#the way women are written is so godawful

[oexen]

kishimoto for a dollar can you write a woman. any woman

[roseadleyn]

anyways i read the acotar series and it's the most godawful, horrendously written piece of ya fiction ever and the portrayal of faeries is downright disgusting cause babe those aren't faeries those are just really pretty people who you gave magic and slapped some cool features and called it a day. your know what ACTUAL fae are??? terrifying. otherworldly. ethereal. they break humans norms in a other-species way not should-be-a-convicted-felon way. look at holly black's books. the cruel prince portrayed fae so well, they were terrifying, they were ethereal, their disdain for humans was so well expressed not just left over racism from a 500 year old war and it was also wonderful fae love story because cardan and jude — actually screw it that essay will have to wait and rhys and feyre can't be on jurdan's level if they tried — but my point is that her portrayal of fae is just... immortal humans and then everyone hypes her world building up... BABE WHAT WORLD BUILDING. WHERE. the courts are never expanded on. do they have separate languages? religions? cultures? what does their traditional clothing look like? what does their traditional music sound like? what are their folktales? and i get it it's tricky to expand on this for seven courts but like we don't even know this about the night court or the spring court aside from a few dancing scenes and a few events. like aside from the solstices and starfall, what other events do they have? do they have any at all ( they should cause fae adore revels)? i just can't there's so much wasted potential in acotar it makes me mad

and all the lesser fae < high fae + prythian resembling britain and hybern resembling ireland ( honest to god this is creepy ) + extreme misogyny that is never fixed and the main male leads being misogynists themselves + women of color are plain and not as pretty as white women + the infantilization of pregnant women and reproductive abuse + the fucking faerie segregation that happened when hewn city civilians couldn't get into or access services from velaris... like i could go on and on. but i despise the series except for the first book because it's such goals, even if it had errors and i only even read all the way till the end cause 1) i just... kept hoping it'd get better (it didn't) 2) queen nesta archeron and my bbg lucien

so uh in short to everyone who recommended me acotar i don't trust you anymore

[too-antigonish]

The Great S7 Rewrite: 14 July 2024 Update

So here's a brief summary of where we're at so far plus new ideas:

Bone of Contention #1: Opera Rules

So far: 

Keep and maybe even go a little crazy with Opera Rules 

Possibly feature more of the opera written for S7

Possibly include opera theme towpath murders 

NEW:

@oeuvrinarydurian

Throwing this out here because so many of these options are potentially hysterical. https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/Opera

I will also suggest looking at TV Tropes Opera page. I’d also recommend checking out the various tvtropes pages for individual operas by title.

Bone of Contention #2: Ludo and Violetta?

So far:

Give them an evil plan that actually makes logical sense

And also make them people that Morse would actually want to be friends/lovers with

Consider extent to which Violetta is “Unattainable Fantasy Woman” 

Make Ludo a music journalist, etc.

NEW:

Keeping Ludo and Violetta

@oeuvrinarydurian

Violetta works better as a character if we turn her more aggressively into a black widow, who is fully on board with whatever overall plan the two of them have

Could work fine in Operaville if the various lures Ludo throws out include Violetta and her magical vajayjay.

Part of the fun and engagement is finding a way to make them work. I think it is cheating if we get rid of everything we hate.

I’m leaning towards making them much more loathsome and true operatic villains.

@fanficrocks

Agrees we should keep Ludo and Violetta but ramp up their villainy… not necessarily in an overt way

Making them on the surface believable as friend and paramour respectively for Morse; but beneath, they are fully invested in their villainy

@astridcontramundum

Agrees that they could both be villains. 

That’s what she did with them in her “After-comers” AU. 

Violetta was actually more of the mastermind in that story, because Ludo tended to give the game away with his theatrics 😂

Specific Ideas for Ludo and Violetta

Fanfic

Loves Ludo as music columnist covering the premiere of a new opera in Venice for the first meeting/supposedly short affair between Violetta and Morse.

Maybe Ludo attends pretending to be a single man because that is the only way he stands a chance at a real coup - an interview with the prima Donna starring as the female lead in the opera (she is well known for brushing off all other women, esp younger & prettier)

Astrid

Likes the ideas we have for how Ludo, Violetta and Morse meet! (I do think we need to keep them—we need a damsel and a villain.

The trouble for me in S7 was that Violetta’s storyline made no sense. If she was really afraid, it seemed she had ample time alone in which she could tell Morse the truth. 

And I didn’t mind Ludo as a villain—I had too much fun having Ludo and Bixby go head-to-head in my AU, I think. 😂)

Ludo’s Outfits

Astrid

…Ludo tended to give the game away with his theatrics 😂

Durian

…not to mention his outfits.

mystifying sweater vest and patterned shirt combination that’s burnt into my brain that I find incredibly upsetting. It’s so horrible, even by 70s standards, and I can’t quite figure out what the point of it is thematically . Do you know the one I mean? It’s godawful.  I think it’s what he’s wearing when Morse goes over for “dinner“ and Violetta is there. I think M’s wearing his Emo Black Turtle.

Ludo’s outfits, one after the other, just get worse and worse and worse. We have to put together an outfit  montage of stills for our storyboard as we craft our villain s/l. Perhaps we can all drop some LSD. Whoever was dressing him clearly was taking psychedelic drugs.

Antigonish

We *must* now include Ludo and Violetta's increasingly obnoxious  outfits as a sign of their escalating villainy. Emo black turtleneck Morse should be oblivious and baffled by their fashion choices.

Durian

Elton John's fashion evolution

Bone of Contention #3: Towpath Storyline

So far:

Streamline very cluttered storyline

Focus mostly on is the murderer Carl or is it not Carl

Possibly make them opera related so it is universe within universe for towpath killings.  Deranged fan? Thwarted performer? Gives more scope for Thursday/Morse conflict.

Make conflict between Morse and Thursday believable by providing adequate motivation—possibly Morse’s increasingly reckless behavior and lack of care for his safety

While there was a reconciliation at the end of S6, Morse would have still been carrying resentment about having been pushed aside

NEW:

Morse/Thursday Conflict

Astrid

And as for the Morse/Thursday conflict—since Morse is having this affair, and since the case is veering towards the operatic, perhaps Morse gets reckless, putting himself inti danger?

Thursday might think of how he had just gone off to Wicklesham Quarry alone and feel angry that Morse has learned nothing from S6.

Fanfic

Likes the idea of Morse rushing into danger in a parallel with the S6 finale. It is sort of what he did at the very end of Zenana, but if it happens earlier like the middle of Oracle, it would give us a very solid reason for their increasingly acrimonious relationship

Bone of Contention #4: The Episodic Storylines

Raga: 

Fanfic

Simplify to story of intra-family tension resulting in the killing of an employee who is also a friend and thus has opinions on the matter. 

Move the actual killing to a street corner or alleyway so that the political backdrop (hate-fueled campaign, race-based attack on the Asian teenager) works as an effective red herring

Then leaves the gay wrestlers story to be woven in - potentially as a second red herring overlapping with the first one of race hate (as several of the wrestlers in the group were persons of color). 

Loves Thursday’s disparaging parallel between wrestling and opera, and can see how that will really rile Morse

Astrid

Glad you like the wrestlers! I was thinking maybe their falling out could be over who was getting the starring role? Over who would get to play the lead “face?” 

Between the wrestlers, and the family drama (love you all’s ideas for them!) and the Ludo/Morse/Violetta storyline, we could have a theme of jealousy and thwarted love and temptation running throughout all of the layers, linking them all together. And tying in to the opera, too, framing it all into one?

Antigonish

If we make the family Bengali, they would work with the idea of incorporating the political tensions in the lead-up to Bangladesh's independence in '71.

Durian

I love what everybody’s throwing out as far as Raga. 

I think we could get rid of the poker and debt storylines as well and completely concentrate on some iteration of  intra-family political divisions . 

If we’ve got to have a murder about money, we can come up with a better reason… Maybe funding some kind of Pro-Bangladeshi political or social cause? 

Zenana:

Fanfic

The only bit in the entire episode that has anything at all to do with the title is the Lady Matilda’s college theme… limiting it to women only, and the women looking after their own (so to speak) when they trap, or more accurately try to inflict vigilante justice on, the copycat towpath killer

Durian

I am fully on board with jettisoning the Lady Matilda‘s storyline. It’s awkward.  

Overall S7 Themes

Astrid

That quote from Ludo* would be great to use too! I had forgotten he said that...that also brings all of the cast of characters together.

*Ludo sums it up—while also perhaps referring to his crimes—by saying to Morse, “Life, death, rich, poor. It's all a roll of the dice, Morse. There's no reason to any of it. You're not responsible. Some people are just unlucky.”

