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lumi-klovstad-games · 8 months

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My thoughts on Marvel's Avengers: Definitive Edition now that I've had half a day of playtime or so with the beastie:

This is a fine enough game, and one where I can easily see the potential it always had. Most, if not all, of this game's problems were solvable. The simple elimination of the cash shop alone, and the act of entrusting players with the plethora of customization options they always really wanted in the game's twilight weeks in online storefronts really shows how much of this game's negative reputation stemmed from corporate grift, not a lack of love and care by the developers. If Crystal Dynamics had the ability (or the willingness, whichever was lacking most) to say "no" to their corporate bosses, this would have been a much more well loved game.

The combat is good enough -- keeping such a diverse roster of heroes feeling relatively distinct from each other and yet not forcing players to abandon muscle memory and allowing them to lean on what they've learned with other heroes at a basic level is no easy feat, and while maybe there's TOO MUCH interchange between hero control schemes for my liking, I can't say Crystal Dynamics chose poorly here, as indeed I might have come to the same conclusion had it been my job to figure out where that line was. As it is, once you learn how Kamala Khan plays in the campaign, you are well prepared to be competent with any other hero, though picking up their divergences and eccentricities is a matter of leveling up and unlocking their corresponding abilities, but animations, haptic feedback, and excellent sound design do a much better job carrying more weight than they should have had to.

The voice cast is superb. If you've been a fan of literally any Avengers animated series since 2010, you're well familiar with the cast of characters voicing this beloved cast of characters. Nobody here is a surprise, and they all bring their long-running interpretations of the Marvel roster to this game. Welcome back, Nolan North, Laura Bailey, Troy Baker, Travis Willingham, and Jennifer Hale. You're always welcome around these parts. In addition, we have prior Marvel voice alumni like Danny Jacobs and Jameison Price turning up all over the place. You've heard these versions of Earth's Mightiest Heroes before, and in no way is that unwelcome.

The VAs are supported by a story that's… well… it's …adequate. Where it's present, it's fun, if standard and cliche, but sometimes that's just how comic book plots go. The Avengers have been un-Assembled, and it's up to in-universe super-powered superfan Kamala Khan to start getting the band back together so they can stop the mad scientist from generally being a comic book supervillain. Very boilerplate stuff, but it's delivered well.

That is, WHEN it's being delivered.

All the story campaigns are unreasonably short because some unforgivable chucklefuck at Square-Enix decided to tell Crystal Dynamics, a predominantly single-player game developer, to make the next Destiny 2 (begging the question of why anyone would WANT that, given that one Destiny 2 is already far too many). Doubtless, upper management believed that the cooperative multiplayer aspect of the game would carry the bulk of player engagement, but Crystal Dynamics was an inexperienced developer when it came to live service titles, and they were not prepared to deliver on the unreal demands of keeping such a game consistently updated. Cooperative missions are largely cookie cutter affairs taking place in a small handful of environments that all begin to bleed together before long, and there aren't THAT MANY more multiplayer missions than story missions, in the end. These samey environments aren't visited for long, often between 5 and 15 minutes at a pop, and bada-bing, you're back to the Quinjet to pick out your next mission, which JARVIS will helpfully inform you is TOTALLY IMPORTANT, ACTUALLY, but after curbstomping hundreds of robots and gas mask-clad anonymous henchmen in the same New York City underground labs for the fortieth time, you find yourself inclined to stop believing him after a while. This game just lacks content and variety in missions, activities, and enemies, and it's a shame Crystal Dynamics weren't allowed to play to their strengths here.

I don't feel that the lackluster mission variety kills the game for me though; I have plenty of other games and don't plan on LIVING in this one, and that's really where this Definitive Edition shines best: you don't have to live here. The only FOMO at play is that the game becomes unpurchasable in 6 days as of this writing. You don't have to fret over timed content, no waiting for the magical timer to reset, or the usual toxic shenanigans we typically associate with live service games.

You pay $4, get your game, and everything associated with it so you and your friends can shitpost as Marvel characters on the weekends. That alone makes this a much more practically rewarding game than most live services (coughDESTINYTWOcough). This game ain't a service anymore. It's a product, plain and simple. It's a product to buy and have fun with, and put away for a while when you want (or need) to do other things.

I don't know about you, but I call that a bargain.

#video games #avengers #marvel's avengers #game review #steam games

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redpiperfox · 6 months

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There were so many November comebacks, I literally penciled them into my planner at the beginning of the month. Because this is my stress relief, and I like to know what I have available to me, thank you very much XD

But with a bunch of comebacks comes not being able to keep track and appreciate them all, so I'll be doing that here, in--

Highlights of November Comebacks~

feat. Soojin, Kiss of Life, Stray Kids, Aespa, Red Velvet, Kard, Collab (Soyeon x Winter x Liz), and The Boyz

Soojin

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Gonna be honest, I'm just happy that she's alright. I'm glad she's back to music, I'm so happy to see the elgant dance style that's so Her, and the influences in the music that had highlighted her in GIdle that she gets to claim for her own now. It seems to be a really good time for soloists, especially soloists that have had their name dragged through media, and I'm so glad she's come with a full project and a full album. The mv itself is beautiful and artistic. I think on my twitter I said it was "artistic from sound to set," and the incorporation of the four elements cinematically made me want to break out my sketching pencils and watercolors, so beautiful!

The album as a whole has little beautiful moments, but next to all the drop-dead steal-your-breath stuff from the rest of the month, the mellow sounds don't really hold their own? My favorite is "bloodredroses", but maybe that's because of it how it calls back to Jo Yuri's "Bruise", and it sounds so quietly painful.

Kiss of Life

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Was not expecting the drawling cowgirl music in the back, but their style has me hooked. Album wise I think they're in a niche of RnB-kpop melding? I love KoF's ability to not compromise on individual style in pulling together a cohesive and bold sound, it makes me think of Blackpink, but more mature, where each member has strong footing both visually in their scenes and characters, but also vocally and in the choreo. The vigilante of Gotham behavior in the plot of the mv made me love it all the more-- as a visual, this mv stands out from cookie cutter kpop formulas, and it serves the girls so so well. I was hoping for a harder hitting song as a whole, but just like Shhh grew on me, I expect this to as well, especially with how much individual power the lines have.

The album bursts in "different-ness" from one b-side to the next, and holds all their sassiness. I smile everytime "Gentleman" plays, it's so in-your-face. The touches of noir ambience is beautiful and unique, and they have my ear.

Stray Kids

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Your girl was seated. I was anticipating. I was getting back into my Skz roots with God's Menu-Back Door and all my pride and hype for Thunderous, I was ready. Sononically, I think we're still in the same era as 5 star, where Skz have found the formula that works for their title tracks, subverting kpop into something unexpected. The four sets and the different emotions disappearing till only pleasure was left was terribly clever, and the choreo has Hyunjin written all over it. I think Jisung's rap part stood out the most to me, and they pushed a good amount of vocal power into the production. Although kpop wasn't ready for it, the rock version of the song sounds like the Correct version, but I can't complain-- they didn't wait till a year end show to remix it and never hand it to me this time XD

The album as a whole is a step better than 5 star, in it's diversity of tracks and album creation. There's enough spotlight for their vocalists that make me happy so :3 "Megaverse" was an instant repeat [and I'm coming back before I post this to say the mv is A+! Clever and proud in a way fitting to the music], and I listen to "Cover Me" literally for Seungmin's voice, hot damn, Hyunjin was selfish with that production into that final chorus and it shows~!

Aespa

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Murder girls always grab my attention, I was just confused why Aespa was doing it tbh XD I think each comeback with them is getting better and better-- the mv itself seemed so pulled back and stripped visually, but then it had sharp clean moments that make you gasp. It feels very caution-to-the-wind with her vengeance sort of murderess? Like Batman throwing his insignia up on the sky, or painting a billboard red with the blood of the guilty. It absolutely lived up to it's teasers, and although I was confused why they were doing the almost-same thing as Red Velvet, and why SM was screwing both groups over by releasing them so close together, I think this aespa comeback might be my most favorite yet, and their bsides are *chef's kiss*~ "Trick or Treat" hits in all the right places.

Red Velvet

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I had just come off of relistening to Seulgi for the season. I absolutely adore their melodic horror. Given the fact that Birthday was more on the cutes side, I was expecting something classical, something perhaps a little regal, but all the way with the horror. So the chorus was unexpected to say the least, with that touch of cute and carefree. The mv itself being dark (...literally XD had to turn up my brightness ALL THE WAY) and twisted into a plot of girls breaking free of their captivity only to be arrested for arson was an interesting juxtapositioning? It was the sort of short film that had me rooting for them, and the touch of slightly supernatural in the production was enough air of mystery to unsettle me. I had to listen without the video to truly love the title track.

As an album, Red Velvet presents the perfect November sound, of transitioning slightly horror-imbibed with a hint of festive-tinged. Nearly every b-side was a favorite for me, with a special glance at "Will I ever See you Again?" for grabbing me with two hands on my face. But everything, from "Knock Knock (Who's There?)" to "One Kiss" and "Bulldozer" spin a Corpse Bride/Nightmare Before Christmas delicacy and mastery, in every key change and harmony. ...I might do an album breakdown/essay, that is how much I love this album as a whole.

KARD

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Kard's mellower, non-title track material is hit-or-miss for me, so I'm going to have to save this for a rainy day, because between all these top notch titles, it's hard to remember this. But the sound is still authentically Kard, and unlike "Without You" this doesn't feel like the girls featuring the boys like how some of their songs have been feeling.

Collab (Soyeon x Winter x Liz)

Was not expecting but all my girls!

