#well probably not an actual cowboy just generic western person

[lampshadeleaf]

I like it here

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

saw some western aus and wanted to throw my proverbial hat in the ring. well. toss it gently. place it down on the edge-

actually no fuck that, slamming down the hat i have Thoughts:

first off, if anything this au should be the silliest looney toons bullshit.

~ of all the revolvers are unloaded. so gunfights are just people saying "bang" at each other and then throwing the nearest thing at their opponent in place of a bullet

~ Wally is the town sheriff, and he's hilariously incompetent. he also has a habit of shoplifting apples from Howdy's saloon / general store fusion. his cowboy hat has a card with an apple on it tucked in the band, but he doesn't wear it, so at nearly all times one of his hands is occupied with holding the hat. also he doesn't wear his badge ever

~ Barnaby is the town deputy, and he's marginally more competent than Wally. however, he doesn't take his job seriously and is usually napping in his chair on the sheriff office porch. sometimes he wears Wally's badge along with his own for funsies

~ also when Howdy catches Wally stealing, he'll call Barnaby over. Barnaby will proceed to arrest and lock up Wally in his own jail until Barnaby feels too bad for leaving him in there and lets him out

~ there is only one horse in town, and its Eddie's so that he can do his delivery runs and get mail from the town over - he has a lil wagon too. Sally has a running gag where she tries to steal the horse, but it completely ignores her and won't budge an inch.

~ on that note, Wally has one of those stick horses. when he needs to chase someone down, he hops on it and Barnaby lifts him by the scruff and runs, gently shaking him up and down to simulate natural horse riding movements. somehow it always works. no one can escape this tactical move

~ the only role i can see for Sally is overly-theatrical outlaw, just as incompetent as Wally. she never succeeds in stealing anything but also never gets caught because, again, Wally is terrible at his job. everyone usually comes outside to watch their wacky "fights" and do nothing about it, including Barnaby. also Julie helps her sometimes

~ Julie i think would be the town banker. she's unusually strict about it and can get kind of scary about technicalities. however the town doesn't really use currency, so they have a point system that they keep careful track of. it would be stickers, but those dont exist. actually fuck that these are puppets, stickers exist and the board is like the gold stars in that one spongebob episode

~ Frank is an entomologist that decided to brave the untamed west to see what new bugs he might discover. what he discovered was dust, scorpions, and an inability to leave the town due to no monies anywhere. he finds entertainment in keeping track of the local ant colonies' wars & affairs, and also complaining at Howdy at the bar

~ everyone complains to Howdy. he has someone at his bar at any given time and he's taken to being incredibly passive aggressive about it. they still have to pay with jokes or favors or whatever they can think of that he'll accept

~ Poppy runs the hotel, where pretty much everyone lives. Julie lives there, Frank lives there, Sally lives there, Wally lives there. Barnaby prefers to sleep in the sheriffs office, as he doesn't want to make the "across the street" commute. Howdy also stays in his saloon/store, and Eddie sleeps in his post office - as canon intended.

~ Home is the mayor. don't ask me if he's a person, an object head, or just a building - i do not know. he's probably still a building. no one can understand what he says

~ oh also Frank is incredibly pressed over the fact that the town's lawfolk suck at their job. he swears he has an aneurysm every time Wally chases Sally down the street on a stick horse, or when blatant crime is happening right in front of a very asleep Barnaby. he is tempted to take over as sheriff, but alas, there are scorpions to be stung by

~ and finally: apple chaps. thats all thanks good day

[cryptic-bonez]

Jules posting again because I have massive brainrot of this creature. (Bonus Mica posting!!)

This time it's Headcanons and dynamics I think fit the characters. My girl Mica is underappreciated me thinks, so I'm gonna fix that.

Reminder that these are HEADCANONS! They aren't actually canon to the characters themselves, and this is just information about the character's personality and background that I think fits them. If anyone wants to add theirs, feel free, because I love reading peoples headcanons and comparing notes! :3

Fair warning, the last two of Jules' headcanons are a bit heavier, so trigger warning for SH and dysphoria mentions! There are also Hemophobia and Emetophobia mentions as well

Jules headcanons;

✧ T4T, or just an overall preference for a Trans/Genderqueer partner, pansexual possibly

✧ Has a pronounced accent when he's angry, excited, singing or acting. Like he definitely has one, but it comes out more when he's being expressive if that makes sense

✧ Definitely looks back at his old clothes from his emo phase and almost cringes because of how bad the style he used to dress in. He just fixes everything up with other absolutely ruined clothes and makes them better.

✧ Cleaned and donated his binders for sure! I feel like he'd deep clean them and everything, gives em away to other trans teens/young adults in need

✧ Studed gauges, spiky earrings, just.. out there and absurd jewlery that somehow goes so well with his outfits

✧ Was definitely a cowboy almost every year for Halloween growing up.

✧ Active protester against waste dumping! Very vocal about it too! Even makes awareness posts online and such! Made a GoFundMe to help protect land, especially indigenous land or ranches!!

✧ When he dances, it's not just generic or free style dancing. He's like.. expressing his emotions and soul with it, letting his body move without thinking about it. Like Goth dancing would be, but more expressive and fluid and just overall freeing if that makes sense

✧ Still finds glitter everywhere because he's probably spilled some as a child when doing arts and crafts. They're a very artistic person, me thinks.

✧ Definitely had his nipples tattooed on instead. You can't tell me they wouldn't find a really weird, goth or just overall funky design for a tattoo to replace their nipples after post op healing. Something like a skull, or a cowboy hat.

✧ Loves any kind of animal. Doesn't have a preference. Probably somehow tamed a bearded dragon when they were younger?? And they just. They just had it as a pet for a while. His parents never found out for a while either?? Until he just brought it out like "hey look! This is my new pet!". They also screamed the first time the bearded dragon shot blood at him from it's eyes. (Yes they can do that. Yes it's weird. And yes it's also cool)

✧ Plans on getting tattoos on his surgery scars. Animal skulls or something like that, a mix of alternative/goth and western.

✧ Probably had an unhealthy way of coping with dysphoria. Binded a lot more than he should, stuff like that.

✧ more than likely has a few scars from sh when struggling with self image and dysphoria. He's been clean for years now, and he most likely got tattoos over the scars because they accept that part of them, and they aren't ashamed of it

some Mica headcanons because my girl is swag and deserves some recognition!!

✦ Genderfluid, any pronouns. Doesn't even care if you call her an "it" (probably takes it as a compliment)

✦ Used to be irrationally scared of horses until she met Jules

✦ Hates house parties, only goes for the drinks, food and if Jules is going.

✦ Neurodivergent! Probably has a sleeping disorder too

✦ Has a scorpion belly button piercing. And a scorpion tattoo as well. They're her favorite arachnid

✦ Prefers reptiles or arachnids as a pet, but would totally foster black cats. Most likely pagan/wiccan

✦ didn't talk to Jules for a week because he showed her the bearded dragon defense mechanism. She fainted.

✦ Hemophobia + emetophobia (the fear of blood & vomit)

✦ either has the nicest nicknames or the most rancid god awful nicknames for her friends.

✦ Drives a hearse! Decorates it for festive stuff. Also named it (She'd name it something like Salaman or Pamantha just because it'd be funny)

✦ Mild scoliosis and chronic back pain probably. Has to wear a back brace for it

✦ Enjoys costume design! Makes her own clothes from scratch

✦ Supports small businesses/creators/artists. She has a lot of skincare products from indigenous businesses to support them.

✦ Very vocal about protesting against waste dumping and using land for things that'll harm nature in general! Goes to protests with Jules. Even has social media platforms to help spread information and stop waste disposal on indigenous lands

✦ Supportive of Jules getting into his culture! Very interested in learning about customs and traditions. Also goes to festivities to be his emotional support friend

✦ Was a theater kid in middle and high school, started her alternative phase in 6th grade(she boasts about this to Julien sometimes just because)

character dynamics; Julien + Mica

Hates the theater kid stereotype but unknowingly plays into it + Also hates the theater kid stereotype but doesn't play into it.

absolutely terrified of spiders + loves spiders

neurodivergent + neurodivergent = chaos

Hates porcelain dolls + has a porcelain doll collection

Bone collector + specimen collector

yallternative + alternative/goth

Accident prone + "What did you do this time?!"

Stupid + also stupid

Grew up on a ranch + grew up on a farm

loves horseback riding + prefers to watch instead

bites to be affectionate + bullies to be affectionate

[ladyfingersandmetal]

Howdy!

I wanna be more consistent with how I draw Al so here is a mini ref sheet and I just wanted to elaborate on it and sprinkle in some of my own headcannons.

Appearance

Lean, tatted, and looks like he could probably outrun a horse. Also looks like a smug lil bastard

Speaking of tats, his has a sleeve of Roses. As cheesy as it is, it is actually very well done and took HOURS

There is a heavy influence of Marlon Brando in my design for him and I can picture him being great to imitate him PERFECTLY.

He has tanned skin, though still has lots of blush in his skin. He does have dark body hair but he SHAVES it all off. He just cant stand the feeling of hair on him. Plus it shows off his muscles more.

His hair is definitely Auburn! His hair texture is somewhat wavy, though the strands are fine. So when he goes without washing it for a few days it gets greasy.

He has very shapely eyebrows and is a very animated person.

His eyes are light brown. They really do look like they are red with how much they match his hair. Which is why he is often described as having "red eyes".

His wardrobe is just a mod podge of random stuff. Though it is mostly influenced by bikers and cowboys. He usually always wears cowboy boots and denim with some sort of tank top. But some more random stuff is that he does have things from like, skater stores. So he may be sporting white converses, a beanie, skater pants and some sort of band tee on certain days. But he does have a soft spot for fringe and leather as can be seen in most western wear.

General

His full name is Allen Freedom Jones, just "Al" to most.

He is the younger brother to Matt! But this age difference doesn't mean much to them. Especially because they ended up going to school at the same time and graduating the same year. Depending on which brother you ask its because "Matt had a hard time and was held back" Or "Al is the smartest-dumbass you have ever met, he skipped to my grade"

He mostly plays mechanic to himself in his time. Because of that he doesn't have a job, which he doesn't need anyway. Besides that he spends an awful alot of time volunteering! Sometimes its to help out inmates, help the elderly, animals, and so on.

His pockets are boring, mostly because he regularly leaves his house with nothing. It isn't that he forgets, he just finds he can do without his stuff.

Drives a Ford truck just like Matt! Though, they have different models. Al reallLLLy keeps up to date with all car news and is a great guy to ask about diff makes and models.

A social butterfly, though not in a nosey way. He has an amazing ability to relate and connect with people without it being personal. Someone could be friends with him for a year and be surprised to find out that he has a brother, where he is from, where he went to school and other personal details you usually find out when you first meet someone.

He lives to connecting with people in a way that is in the present. Often he does this by building on fun experiences that they share. This being said, he does not just approach people randomly. It is more like, he finds you at the DMV and yall are sitting in line and waiting together so he will chat. Not so much he preys on randoms.

He loves spicy foods, which extends to the sweets he eats. His favorite candies are red hots though he can and will get sick off of them. Also worth mentioning, he loves Fireball.

Sports are a must to him. Especially baseball! Though he can find fun in any sport.

Because he often leave his phone at home, he is bad at responding to texts, emails and so on. He also just does not like typing. So he often takes advantage of speech-to-text functions.

Politics are complicated for a lot of reasons. The best way to describe him is "the most un-patriotic patriot you will ever meet" he loves many of his country's freedoms but also, is the greatest critic. Very folk-punk esque

Offices bore him and depress him. Not much more to say other than that, he goes stir crazy.

[fuckyeahdindjarin]

CEE YOU BRILLIANT BRAIN, HELLO AND HUGS, I have a request. The company I work for does a bi-annual "Fun Day" celebration where you're encouraged to sign up for activities you've never tried, in order to 1) engage with nature/community and 2) become a more well-rounded person (can you guess which US state I'm from? lol).

You best believe I signed up for horseback riding the minute I saw the option. I was thrown off a horse as a small Jules, and while I'm not exactly scared to try again, I would LOVE some beginner's tips if you have any to share. 🩵 I will be channeling my inner Pedro cowboys. We ride at dawn next Friday.

JULES! I'm so so excited for you! First of all, falling off a horse can be very scary, so good on you for not letting that stop you from trying again! So, I answered an ask recently with some tips for an anon who is starting classes, it covers all the basics! Some more tips below the cut 🥰

So, let's start with what to wear. I ride the English way, so jodhpurs and riding boots are uniform, but of course, Western riders wear jeans and cowboy boots. I wouldn't go with jeans that are too loose-fitting just so they won't catch on anything. I wouldn't wear anything thinner than denim, stirrup straps can pinch and bruise if you don't have any chaps on!