Between the wrestlers, and the family drama (love you all’s ideas for them!) and the Ludo/Morse/Violetta storyline, we could have a theme of jealousy and thwarted love and temptation running throughout all of the layers, linking them all together. And tying in to the opera, too, framing it all into one?

OK. Next up: a strategy for actually getting this done.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

I just came accross your replies to my book Irene rant. Yes as we both agree book Irene was great. As an individual character. I don't see ship there and in BBC? There's no ship but cruelty. Irene is cruel and BBC Sherlock was visibly uncomfortable with her thoughts and messages. And Sherlock being human, in TBB did people notice how he comforted Sarah? He's always human. Irene Adler in BBC just used it. Worst depiction of empowering woman. As a woman it's a disgrace.

(referencing this post)

Hey Nonny!

Yeah, Sherlock most definitely was not enjoying himself in ASiB, and I'm always boggled when people think it was "hot". I dunno, it's not my jam, honestly.

I think in her own way, BBC Irene was a good character, but they just... kind of "fetishized" her, for a lack of a better word (it's not what I mean, but it's more like Mofftiss have this weird "hurting Sherlock" kink and it's just kind of off??). All the women in the show inevitably get washed away somehow, or written out of character to how they were initially written (and this is only including "main" recurring characters):

Molly => Reduced back to S1E1 Molly, simpering over Sherlock after they established her to be a character who grew out of her crush on Sherlock

Donovan => In trying to make her a "strong character" they instead reduced her to stereotypes and then inevitably she just... was never seen again.

Anthea => Just disappeared, no mention of her character, if she was even still Myc's assistant

Sarah => Literally disappeared from the show, never to see her again

Mrs Hudson => WTF was her characterization in S4?? The car thing was so bloody weird, like out of nowhere

Irene => Reduced to a sex joke

Mary => Was going to be a badass villain and instead had the shittiest "redemption arc" that all the characters essentially idolized her for some godawful reason

Hopkins => I put her on here because she was LITERALLY HEAVILY PROMOTED as a new main character in S4 before it aired... and then she was only a one-note side joke with three lines of dialogue in one episode. Never showed up again after T6T.

Euros => Don't.... even get me started on her. Was some weird X-Man supervillain, who's entire arc was... needing a hug from Sherlock.

And I was also gonna add Baby Watson here too, but she's more an issue of "introducing a baby into a show and have it disappear when it's inconvenient" kind of trope.

Bleh, and I know this is ALL nitpicking and all my opinion, so it's fine if y'all disagree. I love this show a lot, and it's frustrating that it has HUGE gaping flaws in it, LOL. Anyway.

I think all the characters on the show ARE great characters, they just suffer from Moffat's inevitable decline in writing the longer something goes on when he's in charge, LOL.

[incesthemes]

final thoughts: supernatural season 15

holy shit. i did it. i finished supernatural. i actually finished it a couple hours ago but i'm still having trouble processing it. i've been working at this for six months (but with a one-month break back in december) and i'm finally finished. honestly i don't think i really believed i would do it because shit this show is long, and i am not predisposed to enjoy shows like this. so this is a huge mark of pride for me, that i can finally say i did indeed sit down and watch all 327 episodes of supernatural :)

anyway all that to say i hated this season with a passion lmao, hasta la vista baby ✨

honestly i think i'll end up keeping this short because frankly most of my criticisms boil down to

how did you fuck up your own lore this badly

holy plotholes batman

this is so disrespectful and irreverent toward kripke's supernatural

nothing about this writing makes any kind of sense

well, that's convenient (in the most boring way imaginable)

so it's basically just a game of spin the wheel and see what it lands on.

the season started super weak; the concept was bad from the get-go and executed only to a mediocre standard, so i couldn't help but cringe my way through it. rowena's death was really well done, but her character was never well developed, in the same way most side characters on this show are never well developed, so while i appreciate the care that went into that scene it felt rather empty. it made me regret how poorly and inconsistently written she was. and yeah most side characters get this treatment—hell, cas gets this treatment which is why i don't care about him much—but she had such a provocative death scene that it had me lamenting that she didn't get a better foundation and better development. alas, that's just what it means to be someone other than sam and dean on supernatural.

after that was... the eileen subplot. i do really like eileen despite her being a rather flat and uninteresting character the way most women are on this show (y'know, kickass independent "girl power" women without nearly any other significant personality trait), but i really didn't appreciate the substantial pivot sam took from dean-focused to eileen-focused in this season. yes, season 12-14 did go to great efforts to make sure this wasn't The Sam And Dean Show anymore, but season 15 is so dramatically incongruous from even 12-14 that it just boggled my mind. the sam/eileen stuff was a major part of that, and it just didn't feel good because it was one more nail in the coffin with regards to how little the showrunners respected the foundation of the show (y'know, "the epic love story of sam and dean"). the only real salmondean moment in the entire season was the 7-minute incest speech in the finale—like what? i couldn't even properly enjoy that because of how poorly it was set up, thanks to the four seasons of retconning their relationship and making it less important to the series overall.

anyway all that to say, they had this massive sam/eileen subplot and then nothing even came of it. sam didn't even call to check if she was alive after jack resurrected everyone? he didn't meet up with her on screen even once? like if you're going to give him this season-long romance with someone other than dean, you could at least have the balls to commit to it. i find that just. godawful writing. eileen didn't have to be sam's blurry wife or anything, but he should have had some kind of resolution, literally anything at all, if we're meant to believe she's in any way important to him. c'mon.

more incongruous moments: dean got weirdly angry in this season. like what's with episode 17 man? there is nothing about dean in that episode that feels even remotely in character. from "jack's not family" to dean pulling a gun on sam, it all felt wildly overblown, way too melodramatic and sudden, and just not anything dean would do. yeah he's an angry guy, but???? this was too much, even for him. and the whole jack argument between sam and dean made me roll my eyes hard. because how do you expect me to believe that after all of the developments up to that point, that

dean wouldn't consider jack family. first of all that's stupid, dean drops the f-bomb on literally anyone he thinks is useful to further his goals. second of all it contradicts the bond they've formed since season 13, and it no longer fits with the parallel themes set up between sam, dean, and jack. it undermines what's been established, what's been developed, and what jack means to them on a thematic level. so so so stupid. cannot stress how dumb this move was. it just felt like the writers pulling out yet another OOC moment just so they can conveniently move the plot in the direction they wanted. so annoying.

sam and cas are equals in dean's eyes. like that's just hilarious to me. the last time cas died dean got sad for a little bit and burned his body on a pyre. the last time sam died dean committed suicide. these are not equal reactions. and sam and cas have never been equal to dean because dean always chooses sam over everyone, again evidenced in the series finale. so it was just hilarious for this one episode to pretend like sam and cas could ever be equal.

of course season 15 did really push a destiel agenda in the most unexpected and bizarre way. like wow, and i thought seasons 12-14 were a totally different show. no, season 15 is so much worse than that. i have absolutely no idea why they made the choices they did with this season, but they were not good, they routinely disrespected kripke's foundations of the show, and they ignored every theme ever laid out up until then. all for... what, exactly? so dean and cas can have a weird little non-romance together for 18 episodes only for them to slip wincest back in at the end? what's up with that? no like seriously, what were they trying to do here????

i told my friend this earlier, but i do think it's funny how cas's death speech is just straight-up factually incorrect regarding dean. i'm 100% fully willing to believe that castiel was blinded with lust by dean winchester that he simply made up some guy in his head who looked like dean. and that will be my headcanon going forth because wow it's shocking and funny as hell how much he got wrong while waxing poetic about dean. "you're the most selfless man i know" when kripke spent 5 seasons pounding it into our heads how fundamentally selfish dean (and sam, obviously, but the speech is about dean) is. girl what are you saying. dick so good he rewrote dean's basic character traits to be more convenient to him. i respect it truly i do.

anyway the finale. i hated it! to absolutely no one's surprise. a few days ago i wrote out what i thought would have been the most thematically cogent endings for supernatural. i knew what actually happens, obviously (hard to miss tbh), but my resolve on this front was only strengthened by actually watching it. yes the 7 minutes of incest were very nice and compelling, but... wow. this episode has some of the worst pacing i've ever seen in my life. dean died halfway into the episode? and the rest of that was... a sequence of short scenes that are too drawn-out to be a montage??? like there was no tension, no buildup, and no setup for what they did. it felt so lazy and underdeveloped, lacking any kind of poignancy or thematic cohesion. and then i had to watch TWENTY MINUTES of half-baked scenes of dean in heaven and sam growing old. i wouldn't have hated this ending so much if they had better pacing, i'm serious. like the outrage i feel is predominantly because of how badly it was written. the concepts aren't good, but they were par for the course. but TWENTY MINUTES OF MONTAGE. A MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH WITH NO EMOTIONAL BUILDUP, WHICH ACTIVELY CONTRADICTS THE THEMES OF THE SHOW. WHAT!!!!!!! WERE THEY THINKING!!!!!!!!!!

