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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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OK, I know this will probably be painful, and I may be a bad mutual for asking but...would you be willing to identify what, in your opinion are the bottom five worst Shadow adaptations, and give a detailed breakdown of why they were so lousy?

Oh christ, okay. I don't think you're gonna get as much of a detailed breakdown for these compared to some of the others, because I take more issue with adaptations that do have good qualities but also big or deep problems to talk about.

For example, I can't include Garth Ennis's Shadow in this list because the comic has a lot of strong points to it, despite a deeply, deeply detestable take on The Shadow's character, where as the rest of the Dynamite run doesn't reach neither the lows or highs of his run. Likewise, Andy Helfer's run has a couple or a couple dozen moments every issue that make me want to tear something to shreds in frustration, but it's also at many points a really good comic with great art and some occasionally very inspired writing. Really, I'd just be repeating myself talking about what I hate in those.

But, fine, let's list some of the others.

I think I'm just gonna have to get the elephant in the room out of the way here, and address that I won't be including Si Spurrier's 2017 Dynamite mini in this list, and I think at least some of you might be angry it's not Number 1 by default. I'm doing this because I intend to one day really revisit it, think about it and it's reception and what it was trying to do, and talk about it on it's own, now that it's been 5 years and everyone has moved on and we can maybe talk about it without kneejerk hatred driving everyone nuts (your mileage may vary on how warranted it was).

I'm also not going to be talking about James Patterson's new novel, because I haven't read it. It seems to be considered a forgettable potboiler by mainstream critics and a resounding failure by everyone who likes the character whether they've read the book or not, and frankly I don't have it in me to learn what the fuzz was about anytime soon, I got my hands way too full as is.

And I won't be including the Batman x Shadow crossovers here, because again, they do have a lot of virtues that put them far ahead of some of the really worst Shadow media, and I've talked enough about how badly I think they mangled The Shadow, which is really the big problem I have with them (well, that and Tim Sale blatantly copying a Michael Kaluta cover, that was really shitty). I don't really hate them anymore, I just get tired and frustrated thinking about parts of them, I said my piece as is. Really, my frustration over this comic is what inspired me to start writing about The Shadow here, so I guess in a way I do owe it at least that much.

5: Archie Comics's Shadow

I think some of you might be wondering why this isn't ranked higher, but to be honest, I don't actually harbor any hatred towards this. I mean, I have to include it, but I find it kinda silly that some people even today actually care about the existence of this comic enough to hate it.

For fans back then? Oh yeah, obviously, but this dropped to such instantaneous backlash that it never really got to live past 6 issues. Really, everything wrong about it can be understood immediately from the covers, and I've actually read the comic in it's entirety to see if there was anything worth taking. I found only a couple of things of note but, no, this really is just a painfully mediocre superhero comic that happens to have a couple of Shadow names in it. If anything, it gets too much credit.

The actual contents of what it is are never going to justify it's reputation, but the existence of it and the disproportionate response to it is the funniest and most enduring legacy it could ever ask for. This whole comic is The Shadow's version of Spongebob's embarassing Christmas photo.

4: David Liss's The Shadow Now

This is another "The Shadow as an immortal in modern times" comic and I think you may have noticed the pattern with those by now. I may revisit this eventually and I do have some moments from it saved for reference, but overall: It sucks, and it doesn't even suck in a way that lets me talk much about it, it's a diet version of Chaykin's Shadow. If Archie's Shadow is a generic mediocre superhero comic wearing The Shadow's name, this is a generic crime story playing beats from movie. The Shadow is an asshole and not even a grandiose or sinister one, he just feels like a sleazy douche in a costume. The art is a 50/50 coin toss between appropriately moody and "Google images with a filter on them", I don't remember anything about the plot other than Khan had a bomb again and he had a daughter, and there were new versions of the agents and the Harry stand-in turned evil and Lamont shacked up with Margo's descendant which, uh, no. I don't really hate this but I really have nothing nice to say about this comic other than Colton Worley's art is nice sometimes. I can't really muster anything else to say here.

3: Invisible Avenger

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZZZZZ...

...uuh, wha-

Yeah, I remember nothing about this one other than it's painfully boring and nothing about it, nothing at all, works in the slightest and I drift off to sleep even now trying to give this a rewatch. To be honest pretty much every other Shadow serial not starred by Victor Jory sucks and I don't really have anything to say about them, this one is just the worst of the lot. I dearly wish there was a good Shadow tv series but, if it was going to be like this pilot? Good riddance.

2: Harlan Ellison's The New York Review of Bird

This isn't really a Shadow story as much as it's a Harlan Ellison story that happens to feature The Shadow, but man am I glad that Ellison's "Dragon Shadows" was canned, because holy shit what a goddamn nightmare Harlan Ellison writing The Shadow for real could have been, going purely by the one time he ever touched the character. New York Review of Bird is a purely farcical parody story that wears real, real thin even before "Uncle Kent" shows up, and we get to see in it what is by far the most detestable and irredeemable take on The Shadow ever put on print, and not even in a critique or deconstructive way or anything that could be remotely worth discussing.

I don't hold any particular affection for Harlan Ellison and his writing (despite liking some of it) and I've come to notice the major red flag that is finding someone who looks up to Harlan Ellison in any capacity as a person, and this story in particular really feels like Ellison aggressively trying to channel his jackass tendencies through every line, just him being nasty because he built a personal brand on being nasty. The only reason this isn't Number One is because it's a very short story that saw zero influence or reputation, and thus it only exists as a brief mention in The Shadow wiki, and a brief mention is all it really calls for.

1: Howard Chaykin's Blood & Judgment

I'm guessing most of you already knew this one was in the top spot before I started writing.

I would actually rather not write a big piece on Blood & Judgment, because I think (or at least I hope) it's influence on The Shadow has waned a lot over the years and I would prefer to draw it the least amount of attention possible, but if I HAVE to talk about this, I guess I'd rather just vomit this out of my circuits now instead of giving it it's own post.

I would prefer to use a less unpleasant image on my blog, but if I'm going to talk about this comic, there's no image to better convey it than this drawing of macho asshole Cranston holding a sexualized mannequin at gunpoint. By leaps and bounds, Blood & Judgment is the most misogynistic Shadow story I've ever read. It's ironic that Chaykin justified the rampant misogyny he gave The Shadow with the idea that this is just a man from the 30s would act like, when he admits in the same breath that he never even touched the stories, and he wrote a story more sexist and demeaning to it's female characters than anything, literally anything, written in the Shadow pulps. It's almost impressive even.

I'll paste some segments from Randy Raynaldo's review

In Flagg, he intended to present his own point of view on American society while keeping his work tongue in cheek and acessible. But this vision dimmed, and Flagg had become a vehicle by which Chaykin could play out fetishes and portray gratuitous and stylish violence.

In The Shadow, stripped of the political and social veneer which was supposed to make Flagg unique, Chaykin's sensibilities and excesses become disturbingly apparent. For all of his liberal posturing, Chaykin's work demonstrates zero difference from the same kind of mentality exploited and made popular by similarly violent popular culture icons like Dirty Harry and Death Wish.

More than half a dozen individuals are indiscriminately and violently murdered in the first issue. Although the victims are characters who played major roles in the myth of The Shadow, we feel little sympathy for them, even for those of us who knew these characters at the outset. Who dies is unimportant, it's how they die that is the fascination.

Chaykin uses sexual decadence as a means by which to establish villains, and undercuts this device by making the protagonists as promiscuous as the villains. For all of Chaykin's seemingly liberal leanings, he demonstrates very little sensitivity in his portrayal of women.

Because everything works on rules of three, this comic also follows the pattern with other works mentioned here, as this isn't Howard Chaykin writing The Shadow: it's The Shadow reimagined as a Howard Chaykin character. He looks and acts exactly like Reuben Flagg and the typical macho protagonist of Chaykin's other works, he's a cynical sleaze with an entirely new origin who half-assedly dons a garb to machine gun people, and I already wrote a separate piece on why the machineguns are kind of emblematic of everything wrong with this take.

I understand that Chaykin has, or used to have, a big following of sorts, and I've tried to wrap my head around this for years, but I genuinely still don't get why Shadow fans stomach this comic unless they happen to be Chaykin fans first and foremost, I really don't. Everything, fucking everything Shadow fans hate about modern depictions of the character can be traced right back to this. The parts that stuck and changed the character for the worse, like him being defined as an immortal, bloodthirsty warmonger who got all his skills and powers from a magic city in Tibet, or Lamont Cranston being a coward who fears and hates the Shadow, or his agents being expendable slaves, stuff that has been ingrained into the mythos through this and the Alec Baldwin movie and other comics, to the point that people now think of it as the norm, that it's the baseline of what The Shadow is, and I hate it, I genuinely fucking hate it,

I hate it so much that it's a big part of the reason why I created this blog and why I want so badly to get to write The Shadow, because I plainly couldn't stand not having ways to tell people that this is all wrong, that this is actively shooting down the character's odds for success, and that they are missing out on something really great, because the well has been tainted with garbage that won't go away and everytime I read the words Shambala in a Shadow comic, even an otherwise good or great one, I get just a wee bit cross.

The only semi-redeeming aspects I can think of for this comic is one or two cool moments, like when The Shadow hijacks a concert using his Devil's Whisper or when he tames dogs with a stare. Just breadcrumbs of "not garbage" amidst an ocean of anything but. I hate that talking about why I hate this comic in-length can almost feel like I'm still enticing people to check it out of curiosity, but if you wanna do that, fine, just know this: The worst part of Blood & Judgment, even if you don't care at all about what it did to The Shadow, is that it's boring.

It is a deeply boring comic. If you like Howard Chaykin to begin with, you'll probably like this okay (although even Chaykin fans told me that this is his weakest work and that even he seems to agree). If you don't, I plain don't see what you could get out of this.

The comic itself is just nothing. It's the comic book equivalent of a pre-schooler trying to get a reaction by swearing. It has nothing whatsoever other than half-assed attempts at shock value. The plot isn't there, the ideas are stale, the dialogue is needlessly oblique and comprised entirely of unfinished sentences, interrupted conversations and one-liners without build-up. The characters are all unlikable and uninteresting stooges with no personality, or joyless cartoons. There's no heart or emotion or logic, and it isn't even funny enough to succeed as just an outrageous exercise in 80s excess. There's nothing in here.

I get "why" it was popular enough at the time, a rising star creator penning a modern revival of an old character based on controversy that pissed off the old fans, it's an old story that still gets repeated today. But manufactured controversy is not a replacement for storytelling and it rarely ever exists to benefit the people who actually want to enjoy the stories, it only benefits those for the crude benefit of those who want to sell you something out of the controversy.

I guess they got their money's worth back then.

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

Phew, okay, I did it, I finally vomited out a piece on Blood & Judgment and some others, allright, let's put this piece of negativity behind us now.

#replies tag #the shadow #pulp heroes #shadow comics #shadow films #dc comics

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janiedean · 3 years

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I feel bad for all the nice J*nsa shippers who like their ship for whatever reasons (tropes, pretty art, aesthetic appeal, whatever) and know it's not canon but get associated with the misogynistic Dany hating crowd who act like Jon being attracted to Ygritte is J*nsa foreshadowing because red hair (I guess Jon should fuck Edmure Tully too? Omg give me Dark!Jon getting revenge on Catelyn by seducing her brother!) Tell me something. I'm new to the fandom but was J*nsa popular before the show? And I've heard something about the OG J*nsa shippers being alienated by the new shippers who insisted it had to be canon and acted like the series is called, "A song of J*nsa #danysux." I don't find that hard to believe because I know people who are now ashamed of calling themselves J*nsa shippers. Like, at this point, it's not only rival shippers who hate it. Even Gendrya/Braime/Jon stans/etc have started disliking that ship. You know your fandom is a problem when people who have nothing to do with Jnsa have a problem with it.

me: reads this ask

me: iwastheregandalf.gif which I can't find now but

okay anon buckle up because I am sadly well-equipped to answer this ask but before I do lemme tell you dark jon seducing edmure to take revenge on cat is LITERALLY THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD but *clears throat* ALL RIGHT THEN.

disclaimer: as anon says I have no issue with like the shippers mentioned by anon in the beginning and ngl I agree, I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKING STAKES in the j*nsa vs j*nerys war and the only het jon ship I gaf about is jon/ygritte and we all know where that ended up I just... have been here since 2011/adwd was over and all the fic around was just for the books under secret lj communities and asoiaf qualified for yuletide and I have... seen... things.... and I actually have like uh had... beef... with some people in there and I know things bc ppl who hated those others told me stuff so anyway *sigh* buckle up anon I'mma tell you the story of jon shipwars through the years

in order, the old gods help me here, under the cut bc this is long as fuck

when I got into fandom also given what numbers were on ao3 one ship was popular and it was sansan. no like sansan was lit. the only asoiaf ship on ao3 with more than 200 fics. jb had twenty when i checked first. jc had like around 100-ish because of the show but sansan dwarfed anything. I posted the first jon/ygritte fic on the ao3 tag and the fourth throbb fic and like the others were all reposts from lj kinkmemes. nothing was popular before the show except for sansan when it comes to huge numbers bc grrm doesn't like fic and it was all hush hush until the show made it impossible to control and that ship was the one with a huge enough fanbase it actually had numbers, so like... j*nsa wasn't popular in the way nothing else was popular until it got screentime on the show

now, that stated, j*nsa had a... fair amount of fic for a rareship which was mostly book-based and from og shippers that were there from before the show and liked it for what it was but literally none of them thought it was gonna be canon, like it wasn't huge or anything but it had a small but dedicated fanbase who did their own thing and thought it was fun/liked the idea but that was it

that fandom had their own niche of hcs that they cultivated and shit except that like... at the end of S5/beginning of S6 there was a surge in shipping for... well obvious reasons bc it was obv sansa was getting to the wall and that would have been all nice and good but a) it was the time puritanical shipping was starting to take root and the 'shipping sansa with sandor or tyrion is hella problematic' rhetoric had started to circle coming from sans*ery shippers mostly but I'mma not open that fucking can of worms here, b) while the ending of S5 had more of a theon/sansa spike, the j*nsa stuff started getting big

now here we have to mention my villain origin story ie: j*nsa fandom had this one stan whose name I won't make because honestly it's been years and if she's still around I don't want her to remember I exist who was a bnf, wrote for... the website that created the whole larry/carol thing etc who was really fixed on this thing that j*nsa was actually canon and started writing extremely popular meta about it. now you're gonna ask how do you know, I know because this person once wrote a meta named 'why robb stark is a dick' and I told her that it was really fucking bad meta and she took it so badly she kept on trash talking me on her blog/her podcast (I was apparently the insane robb stark fangirl l m a o good lord) and like that was when some sane ppl who argued with her informed me in pvt that she was basically harping on the CANON thing when they'd have been okay with like... it being crackshipping and that she was basically cultivating a hoarde of followers who were harping on them/the ogs and basically ostracizing them;

I would like to add that this person - before her tumblr got 'accidentally deleted' and remade it therefore deleted most receipts for, er, her so-called meta which included stuff like ned and cat raised sansa as a sexual object and only wanted to sell her like cattle - had at some point started a round robin fic thing where... some of the characters mocked openly said stuff that some of the og fans had said specifically targeting them and people in that side basically went harassing anyone who didn't agree with that specific notion

now never mind that this person basically coined an entire term to describe ppl who liked white guys and excused all their wrongdoings out of my conversation re robb basically lying about everything I said as if I didn't have the receipts and tried to sell shirts with it and it didn't work and like then she got kicked out of her own website because she was telling her commenters disagreeing pretty shitty insults (considering I was called psychotic for disagreeing with her that time I don't doubt it) I think at some point she stepped back from fandom bc idk wtf she's up to these days and I don't want to, but basically at that point the dam was broken and there was a bunch of puritanical shippers harping on anyone who didn't agree with j*nsa is canon endgame stuff

this also includes an incident when those ppl were like... passing themselves as throbb shippers and ended up trying to tell t*hramsay shippers off the theon tag based on moral reasons and I ended up arguing with all of them (and they were all from that crowd) which in turn landed me in contact with other og j*nsa shippers who were like detached from that fandom bc those same people harassed them away as well ssooooo fun

anyway when S6 happened everyone was high on it and whatnot but I wasn't gonna begrudge them that I mean... you shipped it for years, canon is delivering you, good for you, but then j*nerys happened

god j*nerys happened

aaand basically...... I mean personally I was there like are y'all seriously arguing about the best incest jon ship out there but like basically the j*nsa endgame side was like AH JON IS PLAYING DANY SEE IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN, the j*nerys obv got defensive af and both sides were sort of alternatively shitting on jon/ygritte anyway and depicting any other romantic rship jon could have as abusive™ and during S8 it just got worse and like I tried to stay out of it but basically from what I'm seeing now idk how the j*neryses are doing but on the j*nsa one it's ah jon's gonna play dany anyway and she's going to go insane like in the show so SHOW TRUTHING EVERY OTHER WAY and like again denying that sandor exists or that tyrion exists and like I barely touch my corner (sansan) but I ended up arguing with j*nsa/th*nsa people on twitter who were antis and is2g it was white-hair inducing and I know for sure the sansa/tyrion shippers were harassed to hell and back throughout so FUN

and even if the show didn't go there now since everyone there banked on the jnsa endgame thing and admitting you're wrong is like... not a thing, they still haven't let go of it and attach to that ship any shred of evidence which honestly is grasping at straws half of the time (like... the sansa/alysanne parallels like guys please no) and which is why every other ship is starting to get fed up, attaching canon proof of stuff from other ships onto theirs see that batb argument and jb is platonic but jonsa is not nvm taking all the sansan stuff and throwing it on j*nsa but then denying that sansan has canon evidence (like guys I had to read sansa touching his shoulder when saying gregor wasn't a true knight wasn't meaningful and we were seeing things please) and blah blah blah

this also goes hand in hand with the fixation on like... villanizing dany at all costs and like is2g I have zero investment in dany or her storyline I don't even remember it and I don't particularly care abt her either way and sure af I'm not for j*nerys endgame but like.... some stuff I read is completely excessive esp when fixing on how she's a completely mad tyrant who's gonna have to be put down and like... guys no

(also there's some srs stannis hate in that corner which I honestly don't get why they even care abt stannis but I had to read stuff like ppl don't recognize that dany and stannis are the real villains in this saga and like........ idek)

I think most of the og shippers are gone or don't ship it openly bc they don't want to be attached to the drama but like I also think they're pissing off everyone else bc like... I mean a bunch of them also were down with sansa being paired with other ppl as long as it meant a good ending for her except those ppl were... like everyone but the ppl she has actual contact with in canon which meant that at some point sansa/gendry was a thing and like.... you can imagine why arya/gendry shippers & arya stans were fed up, and there's also this tendency to behave like sansa is the center of the entire saga which like these books is named a song of jon snow basically can we pls make peace with it and personally I've had it with both j*nsa and j*nerys people since they started with that dumbass JON/YGRITTE WAS AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP rhetoric but I'm also fed up with the total ignoring that sandor exists/depicting us as delusional and honestly I also was by proxy fed up from the harassing of the sansa/tyrion shippers soooooooooooo

there were also instances of 'well theon is an acceptable choice other than jon bc he can't threaten her' which... i mean we all know what that meant and I'm not even commenting it bc it's one AM and I have no force to but I don't have to explain why it's not a progressive take now do I

there were also metas about how cousin incest being legal in half of the world means that jondany is a worse incest and j*nsa doesn't count as such and I was basically there like guys please just fucking own up to it but honestly I chose to forgot where I read that and I couldn't find the link if I tried

tldr: no one wants to admit that it's not gonna be endgame which considering the amount of fic they have on ao3 is imvho useless bc they have more content than like.. anything I ship that's not jb or that's actually like canon *cries in joncon/rhaegar but I mean renly/loras is canon and has less fic than them* so idk what's the problem with enjoying that instead of insisting it's gonna be canon when not even the show validated it while show truthing anyway when the only show truthing that can be truthed is the small council made of minorities and possibly jon eventually fucking off with the wildlings but not like that but like most people who thought it wasn't gonna be endgame had left/were made to leave by the time S7 rolled by and at this point since wow isn't out yet everyone is fandom-grasping at straws to find stuff to discourse on and we're here beating dead horses *shrug*

so that's... how it is but I would again like to point out that I don't judge ppl on their shipping, I don't particularly care about this entire feud bc I only ship jon with ppl he's not related to in whichever way and I try to stay out of this mess bc I don't really care to argue with ppl who have already decided to bend canon to whatever they want and will have to realize that it's not what grrm wrote at some point but like I have a very good memory and the above rant is as objective as possible also bc again I don't literally have a stake in that race I just think romantic/endgame j*nsa is not a thing and that ppl should stay in their lane and not harping on other ppl who ship whatever in general but especially when their ship is the most popular thing in fandom in the first place /two cents

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #anonymous #ask post #anti-jonsa #anti jonsa #anti-jonerys #anti jonerys #both of them for equality

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elriel-oblivion · 3 years

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Okay here's the thing.. I respect everyone's opinions and they can ship whoever they want but like... For Elucien and Gwynriel... I literally cannot even see how. I would gladly ship them if someone gave me a valid reason. Elain avoids talking or even being in the same room as Lucien, and Azriel had one polite conversation with Gwyn. Az is just nice to her. As nice as he would be to any female. Elriel has foreshadowing & chemistry- The roses painted on her drawer and the rose necklace...👀

Strongly agree with all of this!! My main problem with anything that's not elriel is that a lot of anti-elriel shippers completely ignore or erase Elain. With these ships, it's always what benefits Elain does or doesn't bring. It's so misogynistic, people just ignore everything she's mentioned about her own heart and how she doesn't want a mate or the bond, she doesn't care for it, but oh Lucien's had such a hard life, he deserves his mate!!!!!

