilia is a complicated case and, like anything else in RWBY, her place in the show is very much up to interpretation. I think her character arc, particularly in relation to her status as a queer character, is an absolute mess but I know others are of the opposite opinion. Many of the “flaws” I point out are perceived as her greatest strengths. So it’s subjective.

That being said, I wrote a little bit about this during Volume 5 when it was all going down. A simplified list of the primary issues includes:

Introducing your first, long-awaited queer character as a villain (even a sympathetic one)

“Redeeming” her in the span of one episode in a way that provides no punishment/responsibility/growth in the face of the horrific acts she committed

This character is left behind by the story at the end of the volume, presumably never to be seen again outside of, perhaps, a final battle that includes the whole cast

Tying her queerness directly to her villainy

It’s this last point that I take the most issue with. See, the fandom is right to point out that Ilia has motivations for her actions established throughout the volume, namely the death of her parents and the general racism that is still pervading Remnant. Ilia says multiple times throughout Volume 5 that this is why she’s going after Blake and her family. Because she honestly believes that they are a threat to the faunus’ progress. However, just because a character says something doesn’t make it true. Take Yang in the same season. She says she doesn’t want/care if Blake ever comes back to the group, which anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the show knows is BS. Rather, Yang’s emotions are functioning on multiple levels. A part of her really doesn’t want Blake to return because she’s still furious with her, whereas a larger part of her wants them to reconcile. Now, apply that logic to Ilia. It’s absolutely true to say that she’s motivated by activism and the death of her parents, however, her confrontation with Blake reveals that this isn’t the only reason for her attack. It is, arguably, not even the primary reason. Ilia gives a speech about how they need to be doing more for the faunus, how she doesn’t like to hurt people but she can’t deny that it has gotten them results. Yet when Blake challenges this part of her identity - you’re not a killer - the conversation unexpectedly takes a turn. When pushed to explain how she became this way Ilia does not reiterate her thoughts on racism or the trauma of her parents’ deaths. Instead, she starts talking about her unrequited feelings for Blake: 

Suddenly, Ilia’s motivations have changed. Or rather, they’ve become more complicated. Both sets of motivations exists, but this is the one she admits to under duress, framing it as more “true” than what she’s been saying prior to this conversation. Now, Ilia shows personal motivations rather than just the generically good rhetoric of I Want To End Racism Because It’s Bad. Having Blake down on her knees, shipping her off to Adam, and killing her parents is explicitly connected to the (perceived) problem of, “You didn’t love me.”  Blake is positioned as responsible for who Ilia became: You want to know why I’m like this? You were too busy looking at Adam. I wanted you to look at me that way but you didn’t. That’s how I learned that we can’t always get what we want. So now you don’t get to have what you want (your parents’ safety, distance from Adam). You get to feel what I felt when you didn’t love me back. When Blake poses the question of, “Why are you like this?” Ilia’s answer is “Because I’m queer, have unrequited feelings, and that taught me that life sucks. Now I’m returning the favor.” 

Suddenly, Ilia’s actions are removed from the (already ethically dubious) logic of treating Blake this way because she believes it will help the faunus in the long run and instead are implied to stem from a desire to punish her for not reciprocating those feelings. In this moment Ilia moves from a misguided activist-turned-terrorist and instead becomes a misguided lesbian seeking revenge. She might not admit it - she never explicitly says that she’s punishing Blake for not loving her - but that’s the implication by taking the conversation in this direction; by having Ilia answer with her sexuality rather than her activist views. By drawing such an overt connection between these actions and Ilia’s admission, these things - the impending death of Blake’s parents, kidnapping her, sending her back to her abuser - are framed as things that she “deserves” according to Ilia. If you’d just looked at me with love from the start we never would have ended up here. This falls into a number of horrible tropes including, but not limited to, The Predatory Gay, The Psycho Lesbian, and The Queer Character Falling For Their (Presumably) Straight Friend.

Now, the takeaway here is not “You can never write villainous queer characters.” More often than not any statement beginning with “You can never write ____” is going to be a bad take. Indeed, there are tons of queer/queer coded villains who I adore. That doesn’t mean I want media to perpetuate that long, stereotyped history though. “But Clyde,” the world says. “That doesn’t make any sense. How can you both want and not want this setup?” To which I respond with the iconic words of Jane Lynch:

