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gins-potter · 3 years

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Casting Thoughts

Yes, I did a long post when the rumours first dropped but hey now it’s confirmed plus we have characters descriptions, and I’m bored so let’s do this all over again people. Under the cut because it got long

Sisi Stringer as Rose Hathaway

I said this in my other post but I’m pretty happy with Sisi as Rose.

Visually I think she’s a great fit, I love that they casted a WoC in the main role, and I think if she can bring Rose’s humour and sarcasm to the role, she’s going to do great.

The character description mentions Rose being “fiery and outspoken”, happy to jump into the action, and the strongest fighter in her class but struggling to toe the line, which is all very Rose-esque, especially in the first book. It sounds to me like they have a good grasp on her character.

I’m a little disappointed we didn’t hear more about Rose as a character since she is the lead - it felt like the descriptions for Lissa and Dimitri both gave us a little more to go on - but it is only a very preliminary description so I’m happy to wait for more.

Daniela Nieves as Lissa Dragomir

Daniele is another one who I was happy with straight away.

She’s probably not what I imagined for Lissa visually but that’s not a bad thing either; I will be interested to see if they dye her hair a lighter colour (like a caramel-blonde) but personally that’s not something I need to see for her to be a great fit for Lissa.

I think she has a very sweet face which works well for a character like Lissa but I think she’s also going to be able to stand up in Lissa’s more fiercer moments which is nice to see as well.

The character descriptions mentions her as being “carefree and kind-hearted” who “coasts” through life until a death in the family thrusts her into a new role. That sounds a lot like pre-series Lissa so I wonder if we’re going to see a bit of that in the show before Andre (and her parents??) die and see that change.

It’s curious though that she’s described as the younger sister of the heir apparent - which would be Andre - so it sounds like they’ve changed it so Andre was supposed to be King. Obviously a deviation from the books but I don’t hate it? I don’t think it would change Lissa’s arc all that much because obviously she was always going to grow up to be an influential royal figure, this just slightly changes the dynamics of it.

The description also specifically mentions that she’s uninterested in “political machinations” and the “hypocrisy of the moroi royal society” which sounds very accurate to book!lissa as well.

All in all I’m very happy with what they’re doing with Lissa.

Keiron Moore as Dimitri Belikov

This is one who’s really grown on me since the rumoured cast list started circulating. At first I was kind of eh about him but I can really see him as Dimitri now.

I will be curious to see if he grows out his hair or not though.

As far as I know Keiron is not Russian, there’s not a lot about him online, but there’s some instagram activity on his account linking him to UK based companies so that would be my guess as to where he’s from. They’ve kept Dimitri’s incredibly Russian name so I guess we’re to assume Keiron might be doing an accent and they’re keeping Dimitri’s backstory relatively the same? I’m not gonna be super mad if they change it just because I think it’s doable for him not to be Russian (I know, I know a whole book is set in Russia but lbr here they could make him from anywhere and just send Rose there in that book).

The biggest thing for me will be his chemistry with Sisi, Danila and Zoey had great chemistry (imo anyway) which saved the move a little for me, so it’ll be important that Sisi and Keiron do as well. They’ve interacted a few times online which is cute so I’m hoping they were able to do some chemistry reads and that will translate on screen.

The character description mentions Dimitri as being “lethal, disciplined, discreet, and totally committed” as well as living by “a deep moral code” but with more going on “beneath his stoic, watchful surface” which sounds exactly like book!Dimitri to me.

They don’t really specify what his role at St Vlad’s is going to be but they do mention that he is a guardian so I’m assuming they’re keeping some sort of age gap between him and Rose. They also don’t mention anything about their relationship in the description, be it student/teacher, platonic, romantic, whatever, but they do say he has “an expansive spirit that could threaten to expose the underlying tension between his sense of what’s right and his formal duty to the Moroi.” which seems like a nod to their relationship.

Andre Dae-Kim as Christian Ozera

This was one of my favourite casting choices from the original rumoured cast list and I still love it.

The idea of a non-white Christian makes a lot of sense to me and I think Andre could do a great job of Christian’s aloofness (in the first book) as well as his sarcasm and growing confidence across the other books.

His character description confuses me a bit though: “Intelligent and thoughtful, Christian is the pariah of the school and royal court, due to his parents’ unforgivable societal sins.” sounds accurate enough to the book (although idk if thoughtful is quite the word I’d use for Christian - maybe they mean it in the sense that he’s quiet and keeps to himself?).

Even “Well-read and hungry for knowledge” doesn’t sound that far off, idk if he was *that* particularly studious in the books, but it doesn’t necessarily not make sense either you know?