It matters less what you wear on top, but in general, I would advise short or long sleeves with a collar for sun protection, and also touch wood, if you do fall, it offers more protection than a tank top! Again, don't wear anything too loose-fitting or with bits that flap, horses are silly and can spook at anything.

For shoes, if you have ankle boots with a low heel, go with them. The heel will stop your feet from going through the stirrups, which could happen if you're a beginner.

I'm sure the riding place will provide a suitable riding hat, so you'll be covered there! But always wear a helmet, it can save your life. You probably won't need gloves if it's just a fun casual session, but if you have sensitive hands, you could probably borrow some from the riding place.

So there you go! I hope you have the best time Jules, if you have any other questions, I'm here!

P.S. Actually no I can't guess which US state you're from, the non-American in me doesn't get the reference 🙈

[eurydicees]

6, 9, 11 and 12 for the ask game!! :D

hello hello hello !!! here’s the q’s for anyone interested!! under the cut bc boy did this get out of hand

6. Describe what you do and your feelings after posting a chapter. (For example: When do you usually post a fic/chapter update? How do you celebrate a posting? Are you the type to refresh constantly?, etc.)

nervous. 

like. so nervous. i get so scared that people who liked prev chps or prev works will hate this one, and so every time i post, i get incredibly anxious that this is gonna be the one. this is gonna be the fic that ruins it and makes everyone hate my writing. which, like, god, that’s so fucking dramatic. but knowing that it’s dramatic has yet to stop me from being nervous every time i post. so yeah… i post and then immediately refresh every half hour to see if anyone has read it. which is not great bc i tend to post at weird times, so people generally don’t read every half hour after posting. rip. 

9. What inspired you to write your first fic?

ok we gonna unlock some deep fucking eurydicees lore. *western cowboy voice* fanfic and i go way back. 

so the first first first fic i ever wrote was a percy jackson fanfic when i was, like, somewhere around 8-10yrs old. it was absolutely terrible, but that’s irrelevant. i wrote it bc i was so deeply obsessed with pjo that i HAD to get my thoughts out somewhere. this was probably around the time lost hero came out? probably a little earlier bc i was Anticipating it. i had read a lot of ffn.net pjo fics and written a lot of original short stories and novels (also absolutely terrible, but also irrelevant), so i figured i might as well try my hand at it. shoutout to the pjo truth or dare percico/perachel/percabeth fics written in ~2010 for being an inspiration there. 

now, fast forward to middle school / freshman yr of high school age-ish. just. like. as i say this, please please please know that i have a lot of shame and have very much grown as a human being. anyways, i started reading certain terrible fics on wattpad and got really annoyed when the little pop up that was like “make an account and keep reading” would come up and stop me from going. so i made an account lol. and then i was like. ok……. these fics are pretty good. i bet i can do that. and then i did. and then i kept doing that for a Long time. yikes. so these were the first fics i published, and it was mostly inspired by other wattpad folks. the first ever wattpad fic i wrote was inspired by this song by troye sivan, though, if we’re gettin’ real specific. 

ok and now first fics on ao3… i signed up to do the pjo/hoo big bang back in 2019, and that was what inspired me to make my ao3 account. goddamn it rly does all come full circle to percy jackson. rick riordan how does it feel to run my life. this being said, the first fic i actually published on ao3 was mcu, and it was entirely inspired by endgame, because i thought that movie was prime material for making bucky barnes suffer, and also i hated it.

anyways. this has been your crash course in eurydicees history. i hope you enjoyed. there will be an exam. 

11. Who is your favorite character(s) to write about and why?

ok so i’m gonna do a couple bc i have a complete inability to choose favorite anythings: 

ohshc: tamaki and kyoya 100%. i’m so obsessed with both of them. i think tamaki is super fun to settle into bc he is, all at once, so stupid and so smart and so loving and so oblivious and so so so so. it’s just so much fun to get into his headspace and rly figure out what makes him work as a person, and how i can make that into a story. kyoya is also really fun to write bc like, i get to wax poetics about tamaki suoh, and this is one of my all time favorite activities. he’s also really different from a lot of other characters i write, so it’s cool to branch out! 

haikyuu: kuroo and atsumu! they’re both such subtly complex characters and i love drawing those complexities out and rly making them prominent. they also both have really interesting interpersonal dynamics that are SO fun to look at and really pull apart. i’m a very character-focused writer, so it’s really fun to be able to look at a character and have so much to work with already, but neither are necessarily the leading protags (kuroo arguably is a protag, but not in the way someone like hinata is) so it’s also fun to be able to add on my own little bullshit headcanons without anything to contradict me. bipolar!atsumu and biracial!kuroo my beloveds, no one can tell me u aren’t real. also they’re both just so fun to clown on lmfao 

12. What is your favorite theme/subject matter/trope/ship to write about? Why?

ahhhh this one is Hard. ok. again, i’m incapable of doing favorites, so i’m gonna just talk abt a couple things. 

1 .i love doing canon compliant character studies, particularly ones that involve taking a tiny aspect of something and making it deeply important 2. i also just love internalized homophobia and coming out fics, which is probably a sign of some internalized shit but i don’t know and i don’t care to! 3. soulmate fics, enough said there. i’ve written six thousand of them (i have a series w three ~40k word long parts coming soon probably, and the tamakyo one also in progress)  4. just in general, i like writing lots of pining and lots of angst w/ a happy ending :)

ty for the ask!!

[thimbil]

Having some thoughts about the references and inspirations used for the Bad Batch’s designs.

So Boba Fett is my absolute favorite character and Temeura Morrison was perfect casting. I went to see the 2008 TCW movie in theaters because I was so excited to see him again, even if he was animated. You can imagine my disappointment. Whoever was on screen was not Temeura Morrison. You could sort of see a resemblance if you squinted and didn’t think too hard about it. They replaced Temeura with Racially Ambiguous G.I. Joe. If I didn’t know better and someone told me the animated clones are space Italians from the moon of New Jersey I would buy it. One Million Brothers Pizzeria and Italian Bistro. Not that there’s something wrong with being space Italian, I just don’t think it’s the right choice for the Fetts. The design got slightly improved by season 7 but it still bugs the hell out of me.

I did eventually get into the show later and (of course) got invested in the clones. Unfortunately, they were largely sidelined by the Jedi storylines. Out of the two new main characters created for TCW, Ahsoka definitely got more development and focus than Rex. When they announced The Bad Batch, I was excited to see a show specifically devoted to the clones… at least that’s what it said on the tin. We have all seen what lurks beneath those stylish helmets.

Jango Fett, you are NOT the father.

So who is?

Based on interviews with Filoni, it sounds like the Bad Batch was a George Lucas idea. And like all his ideas, it’s super derivative. The original trilogy directly lifted elements from sci fi serials, westerns, and samurai movies, more specifically Kurosawa films like The Hidden Fortress. For The Bad Batch character designs, the influence is obviously American action and adventure movies.

Now let’s get specific. Bad Batch, who’s your daddy?

Hunter

Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in First Blood 1982. That bandana has become an integral part of the iconic action hero look. You see a character wearing one and it’s a visual shorthand for either “this character is a tough guy” like Billy played by Sonny Landham in Predator 1987, or “this character thinks he is/wants to be a tough guy” like Brand played by Josh Brolin in The Goonies 1985 or Edward Frog played by Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys 1987.

Hunter’s model is closest to the original clone base. If you look closely you will see the eyebrows are straighter with a much lower angle to the arch. His nose is also not the same shape as a standard clone like Rex, including a narrower bridge. It’s certainly not Temeura Morrison’s nose. Remember what I said about space Italians? It didn’t take much to push the existing clone design to resemble an specific Italian man instead of a specific Māori man. The 23&Me came back, and Hunter inherited more than the bandana from Sylvester.

Crosshair

The long narrow nose, the sharp cheekbones, the scowl. That’s no clone, that’s just animated Clint Eastwood. Not even Young and Hot Clint Eastwood from Rawhide 1959-1965. With that hair, I’m talking Gran Torino 2008. The man of few words schtick and family friendly toothpick in lieu of cigar are pure Eastwood as The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns A Fist Full of Dollars 1964, For a Few Dollars More 1965, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly 1966.

In a way, this is full circle because the actor Jeremy Bulloch took inspiration from Clint Eastwood for his performance as Boba Fett in ESB.

Wrecker

In an interview Filoni lists the Hulk as an (obvious) inspiration for Wrecker. Ever seen the old Hulk tv show from 1978? Well take a look at the actor who played him, Lou Ferrigno. Would you look at that. Even has his papa’s nose.

You could make the argument that Wrecker was influenced by The Rock, an appropriately buff ‘n bald Polynesian (Samoan, not Maori) man. But look at him next his Fast and Furious costar Vin Diesel and tell me which one resembles Wrecker’s character model more.

Tech

Tech is a little trickier for me to place. If he has a more direct inspiration it must be something I haven’t seen. That said, his hairline is very Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 1988. His quippiness and large glasses remind me of Shane Black as Hawkins from Predator 1987. In terms of his face, he looks a but like the result of McClane and Hawkins deciding to settle down and start a family. Although, Tech’s biggest contributors are probably just everyone on TV Trope’s list for Smart People Wear Glasses.

And finally,

Echo

Oh Echo. Considering he wasn’t created for the Bad Batch, he probably wasn’t based on a particular character or movie. But if I had to guess, his situation and appearance remind me a lot of Alex Murphy played by Peter Weller in Robocop 1987. However, Robocop explored the Man or Machine Identity Crisis with more nuance, depth, and dignity. Yikes.

The exact tropes and references used in The Bad Batch have been done successfully with characters who aren’t even human. Gizmo from Gremlins 2: The New Batch 1990 had a brief stint with the Rambo bandana. I could have picked any number of characters for Defining Feature Is Glasses but here is the most cursed version of Simon of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Suffer as I have. Marc Antony with his beloved Pussyfoot from Looney Tunes has the same tough guy with a soft center vibe as Wrecker and his Lula (also a kind of cat). Hell, in the same show we have Cad Bane sharing Cowboy Clint Eastwood with Crosshair. I actually think Bane makes a better Eastwood which is wild considering Crosshair has Eastwood’s entire face and Bane is blue.

So we’ve established you don’t need your characters to look exactly like their inspirations to match their vibe. So why go through the trouble and cost of creating completely new character designs instead of recycling and altering assets they already had on hand? Just slap on a bandana, toothpick, goggles, and make Wrecker bigger than the others while he does a Hulk pose and you’re done. Based on the general reaction to Howzer it would have been a low effort slam dunk crowd pleaser.

But they didn’t do that.

So here’s the thing. I like the tropes used in The Bad Batch. I am a fan of action adventure movies from the 80s-90s, the sillier the better. I am part of the Bad Batch’s target audience. Considering what I know about Disney and Lucasfilm, I went in with low expectations. I genuinely don’t hate the idea of seeing references to these actors and media in The Bad Batch. I don’t think basing these characters on tropes was a bad idea. If anything it’s a solid starting point for building the characters.

The trouble is nothing got built on the foundation. The plot is directionless, the pacing is wacky, and the characters have nearly no emotional depth or defining character arcs. They just sort of exist without reacting much while the story happens around them. But I can excuse all of that. You don’t stay a fan of Star Wars as long as I have not being able to cherrypick and fill in the gaps. This show has a deeper issue that shouldn’t be ignored.

Why do the animated clones bear at best only a passing resemblance to their live action actor? In interviews, Filoni wouldn’t shut up but the technological advancements in the animation for season 7. So if they are updating things, why not try to make the clones a closer match to their source material? Why did they have to look like completely different people in The Bad Batch to be “unique”? Looking like Temeura Morrison would have no bearing on their special abilities and TCW proved you can have identical looking characters and still have them be distinct. In fact, that’s a powerful theme and the source of tragedy for the clones’ narrative overall.

Here’s Filoni’s early concept art of Crosshair, Wrecker, Tech, and Hunter. (Interesting but irrelevant: Wrecker seems to have a cog tattoo similar to Jesse’s instead of a scar. Wouldn’t it have been funny if they kept that so when they met in season 7 one if them could say something like “Hey we’re twins!” That’s a little clone humor. Just for you guys 😘)

None of these drawings look like the clones in TCW, much less Temeura Morrison. Let’s be generous. Maybe Filoni struggles with drawing a real person’s likeness, as many people do. But he had to hand this off to other artists down the line whose job specifically involves making a stylized character resemble their actor. Yet the final designs missed the mark almost as much as this initial concept. Starting to seem as if the clones looking more like Temeura Morrison was never even on the table. It wasn’t a lack of creativity, skill or technical limitations on the part of the creative team. I don’t think there is an innocent explanation. They went out of their way to make the final product exactly how we got it.