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The path to my heart is paved in gold and decadence, you could make the worst song ever, but you set your mv in this sort of glamour, you'll still have my attention. As a collab, it struck me that these are very unique, very talented voices coming together, and I wasn't convinced that their strengths were highlighted? But! As a song, it's a bop, and the three unique sounds, and maybe the fact that we get a collab at all is a win and I absolutely love. I want to put this next to Off The Record by Ive, but also, I was overlistening to Wow Thing Collab (Seulgi x SinB x Soyeon x Chungha) and this feels like something to step into those shoes, and that makes me happy XD

The Boyz

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oOOOH when I saw a stealer-maverick-roar style concept! The anticipation I had! And there was no let down! The music production was A+ makes me want to listen to the whole album. The video also has it's absolutely stunning moments, my love for that last scene with half their faces cycling through, but also for all the individual scenes! Their child-like/boyish comebacks are hit or miss growers, but /these/ comebacks! Yess~!

#Youtube #red's week in music #red's album reviews #red's thoughts #red's album dissections #red's album listen thru

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xoteajays · 10 months

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Yeah.. I know people are cautious when creating a character with any disability (including disorders) because they don't want to accidently offend other people who actually have that condition.

Which is understandable.

But, if I did create any characters with disabilities, I would probably use reference my disabilities for the characters. Maybe other conditions, but it depends on the condition though. But.. Like... I rarely see any characters with autism, attention deficit disorder or disorders like that. At least I haven't noticed anyone create those characters. And that is the same for all these physical disabilities too. Could be physical, or neurological, maybe even both conditions.

But I rarely ever see people create disabled characters. Which made me hesitant for my own character because I wanted her to have some of my disabilities since no one ever write characters like it. So that's why I was curious to know. Because I have never felt "normal" enough to write characters who are normal, even if they are a fictional character.

And if I did write a character with disabilities, I will only write about the conditions that I actually know of. I'm not someone who would write about another condition that I know nothing about at all.

That's not what I would do.

I should have rephrased that sentence differently.

not a problem at all! it was a good question, i think i air on the side of caution and warning when i answer questions a lot of the time, sorry if i ever come off pushy!

i think it’d be great to see more characters with autism or adhd/add or similar disorders! not every character needs to be cookie-cutter and neurotypical and able-bodied, and i personally enjoy seeing ones that aren’t. the oc+fanfic community is always in need of more diversity, and i think people with these conditions - and many other ones - deserve to be able to see themselves in media, including fanmedia.

if you ever do feel like giving an oc or two a condition or disorder that you don’t have, there’s a lot of good resources online and on tumblr to read!

#anon #tj answers

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musclesandhammering · 3 years

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Every Single Issue I Have With S*lki (It’s Not Just The Selfcest)

Here goes. I threatened to post this a few days ago and never did, but I just saw a s*lki stan Twitter account claim that Loki caring about Sylvie more than the whole multiverse was a Good And Romantic thing and it pushed me over the fucking edge, so now you all have to read this. I’ve divided it into categories cause there’s just THAT much.

OOC Bullshit

• First and foremost, no amount of mental gymnastics you do will ever make me believe that this specific Loki- the one that just invaded New York, that just came off a year of Thanos Torture, that just got done being influenced by the sceptre, that was literally in the middle of a crisis already, and then on top of that went through all the trauma of Ep 1- would even be worried about a romantic relationship. That would be the furthest thing from his mind. Go back and watch how he acted in Avengers- you think that guy would abandon his previous mission to become a snivelling simp for a girl he’d just met 3 days prior? Yeah, there’s no universe in which that makes sense.

• “It’s very in character for Loki to fall in love with himself lololol-“ NO, it’s literally not. Out of all the characters in the mcu, I don’t think I can think of anyone that genuinely hates themselves more than Loki. He even referred to all his other male variants as “monsters” and said meeting them was “a nightmare” in this series. He’s got so much self-loathing, plus the fact that he genuinely thinks himself to be an evil backstabbing scourge- so there’s no evidence at all suggesting that he would ever develop a fondness for, or even be inclined to trust, another version of himself, after only knowing them for 3 days.

• Building on that, the whole concept of Loki falling in love with a version of himself just feeds into the annoying ass misconception that he’s a narcissist. No matter which way you stack it, he’s not. If you’re referring to NPD, he doesn’t fit the criteria, and if you’re saying “narcissist” just as a slang term meaning “selfish and arrogant”, that still doesn’t accurately describe him. But when creators like Waldron and Herron do things like having him fall in love with himself, it makes it so much easier for casual viewers to think that he is.

Shitty LGBT Rep

• It’s kinda sus that Loki’s are allegedly genderfluid and yet the only female-presenting variant we see (and apparently the only female-presenting variant there is, cause the male Loki’s all seemed unfamiliar with the concept) is treated as some kind of mind-bogglingly special paradox. Also very sus that, out of all the Loki variants, the one our Loki falls in love with just so happens to be the only female one. What a coincidence.

• The fact that the creators of the show went around bragging about Loki’s bisexuality and Marvel purposefully (lbr) allowed stories about Loki possibly having a male love interest to circulate, specifically enticing queer viewers to watch the show (you know, the definition of queerbaiting), and then instead of having a male love interest (Loki was the first queer main character, so it was the perfect opportunity) they gave us *gestures to this dumpster fire* this… it’s just a middle finger to LGBT fans. The fact that they would rather have this relationship with all its myriad of problems than have a gay relationship is just……. Very telling.

• While him being with a woman obviously doesn’t refute his bisexuality, the fact that they showed/talked about him being interested in 3 different women (flight attendant, Sylvie, Sif) and never even hinted at him being attracted to a man, definitely makes it seem like they were trying to cover up his bisexuality to smooth things over with the more homophobic viewers. You know? It’s like “I know you’re pissed that we sorta confirmed Loki as bi, so we promise we’ll never mention it again! Or even hint at it! As a matter of fact, we’ll give him lots of female lovies and make him seem as straight as possible! That’ll take your mind off of that horrible crumb of queer rep, right? Please please please keep giving us your money!!!”

• Aside from all the other issues, at its core, the biggest reason why I think I’m so irritated with s*lki is that it took one of the most interesting, complex, and diverse characters in cinema atm and squished him into a tired ass unnecessary heteronormative subplot…. Like literally every. single. other. protagonist. ever. Loki is such a unique character, and it’s so so so incredibly disappointing that they stuck him into that same boring cookie cutter romance that happens to every other character in every other movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disservice, and it’s honestly just not compelling or entertaining at all.

Thematic Issues Galore

• His arc didn’t need a romance. With anyone. It was unnecessary and it didn’t make sense plot-wise. In fact, one of the reasons he was my fav prior to this was because he was the only big-name mcu character whose story wasn’t muddied-up by a romance that didn’t need to be there. So much for that.

• He wasn’t emotionally ready for a romantic relationship with anyone. Hell, just a genuine friendship would’ve been pushing it for him at this point. He was in such a bad state that any relationship he got into would’ve been toxic and unhealthy for both him and the other person, and it doesn’t make sense why the writers would want to put him in one when there were so many cons and essentially no pros (other than “Uwu aren’t they cute together”).

• Sylvie’s character in general was unnecessary and Loki’s character was robbed just by her being there. The whole show became about her post-Ep 2. They spent most of the time giving her backstory, building her up, telling us how awesome she is, trying to convince us to like her, etc when what they really needed to be doing was building Loki up- cause I gotta say, if I had to describe TVA!Loki in a few words, they would be Flat, Boring, and Weak.

• The romance overtakes the plot. They spend time portraying their supposed connection that could’ve been spent adding depth and complexity to literally any of the characters. They make the big Nexus Event them giving each other googly eyes on Lamentis when it could’ve been so many other way more profound things that speak to the fundamental nature of Loki’s. They have the climax of the finale be “oh no she betrayed him to kill He Who Remains” when it could’ve been something way more compelling (Loki having a moral crisis over whether or not to kill HWR, Loki contemplating the state of the multiverse and weighing the pros and cons of freedom vs order, Loki looking into some What If situations and getting emotional about what could’ve been regarding his family, Loki realising the gravity of HWR’s offer and finally coming to terms with how important he is to the universal cycle, etc etc). The entire plot suffered in favour of a romance that half of us didn’t even want.

• It essentially reduced all of Loki’s potential character growth down to “He did it for his crush.” He seemed to at least have some motivations of his own in Ep 1-2 (feeble as they were) but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, literally every action he took was just him being a simp for her. Why did he lie in the interrogation? To try to protect Sylvie. Why did he fight the minutemen and Timekeepers? To survive kinda, but mostly cause it was important to Sylvie. Why did he get pruned? Cause he got distracted trying to confess his crush to Sylvie. Why did he try to get out of The Void? Cause he thought Sylvie needed him. Why did he stay in The Void? Cause Sylvie was staying. Why did he try to enchant Alioth? Cause Sylvie told him to. Why did the multiverse get cracked open, leading to an infinite number of Kangs waging war on all of existence? Cause Loki didn’t wanna hurt Sylvie in their fight at the Citadel and then get distracted by her kissing him. It’s uninteresting and honestly pretty embarrassing.

• Throughout their “relationship arc” the writers do their absolute damndest to convince us that we should like Sylvie more than Loki. And you know what? It’s the most hypocritical shit I’ve ever seen. They preach and preach about how Sylvie’s life has been so difficult/we should feel bad for her/she had it so bad/poor poor sylvie/she had it SO much worse than pampered prince Loki…. But then they never even touch on any of Loki’s trauma of hardships (the ones that have been ignored for literally 3 movies now). They frame Sylvie as a good person and a Freedom Fighter after she spent literal decades/centuries mass-murdering brainwashed TVA agents and showing exactly zero remorse for it….. but then they make it their mission to constantly remind us that Loki is a terrible person and constantly put him in situations where he’s forced to acknowledge his wrongdoings/show remorse/admit to how “evil” he is for being a mass murderer for like 2 years. They show him on-screen having a wider range of powers than her, and perpetuate his whole shtick of being a “master manipulator” or whatever….. But then they make Sylvie “the brawn” more competent, intelligent, and physically capable than him. Tell me how it’s a good thing for a ship to be so narratively biased toward one character.