But “he searches for faith-based answers and discovers a kindred spirit who is also looking for the truth” ??? My cynical, irreverent asshole Christian is now a man of faith? I’m assuming Lissa is the “kindred spirit” (again weird word choice but maybe they mean she’s feeling lost because of the death of her family?) but I just cannot see Christian as being particularly religious.

I’m trying to keep an open mind about these changes because you never know they might play out totally different on screen, but I really hope they didn’t make these changes, particularly that Christian is studious and religious, just because they cast an Asian actor as him (because they feel a little like Asian stereotypes).

J August Richards as Victor Dashkov

This is one that didn’t appear on the original rumoured cast list (as far as I saw) and it’s so different to his description in the books that I kind of don’t have an opinion about it as a casting choice.

I’ve never seen him in anything before so purely on a visual level I think he could be a great fit for Victor, I just think it’ll really come down to how he plays it.

As for this character description: “Victor is a Moroi noble vampire with a heart of gold who’s highly regarded for his role as advisor and political strategist to Moroi dignitaries.” as well as mentioning that he has intelligence and influence, sounds pretty accurate to the book. Obviously if Andre was the heir to the throne, Victor had to be shifted out of that role, but I think his book 1 arc could still work if they wanted it to.

The “heart of gold” bit obviously made me chuckle and I really hope they threw it in there as a kind of decoy to throw non-book-readers off the fact that he’s actually the villain in book 1/s1.

As for giving him a husband and two daughters, my thoughts are: why the fuck not? He didn’t have a love interest in the original books and I’m always down for more lgbtq+ rep. My only concern is it maybe playing into the trope of evil/villain characters being queer-coded. And as for having two daughters, well as long as one of them is Natalie I don’t mind.

Anita-Joy Uwajeh as Tatiana Vogel

Okay this is the most bizarre one imo, not because of the casting, but just the character description.

I mean “Tatiana is a Moroi vampire and political underdog who slowly takes the royal court by storm. Motivated by love and a sense of justice, Tatiana has a unique skill of making herself seem of no consequence until we realize much too late that she was always the one to watch.” sounds extremely Tasha Ozera to me, so like why not just make this character Tasha? Nothing about this sounds like Tatiana, and Tatiana wasn’t even a Vogel anyway (well Vogel wasn’t even one of the 12 royal families), she was an Ivashkov.

In terms of Anita-Joy herself, well I mean we don’t really have a character to compare her to, is she supposed to be more like Tasha or Tatiana? She looks fairly young, so my guess is actually on Tasha, but we’ll have to wait to see I guess.

Mia McKenna-Bruce as Mia Karp

This is another one that I was instantly a fan of.

I was so not a fan of Mia’s casting in the movie (I can’t even remember who played her tbh but I really didn’t like it) so this Mia is a lot closer to how I imagine her.

I think she’ll be able to carry Mia’s transformation from bratty social-climber to badass fighter really well.

The character description is interesting though. “Witty, cutting, and just the right kind of ruthless when necessary, non-Royal Mia has a long-term plan to social climb her way into the ranks of royalty, with all the privilege and freedom that entails.” sound pretty bang on to Mia in the first book.

“A plan complicated by her instant chemistry with Meredith, a Guardian-in-training, as Mia struggles to reconcile her attraction to Meredith with her lowly status.” is an obvious deviation though, and one I kind of love??? Give me all the queer rep, and if we get to see Mia confront the issue of comp-het I’m so here for it.

It’s kind of funny though because I’ve seen theories that Meredith is a replacement for Eddie and Mia/Eddie has always been my sort of rarepair ship.

The last name Karp is weird af though. Is she supposed to be Sonya’s daughter? And if that’s the case I wonder if we’re going to actually see Sonya turn Strigoi in the show’s first season or something and that triggers the change in Mia? Interesting concept but I’m not sure how the timeline will work.

Rhian Blundell as Meredith

So this is another new one, and tbh I hadn’t given Meredith *that* much though in the past but she’s probably close to how I would have pictured her which is cool.

The elephant in the room with this casting is that Meredith’s role in the books was relatively minor - she was just kind of that character that got brought up whenever R.M needed a dhampir who wasn’t Rose/Dimitri/Mason/Eddie. So clearly she’s going to have a bigger role in the tv show which I don’t mind but I do wonder if we’re going to lose a character - probably Eddie lbr - in order to have her. They haven’t casted an Eddie yet as far as we know, but I have seen it pointed out that Eddie’s role in book 1 was pretty small so maybe they just aren’t announcing it. But there’s also the possibility that maybe Meredith will sort of replace Eddie and be the third part of Rose and Mason’s friendship.