People’s identities are made up of multiple parts and those parts can read the same writing choice in different ways. As a queer person who loves the ~drama~ of a flamboyant villain I want that entertainment (like Watts). As a queer person who is disgusted by the implications tied to that trend (you’re evil, you’re unnatural, you’re sick, you deserve to be punished, to be killed) I don’t want to see our only queer character be a villain. Which is what Ilia was at the time of her reveal. She was all we had and we didn’t know if RT would ever going to give us anyone else. That was just awful to watch and worry about. It didn’t make me happy. Which sounds like a shit thing to say - This isn’t your story! It doesn’t cater to you! - but after years of waiting for queer rep it felt like a kick in the teeth to get this character in this way and leave her behind when we had a cast of five main women right there, any of which could have been queer. Ilia’s reading was made worse by the lack of rep surrounding her, but to be frank things haven’t improved much. I adore Saphron and Terra, I think they were really well done as characters, but they’re still very minor characters and we can’t ignore that, like Ilia, they were left behind by the story. Blake and Yang are not canon yet, leaving all the hints at their relationship sitting in the limbo of, “Is this just queer baiting?” If you’re someone who pays attention to queer coding, a lot of queer-coded men have been killed off in this show (Roman, Ozpin, Clover). We supposedly have one trans character… whose identity thus far only exists in a tweet.

Kudos to RT for hiring a trans voice actor - they absolutely deserve recognition for that - but it’s still not enough in this day and age. It’s 2020. Queer coding, queer minor characters quickly shuffled off screen, and queer “rep” in the form of paratextual info simply doesn’t fly. We decided that in the most vocal terms possible during the Harry Potter era, a fandom that took over most of the world and, thus, had one hell of an impact on media going forward. No, it’s not rep if you say Dumbledore is gay in an interview but never work that into the story. It’s not rep if you say May is trans on Twitter but don’t work that into the story. Not unless both characters are supplemental additions to a canon already filled with a variety of queer rep. “It’s so cool that this character is also queer! I get why you didn’t have time to work that in, so it’s a good thing we have those five other characters to identify with.” RT might do that in the future. Blake and Yang might become canon in Volume 8. May might be confirmed in the show. Saphron and Terra might unexpectedly arrive to become a part of the story again. We simply don’t know. But as of right now Ilia is one of only three in-canon queer characters out of a cast of ten bajillion (approximately lol) and out of those three she is the only one who was developed into a well-rounded character. That means nearly the entirely of RWBY’s rep rests on her shoulders. I think her queerness is fine for a cast already full of queer characters. There it functions as good diversity - “Some lesbians do join extremist groups and blame unrequited love for their murder plans!” - rather than representation for lesbians/queer people as a whole - “It’s a good thing we have these three other heroic lesbians in RWBY to balance out the message Ilia sends!” But since we don’t have that the takeaway is just what we’ve seen for decades: Queer characters are villains. Queer characters are violent and predatory. Queer characters are written out of the show.

Historically, Ilia’s characterization has problems on its own, but those problems were very much exacerbated by making her the first and, at that point, only queer rep. I - and no doubt others - would have been far more receptive to her as representation if we’d already gotten queer heroes prior to her introduction. And again, that’s a preference. Some fans want more queer villains as a way to say, “Anyone can be queer.” For me though, I’ve seen enough Ilias throughout my life. I’ve seen enough versions of my identity painted as unwanted and dangerous. I was expecting RWBY to do better and I hope that they will do better in the future.

[thevagueambition]

i haven't rewatched most of them in a while but here's the second half of rhe Harry Potter Movies from worst to still very bad

Irredeemable: Order of the Phoenix

absolutely horrendous. takes my favourite of the books and goes through its motions without capturing any of its feeling. First of all Harry doesn't yell at Ron and Hermione about being isolated all summer to the point where Hermione starts crying when they reunite which is fake and bad and Let Your Movies Have Pathos. is this why people think Harry isn't canonically traumatised lmao

I don't mind Neville getting the credit for Dobby tipping them off about the Room of Requirement although it does make his reappearance in the DH part 1 movie really weird because iirc we haven't seen him in the movies since CoS, but cutting Marietta Edgecombe and making the discovery of Dumbledore's Army not a betrayal from within but something literally forced out of Cho with veritaserum that is then still treated as if it were a betrayal is very bad. In the books, Harry and Cho drift apart because Cho insists on defending her traitor of a friend whereas in the movie Harry is apparently just victimblaming Cho for being fed a truth potion???

also they cut so many cool sections of the climax in the Department of Mysteries and it's like ?? prioritise your time to get just some of this in there damn. you don't really fully get the sense that this is For Real the time the golden and silver trio are On Their Own in the Real World outside Hogwarts the way you do in the book because they're simply there for way too short a time before the adults show up for that to get through also they don't really establish the veil much so Sirius falling through it is super random

okay maybe the one redeemable thing is that they did Luna alright. even if she is way more autistic in the books

I Hate It Here: Deathly Hallows Part 2

Book!Harry spends the entire book obsessing about Dumbledore's backstory only for movie!Harry to show up like "I really don't care what happened with you and your brother" WHO IS THIS DIPSHIT IMPOSTER.