Missed Opportunities

• If they absolutely had to have a romance subplot, then they could’ve paired Loki with one of the characters that have already been established OR one of the characters that were a big part of the whole TVA storyline anyway. It would’ve been so interesting if they’d revealed that Loki had a history with some of the players from previous films (Sif and Fandral both come to mind). It also would’ve been really interesting if they’d given Loki a love interest that actually had some allegiance to the TVA as a whole (Mobius maybe, but not necessarily. It also could’ve been Renslayer or B-15). Hell, imo it would’ve been cool if they’d followed through with that “See you again someday” line that he said to the flight attendant in Ep 1. ALL of these characters have way more chemistry with him than Sylvie, and they were also already relevant to the plot without wasting half the show to give background info on them.

• If they absolutely had to have a hetero-presenting love story involving an enchantress-type figure, then there’s a whole Enchantress (Amora) that was actually Loki’s love interest in the comics. Plus, fans have been screaming for Amora to appear in the mcu for years. Plus, Tom literally pitched an Amora/Loki storyline way back in 2012-13. Also, Lorelei (another enchantress) is also one of Loki’s love interests in the comics, and she already exists in the mcu (she was on Agents of SHIELD). There were several different established characters for them to choose from. Creating a whole knew amalgamation of a character and going with the “she’s a Loki variant” storyline was just completely unnecessary and made no sense.

• They completely robbed us of a Chaos Twins dynamic. Had they handled Sylvie better and not forced her and Loki to smooch, the two of them could’ve had a really really complex and interesting sibling relationship. Loki could’ve stepped into Thor’s shoes and sort of used that new role to gain some self importance, and Sylvie could’ve finally had somebody to look out for her/teach her magic/be there for her. It would’ve been very aesthetically pleasing, the vibes would’ve been out of this world, it would’ve been way more profound than this bs, and frankly it would’ve been much more entertaining to watch.

• Loki’s relationship (read: obsession) with Sylvie completely overshadows all Loki’s other relationships in the show. Loki and Mobius were literally the focal point of the series in Ep 1-2, but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, they barely had any interactions with each other, and Mobius pretty much faded to the background entirely. Loki had the beginnings of a pretty interesting antagonistic relationship with Renslayer (with her wanting him pruned, then arguing with Mobius that he couldn’t be trusted), but after Sylvie showed up the dynamic shifted to focus on the history between her and Ravonna. Loki and B-15 started off very badly and openly disliked each other throughout Ep 1-2, and then in the end of Ep 2, Loki showed a little bit of concern for her when she was possessed, hinting that they might be inching toward a reconciliation- especially considering how obvious it was that Loki was gonna uncover the TVA’s sins eventually. There was so much potential for him to be the one to give her her memories back and convince her to change sides, but no, of course that honor went to Sylvie. In fact, after Sylvie showed up, Loki and B-15 never even spoke to each other again.

Various S*lki Fails

• If they were trying to convince us that this affection was mutual, they completely failed. There’s nothing I’ve seen that even hints at Sylvie feeling the same way about Loki that he does about her. At most, I’d say she has a slight endearment to him. She finds him likeable and she’s grudgingly fond of him, but she definitely isn’t in love with the guy. Maybe she thinks he’s cute and hopes that he gets out of this mess alright, but her mission obviously comes before him- whereas, it’s been confirmed multiple times that Loki cares about her above anything else. She doesn’t trust him, she looks at him like he’s an incompetent fool half the time, she shows little to no reaction during most of his confession moments, and she kissed him as a means to distract him so that she could get him out of her way. Look, all I’m saying is, when you get into a relationship where one of you is way more invested than the other, it never ends well.

• This goes without saying for a lot of us, but the selfcest is just straight up odd and cringey. If you’re cool with that sort of thing, fine! People can ship what they want! But don’t pretend it’s not at least a little bit uncomfortable. Yes, I know they’re not technically siblings so it’s not technically incest, and they’re also not technically the exact same person, but they’re similar enough that it makes things weird. And yes I know selfcest can’t happen in real life, so there’s no way to judge it morally, but neither can most of the other stuff that happens in these shows/movies (the Snap, Loki destroying jotunheim, superhero with powers being held accountable, mind control) and yet we still find ways to judge their morality, because they all mirror real-world events. (The snap= genocide; Loki destroying Jotunheim= bombing other countries; superhero accountability= weapons accountability; mind control= grooming and coercion). And lbr the closest real-world mirror to two versions of the same person (who may or may not share DNA, family, backgrounds, physical and emotion characteristics) being romantically involved with one another is incest. And you can be ok with that if you want- that’s your prerogative- but don’t get pissy just cause a lot of us are squicked out by it.

• The whole mirror metaphor (learning self love via each other) thing just fell completely flat. First of all, having Loki learn to love himself by looking at someone who mirrors him did not, in any way shape or form, require them to be romantically involved. But they were. Of course. Secondly, the creators have contradicted themselves so many times on whether Loki and Sylvie are the same or not, that it doesn’t even really register to the viewer that the mirroring thing was what they were going for. Finally, Loki and Sylvie are shown to have so little in common- and to have only the most bare minimum of similarities personality-wise- that it doesn’t even make sense that Loki would “learn to love himself through loving her”. Like? They’re nothing alike. So how would he make the connection that he himself is actually pretty cool, based on her alone? There’s virtually nothing in her that reflects him.

• I know the objective of the entire show was to convince us of how awesome and unique Sylvie is, but honestly her relationship with Loki just did the opposite. A hallmark of a Mary Sue is having her constantly upstage the male lead, and then having him instantly fall madly in love with her anyway. And that’s.. exactly what happened here. Everything they’re doing to try to force her character to be more stan-able is really just forcing her to look more like their self-insert OC. Which is exactly what she is. It would’ve been so much more satisfying if she didn’t have to try so hard to look cool, if they didn’t have to try so hard to make her backstory tear-inducing, if they didn’t have to turn our protagonist into a snivelling simp just to prove how incredible she supposedly is. Very much #GirlBoss energy and we all know how performative and cheap that is.

• The entire thing was too rushed, there was too little build-up, and it was nowhere near believable. As stated above, it’s ridiculously unlikely that Loki would canonically even be interested in Sylvie, and this show did nothing to explain why he was. He just suddenly was. There was nothing they showed us as viewers that would justify a guy as closed-off and preoccupied as Loki falling head-over-heels for a girl he just met. Their was no explanation, no big revelation, no reasoning, it just… kinda happened. And I’m also severely skeptical of any love story that has the characters go in this deep after only 3 45-minute episodes of exposition.

I’m sure there’s other stuff, so if anyone thinks of anything, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add it. Tagging @janetsnakehole02 @raifenlf @natures-marvel and @brightredsunset800 for expressing interest. This is all your faults.

#antisylki #loki meta #kinda #loki series critical #loki series negativity #anti loki x sylvie #anti loki series #anti sylvie #frosty bby #loki deserved better #I don’t even like TVA!Loki tho so I guess it doesn’t matter with him lmao #tva loki #loki laufeyson

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worm-in-a-trenchcoat · 2 years

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A Rant Because I'm Annoyed and Tired

Trigger Warning- Minor Swearing!

I was thinking about why I'm so hesitant to publish a book or make a short film, to actually like... get my ideas out there.

And I realized it's because I'm afraid that my ideas would be considered "too diverse" or too "out there" for mainstream media. And the sad thing is, they aren't even "out there" at all. Or rather, they shouldn't be considered that.

For example; I'm currently writing a book where my main character is black, openly queer in multiple ways, and autistic.

In the eyes of mainstream media, that would be considered an "out there" thing to have in a book or a movie- when that's completely normal. I'm literally all of those things.

Like I've really been thinking about this, especially with everything going on with Disney and their censorship. If I worked for Disney and I pitched the idea for a black, queer disabled character as a main character for a movie or a show, they would probably laugh in my face. Or, they'd go with the idea but would "fix" it to the point where you have to look for those things in the character, when you shouldn't have to.

Pixar did an amazing job with Turning Red, but Disney censored it so we didn't get to see the full potential that it had. They do this so often, and they aren't the only ones and it's just so sad to find out about.

My thoughts are kinda all over the place cause its 1 am and I'm tired, but my point is, you don't see shit like that in mainstream media because they don't want it there-

So write that shit, and shove it in their faces and make them deal with it like we have to deal with the same cookie cutter shit that's released every year.

And also, fuck Disney.

#god i sound like a boomer #'mainstream media'#I couldn't think of a better way to word it #but hopefully you get the point #rant post #not mh #turning red #disney #pixar #this was lowkey a written pep talk to myself #but I'm sure someone else needed it to

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lizzybeth1986 · 3 years

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(1/3) Hey, Playersexual Anon here. I really appreciate that you took the time to address my question. I'm a longtime player (4+ years), but I don't often interact w/the fandom; I don't have a Tumblr account. But I do sometimes browse to see Choices discourse and you're definitely right that many straight players say their favorite LIs aren't queer, I saw this a lot w/Ethan for example. So I understand your issues with the term now and how it's weaponized against queer, especially bi, players.

Sorry again for the delay in responding, anon! Loads of IRL stuff happening this side so wasn't able to write much or go on my blog. I'm glad you never engaged in the disagreeable behaviour that I've seen in other stans, and you seem to be observant enough that even while not interacting with fandom you were able to notice some of these things. You're right that the original sin here, really, is PB and the way they make a song and dance of their inclusiveness while engaging in writing that really doesn't do queer characters any favours.