I’m very interested by this part of her character description though, “She has little patience for Rose’s volatility or Mia’s elitism, and regularly calls both of them out.”

Jonetta Kaiser as Sonya Karp

I don’t necessarily dislike Jonetta as Sonya but I am confused by this choice. She looks fairly young, which tbf Sonya was young-ish I guess, but if Mia is supposed to be her daughter she doesn’t look old enough to have a teenaged daughter. So maybe Sonya and Mia are sisters? Cousins? Just have each other’s last names for no reason? I really don’t know. They also look nothing alike.

Other than that, I don’t really have an opinion about Jonetta as Sonya. Obviously looks nothing like how Sonya was described but that’s not new nor a massive concern for me.

I can’t really tell just from looking at her, and I haven’t seen her in anything, if she would play a good Sonya. I think with a lot of the characters it’s going to come down to the personality they bring to the part and the writing.

I looooooove her character description though: “Quiet, careful and decidedly odd, Sonya is not of royal bloodline and sits out on the fringe of Moroi society, preferring to spend her time in the library or her gardens. Not a person who likes a scene, nonetheless she has a quiet but profound power of her own. She is taken by surprise when a Dhampir Guardian named Mikhail shows interest in her, a relationship that will expose both the brightest and darkest parts of her heart.” It’s everything I would probably want from a description of Sonya and I’m more and more convinced that we’re going to see Sonya’s descent into madness and transformation into a Strigoi play out in maybe the first season which I am so curious how they’re going to work into the timeline.

Andrew Liner as Mason Ashford

Our last one and another one who doesn’t look remotely like his description but again? Not a surprise and not a problem for me. He looks like he could play Mason’s goofiness really well as well as be a solid contender for a love interest for Rose.

“Charming, loyal and popular, Mason is Rose’s main competition in the quest to become the No. 1 Guardian-in-training. Though their relationship is casual on her side, he is hopeful she will finally look at him and see him as something more.” His character description makes a lot of sense, maybe him being Rose’s main competition is a bit of a deviation? But I think that’s more an indication that he’s supposed to be a strong fighter which isn’t inaccurate to the books. The rest sounds great.

Other Thoughts

Descriptions of the show specifically mention friendship and classism as major themes which I am very happy to hear about because those are the two parts of VA that I love the most.

Am a little more worried about it being described as “sexy” though, if they shove a whole bunch of meaningless sex scenes in it just because it’s a YA show I’m not gonna be happy.

Seen the show compared to “Game of Thrones” and “Bridgerton” which at first had me like oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck not good not good not good. But thinking about it more and trying to understand where Plec’s coming from with that description I wonder if means similar to GoT as in the cut-throat nature of the Moroi/Dhampir society cause I can kind of see that. And as for Bridgerton I wonder if she’s referring to the kind of social-climbing aspects of it, because again that makes sense and it seems like a theme she really wants to concentrate on. I hope that’s what she means by those comparisons, or that she just wants to compare it to popular shows to get people to watch it. The worst would be if she tries to throw in a lot of unnecessary sex scenes to make it like those shows, because I hate when they do that, especially when the characters are teenagers.

Interesting to hear that Plec has known about the series since before Twilight or TVD - not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Seems like it’s actually mostly (or all??) written by Marguerite MacIntyre which is interesting because I know people were worried about Julie Plec - I’ve never watched anything by either of them so I’m neutral at this point.

#wow this took me most of the day to write so i got absolutely no uni work done #oh well #worth it #vampire academy #va #va tv show #rose hathaway #dimitri belikov #lissa dragomir #mason ashford #meredith (va)#mia rinaldi #sonya karp #christian ozera #respond to this and tell me your thoughts cause i want to hear what everyone things #*thinks #keep things respectful tho guys