anyway i disliked that a little bit.

so overall i pretty much hated every part of this season and there were very, very, very few redeeming features sprinkled in. it's fine though! i'm fine. it's all over now :)

a few brief thoughts on the series overall: i regret ever speaking badly of kripke's supernatural; i didn't know how good i had it until it was gone. in hindsight, a lot of the seasons i thought were dogshit were actually not the worst things ever—i just didn't realize how bad bad could get. i know now. i will carry that knowledge with me forever.

dramatics aside, i honestly did enjoy watching the show. as much as i hated so many of the writing choices, the plotholes, the retcons, the way the writers just handwaved away anything inconvenient and rewrote characters entirely just to force them into the story they way they wanted them—it was still, like, fun. the agony was enjoyable (things masochists say). i think it helps that the fandom at large generally agrees that the writing is bad; it gives a sense of community and solidarity in the misery. there's no uneasy disconnect between myself and the rest of the fanbase, and that honestly does make all the difference. it's fun to suffer together, and i don't regret watching this show one bit :)

so with that said, here's my final ranking for every season:

season 1 (thematically strong, tight writing, incredible vision, truly foundational in its establishment of overarching themes, tone, and genre)

season 2 (such an interesting plot which builds on what was established in season 1. this is where the meat of the show is, where the heart is exposed to daylight as the chest is ripped open)

season 3 (well written, though disappointing in some areas largely due to kripke dropping the special children plot thus leaving a hole. not very noticeable due to the good writing, but still there. i'll never forgive them for killing off henricksen)

season 4 (this is the first real drop in quality imo, but it's relatively insignificant. the writing feels more meandering, and the tone shifts rather drastically away from the horror of its origin. the introduction of angels destroys a lot of the religious anxiety that formed the foundation of the show, but at the same time introduces a fantastic story about fate and doom)

season 5 (same as season 4, but with the flaws a bit more glaring. castiel's unclear motivations and underdeveloped shift in perspective are a major point of contention for me; i don't think it was handled well and could have been written better to make him a stronger character from the get-go, possibly allowing him to be a better character in later seasons instead of the conflicting mess we ended up with)

season 9 (the writing is atrocious, but the vision is so good. i still don't know how they managed that. they had such a great idea and they took kripke's supernatural and expanded on it in such a satisfying way. it drove me crazy! but holy shit the actual writing is so bad)

season 8 (i feel largely the same about 8 as i do 9, but i just think the writing was overall worse. it does get brownie points for having benny in it, though)

season 10 (boring. boring and paced so, so, so badly. the sole redeeming feature was how committed it was to its vision. it has the exact opposite problem as season 6 in that it has too little content to fill out the season. but god, the vision. you'll hear me waxing poetic about the season 8-10 vision on my death bed)

season 7 (it did a lot to pave the road for seasons 8-10 which i can't ignore. it also got itself fairly settled after the mess season 6 was and didn't try to bite off more than it could chew. i didn't love it, but it had a lot of moments that were provocative and interesting, and it provided pretty good setup for season 8. the writing was not good, but i think that goes without saying)

season 6 (introduced really interesting ideas, but tried to cram so much into one season that it failed to deliver satisfying payoffs for any of its setup. soulless sam was an interesting exception and really redeemed it for me)

season 12 (12 and 13 are about equal for me because i hate the plots, i hate the intense diversion away from The Sam And Dean Show, i hate the writing, i hate the concepts, etc etc. but they both introduce supporting characters which show off new and interesting sides to sam and dean: mary in 12 and jack in 13. it allows for focus to stay on sam and dean's relationship a little longer even though they're no longer generating any organic conflict between them, so i appreciate that at least)

season 13 (i fucking HATE the apocalypse world. that is my deciding factor between seasons 12 and 13. also i hate what they did to mary here)

season 14 (honestly an inoffensive season. i still hate the writing way more than anything else pre-12, and it doesn't have the benefits of a new character introduced to provide external conflict between sam and dean, so while it was relatively inoffensive it was also boring, lacking, and really obvious how little the writers cared about maintaining sam and dean's relationship as the emotional core of the show)

season 11 (the writing all things considered wasn't the absolute worst thing i've ever seen, if i'm being fair. on the other hand, i hated everything about this season conceptually, and i hate that it vouched for christianity as the ~one true religion~ which again undermines kripke's original series. this is me being petty and i'm okay with that)

season 15 (see above. oh but i'm honestly surprised it managed to surpass my ire toward season 11. like honestly it's impressive because i hold a massive grudge toward 11 which should have been insurmountable. a feat has certainly been achieved here!)

anyway. i said this wasn't going to be long but then i just kept on writing and writing. because that's what i do. i never learn 😔 i'll end it here then. i intend to go back and rewatch seasons 1-5 now that i'm finally finished, so i'm looking forward to that. i want to see if my rose-tinted glasses that i've been looking at kripke era with are based on reality or simply a longing to return to less terrible times :P

[emblemxeno]

Welcome back! <3 What's your opinion on the second generation of Shepards? There are definitely some that could use some more development imo

Thanks for the welcome back!

(Sorry for the long post, I just kept writing and writing lol)

I agree with the sentiment to a certain extent. The second generation I feel are as well written as they could be (especially since time travel is a story tool I'm not fond of), but definitely benefitted from Future Past. Even though the Future Past kids aren't the same exact characters we have, they act as a 'what if' version so I count the development as one and the same.

However, to be a bit specific, one thing about them stood out, and it's indicative of a peculiar, unfortunate aspect of FE13's cast as a whole.

The boys are written with more taste, consistency, and sensitivity than the girls. Though outliers exist (like Lucina and Severa), the second gen girls are kind of cheap? They get more "humorous" supports (i put humorous in quotes cuz I don't find a lot of the jokes funny), and are treated less seriously as a whole.

Cynthia is like a sidekick or guinea pig more than an actual participant in the conversation sometimes (which I guess is funny in an ironic sort of way); Kjelle's supports are really vapid, offering nothing that her mom didn't, and delivered with a less entertaining speech pattern, and there's only a few things worse than being boring to me; Nah... is honestly kind of a mess, teetering between playing the mature straight man, and being the most childish and annoying creature ever (e.g. I hate a lot of Nowi's supports, but Nah's support with Laurent is singularly worse than all of them and is a contender for the worst one in the game); and F!Morgan, while her actions and dialogue are supposed to be cute, I find them to be kind of boundary pushing, alarming, or even downright mean sometimes.

Again, Lucina (some of the best supports in the game period, being varied, having great dialogue) and Severa (her self esteem issues recontextualize every support chain in an artful matter) avoid this, as does Noire for the most part (she's written pretty sincerely as comedic or melancholy when she needs to be), but the four ladies I mentioned beforehand can just be... bleh. Being honest, were it not for Future Past, Cynthia, Nah, and F!Morgan would've been several marks lower. Their peaks are lower than what Inigo, Yarne, Laurent, and Brady provide, and Owain's comedy lands a lot better than theirs as well.

Though, like I said earlier, this is indicative of a larger problem I have with Awakening's writing. Since the game was written with the prospect of being the last, the popular Japanese entertainment tropes were all thrown into the mix, and they tend to be at the expense of the women. Sumia's clumisness, Sully's experience with sexism being kind of surface level (i.e. not something that feels connected to the world of the game), Tharja being Yandere 101, Nowi in general, etc. A third of them comment on being a mess in the kitchen, they blush due to crass comments or outright weirdo requests 3x more often than the men, a good chunk of them are written to get pissed at a drop of a hat, and so on.

Hell, lots of the women in my 'Favorite' or 'Love' tiers on my list, also have 1 or 2 utterly terrible supports that really exemplify this. Lucina's support with F!Robin (when they're not parent and child) is godawful; Maribelle suffers when her subtle desire to be loved or charmed is brought to the forefront (e.g. her support with Virion is like Gray/Clair if Gray was also a noble, and her support with Gregor is very tepid and flavorless when she's usually very entertaining); Cherche and Olivia suffer when they have zero chemistry with their conversation partner; Cordelia suffers when she plays straight into the 'superior perfectionist' bit (Frederick, Donnel), using her conversation partner as a way to vent about Chrom (Frederick again, Henry, Gregor), and outright becomes a nagging mom/wife who cleans up her man with Gaius; and Panne suffers when the writers decide to ignore how her race was enslaved and hunted to near extinction in favor of other characters (often men) getting to play with her ears, cuddling with her fur, or calling her cute when she doesn't want them to.