My feelings about customizable characters...are a little bit more complicated. I agree that, the way PB uses them now, they're more band-aid for actual representation - they exist for PB to claim diversity, without having to ever do the work (I mean, this is work they hardly even do for default CoC!). So I can understand why it's popular to dislike customizable characters or paint them with a broad brush. But here too, I feel (and here I'm not talking about you - but more about the fandom so far) that many people miss how we got to this point, and fandom's role in how we see customizable characters treated.

When PB started using customizable characters (Liam was the first race customizable one, and Hayden was the first to be both race and gender customizable), while there was considerable excitement, fandom was also engaging constantly in what I call a "preference heirarchy". In books where there was a default white person, or a default CoC who was exoticizable, customizable characters faced impossible levels of scrutiny, or were constantly derided no matter what they did. They fared much better in three instances:

1. When there was more than one customizable character (particularly by race. Eg. MTFL, TRM)

2. When they were the only (optional) white character in a sea of CoCs (eg. Bloodbound)

3. When the character was a default race was black 😣 (look no further than Platinum!).

But when they were introduced, they were often not always the pet fave of the teams (who would lean towards the white/exoticizable brown male LI) and the fandoms would either write them off as "boring" without knowing much about them, or drag them down for every. single. thing. they. did. Liam, for instance, was constantly labelled a "cheater" for wanting to continue his relationship with the MC while trapped in an engagement his father had manipulated him into (with his fiancee's consent, mind you! AND he never even had a relationship with said fiancee!!) and fandom had a long, long history of shifting the goalposts with this character. I've lost count of the number of PM stans who falsely claimed Hayden had no variations after the first few chapters, who compared Hayden to a toaster, and who had a problem with Hayden's very justifiable outburst at the group in Book 2 Ch 6. These are just the two most visible examples.

If we're really going to talk about the present cookie-cutter nature of the current crop of customizable characters, or how shady it is that PB is using them as rep, maybe the fandom should take a long, hard look at how they treated them when they were in the same book as other white LIs, or LIs they could grossly objectify. They didn't identifiably act like CoCs even back then (and were in most cases still white coded) but the fandom didn't hesitate to treat them badly.

#ask lizzy #ask me #customizable characters #playchoices

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mk-wizard · 4 years

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Top 10 Things Rescue Bots Did that Should Become Normalized in Transformers

Hello, fellow and beloved fans.

Today, I am going to delve into the short lived, but amazing series that was aimed for kids, but still appealed greatly to adults and for good reason. This show delivered many things that we wanted to see in Transformers for decades that we want to see more often and for some things, become the norm in more Transformers series.

1- Well done and well written human characters. - In most Transformers series, the humans play second fiddle or comic relief. Not here. In Rescue Bots, not only is the Burns family truly capable at their job, they were the ones who often saved the day and they were entertaining to watch. Moreover, I could say that in the main series, Chief Burns truly felt like the real leader of the rescue team overall including when it came to the bots. Plus, a lot of the human characters were the same way. Only the humans who were meant to be comic relief acted as such and even then, that didn’t make them incompetent at their jobs or helpless babes which says a lot because the series was about rescuing those in needs.

2- Insight into Cybertronian culture and society. - With all of the series there are out there, we still know nothing about the Transformers as a race. Rescue Bots gives us insight about what life was like for Autobots and how they had law and order as well. They even give us an idea of what sports they played (cube) and how they even had fairy tales. Just the fact that it centred around four rescue bots shows us that they had jobs outside the military. Autobots did more than fight Decepticons.

3- Fresh new setting. - Can we talk about how Rescue Bots may be the first and so far, only Transformers series that isn’t about the Autobots vs. Decepticons? Even Beast Wars didn’t feel all that new because it was essentially the same thing, but with factions with different names. Rescue Bots was about bots learning about humans as well as keeping them safe from natural disasters and accidents. How about we have more Transformers shows like this? Why not let the next one be about exploration which can have educational properties? Or considering Cybertron gets rebuilt, the rebuilding of Cybertron? I would watch those.

4- Proper black representation. - I have to bring this up, but Rescue Bots may be the most black positive series I have seen yet. The Greene family is not the least bit stereotyped in any way and they are well balanced characters with both good and bad qualities. And it was revealed that Blades himself is a bot of colour according to his human hologram and he’s not stereotyped either. Plus, it is nice to see a series that doesn’t torment people of colour for a change.

5- Proper female representation. - As a woman myself, I have to bring this up because this hits close to home with me. The female representation was just as good as the black representation I mentioned before. None of the female characters are stereotyped, they are not second fiddle to the men nor do they steal the show or have to always be right, not a single one is there to only be love interest and they all have diverse personalities. Most importantly, each one of them is in some way in tuned with their feminine side shamelessly in their own way which is also good.

6- The spotlight was one someone other than Optimus Prime for a change. - Don’t get me wrong, I love the big guy, but it was fun to see someone else take the reigns at main character for a change. Optimus still appeared in the series, but as a guest character and he was not above needing to be helped at times. It was also good to see the characters be self sufficient without Optimus needing to hold their hands.

7- Likeable kid characters. - I really hate it in any media when the kid characters are made to be annoying or obnoxious. Cody and Frankie were very likeable. Heck, I outright loved them. They were fun, mostly believable and actually contributed to the team and to the show. Most importantly, I liked how the kids were actually discouraged from the action when it got too hot.

8- Multi dimensional Autobot characters. - Let’s face the big glaring truth about most Transformers. They have pretty cookie cutter and one dimensional characters most of the time. Not the Rescue Bots. Each one of them has their own personality, their own tastes, their own interests and their own hurdles to jump. More importantly, they actually experience character development that sticks such as Heatwave starting to appreciate his task and Blades overcoming his fear of flying.

9- Romance was on display for better or for worse. - Since Beast Wars, having characters fall in love or even have crushes became a big no show in Transformers. However, Rescue Bots allowed characters to be normal in every way which includes falling in love. Kade got an on-and-off again girlfriend, Dani got a boyfriend, and Dr. Greene wound up getting married and even had a kid with his current wife. Even Chief Burns got a crush at one point. You could say that the series was trying to tell kids that love is not icky or a waste of time at all. It is very natural to want someone in your life and to grow old with.

10- You don’t need violence to tell a good Transformers story. - The thing that was most obvious about Rescue Bots was that the show was not about violence at all. It was about rescues, science and solving problems. And it was very interesting and entertaining for it. It felt deep and educational without getting boring, emotional without getting dramatic or depressing, funny without getting silly, and moral without getting preachy. This speaks volumes about the Transformers though mostly it says they’re not just there to shoot lasers, throw punches or kicks and transform. You can put them in other situations and they can still be entertaining.

Well, that’s my list. What do think was most significant about Rescue Bots that I haven’t mentioned?

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pocmuzings · 3 years

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The rpc wants more diversity which is FANTASTIC! However, as a cis-white-straight-cookie cutter mun, I am often afraid to use more diverse fcs of different ethnic/cultural backgrounds, because in the past I’ve been attacked, quite viscously, for not portraying them how people felt I *should* this is not to say I white washed them; I always do name searches for culturally relevant names. Make sure to research some customs of that particular ethnic group. I am welcome to advice from people with experience with that culture or who have more knowledge than me, and like learning! But, on the same token, rp is a way to escape from the real world for me, and researching too extensively, I.e. learning everything about a particular culture is tiring. It’s not supposed to feel like researching for a paper where I need to cite my sources etc. All this to say, we WANT to be diverse, but sometimes it feels like trying just brings more backlash than sticking with a non-diverse fc. Do you have any tips for someone who wants to be diverse but has had bad experiences when they’ve attempted to do so?

i'm sorry you've been attacked 'viciously' . without knowing the full extent of what happened , i can say that whilst i understand your well-meaning , i feel this is a little bit victimise-y on your end . using the word 'vicious' when being educated for free by poc isn't always appropriate or the way to go . again , maybe it was particularly vicious and this person who attacked you was completely out of line , but you can understand my apprehension as well , on the subject .

i'm glad to hear you're welcome to advice , but in that same aspect - if you're welcome and receptive to advice , why does it then scare you to try again ? you're never going to get it 10000% right . never ever . i rp different ethnicities all the time , and i know i'm not going to get them always right . i do the same thing you do - i research what i can , i follow blogs , i ask people of that ethnicity in the rpc. i make sure i do the work , because it's important . but also , if somebody comes to me and says ' hey , when you wrote xyz . . that wasnt appropriate / was stereotypical ' , i simply say ' im so sorry . i understand . i won't do it again ' . thats all it has to be , and all it should be . maybe you need to also look inwards on how you receive feedback at times , or how well you incorporate what somebody tells you .

i know having bad experiences can ruin a lot of things , but you can also hopefully understand why so many poc are getting frustrated at times . we are out here , answering questions , providing guides , giving resources . we are correcting people when wrong . we are speaking up on micro-aggressions ic and ooc . do you think that thats why WE started rping ? do you think that was how WE want to ' escape the real world ' ? do you know how tired WE are ?

i'm sorry , i'm not trying to be a dick , but i just don't want to pander to white feelings on this . if you messed up , or did something wrong , then apologise . grow from it . learn from it . you don't need to 'cite your sources' when rping . you certainly can also realise you'll get a lot of conflicting information at times , because no one person or source can be monolithic to a whole ethnicity and experience . but that doesn't mean you stop trying , or see it as a ' bad experience ' . i don't understand why somebody would attack you ' viciously ' unless your portrayal of a character was a ) super insensitive , b ) you didn't listen to advice / tips given , c ) you argued back or d ) you continued in the behaviour even after it was told it was inappropriate

again , maybe i'm wrong and somebody was completely unfair to you . but i don't want to spread the narrative that muns of colour are vicious , cruel and unreasonable people if somebody makes an honest mistake . we aren't . we are trying our best to educate white people . for free . we owe you nothing .