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captainsjack · 4 years

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i'm really sorry if you don't wanna talk about this, totally understandable, but i'm still not over steve franks not making shawn latino!!! like you said (or someone else said, don't remember rn) it wouldn't even be that much of a change if you made his mom latina, she barely appears anyway, and even if they didn't want to make some deep dives into shawn's family+heritage (which like, while logically i understand why they wouldn't wanna waste episodes on some minimal characterization, gringos are always on thin fucking ice, so), they could reference it with throw away lines, like they did with jules (maybe some comment passing the holidays down south, or shawn knowing spanish really well and surprising everyone ("wait, you know spanish?" "easier to learn the language than have mom as my personal translator during christmas")), and it's not even like they would need to make some grand research (which would still be nice tbh) bc james roday rodriguez is literally the character. and when 2.13 happened, instead of having whatever that episode was, they could have some interesting moments with shawn being already familiar with the world of telenovelas (and maybe, if you still want him to not know about it and have a bunch of people around him still aware and keeping up with it, there could be a whole thing about how watching telenovelas was a mom&son thing and when she left watching them became painful so shawn stopped altogether and going to the set of one brings back memories, some painful, some nice, but all nostalgic), and the jokes, instead of deriving from this "oh jeez isn't that insane" gringo pov, it could come from this "this is very much insane but i understand it deeply and love its insane-ness" latino pov. anyway idk!!!!!!!!!!! i'm still bummed out over this and i might just fuck around and watch a million little things to see james play a latino character

you. you get me. this is exactly what i was saying !!

2x13 would’ve been so much better for shawn to be latino and him just smoothly taking the role of a spanish character and speaking spanish like it was no problem. OR they could’ve made it a thing, where he doesn’t know spanish and is kind of sad he isn’t that connected with his heritage and then there’s an arc where he becomes more in tune with it and learns spanish. like that’s what james has said about himself, so it would’ve been cool to have the same arc for shawn.

one thing tho is i love gus’s comments about White Boy (tm) shawn. honestly great. but still would’ve been better to have two main characters of colour instead of just gus. like literally he’s the only poc on the show, except for his fam which is only a few eps. and then he and shawn could’ve like bonded over their heritages or something. like they do mention stuff about gus’s jamaican grandparents, but it would’ve been great to have shawn reciprocate that with his mexican roots or something.

and yeah i don’t really like cybill’s portrayal of shawns mom, she was kinda stiff and idk just cringey. i would’ve loved to have a latina actress instead. also they could’ve cast a latino actor for henry. i love how corbin portrays him though so i don’t know if i would want to give that up lol. but i’m sure there are plenty of latino actors who would’ve given the same or better performance as corbin.

please your hc about shawn & his mom & telenovelas i am crYING pls write this right now !!!!

(disclaimer - tell my white ass if i said something wrong or need to stop talking about this)

#psych #james roday rodriguez #shawn spencer #answered

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laufire · 4 years

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Black Sails

Top 5 favourite characters: Max, Silver, Jack, Madi, and Flint.

Other characters you like: Mr. Scott, Anne, Miranda, Idelle, Eleanor, Billy, Eme, the Maroon Queen, Featherstone, Ms. Guthrie, Muldoon, DeGroot...

Least favourite characters: Rogers, Ashe, Alfred Hamilton and Richard Guthrie are my Most Disliked People lol. Dufresne and Hornigold can suck it too xD

Otps: Silverflintmadi, Flintmiranda, Maxanne + Rackanne, Maxanor. Don’t ask me to choose lol.

Notps: Eleanor/Rogers, Silver/Thomas. Though not with the ~passion I dislike other notps of mine -I just find the first depressing in canon and the latter tiresome in fanon *shrugs*.

Favourite friendships: Silver & Max & Jack; Silver & the Walrus crew (THE LOVE THERE), Idelle & Max.

Favourite family: Madi’s family >>>>>>>>. It’s not like there’s many options to choose from lmao, but even if there was, I’d still pick them. What a gr10 reversal of one of most hated tropes *-* (aka: having a character of color save or prioritize a white character at the expense of their own relatives, to the point where sometimes it even costs them their lives).

Favourite episodes: this is one of the shows I have most difficulty picking favourite episodes tbh. Every one in s4 (I still haven’t watched the finale... I should stop putting that off lol) has hit me where I live. Same with s3, really. s1 and s2 were less !!!!! but I’ve never disliked a single episode, so. Choices, choices. To pick one of each so far (minus s4 since I haven’t completed it): 1x03 (probably a... controversial choice, but it’s when I knew the show was something else), 2x10 (I love having my heart broken and this episode provided that. And I love seeing Max & co-winning and I got that too!), and 3x05 (the Silverflint!! Madi’s family!! Flint & The Maroon Queen’s scene! Flint’s visions! Max forcing Rogers to make a place for her on the council!! Max’s “I AM Nassau”!! Spoken Spanish that didn’t make my ears bleed!!!).

Favourite season/book/movie: s4. Each episode has been just. too much xD. So thematically perfect. I hope the finale feels like that too.