Most damningly, F!Robin is several marks lower than her male counterpart despite being the same character in-story, because a good deal of her unique supports write her badly (Chrom, Lucina, Aversa, Yarne) or barely at all (Brady, Anna, Owain). Even supports that got a laugh out of me-which is a big accomplishment-like with Lon'qu, still aren't stellar cuz they play on her being almost a caricature; like she's "Robin but a woman (derogatory)" instead of just... a version of Robin.

[marley-manson]

2, 6, and 10 for the MASH asks

Thank you!

2 . what’s a detail that you would consider insignificant but you like ?

Okay idk where this falls on the insignificance scale but it's not super important, it's just a good touch, so: the way Mr. Kwang is an OR extra in a bunch of season 3 episodes until he gets a subplot in Love and Marriage. Early Mash especially doesn't usually put much care into continuity so I liked this.

6 . who’s your favorite nurse ?

I'm saying Margaret doesn't count here or she'd win easily. So I'm gonna go with nurse Gaynor in The Nurses, because I feel like she's the only woman ever on the show aside from Margaret to get a non-gendered non-romantic subplot about how much living in a war zone sucks, and I loved to see it and wish we could've seen it more. She's an emotionally closed-off alcoholic because she sees too much death on a daily basis! That's the kind of character writing I want to see when it comes to women!

10 . least favorite storyline involving your favorite ( or one of your favorites ) ?

Toss up between Who Knew and Commander Pierce.

Who Knew sucks for recharacterizing Hawkeye as emotionally reticent and deflective, something absolutely mind-bogglingly obviously in contradiction to Hawkeye in every other dramatic episode he's ever been in, and in contradiction to how he's handled actual romantic relationships, and the reasons he doesn't engage emotionally with every nurse he fucks.

In Who Knew he suggests that he's scared of committment which is why he only has casual sex with the nurses, which is stupid because we've previously seen somewhere between three and five women he was down to commit to (Erika, Carlye, Kyung Soon, plus arguably Inga and Kellye if his pathetic ending in the latter ep was a willingness to date her and not just an offer for a pity fuck) and the actual thematic reason he has a lot of casual sex is because war is hell and sex is a distraction. He has previously expressed his distaste for the nurses as people because they're army volunteers a few times (eg "a woman out of any uniform" is his answer to the question of what he misses in The Interview, and he disparagingly refers to Erika's status as a lieutenant while hitting on her in Radar's Report), which is another explanation for why he doesn't want to marry them. And he also just likes to have casual sex in keeping with the show's relationship to the counter culture movement, something that was written in a positive way for the first half or so of the show (for better or worse.)

Who Knew is a total rewrite and recontextualization of all of that, and it's done badly, and I hate it. Also on top of that it revolves around invading the privacy of a woman who accidentally walked into a landmine because she was mooning over Hawkeye, which is such a godawful episode premise I can't handle it lol. If the goal was even partially to recontextualize the womanizing as a character flaw for feminist reasons, and it probably was, then woof. I'll take the womanizing over that, thanks.

And Commander Pierce sucks because it exists solely to finger-wag at the anti-authority attitude of the first half of the show and call Hawkeye a hypocrite. It contradicts Hawkeye in Carry On Hawkeye and Officer of the Day, it presents Hawkeye with a situation he's handled with grace in the past before (being in charge of a shorthanded OR) instead of even bothering to put him out of his comfort zone to try to justify his reaction, and it makes Hawkeye suddenly care about military rules just because he's stressed out, which is absurd to the point of self-parody.

It's easy to imagine Hawkeye as a bad leader under pressure lol (though not in the OR imo but sure, in a military context) but certainly not the kind of bad leader who barks out military commands and calls his friends by their last names and sulks about having his authority undermined for an entire day. It's pure bad pro-military writing that gives the impression of being embarrassed about earlier (superior) Mash tbh and it sucks.

ask meme

[romani-ranch]

I’ve kept quiet on this for too long, I need to break my silence.

Untagged spoilers for all of death note ahead because I don’t want the death note fans to find me.

Death note is one of the worst fucking anime I’ve ever seen in my life and the fact that it has the following it does is insane to me. What am I missing? Light and L’s cat and mouse game and gotchas are only interaction like 50% of the time, and the other 50% of the quirky overanalysis just feels like Rick and Morty levels of the show pretending to be smart because it couldn’t think of anything actually intelligent to do. The Yotsuba arc fucking sucks. I genuinely lost so much interest in the show for the duration of that arc, and the big payoff at the end with light getting the death note back did 100% not feel worth the amount of time that was spent dicking around with rich assholes.

Light is insufferable as a character, which isn’t a problem, because he’s a villain, and an incredibly flawed one, which is completely fine. What I’m not fine with is that the show doesn’t seem to acknowledge many of his flaws as flaws. He treats every woman he interacts with like garbage. Either they’re just a pawn in a greater scheme, or someone who’s so pitifully stupid that they’re below him in every way, someone not even worth considering a threat, barely even a person. Which, again, is fine. I don’t think characters having flaws makes them unlikeable, especially villains. But, the show never ever ever acknowledges Light’s misogyny as a negative trait. He is never punished for underestimating or using women, no woman ever gets one over on him. In fact, I think the only person that hates women more than Light, is the author.

Please refer to every single female character in the show with speaking lines in more than one episode. Naomi, Light’s sister, Light’s mom, Misa, Kiyomi, Wedy, Rem. Every single woman in this show, by the end of this show, has met some godawful fate, and is either dead in a horrific way, or traumatized permanently. Conversely, while a lot of men die in this show, often in gruesome ways, there are plenty of male characters that get off Scott free. Near and the SPK, the entire Kira task force, with the obvious exception of the dead ones. I think there’s enough men in this show with okay endings that this criticism is earned.

In general, I found the final arc very unsatisfying as a whole. Mello and Near just showing the fuck up really was not cool. I didn’t care for either of them at all really. At least with L, he had an established dynamic with light built up over the entire series. Some new cunt showing up and trying to be him is just. Less cool? Misa bowing out of the story to go be Light’s tradwife while he cheats on her is an especially low point in this show as well.

Am I being mean and petty for the sake of being mean and petty? I mean, yeah for like, sure. I’m kind of being a dick but like. What is the appeal of this show? As a detective show, the mindgames and tricks and gotchas are very often, genuinely less interesting than your average Columbo episode, despite taking nearly twice as long to set up. As a drama, the show’s misogyny issues really hold it back, as do the more questionable and off the wall story beats. As a yaoi show, which I know it is to a large part of its audience, look, I like toxic romance. I actually enjoy incredibly unhealthy couples when written well, and I don’t mind reaching for my pairings. There’s nothing here. Like. Yeah, they have their moments, and I understand why people make L and Light fuck but like. Come the fuck on. This pairing is white bread with nothing on it they’re not even that cool. I don’t like men, so maybe I can’t talk here but like. They’re not even that hot??? The fuck are you people on about?

Every sensible person I know dropped the show after L died and honestly, I wish I had done the same. I just. I don’t get it. How the fuck does this show come so highly rated? How did you make a detective thriller unironically worse than Danganronpa? Answer quickly.

[cityoftheangelllls]

Entry 8 in my historical Disney princess series: Pocahontas! (reupload of an art post I deleted by mistake)

Alright, so this one is a no-brainer: what would become Jamestown, Virginia, USA, 1607. I knew from the start that this would be an interesting one, since Pocahontas was a real person. Besides that, she was only around 11 or 12 when she first met John Smith and his fellow English settlers, while in the Disney version she's aged up to around her late teens or 20s. And, of course, that isn't the only inaccuracy in Disney's VERY loose interpretation of her story. Although several accounts exists and we have no way of knowing which ones are true (unless time travel becomes a thing), and Pocahontas didn't leave behind any writing herself, I am 99.9% sure that she and Smith didn't have a romantic affair. And although I still think that the art, music, and animation in Disney's Pocahontas is stunning, I don't feel the same way about it as I used to now that I know the true story, and I feel that Disney could have done much better with adapting her story.