This goes beyond homage. They could have made the same pop culture references and character tropes without completely stripping Temeura Morrison from the role he originated. It was a very purposeful choice to replace him with more immediately familiar actors from established franchises and films. It wouldn’t shock me if Filoni, Lucas, and anyone else calling the shots didn’t even think hard or care enough about the decision to immediately recognize a problem. And I don’t think they believed anyone else would either. At least no one whose opinion they cared about. Those faces are comfortingly familiar and proven bankable. They are what we’re all used to seeing after all. They’re white.

Lack of imagination, bad intentions, or simple ignorance doesn’t really matter in the end. The result is the same. Call it what it is. They replaced a man of color with a bunch of white guys. That’s by the book garden variety run of the mill whitewashing. There’s no debate worth having about it. For a fanbase that loves to nitpick things like whether or not it’s in character for Han to shoot first or Jeans Guy in the Mandalorian, we sure are quick to find excuses for clones who look nothing like their template. Why is that? If you don’t see the problem, congratulations. Your ass is showing. Pull your jeans up.

[writingwithcolor]

I'm writing an AU of a movie that takes place in the 1880s USA, where a travelling white character and a Jewish character are waylaid by Native Americans, who they befriend. Probably because it was written by and about PoC (Jews) the scene actually avoids the stuff on your Native American Masterpost, but I'd still like to do better than a movie made in the 1980's, and I feel weird cutting them from the plot entirely. I have a Jewish woman reading it for that, but are there any things you (1/1)

2/2 1880s western movie ask--are there things you'd LIKE to see in a movie where a white man and a Jewish man run into Native Americans in the 1880s? I do plan to base them on a real tribe (Ute, probably) and have proper housing/clothes and so forth, but right now I'm just trying to avoid or subvert awful cowboy movie tropes. Any ideas?

White and Jewish Men, Native American interactions in 1880s

I am vaguely concerned with how you only cite one of our posts about Native Americans, that was not written by a Native person, and do not cite any of the posts relating to this time period, or any posts relating to representation in media. 

Sidenote: if you want us to give accurate reflections of the media you’re discussing, please tell us the NAME. I cannot go look up this movie based off this description to give you an idea of what my issues are with this scene, and must instead trust that the representation is good based off your judgement. I cannot make my own judgement. This is a problem. Especially since your whole question boils down to “this scene is good but not great and I want it to be great. How can I do that?”

Your baseline for “good” could very well be my baseline for “terrible hack job”. I can’t give you the proper education required for you to be able to accurately evaluate the media you’re watching for racist stereotypes if you don’t tell me what you’re even working with.

When you’re writing fanfic where the media is directly relevant to the question, please tell us the name of the media. We will not judge your tastes. We need this information in order to properly help you.

Moving on.

I bring up my concern for you citing that one—exceptionally old—post because it is lacking in many of the tropes that don’t exist in the media critique field but exist in the real world. This is an issue I have run into countless times on WWC (hence further concern you did not cite any other posts) and have spoken about at length. 

People look at the media critique world exclusively, assume it is a complete evaluation of how Native Americans are seen in society, and as a result end up ignoring some really toxic stereotypes and then come to the inbox with “these characters aren’t abc trope, so they’re fine, but I want to rubber stamp them anyway. Anything wrong here?”. The answer is pretty much always yes. 

Issue one: “Waylaid” by Native Americans

This wording is extremely loaded for one reason: Native American people are seen as tricksters, liars, and predators. This is the #1 trope that shows up in the real world that does not show up in media critique. It’s also the trope I have talked about the most when it comes to media representation, so you not knowing the trope is a sign you haven’t read the entirety of the Native tag—which is in the FAQ as something we would really prefer you did before coming at us to answer questions. It avoids us having to re-explain ourselves.

Now, hostility is honestly to be expected for the time period the movie is set in. This is in the beginnings (or ramping up) of residential schools in America* and Canada, we have generations upon generations of stolen or killed children, reserves being allocated perhaps hundreds of miles from sacred sites, and various wars with Plains and Southwest peoples are in full force (Wounded Knee would have happened in 1890, in December, and the Dakoa’s mass execution would have been in 1862. Those are just the big-name wars. There absolutely were others). 

*America covers up its residential schools abuse extremely thoroughly, so if you try to research them in the American context you will come up empty. Please research Canada’s schools and apply the same abuse to America, as Canada has had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission about residential schools and therefore is more (but not completely) transparent about the abuse that happened. Please note that America’s history with residential schools is longer than Canada’s history. There is an extremely large trigger warning for mass child death when you do this research.

But just because the hostility is expected does not mean that this hostility would be treated well in the movie. Especially when you consider the sheer amount of tension between any Native actors and white actors, for how Sacheen Littlefeather had just been nearly beaten up by white actors at the 1973 Academy Awards for mentioning Wounded Knee, and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act had only been passed two years prior in 1978. 

These Native actors would not have had the ability to truly consent to how they were shown, and this power dynamic has to be in your mind when you watch this scene over. I don��t care that the writers were from a discriminated-against background. This does not always result in being respectful, and I’ve also spoken about this power imbalance at length (primarily in the cowboy tag).

Documentaries and history specials made in the 2010s (with some degree of academic muster) will still fall into wording that harkens Indigenous people to wolves and settlers as frightened prey animals getting picked off by the mean animalistic Natives. This is not neutral, or good. This is perpetuating the myth that the settlers were helpless, just doing their own thing completely unobtrusively, and then the evil territorial Native Americans didn’t want to share.

To paraphrase Batman: if I had a week I couldn’t explain all the reasons that’s wrong.

How were these characters waylaid by the Native population? Because that answer—which I cannot get because you did not name the media—will determine how good the framing is. But based on the time period this movie was made alone, I do not trust it was done respectfully.

Issue 2: “Befriending”

I mentioned this was in an intense period of residential schools and land wars all in that area. The Ute themselves had just been massacred by Mormons in the Grass Valley Massacre in 1865, with ten men and an unknown number of women and children killed thanks to a case of assumed association with a war chief (Antonga Black Hawk) currently at war with Utah. The Paiute had been massacred in 1866. Over 100 Timpanogo men had been killed, with an unknown number of women and children enslaved by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City in 1850, with many of the enslaved people dying in captivity (those numbers were not tracked, but I would assume at least two hundred were enslaved— that’s simply assuming one woman/wife and one child for every man, and the numbers could have very well been higher if any war-widows and their children were in the group, not to mention families with multiple children). This is after an unknown group of Indigenous people had been killed by Governor Brigham Young the year prior, to “permanently stop cattle theft” from settlers. 

The number of Native Americans killed in Utah in the 1800s—just the number of dead counted (since women and children weren’t counted)—in massacres not tied to war (because there was at least one war) is over 130. The actual number of random murders is much higher; between the uncounted deaths and how the Governor had issued orders to “deal with” the problem of cattle theft permanently. I doubt you would have been tried or convicted if you murdered Indigenous peoples on “your” land. This is why it’s called state sanctioned genocide.

This is not counting the Black Hawk War in Utah (1865-1872), which the Ute were absolutely a part of (the wiki articles I read were contradictory if Antonga Black Hawk was Ute or Timpanogo, but the Ute were part of it). The first official massacre tied to the war—the Bear River Massacre, ordered by the US Military—places the death count of just that singular massacre at over five hundred Shoshone, including elders, women, and children. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the number of Indigenous people killed in Utah from 1850, onward, is over a thousand, perhaps two or three.

Pardon me for not reading beyond that point to list more massacres and simply ballparking a number; the source will be linked for you to get an accurate number of dead.

So how did they befriend the Native population? Let alone see them as fully human considering the racism of the time period? Natives were absolutely not seen as fully human so long as they were tied to their culture, and assimilation equalling some sliver of respect was already a stick being waved around as a threat. This lack of humanity continues to the present day.

I’m not saying friendship is impossible. I am saying the sheer levels of mistrust that would exist between random wandering groups of white/pale men and Indigenous communities wouldn’t exactly make that friendship easy. Having the scene end be a genuine friendship feels ignorant and hollow and flattening of ongoing genocide, because settlers lied about their intentions and then lined you up for slauther (that’s how the Timpanogo were killed and enslaved).

Utah had already done most of its mass killing by this point. The era of trusting them was over. There was an active open hunting season, and the acceptable targets were the Indigenous populations of Utah.

(sources for the numbers: 

List of Indian Massacres in North America Black Hawk War (1865-1872))

Issue 3: “Proper housing/clothes and so forth”

Do you mean Western style settlements and jeans? If yes, congratulations you have written a reservation which means the land-ripped-away wounds are going to be fresh, painful, and sore.

You do not codify what you mean by “proper”, and proper is another one of those deeply loaded colonial words that can mean “like a white man” or “appropriate for their tribe.” For the time period, it would be the former. Without specifying which direction you’re going for, I have no idea what you’re imagining. And without the name of the media, I don’t know what the basis of this is.

The reservation history of this time period seems to maybe have some wiggle room; there were two reservations allocated for the Ute at this time, one made in 1861 and another made in 1882 (they were combined into the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in 1886). This is all at the surface level of a google and wikipedia search, so I have no idea how many lived in the bush and how many lived on the reserve. 

There were certainly land defenders trying to tell Utah the land did not belong to them, so holdouts that avoided getting rounded up were certainly possible. But these holdouts would be far, far more hostile to anyone non-Native.

The Ute seemed to be some degree of lucky in that the reserve is on some of their ancestral territory, but any loss of land that large is going to leave huge scars. 

It should be noted that reserves would mean the traditional clothing and housing would likely be forbidden, because assimilation logic was in full force and absolutely vicious at this time. 

It’s a large reserve, so the possibility exists they could have accidentally ended up within the borders of it. I’m not sure how hostile the state government was for rounding up all the Ute, so I don’t know if there would have been pockets of them hiding out. In present day, half of the Ute tribe lives on the reserve, but this wasn’t necessarily true historically—it could have been a much higher percentage in either direction.

It’s up to you if you want to make them be reservation-bound or not. Regardless, the above mentioned genocide would have been pretty fresh, the land theft in negotiations or already having happened, and generally, the Ute would be well on their way to every assimilation attempt made from either residential schools, missionaries, and/or the forced settlement and pre-fab homes.

To Answer Your Question

I don’t want another flattened, sanitized portrayal of genocide.

Look at the number of dead above, the amount of land lost above, the amount of executive orders above. And try to tell me that these people would be anything less than completely and totally devastated. Beyond traumatized. Beyond broken hearted. Absolutely grief stricken with almost no soul left.

Their religion would have been illegal. Their children would have been stolen. Their land was taken away. A saying about post-apocalyptic fiction is how settler-based it is, because Indigenous people have already lived through their own apocalypse.

It would have all just happened at the time period this story is set in. All of the grief you feel now at the environment changing so drastically that you aren’t sure how you’ll survive? Take that, magnify it by an exponential amount because it happened, and you have the mindset of these Native characters.

This is not a topic to tread lightly. This is not a topic to read one masterpost and treat it as a golden rule when there is too much history buried in unmarked, overfull graves of school grounds and cities and battlefields. I doubt the movie you’re using is good representation if it doesn’t even hint at the amount of trauma these Native characters would have been through in thirty years.

A single generation, and the life that they had spent millennia living was gone. Despite massive losses of life trying to fight to preserve their culture and land.

Learn some history. That’s all I can tell you. Learn it, process it, and look outside of checklists. Look outside of media. 

And let us have our grief.

~ Mod Lesya

On Question Framing

Please allow me the opportunity to comment on “are there things you'd LIKE to see in a movie where a white man and a Jewish man run into Native Americans in the 1880s?” That strikes me as the same type of question as asking what color food I’d like for lunch. I don’t see how the cultural backgrounds of characters I have literally no other information about is supposed to make me want anything in particular about them. I don’t know anything about their personalities or if they have anything in common.

Compare the following questions:

“Are there things you’d like to see in a movie where two American women, one from a Nordic background and one Jewish, are interacting?” I struggle to see how our backgrounds are going to yield any further inspiration. It certainly doesn’t tell you that we’re both queer and cling to each other’s support in a scary world; it doesn’t tell you that we uplift each other through mental illness; it doesn’t go into our 30 years of endless bizarre inside jokes related to everything from mustelids to bad subtitles.

Because: “white”, “Jewish”, and “Native American” aren’t personality words. You can ask me what kind of interaction I’d like to see from a high-strung overachieving woman and a happy-go-lucky Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and I’ll tell you I’d want fluffy f/f romance. Someone else might want conflict ultimately resolving in friendship. A third person might want them slowly getting on each other’s nerves more and more until one becomes a supervillain and the other must thwart her. But the same question about a cultural demographic? That told me nothing about the people involved.