😒😒😒

Surely he deserves someone who wants him as much as he wants them, no?

Non-elriel-endgame with the canon we currently have would mean Elain's choices are stripped once again since she'd have to give up/lose the love she actually wants in favour of one she doesn't want that's attached to some cultural concept that means zilch to her and her human heart. I mean, sure sjm could spin it so Elain catches feelings for Lucien and they end up happily mated. But then what is the point of having Elain constantly avoid him for three books? That's not even setting up for a good relationship bc every time they interact/meet, the communication just gets worse.

While I can honestly see the potential of gwynriel bc platonic interactions can later become romantic, I still don't ship it bc it doesn't feel right the way elriel does to me. I can def see gwynriel becoming a strong healthy friendship, but if it's endgame then Elain ends up with Lucien, whom she visibly shrinks from and has been avoiding since acowar. She doesn't feel seen by him at all - as much as I love Lucien and truly do want him to have his own HEA, we can't deny that he's really just pursuing (I use pursuing in the loosest way since he's very respectful about it 😅) Elain bc of the bond. If we take that away, there's nothing between them imo and he probably wouldn't give Elain more than a passing glance for her beauty and that's it bc she's not the type of girl he's into.

But people don't wanna think about how that makes Elain feel. This girl who previously felt seen by only one person - who then rejected her bc of that bond itself - and craves someone to see who she truly is, is being courted by someone who doesn't actually like her for her, but just the idea of what a relationship with her would entail. He's only trying bc of some divine belief she doesn't share. That must suck like hell. It's almost objectfying, the bond. And again, I don't blame Lucien at all, not even for trying bc it is something that's important to him and his culture, but it's not a mutual thing. If it were important to Elain too and she just wasn't cooperating bc of some stupid shallow reason, then I'd be angry at her. But that's not the case at all.

But with Azriel, the first person to see her since Graysen, there's so much potential for growth - for both of them. They make each other feel seen. And for all that antis say neither has grown in the time they've known each other, how did Az pluck up the courage to almost kiss Elain after having not done anything with Mor for five centuries? How did Elain initiate that kiss - ie have the courage to follow her heart again after having it torn and shredded by Graysen? And anyway, weve never seen into Elain's head so we don't know what she feels has changed within her; we can only detect subtle changes from other povs, but there might be some huge changes in her learnt from Azriel, maybe about her outlook on life/strength, that she's just keeping hidden for the time (or that no one has bothered to see bc Elain is invisible 😭). Same with Azriel. One little chapter isn't gonna tell us everything he's been thinking the past two years.

But either way, we know now that they both have feelings for each other. Why is a mutual healthy relationship shut down so quickly, one where both partners' choices are taken heed of? If Elain had said no in that moment, Azriel would've stepped back instantly, no questions asked. He probably would've have some huge internal conflict about his own self worth but he wouldn't have gone further without Elain's consent. He's already shown he respects her, he said they've been sharing looks and touches, and these are things fandom eat up, so I don't understand why it's suddenly wrong or unwanted just bc Elain makes up half the ship.

And there's so much foreshadowing/symbolism that antis seem oblivious to, which, fair enough, interpret the text how you want. But even if somebody doesn't see the spark or blooming feelings between the pair throughout the books (how do they explain away all the stiffness whenever one of them is mentioned or is in the same room or something though? Genuinely curious here), there's a lot of plot foreshadowing. The Blood Duel has now been mentioned twice, as has the idea of breaking the bond, maybe more. There's the issue with Koschei and Elain not being able to see things related to him past mist and shadow. There's all this potential conflict that could arise between the Courts if elriel pursue their love, and conflict is the driving force of any novel.

If gwynriel were an IRL couple, I wouldn't care if there were never any conflict, but if I'm reading their story, I want more than just them falling in love and having internal conflict about whether they should kiss the other or not. Especially if the backdrop is a fantasy world on the brink of war with many players. I saw a gwynriel post mentioning Merrill once and while I do think she has the potential to be a running antagonist, I don't see her as anything but a subplot/crony for/associate with another stronger villain. I don't think she could carry a whole novel at the moment. So Gwyn is tied to nothing in the overarching plot. Same with Az. Not to mention all the theories about the Koschei/Swan Lake/firebird folklore that is potentially inspiring this new series in the acotar world. Of course, this could all change as we get more info about the next book/s and all, but compared to elriel certainly, I don't think there's as much conflict with gwynriel.

Ultimately, I don't claim knowledge of the next books' content, so I don't really care what people ship, but the main thing I take issue with is how they treat Elain in the midst. A lot of gwynriel arguments I've seen portray certain acts in a romantic/positive light for Gwyn but either completely ignore or erase any semblance of romance for Elain or tear her down. Like, we shouldn't push the narrative that Gwyn as an SA survivor can't have healthy meaningful sex in the future (yeah, of course I agree), yet some of the same people who say that are also people who judge and make fun of Elain and call her too vanilla for Az without having a clue what her bedroom habits/preferences are 🤯 This is just one of many. There are so many double standards I've seen for gwynriel against elriel and I'm just tired of it. And even if they're not doing any of that, they simply hate Elain and don't want her to be with Az and so ship gwynriel as the next best alternative. Like, can they not push down Elain in favour of Gwyn, please? That's so misogynistic 🤮

For all that this fandom flaunts the series being feminist with strong female characters, they sure do a good job in tearing down females who don't fit their definition of strong, despite even Feyre stating and acknowledging multiple times that Elain has a different kind of strength 😒

Gahhhhhhh. *exhales deeeeeeeeply* Sorry this is so damn LONG!! 😅😅😅😅😅 I did not expect to write a whole bloody essay lol but I hope it was fun/comforting to read at least 😅😆 I know I fall back on elriel posts when the ship war gets too intense bc I actually enjoy shipping elriel. They've become my otp, and I absolutely adore both characters of the ship; I think most of us elriels do. I haven't really seen any elriel stans who dislike/don't care for Elain and her welfare so it's nice being in this corner of the fandom where we can appreciate both Az and Elain equally. And of course, the other characters with their due respect. I truly do want Lucien to finally get his good life, but I don't think that's with Elain 😕

#elain archeron #elriel #azriel acotar #elain x azriel #Acotar #Acosf spoilers

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ghostietea · 3 years

Note

I would love to hear those Akito headcanons! (Also your Akito metas are amazing :D)

Thanks!!! As requested, here's some of the Akito headcanons from my masterdoc:

-Akito slowly and intimidatingly slinks around the estate because she is a powerful and scary God certainly not because she will pass out if she stands up too fast

-at the end of Furuba Akito should have permanently ended things with Shigure and then walked around acting like a 50 year old twice divorced woman even though she's like around 20 and they weren't even formally dating. Ex: Akito, wearing a huge vintage fur coat she found in some closet over slacks and a blouse, taking a sip from a glass filled with a beverage comprised of like one drop of wine and a bunch of cranberry juice: "Just kicked my ex out for the second time. Good riddance, you see-"

-Stole an eyeliner from Kagura one time when she was like 13 and promptly stabbed herself in the eye with it on accident and blamed Kagura.

-Can't even use a microwave. Don't let her cook your kitchen will burn

-When she was a baby Ayame tried to recreate the presentation of Simba with her and dropped her on the floor

-The one time she broke a bone it was because she got pissed off and punched a wall really hard

-Didn't like lit class. Likes reading but hates things like "effort" and "critical thinking." Payed someone else to write the essays she mailed in to school.

-Lesbian but doesn't know what a gay is. Doesn't think anyone suspects anything when she's climbing all over Kureno and Shigure not just because she's generally clingy but because she doesn't know gay people exist. Someone (Hana) has to stage an intervention to inform her that she is gay years in the future after months of everyone having to listen to her talk about how pretty and neat girls are as part of what she thinks is her unlearning being a raging misogynist.

-Demigirl she/they nonbinary but doesn't figure it out for years after she stopped presenting as a man

-Gets anxious about how clumsy Tohru is because of… that incident. One time saw Tohru fall down a flight of stairs and panicked and now she links arms with her anytime they go on stairs.

-Actually sorta likes dressing androgynously when it's her choice. Chronic dressing like a gay person syndrome.

-Didn't keep her hair long. Cut it off after like a month in a moment of passion with a pair of kitchen shears and then had to reluctantly slink off to have someone make it look presentable.

-Secretly loves plushies but is too embarrassed to buy them for herself. Slowly acquires a hoard postcanon and can bury herself in a pile of them.

-She's very light and can be easily picked up and carried around by any of her friends that want to

-Googled "is hitting people bad?"

-Hana can call Akki over by pspspsps ing at her like a cat and Akki HATES it but still falls for it every time

-Doesn't get anything more than a flip phone and work laptop until postcanon. Generally REALLY sheltered, would get addicted to the first video game she got to play. Probably Animal Crossing.

-Secretly read every book of Warriors as a middleschooler but it became unsecret when she got into a fight with Haru about who could do a better human!Scourge cosplay.

-As an adult Kisa is taller than her.

-Mega lightweight with pretty much everything. Will either LOOSE IT and have an anxious breakdown or space out staring at the wall for 3 hours if she drinks coffee. Would probably be strongly affected by too much sugar. Strictly prohibited from drinking alcohol.

-As a child tried to convince the boys that the zodiac girls all had cooties

-Either can't swim or taught herself in her stupidly large tub.

-Sensory issues, does badly with bright lights, loud/annoying noises, non neutral temperatures, ect.

-Has perpetual cold icicle hands

-Crashes through several rebellious teen phases as an adult trying to find herself postcanon. Bleaches her hair and dyes it some unnatural color in the bathroom, immediately regrets it and dyes it black again. Nobody ever knows.

-One time ate a leaf because she was bored and has -10 impulse control

-Makes other people order for her at restaurants

-Postcanon she has a pencil box FULL of animal shaped squishies Tohru gave her

-Was one of those kids that got A's without studying (also canonically homeschooled and ik that crowd)

-Starts painting her nails black after she meets Hana. Likes the symbolism

-Called Hatori her brother by accident once and they both silently agreed to never speak of it

-Rin anonymously mailed her the "I'm sorry women" hat

-Realized she had almost no interests and started ping ponging between hobbies as she tried and then ditched them upon not being immediately amazing at said hobbies. Eventually is given encouragement to keep on trying instead of giving up because she believes she won't be good at it. One of the things she liked was doing stuff with flowers, but she initially ditched it after she killed all the plants she tried to take care of (@ Akki, lying flopped down on a windowsill: Why is everything I touch destroyed… @ her dead flowers: *are dead*). She goes back to it though when she realizes accidentally offing some plants is not a universal statement about her morality and eventually figures it out. Is told to get a personal creative project to work on by her therapist and she sits in the garden and makes a little journal with entries about the flowers and their symbolism complete with illustrations.

-Connected, has a weirdly large amount of flower symbolism and lore memorised postcanon because of this (@ Tohru: wow a pretty flower! @ Akito: Ah yes, the poppy, did you know it symbolizes death, dreams, an eternal sleep… though is an eternal sleep not as good as death? Are dreams a small taste of what's to come? Also did you know they contain opi-" @ Tohru, confused but likes listening to her friends talking about their interests: 😶)

-Would probably do good with a pet cat for emotional support once she gets over the Sohma biases and can be trusted to take care of an animal.

-The Sohma mansion is always out of hot water because Akito uses it all taking hour long angst baths in the giant tub.

-Uo+Hana+Akito have a sleepover were Uo and Akito are talking and are just like wow we both sure had a thing for the same dude because of varied ulterior reasons haha that certainly doesn't mean anything and Hana just sits there wanting to bang their stupid heads together like rocks

-Due to general isolation and probable lack of exposure to "memery," I believe that Akito Sohma would fall for the "updog" trap, in this essay I will-

-Akito full on doesn't remember how old she is. Someone's just like "how old r u?" and she's just like (internally) "How long have I endured existing in this wretched world? Hmm" *sweats in the passage of time doesn't seem real when you dissociate in a dark room all day*. Nobody else remembers exactly either. (That's why Shigure put an "I think" on the end of his "he's in his 20's" lol) Hatori can remember if he needs to but that's because he has her medical records. One time one of the younger juuni is like how old is he??? And they talk for 30 minutes and only come up with "has to be close-ish to but older than Yuki and Kagura. Didn't go to school. Was he born or does he just exist???

-Akki would be that one person that's always cold and has to be lent sweaters by their friends when they're out. You go into Akki's room postcanon and there's a pile of sweaters on a chair that where SUPPOSED to be washed and returned but just haven't been yet

-If Akito was an animal she'd be a cat... claws, dramatically lounging around all day, climbing all over people, attacking and then being like??? But I want love??? I did nothing wrong??? She's got the vibes.

#ask #akito sohma #hc #fruits basket #thanks for enabling me lol

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olivieblake · 4 years

Note

Let me preface this by saying I have always shipped dramione. However, I’m re-reading the Harry Potter series for the first time in years. In that time I’ve become a lot more educated on racism (and it’s many forms, etc...) Also, this is my first time reading it where I didn’t think of mudblood as some made up word for muggle born wizards, but the wizarding world equivalent of the n-word. Given all that, my feelings about the dramione ship have shifted. (1/2)

I often wrote off Draco’s violent racism as the fault of Lucius not Draco, but at what point does it become Draco’s fault. It is chicken soup for my souls when I see racist teens being denied or expelled from schools because of using the N-word or doing something equivalently racist. They probably learned it from their parents as well, but I still blame them. I don’t know what my question is. I just wanted your thoughts

I have a lot of thoughts and here they are in a stream of consciousness format

one is that I think you’re right to recognize that “mudblood” is the wizarding world’s n-word and in a lot of ways there are problems with the dramione ship that we have to be careful about. there’s a reason, for example, that I never write draco using the term “mudblood” in a romantic or sexual way (I really don’t understand why people seek that out) and also a reason I never write historically untenable situations, such as the nazi officer and auschwitz prisoner prompt someone asked for a few months ago. I do think you’re right that there’s a layer of distance we’ve taken advantage of in romanticizing the relationship; it’s hard for us to make the connection to white supremacy because the potterverse is an imaginary world—which is important for children! we feel safe within this world because our imaginations are supposed to be safe and they are children’s books. also, the decision to cast a pretty white actress named emma watson meant that for a lot of us, issues of racism seemed like very distant parallel. should we realize differently now? yes, probably, maybe. I’m still working through my feelings on this, so we’ll come back here

point two: this is the problem with so-called cancel culture, though, that you seem to be implying that at some point draco’s “racism” becomes unforgivable. but it’s not just within the dramione ship that he realizes his wrongs—canonically he shows evidence of awakening, if not actual repentance. isn’t the idea that we want people to wake up and realize they’re wrong, regardless of how long it takes? I would LOVE for donald trump to wake up tomorrow and be like oh shit I’m a racist misogynist, fuck!! that’s obviously not going to happen and it wouldn’t undo anything he did prior to that—but the whole point of dramione is to write draco’s process of 1) realization and 2) contrition. I would argue that every dramione fic (certainly every dramione fic of substance) involves him facing his prejudice and perceiving his error. does it matter that he doesn’t figure this out until his life is threatened at age 17? I mean yes, of COURSE you can blame him for his prejudice (and his prejudicial actions) whether it starts with his parents or not.

but isn’t THE WHOLE POINT that he changes his mind?

I mentioned in our AMERICANAH discussion that I think the author was right—the only way to “cure” racism is romantic love. “Not the kind of safe, shallow love where the objective is that both people remain comfortable. But real deep romantic love, the kind that twists you and wrings you out and makes you breathe through the nostrils of your beloved.” I think the dramione ship has this concept at the root of it: that draco falls in love with hermione and in valuing her over himself (which is what love is!), he begins to not only understand her trauma and the way he caused her pain but also begins repenting for it with his choices. this is always at the heart of it. we always want draco to feel that crushing devastation of knowing exactly what he’s done, and then we want him to be on her side, unconditionally.

is it EXTREMELY ICKIER when you think about this within the frame of a nazi loving a jewish woman or a white supremacist falling for a Black woman? YES, immensely so, I hate it and I would never write an AU for either of those scenarios. I would absolutely not touch that at all. so I think that distance I mentioned earlier is pretty crucial here, because yeah, this is a fake world with magic that doesn’t exist and “mudblood” isn’t the n-word because it isn’t preceded by centuries of slavery, imperialism, or punitive institutional bias. well, there’s obviously institutional bias once voldemort pops up and wrecks shit, but historically? it’s unclear

—which is not to excuse anything. I do think intellectually there is a line to be drawn between these comparisons, though it’s a fine one. if I could choose to unship this at this point in time... maybe I would. personally I have always been diligent about the way I address morality in my fics, but was I ever considering it in terms of racism? no, not really. would I have romanticized this relationship if it felt even remotely like a real prejudice that existed in the world? I don’t believe so, no.

ultimately... I stand by the way I have written this ship. can I stand by the ship in general? I think that’s much more questionable, and also the reason I have avoided so many dramione fics and tropes in the past. because sure, you can romanticize the bad guy for the thrill of the angst, but at a certain point there has to be a moment where we question what, exactly, we’re romanticizing. while I do think there’s an argument for making the intellectual distinction (again, these are children’s books, and also as a first gen immigrant american who was neither british, white, nor magical, I already felt extremely distant from literally everything in these books, so at 11 years old I would not have made the connection between the n-word and “mudblood”) there is also a strong argument for being more conscious of what you read. if you seek out fics where draco is the one who saves hermione, are you seeking something akin to a white savior narrative? if you like fics where draco fetishizes muggle culture, is that the same as fetishizing Black culture? or are you just normal and horny and interested in reading fantasy romance using characters you already know from a fiction series you grew up with??

in conclusion: I think, as in all things, there are gradations to the morality of what we romanticize, and being aware of what we consume and why we consume it is what’s important right now. on a broad scale, however, there are no definitive answers as to whether something is wrong or right, and I will definitely have to think about this when I approach it in the future.