#shutup g.#rph #rpc

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fallout-lou-begas · 3 years

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do you have any writing tips or writing advice? 👉👈

If you want to get better at writing, then read books and short stories, basically anything that isn’t fanfiction. Reading and writing original stories will show you how to get people invested in characters and settings from scratch and how immersive prose can be on its own merits without ties to a pre-existing, familiar, external source material. Even if all you’re writing is fanfiction, this approach will only make it better.

Movies, comic books, video games, television, and other media can be fine for conceptual inspiration, but nothing will show you how to write better prose than reading good prose, and understanding the unique strengths of prose as opposed to other media is instrumental to improving as well (and of course if you’re writing a comic book then you’ll want to read good comic books, etc.). Even reading bad writing will teach you something because if you think that it’s bad, so long as you can understand why then you’ll know that you don’t want to write like that.

Also, don’t only consume media from the particular genre or story structure you’re writing in. You see this a lot when someone who writes horror only reads horror, someone who writes romance only reads romance, or someone who wants to write a noir only checks out detective stories. Obviously it’s good to take inspiration intentionally, so don’t not read anything similar to what you’re writing, but it’s usually pretty obvious when someone is only making a pastiche of all the tropes and story beats they’ve seen other people do already; it strengthens a work a lot when the author is drawing from a diverse array of influences and are treating a story as a story, not necessarily one particular cookie-cutter thing.

In specific, I’m a very thorough outliner and I meticulously plan and sketch out all of my stories. This is a personal approach, maybe yours is similar or maybe you’re the kind of person who can just start typing away off the top of your head and then you revise it into a coherent story later. I also don’t “write 500 words everyday,” I tend to go on benders where I write a lot nonstop and then don’t write for a few days. But that’s more about process than anything else. The best writing advice I could give you is that the only universally good writing advice is that if you want to be a good writer you should also be a good reader, and that if you want to be a good writer then you have to enjoy writing as an activity and a process and not just be in it for the gratification and attention.

I also recommend the podcast Rite Gud if you want to learn how to rite gud, and it’s usually what I’m listening to while drawing comic book pages.

#asks #anon #advice

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cherry-gemz · 3 years

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Summary: Harper Kelly is an American college senior studying abroad. Looking for adventure and fighting against the clock of graduating, she finds herself meeting a mysterious and handsome boy from London.

Pairing: Henry Cavill x OFC

Rating: PG-13, language

Word Count: <800

A/N: When writing this a/u, I originally had Will in mind, but then also Mikey. Eventually it morphed into Henry, but if he went to Uni and was never famous. So all three personalities I guess lol. We'll see how this goes.

Tags: @romereadingshop

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Prologue

Spring Break, the week before it really. That’s when it all started. Or ended. I can’t tell which it is it these days. Living the semester abroad in the UK was entirely a different mindset. Besides just trying to understand the pub menu’s, the slang (what exactly is a bollock), adjusting to the metric system was a mindfuck.

Being at Uni was all it hyped up to be. I low key wanted to be the mysterious American girl that the local boys would love to get to know. I soon realized my American citizenship wasn’t a personality, and had to think quick on my feet who I was at 22. I guess that’s why I wanted to go abroad my last year of college: It also was a way to run from adult responsibilities and my parents who wanted to know if I’d ever grow up.

Being the younger sister to the cookie cutter, amazing and perfect on paper Brynn Kelly, was hard to live up to. I fell flat with disappointment with everything that I tried. Brynn was beautiful: from her honey, brown eyes to her cute little toes. Boys, no men loved her. And she was wicked smart, too. Like ridiculously smart that she got a full ride to Davis and I went the state way, to East Bay. I was lucky to even get in - it was my safety school and I changed my major three times until finally landing on History.

My parents thought that major was a joke in itself. What are you going to do with a History degree, Harper? My dad would ask, quite knowing the answer. Nothing. I can’t teach, I have no qualifications to curate. That’s why I’m blowing off steam in London until I have to graduate to figure things out.

Don't get me wrong, I don't find myself unfortunate looking. I actually think I'm quite attractive when I put in the effort. I just have a hard time trusting people and even little less faith that there are unselfish motives underneath it all.

My flatmate Megan is a glass half full kind of girl. Megan is a lot like Brynn in ways that men flock to her. They must read off her positive energy and bubbly persona. Plus it doesn't hurt that she's a total babe. She has the most amazing auburn, long hair. It’s gorgeous; even I want to touch it. Her cafè complexion is to die for. She won the jackpot on diversity of genes: she says her father is part Latin with her mother’s side being Egyptian. I dunno where the hair color comes from, but it’s a magnet to free drinks and dinner that's for sure. The men in London love her accent since she was born in Madrid, she’s the mysterious one, not the American who calls football, soccer.

The night I met Henry was not a night I was to be out. I had to study for an exam the next day for European History 4c. I will tell you I was not ready, so when Megan coerced me to go to a party at some flat of a guy she knew from English, I shouldn't have gone. Plus I was still dating Andrew back home.

Andrew and I had been dating for over eight months before I had decided to study abroad. He was the type that hadn't realized how cute he was, but very flirty when he wanted to be. He had asked me out a few times before I finally said yes. It wasn't like he had pressured me or made me uncomfortable, I just didn't really see him like that. We were friends from a mutual class Freshman year and then it turned into something more. I had lost my virginity to him and we had talked about moving in together for the last semester. That was until I decided at a spur of a moment to apply for the abroad program.

He was obviously upset at my decision, he had every right to be. But something was begging me to try something else, to see something new. And I figured, before I settled down with Andrew (who I indeed did love), I owed it to myself to find out. We said we'd try long distance, and so far it's been working. We'd facetime each other at odd ends of the night, send naughty sexts during class, and he said he'd try to make it out for Spring Break.

But it was that fateful night that I had decided to forgo my studies the week before Spring Break and frolic in mischief with Megan, and found myself meeting the most intriguing, painstakingly handsome London Boy.

#henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x ofc #henry cavill au #college #university #college au #london boy

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smol-green-angry · 4 years

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Why do I have so few femslash ships? Let’s discuss.

First of all: most of my favourite characters are male. Why is this? Because male characters are usually better developed and feel more like real people than female characters. Take BNHA for example. My favourite characters are Bakugou, Deku, and Todoroki. These three are the main characters. They get way more screentime than probably all the female characters combined and they have deep personalities and experiences that make it so the viewer can relate to and empathize with them. The same cannot be said of, say, Yaoyorozu or Jirou. Sure, we kind of know them, but we don’t know them as well as we know Deku or Todoroki. And female characters are usually less relatable than male characters, probably because they are often written by men. Every time I see Uraraka in her hero costume I wince and feel a strong urge to give her a sports bra. These female characters were not written for girls or by girls, and it shows.

Avatar: the Last Airbender, on the other hand, is a great example of well-written female characters. Suki’s line “I am a warrior, but I’m a girl too,” perfectly summarizes how I, a girl, want girls to be written. We should be allowed to exist as something in between the stereotypes of “tough girl with five older brothers” and “soft naive girl.” Suki, Katara, and Toph all embody this perfectly. Suki is a warrior, but she’s also a person. She has thoughts and feelings, and she’s confident enough to show that. Katara takes on a sort of motherly role for the gaang. Sokka says that Katara has always been the “mom” in his life. But Katara also gets angry. She lashes out, she falls in love, she’s fourteen and she acts that way. She’s a person, not just a “mom.” As for Toph, she literally invents a new kind of bending at twelve years old. She could kill you if she felt like it. But she also tries wearing makeup, and she likes it. She tells Katara she feels pretty. She also has a unique personality and a great sense of humor. She also has issues with her family, and showing this onscreen gives her even more depth. Pretty much all of the atla characters, regardless of age or gender, are shown crying. They are shown at their best and at their worst. Angry, sad, determined, happy, they all have a full range of emotions and amazing character arcs.

Unfortunately, ATLA seems to be the exception. Even in Harry Potter, a series written by a woman (a woman that I do not support at all, by the way), there are so few female characters. There’s Hermione, and everyone loves Hermione, because to all the young bookish girls reading Harry Potter, she was so relatable. But then that’s it. I don’t have any girls to ship her with because she’s pretty much the only well-developed female character in the series. Compared to BNHA, though, Harry Potter has good female representation. I don’t really know anything other than surface level stuff about the personal lives and inner workings of any of the class 1A girls. I’d like to. I already connect to Jirou a bit just because of her more quiet demeanor.

Now let’s talk about the cookie-cutter personalities of many female characters that usually make it really hard to connect to them. Most female characters will fit into one of six categories: soft cute, crazy cute, tough, mean, sexy, or “normal.” An example of soft cute would be Uraraka, as well as pretty much every young child character. Crazy cute would be Toga and Harely Quinn (basically glamourizing mental illness, but that’s a whole other thing). The best example of tough I can think of is Rosa from Brooklyn 99. Mean is the “popular girl” stereotype. You know what sexy is. The “normal” girl is really the “not like the other girls” character. Bella from Twilight, pretty much every dystopian YA protagonist, you know the type. Sometimes these categories will be combined, but it’s pretty much all the same shit.

Honestly, I’m mostly just mad that the closest thing we get to the brooding misunderstood sad boy trope is the “normal” girl. I want Todoroki or Dabi, but gender swapped. A powerful girl with a dark past who realised her potential and used it to her advantage. I want a smart, interesting villain girl to ship with the protagonist. I want someone who can beat you up and sweep you off your feet. A girl who doesn’t need a love interest, but is allowed to want one. A girl with dreams for the future who takes advantage of the present moment. I want a girl who screams at the sky on the top of a mountain, a girl who can be awkward, angry, caring. A girl who feels like a real person instead of forced diversity. I want more Sukis, Tophs, and Kataras. I want imperfect, unstable people. Not whatever fanservice bullshit I currently see everywhere I look.