Also, the first time I meet a new person from a very different culture, it might take weeks before discussion of our specific cultural differences comes up. As a consequence, my first deep conversations with a Costa Rican American gentile friend were not about Costa Rica or my Jewishness but about things we had in common: classical music and coping with breakups--which are obviously conversations I could have had if we were both Jewish, both Costa Rican gentiles, or both something else. So in other words, I’m having trouble seeing how knowing so little about these characters is supposed to give me something to want to see on the page.

Thank you for understanding.

(And yes, I agree with Lesya, what’s with this trend of people trying to explain their fandom in a roundabout way instead of mentioning it by name? It makes it harder to give meaningful help….)

--Shira

[doorbloggr]

Tuesday 11/1/22 - Media Recommendations #26

Contents:

Arcane

Cowboy Bebop

Been a relatively slow start to the year, in terms of personal endeavours, but the world just doesn't stop. But this down time of mine has meant I have been able to binge a couple of series before work ramps up again. This week I'm talking about two series, one that's still fresh off the press and another that's almost as old as I am, but both are dripping with absolute style!

Arcane

Riot Games

Let me preface with something very important. I have never played League of Legends. I have never wanted to play League of Legends, and after watching Arcane.... I still have no desire to. But that has nothing to do with how much I enjoyed this series. So just as a warning, going forward in my recommendation, I might get some LoL details wrong here.

For the uninitiated, Arcane takes place in the world of League of Legends and details the backstory of fan favourite character Jinx, as well as a few other iconic characters of the game. I'm not overly familiar with the LoL aesthetic in general, but Arcane takes place in the Magical Steampunk city of Piltover and its dilapidated undercity slums.

The show is a beautiful blend of stylistic 3D animation and 2D special effects to portray a world of unique aesthetic and design. The series is unabashedly colourful, utilising neon highlights of pinks, blues, and yellows wherever possible to make the cityscape, the streets, the action, or even the inner dialogue of a character pop more.

The voice actors did a really good job giving life and personalities to the characters, and though I've never played League of Legends, I feel like I got to know the vibes of many of the main characters better than if I did play the game. The soundtrack is also pretty fun, a sort of punk-rock, edgy style that comes right in your face via the opening, a song called "Enemy" by Imagine Dragons.

I came away from Arcane hoping to see more of this world, ideally in animated form again. Because the take away my friend who's played League wanted to impress upon me is that the world and characters are great, but don't play the game. It is apparently a toxic hobby that is hard to break from, and even harder to enjoy. So that's the take away I'll give my readers.

Watch Arcane. Don't play League of Legends.

Cowboy Bebop

Hajime Yatate

I've had a renewed appreciation for older anime series recently, and I'll probably have another one to recommend next week. Cowboy Bebop is a very stylish series with a very unique vibe. Many people, myself included, recommend Cowboy Bebop as a good gateway anime. So why don't I get into why that is?

The main cast of characters are varied in personality and drives, but their arcs are fairly easy to follow since the cast is so small. We follow a group of bounty hunters, in this age called "Cowboys", upon their spaceship called "The Bebop", as they race across the solar system in search of criminals and adventure. The backstories and arcs of Spike, Jett, Faye, and Ed are developed in chunks over the course of the series, with each character getting starring roles in episodes of their own. Some overwhelming anime series can have more than a dozen recurring characters, but for those new to anime, four main characters, and maybe four or five more recurring side characters is easier to keep up with.

Arcs and stories are very self contained. Two-parter episodes are very rare throughout the series, and three-parters are non-existent. It's easy to hop in and out wherever, since the conflict of an episode is usually resolved by the episode's end, and won't come up again in later episodes. It's a short series too, with 26 episodes. So even without bingeing, it won't take weeks to finish.

Something that the Netflix live action series apparebtly struggled with was the visual and sound design. The character designs are not overly stylised, but every main character is easily identified by sillhouette alone. Characters actually appear quite familiar to one who's experienced a lot of western animation. The voice actors, both English and Japanese did an amazing job at bringing the characters to life and I cannot honestly imagine better picks for these roles.

The setting, themes, and soundtrack are the most distinguishing identifiers of Cowboy Bebop. The series takes place across many planets and moons across our solar system, and has this rugged, almost rugged noir style. The locales are futuristic, but not in a Wall-E sort of way, more like halfway between Star Wars and Mad Max. The cowboy theme is present throughout the show, but the soundtrack has more in common with 50s jazz and blues. The soundtrack is probably my favourite take away from the show, with tracks such as "Tank" and "Cats on Mars" still in regular rotation on my Spotify.

Cowboy Bebop is a unique experience dripping with style. If you're new to Japanese Animation and don't want to get overwhelmed, it'd be harder to start in a better place. If you're already deep into anime and haven't seen Cowboy Bebop, you're missing out on one of the essential watches of the genre. Watch Cowboy Bebop!

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Dear 'Anime Bad' Anon: I Want To Help I pity your situation, so please have a list of weebshit that isn't moeified, or wherein the cutesy art-style serves a greater purpose. (Note: though they won't be soft marshmallow uguuuu, they may still have issues in other ways. Some may have aged badly with regards to how society views or portrays groups or beliefs, some may have upsetting content and dark themes, and some may simply not be to your taste. Note: Anime is a genre, not a monolith, and the disparaging stereotype that it's all cute girls uwuing over their brother s-s-senpai!!! is as much of a disservice as saying all western movies are just vapid cash grab superhero movie sequels with no inegrity or thought put into them. There are indeed a lot of superhero movies, but they're not all identical schlock (megamind vs venom vs kick-ass),  but even more than that, there is a wealth of creative endeavor just beyond the veil of Marvel's cape: just as there are plenty of good anime if you dig past the isekai high school harem wish fulfillment genre that no one wants to keep making but people keep making because it prints money to a very small demographic of the animation equivalent of a mobile game whale thereby allowing this frankly quite-small industry to work on engaging and worthwhile series where the budget permits, Regardless,)

Mushi-shi: -Pros: gorgeous animation, tranquil vibes, episodic stories so you can cram in an episode between classes or on your lunch break. highly recommended by the literal-who typing this out. -Cons: some themes or stories may cause emotional distress, learning to tell apart Urushibara Yuki's characters is a learning curve.

Baccano-Pros: meticulously-researched 20s-and-30s-era mafia violence with a hint of the supernatural, as a treat, told anachronistically with flair and jazz music. practically made to be binge-watched. the novels are finally getting translated into english as well. -Cons: lots of characters to keep track of, fair bit of blood and violence, some scenes or themes may be upsetting, lots of jumping around between different time periods. See Also: Durarara, another series by Ryōgo Narita with a ton of characters and a plot with more threads an overpriced sheet.

Cowboy Bebop-Pros: incredibly well-regarded, space bounty hunters are cool, episodic series that slowly takes on a plot towards the end, fantastic animation, scoring, and even dub work.  -Cons: some scenes or themes may be uncomfortable, some parts have not aged quite so well, the smart doll version of the main character is ugly, you're gonna carry that weight.

Trigun-Pros: starts lighthearted, develops an increasingly investing plot as the series goes along. fictional westerns are cool. this world is made of love and peace -Cons: some scenes or themes may be upsetting, and probably will be. gun violence is naturally present, but that ain't all of it.

Hellsing (standard or Ultimate. or Abridged)Pros: vampires killing nazis. the original adaptation isn't bad, the second adaptation (ultimate) is generally viewed as an improvement. abridged is a youtube parody version that was so popular the voice actors reference it in convention interviews.Cons: a Lot of violence, even trending to the gorey side of things. Uncomfortable Themes Everywhere, but it's a horror-tinged action series about killing nazis, so that's to be expected. 

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood-Pros: while the original anime was quite good, the second iteration is a large improvement. does to alchemy what naruto does to ninjas: It's Basically Battle Magic. the plot starts on a strong note and doesn't let up from there. -Cons: there are distressing scenes and themes that may or may not be tolerable to the viewer. there are moments of cheesecake and even an occasional joke or a moeblob here and there, and it's not all doom and all gloom all the time, but this doesn't detract from the abject horror-despair that comes to permeate this series as it progresses. finally understand why people on the internet respond so negatively to the name 'nina'! 

[Mod: many more recs/reviews under the break, worth reading for those who like more obscure anime and animation]

Grave of the Fireflies-Pros: you will remember how to cry. it's a good reminder that one country's 'triumphs' often come at the expense of another country's people.  -Cons: this movie is incredibly dark, do not watch if you are in a bad headspace. see also: Barefoot Gen, a similar tale but this time from the perspective of an actual survivor from Hiroshima.

Michiko to Hatchin-Pros: an actually diverse cast of characters tangled up in a messy and very humanizing story, interspersed with Shinichiro Watanabe's particular flare for adventure. -Cons: some scenes or themes are very likely to be distressing. can be tricky to find, too.

Mo no no Ke (not the ghibli movie, though it is also quite good.) -Pros: incredibly unique art style and pacing that draws heavily from japanese theatre traditions, every screenshot is wallpaper-worthy. -Cons: may cause motion sickness. it is a psychological horror series, and one that does not need blood, nor gore, to cause visceral emotional response in the viewer. scenes and themes will be distressing- as really, that's the point.

Tokyo Godfathers-Pros: a transwoman, a (self-identified) homeless bum, and a runaway teen girl find a newborn in the baby on christmas. incredibly wholesome, somehow, and grounded in reality, with wonderful animation from the tragically late satoshi kon. -Cons: it is grounded in realism, and sometimes, people are dicks. mild transphobia warning, too, but in-universe- the transwoman herself is portrayed with kindness and allowed to be her own (wonderful!!!) person. still, viewer be mindful.

Kino no Tabi (the first series is my preferred, the second is shinier but lacks emotional impact- in my onion.) -Pros: mostly episodic, very unique series that can be gritty where it counts and kind where it matters. -Cons: some scenes or themes might be disturbing. finding it's not easy, either, and unfortunately, i don't think the novels are being translated right now, either.

Spice and Wolf-Pros: it's mostly about economics. there are shenanigans, a harvest god, and a slowly burgeoning romance, sure, but it's still mostly about economics. -Cons: there are moments of cheesecake and comedy, and moments that may cause distress to the viewer. it may or may not be to your taste.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica-Cons: yeah i know, it's moeblobs.  -Pros: you're gonna watch 'em die, though, in case that may interest you. it's quite a good subversion of the magical girl genre overall. somehow volks hasn't made an MDD of anyone from the series and i will never understand how that didn't happen.

Wolf Children: Ame to Yuki-Pros: watch a family grow together as a newly-single mother does her best to raise her twin children after the tragic loss of their father.  -Cons: keep tissues handy. certain scenes or themes may be uncomfortable.

Lupin III (Red Jacket, Ghibli, and the new 3D animation are all A+) pros: heist comedy elevated to an art form before half (or more!) of the people reading this were born. the english dubbed series that used to air on adult swim is a treat. cons: this franchise started in THE SIXTIES, so naturally, some shit has not aged well. certain series (fujiko mine) are darker than others in themes and material. the 3d movie that released recently is an excellent starting point.

Samurai Champloo-Pros: breakdancing samurai, a fascinating roster of characters, and a superb soundtrack by the tragically passed Nujabes. -Cons: it was made in the weird era of the transition from analog to digital animation and so the /series master/ was animated at a painfully low resolution, so even if there's a bluray out there (I haven't looked,) it will be an upscale, which doesn't always look the best. as well, there are scenes and themes that may make the viewer uncomfortable here and there.

The Works of Studio Ghibli Oh, I'm sorry, Ponyo too suffused with childhood wonder for you? My Neighbor Totoro not depressing enough?  In addition to the infamous Grave of the Fireflies, Studio Ghibli has made a wealth of movies that aren't aimed squarely at the kodomo (children's) sector. -Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: climate change existential dread, the movie -Castle in the Sky: government obsession with obtaining weapons of mass destruction destroys everything beautiful, the movie -Pom Poko: human-caused deforestation and urbanization is destroying the natural world and all that live in it, the movie -Princess Mononoke: industrialization will be the death of everything beautiful in the world, the movie, with a side of sometimes everyone (and no one) is the villain when everyone is simply trying to survive -Howl's Moving Castle: The Physical Manifestation of Depression is a Liquid Ooze, the Movie, also War Is Bad It's not all depressing, but let it never be said that Hayao Miyazaki was subtle. Whisper of the Heart is a good coming-of-age story, Kiki's Delivery Service is a classic, Tales from Earthsea is divisive among fans of Ursula K. Le Guin but I personally liked it. From one studio alone there is a wealth of opportunities.

And that's really the point. These are just some from the top of my head. There are so very many options outside of the cute-girls-doing-cute-things genre that I couldn't list them all if I was here for a week. Or as Madoka Magica so ruthlessly showcases, even series that appear a certain way on the surface might not be what you bargained for once you look into them! These are all (I think) mostly older, mainstream-appeal series that should be easy to track down, too -- there are all kinds of singular animations like The Diary of Tortov Roddle, crowdfunded experiments like KICK-HEART, Masterpiece World Theatre renditions of classic (western) novels that never get talked about, films like A Silent Voice that confront social issues- and of course, series like Rozen Maiden that helped popularize this very hobby!