did they like. think the Dumbledore story line wasn't hugely thematically relevant because it absolutely is. every book in the second half of the series is partially about growing up and dealing with the adults you look up to being fallible

since 1) they cut the Dumbledore sl and 2) men aren't allowed to cry in these movies, the scene at King's Cross is pointless outside it's completely utilitarian function of giving Harry the choice to go back to life or not. again, Dumbledore tearfully apologising to Harry is fucking important. Harry's empathy for the piece of Voldemort's soul screaming under a bench somewhere is relevant

also cutting the Dumbledore Plot makes the ollivander and Grindelwald stuff with the wand super fucking random lmao

Voldemort dying in a puff of smoke because Cool Visual Effects when again, him dying *like the regular human he is at the end of the day* is hugely thematically important is also bad

Have Dumbledore's Army even been doing anything at Hogwarts before the golden trio show up??? you don't super get the sense they have lol.

generally this movie just seems interested in doing all the hashtag cool memorable moments with no thematic or even like narrative coherence

Really Bad: Half-Blood Prince

the stuff in diagon alley is done really weirdly and that attack on the burrow they added is also really weird

the mischaracterisation of Dumbledore present ever since Gambon took over becomes a particular problem because like a really big problem once Dumbledore becomes a central character because all the super poignant moments between Harry and Dumbledore are bereft of most of the emotionality they have in the book especially the cave seen where Gambon!Dumbledore is too manly to cry hysterically I guess

the death scene is also absolute nonsense like the ONLY reason mister "has a saving people thing" doesn't act to stop Dumbledore's murder/assisted suicide in the book is that he LITERALLY CAN'T, he's petrified under an invisibility cloak, under literally no fucking circumstances would he just stand around while someone threatened Dumbledore least of all Draco fucking Malfoy

they also like??? cut the actual climax of the book in favour of making the cave the climax I guess?? like in the book there's a giant fight happening at Hogwarts between Dumbledore's Army + some Order of the Phoenix members and the Death Eaters while in the movie I guess the Death Eaters just wandered in, killed Dumbledore, burned Hagrid's hut and left??? and no-one did anything lmao????

movie!Ginny is such a disgrace to book!Ginny, it's not the actors fault they don't have chemistry after probably feeling like siblings having known each other that long but by god is every romance scene they have an awkward mess

young!Tom Riddle is like hilariously obviously evil, even in his teenage appearance where he's supposed to be CHARMING slughorn into giving him information

also this is a petty point but young!Dumbledore should have looked gay and flamboyant like in the book and he doesn't this is homophobia

the best thing about this movie is that one video on YouTube where someone cut the funny moments together to look like the trailer for a teen movie because yeah to be fair this probably IS the funniest of the movies so at least it has that going for it

Still Very Bad: Deathly Hallows Part 1

Mostly just kind of boring iirc?? They fail to get a lot of the ways muggleborn witches and wizards are being overtly discriminated against accross in their version of the scenes in the Ministry of Magic which is uh bad when that's a huge point about how easily a reactionary government is turned fully fascist and Umbridge isn't just "haha toad" she's specifically super mega fascist and has always been so, the shift in power is conveniet to her as a fascist who would make do with what she could do under a conservative government but can now do those things overtly and openly. the fact that she existed comfortably under Fudge and is now showing herself to be fully onboard with Voldemort's preferred policy is an important point

all the movies hate Ron and they are wrong they shouldn't fight me irl Steve Kloves like never is your Harmony agenda more obvious than this movie

this becomes an even bigger problem when you have Ron's arc of letting his inferiority complex get to you because if you don't understand Ron, you won't be able to do him justice

since the movies hate Ron as well as men having feelings, the stuff when Hermione is being tortured upstairs by Bellatrix and Ron is fucking losing it is also not done justice

the Dobby stuff just feels like Here's A Cool Moment For The Fans in the movie because again Dobby hasn't been the presence throughout that he is in the books. like Dobby is legitimately their friend in the books in the movie it just feels like he's doing it as a sort of life debt thing for Harry freeing him or something

the first four movies were fine. the third is probably my favourite even though that one definitely also includes Some Choices. my full preference list is: 3, 1, 2, 4, 7p1, 6, 7p2, 5 (for comparison, my books preference goes 5, 6, 3, 7, 1, 4, 2)