#atla #bnha #rant

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idreamtofmanderleyagain · 3 years

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Been scrolling through the Martha Jones tag and I have some two cents. Bear with me, it’s been like a decade since I watched this particular arc. I intend to do a rewatch some time soon, but I’m working off memory rn.

(I’m also coming from the perspective of not having watched the 13th doctor’s arc (I prefer DW content with the Doctor as a character to crush on, and I prefer men/masculinity, so I’m sure the new stuff is awesome, just not exciting to me). So I’m hoping there’s probably been some growth and evolution within DW fandom, perhaps with a new influx of diverse viewers. So TLDR, I’m kind of...”old school New Who,” I guess.)

So all that aside, to be honest, I’ve always had a hard time taking the average so-called “feminist” content all that seriously when it comes to this fandom, because so much of it feels and sounds like half-assed girl power bullshit and usually ends with the all-encompassing “Fuck Moffat,” as if every problem with DW, show and fandom, boils down to his input and the people who like him.

(Hint: it very much does not.)

To be honest I couldn’t give less of a fuck about Moffat, and I don’t much care to glorify RTD either. Personally, I just prefer to talk about particular DW narratives and characters on their own merits because I feel like I get a lot more mileage out of a complex analysis that isn’t based off seething hatred for one dude.

What frustrates me about the shit I see from DW fangirls on this site is just how blatant the actual disinterest in Martha as a character really is. Scrolling through her tag recently really reminded me of the lackluster response I used to see her getting, but certain things have become much more clear about it seeing it with new eyes.

It’s that same old girl-power shit again. See, the thing about the girl-power shit I’m talking about here is that it always seems to paint every female character with the same brush. It’s cookie-cutter Strong Female Character shit. Basically, if you can graft the same quotes or meta right over top an entirely different Who lady, you’ve essentially said nothing about that particular female character. Instead, you’re talking about the archetype of the female companion (which has always played on pop-feminist tropes). And that’s how people talk about Martha. They talk about her tropey attributes, but they don’t talk about her.

Most of the content is praise for Martha’s strength and intelligence. Some quote superimposed over gifs of her face along with a line-up of other Who ladies.

And a curious propensity for people “defending” her feelings for the Doctor as “understandable” and how it wasn’t “annoying.” Basically every argument like this boils down to lukewarm sympathy for her unrequited feelings for a man who truly belongs to the white fangirl fave proxy: Rose.

I’m going to make a more in-depth follow up to this post after my rewatch so I can make a clear and cohesive analysis, but for now, here’s the thing. Martha feelings weren’t unrequited IMO.

The Doctor very deliberately seduced Martha.

In the family-friendly storytelling language of DW (and because the Doctor is more of a demi-sexual or gray-ace sort of being) The Doctor essentially deliberately pursues the DW companion version of a “one-night-stand” with Martha as a balm against his constant grief, and deliberately keeps her at arms length as that relationship evolves into a “friends-with-benefits” dynamic. But from Martha’s perspective, she was experiencing a hot-and-cold dynamic with a man who flirted with her, literally kissed her on the fucking mouth, and pursued her company.

The problem wasn’t that the Doctor wasn’t attracted to her or incapable of loving her. he most assuredly was, in both cases. The problem was that he was obsessively keeping his emotional energy on his own grief, and compartmentalizing his growing affection (platonic or otherwise) for Martha to avoid feeling a kind of cheater’s guilt. He wanted his grand companion romance again, without the emotional investment (and the potential for grief that entails). If he never had the relationship with Rose prior to Martha, then Martha 100% would have been in Rose’s shoes.

And I will double down on that by saying it’s shown later, with Clara and Twelve, how this kind of behavior manifests for the Doctor as a grief response. And he was most assuredly in love with Clara (despite how dense fandom also is about THAT).

There is no reason to believe that the Doctor could never have loved Martha with just as much intensity. and IMO, racism is a huge reason why Martha and 10 wasn’t a thing in canon, because if we got an unrequited love story with a white girl, more than likely it would be a lead up to it eventually being requited.

So when people “defend” Martha in that way, and praise her for her ~intelligence~, it’s kind of like this gross pat on the back to the poor unloved black girl who just couldn’t quite cut it in comparison to the amazing white ingenue for the white male heartthrob. That’s straight up just the entire vibe. And honestly, please, save your faint praise, because it’s weak next to the emotional complexity and possibilities of Martha’s actual story.

And for the record, the way we talk about the things Martha did (particularly during the Master episodes), and hyping up Martha’s strength, often ignores her vulnerability and softer feelings. Which tbh, was literally the entire emotional throughline of Martha’s arc. It’s interesting that fandom perceived Martha as an interloper in their fantasy romance with the Doctor (through Rose as proxy), but fail to identify with Martha in the same way, despite the fact that Martha’s entire arc feels primed for that exact kind of vicarious romantic longing experience that DW fangirls love to immerse themselves in. I can in fact think of several Doctor/OC fics with thousands of hits that play up an unrequited fake-out like that.

#martha x 10 #martha jones

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artificialqueens · 3 years

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Baby, don't make me spell it out for you (Jankie) - Mar

A/N: Based on a classic tumblr prompt.

Jan peeked around the corner where she was hiding. From her vantage point, she could see her friends sitting at their usual spot in the school yard.

This is so stupid, she thought. These were her friends. Jackie was her friend. Worst case scenario, things would be awkward for a while, and then they would both move on. Probably. Hopefully. Oh, God.

A little crinkle noise let her know she was on the verge of crushing the letter in her hands.

Jan peeked around the corner where she was hiding. From her vantage point, she could see her friends sitting at their usual spot in the school yard, under the shade of a jacarandá. She could see Nicky and Jaida’s faces, but her target had her back turned. All she could see of Jackie was her mass of curls and the faint outline of her glasses.

Jaida looked in her direction and Jan hid behind the school building again. With her back against the wall, she closed her eyes and tried to calm her racing heart.

A little crinkle noise let her know she was on the verge of crushing the letter in her hands. Jan relaxed her fingers and smoothed out the envelope. It was a simple, sage green envelope, subtle enough that she could hand it discreetly without attracting the eyes of their very curious, very invasive friends. The glittery hearts and starfleet sticker were a bit cheesy, maybe, but whatever. Jan was cheesy, and Jackie had never made her feel stupid for it. Plus, she had bought that sticker sheet weeks ago and had been dying for a chance to use them.

The loud cackles from her friend group brought her back to the mission. Recess was almost over, which meant she needed to hurry. Jan slipped the letter in the front pocket of her hoodie and pushed herself off the wall.

Act like there’s nothing wrong, she told herself. And there is nothing wrong! You’ll be fine. She’ll be fine.

Nicky was the first to spot her.

“Where were you?” she asked. “I waited for you outside of class but you didn’t come out.”

“Oh, I wanted to finish tomorrow’s homework,” said Jan, avoiding Nicky’s eyes.

She sat on the grass next to Jackie, who bumped her shoulder. Jan swayed from side to side and landed herself on Jackie’s shoulder, smiling up at her. Jackie smiled back and poked Jan’s nose. By Jackie’s side, surrounded by the sweet smell of the tree flowers and her friends’ quiet chatter, Jan felt at peace. It was almost nice enough to calm her nerves entirely.

Except Jaida kept sending her curious looks everytime she so much as glanced at Jackie. At one point, Jan picked up a flower and tucked it behind Jackie’s ear, making her smile and mutter a thank you, Jannie. When Jan looked up, Jaida was staring right at her, eyebrow raised. Before Jaida could call her out, Jan threw a diversion:

“Did you guys watch Dream Desserts last night? I thought Emma should’ve won the challenge.”

Not even ten seconds later, Jaida was passionately arguing with Nicky about the merits of fondant in decorations. Jan sat back, hiding her smile. It was too easy.

Jackie, however, saw right through her. She leaned into Jan and whispered:

“Why did you throw blood into that shark tank?” she asked, pointing at the other two girls.

“Umm, just to see what would happen.”

“Oh, we’re making social experiments with our friends, now?” teased Jackie.

“Yeah, taking mental notes,” Jan said, tapping her head. “You’re next, so watch out.”

Jackie laughed and Jan beamed at her. If she had the girl laughing at a joke that silly, maybe she was right to hope.

The school bell rang and the girls stood up lazily, brushing off grass from their clothes. Jaida and Nicky led the way, engaged in a much calmer conversation. Jan walked a few steps behind them with Jackie, and once she deemed the other two were out of earshot, she tugged on Jackie’s sleeve.

Jackie stopped and turned to her with curious eyes.

“What’s up, Janet?”

“I wanted to give you something before class,” Jan whispered.

“Okay,” Jackie whispered back, amused. “Why are we whispering?”

Jan gestured towards their friends’ backs.

“I just don’t want them to hear. It’s a little personal,” she said, with a tiny smile. Jan pulled out the letter and held it in her tight grip. “I, uh, I wrote this letter. And it would mean a lot to me if you would read it,” she said, pretty much shoving the letter into Jackie’s chest.

“O-kay, what is this?” Jackie took the letter and examined it. Jan could pinpoint the moment when she realized what she had in her hands. Her eyes widened and she let out a little oh. “Is this…?”

“Yes. That’s why I only wanted you to see it. So, um, if you could read it…” Jan noticed Jackie was not saying anything, so she backtracked. “But you can totally say no!” she said, reaching out for the letter. “I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable, so I can- I can take it back.”

“No!” Jackie said, holding the letter close to her chest. “No, it’s okay. I’m completely comfortable!” She took a hesitant step towards the school building. “We should get going, though.”

“Yes! Yes, we should.”

Both girls walked inside in tense silence. Outside of Jackie’s classroom, Jan lingered, not sure of how to say goodbye.