There is literally an ocean of content to explore from Japanese creators alone, and it opens up even more if you look into works from other parts of Asia- just look at how popular manwha have become, or Chinese animations like Leafie, a Hen Into the Wild! It's a genre unto itself, with all the breadth of content and inter-industry problems that come with it, and without any of the respect that similar art forms have been granted over the years. The way an entire culture's art form is often disparaged, disregarded, and belittled- and by extension, the way most of Asia's animated endeavors are often rolled up into that reductive dismissal along with anime and manga- is honestly Not Great, and there is absolutely a thread of xenophobia that runs through it. The industry has so very many problems (low wages, poor training, overwork of everyone ever, archaic financial modules, the exclusivity and breadth of merchandising necessary to turn a profit and how it leads to consumer burnout and disconnection over time, and yes, the way minors are portrayed not just in anime, but in Japanese media in general- and how much of that is actually bad (some of it is indeed,) and how much if it is cultural difference (I've heard people call the scene where the family in Totoro bathe together problematic because of the nudity, but I've also only heard people say that from the West)

-- none of the actual problems affecting the people who produce this medium are gonna improve when the general response to "animators frequently have to live at home to survive" is "that's what happens when you're a weeb."  It's 5am and I'm gonna point out the problems in the narrative around how we discuss this genre of entertainment because it's important, damn you! Regardless, thank you for coming to my unasked for and overlong TED talk about animation on a doll collecting drama blog, feel free to call me a pathetic weeb etcetera on your way out- but while you do so, might I suggest you also go watch a choice animated series! My current go-to is Bofuri, which is a cute-girls-doing-cute-things moefied isekai series that I refuse to apologize for watching. Be free. (The battle scenes are great and it captures the feeling of learning to play a new MMO with your friends better than most video-game-based anime I've seen in a long, long time. does anyone even still remember .hack? how about serial experiments lain...?)

~Anonymous

[centrally-unplanned]

Medium & Marketing for 90′s Anime Dubs

Today is Hayao Miyazaki’s 80th birthday, which made sure my dash was filled with Ghibli tidbits. A discussion of my personal favourite, Kiki’s Delivery Service, brought up its ill-fated original dub by Disney in 1998. Ghibli still didn’t have the courage yet to put their foot down on changes for international releases, and so there are a lot of alterations - the theme songs are changed to be anglicized, almost any “dead space” or quiet moments in the film have someone (normally animal sidekick Jiji the cat) improv lines over the scenes to liven them up, and in particular the ending is changed to be less bittersweet as Jiji, who in the original Kiki permanently loses the ability to talk to as a sign of growing up, regains his voice.

These changes slot neatly into the zeitgeist of all 90′s anime changes - a disregard for the property’s core appeal as they were bowdlerized for a western audience. Sailor Moon is an infamous victim of a similar process - at least Kiki took place in fantasy Europe, the Sailor Moon dub’s attempts to pretend that the show doesn’t take place in Japan were simply insane as they cut out or blurred every appearance of Japanese writing in the show, leaving reams of animation frames on the floor in the process.

(Tangent time: the greatest scene ever is one where, upon reading a note by Usagi, to prove it was her Minako/Sailor Venus comments “it must be from her, its written entirely in hiragana”, the simpler form of written Japanese compared to kanji, which Usagi as a running gag cannot write. So in the dub they just...blur out the text of the note, and have Minako comment “I had to read it with my imagination. It's all written in funny symbols!". I distinctly remember watching the episode live when I was 12 years old and going “wait what the fuck does that even mean?” and suddenly realizing that the show was changing its own script, it was a trip of a moment)

Like most people I do malign these changes, but I am actually here to partially defend them via contextualization. The idea that American audiences would have cared that the show was Japanese is pretty dumb, but what you often hear are statements like “kids in Japan appreciated Sailor Moon/Kiki’s Delivery Service just fine, they didn’t need to change it”. That is possible, but it mistakes why changes are being made to begin with - its not the “culture of children in the US vs Japan”, its intended market via the medium of distribution.

Kiki’s Delivery Service was released in Japanese theatres in 1989, and it was the highest grossing film of the year in Japan (about ~US$18 million, man do things change). Kiki’s Delivery Service the Disney dub, was....released on VHS in 1998. VHS releases and movie theatre releases aren’t really intended accomplish the same thing. Remember all those direct-to-video Disney sequels? Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride? Cinderella 3: A Twist in Time? Remember how they were all just garbage? Anyone looking back at them today cringes, with a few exceptions. But none of us cringed when we were 8! My partner is a huge Disney fangirl, and when she was young she didn’t even distinguish between the theatre release and the VHS sequels - it was all Disney, you just lined them up and played them in a row as the complete canon. Yes, these movies sucked partially because they were low budget, but they weren’t actually *that* low budget - and not the throwaways your memory probably tells you they were. Lion King 2? Made ~$300 million in net sales, almost as much as the original Lion King’s theatrical run.

What those Disney VHS sequels and Kiki share is the fact that their intended market was *only* children. That is the point of VHS - you put it on for your kids and then go make dinner. Its the virtual babysitter, the kids can loop it while reenacting every scene with their stuffed animals. Movies released in theatres don’t serve that role at all - the parents are paying $15 a head and they are trapped in their seats for the whole runtime. It has to entertain everyone, or you aren’t going to go, or at least not as often. VHS releases sucked because kids don’t care, they actually do enjoy the constant quippy lines and dumb jokes. That is equally true for Japanese kids - its just that Kiki’s intended audience wasn’t Japanese kids, it was “all ages” - a very different category.

The same is true for Sailor Moon, by the way. The idea that kids in Japan could “handle more mature themes like death” unlike American audiences doesn’t hold up quite as much when you look at Disney theatrical releases like the Lion King - Mufasa’s death pulls no punches, but kids didn’t mind. And Japan does have shows like Doraemon that are just as childish as the 90′s western cartoons you remember. Its that Sailor Moon’s audience wasn’t just kids. 

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon aired in March of 1992 on TV Asahi. Asahi was not a kids network, and Sailor Moon did not air in a kid’s block - instead in its “Anime Block”. It aired on Saturdays, at 7:00 PM. For most of its runtime, the 7:30 slot after was held by Slam Dunk, a hyper-serious basketball anime adapted from a manga in Weekly Shonen Jump. You think director Kunihiko Ikuhara was throwing in queer relationships and even trans characters, and every other villian was a half-naked seductress, because it was gonna really resonate with 8 year olds? Sailor Moon was for 8 year olds, yes...and for otaku. So, 15 year olds, lets not exaggerate here. But still, its hype, its success, came just as much from its teen and adult fans as much as its young devotees. Which was intentional - it was *marketed* that way. That's why it aired at 7:00 PM on a Saturday. 

Sailor Moon’s original dub, on the other hand, aired on UPN at, yeesh, 6:30 AM?? Then on USA’s Cartoon Express at the much more reasonable 8:30 AM, and later on Toonami at 4:00 PM. All of these are kids slots, to watch over cereal or snacks before/after school while the parents are busy. You do not expect the adult in the room to be watching alongside the kid, or for teens to really be paying attention.

And to cut off the logical objection, a show like Sailor Moon was just not going to get a 7:00 PM Saturday slot in the US in the 90′s. Nor was Kiki going to get a movie theatre release in 1998 of any scale. Movie releases are expensive, Saturday slots are precious, the funding just wasn’t there for something so untested as Japanese anime. There was no demand in the west for it - that demand would only be created later, by a generation who grew up on, well, shitty Sailor Moon dubs and Kiki VHS releases. And what success in the media slots these shows and movies did have are shaped by those market niches.

I don’t want to be over-deterministic on this - at some point Cartoon Network rolled the dice on Cowboy Bebop and Full Metal Alchemist and it worked - maybe they could have done that in 1995 with like Neon Genesis Evangelion, who knows! And of course US children’s cartoons are, beyond market forces, burdened with regulatory moralizing that Japanese media does not have. But I do think these 90′s dub efforts should get the proper context for the constraints they were operating under, and why they existed at all, as they are criticized.

[galadrieljones]

There’s a TWD article out by someone who’s previewed some of 10C that says Daryl and Leah were out in the woods for five years. (So most of the timeskip after the bridge blew.)

It’s not a biblical seven years, but it’s close. Though it’s probably been seven years since they first met, what with Leah’s actress apparently back for season 11 🤔

Oh wow. What. 👀 For anyone who’s confused, this is a reference to my Daryl/Jacob Biblical symbolism post, and I have...more to say now! SHOCK.

Wait, it’s speculated that they were together for FIVE YEARS?! I’m super curious about this. See, I don’t look at Leah as a usurper, so much as just like a major symbolic opportunity. I know a lot of people are quick to dismiss everything this show does that bothers them as “bad writing,” but I find too much of that to be a cope. I can see how having to deal with seasons 7-8 over a period of years could wear a person down, but the writing for TWD is actually...often...good! It’s weird. It takes chances. Yes, it disappoints us at times, but that’s the rub. When it’s on, it’s fucking on. Seasons 7-8 were NOT on. In general, I noticed a really obvious, periodic decline in quality post-Coda and 5b tbh, and I’m not just saying that because of Beth. (Tho I am starting to believe more and more that Beth was not initially supposed to die, that her death was pressured based on some sort of perceived, utterly cracked backlash per the age difference. The writers then had to grapple for a while, and it was the beginning of the end for Gimple, who never got his shit back on track ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Anyway, I know I’m far from the first person to point out that Angela Kang wrote both “Still” and “Coda.” She wrote the first and final moments of Daryl and Beth, as we know it. Her vision for The Walking Dead also feels much more genre-forward to me, ie: post-Gimple, TWD has become much more of a genre piece, and I kind of think that’s important here when talking about Biblical allegory as a genre in and of itself. The Walking Dead begins and sustains for a long time as a sort of 00s era fabulism, a la shows like Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, which take place in a familiar world and focus on realistic relationships and situations, but the settings and scenes contain a light fabulism, or just this spare, Lynchian layer of magic, ghosts, mysticism, dream states. But in seasons 9/10, with Kang at the wheel, elements of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and even the American Western have really been ratcheted up. There are kings and queens and princes, tigers and horses and knights in shining armor and cowboys. There’s even a movie theatre. Plus the Whisperers, who are initially presented as supernatural, lead by Sycorax and Caliban creatures, and now the hard scif-fi nature of what’s going on with Jade, the helicopters, and finally the insane cliffhanger with Eugene, Yumiko, Ezekiel, and Princess. 

I’m just saying: I think we can only expect more of this. Like, rather than the very Frank-Darabont-esque “gestures” to genre in favor of realism, we can expect big, sweeping oceans of genre, in which “realism” becomes whatever the creators want it to be. When you start steering a show or a story this way, you’re opening up all sorts of possibilities, a la, anyone who’s watched Supernatural or the X-Files knows that where science fiction and fantasy are concerned, NOBODY IS EVER REALLY DEAD, NOT REALLY. We know that the show is priming us for the return of Rick. We know that Connie is not dead. No matter what, the notion of resurrection in this show is not only possible at this point, it’s inevitable. We know, too, that @twdmusicboxmystery​ and other TD sleuths have established in aces that even after five seasons, the writers have still never definitively closed the door to opportunity for Beth’s return, not in-show, not offset. In some ways, they even seem to invite it! I mean?

So now, with genre on display, and resurrection on the table, when I think about them bringing in LEAH, magically, like, I KNOW it’s on purpose. The writers could have named her anything. But they named her...Leah. Leah?? They also mysteriously removed one of the wings from Daryl’s vest during the 6yr time jump, something that has still never been overtly explained (which is on purpose, it’s a symbol, but of what?). In reading Daryl as a Jacob character, I see his lost wing as a symbol that he has fallen from his ascent to heaven, re: Jacob’s Ladder:

He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. - Genesis 28:12

Jacob’s Ladder is a unique symbol in Judaism and Christianity because it not only communicates the traditional spiritual story of ascent (mainly: to heaven, or a to a heaven place, Elysium, spirit realm, etc), but also DESCENT. Angels are going up, but they’re also falling down. We cannot ascend in life without periods of descent, or backsliding, etc. Nobody is perfect. Season 10 (and honestly, seasons 5-10 but that’s another post) shows a period of obvious “descent” for Daryl. He is a fallen angel, but at the end of season 10, Judith (with her Beth braid and her Sheriff’s hat and her many resounding Beth themes), gives Daryl a new wing. Season 10 then ends on an upswing for Daryl. He defeats Beta, atones with Negan, and saves his people. He is heading up again. 