Favourite quotes: oof. How to choose. Max’s quote about refusing to make enemies of those one day she could call friends; her rant about Rogers sitting “in [her] fucking chair!!”; her speech to Anne in 4x08; Silver’s “I am no one from nowhere” quote; Madi’s about the “multitude of voices”; Jack’s “did I make up a lot of ground to catch you” speech; Flint’s “no daylight between you and I” (WHO SAYS THAT. IN *PUBLIC*. I swear it’s somehow the most indecent moment of the show. It overwhelms me xDD); Idelle’s quote about Max when she confronts Anne; Mr. Scott’s “only YOU” to Madi. I’d say those are my ultimate favourites.

Best musical moment: the intro. I love it.

Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: Silver and Max’s interacting again in s4 made me lose it. Also, that Look between Max and Flint and Jack confirming later Flint had argued to kill her so she wouldn’t fuck with their plans anymore lmao.

When it really disappointed you: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Saddest moment: me at the progressive erosion of Silverflint’s relationship -> DDD:

Most well-done character death: Eleanor’s, I’d say.

Favourite guest star: Idek what I’d count as guest star with this show... I’m going with Idelle. If she appears too much to be considered a “guest”, the Maroon Queen.

Favourite cast member: JPK. She blends so, so well with her roles? Sometimes I have an incredibly hard time remembering Max and Nora West-Allen are played by the same person, ngl xD

Character you wish was still alive: both Miranda and Mr. Scott, though the latter has an edge because I have the NEED of knowing how he would’ve acted if he was in s4.

One thing you hope really happens: that I get the time I need to finish my WIPs and that NO ONE, EVER, tries to do a spin-off/remake/ANYTHING like that with it xD

Most shocking twist: Mr. Scott’s reveal in 3x04, if only because it was one of the few major things I wasn’t spoiled at all about xD. But I love how it changes your perspective of his s1-2 storylines.

When did you start watching/reading?: a few months ago.

Best animal/creature: ... sharks xD. We owe them so much (if Silver’s parrot was canon here, well).

Favourite location: Nassau (aka Max’s Domain).

Trope you wish they would stop using: n/a. I love this show’s tropes and themes lol.

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: lots of stuff xD. Dialogue is one; deviating from expectations and archetypes is another.

Funniest moments: WHO’S BILLY. The Silverflintbones pseudo-triangle xD. Silver’s s1 antics.

Couple you would like to see: *coughs* I could’ve coped with Silverflintmadi going all the way xD

Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: Maggie Smith should’ve had a cameo ¬¬

Favourite outfit: one?!? Have you SEEN everything Max’s worn in season four?? Or Eleanor in s1-2?? Jack’s Iconique Looks?? *sighs* I suppose I have a soft spot for Max wearing red, so that.

Favourite item: “La Galatea”, the book Flint gave to Miranda as an apology. My heart :((( (not to mention it reminds me to my own original WIPs).

Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?: ................ the DVDs xD. They were a little over 20 bucks total and I gave them to myself for my birthday lol (I just don’t trust Netflix anymore and I don’t want to lose easy access to a HQ version the show, so fork it). I own the Treasure Planet DVD (which came along with a computer game), but I have no idea of where I put it. And I have a copy of Treasure Island ofc (that I want to re-read when I finish the show).

What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: my heart is with Flintmadi’s cause but my brain and need to win with Max’s team xD

Most boring plotline: eh. I didn’t much care for Blackbeard’s deal (though I felt for his death, because it was so fucking awful).

Most laughably bad moment: n/a.

Best flashback/flashforward if any: The Sword Flirting Sparring flashbacks ofc *-*

Most layered character: Flint and Silver ofc.

Most one-dimensional character: the one-note characters that are just there at plot devices. And of those with a little more relevance to our mains, Thomas is the least expanded-on by far *shrugs* (which doesn’t mean “poorly written”).

Scariest moment: Silver’s state when he thought he lost Madi. No wonder Flint was so worried tbh.

Grossest moment: putting aside the physically gross moments (of which this show has a few, lbr. It did not shy away from injuries, etc.)... I had my most visceral reaction to Rogers speaking with Madi. Like, fuck off dude xD. ALSO: Billy’s beard. Kill it pls.

Best looking male: Joshua was a dork and a cutie. Flint is so not my type but there are... moments xD. Same with Silver when he’s in a shippy context, even if normally I’m all ??? at his face lol.

Best looking female: now this one is a lot harder xDD. I always end up saying Max because... have you seen her. They style her so lovingly *-*. But really, which of these women isn’t absolutely gorgeous in their unique way.

Who you’re crushing on (if any): Anne. She reminds me of my ~first love lol (looks-wise at least xD). And I know I’d be drawn to her... sunny disposition lmao.