#unpopular opinions #dramione #Anonymous

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captainsimagines · 3 years

Text

Titanic || H.S

Part Five || “No Me Queda Mas”

Disclaimer: I do not own the pictures I use for title cards. Obviously.

Warnings: This book contains mature themes and discussions, such as gun violence, emotional and physical abuse, attempted suicide, mentions of blood, character deaths, heavy sexual content, and reference to the real maritime disaster of the 1912 cruise liner Titanic.

“Exactly. But if you jump, I’m gonna have to jump in there after you.“

Both Harry and Drake were up by seven in the morning, energetic and absolutely starving. They made sure to dress as quietly as they could, careful not to wake their other two roommates. They were men of the same age, around their late twenties, heading to the states to escape religious persecution. They had arrived later that day after they had picked up the remaining passengers from Ireland, both men talkative and equally as excited to start a new life. The four men chatted into the deep hours of the night and discussed a variety of topics. Perhaps the funnest topic they covered was women.

The two men were traveling with their girlfriends and since they were not legally married, they had to bunk in separate living quarters. Except their boyfriends had splurged what money they could to give them the best comfort as possible, and Harry learned their girlfriends were staying as second-class passengers. Drake made the joke about how first and second class weren’t all that different, and that these boys were living every poor man’s dream of being with a woman of practical royalty.

“They scream louder than any woman.”

“What do you mean?” Harry questioned.

“I mean,” Drake nudged his shoulder playfully, “they’re so touch-deprived that they practically melt from any man’s touch.”

“Man, shut the hell up!”

Everyone continued to joke and tease, and Harry wondered if that was indeed true. He had only been with two other women before - his first when he was seventeen and a woman he thought he loved at the age of twenty-four. He prided himself on the noises he caused, but he didn’t quite understand what Drake meant. Did upper-class women really not experience pleasure as often as women in love? Did upper-class women even fall in love? Do upper-class men not know how to perform? He understood the point of the joke, and although slightly misogynistic, Harry pondered on the societal gossip that sometimes proved true. It wasn’t like he was ever going to experience it to compare.

He and Drake tip-toed outside their room and locked it behind them. Breakfast was available until ten, but they wanted first dibs on the freshest stuff there.

It was a buffet style breakfast. They stacked their trays up high, first come - first serve, with buttered bread, sugar cookies, chicken noodle soup, and milk.

“They’re holding out on us. I saw them lugging buckets of grapes and strawberries up to first-class.”

Harry chuckled and sipped his milk, “Because they’re first-class.”

“Either way, this bread is delicious.”

And over breakfast they chatted about their past trips, skills, family, and aspirations. If it was possible, Drake spoke more than Harry. Once a conversation reached its end, Drake would easily glide into a new one. It was quite refreshing to speak to someone who didn’t shut you down or didn’t know how to carry a conversation. Harry paused Drake, however, when he mentioned that he was a trained carpenter.

“You build things?”

“Buildings. I build buildings.”

Harry shoved him, “That’s what I meant!”

Drake laughed along, “Yeah, my father was a carpenter. I built my Montana ranch from the ground up with my own two hands.”

Harry felt like meeting Drake was fate. Now he didn’t have to grovel and beg some New York carpenter to oversee the construction of a London business. If Drake agreed to help Harry build his bakery, he would at least trust the process more. A few sips of soup and some sugar cookies later and Harry considered Drake a closer friend than those he met on the playground.

“I have a proposition.”

“Well, Mr. Capitalist, I’m all ears.”

Harry grinned, “Would you like to help me build my family’s bakery? I would pay you generously and provide you housing during your extended stay in New York.”

Drake mimicked the act of deep thought, leaning forward and swishing around his cup of milk. “Hmm, a generous offer.”

“Or do you have to be back in Montana immediately?”

Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t.

“My brother has the ranch covered. I can write to him and let him know I’ll be bringing in a little extra cash.”

Harry jumped in his seat like an excited child, “Is that a ‘yes’?”

Drake chuckled and tried not to spill his milk as Harry shook his shoulders excitedly.

Drake was around five years older than Harry, thirty-two and thriving, so it made sense that he had this feeling of being an older brother to Harry. He was actually the youngest of his siblings, having older brothers at his side since birth. It was a blessing, and in a weird twist of plot, he felt like an attentive older brother sat here at breakfast. The way Harry’s bright smile lit up any room and the way he acted as if everything happened for a reason - he was almost tempted to give this kid the rest of his sugar cookies.

“Sure, man. I trust you’ll pay me.”

Harry nodded and while overflowing with joy, he slid his sketchbook in front of Drake and began reviewing the first couple sketches of the type of building he had in mind.

You had been kept up late by your mother’s final walk-through of your stay room, complaining there were not enough towels and not enough space for your accessories on the bedside table. She acknowledged the vastness of the ship and its wonderful hospitality, but there was always something wrong in her mind. And all you could do was nod your head as you sat impatiently in the side chair as she worked the midnight crew through each fix.

So excuse your slow responses and tiny yawns at breakfast. The tables were beginning to clear out, with many still entering for early tea or a late meal. The breeze passed through the open doors and nipped at your cheeks, waking you up slightly from the boring chatter.

As the others spoke, you couldn’t help but think about yesterday and what weird a kiss you and Cal had shared. Was it supposed to feel good? You knew Cal had other women before as he was turning thirty-six just a week after your scheduled wedding. He was never so playful, especially not in front of waiting staff, so you pondered what that change in attitude could possibly mean. Or perhaps you were thinking too much, and he really just had a lapse in judgement.

You could make out talk about the weather, America’s current stock market, and ideas about what the cooks were going to prepare later today. Speak on topics that never interested you and never will interest you carried on for a few more minutes before everyone began ordering their second course. You pulled a cigarette and its holder from your handbag, expertly placed the cigarette inside the silver and inhaled the cooled, mellowed smoke. It woke you up instantly, also calming any nerves from the night before.

You didn’t like when Cal smoked and dusted your flooring, but the presence of a holder made all the difference. No mess, no stains on your fingers - just tranquility.

Your mother cleared her throat quietly as to only alert you, watching the other occupants of your table carry on with their conversation. She unfolded her napkin and placed it carefully across her lap. “You know I don’t like when you do that in public.”

Instead of rolling your eyes at her absurd worry, you inhaled the smoke deeply and exhaled across her view, clouding her face in your personal stress release. It was a power move, a move that you were allowed to execute since she was in control of literally every other aspect of your life. A little smoke shouldn’t anger her as much as it did, but any ounce of independence you still displayed could be interpreted as plain disobedience. And disobedience of your own family meant it resulted in disobedience within a marriage. But before you could establish dominance in one area of your life - your own body - Cal reached over to pull the cigarette from its holder and extinguished it on one of the side plates. You narrowed your eyes, ashamed of the control he proved he had.

“She knows,” Cal chuckled, ignoring your look of embarrassment and instead calling over the waiter who was making his rounds.

A woman you had met briefly yesterday as she boarded from Ireland, Molly, was invited to sit at your breakfast table by one of the men here, yet you couldn’t remember which one. She was a small woman, dressed in a comfortable dress that didn’t quite match the occasion of a late breakfast, but she wore it proudly. She was sweet, strong-willed, and almost always proved louder than anyone else in the room. You liked her personality as it was entirely different from everyone else you had ever met. Although your mother called her “new money” with a nasty grimace on her face, you only saw her for what she was - independent and vocal.

But here you were now, being dehumanized in front of practical strangers, and you looked up to see Molly’s surprised expression. She lowered her arm to extinguish her own cigarette on her ashtray. To continue smoking freely after you had been refused your tiny refuge seemed wrong, improper even. But you didn’t acknowledge her action, ears perking up as Cal restated your breakfast order.

“We’ll both have the lamb, rare, with very little mint sauce.”

You absolutely hated lamb. Any type of meat, really, and the thought of having to stuff it down so you wouldn’t starve maddened you.

“You like lamb, right Sweetpea?”

You plastered a thin, wide smile as you turned to your fiancé, your face almost comical and proving so as Cal took it as a real ‘yes’.

By now your little squabble had gained attention from all at your table. Molly began laughing loudly to cut through the tension, raising her water glass to take a quick sip.

“You gonna cut and chew her meat there too, huh Cal?”

Your mother turned to her sharply but Molly was unmoved, deciding to change the subject to something more interesting. Cal interlocked his fingers together and rested his hands above his belt buckle, looking across the table at Molly with a more calm look compared to your mother, but still hardened with displeasure.

“Say, who thought of the name ‘Titanic’? Was it you, Bruce?” Molly asked.

Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line, seemed ecstatic to receive questions about the ship. As of that month, it was his greatest accomplishment and current world wonder, his newborn creation that deserved any and all praise given. He nodded happily and swallowed the piece of fruit hurriedly to answer Molly’s question.

“Yes, yes,” he answered, cleaning his mouth with a napkin. “Mr. Andrews here built her from the ground up!”

Thomas Andrews, a shipbuilder and main architect for Titanic, was shy with any compliment he received, deciding to accept the praise quickly and return the attention back to Ismay. “But the idea was all Mr. Ismay’s! He envisioned a liner so grand in scale...”

You began to drown the conversation out. Cal insisted on dining with specific groups of people. From your point of view, it worked almost like a ranking. Ismay and Andrews were certainly important people on this ship and had first hand experience with such social circles, but they were no John Jacob Astor. The most Cal and your mother did was share morning greetings with Astor, who dined with his wife in a more private section of the same dining hall. Cal had always maintained your titles of royalty, saying that only a few dollars here and there separated you from a higher connection. And at dinner time your group expanded, including around ten others who were just as respectable.

“I wanted to convey sheer size with her name! And size means stability, luxury, and above all, strength,” Ismay spoke.

You sucked in a low breath, ready to make a select few laugh and others seethe. “Do you know of Dr. Freud, Mr. Ismay?”

Mr. Ismay turned to you in silent astonishment, surprised by the first complete sentence you had spoken all breakfast. But he smiled and shook his head ‘no’ at the name. You felt your mother reach her hand under the table to cup your arm.

“His opinion about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you.”

Your mother’s fingernails dug deep into your forearm. “What has gotten into you?”

But Molly and Mr. Andrews enjoyed your comment, laughing under their breaths.

You smiled sweetly and tore your arm away from your mother, standing and excusing yourself from the table. Both Mr. Ismay and Mr. Andrews stood out of respect for your departure. You exited the room to walk out on deck.

Cal took in slow breaths to steady his rising anger, avoiding other’s eyes so that they wouldn’t notice the effect you had on him. But Molly, with her rapid wit and steady toughness, wouldn’t let Cal live this down.

“She’s a pistol, Cal. Hope you can handle her!”

Cal crinkled his eyes and chuckled as to brush off your misbehavior. “I might just have to mind what she reads from now on, don’t I?”

Mr. Ismay sat down and readjusted his tie. “Freud, who is he? Is he a passenger?”

It was bullshit that third-class passengers were barred from touring certain areas of the ship. All Harry wanted was a better view of the ship’s structure so he could outline it. He mainly drew portraits but he had promised his mother he would show her his drawings of the best parts of the ship, like the grand staircase, fashion, the giant steam funnels, even the food. But third-class passengers weren’t allowed in first-class areas without the proper approval, having to eat from a choice of about four foods each day and reduced to simply imagining what the giant clock looked like.

So Harry doodled anything he found interesting - the dogs who traveled down to third-class to take a shit, the coast of Ireland as Titanic sailed past, and third-class passengers with their children, card games, and instruments. He was currently drawing a man holding his daughter up against the railing to see the water, focusing on the detail of their clothing and their happy expressions. Drake watched Harry work his magic, grinning every single time Harry drew the next precise detail accurately. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge, but Drake swore that every human wanted to have this specific talent. Anyone who disagreed wasn’t human.

“I can’t believe you got the eyes right,” Drake scoffed, inhaling smoke from his reduced cigarette.

Harry grinned at the comment, smudging the charcoal over the two foreheads to create the shading. Looking from the models to his paper, he completed another detail that impressed his friend. He was almost finished, brushing his index finger over certain parts. Drake greeted some friends he met at last night’s dinner as they walked past and rested in the surrounding benches. He motioned them over to Harry’s work.

Drake nodded in approval at all the compliments Harry received, “Do you make any money off your drawings?”

It’s quite possibly every artist’s worst nightmare, to scribble incorrectly over a good drawing, completely ruining the fine detail it took too long to accomplish. But as Harry’s pencil scraped over that crumpled piece of paper, the air around him and the water under him spoke to his artistic desires, telling him to wreak havoc on his flimsy sheet and to never stop. The somewhat endless black line did indeed stop once it reached the edge and to the fabric of his tan pants, leaving a light but visible charcoal mesh on his only pair. His eyes, as well as his clouded mind, ignored his major mistake and instead focused on the yellow fabric that begged to flap higher in the cool, ocean breeze.

His eyes traveled through every detail- the white lace clinging to the base yellow, the pearls hugging your waistline and wrapping around your backside to function as buttons, the baroque beauty of your neck and the lace wrapped around it, your brown skin glistening underneath the sun, and your red lips sculpted into a memorable pout - all of it entered Harry’s viewpoint in what seemed like forever but only took a mere second. One glorious second for Harry to stumble into a world he knew he could never abandon. The curl in your hair, the frown on your face, the gentle nature of your grip on the forbidden first-class railing - all of it a disastrous craving that would for sure develop into a blister on the lip if Harry didn’t get a smell of your lavish locks and accidentally brush the tip of his nose against the priceless diamonds draped through each curl, or get a taste of the red syrup staining your plump lips and accidentally bite it a little too hard to muster a moan of pleasure rich women kill to produce, or get to feel the touch of your fingertips against his palms, his face, his chest, his back as you left streaks of bright red. These prohibited images knocked against the padded confines of his thick skull and he felt like he completely violated the law with such an absurd idea.

But as you furrowed your eyebrows and focused on another focal point - Harry himself - he felt as if every inch of your being was worth being imprisoned for. His forbidden sweet creature.

You stared at the stranger briefly before looking back at the waves beyond the bow of the ship. Yet, you continued to feel his powerful gaze. You didn’t feel uncomfortable with his locked stare, but you wondered if he was possessed, spiraling through a trance that you had become a victim of. Was his gaze good or bad? Was he seriously entranced or judging your physique? Walking away would break the spell, but you stayed glued to the railing for some reason, watching the waves make way for Titanic’s many entrances.

You heard the voice in your head instruct your view to stay on the water, but you disobeyed for once, unaware of such a lovely decision until you locked eyes with your third-class admirer. You have always gotten attention from anyone you encountered, both pleasant and unpleasant, but attention nonetheless. And the waves of this particular admiration traveled through the misty breeze and onto your blushed cheeks, pinching them with a silent yelp, a plea, an almost beggarly request for your consideration. So you obliged its want, gazing across the third-class gatherings to the man sitting on one of the few benches on deck, surrounded by confused and teasing passengers who looked between you and him, wondering if you were going to break first from the rare situation. A situation that many never considered legitimate, possible, or even appropriate. But the lot of you were on the blue waves and the bubbly foam and the impressive craft of a thousand good Irishmen that welcomed the rare and extraordinary.

He was attractive - his short hair dancing in the air one curl at a time, his broad form rising to sit up straight when he realized you were also admiring him, and his eyes never blinking as to not miss anything you might do. And he had this magnetic pull, almost as if he was screaming at you to come down and speak with him. You felt somewhat disgusted with yourself, imagining a normal conversation with a normal person, a very handsome person, whose gaze alone made you feel a tingle at your fingertips and caused a tiny grin to break on your face. It wasn’t appropriate to be thinking of another man this way when you had never felt this way for the man you were to marry. And yesterday’s kiss did not equate to the powerful senses you were currently experiencing.

You hoped he didn’t see your grin, but Harry did. He caught it instantly, his heart pounding and his hands instructing him to quickly sketch the curve.

By now Drake was waving a hand over Harry’s face to see if that broke off his view, but Harry simply leaned forward, unaware of the obstruction and oh so enchanted by that tiny grin you hadn’t dropped.

“Oh, forget it, Harry! It’s like angels flying out your ass to get next to the likes of her.”

To be seen, thought of, recognized as a human being and not glossed over as some extra - the recognition of plain existence excited you to new extremes. And just as your mind told you to unlock the first-class gate and venture over to your admirer, real life interrupted in the form of Cal’s tamed grip on your upper arm.

You dropped your gaze quickly, hoping Cal did not realize your original viewpoint, and looked down at the unwanted physical connection between you.

"Why must you defy your mother’s orders and misbehave in front of friends?”

You pulled yourself away from his tightening grip. “I have already received this lecture from my own mother. I do not need to hear it again.”

Cal let out a low chuckle, “Then why must you not listen? You embarrassed me.”

You fought the urge to yell and relay yet another disapproving tone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m not feeling well this morning.”

And with that fake apology, Cal hummed in sympathy and tugged you in for a short hug. “Why didn’t you just say so? It could have saved us the humiliation.”

You sucked in a harsh breath at his choice of words to avoid the frustrated tears, pulling away and patting his chest as you excused yourself to your stay room. He groaned as he suspected he had done something else wrong, but did not dare to follow you this time.

Drake shook his head in discontent, “A man like that should be grateful to have a woman like her.”

Other passengers shared their agreement, whistling and all. They teased Harry and shoved him playfully, congratulating him for the impossible. And as you walked from Harry’s eyesight back into the ship, he rejoined the conversation briefly before he began a simple illustration of your eyes.

Drake sat back down on the same bench as Harry as all the chatter died down, looking over at Harry’s paper. He rolled his eyes and smiled.

“She really did a number on you, huh? I’m all for going after the unreachable but this is truly unreachable, boy-yo.”

Harry stopped his tracing to look up at Drake, “I know… but she saw me, too.”

Drake furrowed his eyebrows, wondering if Harry was simply awestruck or serious. And with a slight chuckle of disbelief, Drake muttered, “that she did.”

A moment passed before Drake spoke again, deciding on letting Harry live in his little fantasy for the rest of the day. He tapped Harry’s stack of papers with his index finger. “I’m sure you’ll do her justice.”

And Harry did.

If you stood in the middle of the room and screamed at the top of your lungs, you were certain no one would even look up. Because besides your impressive attitude you were known for, your problems seemed minuscule compared to others. No one seemed to piece together why you were the way you were, opting for society’s sexist explanations instead of simply asking you.

Just a few hours ago you were seen and not looked over quickly - you felt appreciated and noticed. Now, even in a room with hundreds of people and many sat at the same table as you, you weren’t even acknowledged. Perhaps it was because you never spoke - you couldn’t blame them for not noticing you then. But then again, when you did speak and Cal silenced or interrupted you, discrediting even opinions, no one minded.

They were the same endless parties, the same narrow people, and the same mindless chatter. Like they flipped a switch each night and wiped their slate clean, ready for the same routine the very next day with no complaints at all. And it frightened you that this would remain your routine, the same routine you had already lived for twenty-two years, with no way out and no ‘off’ button.

You felt as if you were floating away, heavy and lightweight at the same time, feeling yourself blink every few minutes. Your eyes focused on one point - the ashtray in the middle of the rounded table, even as people from surrounding tables came to greet your mother and Cal. You kept track of time by the impressive height of the gray ash, some landing outside the tray and onto plates. It grew higher… and higher… and your food was barely picked at, Cal was reaching over you every so often to tap his cigarette on the tray, and your mother was on her fourth glass of champagne.

They didn’t see that you weren’t eating. How does someone not notice that someone isn’t eating at a dinner?

You reached over for your champagne glass, your hand shaking slightly as you downed the rest of it. Everyone’s voices were becoming silent, like you were covering both ears or going deaf, and as Cal reached over to give you a kiss on the cheek, your eyes were suddenly heavy.