It’s worth remembering, too, that Daryl’s relationship with Leah is not new, or present. It is past-tense. It took place during a major descent for him. It is not Leah who lifts Daryl up out of this descent. In a purposeful choice by the writers, it is Judith--a clear symbol of his past, of Rick, and of Beth--who returns his wing to him. Judith is also an important symbol of the future. She survived against all odds, the firstborn of the apocalypse, a shepherd of her father’s people. 

SO, YEAH. It IS interesting. I am SUPER interested. In the wake of seasons 9/10, crazy genre-heavy seasons that introduce resurrection as a distinct, inevitable theme, Daryl’s weird, overt angel imagery, Jacob-parallels, and now: LEAH. Why would Kang toss in some random LI for Daryl, knowing full well what the reaction will be, only to then NAME HER LEAH? Jacob worked for seven years to marry Rachel, but he was deceived into marrying Leah instead. The notable caveat to this story is that, ofc, Jacob also gets to marry Rachel! but not until after his wedding period with Leah, and he has to work SEVEN MORE YEARS, too. Jacob gets kicked down a lot! His name literally means “heeled.” But in the end, he is the wrestler of angels, contender with God, father of Joseph, etc. etc. He ascends.

So I honestly have no idea what any of this means! But it makes me type a lot. And I DO know it means something, because it is true that, in The Walking Dead, everything means something, especially now, with Angela Kang, Bethyl writer and genre/symbol lover in charge, and with every bit of genre and every symbol ratcheted up to like, 11, and LEAH. No matter what, we can’t take it for granted!!

[mylordshesacactus]

Anyway for the record:

Fiona in this AU is a shepherd--small-time, private homesteader whose land isn’t really suitable for cash crops--and I honestly don’t think she owns a horse, as they’re expensive to keep and she doesn’t really have a use for one most of the time. I do think it’s possible she owns a donkey, as a shepherd living alone would have use for a versatile pack animal that’s hardier, smaller, and less expensive to feed than a horse. What she DOES have is a collie, because that’s literally non-negotiable for a sheep farmer.

May: Blood bay Arabian mare. It’s...this is not an inexpensive horse. It is not, like, easy, or realistic, or in many cases [checks notes] possible, to get an Arabian out here. May very obviously comes from SERIOUS money to manage it. But, and here’s the thing--while her little Arabian may stand out in a line of morgans and mustangs and quarter horses, it’s not an out of touch choice. That’s a completely appropriate desert horse--and Arabians are hardy, light on their feet, intelligent, they’ve got endurance for days. If you can get one, and you’re one of Robyn’s Girls TM--meaning you just tend to pop up wherever anyone needs help, whatever kind of help that is--so you need a dependable mount for a variety of situations? Nobody’s gonna judge you for your choice if you’ve got the money.

Joanna: Quarter horse gelding. Probably a bog-standard sorrel. Dependable, strong enough to carry a tall and powerful rider but this is a working horse so they’re also fairly small and compact. Smart, steady, and deceptively quick--they’ve got kind of a low, horizontal carriage naturally, which gives them a bit of a sleepy appearance, but if you’ve ever seen a quarter horse in a cutting competition their attitude is basically “that’s cute boss, you hold the reins if it makes you feel better; now sit back and shut up and let me do my job thanks I’m better at it than you are”. Quintessential cowboy horse, basically. May not be flashy but he does the job and he does it well.

Robyn: I actually think it’d be thematically appropriate if Robyn didn’t own a horse, honestly. She can grab one of the others and/or ride double if she needs to get somewhere in a hurry; I say thematically appropriate because if y’all recall I have Robyn running the Mantle tavern in this AU so she’s actually quite tethered to one place, and might not....need, to keep a third horse around the place. That, and in canon, she’s both a leader and a support fighter. Plus like....there’s symbolism, in the likelihood that a lot of the time Robyn’s first action upon arriving at a tense situation would be to dismount. Place herself on the level of everyone else. It means that most of the time, she wouldn’t be assessing a situation from the inherent position of power that is looking down at people from a horse--and, in a situation where the person she’s arguing with does stay mounted (cough Clover cough), it highlights the power imbalance and throws into relief the fact that the other person is consciously choosing not to dismount to match her.

Failing that, give the girl a good honest dun mustang, she deserves it.

As for the AceOps:

Clover rides up on some big white stallion, a heavy warmblood cross; big English-style dressage type, totally unsuited for the region. (Disclaimer, I actually personally STRONGLY prefer English-style disciplines over Western and, for example, don’t personally like quarter horses at all, while I adore a good warmblood. We’re talking about tropes, here.) He’s probably bombproof, very well-trained and all, because Clover’s a boring-ass cop; but that steadiness in this case comes at the cost of him being reactive. This is a horse that doesn’t think back at his rider, in a setting where the gold standard is that sharp-eyed quarter-horse cutter. He doesn’t fit.

Harriet is the exact opposite extreme; she’s got a dark bay racing thoroughbred stud, profoundly unstable as racing thoroughbreds generally are, very much the epitome of “gosh I wish my motorcycle had an acute anxiety disorder and the ability to make bad life decisions”.

Vine gets a cremello saddlebred stallion because saddlebreds are bad and weird and I despise them. Their legs are bad, their tails are awful, they’re gaited and gaited horses are terrible, and I personally hate every moment I have to spend looking at them. Much like cops. No but like, literally--Saddlebreds are uncomfortable and awkward and do weird things with their limbs, which is Vine’s semblance, and their “official” riding style is a) viscerally bad on every conceivable level and b) blatantly the result of too many rich people with more money than sense and excessive time on their hands. The goal here is that the AceOps just don’t....work.

Also Saddle Seat is legitimately the worst thing horse people have ever invented and anyone who competes in it I am legally allowed to hunt for sport.

Elm: Halflinger stallion. On the surface, halflingers are refreshingly sensible--a good all-purpose breed, heavy enough for draft work but light enough to right, a good choice for a tall, broad rider like Elm. There’s nothing WRONG with halflingers--but the level of control the breed club has and their requirements to be accepted into the studbook are INSANE. Seriously, google that shit. So, a perfectly sensible-looking horse that’s still deeply Rich People Nonsense in origin.

Marrow on the other hand rides a dark bay Morgan gelding. Morgans are phenomenal horses that very much Fit with Western tropes. What is a morgan? Good question! Nobody knows. Morgans are the pit bull terriers of the horse world. There’s like, technically a studbook, but...it’s just sort of A Horse. A dependable, sensible, pretty-but-not-like-TOO-pretty, versatile horse of all work, can do pretty much anything; jack of all trades, master of none, but all in all just a good and useful horse with no pretentious bullshit attached.

I didn’t put too much thought into this YOU put too much thought into this, shut UP--

[pynkhues]

I’m sure you’ve already gotten a bunch of asks since Manny’s Crime King interview! I’m just like confused about him saying he’s enamored by her world but honestly like how is his different (besides his obvious commitment to the game) he lives in a nice loft, takes his kid to baseball, drives a fancy car, and plays tennis at the club. It’s not like he’s living the life of a thug. I guess I’m not getting the exact contrast of their worlds.

(Rest of my ask) I’m probably missing some obvious point here which is why I’m asking you lol helllppp

I do think Rio’s enamoured with Beth’s world, yes! I think that really boils down to the fact that while on paper Beth and Rio aren’t living dissimilar lives in terms of their roles as parents, and while they obviously now share parts of the criminal world, I do think the show is actually pretty specific in how it represents those worlds, particularly in terms of the masculine / feminine, and how a part of the curiosity around each other is in viewing one another as a key that both compliments their own world, while also unlocking the other’s one for them.

The gendering of spaces in storytelling – but particularly films and TV is, hilariously, a topic that I’m incredibly passionate about and have both written it a lot in my original work, and written about it a lot for magazines, journals and media sites (I’m actually writing an essay at the moment for a literary journal about LGBTQI cinema and how lesbian romances are highly domesticised [i.e. Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Handmaiden, The Favourite, The Kids are Alright] while gay romances are usually very pointedly about keeping away from domestic spaces, moving and traveling [i.e. Brokeback Mountain, The Talented Mr Ripley, Moonlight, Midnight Cowboy, even Call Me By Your Name is heavily focused on being Americans abroad aka away from home] but that all feels like a different story, haha).

Luckily for me, Good Girls is actually about as obsessed with the gendering of spaces as I am. It’s a major, major throughline throughout the show for many of the characters, but particularly Beth and Rio, and their intrigue with the other’s spaces – her interest in his powerful, highly masculine one, and his with her deceptively innocent, strongly feminine one – is really central to their intrigue with each other more broadly.

So to talk about this, we probably need a little bit of context.

(Under a cut because this is literally 4,000 words)

Gendering Spaces in Cinema

It’s probably not a surprise to anyone here, but places and spaces in stories are about as gendered – if not more gendered – as they are in daily life. In particular, cinema’s visual and textual language has historically been very clear:

The inside is female. The outside is male.

This concept has really been around since the beginning of cinema but became very popularised through Westerns in the late 1920s onwards, and really underlined by war films particularly during propaganda cinema in WWII. Men are outside, battling the elements and other men, claiming land, building outwards, while women are at home – either literally or figuratively (if they’re actually out at war, like in the utterly fabulous So Proudly We Hail!, they’re at the ‘home base’ as nurses) – building inwards. Men protect the home while women create it.

Westerns feature these images very potently and very literally. Almost every single western dating back to the 1910s will have some combination of these two shots:

a)       Woman at home, looking out into the wild:

b)      Man leaving home, stepping out into the wild:

(These two stills are from John Ford’s The Searchers which is generally regarded as one of the greatest Westerns of all time. It’s………very racist and misogynistic, as many were and still are, but in terms of technicality and visual language, it’s a very well-made film, albeit not one I enjoyed).

The purpose at the time, of course, was steeped in historic sexism and invested in maintaining that culture, particularly westerns and war films which are heavily devoted to ‘macho’ narratives. Women were passive, men were active, but these images really set the stage for how the ideas of ‘space’ continues to exist in cinema. A fact that’s bolstered by broader social discourses that still exist today – schools, grocery stores, laundromats are inherently ‘female’ spaces because they are seen as an extension of the home, while police stations, car dealerships, warehouses, are inherently ‘male’ spaces because they’re about work, protecting and providing for a home, and being pointedly outside of that domestic space aka ‘the wild’. It’s not an accident that the girls are robbing grocery stores and day spas, but I’ll get back to that, haha.

These ideas of gendered spaces underpin everything we watch, no matter the genre.

Sure, these ideas can be subverted to varying degrees of effectiveness (often it’s steeped in my least favourite trope – the ‘not like other girls’ heroine), but you can’t subvert a trope without actually acknowledging it exists. Sometimes these subversions are done brilliantly too – like in Legally Blonde which was not just about Elle existing in a space that was quintessentially coded as male, but embracing her femininity and womanhood within that space; and often brutally too in films like Winter’s Bone, Room and The Nightingale which all brutalise women in ‘male spaces’ while simultaneously weaponizing female spaces against them – usually the home. The lead character of Winter’s Bone is going to lose her house unless her absent father shows up in court, the lead character of Room creates a home that is simultaneously a sanctuary and a mockery of a sanctuary to try and protect her son from reality and survive, the lead character of The Nightingale has her home invaded, her husband and baby murdered, and is horrifically raped within that home.

Hometown Horror: a divergence

This is a slight aside to where I’m going with this overall, but please indulge me, haha. I’m a big fan of horrors and thrillers, which explore this in a really stark way. In that, the invasion of a home or a domestic space – whether by ghost, demon or serial killer, is, generally speaking, synonymous with the invasion of a woman’s body and the violation of her as a person.

Films that focus on a female survivor or a ‘final girl’ are very generally focused on the invasion of her home as much as it’s focused on the invasion of her body. Think The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, Scream, The Babadook, Hereditary, The Conjuring, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Panic Room. The violation of a woman’s home is the invasion of her, because cinema relies on over 100 years of movies telling us that a house and the woman who lives in it are symbolically the same thing.

Horror films that focus on men are very rarely centred in the home. It’s men travelling, or men visiting a woman’s home, or men who’ve been taken. Think of the first Saw movie which takes place in a mysterious basement, Hostel which is at a hostel, Dawn of the Dead at a shopping mall, An American Werewolf in London while two men are on holiday, The Evil Dead is in a cabin, Get Out is at his girlfriend’s family home.

There are exceptions, of course! Family home invasion films like The Purge, Funny Games and The Strangers are rooted in the violation of that home, but still. You’ll generally find that it manifests differently narratively speaking for men and women. Rear Window too takes place entirely in a man’s apartment – but it’s interesting to note that most of the ‘horror’ comes from him spying on somebody else’s home – notably a woman’s, The Descent too is very much about women and is set during cave diving. Still! These are all exceptions, not the rule.