[tsunflowers]

asks last night made me think about female tertiary riders. since yua is one will this become a trend? no way to know. but then I was like “ok going back which previous characters would have worked just fine as women?” and I used the list of tertiary riders from tiermaker bc it’s not an official designation and there’s no canon list

kivala: self-explanatory

mage: self-explanatory. although I actually think if the other two mages were also women that would annoy me more bc it’s like oh women can be riders but only off-brand burlap colored ones. I see

delta: was a women in canon, briefly, off-screen. if she had stayed alive as a character instead of dying for takumi’s manpain that could have been interesting. the guy who ended up as the delta user was so boring that at least if he were a woman that would be something to stand out

snipe: thinking about nico snipe here. but in general i have no problem with the idea of a weird annoying woman who lives in an abandoned hospital and gets bullied by her teenage protégé

chalice: why not. feral woman in the process of rehabilitation who threatens to fucking kill people but warms up due to family and friendship? that’s good. it would also make people read kenzaki and hajime’s relationship as overtly romantic

todoroki: we just need more dumb female jocks in the world

den-o rod form: I dont consider the various den-o forms to be different riders but they’re on here so. I also already forgot why I put ura in this category. oh it’s bc I think his role within the group is kind of to make plans and wrangle the others which is often a feminine role anyway

den-o axe form: just for the yukata open to the waist with bandaged chest under vibe

necrom: that guy already basically has the character arc of a spoiled princess who learns about the real world

kuuga (onodera yuusuke): just why not. there isn’t anything about yuusuke that i think would become weird when applied to a female character instead. the fandom reaction to a female yuusuke I don’t know about. tsukasa/yuusuke shipping might become very big but also the number of people who think she is quote yuuseless unquote might increase too

woz: I think woz could be a woman. it doesn’t break the cardinal rule that a woz is a woz so it’s fine. woz’s slavish devotion towards sougo might become more unpleasant coming from a woman towards a man but I think it would be mitigated by woz clearly being evil and having insane woz motives

zolda: talked about this last night. I do think it would be good. also it would make that huge hilarious gun cool and sexy bc it would be like the valkyrie cannon scene in ragnarok

gills: a woman who’s a feral loner who screams and punches people. a swamp wife. sounds good to me

hoppers: hell hopper sisters anyone? they’re already such stupid and ridiculous characters that switching their gender wouldn’t trouble me. in fact it might even be a victory for feminism

leangle: I put him in maybe bc everyone in the entire show already dunks on him constantly so if it was “everyone is rude to the only female rider all the time” that would be no good. although if hajime is also a woman.. hmm...

drake: I think female daisuke would have to become a heterosexual woman bc so much of his character is hitting on babes and I dont think toei would allow an out and proud lesbian hero. in 2007 especially. but a flirty and stupid woman who always gets saved by her kid sister could be done well or poorly

zangetsu: somehow the idea of takatora being a woman in a position of power whose employees are all plotting against her bc she;s a huge dumbass doesn’t sit right with me. but there are no huge red flags so. nee-san is single and doesn’t have a husband

gridon: dont care about that guy maybe if he was a lady I would

bravo: oren’s a flamboyant gay man, so translated to a female character she would become a butch lesbian. butch lesbian who was a private military contractor but settled down for her dream of running a bakery is less good to me as a plot but I think I could deal bc oren doesn’t just give up on fighting

I dont even remember who this next guy is. oh knuckle. all i remember about him is he was kinda gay s maybe it would be bad to make him a woman bc then she would just come off as straight

chaser: gouchase becomes canon. theres maybe some weird stuff that might arise with a female chase but not worse than anything about medic so whatever

raia: I actually dont think tezuka should be a woman but I’m not mad about it so I didn’t make a category just for him. I think it becomes more cringe for a woman to dramatically die for shinji and I also think now that tezuka is canonically gay we shouldn’t erase that. even if female tezuka is a lesbian it’s still like wow another dead lesbian

lazer: female kiriya being like “ohoho I flirt with you but I also lie all the time” would come off different. people already portray kiriya as a fox in fanart but if she were a lady you wouldn’t even be able to find fanart without ears and tail. however I do want to see a female character who dresses exactly like kiriya

grease: I like the idea of a rough and tumble farmer lady who’s always going around with her boys. the mii-tan thing could be better or worse, depending. full on lesbian kazumin is worse bc it makes her obsessive horny lesbian who can’t take a no. kazumin who is theoretically a straight woman but just really loves mii-tan as an idol could be ok

rogue: i forgot his name. sorry gentoku. gentoku as a female villain who defects for a reason other than ~love~ would be good. but gentoku being secretly obsessed with ugly fashion is somehow bad to me in a female character

ryugen: no. we cant. no.

sasword: why did I put him in this category? well I think his comical and contrived failures to understand how the world works come close to crossing a line at times already and if tsurugi were a female character there is no way that it wouldn’t be used to infantilize and sexualize her in a creepy way. I thought about that scene where tsurugi dresses as a schoolboy and the outfit’s too small. that was already weird and unnecessary. I imagined it as an adult woman in a too-small schoolgirl uniform and I said Absolutely Not