Still, Pocahontas as a Disney character is an imperative Disney heroine, and I was looking forward to drawing what she would have looked like as a young woman, since, factually, she normally wouldn't have worn any clothes as a younger girl. John White's illustrations of Powhatan people from the late 16th century were a huge help, and I also found a lot of written information on the Internet. I decided to make two different versions of Pocahontas here: one with her in a fringed buckskin apron, and another with a buckskin dress, which she commonly would have worn around visitors (as well as throughout the movie itself, since, although baring one's breasts obviously wasn't taboo in Native American communities back then, it is in Western culture). The original design for Pocahontas's dress in the film, I found, was already fairly accurate, despite being so form-fitting. The apron is embellished with small shells and pearls, since the Powhatan people were fond of decorating their clothes. Of course I couldn't forget her mother's necklace. There was an illustration done by White with a woman wearing a blue beaded necklace, so I gave Pocahontas one similar to that, in addition to some other, longer necklaces of shells, pearls, and copper beads, which wealthier Powhatan people wore. As for her tattoos, I'm glad Disney gave her at least one, but, since I learned that the Powhatan people often decorated their bodies a lot more than that, I gave her some on her other upper arm, wrists, calves, and face. I was originally intent on keeping her long, flowing hair, but I didn't find any reference images that showed Powhatan women with their hair long and loose - it was pretty much always in a braid or updo - so I worried that it wouldn't be accurate, so I scrapped it. I also gave her bangs, since that's what Powhatan women and girls commonly had.

I may or may not do Pocahontas's outfits from the godawful sequel Disney made in an attempt to be more historically accurate, but for right now I'm planning on focusing on just the first movies for all the characters instead for this project. Also, I know the lighting sucks, I'll try to upload better close-up photos soon.

Commissions info

[laufire]

🔥 "romance is undervalued in media nowadays"

Ngl, I feel like exactly the worst person to evaluate this, as I'm... pretty certain I've never read a romance novel lmao (fantasy heavily featuring romance, yes. Romantic with capital R, sure. Romance-romance, nope).

To that, you have to add that I'm not predisposed to like the genre. It's a matter of personal preference, paired with my knee-jerk reaction to its more staunch defences on the name of their so-called "feminism" or "pro-woman" narratives.

Like @malandanti said, it’s worth discusing why men don’t engage with it, and the way they look down on it certainly affects how it’s valued in media. But I reject the idea that they’re feminist in nature, given my admittedly second-hand knowledge of the genre. They’re eminently heteronormative, brimming with consent issues that never seem properly addressed let alone receive serious consequences, and have a transparently uneven treatement between heroes and heroines. Therefore when this argument is used to explain why the genre should be more valuable, I tend to get on the defensive.

There’s the question of which circles one means when we say “valued in media” because thanks to that godawful show Bridgerton they seem to be getting a revival. I find almost nothing but romance books in plenty of small bookstores, certainly more than I ever saw before. And there’s that Persuasion adaptation coming; I haven’t read a lot of Austen (yet), but what I have is enough to make me side-eye the idea of putting one of her books through a Bridgerton-filter, ngl. So commercially, on the whole, the genre seems to be doing better than it used to (and IMO maybe better than it deserves, at least the way it’s getting done now lol).

Intellectually it’s clearly not highly valued, but although I agree part of it might be do to you typical “ugh icky girly stuff” nonsense, given the associations people make with the genre, I can’t say I disagree with the sentiment. No genre or subgenre is a monolith and I’m sure they’re good works out there, but I’m under the impression the goal of most romance novels is to create something entertaining, uncomplicated, relatively unchallenging, and with a prose easy to read quickly as to have people devour countless of them in as little time as possible (especially as authors make sagas of different couples etc). That’s perfectly respectable, IMO, but certainly not the high of literature.

Tl;dr although it’s obvious some undervalue them do to plain old misogyny because they associate them with women, I don’t particularly think they should be highly valued as literary pieces. Some works within it might deserve to and be written with true passion, just like all genres have masterpieces and trashy books lol, but as a whole the genre seems built on being quick and uncomplicated to read and that obviously conditions the works getting published.

[daisyachain]

are you a fan of any shojo/josei works?

Wish I were! Josei stories in particular seem to run the gamut of mature stories in interesting locations that don’t really fit to any one mold or trope, but I read manga on an irregular basis and rarely read something I haven’t already seen others talking about. There’s doubtless some really good stuff out there…but the few that I have tried (Fruits Basket, Ao Haru Ride) don’t fit my preference for either loud, dumb, and action-packed. In general I’m not a fan of m/f romances and the tropes associated with them in female-targeted manga (the overbearing/controlling older guy, the clumsy everygirl, the female friends who function mostly as cheerleaders) which makes it hard to get into some stuff.

Shoujo/josei that I have enjoyed are

BANANA FISH, a violent thriller/action subtextual BL that reads as a bizarre fusion of The Wire and That One Darkfic You Read At Age 15, a tight series with allowances for 80s + bl tropes that should absolutely be read with a list of CWs.

Shimanami Tasogare/Our Dreams At Dusk, a sort of pan-demographic slice of life with some melodramatic moments, you’ve doubtless heard of it but it is as good as they say. A quick and impactful read, I want to read the mangaka’s other works but I really need to emotionally prepare myself first lol.

GSNK, it’s funny!

Hakuouki. Purely a matter of timing. I watched it as my third anime ever and became obsessed with the way the side characters were built up in drama CDs and bonus content, many of which only exist as translated on the tokio-fujita LJ by a person who is now unfortunately deceased(?) but back in the day successfully pulled a minor scam or two within the fandom. Pretty mid, has all the same fatal flaws as any VN adaptation, interesting cast and ideas HAMSTRUNG by having to stick to the main m/f romance, women robbed of all relevance and agency, somehow the male protag’s love interest in the prequel is far better written than the female protag. This series is indivisible from my love of all animanga so I can’t tell how good or bad it is. I can only say that I spent a very very long time thinking about it. Classic shinsengumi story, Japan is torn by a civil war between traditionalist and modernizing factions, but also there are magically enhanced vampiresoldiers and a line of bloodsucking demons seeking to continue their race through eugenic matchups. It’s Anime as anything.

There are a few others that fall into josei/shoujo-adjacent but that aren’t officially in the category I think? After Hours (mature and sedate slice of life romance), No. 6 (slow biological sci fi), Shadows House (ontological mystery thriller) are all series I’ve enjoyed but never quite got to ‘fan’ except for Shadows House, which I really need to catch up on

Bonus rec: Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East is as far as I can tell just a cringe, tropey bl-inflected adventure with godawful pacing that I somehow watched in grade 10? Absolutely would not recommend for a quality watch but it’s obscure enough that it has a certain novelty.

I’ve rb’d a few josei/shoujo recs for future references as I keep searching for something to vibe with so all recommendations are welcome! Next one I am considering a read of is XXXHolic, haven’t yet started because while the pros are that it is CLAMP, the cons are that it is also CLAMP and my list of works to consume is too long to spend time trying to figure out whose legs are whose.

If you’re looking for manga to read, I have to recommend Screentone Club podcast! They do first-volume reviews of mostly new manga without anime adaptations that hit the sweet spot of brief, literate, and indicative without being spoilery. Doesn’t work well for series that get good in the 8th volume, but it’s my go-to for broadening my awareness of the current scene.

[jeannereames]

Hi, Dr. Reames! How do you handle the responsibility of being a woman writing MLM love stories? There's been a lot of harsh critics towards women writing BL lately, I've been wanting to write one myself but as a woman it now feels kinda wrong. I thought of using a pseudonym, but that feels somehow even more wrong, like cheating or something. What do you think about his problematic? How can we make it better or surpass it?

In my original attempt to answer, I dove into a discussion of fair representation among fiction authors, Big Publishing’s perpetuation of bias, and the problem of appropriation vs. authentic subaltern voices in fiction. IOW, an academic-ish essay. All those things are worth discussing, and maybe I will at some point. And perhaps the seriousness of the question deserves it.

Yet there’s a simpler answer to this question. Perhaps it's a bit…sassy, but may be more helpful in a bank-shot sort of way.

I’m not a woman author of M/M Romance.* I’m not a Romance author at all, in fact, and I do happen to be queer. Fwiw, the complaint is usually about [white] cis-het women writing M/M Romance.

I am a historical fiction author, and an SFF author. I wrote a lit-fic coming-of-age historical about Alexander the Great and Hephaistion; I plan to continue that story at some point. In addition, I have an epic fantasy that’s 4-of-5 books finished, and another contemporary fantasy that’s 1.5 books of 3. None of those is a Romance. All do have love stories as part of a much bigger plot, and all have queer characters. In two, queer characters are the chief protagonists. In addition to those three series, I have a solid idea for two more stand-alone books that I’ve written only the opening for, one contemporary SF, one time-travel.

The ONLY (true) M/M Romance I’ve toyed with writing would be an anti-Sparta manifesto wherein my main characters are a helot slave and a member of the Perioikoi. I’m sure that would go over like a lead balloon because my entire goal in writing it would be to showcase how godawful ancient Sparta actually was, and poke hella lot of holes in the Spartan Myth perpetuated in M/M romance and historical fiction generally. (Ergo, I will [probably] never write this thing because the Haters would come out of the woodwork, and I’d rather spend time on stories I like.)