“Do you- I, can I walk you home after school?”

Jackie tightened her death grip on the letter, and Jan considered taking it from her before it became illegible. Instead, she made her hands play with the strings of her hoodie.

“Oh, I don’t know, I think I have a meeting with the debate team today, so…” said Jackie, inching towards the door. “I’ll let you know, yeah?”

“Yeah. Alright. See ya, Jacks.” Jan waved and walked away.

All throughout her class, she wondered if she should’ve mentioned that the debate team only met on Thursdays. ________________________________________________________________

Jan didn’t see Jackie for the rest of the day. She’d waited for her outside the school, but there’d been no sight of the girl. After a few minutes, Jan shot her a text.

are you coming? i’m outside!

The message didn’t even send through. Dejected, Jan made her way home. ________________________________________________________________

“Ma! I’m back!”

Jan went into the kitchen and shrugged off her backpack and hoodie. The oven was on and the room was too stuffy, even with all the windows open. Her mom was stretching dough on the counter, next to where her little sister sat, sorting through a box of baking tools.

“Hi, honey. Did you have a nice day?” asked Luisa. Jan nodded and kissed her cheek.

“Jannie!” called Lemon, holding out the box to her sister. “Pick a cookie cutter.”

Jan lifted one shaped like a flower, but noticed Lemon frowning, and put it back down. She then picked the bunny shaped cutter and Lemon nodded in approval.

“This one,” said Jan, placing it on the counter with the others.

“All ready?” asked Luisa, to which Lemon nodded. “Start cutting the shapes, the oven’s probably ready.”

They ended up with more than forty cookies, because Luisa only knew how to cook in army proportions. She fit them all in the oven and shook the flour off her hands.

“They’ll be done in ten minutes. Jan, can you set a timer?”

Jan nodded and went to grab her phone. Still no new messages. Once she set the timer, she opened her conversation with Jackie and saw that the girl had seen her last text, but hadn’t replied. Jan frowned and started chewing on her nails. It wasn’t like Jackie to leave her on read. That probably meant she had read the letter, and was either happy and waiting to discuss it in person, or…

Jan shook her head. The alternative was too awful.

“Ma, can I invite Pri over for cookies?” asked Lemon.

“You can. Tell her to bring a tupper, I’m sending her back with extras.”

Lemon hopped off the counter and ran out the door.

Jan saw that her mom was putting the kettle on, so she put her phone away and sat at the kitchen table. Luisa leaned back on the counter and looked at Jan.

“Sooo, how did it go?”

Jan sighed and stretched her arms on the table.

“Well, I did it. Now the ball’s on her court, and I’m trying to be okay with that.”

“And what did she say?” asked Luisa, eyes wide.

“Nothing yet, she hasn’t texted me. I’m thinking she wants to talk about it face to face. I hope.” Jan looked down at her hands and started running her nails through the lines in the wood. “I guess she could be avoiding me, if I upset her,” she said. “If- if she hated the letter, and thinks I’m… I don’t know, disgusting,” Jan sighed, burying her face in her hands.

Luisa took Jan’s hands off her face and lifted her chin, gently.

“None of that, Janine. That girl loves you, that was never in doubt. Maybe as a friend, maybe as something else, but she loves you, and she won’t toss you to the curb over a crush. Not Jackie.”

Jan smiled and rubbed her eyes.

“Thanks, ma. And I know you’re right, I’m just nervous. But even if Jackie says no, I’ll still have her as a friend, and that could never be a bad thing.”

“Exactly! So you’ve got that scenario covered. But I’m more interested in what you’ll do if she says yes.” Luisa leaned forward. “Have you thought about it?” she said, in a confabulatory voice.

Jan furrowed her brows.

“You seem to be having way too much fun at my expense.”

“This is exciting!” said Luisa. “I’ve been waiting for it since the first time you had Jackie over.”

“Ma! We were like, nine, back then.”

“And I already knew this would happen. You were so cute, showing off your cartwheels and trying to impress her, with little Jackie beaming at you like you were the most wonderful thing on this earth. Argh, young love.” Luisa pinched Jan’s cheek and went to get the kettle.

Jan had to smile at the memory.

“Jackie had her braces, remember?”

“Mhmm. And you had your freckles. But you see my point?”

“That you’re way too involved and in need of a hobby?” teased Jan.

Luisa carried the mugs to the table and smacked her daughter upside the head, making her laugh.

“So disrespectful…”

Jan went to grab her mug, but Luisa took her hand in both of hers. They were always warm, and a little rough, and Jan thought about how nothing else made her feel as safe.

“My point,” Luisa started, “is that, from the beginning, you two have been the same. Little stars in each other’s orbits. And it will be the same tomorrow.”

Jan looked at her mom in silence, and let herself believe that.

“You are a very wise woman, has anyone told you that?”

Luisa fought back a smile.

“Drink your tea, Janine.” ________________________________________________________________

There were twenty minutes left before the bell rang. Jan had asked to be dropped off early that morning, and her mom had agreed, much to the annoyance of Lemon, who’d been woken up half an hour earlier than necessary. The whole car ride, she’d done her very best to glower threateningly at Jan, but with her tousled hair and chubby cheeks, the result was as scary as a moody lion cub. Whatever, Luisa was taking her for breakfast at Starbucks to make up for it. Lemon would be fine.

Jan, on the other hand, was waiting to find out whether her very best friend in the galaxy would even look at her again. Alright, that was the nerves talking, but still. High stakes.

“Where are you, Jaqueline…” she wondered aloud, tugging on the straps of her backpack.

The wind was picking up and whipping her stray hairs in her face, messing up the very pretty, very intricate braid she had adorned herself with. Maybe she should wait inside…

As soon as she had that thought, she saw the Rose’s van parking in front of the school. Jan started bouncing on her heels and only noticed it because her backpack started hitting her. She forced herself to be still and breathed in.

The door opened.

Jackie looked so, so pretty. She had her gold hoop earrings and one of her nicest shirts. Alright, maybe that was a good sign, Jan reasoned, because maybe she had also wanted to look good.

The car drove away and Jackie turned around and- no. Oh no. Jackie looked sad. She looked sad like she needed to let a best friend down easy, or not easy at all, sad like she was about to take Jan’s heart in her delicate hands and crush it to little bits.

She also looked surprised to see Jan waiting for her. Jan caught the way Jackie plastered on a big, strained smile before walking up to her. What was that about?

“Morning!”

“Morning, Jacks.” Jan tried to be cheery. “You look pretty.”

That seemed to soften Jackie’s expression into something more genuine.

“Thanks. You’re early, today.”

“Yeah, I wanted to see you before class.”

They stood in silence, neither wanting to start the conversation.

“So…”

“So… Did you read it?”

Jackie let out a shaky breath.

“I did. Hold on.” Jackie put her backpack on the floor and kneeled to riffle through it. Jan tilted her head to the side.

“What are you doing?”

“I put it in my notebook so it wouldn’t crinkle,” said Jackie, standing up and holding out the envelope. “Here.”

Jan frowned in confusion, but still took it. She opened the envelope and checked to see if Jackie had put something else inside, but no. Just her own letter.

“Why are you giving it back?”

It was Jackie’s turn to look confused.

“So you can edit it?”

It occured to Jan that, maybe, two different conversations were taking place, and she had a hunch about where the miscommunication came from. But she found it hard to believe that this girl, this brilliant leader of the debate team, this absolute nerd who could talk for hours about globe politics, could also be so extraordinarily dumb.

Jan unfolded the letter and, sure enough, dots had been added. Commas had been replaced with semicolons. There were even comments on the margins.

“You marked it.”

“Hmm?”

“You marked my letter.” Jan couldn’t look away from the paper.

“Yes, I ran out of post-its, I’m so sorry! I used a really soft pencil, though, so you can erase it and it won’t show.”

“I gave you a love letter, and you marked it.”

“Yes? You asked me to read it? You looked nervous, like you always get when you show me your essays-”

“Jackie.”

“-because you think you can’t write but you can and that letter is beautiful, really, and your person is so lucky. You even got it revised, because that’s who you are. You put your heart into everything you do, it’s my favorite thing about you-”

“Jaqueline.”

“Huh?”

Jan placed both hands on Jackie’s shoulders.

“I gave the letter to you. Who did you think it was for?” She looked into her eyes, waiting.

Jackie frowned a little and then, slowly, her eyes widened.

“It has Star Trek stickers, Jaqueline.”

Jackie buried her face in her hands.

“I’m an idiot…”

Jan wanted to say something encouraging, but she opened her mouth and all that fell out were giggles. Jackie slowly lowered her hands. She was crimson red, but Jan’s laughter was contagious. The tension dissolved with their fits and Jan forgot why she had been nervous in the first place. This was her person.

Jan went back to fiddling with her backpack straps, still grinning.

“Okay, grammatical errors aside-”

“Jaaan,” whined Jackie, still embarrassed.

“-now that you know the letter’s for you, what did you think of it?”

“Oh! Ha,” Jackie let out, looking down. “It’s a lot.”

Jan looked at her, panicked.

“A good lot!” corrected Jackie. “It’s unexpected, I mean, I knew you liked me, but not- not like this. I didn’t think I’d earned this, and basically this is a long winded way of saying, I like you too.”

“You do?” Jan looked at her, all bright eyes and years of love on her face.

Jackie had to look away. A few years down the line, she would find the words to tell Jan that looking at her felt like looking at the sun, sometimes. Magnetic, breathtaking, and almost unbearable. For now, she could only nod at the ground.

Giggles bubbled out of Jan’s mouth again. She couldn’t help it. All the buildup, pining and hope had led to her bravest moment, and the rewards had her on cloud nine. With her leftover bravery, Jan reached for Jackie’s hand, wondering if a gesture that familiar to them would feel different under unfamiliar circumstances.

It both did and didn’t.