Favourite cast moment: in my lurking over blogs to add stuff in the queue, I saw twitter exchange where Silver’s actor says Silver’s actions against Billy were revenge for the potatoes xD, and Billy’s replied he should’ve made him peel carrots, since he “likes their colouring”. LMFAO.

Favourite transportation: the Walrus, obviously. I’m sentimental :(

Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): Charlestown in flames was hella pretty :))))))

Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you: n/a.

Best promo: I’ve seen a promo picture for s3 with Flint standing over a giant British flag on fire... very evocative.

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: 1x03. I liked the previous episodes alone, but it was Max’s insistence of rejecting Eleanor’s help that took it over the edge. I’ve said before that although it made things harder for her in the short term, to me it showed how different and impressive a character it was and, knowing that things would go really well for her afterwards, made me see just how much promise the show had.

#replies #talking to the void #my thoughts #black sails thoughts #black sails #bsmax #bsmadi #mr. scott #Anonymous

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cosmicrhetoric · 5 years

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That’s your opinion which you’re entitled to which is fine. But from the pictures we have seen, I believe they could have done more to make it look more authentically middle eastern/south asian. Whether it be casting roles for brown people (not anything against naomi scott or the other main characters because they are brown) but the supporting white actors from those pictures, the issue of colourism which exists in both western media and is then perpetuated in bollywood, and the costumes...

okay so I checked out the cast on imdb and there are like seven to ten white people cast as extras (out of a cast of 97) and one white lead that they invented for this movie which is....unecessary I'm gonna have to agree with you there. But literally everyone else is a denomination of brown and like if this is reverse tokenism but @ white people I'm cool with that TBH

I mean this movie had the same trap that the og had. It's not explicitly India or a middle eastern country, and therefore conflating those two cultures is tricky and could end up going very badly. I trust the people making the movie so I'm hoping it goes well, but I'm going to have to see it to believe it. It's just that jasmine was so important growing up as a diasporic brown girl that I want this movie to right the wrongs of the og

also I kinda thought the jewelry was alright?? here are some of the pics

#no joke i really like the pink outfit #aladdin

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serenagaywaterford · 5 years

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7) Honestly, the only things that I truly ship on that show (as far as canon goes) are: handmaids & unwomen & marthas/freedom (duh), Moira/happiness, Emily/therapy, comfort and her kid -- she needs those badly, Janine/happiness, Serena/actual remorse for what she's done to all women and June/her 2 kids (platonically -- bc there are pervs out there). *I mentioned "unpopular opinions" earlier. By that, I did not mean the types that use "freedom of speech" as an alibi in order to spread bigotry and

8) harass/attack real life people, especially minorities** and women. I wonder why those types think that THT is a “propagandistic”, unimportant show. /s **Btw, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this: I think the show missed a good opportunity to address racism. I understand why Gilead is post-racist, I really do. Their focus is on fertility and that’s why a) fertile women of color are needed, b) infertile women and non straight people are considered useless/a threat. But on the other hand, the

9) series is supposed to be set in the near future. I mean, come on. They’re not even a little bit prejudiced?

———

It’s funny talking about shipping on THT. Cos I’ll diverge from you here in that I definitely do have a ship, and I very much enjoy it. However, it’s so AU and it will never, ever be canon and I’m fully aware of how incredibly problematic it is. But, meh. It’s a fun thing to play around with in my mind. I’ve stopped feeling bad about it tbh. But it definitely comes in second to thinking about the show overall and it’s not my sole reason for tuning in. Which is where I think things differ from other factions of fandom who’s sole purpose seems to be shipping and worshiping the man in a woman’s story.

I am 100% on board with all of those ships! I ship Gilead/Destruction, and all the rest should follow :)

Yeah, the racism thing. I’m probably the worst person to talk about this cos I’m white af. And really, it’s so difficult to manage the racism. Cos, if you deal with racism as it was addressed in the book (race was sort of talked about a tiny bit), then you don’t get Moira in such a prominent role. You wouldn’t have any actors of colour, as extras or minor characters playing Handmaid’s. No Handmaids or children could be anything but white. So, they’d face criticism for not having a diverse enough main cast.

They would have had a really hard time having Luke be black, and therefore Hannah mixed in a society that only wants pure white kids. I doubt, in such a racist fascist society, they’d want to keep around Hannah as a rich, pampered young girl and we’d lose that whole subplot. So, Luke would have had to be white.

And Moira, if they chose that route, her story would be SO divorced from everyone else’s that it probably wouldn’t mesh well overall. Arguably. (I’d argue that they’ve already fucked some of that up anyway.)

Maybe they thought it was too complicated to address properly so they just said, “Yeah, racism doesn’t exist! Only babies!!!”