Anyway…

What qualifies or disqualifies an author with regard to a story depends largely on what the book is about—it’s focus.

I’m not writing a gay man’s experience in the modern world. If I were, not being a gay man would matter. It wouldn’t disqualify me from writing said-novel, but it’d create a steeper climb.

Yet being a gay man doesn’t qualify someone to write a historical novel about Alexander the Great.

Being a (published) expert on Hephaistion, Alexander, and ancient Macedonia matters rather more, as does being a (published) expert on ancient Greek sexual morēs, and an expert in ancient Greek social history.

It also helps if I can develop 3D characters and form a coherent plot arc, not just vomit my research notes all over the page. (E.g., the PhD in history is great—but so is the BA in Creative Writing.)

That’s what qualifies me to write the novels.

If a gay guy had those same qualifications, or at least a lot of them/did thorough research, he could write a novel about Alexander too. But tbh, just being gay might get in the way more than help. Why? Modern gay experience is pretty damn different from ancient Greek, and writing modern gay men in chitons or togas would piss off gay male historians of the ancient world just as much as it’d piss off me.

This is a problem with M/M Romance set in the ancient world—maybe more of one than being a cis-het woman. I’ve attempted to read a few. Two were okay; I wouldn’t especially recommend them but finished them. One I like: A.J. Demas’ Sword Dance, although hers isn’t historical romance so much as historical analog based on the middle Roman Empire. (Not unlike what Guy Gavriel Kay writes.) She’s also got a PhD in history. (I have good hopes for the rest of the series, but other novels to finish first.) The rest of the M/M ancient historicals I tried were varying degrees of Yeah-no to stab-my-eyes-with-a-spork. It doesn’t help that the relationships in them seemed equally unrealistic.

But that owes to the fact I’m not really a Romance reader. I very much enjoy a love story embedded in the larger plot, but that’s a different animal from a Romance, capital R. Which is almost certainly why some of the biggest complaints about Dancing with the Lion among M/M readers is that the romance isn’t central enough and the sex isn’t hot enough. Well, no. That’s not what I was trying to write in the first place.

There are a couple (at least two that I know of) self-published M/M Romances about Alexander and Hephaistion. The little bits I read of each were worse than the worst of the professionally published M/M ancient history Romances—which is probably why they’re self-published. No, I won’t name them; that would be crass. Yet I mention them because, near as I can tell, both were written by gay men. This only underscores my point that being gay does not magically confer talent to write about Alexander (or anything else). The books are bad not because the authors are gay, but because the authors can’t write. Amazon (et al.) is rife with badly written self-published novels by people of all backgrounds and walks of life.

Anyway, it takes a lot more to write well about Alexander the Great than having a dick and liking dick. If it’s only about personal experience, not being Macedonian, and not being born in the 4th century BCE would be equally disqualifying. Then nobody would be eligible to write about him.

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

*MLM makes me think “multi-level marketing” not “men love men.” 🙃

[gayregis]

1/2 ngl i think many western witcher book fans make the series out to be way more progressive than it actually is. part of it is mistranslation ofc, like for example with the 'man was not made for monogamy' bit where the use of singular man is rlly misleading and it should be "a man" or "men aren't" bc originally it's just dandelion being a sexist cheating dick and not some openminded progressive the way ive seen this interpreted sometimes, But

2/2 there's a lot of plainly bad takes out there that i feel are partially an issue of just worldviews and circumstances. like obv its not some Enormous difference and im not saying that "hurr durr westerners Bad and Stupid" or whatever but in regard to stuff like lgbt issues or coding or feminism ive seen so many bonkers horrible takes that like. with my experience as a closeted polish trans homo are truly fucking concerning in how naive they are

(fucking 3/2 bc i can't count) but like. just from the top of my head the godawful girlboss femdom #feminism shit ppl pull with yennefer bc they cant admit shes not all that well written and that shes borderline abusive at times, people trying to make sapkowski out to be pro-lgbt which is fucking baffling with the blatant homophobic storylines/writing, the "GERALT IS CODED X" shit when hes a blatant cishet whiteman power/oppression fantasy rolled up in one like. idk im really tired and its a lot

(4/2 ok i SWEAR im done im sorry) like. i think what im trying to say is that i feel like theres a lot of like. kinda rose-colored-glasses type of naivety and a lack of understanding of how the general reality of life for women, lgbt people etc. is way different in poland and further east than it is in the states or britain or even fucking germany, so people just take very blatant bigotry and uncritically try to twist it to fit their western uwu pseudofeminism and whatnot

no, LITERALLY THIS. i think [mostly western] progressives on tumblr especially want and long to see  progressive messages or representation where there simply are not any, or where the messages that are there are largely milquetoast centrist and not actually saying anything radical. (this post i made is more specific to an aspect topic but it voices some of my opinions on it)

i think it’s of course fine to have separate interpretations of the characters / rewritten characters in your mind that you appreciate, but in order to do that you need to engage with the source material and acknowledge the reality of what is written on the page (for instance, what you said about yennefer being a #girlboss when in canon she struggles with characterization at times and especially in the short stories comes off poorly, almost abusive, and her and geralt’s relationship is definitely not some kind of #goals). 

i think that there are some redeeming features and it’s not all bad, everything is very grey - for instance, sapkowski wrote yennefer poorly when it came to her first introduction to ciri, but then her training of ciri that immediately follows it is much better. and geralt is a power fantasy in his heterosexuality and protagonist-isms, but spends the saga in turmoil over trying to protect ciri because he’s a good father. everything kind of blends together and does not just mean ONE thing only, because it’s understandable by many people. for instance, geralt being mopey and upset that he’s abnormal can be related to by MANY different types of people. 

i think the issue is when people state that characters are definitely “coded” one way or another (not like, actual canon relationships, like saying ciri is gay because she had relations with mistle... that’s a can of sapkowski-worms for another day... i’m saying, for example, arguing that dandelion is intended to be coded as gay because he wears colorful clothes or something like this). i don’t think it’s very valuable at all to look at the content and say “sapkowski intended THIS,” because i don’t find much value in what mr. centrist sells-the-rights-to-netflix had to say. i find value in what you have to say, personally, and what it means to you. 

sorry to speak about my minor again for like 0.2 seconds (it’s relevant) but it reminds me a lot of posts on here about ancient greece or rome that are like “ancient greeks and romans were GAY, we have ALWAYS BEEN HERE!!” like you really want to claim kinship with the violent imperialists who practice pedastry...? or posts claiming that X female figure, such as sappho, was a feminist. we call it an anachronistic interpretation: it’s a completely different time period, context, culture, and intention than what we understand in a modern sense. you can’t project your modern and western culture onto ancient greece and rome, because they are ancient societies.

similarly, i don’t think that you can take american feminism from 2020 and apply it to a fantasy series written by a polish man in the 1990s. you may reinterpret the characters how you so choose, of course you will have favorite characters and appreciate specific ones for specific things... but you cannot say that sapkowski’s intentions were specifically this or that as you understand them yourself in your own life, and you cannot do this with very many authors unless you are the author yourself. 

specifically for the witcher because as you said, there is a cultural misunderstanding: “[a] type of naivety and a lack of understanding of how the general reality of life for women, lgbt people etc. is way different in poland and further east than it is in the states or britain or even fucking germany.”  

i think in the english-speaking progressive social media circles currently for a few years there has been this very big hyperfocus on good representation for people of color, for women, for lgbt people, and in this quest for representation many are willing to overlook blatant bigotry in hopes of claiming another character ‘for the gays’ or whatever. for example dandelion hating on yennefer in a little sacrifice because she is old - i’m pretty sure sapkowski didn’t write this because he intended it to be like dandelion is gay and jealous of her! you can headcanon that if you like, but don’t claim that’s what it is and nothing else, because you need to acknowledge the misogyny present there.

i think it’s dangerous because you end up parading the original content around like it’s fantasic and progressive when it’s really not. i encourage people to have lgbt headcanons if they choose, but you really shouldn’t be saying it was sapkowski’s 100% intention to make this character X or Y because you really must take the writing into context with the author’s biases, life, culture, setting...

[char-lotteral]

I agree with Kishimoto never trying to use the girls. The hate they get is not fair. I used to defend Sakura back in the days because I hoped kishi would do her justice. When shippuden started I WAS SO HAPPY because I thought this was the start of something great for Sakura and the girls but NOOOOO. Every time, Sasuke showed kishi turned her brainless. If you compare Naruto's actions and Sakura's actions to sasuke, you'd see they're completely different. What's up with that weird fake love confession scene 😭? It makes her look like she was manipulating Naru. JEEZ.