“What happens now?” she asked Jackie, pulling her imperceptibly closer.

“Well,” Jackie started, lacing their hands together. “I have calculus, which I hate. And you have geography, which you hate. So we could go to class and think of each other and not pay attention all morning, which is a waste of time anyway, or…”

“Or?”

“Or, we could skip and go to the skatepark and, um, talk…” she finished, looking up at Jan through her lashes.

Jan’s heart stuttered at the way Jackie said “talk”. That got a firm yes from her. She really hoped this time they were both on the same page.

“Definitely, let’s do that one,” Jan nodded, eager, already dragging Jackie away from the school.

“Alright, let’s.” Jackie followed her easily. Some things wouldn’t change.

There were no clouds in the sky, but the sun was still taking its sweet time warming up the morning. Jan spared a thought for the jacket she’d forgone that morning, but mostly she thought about how Jackie was more susceptible to cold weather and also wearing a skirt. So, in a totally smooth and not-at-all clumsy move, she hooked her arm around Jackie’s shoulders and huddled closer to her side, for warmth.

Jackie tensed, but grabbed Jan’s hand before she could take it back.

The girls came to a fork in their path, and stopped to choose the best street to the park.

“We should take sixth instead of seventh,” said Jackie, “because that’s your mom’s route to work, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, you’re right. Although I don’t think she would mind us skipping that much, considering,” said Jan, starting down that street.

“Considering what?”

Jan gestured vaguely between their bodies.

“You told Luisa??”

Jan looked at Jackie with an expression that clearly said duh.

“You’re right, I don’t know why I asked.”

Jan laughed and bumped their hips together.

“If it makes you feel better, she was totally rooting for us.”

“It does, actually. I don’t think I could handle mama-bear Luisa telling me to stay away from her precious daughter.”

“She literally likes you more than me.”

A store came into view and Jan slowed down the pace.

“Oooh, we should get chips and sodas for the park. Oh! And sandwiches!” she said, already pulling Jackie into the store.

“You’re the best person to skip class with.”

Jan grinned and rushed inside. They ended up with two paper bags full of drinks and food, and some sparkly hair clips Jan had liked and Jackie had decided to buy for her, because she never displayed any self-control when it came to making Jan happy.

Outside of the store, Jan insisted on being chivalrous and carrying both bags. It was such a simple gesture, but it still got Jackie to gush over her.

“I’m really liking being your girlfriend, Janessa.”

Jan stopped walking.

“I’m your girlfriend?”

“I mean, I think so? At least,” Jackie cleared her throat, “at least that’s what I want. If you want that, too. But there’s no pressure.”

Jan took a step closer. Shuffling the bags in her arms out of the way, she stood on her tiptoes to breach the height difference and pressed her lips to Jackie’s. She felt Jackie place a shaky hand on her shoulder, which made the paper bag creak. When she pulled away, she waited for Jackie to blink the daze out of her eyes before flashing her biggest smile.

“I’d love to be your girlfriend, Jacks.”

Jackie was still a little awestruck, but she managed to find her words.

“Okay. Alright. Girlfriends.” She nodded once, determined, and kept on walking. Simple as that.

At the park, they found a good patch of sunshine to sit down and share the spoils. With practiced ease, Jackie handed Jan a grape soda and Jan opened the Sprite bottle for her.

“Do you wanna come over for dinner tonight?” said Jan, after a sip. “I kind of wanna see my mom’s face if we walk into her kitchen holding hands.”

Jackie smiled at the image.

“I’m up for it,” she said, but then winced. “But, um, do you think we could not tell her about the little hiccup on my part?”

Jan tapped her chin.

“Hmm, I don’t know. This could be a really funny story, I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

Jackie took her hand.

“Jannie, please?” she begged sweetly, fluttering her eyelashes at her. Jan could only stare, spellbound.

“Oh, you’re so going to abuse that now, aren’t you?”

Jacks shook her head, curls bouncing.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, hiding her smile behing her bottle.

Jan smiled in disbelief and opened her own soda.

Yeah. Just another regular day.

#rpdr fanfiction #jackie cox #jan sport #jankie #childhood friends #confessing feelings #love letters #friends to lovers #mar #concrit welcome #lesbian au #submission #s12

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thehonestreader · 3 years

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Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Rating: F

It’s been years since Orisha had magic, years since the Raid occurred and King Saran’s army swept through the land, leaving every maji dead in their wake. Since then, Zelie and her family have managed to scrap by, always fearful that one day they won’t be able to pay the diviner tax on her. If that happens, she’ll be arrested and sent off to a labor camp that will likely lead to her death. Such is the fate of most diviners, the children of maji, now. It’s one day when Zelie goes to the market to get more money to cover this tax that a desperate girl grabs her and begs for her protection. From that moment, Zelie’s life will take a turn. Now, tasked with the overwhelming responsibility of bringing magic back to the world, Zelie and her friends will go on a dangerous adventure to undo that damage that was done so long ago.

This book has only done one thing for me and that’s to remind me why I stopped reading YA books. Pretty much everything I don’t like about most YA books is condensed into this one story and notched up to eleven. I struggled so much to just fight and get through this. I practically had to force myself to pick up this book and read more than ten pages at a time because I wasn’t enjoying it at all.

It’s been a while since I’ve given a book an F, which means it’s back to the bullet point review style since I refuse to write a paragraph for every single one of these issues.

1. The writing is so bland, especially when you consider that this is a fantasy novel. I expected so much more. More characterization, more world building, more rules to the magic system, more detail in general. The writing is the source of all of my problems. It’s the main hub and everything I mention after this just spirals from it.

2. These are cookie-cutter characters. There’s not a single unique one in this bunch. If you’ve read any mediocre YA book, then you’ve seen these characters before. They’re dull, they’re lifeless, they don’t have much going on beyond the surface level stuff.

3. All character voices sound exactly the same. The chapters are split between Zelie, Amari, and Inan, and if it wasn’t for their names being at the beginning of each chapter, I’d have no way of telling them apart.

4. The plot is painfully predictable. I saw every single major plot point coming from a mile away, and knowing how this story was going to go step by step for over 500 pages was absolute torture for me.

5. Dumb things happen to get the plot where the author wants it to go. As soon as a character would make a dumb decision, I knew what was coming. This ties back into point #4, but the fact that these decisions are so STUPID adds it as its own bullet point. Example: Zelie and her gang only have five days to get somewhere vitally important to their mission, but they stop to have a party. Because plot. And then the Bad Thing happens because they stayed. Oh no! Who could have seen this coming???

6. Character motivations and decisions make no sense whatsoever. Or they change constantly and are never explained in a way that’s believable or satisfying. That’s if they’re even explained at all. I have a ton of examples for this because it occurs all the time, but I’ll use the moment when Zelie has a chance to share the scroll’s magic and turn the people around her into maji. She thinks it’s the greatest idea ever until, uh oh, for some reason it’s not anymore and she doesn’t want to do it because magic is dangerous. But if you feel that way, Zelie, they why are you still trying to bring magic back to the whole world?

7. The “love” story. Oh my god, the “love” story. This might be the worst relationship like this I’ve ever had to experience in my life. It’s worse than any insta-love trash piles I’ve seen in the history of all terrible insta-love stories. It takes a less than a page. A page! This was the point in the book where I took the longest break in reading because I just couldn’t anymore.

8. Amari’s whole character introduction is extremely flawed. In her first chapter not only are we introduced to her, but we see her being spurred on by the death of her best friend and stealing the magic scroll. Amari is the epitome of what goes wrong when authors tell instead of show. First of all, I don’t know her as a character when she does all these things, so her decisions make no sense to me. And all this stuff about Binta should have been in separate chapters at the very beginning, that way I could actually see the relationship she and Amari had instead of just hearing about it afterward. That could have made Amari’s actions feel less fake when she steals the scroll. But no, all these memories of Binta happen after she’s dead, and I don’t feel the emotions the author wants me to feel since this is about some character I never even knew. And worse, Amari comes off as whiny because of it.

9. A majority of Amari’s chapters should have been given to Zelie. They’re together the entire time, and most of the time when Amari is narrating it feels like the reader is missing out on something. Especially when it comes to the magic and the mythology of this world. I don’t want Amari telling me these things because she doesn’t know anything to begin with. If Zelie had been narrating those chapters it would have been an easier way to work on defining this magic system.

10. For the first half of the book, Inan’s chapters should have been condensed down or just cut completely. He says the same thing every single time. “Duty before self. I force my magic down. Kill the girl, kill magic. Curse her and her silver eyes.” Nine chapters of this. So unnecessary.

11. The ending doesn’t make any sense at all if you take even one second to think about it. This is the only place I have spoilers so skip ahead if you don’t want to know how this story goes. So at the end when Zelie and her gang go to the magical island, Saran and his army are already there. But...how? It’s not said that Zelie gave him the location of the island. And even if she did, why would she not warn her allies that he’d be waiting for them when they got there? And on top of that, Saran managed to capture her father in less than a day and transport him to this island? How? HOW? Mama Agba should have seen that coming, no? But she’s mysteriously absent because...plot. Nothing clicks and it’s the final nail in this coffin for me.

I think the author had good intentions but she couldn’t execute. She talks about why she wrote this book and how seeing news about the murders of people like Mike Brown and Philando Castile made her feel angry and helpless. I absolutely applaud her for wanting to speak out against institutionalized racism and the murders of people of color at the hands of cops. And I’m glad that diversity is finally, finally getting into main stream books. It’s been too long and it’s great that books with POC characters are getting their time in the spotlight. But I’m not going to praise a mediocre book just because it has diversity and was written with good intentions. I’m not going to hype this up when I don’t think it deserves that hype.

-Review by C.M.

#children of blood and bone #tomi adeyemi #ya #young adult #teen #fiction #fantasy #book review #f

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