Good Girls and Gendered Spaces

Every single space in Good Girls is gendered. It’s actually one of the things I seriously love about the show because it’s thoughtfully done, and it is deliberate. We know it is, because they tell us explicitly in the writing multiple times. I mean – hell, think of Ruby telling us (well, telling Rio, haha) way back at the end of 1.04 when they’re selling him on the idea of washing cash through Cloud 9 – “Nobody thinks twice about a woman buying her husband a TV or new tires for the minivan.” A store like that is gendered, and Ruby’s reinforcing it by saying it’s a place women go to build a home. It hasn’t been weaponized yet - - but our girls know how to weaponize it. They’re playing on the fact that people think women’s spaces are effectively impotent, and they’re telling Rio – and us as an audience – that they’re going to exploit it.

This is an idea the show revisits frequently. Women’s spaces are – both in life and in storytelling – spaces that are viewed as passive because they are representative of women, and what the show is – I believe – very invested in, is showing how those spaces are fundamentally active. If you want a house to represent a woman – well, okay. Then you get to see what’s under the rug, y’know?

I’m going to come back to the home thread – because I really do think it’s very important, and I think the way the show depicts people in those spaces (and invading those spaces) is significant – but it’s not just homes that are looked at in this way. The show is very specific about having feminine spaces and masculine spaces, with only a few in between (and usually those in-between spaces are very specifically for Stan and Ruby, showing just how in-sync they are with each other and how much they operate within a shared space). Beyond the women’s homes, there are the kids’ schools, Fine & Frugal (very important here to note that Annie emasculates Boomer in what is an associated female space and that he retaliates by attempting to rape her in her own home aka not only another female space, but a space that is symbolically Annie, something he repeats later with Mary Pat – a violation on essentially every character, narrative and symbolic level, again), the waxing salon, Nancy’s day spa, Jane’s dance recital (and actually the physical object of the dubby – being a highly feminine object lost in a very masculine space), and already what we know of s3, with Ruby being at a nail salon and Beth being at a paper / card store.

The show also has very masculinized places – I’d argue Boland Motors is one of the biggest ones – very much about ‘boys and their toys’, which is why Beth pointedly feminising it when she takes over is so significant and symbolically indicative of Beth’s claiming of that space; but also spaces like the police station, the drug dealer’s house in 2.07, the hotel suite Boomer briefly occupies, even to an extent the church. When the girls are in these spaces, there’s a distinct feeling of encroaching on territory that isn’t theirs, or being in spaces that they don’t belong in. This is often done as a two-hander too – the police station and the church Ruby doesn’t belong in anymore, not necessarily as a woman, but as a criminal.

Nothing though, from a technical standpoint, is more masculine than the spaces that are shown to be Rio’s. From the warehouse spaces to the bar to his loft to his car, Rio’s ‘places’ are distinctly masculine and generally placed in direct contrast with Beth’s femininity. But I’ll come back to that point too.

Home, Identity and Invasion

Almost every female character on this show has a very defined domestic space, from Beth, Ruby and Annie, to Mary Pat, Marion and Nancy. These spaces are representative of not just who they are, but who they are as women, and really comes to routinely represent the interior lives of these characters. This is probably the clearest in 2.09 when Beth is uncharacteristically messy following Dean taking their kids, and in 2.06, when Beth and Dean switch roles, and Dean is incapable of maintaining that domestic space because it’s not his. But let’s not start there.

Let’s start with Annie.

Annie’s apartment is fun, feminine (but not overly so), youthful, sweet, and generally a bit of organized chaos. It’s often underequipped – there are several mentions of the pantry being understocked – but it’ll always do in a pinch. More than anything though, Annie’s apartment comes to life when her son is in it. She’s happiest when he’s there, and when he’s not, her loneliness drives her to pulling people into the space with her, whether that’s the electronics guy, Greg, or Noah.

This is particularly significant when Annie’s forming bonds with people. The show has symbolically relied very heavily on Annie’s moments of vulnerability and connection being grounded in her apartment or an extension of it – usually her car. There was her reconnecting with Greg over YouTube videos in s1, there was Nancy and her talking about pregnancy in 2.02, and there was Noah settling in across season 2. These are all substantial moments in terms of Annie’s interior life that are represented through her home – she lets them all in. Which is why it’s significant what people do when they are in. Particularly the show marrying Noah getting to know Annie while simultaneously rifling through her belongings, trying to know specific things about her.

This is only reiterated by Noah’s scenes with Sadie later in the season – always at home, reiterating just how much Noah’s invaded Annie’s life, how much he’s inside her, how much he’s using everything and everyone who’s important to her, and how much he’s a threat to all of that too.

Ruby and Stan are a little different. Ruby’s house is the only one that’s genuinely shared with somebody, and the show represents this across the board – Ruby and Stan wear similar colours, the house feels like theirs, and the parts of their worlds that are separate are still frequently pretty defined by each other (even when Ruby’s acting away form Stan, the show makes it clear that Stan’s at the forefront of her mind, and vice versa). This indicates their partnership, but the house really still is symbolically tied to Ruby. This is particularly represented by the effect of having Turner in the house, but, more than that, it’s underlined symbolically by Turner arresting Stan at home. If the home symbolically carries the meaning of the woman, Turner arresting Stan there is starkly about Turner taking Stan away from Ruby. That image would not hold the same weight if he was arrested at, say, the park or the police station, because the locations don’t hold the same meaning.

It’s also why there’s significance in Stan and Turner’s showdown narratively speaking happening at the police station. It needs to, because symbolically it should occupy a masculine-coded space, because that showdown isn’t just about who they are as people, but who they are as men.

Beth and Beth’s house is very, very different to Annie and Ruby’s, and holds a more substantial narrative and symbolic function. From the very first episode, the potential of losing her house is key to her arc, and key to her identity as a character.

Beth is a lot of things, but a recurring image with her as a character is that she is invested in projecting a dated idea of ‘perfect womanhood’, and, within that, actually pretty perfectly creates parts of it for herself. For Beth – as somebody who was a housewife for roughly twenty years – her house really is her in every sense of the word. Every threat to that house, every disruption, every wrinkle, every intrusion, every theft, every invitation is personal. Dean might have at least two rooms in the Boland House, but that space is Beth’s on almost every symbolic level. When people pop into it, it’s a direct invasion of her.

This is something that the show has revisited time and time again, particularly when it comes to Beth’s bedroom. When people want to be close to Beth, that’s where they go. Annie slept there across season one when she was vulnerable and lonely, despite Beth telling her to go home, Jane broke into Beth’s closet there when she felt she was being neglected, Dean’s constantly trying to sidle into it (and – pointedly – only really in it when they’re fighting and Beth is revealing something / letting him in on something – that they’re out of money, that she has Rio’s money, that she knows about his affairs). When Beth has been at her most vulnerable, she lets Ruby and Annie into it. That said, the only character who’s been explicitly invited into it has been Rio – significantly both in fantasy, and in the show’s reality.

It’s not just about inviting people in though – when she kicks somebody out of it, the act is loaded.

She’s not just pushing somebody out of a space, she’s pushing them out of her.

It’s not just her bedroom of course (although I do think that’s the most significant space on perhaps the whole show). Rio and Turner between them have regularly invaded Beth’s living room, dining room, her kitchen, her yard. These are often distinctly tied with her doing something domestic and / or distinctly feminine. She’s bringing groceries home, she’s baking, she’s trying on jewellery, she’s mothering her children. Symbolically, this is often when Rio and Turner both are at their most masculine and their most threatening, which just serves to underline the invasion of Beth’s space.

It’s not just the girls though, as I said above. Female domestic spaces on this show are significantly coded as belonging to women, even if they share those spaces. Think about Nancy and Greg’s house – which is Nancy’s space, not Greg’s, and throughout season 1, Annie was pitted as the outsider to that. She’s a smear of hair oil on Nancy’s perfect couch. It’s made all the starker when Nancy kicks Greg out, and when Annie helps Nancy give birth in that house – a distinctly female, intimate act, that not only operates as a significant feminization of that space, but also about Annie fighting for Nancy to let her in again.

These spaces all keep secrets for the women they belong to too – Mary Pat’s husband’s dead body, Boomer’s very much alive one – because, again, symbolically, they are these women.

Rio’s loft is a really interesting one to look at in this context, because not only is it hyper masculine, but the show underlines that it does not hold the same significance that the girls’ places have for them. Beth does not learn Rio by being inside him – something made stark through their game of twenty questions. In fact, being in Rio’s loft, in his space, only serves to point out how much Beth doesn’t know him. Not only that, but Beth’s inability to lose her house (which is really central to her arc) is paralleled exactly with how easily Rio can separate from his.

The domestic space is not male.

Rio exists outside of it.

Beth x Rio and the Feminine x Masculine

Rio and Beth are basically at polar opposites of the masculine / feminine spectrum, and it’s something that this show often casts in a really stark light through dialogue, visual language, character coding and symbolism.

Beth epitomizes the old archetype of femininity and the female world in a way that I don’t think Annie and Ruby do (although I do think Ruby does in some respects). This is coded into almost every part of her character – from her long history of domestic servitude and marital submission (letting Dean control their finances, not working, keeping the house, etc.) to her fertility (four children!) to the way she dresses in floral, bakes, to certain traits, namely her nurturing tendencies, overt empathy and guilt (not being able to kill Boomer). Even in terms of the casting – Christina is somebody who has a very distinctly feminine body.  

On the other hand, Rio, in many ways, epitomizes the old idea of masculinity and the masculine world. He’s coded that way almost as much as Beth is coded as feminine – he’s physically strong (beating up Dean, holding Beth up while they were having sex), assertive, dominant, capable and collected. That’s not even touching on the fact that the golden gun is incredibly phallic, haha.

The show loves to place Beth’s femininity in direct contrast with Rio’s masculinity in a way that it doesn’t do with the other girls or – in fact perhaps more notably – with Beth and Dean (if anything, Dean’s frequently emasculated around Beth, but that feels like a whole other thing, haha), and it does this frequently, and often even in the same shot.

Most notably, think of her pearls on the warehouse door handle:

Their cars parked side-by-side:

Her necklace, his gun:

Her light, his darkness:

Her floral, his solid colours:

Interestingly though, these things are very rarely in competition or combative (although occasionally they are – Rio trying to use her femaleness and his maleness / their sexuality to literally bend her over a table in 2.06 being the clearest example of that). Generally speaking, the show’s visual language though shows us how these things compliment each other. They occupy different gendered spaces, so they can ‘crime’ in different ways – Beth using the big box stores, the secret shoppers, robbing the day spa, are all things that are highly feminised, and give Rio by proxy access to a world he ordinarily wouldn’t (albeit it’s not always a world he’s interested in – like it wasn’t with the botox), and the reverse of that is that Rio gives Beth access to spaces that are highly masculinised and that she ordinarily wouldn’t have access to (again, not always a world she’s interested in either). It’s why when they’re working together, and acknowledging they have different departments, they actually become something really whole, comprehensive and effective.

It’s the exploration of this that I find really intriguing generally, and particularly a thread that I think is reiterated where Beth’s usually at her worst and her most ineffective when she’s trying to emulate Rio’s masculinity. We saw that at the end of 1.10 and the start of 2.01, and I think we saw it at the tail end of season 2 too. When Beth’s succeeding, she’s typically doing something that revels in the strength and power and the underestimation of femininity and female spaces, and turns places that are typically viewed as passive into active ones.

The Secret Shoppers (which worked briefly! And fell apart because she couldn’t handle Mary Pat. Notably almost every scene with them was inside Beth’s house):

The day spa heist:

The Boland Motors takeover / reclamation that focused on feminising the place:

Pretending to be somebody’s mum to get into the kids’ space (which would’ve worked if Beth and Ruby hadn’t started fighting):

Breaking into Rio’s loft:

Again, this is something that seems to be being teased out already in s3 with the paper store and the nail salon, and I’m sure we’ll see it coming up again and again beyond that.

But yes! Your question, haha. I think Rio is enamoured with the strong, feminine space and the untapped female world that Beth exists in, and the ways that she is actively capable of utilising her femininity and her womanness in a way that is completely impossible for him. She can manipulate these spaces – either those already female, or those she makes female aka Boland Motors – in ways that he can’t, and in a way that, at the end of the day, lines his pocket, in the same way that giving her access to his powerful, masculine world lines hers. It’s market development, y’know? But it’s also something that could be a true and successful partnership if they could stop, y’know, playing games and trying to kill each other, haha.

I think it’s worth noting here too that the show has shown us explicitly that Beth absolutely gets off on Rio being highly masculine, and while I think Rio absolutely gets off on Beth being a boss bitch too, it’s also important to note how he responds to her when she’s displaying vulnerability in a way often defined as very feminine – namely crying – and how that display of femininity not only affects him, but often makes him want to touch her (and more and more, follow through on touching her).