Also he literally had badass Tenten and Temari with cool useful abilities and he didn't use them ?! TF ?! Thank god for modern authors who treat their characters with respect :)

okay2 you know how i am with these longass rants so click readmore and brace yourselves

The way I see it, Sakura's character development in shippuden was always one step forward, two steps back. She gets this really badass scene (like her fight with Sasori and those cool ass medical skills) but is then regressed back into a pining girl in love every time Sauce is on screen or Kishi just throws her in the background YET AGAIN.

I love Sakura's abilities actually. Her brute strength, intelligence, vast knowledge and skill as a medic nin. But what I dislike about her character is how kishi handled her feelings for Sasuke. Naruto and Sakura's obsession with Sasuke was so???? huh??? it was so damn toxic and i never once understood why both Nardo and Sak were so obsessed with him. They were a team for one year???? I mean its great that they care about him alot but Sauce's feelings were kinda valid. His freakin clan died. Id go batshit crazy against my own village too. BUT BESIDES THAT. Both Nart and Sakura's Sasuke obsession was so annoying. 80% of shippuden was literally Keeping up with the Uchihas or Naruto yelling SASUKEH. BUT what irks me so much is the fandom's double standards with both Naruto and Sakura. "Oh Sakura shouldve gotten over her Sasuke obsession" but then turn around and call Naruto's obsession cute and gush about how he's so in love with him!!

Hot take but the only reason why sasunaru is "the most developed ship with the most chemistry" is because theyre both male characters.

I guarantee you if Naruto was a girl and SHE would be the one to have this unhealthy obsession who was chasing around Sasuke, the fandom would shit on Naruto just as much. And if Sasuke were a girl, Sauce would be sidelined like the rest of the female cast and Naruto would have another male character to have a "brotherly bond" with, because thats the only bond Kishimoto is actually good at developing. Yey for male characters having all the screentime and cool assets <333

And about that confession scene, I get her intentions. I really do. I understand that she did that in order to bring him home and that she cares about him but honey, w-why?? Why lie to him about your feelings?? Supposed he DID believe her, then what? then what kishi???? huh??? Some of her fans point the blame on Sai or whatever but I personally dont see why that scene was at all necessary. Maybe to establish Naruto's feelings for her wasnt all that serious? or his maturity? idk man. That scene was such a clusterfuck.

In the end her development in The Last and in Boruto was immaculate. She had one of the best glow ups in the old gen and ironically enough, her character wasn't butchered in Boruto. She got badass scenes she was cheated from in shippuden. I also love how she's finally getting the spotlight she deserves. Unlike the other konoha 12 :,)))

Okay onto the next female character that Kishi completely wasted. My baby. My light. 🙈 AAAHHH HINATAA.

I DONT EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN OKAY2 DEEP BREATHS.

Let me just establish this real quick. Hinata's goal was to get stronger because of Naruto, her goal was never to be with Naruto. She wanted to become someone who is worthy enough to stand beside him, someone whom he can consider as an equal, as a partner. She NEVER once said "marrying Naruto-kun is my all time goal UwU" (if youre one of those weirdos who interpret her character that way, youre immediately invalid, go take a hike)

I personally dont have anything against their crushes but to the point of making their personalities revolve around these guys every time theyre onscreen is so fucking frustrating. And with the way he writes their dialogues is so.damn.cringey. Like that one scene in the war arc with Tsunade and Madara

"I mAy bE a WomAn but I aM nOt WeAAKKKK"

BAAHAHAAHHA WHAT?? Everyone else gets coolass monologues and one liners but thats the best you can come up with Kishi?????? Hilarious.

If im being honest. Hinata's character is actually kinda well written. Not well executed. Dear God no. But with the way he set her story, her personality, her chracterization. She's honestly one of the best written female characters on the show. IMO. By Kishi's standards of writing women ofc. She's hands down one of the most complex characters. Her shy personality wasnt out of the blue, it wasnt a cutesy waifu trait. Her abusive upbringing made her that way. Her trauma turned her that way. So yeah, sue her if she looked up to Naruto as an inspiration when everyone else in her family treated her like dust. Shit on her for having Naruto's love light in her dark when her own damn father wouldnt even look her in the eye and her entire clan shunned her because she was "weak." She doesnt owe her family shit so idgaf what they do with the Hyuga clan. Neji and Hanabi aren't included btw

Im not gonna deny that her role in the show was only as the love interest but tbh for a love interest, Im glad her character wasnt so one dimensional. It just pains me SO MUCHHH how fucking wasted she is. Every time she's with Naruto, they always make her into a damsel in distress. They always feel the need to turn Naruto into the heroic prince. How cute.

LIKE THAT ONE SCENE IN THE LAST WHERE SHE'S THROWN IN THE CAGE?? WHY??? LET NARUTO AND HINA FIGHT THAT FREAKING ALIEN GOD TOGETHER. QUIT WITH THE TOXIC MASCULINITY. WE GET IT. NARUTO'S STRONG. GOOD FOR HIM. NOW LETS SEE HINATA THROW HANDS AND PUT NARUTO IN THE CAGE GODAMMIT

Hnggggg dont get me started with her role in Boruto. She's as relevant as a damn houseplant in the manga. They made her into an invisible trophy wife and "the mc's mother" and we all KNOW what happens to the shounen mc's mother once mc is in need of character development :) Quit putting her in the background. Give us that scene where she won against Hanabi DESPITE being retired for years. Give us that scene where she trains Boruto. GIVE US ANY FIGHT SCENE OF HER WHERE HER POTENTIAL ISNT WASTED WTF?¿

Now if you say that Hinata didnt have development. YOURE INVALID. She came from an abusive household, the shyest girl in her class, her insecurities got in the way of her own confidence, had difficulty of standing up for herself now became a loving mother of two, has the guts to kick her husband out of the house(with whom she couldnt even keep eye contact with when she was a kid) became the strongest hyuga, most supportive wife and mother, and has given her kids the comforting childhood she never had as a kid.

She has one of the most beautiful stories in the show and if you think her personality is only Naruto-kun and big boobs, then im sorry that you cant appreciate such a heartwarming story.

And I agree, killing her would honestly make me feel more at ease than continue to see her suffer because of godawful misogynistic writers. But at least let her die in an epic fight. Please. PLEASEE. She got nerfed so bad, i feel a physical pain every time i think about it

Okay what else. I think Ino got pretty good development. Another wasted potential in shippuden but she's doing good for herself in Boruto. I dont know what Temari is up to. They basically made her into another classic angry mom who beats up her husband for comedy trope. Haha very funny and original! Im not sure with her career, im not that invested in the anime.

Tenten??

oh G O D Tenten. The dirtiest of all. Her jokes about her screentime is so mean and i hate that its true ahsjhs. She was the only female character in OG who's goal wanted to be as strong as Tsunade but what did Kishi do to her?? Sidelined. Forgotten. Irrelevant. Like every damn female on the show :D

Konan shouldnt have died. I blame plot armor. I know in my heart that Konan wouldve kicked Obito's ass if it weren't for Kishi's boomer mindset.

Tsunade had so much hype when she was introduced but died down in the war arc. Madara wiped the floor with the kages. Holy shit. Not only that, but yipee! Naruto is there to save the day AGAIN!!!!

AND UGHHHH If the female characters were given proper treatment then maybe MAYBE all the endgame couples wouldve made fucking sense????¿¿¿

I think that ends my rant. Im not sure how the female characters in Boruto are handled. Except maybe Sarada (she's pretty well executed in the manga imo). But arguably they are sooo much better handled in Boruto than how the old gen girls were. And thats because Kishi isnt anywhere near the new gen female cast. I cant formulate a solid opinion with the other new gen female cast since im not entirely invested in the anime. Not ashamed to admit that I only watch it for the sunshine moments and for Hinata :DD

[lifeiszestyy]

*1/20/2022 dream

*i was in a building that sort of looked like a modern church and i was with my family watching a woman present some kind of speech. we were sitting in folding chairs in the lobby as this pale woman with short brown hair talked about her experiences and she mentioned visiting a really important church that existed in a well known filipino port city (from a previous dream that i had bc i recognized it) and how it changed her when she visited. she talked about the history of this church, that the people intended it to be a safe place for those coming into the country and for those leaving it. there was a plaque that had the mantra of the church’s values embedded in it