BUT it’s absolutely asinine of the show to suggest that Gilead is post-racial. I don’t care how many babies are dying, there is literally no theocratic society/genocide/dictatorship in history that does not involve race in value judgement. I cannot for one second accept that Gilead wouldn’t be insanely racist and scapegoat not only “sinners” but also people of colour. Like, that is a hallmark of the creation of almost every fascist state? Blaming the Other is key! And skin colour is such an easy target. And lbr, white evangelicals of all types are racist. Like, really fucking racist. And fascists are SUPER racist. If we’re to believe SOJ were an extremely far right radical-terrorist group, it just makes ZERO sense that they wouldn’t be WILDLY racist and that would be a core component of their ideology. I personally don’t know of a single far right group that isn’t insanely racist and bigoted. Some claim they’re not, but they totally are.

Like... how did all that racism that is ingrained in conservative religious fanaticism and America just magically disappear? Nah. Not buying it. It seems lazy not to address it. At least ACKNOWLEDGE it any way, even the smallest possible way.

The lack of attention the programme showed to that aspect just made the protesters at Serena’s rally make no sense too. Why is the main protest calling her a Nazi? Nazi is a specific ideology, and race (ethnic cleansing) is a HUGE fucking component of it. Its main goal was to eradicate an entire race/ethnicity from the planet. From what we know, that doesn’t even come into play with Serena/Gilead’s ideology at all. I have no doubt that Serena was intent on legally/forcibly mandating women to give birth (very much like historical examples of this in El Salvador or Romania, even Russia), at least at that point. Basically removing women’s bodily autonomy completely. But that… isn’t exactly Nazi. The Nazis weren’t attempting to do that to white German women (They banned abortion for Aryans, but they weren’t forcing white women to give birth or be sex slaves. Abortion was just fine for Jews; in fact it was encouraged). Would the Nazis have got there eventually had they won the war and birthrates were plummeting? I wouldn’t put it past them but it’s never been an established cornerstone of their ideology. I guess there could have been more to it than we’ve seen on the show but based on TV canon, I don’t get it. It’s like they wanted to bring race into it… but forgot to actually reference it at all prior to 2x08 lol.

I do think THT missed a huge opportunity to look into the intersection of various crises. Like, do I honestly believe a bunch of white evangelical radicals would just ignore their inherent racism for the sake of a few more babies? No way. And I think it’s been shown multiple times that the SOJ don’t really care about babies anyway; they want power and total control over women, period. The birthrate crisis was just a tool to manipulate people (including Serena and Wives) into accepting Gilead as necessary.

I think THT could have even addressed the lack of WOC as Handmaids. Why, if they were targetting all women, are there not far more WOC as Handmaids? As Econopeople? There’s only a handful. The majority are white IIRC. You’d think if they really are just after more babies, they’d have a lot more girls of all shapes, sizes, ages, colour. But they seem to be–with the exception of Moira, Emily, and June–fairly young (which seems odd logically simply cos their criteria for determining if a woman is fertile is her already having a child. Not that teen moms don’t exist, but so many of the Handmaids seem really young. You’d think there’d be a few more older 25+ women who actually have had kids. But hey, I don’t think Gilead really cares about logic anyway.), and with the exception of Moira and Brianna, mostly white. (Oh, and Lilly.) There are a few extras of colour. But it seemed like the ratio of actual American society vs Gileadean society was way off, and it would have been good to have an explanation for that, and it could have also set up more understanding about why they consider Serena a Nazi. From what I saw, she’s not a Nazi (so just a horrible violent anti-feminist religious whacko) so I’d really like to know what I’m missing.

Not to mention, I get that the book was VERY much from a single white woman’s POV so why would she feature much about race. It wouldn’t personally affect her much. It is the Handmaid’s Tale, and so she tells it as she knows it. However, the show can’t make the same claim. While June is the main POV character, the POV shifts often to other characters and there’s plenty of opportunity to show how race effects different characters. It doesn’t need to be a huge focus. Just acknowledge it, at the very least. Like they did with homophobia. This isn’t a show about homophobia specifically, but they included gay characters so acknowledged (quite a bit considering) about homophobia in Gilead (and pre-Gilead). I don’t see why the same treatment couldn’t be done with Moira and/or Luke’s POVs (way better coming from Moira lbr), or even RITA! Rita would be a great character to explore more, and add some layers to the overall world in the process.