“Please, excuse me, Cal. I need to run to our room really quickly.”

Cal paused his conversation with Astor to turn to you. “Are you alright? Would you like me to escort you to the cabin?”

And you smiled, “I’ll be fine.”

It was a really nice gesture, but in Cal’s mind it was simple chivalry.

You stood up, your feet sore and the nerves bunching together throughout your legs. The laughter seemed to grow as you exited, and now those nerves shocked you into running.

You barged into your stay room, ignoring the obvious worry the staff gave you, their questions of tea or more blankets flying over your head. You simply speed-walked past them, hiding your face behind your curls so they would not see your very real tears, staining the powder on your cheeks and leaving visible streaks lighter than your natural color. You leaned back on the door and tried to drown out the drunken laughs and loud violins. Controlling your breathing was easy at first until you opened your eyes and saw a mass explosion of gold, the intricate designs of each piece of cloth, the carvings in the wood encasing your mirror, your freshly made bed that Cal had jokingly suggested he’d crawl into late at night. You swallowed the itch in your throat, walking to the make-up table to drop the pins you began tearing from your hair. One-by-one you let each curl fall to your shoulder, their lost weight causing your headband of diamonds to fall to the floor. You silently deliberated what the name of your maid was, cursing yourself for forgetting when she had so nicely introduced herself last night. But then her name slid from your tongue, and you almost cried from the sudden joy.

“Trudy?” you called, starting to hyperventilate. “Trudy?”

You reached behind you to unbutton your dress, but your shoulders just wouldn’t bend far enough. Suffocated, you clawed at the loose hanging jewels instead, pinching and stretching the skin on your back that you could reach.

“Trudy!” you began to choke on your breath, yelling louder each time you called the maid. So you tugged and ripped the silver necklace from your neck, threw your jewelry box across the room, and tossed a few perfume bottles you had packed so delicately against the wall.

“I can’t... I can’t,” you cried, knees partially crumbling beneath you as you leaned against the chair. You lifted your head to witness your disheveled look, hair a mess and mascara smudged just below your water line. Lips quivering, an intense wave of self-pity and self-hatred drowning your thoughts, exclaiming the few words that actually made it through your sore skull. You listened to them, repeated and mean, basically ordering you to listen and to follow.

“Ya no queda mas.”

There is nothing left.

You were indeed a follower - and you were going to oblige.

And so you abandoned everything, opening your room door and running through the crowded hallway full of oblivious passengers who swam in the bliss of a full stomach and buzzed fingertips and toes.

You ran across the deck to the stern of the ship, careless as to who or what you toppled along the way. Of course everyone took an interest, calling out to see if you needed assistance. But as you left their eyesight, their worry diminished and they assumed someone else would offer a hand. One right after the other, they allowed you to cross their paths and leave it in an instant.

Harry lay on a third-class bench, staring up at the starry night. With a cigarette in one hand and the other stuffed away warmly in his coat pocket, he wondered just exactly where in the hell that damn ‘Big Dipper’ was. Or the little one. Hell, any constellation for that matter. He loved watching the night sky, but the city smog hid most of the stars. Now, with only the steam from the funnels blocking his view, he focused on every star individually, losing track of them as time passed, each one beginning to look the same in size but different in brightness. They formed all kinds of shapes in Harry’s mind, but he could not find those documented ones the astronomers raved on about.

He could have sworn he saw the rectangular shape slightly, its handle coming into existence as the sound of sobbing arrived and left in a flash. He lifted himself up, cigarette hanging from his pink lips and eyebrows scrunched in confusion. He watched as you continued running, pausing to catch your breath at one of the benches.

He recognized that beautiful brown skin anywhere.

His feet hit the deck floor immediately once he saw that you weren’t stopping, instead walking towards the stern railing and looking over into the water. He jogged lightly, careful not to make much noise as you contemplated such a drastic decision. Perhaps you were going to change your mind, step away, take a deep breath and go back to your endless desserts and musical concerts. But he quickly hid behind a pole when you checked to see if anyone had followed you, slightly disappointed in the fact that no one did, and stepped onto the railing and swung a leg over.

“Fuck,” Harry whispered, his mind racing and thinking of a way to calmly and safely get you back onto the deck without frightening you. If he were to jump out now, you were for sure going to let go.

You turned around once more and back toward the water, this small gesture of goodbye to the ship and all on it finally settling within you. The waves were dark, not light blue like they were during the daytime. And they sounded louder and more angry, taunting you instead of offering tranquility. The thought of jumping when the sun was out danced around in your head, a more vibrant suicide seeming better suited for your needs.

But maybe you deserved to die in the dark with no other sound besides the unnerving crashing of water and massive propellers in a never ending motion of slicing. You thought about Cal and almost immediately recoiled, the last thought before you died an unhappy thought and not at all what you wanted it to be. Perhaps your mother or your father. Trudy. No one seemed to properly fit, so you settled on the image of your famed racehorse as you leaned away from the railing, hanging off and ready to fall. Your racehorse, dark brown and majestic, waiting for you to come home.

“Don’t do it.”

You gripped the railing tight, unaware that your initial hold was so loose, and you were moments away from leaving your misery behind.

You whipped your head to see who had followed you, stunned that this person was not from the first-class - the class that prides themselves on their selflessness and courage. He was from the third - the class that truly embodied all things selfless and are crucified for it.

“Stay back,” you begged, raising one hand up as if to physically stop him, but you quickly regretted it as you felt the tough winds push you ever so slightly. “Please don’t come near me.”

Harry contemplated his next move, inhaling some final smoke from his cigarette and stepped closer. He showed you the cigarette, stepping towards the railing to throw it overboard.

It was smart, you thought. He was going to come closer, you knew that. But to do it so discreetly as to not scare you - you were kind of grateful.

“Please just leave me alone,” you sobbed, looking back down to the rushing water. “I’ll let go.”

Harry stood dumbfounded, hands in his pockets and worry etched into his face. He remained calm, however, trusting in himself to sweet talk you back over the railing.

He cleared his throat, “No, you won’t.”

You scoffed, newly formed tears threatening to leave your eyes. “What?”

“You won’t do it.”

This time you looked up to the starry sky to gain clearance in thought but were intrigued nonetheless. Either you could snap at him and jump, or you could listen and come back over the railing. All you wanted to do now was sleep, as your head began feeling heavier by the second.

“What are you going on about? Don’t presume to tell me what I will or will not do! You don’t know me.”

Harry cleared his throat awkwardly, still trying to calm the situation down as easily as he could. But as your hands turned whiter as your grip strengthened and your voice began to crack, Harry knew he had to convince you this was not the answer.

He didn’t quite understand it - wanting to end your life at such a young age. By the look of your clothes and make-up, Harry could tell you had most material things the people in third-class would kill for. But there were sparkly tears on your waterline, contradicting the image of glory and wealth you so effortlessly portrayed, and the sounds of crashing waves waiting to gobble you up - the sense of you, the mere idea of that glory and wealth, - it absolutely bombarded any quick wit or joke Harry’s mouth was thinking of spitting. All rational from here on out.

“I’m sorry,” Harry spoke, bringing his hands up to breathe warm air into them. “I just don’t want you to experience the dip, is all.”

You stayed silent, staring at him as he stared at you.

“You know the water’s freezing. If you were to survive the fall, the cold would probably hurt more.”

Now your bottom lip quivered and the sudden realization of how cold the night air actually was hit you at that exact moment, and you internally begged for the stranger to step closer. “How cold?”

Harry shrugged, still trying his best to remain casual. “Most likely a couple degrees over.”

You stared at the black abyss beneath you, “I bet that would hurt.”

Harry chuckled lowly, taking the risk and stepping closer to you that a simple turn of the head was enough to see his whole face. And it dawned on you, swiftly and surely, that this was the boy who could not seem to stop staring at you earlier. He was much more handsome up close, and his voice was the final piece of the puzzle. “Exactly. But if you jump, I’m gonna have to jump in there after you.”

You laughed dryly, “You’re crazy. Absurd. The fall alone would kill you.”

Harry smirked to himself, focused on the way your wavy hair flew in all directions. He was getting you to speak more. He was buying time. So, he removed his jacket and warm vest to prove his statement.

“Yeah, it would hurt,” Harry shrugged, finally stepping close enough to hang across the railing with you. He glanced down to your shivering feet, fearful that the heels would unlock themselves and send you free falling. “Trust me, you don’t want to do this-”

“And how do you know that? Maybe I want to… die.” It resonated as a question in both your minds, the sinking sensation overwhelming your chest.

“We all die someday. I think the best part is not knowing when.”

You observed the boy’s face, studying his expression to somehow gain a better explanation as to what he possibly meant. You swallowed more tears, this time speaking in a low whisper.

“I can easily predict when.”

Harry actually felt his stomach clench.

You continued, “It’s probably already planned, with as many as two-hundred guests in attendance, and an open bar.”

Harry shifted his weight from his right foot to his left, his eyes never leaving yours. “It’s difficult to respond to that.”

You gave him a small smile, “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

Whether you meant that in a sincere or disrespectful way, Harry was hurt by the comment nonetheless.

“I know you’re angry, but trust me,” he redirected, an attempt to forget suicidal intentions and reasons and focus on the actual present moment itself. “Water that cold, like right down there… it hits you like a thousand knives stabbing you all over your body. You can’t breathe, can’t think-”

You closed your eyes, eyebrows scrunched and suddenly so very cold. “Okay, please stop.”

Harry watched as your skin produced goosebumps and your grip tightened even more. It was a sign of victory, he thought. “I’m just hoping you’ll save me the swim by coming back over the railing.”

You sighed deeply, the air you expelled turning into the cold breeze itself, mixing with the shaky breaths of the one person on this whole damn ship to hear your screams. And you didn’t even physically cry out.

“Come back with me. Trust me, you don’t wanna do this.”

You reached your arm over to prepare for the turn, but instead of gripping the railing like you expected, a warm hand gripped yours instead, tightly, and his thumb immediately began rubbing your knuckles in a soothing motion. He helped you turn back toward the ship, hands now gripping both of yours.

He smiled up at you, his eyes almost watering from the unnoticed stress that was building within him. You grinned slightly, giving a small shrug of the shoulders as the silence broke.

“I don’t want to go back.”

Harry grasped your hands tighter, “Hey, me neither. Do you know how many rats welcomed me in my cabin yesterday?”

You laughed (somewhere between a laugh and a snort), forgetting momentarily that the two of you were standing in dangerous positions exchanging quiet words.

“Thank you.”

“It’s no problem. I’m Harry Styles.”

“I’m-”

“An absolute blooming rose.”

Your eyes widened momentarily, the moment passing with an awareness of peace from the sudden declaration of recorded beauty. You told him your real name anyway, absolutely loving the way it sounded in a british accent, his british accent, but the ‘blooming rose’ reference remained number one. There, with your body still on the wrong side of the ship and his hands now clutching your upper arm and elbow to begin pulling you over - there you were actually content with your current life.

“Up you go.”

You raised one leg to step up a rail, unaware that the beaded lace part of your dress was longer than the rest. It caused a severe slip, and before you knew what was happening, you were falling. You screamed, one hand barely catching the railing and the other arm suffering Harry’s grip and digging nails.

“Harry!”

Harry cried out in distress, almost going over himself. He locked his feet to the ground and against the ship, thighs pressed against the railing, and attempted to pull you up.

“C’mon, you can do it! You gotta climb, too!”

You followed his instructions, trying to climb the railing like a ladder with your free hand. But as you got higher and your legs remained swinging mindlessly against the wet ship, you slipped lower.

“Help me! Help me, please!” you yelled, to Harry and to anyone else who would hear, the ocean now loud with the outrage of your absence.

Harry could feel his heart exploding from the adrenaline spiking as he looked down at your terrified face, relying solely on him to save your life. The whole time he spoke with you he was frightened of the possibility of you letting go or accidentally falling, but now that he could visibly see that you most certainly did not want to die this way, he was mortified.

“I got you, okay?” Harry waited to shout again until you looked back up to him. “I got you.”

You nodded the best you could, the tears still dripping from your eyes and nose, determined to hear his frightened voice.

“I won’t let go! I promise. Now, pull yourself up!”

It took everything in you to support your own body weight with a corset strangling you at the same time, but you gripped the rails and then Harry’s shoulder. The corset made it more difficult to breathe, but you compiled the last pinches of energy and strength within you and aided Harry in your rescue. You groaned as your knees stabbed into the top bar, but the feeling of Harry’s arms wrapping around your waist to pull you over fully eradicated that pain. You two toppled over onto the safe deck, rolling over each other with a loud thud. Harry stayed glued to your waist while you gripped the deck with your nails.

In such a climactic moment, the two of you didn’t notice three members of the crew running toward you with no clue as to what just occurred.

“What’s all this?”

Your dress had ripped slightly, and due to your bedroom tantrum and the high winds, your hair was in absolute disorder. You had no coat on, tears streamed down your face, and a third-class man was hovering over your trembling body. And the crew failed to detect the similar shaking of Harry’s large frame or his scared expression, instead pointing a finger at him and labeling him the guilty party.

“Don’t you move an inch,” a crew member warned, stepping toward Harry and dragging him away from you. Two of the men swooped in to scoop you up, checking for signs of harm.

Your frantic eyes searched for Harry, but he was already looking at you, slightly disappointed and eager to prove himself innocent without throwing you into the cold water himself by revealing the truth.

Finally, they have met lol. xxMoni

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 5 years

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Hi! As someone who’s literary opinion I really trust, I was surprised that you’re a twilight fan? I know almost nothing except commen knowledge things about that series, and I always assumed it was actually bad/un-feminist. What is it that you like so much that others seem to miss? I’m just genuinely curious about your take on the hate it always seems to get vs. it’s actual quality. I’m not gonna judge bc animorphs is also one of those books where you see it and assume it’s bad.

In over 14 years of loving this series, I’m not sure anyone has ever asked me why I enjoy it instead of simply trying to convince me that I’m wrong to do so. So thank you for that.

First and foremost, I love the Twilight saga because of the vivid detail in Stephenie Meyer’s writing style. The descriptions are so lush and dense with sensory information that you can practically bite down on them as you read. Bella and Jacob aren’t just sitting on the beach; they’re sitting on a gnarled log of driftwood, worn smooth at the top from where so many Quileute teens have sat upon it during bonfires but still uneven enough to rock on its branches when Bella suddenly stands to rage at her own mortality. Meyer describes that log in Twilight, so tangibly and with such economy of detail, that we recognize it immediately when Bella and Jacob return to that spot in Eclipse. I’ve always disliked the movies, because I’ve always felt that the best part of Meyer’s writing simply did not translate well to the screen.

Secondly, I love the feminism.

Okay, let’s take a quick pause to let everyone gasp and clutch their pearls over me calling Twilight a feminist work. I will address the criticisms later. For now, please just hear me out.

Twilight strikes me as a premier example of what Hélène Cixous means when she calls for “women’s writing,” or writing for women, about women, by women, with a strong focus on the concerns and strengths and desires of womanhood. This is a series about building and maintaining close relationships, both romantic and platonic. It celebrates beauty, and love, and care. Bella moves to Forks because she recognizes that her dad is lonely while her mom is quite the opposite, torn between family priorities. She doesn’t simply subsume her interests to those of other people, but instead actively chooses how and when and where to express her love for her birth family and her found families. Most of the other major decisions throughout the story — Alice “adopting” Bella, Carlisle moving the family to Alaska, Jacob becoming werewolf beta, the Cullens going up against the Volturi, etc. — are motivated by care and devotion for one’s family and friends. Even the selfish or morally ambiguous character choices are shown to be motivated by love. Rosalie tells Edward that Bella died because she genuinely thinks it’ll help him move on. Victoria creates an army that nearly destroys Forks because she’s avenging James. Alice abandons Bella and the others before the final battle because if she can’t save her entire family, then she’ll settle for saving her lover before letting him die in vain.

Not only is there a striking concern with love and care, but there’s also a strong commitment to avoiding violence. Bella’s eventual vamp-superpower proves to be preventing violence and protecting others, an awesome character decision that I’d argue gets set up as early as the first book. She lives in a violent world — this is a YA SF story, after all — but she has the power to suppress violence and create peace, both in herself and others. I was already sick of “power = ability to inflict damage” in YA stories well before I knew the word “patriarchy.” Twilight was one of the first books to convey to me that power could be refusing to do harm in spite of hunger or anger, that power could be shielding ones’ family, that power could be about building enough friendships and alliances to have an army at one’s back when facing an enemy too strong to take on alone.

Closely connected to all of that love and care, I love how much Twilight is about navigating teenage girlhood. Is it empowering, intersectional, or all-inclusive? Hell no. Does it still dare to suggest that a completely ordinary teenage girl could have valid concerns about the world? Yep. The main conflict of the story, as Stephen King so derisively explained, is about the romantic entanglements of a teenage girl, and the book therefore has no literary merit. (To quote my dad’s response: “Bold words from the guy who inflicted Firestarter on the world.”)

There is, indeed, a lot of romance in Twilight. There are a lot of clothes. Alice and Rosalie especially spend a lot of time on makeup, and hair, and choosing the prettiest cars and houses. Twilight embraces all the stereotypically “girly” concerns of adolescence, and makes no effort to apologize for or condemn them. Bella isn’t particularly good at performing them — she likes but doesn’t excel at shopping, fiercely defends her ugly car as ugly, hobbles through prom on crutches — but she can still enjoy the feeling of being pretty in a sparkly dress while dancing with her sparkly boyfriend. And Twilight, like Animorphs with Cassie, takes the daring step of treating that feeling as valid.

Speaking of sparkles, I love the commitment to the fantasy concept in Twilight, including the myriad mundanities that Meyer brings with that commitment. If you have super-speed, why not use it to play extreme baseball? If you’re a mindreader with a clairvoyant sister, why wouldn’t you two play mental chess games? I couldn’t tell you, after seven seasons of Buffy or eight of Vampire Diaries, what Spike or Damien or Angel or Stefan does all day when not brooding or lurking in the bushes to creep on human women. I can tell you what the Cullens get up to. Emmett and Rosalie work on their cars, usually by holding them overhead one-handed. Carlisle and Alice read plays, and sometimes talk the whole family into home Shakespeare productions. Edward and Carlisle debate theology, Emmett and Jasper have dumb athletic competitions, Edward and Esme play music, Alice manipulates stock markets, the twins go shopping online, etcetera. The Cullens feel real, feel like the vampires next door, in a way that Louis and Lestat simply do not.

To get to the elephant in the room — I just described Twilight as a feminist text! — let’s talk about the other thing the Cullens do for fun: they have sex. Weird sex. Kinky furniture-breaking sex. Sex that Emmett (who would know) compares to bear-wrestling. These books suck with regards to queer representation, but they are sex-positive. They feature an old-school Anglican protagonist offering his daughter-in-law a medical abortion. They treat Edward’s desire for sex only within marriage and Alice’s desire for sex outside of marriage as both being valid. Like I said, not groundbreaking, even by the standards of 2005, but still more than most teen novels do even today.

There’s a passage from Breaking Dawn that people love to pull out of context as “everything wrong with Twilight in two paragraphs” because it describes Bella waking up the morning after sex with bruises on her arms. That moment is shocking out of context, to be sure — but in context, it’s the end result of an in-depth consent negotiation that lasts four books. Bella says that she’d like to become a vampire. Edward says okay, but only if she spends a few more years living as a human and considering that choice. Bella says okay, but only if Edward, not Carlisle, becomes the one to turn her. Edward says they can use his venom, but that Carlisle, who’s an MD, really needs to supervise the process. Bella doesn’t love the idea of Edward’s stepdad cockblocking what’s supposed to be an intimate moment, and so agrees only on the grounds that she gets to have sex with Edward as a human first. Edward’s hella Catholic, so he requests that they get married first. Bella’s super horny, so she demands that the wedding happen within six months. Edward says that he might hurt her during sex, and Bella says that she wants a little hurt during sex. They marry. They bang. During the banging, Edward makes every effort to be controlled and courteous and gentile, while Bella goes wild and crazy. The next morning, she has bruises and he does not. Edward apologizes, but Bella’s actually really into it. She spends a while admiring her sexy vamp-marked self in the mirror, touches the bruises many times, and reminds us yet again that Bella Swan’s whole M.O. is being a monsterfucker. Her kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.