*and i noticed that my father was muttering under his breath which is what he does when he’s really interested in what someone is saying and he’s trying to commit it to memory. in this alternate dream world timeline, i realized that he must have visited this place before he left the philippines as a child, and that this place was important to him. he was so caught up in his own thoughts that after the woman finished her speech, he followed her to the women’s bathroom to ask her a question. there was a piece of construction paper with “women’s bathroom” written in marker on the door that he didn’t see lmao. the woman gently led him back outside to answer his questions and was very respectful to my father who i think realized what he did and was kind of embarrassed but didn’t draw attention to it. he thanked her for answering his questions and left

*after he left (i don’t know if he left the area in general) a YT blonde woman ran up to the door and slapped a paper with “CAN’T YOU READ THIS IS THE WOMEN’S BATHROOM” on the door to the bathroom and then another yt woman with brown hair ran up and slapped another piece of paper that read “HER FANS SHOULDN’T COME IN HERE.” and i… me, a nonconfrontational person, i marched over to the door, ripped the papers off, turned to the women in their seats and shrugged rudely at them and threw their papers in the trash and straight up left the building

*i was making my way around the building when the blonde woman approached me aggressively with her dog which was hilarious bc usually i have a Huge Fear of big dogs but it was a golden retriever so even though she came at me yelling, her dog bounded up to me smiling and like just… A Good Boy. so this woman starts yelling at me while i’m petting her sweet baby dog, and i cut her off and start telling her why she is both wrong and stupid, and i was so fucking mad that i actually woke up so that i could continue my speech coherently instead of the garbled mess my dreams usually make me say

*i said something to the effect of “i understand that you made an assumption and reacted strongly because of that, but you know NOTHING about my dad, you stupid racist swine. my father was only TEN YEARS OLD when he left his home country and that church the speaker was talking about was the last memory he had of his home before coming to this godawful land of the free where people like you judge him without a second thought. he was so inside of his own mind that he made a mistake and didn’t see the sign on the door bc the only thing he was thinking of was asking that woman a question. but maybe you could have just asked him about that like a functional adult instead of being a fUCKING FREAK. MAYBE YOU SHOULD THINK BEFORE COMING TO FALSE CONCLUSIONS! HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT?”

*the fear on her face was something i feel i can only see in a dream bc ppl irl don’t find me intimidating bc i’m small and cute. i woke up so angry, i was like actually sweating lmao help. it was also really funny bc i was petting her dog the entire time i was yelling at her and her dog was so excited. i usually have shit dreams where i’m not in control and people attack me, so for me to be the one in control this time… is this… healing?????

[justmenoworries]

Fate: The Winx Saga - How Not To Reboot A Beloved Franchise

Okay, I think I speak for everyone here when I say: We saw this coming.

We saw this coming as soon as that godawful trailer dropped on youtube. But because I hate myself and because I wanted to give this pile of shit a chance, I watched it.

All of it.

It sucked and I won’t do it again.

The End.

....

Nah, I’m kidding.

Here’s why Fate: The Winx Saga sucked ass.

(Spoilers under the cut! Pfft, like anyone cares.)

The Story:

I suppose now you’ll expect me to tell you that F:TWS was a generic, boring slog-fest.

That it offered the most clichéd take on a Chosen One-story since Eragon and that it’s half-assed attempts to be scary through bringing in a zombie apocalypse made it even more painfully obvious just how hard the story was trying to be edgy and ‘’’’’’mature’’’’’’’’.

And, yeah, that’s pretty much how it went.

...Oh, I’m sorry, did you expect something fresh and surprising?

So did I when I watched this garbage.

The title says Winx, but honestly the story is more about Bloom than anyone else. At least they were faithful to the source material in one aspect, am I right fellow Winx-fans?

I hope you like Alfea, because you won’t be spending time anywhere else! Gone are the dozen colorful, unique worlds with their own eco-systems and culture.

Now we have The Otherworld, which is just earth, but with magic.

Oh yeah, and remember how each magic and non-magic users had their own, specialized schools to got to?

Cloud Tower, Alfea, Red Fountain?

Yeah, that’s all Alfea now.

Remember how Winx Club juggled great, charismatic villains and everyday teenage-drama in a way that made both seem interesting and neither obnoxious?

Fate fails miserably at that.

The subplot about the zombies- Oh, sorry, The Burned Ones ™  slowly invading Alfea couldn’t be more dry and uninteresting if it tried. You have hints of political intrigue in the background with the Solarians scheming and taking over in the end, but trust me when I say: You won’t care.

And since the character are either miserable, unlikable or both, you also won’t care about the teenage drama.

Because it’s every single teenage drama plot-line you’ve already seen in edgy reboots like Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, etc.

To add insult to injury, season 1 ends with the villains and antagonists taking over Alfea with Solaria’s help, as if anyone would be baited into a season 2 after you just dragged us through a worse version of The Walking Dead.

I would say this is what you watch to lull you to sleep, but all the incessant whining and belly-aching wouldn’t let you.

And because this is the ‘‘‘‘‘‘mature’‘‘‘‘‘ reboot, there will be no transformations and no bright colors. Just some nice effects for magic and that’s it.

Because, you know.

No one watched Winx Club for those, am I right? /s

And because in modern, edgy reboots women can never just be friends, the Winx Club start out hating each other, until suddenly they’re the best of friends in episode 4, Stella included.

Cool, huh?

The Characters:

I’ll get straight to the point: The main cast is horrible.

Not acting-wise, the actors are doing the best they can with the script, but the way they’re written...

God, the way they’re written.

For starters, Stella is a Karen now. In the very first episode she attempts to get Bloom killed, then runs away to cry into Sky’s shoulder rather than apologize.

Flora was replaced by a white character named Terra, who the writers probably thought would be received well solely because she’s awkward and makes a lot of Strawman-Feminist statements.

Techna got straight-up written out.

Musa was white-washed and is a Mind Fairy instead of a Music Fairy now, because her being the Fairy of Music wasn’t ‘‘‘‘mature’‘‘‘ enough for this reboot.

Bloom is a whiny, spoiled brat who is willing to endanger absolutely everyone around her to get what she wants. And in the end, the plot rewards her for it.

Aisha is the only Winx Club-member who remains likeable, but she’s firmly planted in the supporting character-role.

Most of the Specialists got written out too. No Timmy, no Helia, no Nabu, no Brandon.

Sky is still there, but he serves mainly as a boy toy for Stella and Bloom to fight over, because that needed to be a thing, I guess.

Riven was changed from Jerk with a Heart of Gold who learns to be better to just a one-note jerk who never changes and never learns. He’s also not with Musa in this story. Even though their romance was by far the most engaging one in the original series, aside from maybe Aisha and Nabu.

We get a new character named Dane, but he’s just there to be either a bully-victim or a side-character for others to take advantage of. Did I mention he’s the only black guy in the main cast? Yeah. There’s also this really asinine running gag that he might be gay, to tease a possible relationship with Riven, but nothing ever comes off it.

The teacher-characters are all pretty much the same: Duty-driven, want to protect the ones under their care, but end up alienating them by not being entirely honest with them because they think their students aren’t ready for The Truth, blah blah blah, moving on.

The villains don’t fare much better.

The Trix got fused into one single character named Beatrix (haha, get it?) and she’s just... The Worst. And not in a  good way. She’s obviously supposed to be the Charming Bad Girl-type but you’re more likely to laugh your ass off every time she opens her mouth than be intrigued. Whoever wrote her dialogue clearly has no idea how teenagers talk. She hooks up with Riven and Dane for no reason in particular and it’s heavily implied these three are going to be the new Trix. Which is...no. Just no.

The headmistress’ secretary gets killed off in the third episode and doesn’t do much in the first two, so I have nothing to say about him.

Rosalind is a worse, female Darth Sidious who is trying so hard to get Bloom to join the Dark Side and I guarantee you, you will not care. The story also tries to present her as something of a well-intentioned extremist, but forgets to actually let her have a point in her murders and genocides.

Hey, remember when Winx Club characters were different and unique?

The writers of this reboot clearly don’t.

The Aesthetic:

Hey kids!

You know what’s better than bright colors and nice, comforting palettes?

Slapping a dull grey filter on everything and calling it a day!

If I had to list all the reasons why Fate’s lack of style is so heartbreaking and disappointing, we’d be here all day.

So I’m just gonna show you a few screenshots from both the original series and the reboot and let that speak for itself.

The Original:

The Reboot:

Honestly, what do I even need to say?

The reboot sucked out everything that made Winx Club Winx Club and replaced it with “YA-novel palette #17247845453″.

Thanks, I hate it.

In Conclusion:

Fate: The Winx Saga could have been a new take on Winx Club’s story.

Maybe even introduced new concepts and characters tat could have been just as iconic as the original ones.

It chose to be every reboot ever instead, made everything grimdark and fundamentally misunderstood the meaning of “Gray Morality”.

Do yourself a favor and re-watch the original instead.

It’ll be a much better use of your time.