Basically I think they’re as obsessed with the contrast between the two of them as we are, haha.  

[mimzy-writing-online]

I hope this question isn't too stupid, but you're one of my favorite writing blogs so I'll give it a shot. I want to write a FanFic based on the 1971 version of Willy Wonka. I wanted the story to tell Violet Beauregarde's story, the one that turns into a blueberry. However, I have SOME questions as I'm fairly new to FanFic. 1). Am I better off focusing on each kid's perspective, going back and forth? Or is it good to narrow my focus one one character? 2). Can I give them a character arch, li

(2/3) like Violet's really mean in school but she becomes kind after her experience at the factory. Is that too cliche or predictable? 3). Why does she try waddling away after her blueberry transformation and the Oompa Loompas are singing/dancing around her? They're trying to help her, and I don't really get why she'd do something like that. 4). What are tips to better understand the characters I want to flesh out? I guess it circles back to the last question, understanding their psyche. Yikes

(3/3)  Yikes! Super sorry this ask is long. And I'm even more sorry if my questions were lame or you've covered them before. :P. I can overthink at times, ESPECIALLY when it comes to my writing. I'm such a perfectionist storyteller, it's not even funny. I hope my questions aren't bothering you. You're one of my favorite writing blogs, so I figured I could come to you. I apologize in advance for wasting your time. You DO NOT have to reply at all if you don't want to. :P Thanks, have a great week

First and foremost: this is not a stupid question, you are not wasting my time at all. This is actually a rare treat for my blog because I don’t get many asks that don’t involve blindness, though I usually know better how to answer those than I do other questions. So, here we go:

Are you better off focusing on each kid’s perspective, going back and forth? Or is it better to narrow your focus onto one character?

The general rule of writing is to simplify. If two background characters serve a similar purpose, just combine the characters, for example. Slimming down extra scenes that don’t contribute to plot or character development.

However, that advice is meant for people publishing novels, working within an overflowing industry, dependant on sales and royalties. They have to meet whatever industry standards are, like word count or POV types. They have to find someone willing to take them on as a client because they love that book.

Fanfiction is not bound by such nonsense. Fanfiction is a beautifully lawless land where capitalism cannot influence it. What defines what you do with fanfiction is if you enjoy reading it, and if you have the steam to continue a long project.

Some people easily write 200,000k fics within a matter of weeks or months (or in my case, just once, two years). Some people work best with short fics. Both (and everything in between) are wonderful.

So, how much steam do you have for this project? How long do you think you can carry it and still finish it? Because that defines how big you should plan to make this project. If you don’t think you can write a long fic, then maybe just stick to one character.

A compromise between the two is to focus primarily on one character, and examine the other characters more briefly. This could be done in just a single POV chapter, or a handful. This could be done with the characters connecting and seeing the side character through your main character’s eyes, seeing how they’ve changed.

There’s no wrong answer. This fic is for your enjoyment primarily. No matter what you write, it will appeal to at least a few people, if not crowds. But your fun comes first, both literally and figuratively. Write for you, write to explore the story for yourself.

Can you give them a character arc like Violet’s where she becomes kinder after her experiences in the factory? Is that too cliche or predictable?

I wouldn’t call it predictable, because I’d expect everyone to go into completely different directions because they were all such unique and individual people before they entered the factory, and they were foiled by their own quirks.

Violet was mean and fake, she was demanding. I don’t know how much I want to speculate on the plotline you have going for her, how you’ll develop her to make her want to be more kind.

But I would love to speculate on the others.

Agustus Gloop? 

I feel like his experience in the chocolate river and almost drowning would make it hard to enjoy chocolate ever again. I think it would be a long time before he had any sweets. Also, because of his weight, I imagine there’s got to be some body-image issues hiding under the surface. I’d also put money on him being bullied, and him acting out against the students who bully him and because of his size he is more intimidating, but that doesn’t stop people from saying things behind his back.

I imagine the chocolate thing is a form of self-comfort. Maybe he turns to other foods to over-eat with to cope. Maybe eventually he figures out that this isn’t helping him. Does he try to replace unhealthy foods with healthier ones? (idk, I have a personal turn off on getting into the concept of dieting, so I’m not going to dig in much there).

I’d like to see him learn to love himself, develop some body neutrality, that his body doesn’t define who he is or what his worth is. That he becomes okay with who he is as he grows up. People who are happy and comfortable with themselves are generally nicer and easier going than people who aren’t. Maybe with some self-love, he’ll be kinder to others.

Veruca Salt?

Okay, I have a confession. My brain thought of her when discussing Violet. I haven’t seen either of the films in years.

Well, let’s thank Wikipedia everyone, the greatest gift of the internet.

Veruca does come across as a spoiled brat. Her parents shower her in material objects, which might mean something. I have a close friend who hates people buying things for him or giving him gifts that cost money. This has to do with a parent buying him things out of guilt after episodes of emotional abuse. I asked him a while back what he wanted for his birthday (I meant baked goods, I bake or cook special meals as birthday gifts for my friends. A has asked for chocolate chip cookies for three birthdays in a row now. Several friends ask for cookies for Christmas). Anyway, my friend had a panic attack and couldn’t respond until an hour later.

Maybe there’s something to that.

What does she think about money as she grows up? Does her love language continue to be gifts? I think it might one day be quality time. Maybe it is now. It’s common for rich parents to be absent and barely spend time with their kids because of work and extravagant social lives that sort of money gives them access to, meaning they barely have time in the day to spend with their kids. Maybe gifts are the only way she can make sure her parents still care, the only way she can get their attention? 

Mike Teavee?

Apparently in the movie credits his last name is spelled Teevee. But I’m obsessed with tea (and this is the point where I remember my tea and wonder if I’ve let it go cold because I got too focused. Nope, it’s still there). So it’s Teavee here.

Wikipedia describes him as a young boy who only watches TV, nothing but TV. He’s especially interested in cowboys and Western films. He comes across as a know-it-all. He’s easily annoyed but gets along with others.

Anyone have a guess at where I’m going with this?

Mike is neurodivergent. I mean, that’s my new headcanon. I lean towards ADHD because that’s what I project, but like everything else, his interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. Every viewer sees something different in him.

Some common ADHD (and autism) experiences beyond having a specific interest is how others react to your special interest. You get used to people getting bored when you talk about your interest for the thousandth time, but it’s still important to you, but not to someone whose opinion matters to you. RSD is probably common.

Wikipedia says he’s described as lazy in the books? Common ADHD “symptom,” or rather something that outside viewers label as laziness. Really, he just doesn’t have the motivation to do any of those other things.

And Charlie?

Did anyone think I wouldn’t have any thoughts on Charlie, our hero and protagonist?

Oh no, I have thoughts. Charlie goes to great lengths to set his family up comfortably, he becomes generous with his money. He also knows nothing about running a factory. I’m hoping Willy Wonka gives him some help there. But I bet adult Charlie is a stressed-out workaholic who tries to do everything and thinks he has something to prove, that he’s not just some random lucky child, that he can do this. Charlie totally gets a work-related anxiety disorder.

Those are my thoughts. I still think giving them Violet’s arc isn’t cliche or predictable, but rather completely different from what you think would happen to all those kids.

I mean, maybe a few of them are still little jerks in their adult lives. There’s no one road to grow up on, even if you’re four strangers who shared a similar traumatic experience.

Why does she try waddling away after her blueberry transformation and the Oompa Loompas are singing/dancing around her? They're trying to help her, and I don't really get why she'd do something like that.

They strange looking short men she’s literally never talked to, never seen or heard of before today, who’s already taken away two children by this point, all while singing a song about what terrible children they were.

And she’s scared because her body is doing something strange and scary and awful. She’s scared. She doesn’t know what to do. What will happen if these strange men take her away? She doesn’t know what happened to the other kids.

And they’re not really communicating they want to help, just singing cheerfully about how awful children are.

What are tips to better understand the characters I want to flesh out? I guess it circles back to the last question, understanding their psyche.

A lot of it is just watching real-life people and wondering why they are the way they are. Listening to their reasoning and what they tell you about who they are and where they come from.

I know people who grew up like Agustus with using over-eating as a way to self-comfort, and the bullying they experienced. I know that if a kid was physically bigger than his bullies, maybe he’d fight them to make them stop and leave him alone. People who go through that journey of learning that their body doesn’t define who they are, accepting it because it is theirs and it takes care of them.

(Which reminds me of a post I like that pops around here and there, that positive body image should be about more than how “sexy” your curves make you look. A person shouldn’t have to be sexy to be treated like a person. A person shouldn’t have to be sexy at all if they don’t want to, especially not all the time, and especially not a child. And there are a lot of obese children in the world who don’t have any positive body image messages designed for them)

I learned what my friend’s love languages are and why they have them and what they mean. Which is why I have that theory for Veruca.

Mike is just self-projection and listening to other neurodivergent people when they describe their life experiences or listening to their theories when they say a character is neurodivergent too.

I won’t lie, my theory on Charlie is based entirely on the Avatar: the Last Airbender fandom’s common head-canon that Zuko becomes a workaholic after he becomes Firelord. There might be some canon material in the comics that supports that, but I’ve never seen it. I think Zuko and Charlie have a similar vibe and that those three years Zuko struggled, and Charlie’s entire life before the factory make them both feel like they need to be perfect and do everything right to prove they deserve the job they’re given and that their backgrounds don’t define their worth.

Thank you so much for your ask anon!

And again, you are not a bother. I enjoyed digging into this movie I’d never thought in depth about until tonight. And you’re not alone, lots of writers are overthinkers and perfectionists. You are in good company. Our writing and fanfiction community welcomes and loves you <3

And thank you for your kind words! I’m so happy that you love my blog so much <3 It made my day to read that

Take care anon, and good luck in your writing :)

[dwellordream]

You do a lot of really amazing gender bents and want of the nail AU? What genres or tropes do like the most (even if you don't write them) and which ones bore you?

It’s probably very obvious I like arranged marriage as a trope mostly bc I like the idea of having to sort of adapt two personalities so they can actually get along. Obviously most of the arranged marriages I write tend to work out bc we want to root for the main couple, even if they start off loathing each other.

But in general in the ASOIAF setting I think it’s a very common trope that can be done either really well or really badly. I dislike reading it when the couple hates each other and only get along when they’re having sex, or when the ‘turning point’ is them becoming attracted to each other, instead of respecting or empathizing with one another. In general I like fiction that shows the real work and compromise that goes into a relationship. It can’t all be smut and fluff and I don’t care how hot the characters are if their personalities are pretty shit and they constantly demean each other.

I’m really only interested in gender bent AUs for a series like ASOIAF which has a world with such strict gender norms. It’s not that interesting to me in the context of most other fandoms.

I like enemies to friends to lovers, I like comic relief in the right dosage... I love characters like Dana and say... Samwise Gamgee who are very blunt about how they are just ordinary people but who are just as capable of doing great things because they are humble and kind and brave. I like it when fics show the ‘every day lives’ of people and I love, love world building, especially stuff like religion and art and folk stories. I like sibling relationships where no one says ‘big brother!’ unless they’re trying to be funny. What siblings do you know that address each other in that way in total seriousness. I like writing families sticking together even when they disagree. I like writing teens acting like teens and being stupid.

I love most horror tropes and I like dark fairy tale stuff without it being too over the top and edgy. I enjoy superhero tropes and sci fi when it’s very small scale and kind of gritty- less galaxy wide war games and more normal people living in abnormal (to us) conditions. Sexual tension is best written imo when both people are ‘in on it’, not when one is sort of creepily lusting after the other from afar. I love western type settings bc I think cowboys are cool and I like horses. I enjoy most post apocalyptic settings unless it’s just one gruesome despair horizon after another. I like people exploring abandoned places and found families.

I like platonic male female friendships without one person having to say ‘she’s like a sister!’ over and over again. I like tropes that allow men to be affectionate and show emotions beyond anger or jealousy.

Tropes I usually hate: I can’t stand the trope where one sister is considered weak and fragile and ‘delicate’ and the other is ‘cold and hardened’. I hate most tropes that involve women fighting over a man. I hate it when characters do shitty things to minor characters and then it’s never acknowledged again. I dislike tropes where the mother is portrayed as this hysterical nag and the father is a well intentioned dope.

And I hate it when the main characters have no friends beyond their significant other. I dislike it when callousness and apathy is portrayed as ideal and ‘the real world’. I dislike it when the villain is always hyper competent and the heroes just have to rely on pure luck. I hate it when women are written solely to think about Insert Man and how much Insert Man has changed them for the better. I hate literally any scene where it’s the wedding night and the man goes on this condescending lecture about how he’s going to ‘educate’ the heroine as to her own sexuality and ‘teach her how to enjoy sex’. It’s not cute, it’s patronizing.