To be clear, I think there are other aspects of the romance that get criticized for good reason. Edward does not negotiate with Bella before sneaking into her room to watch her sleep, and he does make unacceptable use of their power differences when he thinks she’s in danger of being mauled by werewolves. The text condemns Jacob’s “don’t wanna die a virgin” ploy to manipulate a kiss out of Bella, but not the wider conceit of all the male characters as possessing uncontrollable urges. Bella’s struggles to adjust to a new town feel very feminine and realistic; her amused tolerance of Jacob’s and Mike’s sexual harassment as the price for their friendship does not. Werewolf imprinting might be mostly platonic, but that doesn’t make it okay for Meyer to depict it as a form of soulmate bonding that happens with child characters. Those are good points, all around. I just wish that most of them didn’t come up in the context of post-hoc rationalizations for loathing the femininity of a feminine text.

I’m not calling Twilight an unproblematic series. I’m saying that it gets (rightly!) criticized for appropriating Quileute culture, while Buffy’s total absence of main characters of color and blatant anti-Romani racism are (wrongly!) not remarked upon. I'm saying that I’ve been told I’m a misogynist for liking Twilight but not for liking James Bond. I’m saying that there’s a reason people tend to go “oh, that makes so much sense!” when I let them in on the fact that reactive hatred for “Twitards” started and spread on 4Chan, later home of Gamergate and incel culture. I’m saying that Twilight depicts problematic relationship dynamics as sexy — but then so do Vampire Academy, Blue Bloods, Supernatural, Vladimir Tod, and Vampire Diaries. All of which take the time to stop and thumb their noses at Twilight, smug in the superiority of having vampires that fly rather than vampires that sparkle, and for thoroughly condemning teenage girls for being girly while continuing to show men inflicting violence on them.

After all, as Erin May Kelly puts it: “we live in a world taught to hate everything to do with little girls. We hate the books they read and the bands they like. Is there anything the world makes fun of more than One Direction and Twilight?” No one has ever called me a misogynist for liking the MCU, in spite of less than a third of its movies even managing to clear the low-low bar of the Bechdel test. Because people are still allowed to like Harry Potter in spite of its racism, or Lord of the Rings despite its imperialism. Because hatred for Twilight was never about its very real sexism, or the genuinely silly sparkle-vampires, until it had to justify itself as something other than hate for everything that teenage girls have ever dared openly love.

I enjoy the novels, and I enjoy the fan fiction that tries to fix some of the problems with the novels. I appreciate the extent to which Meyer has elevated fan culture, and made an effort to acknowledge her own past mistakes. I would love to be able to talk about my love for the series as a flawed but beautiful work of literature, but for now I’ll settle for asking that the world just let me enjoy it in peace.

#twilight #the twilight saga #breaking dawn #eclipse #new moon #stephenie meyer #fandom #nothing to do with animorphs #misogyny #ableist language #sexist language #long post #sexism #romance #anonymous #asks

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goneseriesanalysis · 3 years

Text

Subversion of Tropes

Spoiler warning for Fear, Lies and Plague down below

TW: mentions of s@xual @ssault and r@pe

In my recent post, Misogyny in Gone, I pointed out numerous instances in the series where misogynistic tropes are present, and how that affects the narrative of the story. The women often seem to be underdeveloped, sexualised and demonised for choices and characteristics that their male counterparts make and have with no consequence. Of course this is not true for every female character, and it is certainly not present all the time, but it still has a huge impact on the story. There is one scene in particular though, that seems to subvert these tropes and I wanted to talk about it as I think it is both a really important aspect of the story and introduces us to a fascinating power dynamic, that I really wish mg had developed further.

The interplay between sex and violence is a theme that is heavily prevalent in Plague and is present in both Lies and Fear. It shows up in many different forms throughout the series and presents itself in multiple ways such as: Caine and Diana’s relationship, Astrid and Orc’s Scene in Plague and Drake with pretty much every attractive woman he comes across. This is a theme that mg writes particularly well – Astrid and Orc’s scene in Plague (with a small cameo from Drake) is one of the best written examples of this trope I have ever read. However, for me personally, this scene is marginally outdone by another example of this trope that occurs in Fear – that being Caine’s cementing.

Not only does this scene have the cathartic tint of revenge to it, but it also subverts this trope in that it is the woman who is the perpetrator and the man (boy) who is the victim. When I first read Fear, nothing about this scene seemed even remotely sexual to me (because I was a child and unless it was outright stated I was never going to pick up on it.) But, when I re-read the scene a few days ago in preparation for my misogyny in gone post, I noticed how reminiscent Penny’s takedown of Caine is to the way women typically experience sexual violence (both in media and real life.)

So the scene starts out with Caine turning up to Penny’s house to discuss the situation with Cigar. Great. Fast forward a bit and we get to Penny outright telling Caine that she has a crush on him….and him outright rejecting her. Instead of accepting this, she pushes, telling him that she could be anyone in his imagination. He rejects her again. And she does not take that well. While she doesn’t show it on the outside, we as a reader get to see her internal monologue, where she has an extremely inappropriate reaction to his rejection. It is clear from this that she feels entitled to his affection, despite him never giving any indication that her feelings were reciprocated. Penny seems to believe that Caine has falsely led her on, but we as a reader know that he has rejected any and all advances that she has made and has not ever, in canon, used her crush to manipulate her. (Before I continue I want to make it clear that I am by no means saying that Caine is innocent. Penny has every right to be angry with him for a multitude of other reasons. But her reasoning here is misguided.) So the first question that this brings to mind is: Would Penny have continued with the cementing if Caine had welcomed her advances?? I think mg left this purposely ambiguous. But I like (and I use this word very loosely) the idea that she wouldn’t have. The trope of a woman having to cater to the desires of a man in order to avoid violence is one that is common in all types of media, and is one that we see throughout Gone as well. The best examples being Astrid with Sam and, of course, Diana with Caine. Both of these women are forced to conform to what Sam and Caine want them to be in order to be safe in the FAYZ, and so mg flipping the switch on this and having Caine’s inability to capitulate Penny’s desires being the final straw to his downfall (even if he was unaware of this fact) is an amazing touch.

This theme is then continued in the way that Penny takes Caine down…by drugging him and incapacitating him. Now, these are occurrences that are usually associated with date r@pe, which is something that is mostly experienced by women. Of course, this is not what actually happened in the book, but the association is there for a reason, I’m sure. Given Penny’s attraction to Caine, her take-down of him is inherently sexual in both its execution and come about. Her extreme reaction to his refusal is probably a result of her less-than-ideal childhood. We are told than Penny’s father used to take inappropriate pictures of her older, but still under-aged sister. When her sister became of age, Penny assumed that her father would move on to her, but instead he skipped her and began taking photos of her younger sister. Mg doesn’t really go into much detail on how this must have affected Penny’s psyche – only that she was so jealous that she took her father’s laptop into the school and showed the other students, resulting in his arrest. It is heavily implied that Penny’s parents were not affectionate – they neglected their children (at least emotionally) and so Penny sought out attention and affection, as any child would. Seeing how much time her father spent with her older sister, and seeing why – it isn’t hard to believe that Penny would equate sexualisation to affection, and even love. (lemme just have a cry real quick.) This makes sense when you take into account her reaction to Caine’s refusal (which was actually pretty mild) and even when you look at earlier events – such as him helping to bathe her. I can’t speak for everyone, but if someone broke MY legs and then came in to help bathe me, I would not be happy, and yet Penny seems to almost enjoy it. We then learn that Penny and her sisters were sent to live with their aunt after their mother became too depressed to care for them. And, once again, Penny found that her sisters were getting all the attention. So she reacted with violence – by putting bleach in her older sister’s cereal. She later found out that her father had committed suicide in prison, after being beaten by other inmates. And so Penny’s formative years have been tinted with sex and violence – two things that no child should be exposed to (although that’s kind of the whole premise of the series.) When you look at her past it becomes clear that her take-down of Caine was an attempt to gain control over one of the many people who have denied her affection in favour of giving it to someone else. As she associates sex with affection, and responds to a lack of affection with violence, it makes sense that she would attack him in a way that is associated with sexual violence.

My final point is in relation to the actions that she takes while Caine is unconscious. She does three things that really give us an insight into her mentality regarding the cementing:

- She cements him

- She makes a tin foil crown for him

- She cuts off his shirt

These actions again are reminiscent, at least subtextually, of the act of r@pe - a sexual crime done with the intent to both incapacitate and embarrass the victim – in essence, a power-play. And this is exactly what Penny does. She begins by entrapping him in the cement, taking his power from him. We know that Penny was not scared of Caine’s power, this was not an act of paranoia as the cementing of the Coates kids was. But rather, she knew how much his power meant to him, how much he relied on it – and she wanted to make him feel just as powerless as he had made her feel. This is further reinforced by her making the tin foil crown. Of course, she partly did this to cause him more pain (she literally stapled it to his head), but the main reason was to embarrass him. To turn his own narcissism against him. And then, to top it all off, she cuts of his shirt – which is just straight up sexual assault. This is the moment in the scene where the interplay between sex and violence really comes out. As she sees it, sexualisation is a form of affection. But as her whole life she has been denied any form of affection she has twisted this in her mind to where she sees violence as a viable outlet of emotions – or rather a replacement for affection. I think Caine’s cementing showed the breaking point for Penny – there are so many things she wants to communicate (her anger at Caine for all the horrible things he has done to her, her affection towards him, her desire for power and respect) and she just doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to do it, due to years of witnessing sexual assault and experiencing neglect. So instead everything gets distilled down into this twisted act of violence where she both expresses all of these things and gets none of them.

I really love this scene as I think it is a great example of mg’s writing ability. I know her attack of Caine was not only due unrequited affections, but I think this side of it is really excellently written, and makes me wish that we has seen more of Penny. I think it would have been a very interesting plot twist and a great use of character if Penny had managed to discard of Drake in Fear and take over his role in the story. Anyway this was only meant to be a short post and I really rambled on (as if anyone is surprised by now). Thank you for reading and please feel free to comment on/ criticise this!! :)

#the gone series #penny

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rametarin · 3 years

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And further thoughts about the yaoi paddles.

If you’re under 20, and just now learning that fandom seniors in their late 20s, 30s, 40s, even low 50s, used to run around slapping eachother on the ass with yaoi paddles in anime and comic conventions after anime became a household media staple, you probably have.. questions.

You’re probably thinking, “Wow!! It was really lawless and anarchistic back then, wasn’t it! They never heard about personal space or sexual harassment laws! SOCIETY must have been SO different, back then!”

NO. I cannot stress enough, the Yaoi Paddle phenomenon was borne PURELY because the demographic MOST LIKELY to protest and be wet blankets about everything fun and sexual and admittedly VERY SKETCHY sometimes in fiction, and ALWAYS bad in reality.. turned off and said virtually nothing. Wokesters that’d protest about the environment and sexual assault against women would take off their Problem Glasses by night and act like paddling was harmless, contextually acceptable behavior.

Yaoi Paddle shit appeared because something absolutely magical happened in scifi and fantasy fandoms. It survived purely because boys didn’t complain, or their complaints were not taken seriously. I promise you, I assure you, if you grew up in the late 80s, your night time TV was INUNDATED with heavy handed messages about how sexual harassment (always male-on-woman flavored) was wrong, even proxy or indirect violence to women (tossing rubber gloves in their lap) was wrong, and to never, ever, ever do that thing or they’d rub your nose in it and consider you mentally diseased until the day you died.

Fandom was always niche, with sci-fi and fantasy stuff being off in its own little corner. Conventions, before the internet was king, was one of few places where more rural, disparate suburban and city-definition isolated geeks, nerds and dreamers could get together and just cut loose. Comic books, novels, video games. All that GOOD shit. But if you knew a girl in the 80s and 90s, you knew a girl that knew a girl that was getting them to be less tolerant and “more conscious and aware” (80s and 90s parlance for Woke) and when that happened, a new persona was created. A new bunch of dialogue options, created.

Suddenly they didn’t say stuff like, “Ew. Why is this character dressed like a SLUT? Typical male writers. Like we’d ever draw ourselves in this or put ourselves in this.” Because that’d be a personal, subjective opinion. Instead, the option to say, “It’s endemic in our western culture that male chauvinist authors and writers in a patriarchal system exploit femininity in media and reproduce misogynistic culture.”

And so assured this was true by mob mentality AND the idea that learned, educated, acredited and tenured academics had this opinion, they were scientists, and so they were right, permeated. Suddenly girl-fans had outlets to have justified apprehension for everything they saw and didn’t like or, if they actually liked it, STILL interpreted it through their lenses to be on, “the right side of history.”

It made fandom miserable and a sausage fest for a while, if only out of fear of driving away female friends. You couldn’t share that shit unless you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your female peers and friends wouldn’t disregard you like a “typical misogynistic western male” for enjoying that stuff.

Sentiments and peer pressure thoughts emerged. Like, “The comic industry is hostile and cruel to women that try and enter it, and they exploit the image of women for cheap dollars.” So they simply weren’t interested in comics- mostly- unless the comics were written by women and sold with that virtue in mind. In which case, you had boys glowingly mentioning just how much they liked this authentically written adventure by this female comic author. Isn’t that just so special? Not like those horrid anti-woman cigar smoking old man stories, right?

There was always something to nag and get vitriolic about with the media. That’s part of why the Whedon brand of feminist writing got so popular in the 90s. it was low hanging fruit of peppy “sassy” girl characters doing girly things. They weren’t like “other” girls written in comics and cartoons. They were actually girly. Not idealized infantalized children, like those horrible white men write, you know.

Well. Things were looking really bleak for the forseeable future. Lots of boys just felt like comics and cartoons were lost to girls that weren’t specifically into them, and that meant more sausage fest conventions or hobbies, and signing off hope on those things being respected and accepted on the merits of what they are and were. The girls had embraced serials-filed-off radfem rhetoric and lenses, sometimes without even knowing the origins of where those truisms like the Male Gaze even came from, just assuming it was true and indisputable. And it complimented their insecurities, so they’d embrace that shit until they couldn’t anymore.

And then.. something absolutely miraculous and amazing happened that blindsided this whole vitriolic culture.

Anime.

And amazingly, every complaint that a lot of nerdy girls had about the very much sanitized, policed and made PG writing and characterization of characters in western comics and cartoons, just... fucking up and vanished. Seemingly within a fucking YEAR, the entire social culture of Problem Finders, finding everything wrong about these stories, the characters, the writer and the company that produced them being misogynistic male chauvinism, dried up. Those voices quieted, or were shut out of the groups.

Media from Japan was some of the most infantilizing, sexist, tittelating shit compared to mainstream American comics and cartoons and video games, and girls fluttered to it like flies to shit. We had Buffy basically subverting boogymen that a bunch of girls had been taught were still relevant after the 1950s by fighting crime in melee combat with men, and winning, while wearing jogging pants and cracking sassy, like Lola Bunny being a “tough girl.”

Japan had doe eyed, waif bodied ballet dancers that basically farted iridescent glitter, hearts and all the symbols and shapes of the Lucky Charms, riding unicorns and fighting evil in cute outfits. Being childish and not at all mature or professional to show how womanly and competent they were, basically being overgrown 11 year old girls fresh off the playground swing set.

And the fangirls loved it. Those nagging voices that would speak up and remind them about misogynistic, male chauvinistic “societies” and culture? Just.. they fucking VANISHED from the mind for AN ENTIRE GENERATION. I’m not exaggerating. Tolerance and fun and innocence was back again. The problem-glasses felt too ostracized and alienated, or didn’t even want to wear them anymore for personal reasons, and the Radfem Baby Wokes just seemed to grow out of that collective hysteria and pretend it never happened and never existed.

That’s why the very EXISTENCE of Yaoi Paddles at conventions was just so fucking bizarre to those of us that lived up to that point. After, “Stay in your own personal space, boy. DON’T even TOUCH a GIRL unless she VERBALLY AND PUBLICLY CONSENTS or it’s proof you’re just living up to this misogynistic, objectifying society’s evil history!” was drilled into us, day on the playground by day on the playground, by women with axes to grind and good-boy sycophants performing sharing those sentiments for brownie points, it was so fucking surreal to IMAGINE girls just running around sexually assaulting and physically assaulting random strangers because they thought they looked like cute, gay men.

It wasn’t that they didn’t know any better beforehand, it’s that they COMPLETELY put those sentiments away and up and decided, as girls, it was okay to violate male autonomy because they weren’t women, and “it’s okay to paddle a yaoi boy ^.^!” With NO self-awareness whatsoever.

The very fact it existed is testament to how attention starved boys were for girls approving gaze and playful interaction, that they’d tolerate some pocky fingered little cow stranger smacking them on the ass with a plank of wood because it was a socially acceptable way to just interact with girls in their lonely assed fandom and interest. It was an acceptable way to meet girls and positively interact. That’s the degrading bullshit boys said virtually nothing about at the hayday of yaoi paddles, purely to be welcoming to girls in anime and hentai approving spaces.

WE GREW UP hearing and watching horror stories and boogymen stories about true crime and sitcoms and crime shows about evil evil men violating the personal space of women for lewd and lecherous reasons. We had it drilled into our heads that the tolerance for boys and men doing that was negatives, and the general sentiment was men caught doing that (to women, or children of any sex) were effectively free game for any violence you personally felt like unloading on them, confident that in such outraged rape and sexual assault hating times, juries would excuse that passion as a defense.

So if you look back on the era of Yaoi Paddles and think. “WOW. That must be like driving cars before they invented seat belts and cough medicine before they invented the drug safety and scheduling legal system!”.. NO.

It was not like the 50s-70s, where many of the rules hadn’t been written yet so it was anarchy and chaos. Yaoi Paddles existed almost PURELY because girls HAD no rules if they didn’t want to respect them. The Yaoi Paddle phenomenon flew in direct opposition to how interactions were supposed to go, and ABSOLUTELY NO ONE would tolerate the reverse; no cis straight man could walk around randomly smacking women on the ass with a plank of even foam in pantomime, or ‘floating hand’ pretending to be a perverted character. The double standard was GLARING. The Double Standard was a fucking bugbear that had grown from a tiny screaming goblin and was now hanging upside down from the ceiling, roaring.

But because it was GIRLS inflicting it on BOYS, absolutely no party cared enough to raise a stink about it. The Radfems kept their mouths shut, because boys were the recipients. The Radfem Sympathizers really wanted to spank boys, so suddenly they couldn’t find their problem glasses and instead put on their neko ears. The boys were either stoic and amused by it or really wanted to be seen as cool and not buzzkills, so they tolerated to reveled in it.

Many times when you hear about things that happened either when you were a child just too young to really personally experience a thing, or before you were born, we’re quick to assume it’s a medieval place and the people were so uncultured as to have never pondered the social problems of spanking one another on the ass unprovoked. Violation of personal space, personal sovereignty- all that. That was NOT okay at the time. It happened because fujoshi decided it was okay and nobody argued with them to not do hat, or they were told to stop and did it anyway.

And as I’ve laid it out, that is the most bizarre and surreal element to the whole thing. They DID know better, but felt it didn’t apply to THEM because they were girls, and a girl slapping a boy on the ass “as a joke” didn’t mean anything- because it wasn’t happening TO them, FROM a man.