I liked this article: https://www.vulture.com/2017/06/the-handmaids-tale-greatest-failing-is-how-it-handles-race.html

#Anonymous

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ajaegerpilot · 7 years

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omg seeing emma fall for the same old trashy guys when audrey is Right There is generally awful and i can’t believe we’re never getting a season 3 where she and audrey get together and you know what, i don’t really like emma all that much, she doesn’t annoy me and i side with her motivations 99% of the time but i honestly just am doing that thing where i ship characters together because i like one character a lot and that character likes the other character so I want them to get together. emma/audrey never kissing is homophobia, audrey never getting a sex scene on the level of the Straights is also homophobia, and ofc all the Bury Your Gays tropeism + murder of all characters of colour while keeping the main cast white is ofc actually genuinely shitty. this is not a good show but it’s a lot better than similar shows I’d watched and is like generally well done which is surprising? i marathoned the entire show within two days so here’s some general thoughts:

people getting pissed about bi rep not being labelled really gotta step aside because audrey, a girl who only dates girls and after kissing one (1) guy tells him she loves him but not like that and is quite obviously a butch lesbian, her only cannon label is an inside joke ‘bi-curious’. though i’m also quite into the headcannon that audrey only dates girls and only likes 1% of guys when venus is in retrograde and identifies as bi because that’s also a real thing. like sga people are never going to be labelled in media because media is inherently uncomfortable with us, all of us. people getting mad at straight people calling potentially or actual bi characters lesbians or whatever have some really misplaced anger because on a scale of shitty things that happen to bi people that is a 0.1 and while they need to correct themselves that’s about it.

also it’s unrealistic that audrey is friends with like 6 people and they’re all straight but tbh she’s going to college soo HC that that gets fixed (but honestly even in hs gays find each other somehow so noah is an annoying bi guy, emma is a lesbian because she honestly really seems to have very little agency with guys who are interested in her and just tends to be into them when they become interested in her or when her friends expect her to be interested in them like??, brook is bi.. just let it happen mtv scream.. when audrey and brook were together @ the party and they flirted .... Let It Happen, and stavo is definitely a weird q kid and he and noah def vibe off each other Im Just Saying)

would i recommend this show to people? if you like hannibal or teen wolf this is basically a mash up of the two, with little hints of life is strange (namely the entire main cast being white but also the friendship b/w 2 girls playing a semi-major role in at least the second season). it’s like generally well-done (??), im ridiculous so in both seasons i did not guess who the killer was At All, the characters (??) can be (?) likeable (??????), it’s not so much of a comedy as I was expecting, though it has funny moments and a lot of meta moments, but it is very entertaining. but like idk. i basically just came for audrey, and fell as hard for her character as i was expecting, and then everything else was extra.

there is no rape (though there is a character that has sex with a character where if character2 knew a certain truth about character1 they would not have consented but that’s it other than the finale episode which references some attempted rape but condemns it by the narrative), no incest, but I think it’s relevant to mention the statutory rape that occurs between a character and her teacher which, while not portrayed as the ideal is still not condemned as much as I would have and while she eventually gets a restraining order put on him the relationship really just serves to normalize parent/teacher relationships in our culture ://. while the lesbian does kiss a guy she does it while she’s high (and also kisses his girlfriend) after hallucinating that she’s kissing her old girlfriend and while he says that he probably always wanted to kiss her (they’re friends) she shuts him down and tells him she’s not into him like that and he accepts it and it doesn’t change their friendship and it’s never done in a titillating way and she like never expresses attraction to him so honestly i think it was more about sowing discord between her and his girlfriend than about anything truly ill and i can chalk it up to Teens Being Teens. speaking of, this show has a dreadful case of ‘hire 20 year olds to play teenagers and have them have sex on-screen,’ and i think this shit just goes ahead to normalize adults preying on teenagers IRL but w/e w/e.. there’s ofc a lot of killing a lotta blood/gore, and they can’t get rid of the actors of colour fast enough, but like other than that? i was expecting AHS levels of fuckery and honestly if AHS is a 10 than this show is a 3 (if teen wolf is 2 and hannibal is a 7). honestly, this show is better than Hannibal and I like it more too. Hannibal had some Moments but like?? scream >> hannibal any day.

also there is some suicidal themes in season 1 which i can get into more detail abt but w/e. that’s all i can think of :// ultimately eons better than hannibal and that’s the final conclusion..

#misha speaks #drugs m //#scream spoilers ??#i talk abt potential triggers and just some nonsense under the cut..#the first season was extremely tight but the second season was okay too #the third season is apparently going to be half the length w a new cast of characters but like hey it doesnt seem like theyre gonna be all #white this time soo #and i wont have to see emma date another guy again so :33 win/win

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