And irony of ironies, it was NEVER okay, EVER, throughout that entire era, for the reverse to be a thing. It was very specifically and exclusively not. As a man if you ran around slapping cute looking girls with the Yuri Paddle, you goin’ to either juvy hall, or prison, boi. Both sexes knew it. And yet, yaoi paddles STILL became a thing.

#history #yaoi paddles #90s fandom #early 00s fandom

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justeverythingmarvel · 3 years

Note

for the ship ask thingy!

- peter and harley!

- steve and bucky!

- steve and tony

- bucky and sam

thanks anon! ill do them all in separate posts so it doesn't get too long :)

Peter + Harley

Who accidentally pushes a door instead of pulling/vice versa

Both of them 24/7, Peter more often but sometimes he just thinks he needs to push/pull harder and accidentally pulls the door of it's hinges. Harley just runs into it and bangs his head on the door.

Who doodles little hearts all over the desk with their initials inside them

Peter is 10000% a lovesick puppy, and doodles little hearts on his school work and his tech designs (much to Tony's annoyance)

Who starts the tickle fights (really sorry but im not really comfortable writing for this one)

Who starts the pillow fights

Harley, Peter never wants to join in because he's afraid he'll hurt Harley but one day after Harley smacks his head into the wall with a pillow he unleashes and totally wins.

Who falls asleep last, watching the other with a small affectionate smile

Peter falls asleep super fast, and anywhere. Even faster if he has some body part touching Harley. And Harley isn't as good at expressing his emotions, so he waits until Peter is asleep and whispers the things he's too afraid to say.

Who mistakes salt for sugar

Peter does, all the time. Once he made Tony a coffee and put salt in it instead of sugar and was sentenced to cleaning Dum-E for a week.

Who lets the microwave play the loud beeping sound at 1am in the morning

Harley, they're usually both awake at 1 am because they're both nocturnal. But Peter's anxiety will NOT let him let the microwave timer get to zero. Sometimes he uses his spider skills to get back in time, or shoots the button with his webs (This ended in Harley's hand getting stuck to the microwave until Peter found his web fluid)

Who comes up with cheesy pick up lines

Peter has sweet cheesy pickup lines, Harley has dirty cheesy pickup lines, and they are both equally embarrassed when the other says them.

Who rearranges the bookshelf in alphabetical order

Harley keeps all his engineering books nicely organized, but the rest of the bookshelf is chaos.

Who licks the spoon when they’re baking brownies

Harley licks it, and then puts batter on Peter's nose.

Who buys candles for dinners even though there’s no special occasion

Peter loves little trinkets and good smelling things, so he always comes home with one thing or another. Once he saved this lady's cat who makes homemade candles, and she still gives them to him for free.

Who draws little tattoos on the other with a pen

Sometimes when one or the other has a genius thought they'll scribble it on the other's arm so they don't forget it.

Who comes home with a new souvenir magnet every time they go on vacation

Peter gets given souvenir magnets everywhere he goes, and if he doesn't he'll pick one up just for Harley who loves them because when he was a kid he never thought he'd get to travel to see so many places.

Who convinces the other to fill out those couple surveys in the back of magazines

Peter does it as a joke until MJ lectures him about how misogynistic and capitalist it is.

#Harker #I think thats their ship name?

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2ndblogg · 3 years

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Hey! Just read your hot take on novel!wangxian and I absolutely agree. I'm gonna have to say here that I believe it boils down to the fetishization of homosexual men in a lot of the fandom culture that surrounds mlm shipping, as you said it's a space for a lot of women to experiment with their desires and whatnot, but I think therein lies the breaking points between reading novel!wangxian as a good, healthy relationship vs. reading it as a very flawed and toxic one. As an LGBT person, reading the way the author dealt with their relationship made me extremely uncomfortable, it just really feels like something that is written by someone who is more invested in using her queer characters for satisfying her and her reader's own pleasure than a well-built, strong relationship between two characters. Not to take away from the novel in some other aspects, I believe that novel!wwx is a much better, much more nuanced character than what he is in cql, but when it comes to wangxian, I think the intentions are very different for each of them. To each their own, I guess, but I do find it very troubling that some people in the fandom have a really hard time admitting that novel wangxian is not even remotely healthy.

Absolutely.

And can I just say how glad it makes me to see that not everyone is praising this book for it’s lgbt representation...

But I guess that’s also why I just occasionally feel the need to scream my frustrations into the void or try to make sense of the novel.

And why I try to be understanding and accepting of people’s opinion of the novel and not take it ‘personally’ (in the sense of sitting there thinking “holy shit this is how they view ME, this is what they think of ME” etc).

I was in fandoms back when they were really a place dominated by straight (homophobic) women and realism or lgbt representation wasn’t on anyone’s mind (and the occasional dude butting in to say that’s not how sex works or bottoming is experienced was ignored or told to get out). I experienced this change to fandoms being more of a lgbt space, of people becoming aware that media can shape your views of groups of people, of people becoming aware of their fetishizing of fictional gays vs. their prejudice against real life lgbt people etc.

And tbh MXTX just writes like one of those, she writes wangxian like everyone wrote their gay relationships around 2005 and earlier; clear power imbalance, clear roles and attributes that are divided into ‘manly’ and ‘feminine’, certain physical attributes (like the female self insert character aka the bottom being pretty and slight and weaker and shorter), men/the penetrating partner can’t really be raped so anything the woman/bottom tries isn’t really ‘bad’, the male love interest is forceful and self centered but ONLY because he’s so in love and since he’s emotionally stunted he has to express that through sex, men/tops NEED sex and it’s rude/mean to deny them that, the girl/bottom isn’t THAT horny or in charge of their own sexuality but wants to please their partner and what they really get out of it is the emotional aspect, decisions need to be made for them because the dude/top just knows better, the girl/bottom is childish and flirty and the guy/top suffers through it until he finally snaps and shows the girl/bottom who'sboss etc etc. (honestly homophobia and misogyny is so tightly knit in this kind of fiction, if it wasn’t so frustrating it would be very interesting).

Tbh I disagree with novel!wwx being more nuanced (despite a lot of ppl whose opinions I really respect also feeling this way), because I simply cannot seperate him from the wangxian relationship. All I see are tropes and stereotypes applied to make him ‘work’ in the context of the wangxian relationship instead of an actual personality...

To me, in CQL WWX is clearly the main character and you love his interactions with LWJ and want more of them and value them, wheras in the novel most of the time WWX plays second fiddle even when a scene should technically be about him and LWJ’s presence is incredibly suffocating, because he’s always being controlling or at the very least influencing WWX.

I also don’t feel like WWX has much of a character arc/growth. We’re essentially told he had one but the only thing that really actually changes is him hating himself a bit more and letting LWJ smash..., and I guess: he’s less independent than ever, he’s more isolated that ever...

I’ve called novel!wangxian a relationship between an abuser and his victim, because you can find evidence of that in the text. Not because I think the author wanted to portray an unhealthy gay relationship. Like you said, she was fetishizing and wrote for a similar crowd. But to me that ‘realization’ helped...I still don’t see how people can call it a masterpiece but I can at least understand hyping something you like up...

And like, badly written gay relationship or not; gay/straight,man/women, I see how people can find it hot. Exploring your sexuality through fictional characters isn’t necessarily a strictly straight girl phenomena. I probably have read fic that was exactly like this, I can’t judge anyone for it. But no one prints out the last PWP they read and goes, “this is ideal lgbt representation and nothing will ever be this good, the fact that it includes rape makes it so realistic” like????

(Is that part or an effect of the woke and purety culture? you can’t say ‘i like this book but it has flaws’ or ‘i’ve enjoyed this but it’s not up the feminism or lgbt acceptance that i preach/live’ so you have to pretend it’s flawless?)

And like, I do think novel!wangxian is a nightmare when it comes to lgbt representation and I do believe this is largely due to a cishet woman writing about gay men and fetishizing them (the fact that a lot of peoples arguments why novel!wangxian ‘is better’ boils down to ‘there’s kissing and sex’ is also pretty telling). And I am frightend and worried by some peoples response to it.

But is it really fair to see it as just that? It’s a problem sure, but that same thing happens in straight media (which I am admittedly not well versed in). Stephanie Meyer didn’t set out to write Edward Cullen to be a creep and non of the teenage girls that went crazy over him viewed it as such...Reylo fans (aside from some of them proclaiming Finn to be the real villain and saying it’s racist and misogynistic to not find Kylo Ren hot) found a way to view him threatening her as romantic and sexy, Loki fans that didn’t ship him with Thor usually fell into the camp of “he would be a perfect boyfriend” or “what if this OFC was his slave and he raped her everyday <3″... like ignoring/glorifying/romanticizing behaviours or exploring what kinks you might have through the safety of fictional characters and fictional settings isn’t JUST happening when it comes to ‘the gays’...

And not just specifically in fandom spaces either, a lot of ‘romantic’ movies include inappropriate touching, the boy/guy knowing better than the girl what she wants etc. And I absolutely do believe that that’s something that normalized these things for a lot of young girls and guys (I don’t want to get into this too much, I’ve really seen a change in the past few years, but before that it was pretty common for young boys to believe they need to keep pursuing and pressuring a girl that has said no, girls truly thought boys could die of blue balls, girls thought it was their duty as good girlfriends to let their boyfriends fuck them even when they weren’t in the mood, that they couldn’t talk about what they want in bed or what they don’t find enjoyable because ‘sex is for boys and girls get a relationship in exchange’ etc.).

And in much the same way movies have only relatively recently begun being called out for that, it’s also still pretty recently that they’re being called out for having their one queer coded character be a pedophile and a murder or whatever...Like, society as a whole becoming aware of these issues.

But do authors that publish their work with a specific target audience in mind have a responsibility to think about the effect it might have on them? (And I can already hear loud screams of ‘no way, it’s not your fault if your audience isn’t smart enough to understand that this bad thing is bad’, but I actually do believe in a way they do. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t write whatever you want, just maybe take a look at HOW you bring your point across. (We do KNOW people are influenced by what propaganda they’re consistantly fed. I mean, you wouldn’t write a pro-drugs childrens book...) )

What if the author isn’t aware of their bias and prejudices? Or their target audience isn’t their actual audience?

And do we, society and media, judge female and male authors differently when it comes to romance and sex in fiction? (The answer is yes btw) But also, where do we draw the line at calling something ‘badly written’ and calling it toxic? Can it be both? As I’ve said before, a lot of people claim that only the physical intimacy scenes of novel!wangxian are bad, because they’re badly written and OOC, some say the book as amazingly written and only the wangxian relationship is bad because the author doesn’t know how to write gay men. In my ‘hot take’ I essentially said that’s not necessarily bad writing so much as it’s simply an (okay, unintentional) toxic relationship. And would this relationship still come across as toxic (or badly written, whichever you want) if we didn’t know the author to be a cishet woman? Or if a gay man had written it? (my personal, eloquent answer for this is: yes, but differently.)

Which was really all just a rambly way to get to my point of: it’s not just fetishizing of gay men, it’s also the homophobia and self-inserting in a safe situation.

You can literally replace WWX in the novel with a female character and it wouldn’t change a thing. The author takes such an effort into building up this power imbalance in every aspect of their life that if WWX were a heroine nothing would change in this (sexist/ancient society) setting.

(And clearly this is something that appeals to people if you look at the amount of female!WWX fics...)

Not even the sex scenes. There are maybe two allusions in all of them combined that WWX might also have a dick but like, you can’t be sure and it sure as hell doesn’t need stimulation.

(and again, that could be written as a kink...but it’s just not.)

CQL is a gay love story. MDZS at it’s core is none of that.

But I also very much agree with your ‘to each their own’, like here I am criticizing and trying to find explanations and whatever, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter why someone might like (or write) a book like this, I vastly prefer CQL!wangxian but people have their own reasons for not doing so.

The ‘problem’ really only lies in, as you said, people not being able to accept that it’s not a healthy relationship. Or claiming it to be perfect lgbt rep.

And because my brain can’t shut up today:

I also can’t stop thinking that the way some people ‘glorify’ the book as due to their age and ‘inexperience’.

When I was a pretty young kid and got into fanfiction, there was nothing but completely OOC!whump to be found in the first two fandoms I was in. And I loved it. It was YEARS later that I thought I might like to read something with the characters being...in character. What I’m trying to say, in different stages and phases of your life you might enjoy different things, for different reasons...and obviously, in that moment, you won’t think about ‘what appeals to me here/should this appeal to me/etc’.

I don’t mean inexperience as ‘sexual inexperience’ here, though of course that could be part of it, but also like, inexperience with this genre (is this the first book like this you read, or did you just read 50 in a row that all had the same unhealthy vibes?), with lgbt people and issues (do you know any lgbt people or is your only image of them either the cute boy you can’t have and don’t want to see with another girl or grown men in full kink gear in front of children during CSD? and also: do you think ‘i like this’ and that’s the end of it or do you notice how many people idolize this objectively unhealthy relationship and won’t allow critique on it...)

I...just wanted to say thanks really.

I just can’t stop rambling apparently and I know I mostly just repeated what you said or what I already said but in longer... I just really do feel very strongly about novel!wangxian and the perception of them and have actually at times felt very personally...worried/affected, by people’s acceptance and love of them and I just... have to try and make sense of it...

#i'll be honest rambling like this is very therapeutic and I'm glad some of you read the last one and send asks and agreed #and it's why i'll (try to) put this in the tags too...i like discussions but seeing ppl NOT going 'it's true love/perfect rep' love that #mdzs #mdzs meta #mxtx critical #i guess

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pidgebeifong · 4 years

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atla artist au

Aang is a painter. He’s loved painting ever since he was a child and first experimented with finger paints on the walls- which was, in hindsight, maybe not the best idea. He loves the way it detaches him from his worldly concerns. It’s almost like a form of meditation for him- the rest of the universe just falls away whenever he picks up his paintbrush, and all he can see is his canvas and the worlds he will create with a swirl of lemon yellow sun here, a wave of cerulean blue ocean there, a blur of sunset orange clouds at the edges. Everything he owns has been stained with paint in at least three places, which makes dressing for formal events a real pain. Sometimes he’ll deliberately paint his jeans with sunflowers or bees or anything that’s a sunny, bright yellow- his favourite colour- and wear them proudly for days. Katara jokes that she doesn’t even remember what the real colours of his hands look like, because they’re forever stained with paint that’s sunken so deeply into the folds of his skin that it makes it nearly impossible to rub off. People always ask him what his favourite thing to paint is, expecting it to be something like sunsets or mountains, but the truth is his favourite thing to study and paint is his Labrador, Appa, the first thing he ever drew. He started drawing at around five, the same age he adopted Appa, and to this day he can never get the way Appa’s golden fur shines just right under the blinding sunlight. He loves going to nature reserves and parks to study how light affects the leaves and flowers. Sometimes everything will just be too much, and he’ll jam as many paints into his pockets as he can, take a sketchbook, a water bottle and a paintbrush, and get on the bus to a park. He’ll sit quietly for hours, trying to capture moonlight on water or the flapping wings of a hummingbird.

Katara is a writer. She literally can’t remember a time she hasn’t loved to write. She has stacks and stacks of unfinished manuscripts lying around on the floor, tacked up to the walls in her room, and crumpled on the bedsheets. She has easily over a thousand different scenes written for her future novels on the Notes app in her phone, and she has a bad habit of scribbling ideas down on her hands on the rare occasions she doesn’t have her phone on her and there’s no paper in sight. She’s practically nocturnal at this point, because all her best ideas come to her at 3am, when she’s sleep-deprived and half-hallucinating. She always carries at least three pens on her at all times, and gets panicky when she’s forced to remove them whenever she has to dress up for anything formal. She’s really hypocritical whenever she gets on Aang’s case about his hands always being paint-stained, because all her hands are covered in ink, too- half-finished notes and ideas that got left on the cutting board. Katara hates cutting out characters that simply aren’t necessary to the scene and don’t add anything of value to the plot, because they’re her babies damnit and she worked hard on them. One would think that this would make her more sympathetic to her characters, but Aang and Sokka are appalled the first time they’re allowed to read one of her (mostly) finished manuscripts (who is she kidding, she doesn’t have a manuscript that’s even remotely finished for the life of her) and see how much torture and anguish and heartbreak she’s put her characters through. Katara is a huge advocate of making all her characters hit the lowest point they could possibly go, and then instead of making them get back up again, she gives them a shovel and instructions to dig lower. However, she’s a huge sucker for happy endings, and she practically dominates the tag #angst with a happy ending on AO3. She gets around three hours of sleep every night, none of them consecutive, and survives on black coffee and willpower alone. Everyone knows her as an avid reader, but she hasn’t really read an actual book since two years ago, and spends most of her time scrolling through 250k fanfictions at 2am.

Sokka is a photographer. He doesn’t have the skills that Aang has with his paintbrush, or the way Katara can make entire universes come to life with a few words, so for a long time he used to think that he was just going to be the ordinary guy in the group who’d only be known for loving meat to what is frankly an unhealthy degree, and that his only contribution to the team would be a slew of bad jokes and sarcastic remarks. He finds his calling very late in life, but the moment he picks up his first camera at age fourteen, everything just seems to fall perfectly into place. Sokka’s world always moves too fast and changes too quickly, but he can capture moments that will last forever with the click of a button, and he guesses that that’s what he loves about photography- that he can freeze moments in time and always be able to come back to them. Well, as long as he doesn’t lose his camera, but he’s got the photos all backed up on iCloud anyway, so that’s not really an issue. Sometimes, he’ll accompany Aang to nature parks, and Aang will paint the twisting vines of a plant while Sokka captures Aang’s relaxed, happy expression. His favourite photos are the ones he takes of his friends when they’re caught unaware- candid portraits of Suki laughing or Katara ruffling Aang’s hair or Toph trying and failing to hide a grudging smile. He loves old photos, too- loves the aesthetic of black-and-white photos, how they capture a scene that he knows full well happened decades ago but somehow make him feel like he’s living in the same moment. Experimenting with light is one of his favourite things to do- he loves playing with golden hour sunlight or early morning rays, loves hearing the satisfying click of his camera and knowing that he’s got another picture for the album (and his hugely successful Instagram account that has well over 50k followers).

Toph is a sculptor. She was born blind and never really got to experience art the same way the others did, so for a long time she buried her disappointment deep within her and never let jealousy rear its ugly head whenever she heard Katara singing praises about the latest painting Aang had just finished, or the beautiful photograph Sokka had captured of all of them laughing as a group, but then she discovered sculpture. An art she could appreciate from beneath her fingers, an art she could see by running her hands over it and feeling the crevices and curves and edges breathe themselves into life beneath her touch. Despite discovering the term for it late in life, Toph found that she’d actually been sculpting at a very young age. She’d been experimenting with PlayDoh and clay since before she could walk, but she’d never known that there was actually an art form in it that people did professionally until Aang had taken her to a museum and put her hands on a beautiful sculpture of an ancient Greek god. It was one of the only times she’d ever cried in her life, but those had been tears of pure joy- she didn’t want to sound like a sap, but she hadn’t realized that something so beautiful in the world existed until that life-changing moment at the museum. Sure, they’d been chased out by one particularly angry security guard who kept waving his baton around threateningly (‘can’t you two juveniles see that the sign clearly says no touching?!’ ‘actually sir, I’m blind so that would be a hard no’) but it had been worth it. Ever since then, Toph has been addicted to sculpting, feeling things take shape under her capable hands. She’s been told she can replicate faces with an accuracy that’s both astonishing and unnerving, despite not even being able to see (it only took a lot of years and lot of hours spent tracing the lines of Aang’s face) and her work has been proudly displayed on Katara’s bedside table, Sokka’s desks and Aang’s shelves.

Suki is a martial arts instructor who has a degree in badassery. She started her own school at just fifteen years old, and named it the Kyoshi Warrior Academy, in honour of Kyoshi, her late martial arts instructor whom she had a deep respect for. She had black belt status in five different martial arts by the time she turned thirteen, and was a legend for her skill, hard work and talent in the martial arts community. She’s lost quite a few matches, but she’s more than made up for it with every win she’s achieved. The first time she met Sokka, she thought he was trying to steal from her, so she judo-flipped him, pinned him down and tied his wrists together, all of which took a maximum of three seconds. (‘wow, that’s kinky. so are you into that kind of thing?’ ‘shut up, asshole. what do you want from me? my wallet?’ ‘actually, I was going to ask you out on a date, but I mean sure, if you’re offering. I could use a little cash right about now, actually, because I think you just broke all the cards I have in my wallet when you body-slammed me to the ground, along with at least ten of my bones.’) Sokka had severely underestimated Suki’s skill at first, despite their rather unfortunate encounter (during which she actually had broken the bone in his arm, but he’d tried to wave it off and say that he didn’t mind, then subsequently screamed in pain because he’d tried to wave his broken arm), but he knew that he’d have to change his mindset in order to win her over. Eventually, he ended up changing his misogynistic mindset not only to go out with Suki, but because he realized that it was the right thing to do- something Katara was over the moon about. She and Suki have been joined at the hip ever since, and Sokka often jokes whether Suki is only dating him for his sister (‘damn, suki, it’s like you only come over for katara’ ... ‘wait. why aren’t any of you saying anything. katara did you just wink? sUKI DID YOU JUST KISS MY SISTER’S CHEEK-?! oh my god this is the worst betrayal I’ve experienced since toph said that she didn’t need to see my photographs in order to tell that they were ugly’). Jokes aside, Suki adores her boyfriend and his sister, and often teaches them self-defense in her free time. One of her best students is a girl named Ty Lee, who all her friends except Zuko seem to really hate for some reason. However, Ty Lee is a natural at self-defense and she and Suki get along like a house on fire. Katara still refuses point-blank to go to classes whenever Ty Lee is in attendance, but Suki has given up trying to understand why. In conclusion, Suki is one of those movie heroines who can munch a sandwich while apprehending twenty supervillains all twice her size, and still come out victorious.

Zuko is a theatre kid and aspiring actor. (Was anyone surprised by this, really?) His natural melodramatic emo kid personality makes him the perfect role for starring roles in school plays (at least, that’s what Azula always likes to say) and acting to him comes as naturally as breathing. He’s not-so-secretly a Shakespeare nerd and can literally recite Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, two of his favourite plays, word for word. He also loves Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen- and alright, maybe he also harbours a love for High School Musical (he’s never told anyone that, but everyone knows anyway because he made Azula suffer through all five movies with him which eventually led to her becoming so fed-up constantly belting out the lyrics at the top of his lungs that she recorded the audio and sent it to everyone at school, including Mai, whom he couldn’t look in the eyes for a straight two weeks). Before his mother left them, she used to say that Zuko got his acting genes from her, because she used to play the lead role in Love Amongst The Dragons every year in her old high school. Zuko asked Ursa if that meant Azula got her dancing genes from Ozai, and they’d both have a quiet little laugh as they imagined Ozai trying to dance ballet. Although Zuko adores the drama and the poignant atmosphere that comes with performing Shakespeare’s plays, Love Amongst The Dragons holds the top spot for his favourite play by far. He goes to see it every time the ache for his mother is too painful to ignore- even though the new actors, a group called the Ember Island Players, all but butcher it every year- and sometimes, he’ll deceive himself into thinking that his mother’s somewhere in the audience too, watching the play right there with him like they used to do all the time. He once took Azula to see it with him, just like they used to do when their mother was with them, and Azula cried when he told her that the reason he liked it was because it reminded him of their mother. The sight of her crying was so unnerving that Zuko went alone after that. Azula never protested, though, or teased him for liking the play again.

Azula is a dancing prodigy. She specializes in ballet, but she also does contemporary and modern. She tried her hand at tap and jazz, and although she naturally excelled in it, as usual, she decided that it just wasn’t for her. At the age of fourteen, Azula is already a world-renowned dancer and has broken records and made history with how skilled she is at dancing. She moves her body so fluidly that it’s hard to believe she’s even a person and not just a wisp or smoke, delicately floating and twirling and twisting through the air. Azula has a lot of pent-up anger and frustration about having to constantly seem perfect all the time in order to make up for the failure that Zuko is, and she’s found that physical exercise- namely, dance- is the best way to relieve her stress. She also knows a fair bit of martial arts- out of everyone, she and Ty Lee are the only ones who have managed to defeat Suki at hand-to-hand combat. If asked about it, Suki will vehemently deny that such an incident ever happened, which only serves to amuse Azula further. Azula started ballet at age three and advanced much further and quicker than any of her peers, which incited a lot of jealousy and basically ensured that she had virtually no friends in the ballet community, but it wasn’t like she was particularly desperate for companionship in the first place. She’s so famous that she’s a verified account on Instagram with over a million followers- she does some spare modelling work on the side when she can, and her stunning looks combined with her raw talent have made her into one of the most unattainably perfect girls to ever rule Instagram. Somehow, her dancing doesn’t distract her from her grades, because she also has a stellar report card that’s displayed on the wall of her numerous trophies and awards she’s achieved over the years. (Zuko has a half-broken shelf that sports exactly two awards, and one is a certificate of participation.) Azula was born for the spotlight. Whenever she steps onto a stage, the room goes completely, eerily still, as if holding on to her every move. She’s one of the most beautiful dancers to ever perform, and audiences sing praises about her every twirl, her every arch, as if a single pirouette she’s executed is already perfect enough to win her ten awards. She’s mesmerizing on stage, and kind of terrifying in the way that one would find someone too perfect to be terrifying. Her every move is effortless, graceful, as if she’s a weightless feather drifting through the breeze. She’s incredibly captivating and is set to be one of history’s stars.

Mai is a musician/singer. Her parents were extremely traditional and gave her piano and violin lessons for her fifth birthday, but she actually ended up enjoying them a lot. She has a great voice, too, so she started a YouTube channel a while back that features her doing covers and singing her own original songs sometimes. It’s now amassed a few thousand followers. Zuko has an admittedly great voice, too, and sometimes she invites him to her channel and they do these amazing duets. All of their followers ship them together, but Mai always denies that she likes him, despite her cheeks always blushing a bright pink whenever he’s brought up on live-streams. Her parents don’t approve of her channel, which they only found out about because they were being overbearing and went through her phone yet again, and they want her to go to school to study business instead. Mai doesn’t plan on giving up on her YouTube channel anytime soon, though. Before she discovered singing, she was clearly passionless about most everything, but now that she has, it feels like a fire slowly consuming her from the inside out. And she kind of likes it, to be honest. It feels good to be so passionate about something, especially since Zuko likes it just as much as she does. She’ll never admit it, but she knows how to play quite a few My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco songs on the piano (which Zuko absolutely loves her for, because he’s the picture perfect stereotype of an emo boy). Writing and singing songs provides her with some sort of cathartic relief that she can’t really obtain from anywhere else. She’s incredibly musically talented, and was playing grade eight piano material at just eleven years old. She taught herself the guitar and the harp after her parents refused to give her any more lessons for fear that she would become too invested in music (Asian parents, y’all- they provide you with piano lessons but expect you to become a doctor or a lawyer because God forbid you pursue a career in music despite having studied it since you were five) and refuse to pursue a career in business.

Ty Lee is a gymnast. She tried ballet along with Azula, but didn’t like the discipline it took and ran out of patience with all the tedious instructions necessary to follow along with the class, finding that gymnastics was more to her liking. However, she and Azula make an awesome duo whenever they showcase their talents together. Ty Lee’s actually so good that trainees are already speculating that she could achieve a spot on her country’s national gymnastics team. She can do backflips, handstands, cartwheels and splits on a beam one after the other without even needing to catch her breath, and she’s impossibly fit. She loves crop tops- she thinks they show off her figure, which is nearly unattainable for most people. She’s also naturally talented at martial arts, and Suki frequently tells her that she learns faster than Suki can teach. She’s done every form of gymnastics imaginable- rhythmic, acrobatic, artistic- you name it, she’s done it. Originally she only took an interest in it because Azula begged her to join ballet with her, and Ty Lee found that she did like the strenuous physical exertion that ballet entailed, but everything just moved too slowly for her. Ty Lee likes fast-paced action, so gymnastics is the perfect fit for her. Sometimes, Azula will teach her some new ballet moves she learnt in class, and in return, Ty Lee will teach Azula a few gymnastics moves she invented by herself after following the standard textbook forms grew too boring. They once entered a talent show together and blew the crowd away with Azula’s captivating dancing and Ty Lee’s breathtaking gymnastics.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #aang #the gaang #Zuko #prince zuko #princess azula #Azula #atla #atla modern au #avatar the last airbender modern au #modern au #artist au #katara #suki #sokka #toph beifong #mai #ty lee

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ambivalentman · 3 years

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THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY (1998)

In 2019, Peter Farrelly crossed the Dolby Theater stage at the 91st Academy Awards to proudly accept three Oscars, including Best Picture, for his drama Green Book. For any director, these Oscars would be a crowning achievement. To Farrelly, this was also an induction into the Hollywood fraternity—that rarefied group from whom he and his brother, Bobby, had long stood apart. The Farrelly brothers had at one time been maverick comedy filmmakers whose brand was just the right combination of offensive humor and heart. As Farrelly raised his Oscars for the crowd, he was no longer the goofy outsider who directed gross comedies. He was an important filmmaker.

Be that as it may, Green Book—despite the awards coronation—was every bit the offensive relative to Peter’s work with Bobby. The film had generated tons of criticism for its handling of race, leaning heavily on cultural stereotypes for its humor and pathos, and presented a morally superior view of white privilege while possibly misrepresenting the only nuanced Black character in the film. These criticisms dominated the Monday Morning Oscar Quarterbacking on podcasts and Twitter threads, putting just a little bit of tarnish on the filmmaker’s new trophies.

Criticism and controversy are not new to either Peter or Bobby Farrelly. Since their directorial debut in 1994 with Dumb & Dumber, they have walked the tightrope of all offensive comedians. As Roger Ebert said about them, their movies are “crude, vulgar, cruel, insensitive, scatological, perverse, and politically incorrect.” Gene Siskel made sure he added “gross and raunchy” to that list. They meant this as a compliment. People died watching Jeff Daniels experience exploding diarrhea in Dumb & Dumber, Woody Harrelson share a post-coital cig with his grotesque landlord in Kingpin, and Jason Alexander wag his tail in Shallow Hal. Few would call any of their oeuvre particularly deep—and should probably laugh at the pretense of referring to their filmography as an oeuvre.

The most controversial, and arguably most popular, film of the Farrelly’s career is 1998’s There’s Something About Mary. This one focuses on a generic loser named Ted (Ben Stiller), who holds a flame for his teenage crush, Mary (Cameron Diaz). Because Ted believes Mary may hold the key to his happiness, he hires a private dick named Healy (Matt Dillon) to find out where she is. Healy falls under Mary’s spell and leverages his influence to keep Ted away. As played by Diaz, Mary is a “smart girl who has a lot going for her”; however, Mary isn’t particularly observant and awfully naïve. Every man she encounters falls for her, and she has a litany of stalkers who will do anything to possess her.

Based on description alone, There’s Something About Mary presents as a harmless rom-com, but the Farrelly’s bring their edgy style to the film. This movie is packed with indecent images. Ted’s “Franks N’ Beans.” Mary’s “hair gel.” The fish hook. Magda’s makeout session with her dog, Puffy. Woogie’s face. The gross stuff is what it is, but the material that sticks are the stalking and how the depiction of Down’s Syndrome impacted perception of those with mental handicaps. Reviewing this film through the lens of 2021 causes even more cringing than it did in 1998.

You could tell that even in 1998 there was a narrative building around this movie. In a press interview, Ben Stiller said, “I wouldn’t necessarily associate this film with deep social commentary. I think it’s a sweet movie that you can go out and laugh at.” Diaz added, “With this film, I know that [the Farrelly Brothers] wanted to have characters—people—that were important to the audience. They wanted a love story that people could really get involved with, as well as have the comedy.” She also said more recently in 2018, “Peter and Bobby have such heart in all of their movies. No matter how shocking the comedy is, there is so much that is inherently good about the story and the characters that really appeals to people and it makes the laughter at the jokes a little more forgivable.”

From the get-go, everyone on the project knew somethings were going to be potentially problematic. Studio brass expressed some concern over the decision to make an R-rated comedy. The PG-13 rating had squeezed out the R-rated comedy to the point that very few were being made. Movies like Friday (1995), Flirting with Disaster (1996), Private Parts (1997) and The Big Lebowski (1998) all had pretty limited audiences. No one was convinced an adult comedy could even make a buck, let alone entertain. Besides, the Farrelly’s previous film, Kingpin (1996), had bombed, so could they even be the duo to make a lucrative R-rated comedy.

On the set, there were concerns, too. Diaz worried about whether the infamous “hair gel” scene was a bridge too far, and might possibly be the ruin of her rising career. During the scene where Puffy falls out a window, Bobby Farrelly needed to get the right reaction from Diaz and co-star Lin Shaye, so he dropped his pants and wiggled his ass. It wasn’t the first time the director had done this, either on or off set. According to Peter, Bobby liked doing this; it would one day get him in some trouble. And the production was surprised when Plantation City Hall, whose veneer was redressed to become the exterior of Ted and Mary’s high school, asked to have their name removed from the film’s credits because they didn’t want to be associated with anything “lewd and offensive.” The studio was also worried about the decision to include a close up of Ted’s “franks n’ beans” after he catches them in his zipper. That shot was got by creating a 4’x2’ prop, and inserted just in case it needed to be cut out of the film. Fox chairman, Peter Chernin, after seeing a test screening, told the Farrelly’s, “It’s perfectly reprehensible; don’t touch a thing.”

There were also questions about the portrayal of Warren, Mary’s brother, who has Down’s Syndrome. Peter Farrelly said, “Whenever you did [write disabled characters] back then, it seems the studio was, ‘No, no, no! People are uncomfortable’ [with disabilities]. And I’m like, ‘No, they’re not. That’s bull. People have disabilities, so let’s see them.” Warren was based on a next-door neighbor of the Farrelly’s to whom the family was close. The young man is also cast in the film as one of Mary’s students. It also seems casting may have been one way to circumvent controversy surrounding Warren. Initially, it looked like the part would go to Chris Farley, who was hot at that time for his work on Saturday Night Live. However, Farley’s energy may have contributed to seeing Warren as a caricature, so the production went with W. Earl Brown. Brown wanted to play Warren as a real person, not a cartoon. He said in a 2018 interview with Variety, “I just feel instinctively, ‘If you goof this, if you play it broad and you try to be funny, it ain’t going to be funny. The audience is going to hate you because you are mocking somebody with a handicap,’” This didn’t stop anyone from seeing the film as a possible Pandora’s box of disabled stereotypes and disparagement humor.

The other controversy surrounding this movie has become more pronounced in the social media age. Does There’s Something About Mary normalize sexual predation and stalking? Critic Rachel Verona Cote said, “Humor that takes stalking seriously requires nimbleness and nuance that the Farrelly brothers lack; instead, they trade in crude jokes underpinned by the structurally misogynist ‘boys will be boys’ mythos.” There may be something to this criticism. In 2016, a University of Michigan research study, entitled “I Did It Because I Never Stopped Loving You,” found that women are often more tolerant of aggressive male behavior because of the normalizing of such behavior in romantic comedies. There’s Something About Mary was one of the films cited in the report, which suggested that the film’s excusal of male aggression supported “stalking myths,” which were defined as “false or exaggerated beliefs about stalking that minimize its seriousness.” Findings like these also support research that has been going on since Harriet Martineau began pioneering the field of gender conflict. The Martineau Theory suggested that exposure to disparaging humor towards a particular group often has the result of inducing tolerance towards prejudice directed at that group. Martineau’s work focused on gender theory, but could just as easily be applied to any group.

Obviously, there is no truly right or wrong answer in regards to There’s Something About Mary, but as you watch the film, it seems a new lens may need to be applied. Even as we laugh at the cringeworthy humor of the Farrelly Brothers, what is their target? What behaviors are they excusing? Ben Stiller suggested there was no deeper political meaning to the film, but does that deeper meaning have to be intended to be valid? As There’s Something About Mary nears its 25th anniversary, we now look at it with more nuance, also with the realization that Peter Farrelly’s Oscar victories for Green Book suggest his once outsider take on comedy and culture is now firmly at the center.

#There's Something About Mary #Peter Farrelly #Bobby Farrelly #Farrelly Brothers #Cameron Diaz #Matt Dillon #Ben Stiller #Lin Shaye #Comedy #Romantic Comedy #Offensive Comedy #Green Book

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amillioninprizes · 5 years

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An entirely too long post on how to fix Veronica Mars

So, anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows: 1) What a massive Veronica Mars fan I was and 2) how distraught I’ve been over the most recent season that debuted on Hulu in July. I’ve been pretty angry about it since it dropped, but the first month after I was pretty occupied with real life stuff. Now that I’m more settled, I’ve found myself getting sadder and angrier over time with just how terrible S4 was and what an obvious fuck you to longtime fans it was. It feels dumb to be so upset over a tv show, but this show got me through a lot over the past 8 years, and I feel like it’s been taken away from me.

It’s anyone’s guess as to whether there will be a new season. Ideally it would end here with maybe an alternate ending filmed to avoid alienating fans further. On the one hand, the botched release, overwhelmingly negative response, and silence from the creators after initial interviews don’t look good for renewal chances. On the other hand, Hulu doesn’t have a lot of streaming hits, it probably did relatively decent numbers, and there are rumors floating around that its pickup chances look good. On a personal level, I hate the idea that this is where the legacy of Veronica Mars ends, while at the same time being extremely wary of what the creators have planned. I think a big part of the disappointment with S4 was that the movie and books set up what could have been some really interesting storylines and situations, all of which RT and co. squandered for cheap drama and to apparently turn the show into an entirely new vehicle; additionally I had hope that S4 would be a chance to rectify some problems the show has long had, but again, S4 exacerbated them. At this point I don’t expect anyone higher up in the creative process or at Hulu to give a fuck about the fans or making the show better as long as they hit streaming targets, but here are some suggestions:

Fire Rob Thomas

While he created the show, it’s become clear that not only has he lost touch with the audience and the original spirit of the character, he doesn’t seem too keen on putting much effort into writing the show (as I will discuss below). Then you have his clear misogyny: his views that women in relationships can’t be interesting, that what makes Veronica interesting as a character is her trauma and how much she can endure, and the fact that basically every female character in the history of the show has a history of sexual victimization. He thought that making the Mexican cartel hitmen “philosophical” was subverting expectations (which says a lot of what his expectations of Latinx characters are). Then this is the way he essentially exploited his long term fan base to earn a new season of the show, only to turn around and tell us that we don’t matter. From a business perspective alone keeping him doesn’t make sense; selling a streaming platform on your loyal fanbase and then proceeding to purposefully piss ~80% of them off would be pretty questionable to me as someone in charge. The sheer cruelty with which he treated not only the fans who have supported him for 15 years (I fucking used to liveblog iZombie y’all. iZombie!), as well as how he callously dismissed long time cast members in favor of celebrity guest stars should not be rewarded. He’s admitted in interviews that he would be ok with younger writers doing a reboot many years in the future; why not just let him have a producer credit and then hand the show over to someone who’s invested in making it good?

Put a woman in charge and diversify the writing staff

A big problem with a) Veronica’s characterization in S4 b) RT’s ideas about what makes female characters interesting c) the show’s long history of problematic treatment of sexual assault is that it comes from a man’s conception of the female experience. The Veronica showcased in S4 and that RT wants to write in the future is very much a male fantasy: hates marriage and children, traumatized, DTF, and is too cool for other women. RT stated in interviews that he wanted to show Veronica at a “crossroads” this season in a way he claimed had been shown for men but not women; many female viewers found this depiction to ring false (few women are spending their time fretting about how committing to marriage after five years in an established relationship will bar us from strange sex going forward). In addition to having RT at the helm, most of the show’s writing staff for the majority of its run has been white dudes, which doesn’t bode well for telling the story of a female PI in a diverse community in today’s political climate. Putting a woman in charge would hopefully help rectify these issues to make the character feel more true to life and put a damper on the misogynistic storytelling. The show has a natural candidate in RT’s second-in-command Diane Ruggiero-Wright (despite her problematic history, never forget #KeisterEggGate), who has admitted to not being able to watch the last episode. Jennifer Graham, who wrote both of the books, would also be a worthy addition to the writing staff; while the books had a mixed reception, most fans agree that she got Veronica’s character right. And with the show’s problematic historical treatment of minority characters, adding more POC writers going forward is also necessary.

Bring back Logan (alive)

You don’t have to be a LoVe shipper to recognize just how integral Logan has been since the inception of the show, not just as Veronica’s partner but as a character is his own right. Logan’s journey in many ways parallels Veronica’s, and shows a contrast in how different characters respond to similar trauma. The most critical plot line in the show’s history, the mystery of who killed Lilly Kane, simply doesn’t work without Logan’s importance to Veronica. RT and his defenders like to claim that Logan was holding her back from true growth, which is frankly bizarre as he is the only character to consistently challenge her, like when he tells her that she obviously isn’t happy this season. Additionally, Logan’s scenes this season were the lone highlight of what was otherwise a painful slog of a season. Of the people who have said they would watch a potential S5, a good portion are only interested because they believe that the ambiguity of the last 10 minutes of the season means he’s not really dead (despite what RT has said in interviews). Then there’s what Logan’s death does to Veronica’s character, effectively cutting off what would have been an interesting character arc and stagnating her forever. No matter how much they try to shove Leo the pedo creep and other milquetoast RT self-insert love interests on us, no one else can possible measure up to Logan’s level in terms of being able to match Veronica as a character, intellectually or as a result of shared history.

Plus, the fact that we haven’t had a Weevil/Logan interaction since S3 is a goddamn travesty and should be rectified immediately.

Bring back Veronica

As sad as I am about Logan’s death, for me the most upsetting aspect of S4 was the assassination of Veronica’s character. For many viewers (including myself), the character we saw Kristen Bell portray in S4 wasn’t Veronica Mars but a different character with the same name. Between her abusive behavior towards Logan, her general indifference to her father’s medical condition, her dismissal of Wallace, and her racism towards Latinx characters (using a kid’s lawyer to threaten deportation: not a good look!), she was lacking the marshmallow-y center that always balanced out the pricklier aspects of her character and made her compelling. This change in characterization was especially jarring given that she was not this way when we last saw her in the books, where she mused about having children and sent her half-brother Hunter to summer camp (side note, but does he even exist anymore?). Many of us who had grown up with Veronica were hoping to see her grow with us as a character; instead we got an extreme regression lower than we’ve ever seen her. It would be one thing if they were trying to depict a PTSD storyline, which would make sense given her background, but since her change in behavior is never addressed by the narrative, it just makes her look like a cruel asshole and makes it impossible to root for her. This is exacerbated by the fact that RT has made it clear he has no interest in portraying her inner life, as shown by his wanting to avoid showing her grief over Logan’s death because it would be a real downer compared to the entertaining but ultimately hollow banter and quips he wants to focus on. Veronica this season was also just plain dumb: you mean to tell me that the girl who nearly got killed by Aaron Echolls in her back seat wouldn’t think to check her backseat every time she gets in a car? (And let’s not even start with RT’s bizarre assertion in an interview that she apparently votes Republican). Not helping matters was Kristen Bell’s performance, which felt very flat for me this season compared to S1-3 and the movie; I don’t know if this was due to personal limitations or a reflection of the bad writing. Writers of future installments and KB herself would be wise to revisit S1, the movie, and the books to figure out what makes sense for Veronica’s character, leading me to my next point:

Get reacquainted with canon, develop a show bible, and hire a continuity director

This show has long had a problem with dropped plots, timelines, and continuity issues. Shelly Pomroy’s party has two happened either in the summer, or the fall. Then we have the movie paradox: Veronica graduated high school in 2006, which means her 10 year reunion should have taken place in 2016. The movie was released in 2014 and the books seem to keep to 2014 dates. Then S4 states that Keith’s movie accident took place in 2013, and mysteriously ages Veronica up to 35 when she should be 32 in 2019. Logan mentions an Aunt Naomi in S4--why didn’t she take care of him after Aaron was arrested (and what happened to Trina)? How the hell is Leo working as an FBI agent when he presided over the disappearance of the Lilly/Aaron tapes? Veronica is shown to be tentatively forgiving of Weevil taking the settlement from the sheriff’s department in Mr. Kiss and Tell, but is then shown to be extremely angry towards him for it in S4. This is just a small selection of the inconsistencies within the show. Plus there is the problem of repeated plot lines: Veronica rejects Leo in favor of Logan in S1, then rejects Leo in favor of Logan in Mr. Kiss and Tell, only for her to...reject Leo in favor of Logan in S4 (and RT says he wants to leave the high school plots behind). This sloppiness doesn’t bode well for a series that is supposed to be about mysteries, which require tight plotting. It would behove TPTB going forward to once and for all determine a timeline of Veronica’s life, keep a detailed record of past plot and character points, and have at least one person on staff who thinks to remember this stuff (RT notoriously has only a “solid, not spectacular” memory of the show, no matter what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says).

Make an effort (and do your fucking research)

Moving on from continuity issues to more general problems with the laziness of RT’s writing. He has basically admitted that he doesn’t care much about facts or characterization when writing plots--he shoehorns details to fit the plot rather than have it evolve organically from the characters and prior canon. I know that when writing it’s often impossible to make every story detail 100% accurate, but the extent of RT’s sloppiness is alarming. This excellent Reddit thread details a lot of the problems with S4 in particular, but this has been a problem since S2. Did anyone ever understand exactly why the Fitzpatricks were invested in framing Logan for Felix’s death? In the movie, it makes no sense that if Cobb and co. wanted Carrie silenced, they would add the complication of framing Logan for her murder--given her history, it would have been a lot easier just to make it look like she had accidentally overdosed. Given his previous patterns of villain writing fans were able to guess the identity of the S4 bomber based on casting alone. The mysteries in both Mr. Kiss and Tell and S4 are both ripped from the headlines, which indicates that RT wants to turn VM into the next Law and Order. Meanwhile, he complained about how hard including Logan in the story in S4 was, while Logan arguably had the best lines and most interesting scenes this season--apparently when you put an effort into things, they work out! This laziness extends past storyline issues and into factual problems that detract from the quality of the plot. Longtime fandom pals are probably tired about hearing me go on and on about how there’s no way Aaron’s lawyers could have gotten Veronica’s medical records due to HIPAA laws. Logan’s career change from naval aviator to intelligence is highly unlikely (and unnecessary, given that they changed it only to fridge him at the end of the season). Meanwhile, I know fanfic writers who have spent hours on the phone with strangers in order to research what type of firearm would cause a specific type of bullet injury. It’s very puzzling to me that RT wants to take the show in the direction of being mystery-only when apart from that one time he is piss poor at writing mysteries and puts no effort into them. I shouldn’t have to tell television writers to, you know, do their job but this is what we’ve come to in 2019.

Know your audience

A majorly annoying thing about the promo for this season is how in every single interview Rob Thomas did he was always talking about how he wanted VM to be like other shows and movies: Fargo, True Detective, Game of Thrones, Chinatown (which is apparently the only noir movie he’s ever seen). The thing is, if I wanted to watch those shows, I would; I watched Veronica Mars specifically because I enjoyed its unique qualities, and I would say most fans agree. The general perception within the fandom is that with this season Rob Thomas seems to have been aiming to dump the old, majority female, CW fanbase in order to achieve what he perceives as a cooler prestigious male fanbase; the issue is, new people aren’t going to take up a show in its fourth season if they didn’t watch or didn’t like earlier seasons. Also, trying to write a prestigious show doesn’t make your show prestigious. Considering that based on anecdotal evidence most of the people who like S4 seem to be male, he may have succeeded in the first part of his aim. However, this majority female fanbase he was so willing to cast aside are the ones who have run fansites and rewatches during fallow times (i.e. between S3 and the movie and then between the books and S4), so drumming up interest among fans (and therefore streaming views) in the future may be a challenge. Plus, women are a better advertising demographic since they are more likely to be in charge of household purchasing decisions, so maintaining us as a fanbase makes business sense as well. He may have tricked enough people into watching S4 that S5 is given a go, but I wouldn’t be surprised if streams are weak beyond that. If the show is to succeed as a commercial endeavor, better to go with appealing to a known quantity than trying to make a generic show that very few people have expressed interest in watching.

Bring back the mystery of the week

This is a more minor thing I felt was missing from S4. I think after the criticism of S3 not having a season-long arc RT overcorrected in focusing on one mystery. However, the mystery of the week had the following benefits: 1) giving chances for the characters to interact and telling us more about them 2) helping to modulate the pace of the season-long arc. With better writing a season-long standalone mystery could maybe work, but in the case of S4 specifically the mystery was kind of dull and repetitive and could have stood to include a couple of diversions in the form of a smaller case here and there.

Re-evaluate the creators’ interpretation of the word “adult”

Much of the promo and reviews for this season noted the more “adult” content to be expected this season now that Veronica’s grown. Many fans hoped that meant seeing Veronica act like, you know, an adult with adult problems rather than a teenager less mature than the actual teenager she was. Unfortunately, the show’s interpretation of the word seems to be more in keeping with a television rating sense of the word--meaning sex, drugs, and gratuitous violence (But apparently not the word “fuck.”). Look, it was expected that as the show moved to a streaming service and given the overall dramatic scope that there would be an upgrade in some of this sort of content (and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t looking forward to steamier LoVe moments, which were sorely overpromised), but the way it was included this season felt like RT and co. included this stuff just because they could and not to serve the storyline. For me, personally, the biggest example of this was Veronica’s drug use, which I know didn’t necessarily bother everyone. Given her history as the daughter of an alcoholic as well as someone who had been the victim of two roofie attacks, not to mention the fact that her character never seemed to be into partying, I found it very out of character (and book writer Jennifer Graham agrees). It felt like RT included this just bc they thought it would be funny to see Veronica on drugs without considering whether it made sense for her character. Also, were the beheadings strictly necessary? Plus there’s RT’s little temper tantrum over not being able to use curse words this season--they weren’t present in the original show, no one was going to miss them now, and the “cuss” thing was just annoying and reminiscent of The Good Place.

Dealing with a parent who maybe has dementia--that’s an adult storyline. Too bad RT ended it with a dumb excuse about “mixing meds” (another factual error! Pharmacy software would have caught it!) rather than actually exploring what it would mean for Veronica to see her father in decline and take over the family business (and give Rico Colantoni the exit he appears to want). This is the kind of adult content I would hope to see in future seasons.

Adult is not a synonym for “unrelentingly bleak” either. The original show, while dark, always had an element of hope that was completely removed from S4 (no matter what KB might claim). And would it have killed the writers to show Veronica wearing disguises and going undercover like she used to? There was nothing fun about this season (and no, I don’t count the multiple partying scenes as fun, more like sad).

Kill your darlings

It’s cliche, but it’s true. Another issue the show has long had is the writers keeping around characters or inserting jokes and references for their own personal amusement rather than for the story. The most notable example of this is the continued presence of Dick, a highly problematic character considering he pushed Beaver into the room with Veronica the night of Shelly Pomroy’s party, among a whole host of other racist, sexist, and generally obnoxious actions over the years. But because Ryan Hansen is so widely beloved among the cast and crew, so he stays. Then there’s the matter of the infamous Keister egg in 3x08, which the writers and KB have all expressed love for, despite the fact that said Keister egg is an example of sexual assault--which, even if the victim is a douchey fraternity president, is never funny.

Also the constant Big Lebowski references are tiring. Watch a new movie.

Improve Neptune’s gender ratio

Veronica Mars, despite having a female lead, has always been a male-dominated show; other than Veronica herself, the only consistent female character over the original show was Mac (and she didn’t even come back this season). This is unacceptable in 2019, for any show. The books introduced promising female characters in the form of Marcia Langdon and Petra Landros, but Marcia’s character was was watered down for S4 and Petra was nowhere to be found. Additionally, Veronica and Mac have always been written as “cool girls” who looked down on other women for their femininity, which isn’t a great message. Almost every other female character, even the innocuous Parker, is portrayed as somehow bad or incompetent. I would love nothing more than a season centered on the women of Neptune and their interactions with each other. While we’re at it, stop giving every woman on this show a background of sexual victimization.

Treat VM as an ensemble show, not a Kristen Bell vanity project

A major complaint from Burnt Marshmallows and S4 defenders alike was how little time was given over to the original core cast this season. While Veronica may be the protagonist, a large part of how the show became so beloved was her relationships with the other characters. Yet RT has decided that going forward VM will be a KB solo project, with her traveling town to town quipping and sleeping with strangers. This seems strange, given Kristen’s recent interviews talking about how difficult it is to shoot VM and how she never wants to be first on a call sheet ever again, not to mention how she asked for less screen time all the way back in S2, which resulted in the Weevil-Logan storyline, which was way more interesting than Veronica’s storylines during the first half of that season. (The traveling detective thing also seems weird considering that KB is pretty insistent on shooting in LA to be near her family.) Additionally, if this is truly the last season of VM with all the original characters, then no one got a proper sendoff.

I’m not sure how willing much of the cast will be to return for future iterations, given how uncomfortable many of them seemed during promo as well RT and KB’s treatment of them (insensitive at best, deliberately mean at worst) this season (shout out to Tina Majorino for recognizing what a shit show this was going to be), but bringing back all the original characters into the fold and giving them significant storylines would go a long way to mending fences with fans, improving the show from a character arc perspective, and would also give KB the break she apparently wants.

Recourt the fanbase

What has VM always been renowned for above all else? It’s incredibly loyal fandom which not only got it renewed twice during its original run but also put up their own money to get the movie made--I know many people who donated when they really couldn’t afford to. RT basically owes the last 6 years of his career to VM fans--the success of the Kickstarter arguably got him the iZombie show running gig, and the fourth season likely wouldn’t have even happened if not for it. Thus, the blatant cruelty and disregard with which RT and KB have treated fans during the promotion of S4 has been incredibly insulting and hurtful; I still can’t fathom what in the world possessed RT to think that throwing away this 15-year relationship was a good idea. It’s not a good sign when the 2 fansites most active during the post-movie period (VMHQ and VM Confessions) cease operations in the wake of S4, and when at least 3 out of 8 board members of the oldest running fan group, Neptune Rising (who were dormant during the post-movie period but played a critical role during earlier fan campaigns and in the S4 promo) resign. A fandom this loyal that was betrayed will not stand idly by if the S5 RT wants to make goes ahead; given the number of tweets the official Hulu VM account has had to delete in the wake of S4 due to the overwhelmingly negative response as well as the controversy over editing out Logan from S4 promos, I imagine that S5 will be a PR nightmare. Even if future seasons are amazing the trust can probably never be fully repaired, but it would be helpful for RT (or fingers crossed, a new show runner) and KB (as star and EP) to go overboard in reaching out to fans and at least admitting they made a misstep with the entirety of S4. Back in the day, the old Mars Investigation fansite was invited to set to conduct interviews; maybe do that again. Also someone should get KB some sort of VM fandom-fluent media trainer because I don’t think she has conducted a single interview during her entire stint on the show that didn’t anger fans (it might help if she actually bothered to watch the show).

Map out an endgame

Look, this can’t go on forever. As long as RT keeps leaving every installment open ended with the hopes of maybe getting renewed again five years down the line, the story is going to keep running into the issues the movie and S4 faced with having to shoehorn the characters into nonsensical plot lines to reconcile those endings and deal with actor availability issues. Either plot another 2-3 seasons to wrap the show up with a satisfying conclusion, or map out a greater timeline of Veronica’s life with spots where a mini series or movie here and there could fit in.

#Veronica Mars #still angry #mainly written for personal catharsis #need to stop being angry about this and focus more on studying synaptic transmission #Burnt Marshmallow #we use to be fans

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toomuchbroadwayquotes · 4 years

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This might be ignored,its a long read, but if you want to have your forces restored on feminism my dead feminists i really wanted to share something that is making me tear up every 5 seconds.

As some of you might now, in my country (Brasil) we currently have a situation where our "president" is a misogynist (said he had a bunch of boys, they he went weak and have a daughter that's a "small" example for yall), homophobic ( said he would beat the gay out of his son if he ever "got it"), racist ( talking about killing native Indians and saying slaverism was a choice yadayada) anyways, just a piece of crap, we call him Bozo, like the clown. Well ever since his election we have been feeling so down (I'm sure my American friends can share the feeling). We are the country that kills more transexual people on the world. And it's not even illegal here, that would put into perspective. So, all this are real, serious problems, but bear with me as I get I little... naive maybe?. Well we had 20 seasons of BigBrother over here (Or BBB, Adding the Brasil at the end) and the show is on "the liberals tv channel, all the conservatives try to boycott it yadda yadda ") . But this season is just a gem. I feel like a revolution is happening and (I'm crying rn) I can't even put into words. Its gonna sound ridiculous, but you have to understand that 1) TV is a huge part of our culture, and is 100% connected with politics for us. 2)This show has been silencing woman, making men do anything they want without consequences and put woman as simple objects for their enjoyment. And somehow every year we wouldcomplain about how that was the reflection of our country. Something like this year edition NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.

Our LGBT movies, Theather and books are being censoreds right now. Our country is on the verge of becoming a conservative doom.

The secretary of health system said :abstinence of sex is the best way to avoid DSTs and pregnancies. THATS HOW DEEP IN SHIT WE ARE. And we feel voiceless. Is like they are the majority you know?

Is like, you know when Katniss made every distric rebel by leading an example on the hunger games? Is THAT KIND OF SHIT. So, firsts things first:

I will introduce you the leaders of our current feminist movement

First, Thelma, she is not just ya regular powerful black queen. She is a doctor, with a bunch of degrees on stuff I can't even pronounce,she is specialized on anesthesia and she is a resident like those bad ass ones in grey's anatomy. She she is A BOSS. She is strong, and even though she is not 100% familiar with the feminism in "theory" she lives it in practice with out even knowing it ( now she knows, cause the other two are teaching her!) I want to make clear that on this reality show, the majority of the public has always been racist, and black people normally are eliminated first, yes it sucks and is one of the reasons I stopped watching a long time ago, as most of us millenials, but thank God we came back. She isn't going ANYWHERE CUZ WE ARE NOT LETTING THAT HAPPEN.

The second one is Marcela, every since the first we saw her she said loud and clear:I AM A FEMINIST, she is also a Doctor. She calls her self doctor unicorn, she is an OB/GYN and choose her career because she wanted to fully support her transexual brother /yess/, she is also expert on female sexuality and give classes about it, think Carina Deluca. She also takes care of sexual abuse victims. Oh yeah, she is bisexual as well. And everyone is shipping her with the next one btw.

Now our last warrior: Gizelly, She is a Lawyer, and she advocates for woman, she has suffered all the types of abuse from her ex husband and after all the trauma, she decided no one would do that to her again. Feminist, we call her the hurricane, she just shoots fire and defends any woman that is being belittled.

What happened was, some guys decided they would "seduce"any woman who was in a relationship outside the reality show, so they would look bad, and be eliminated easily. Wellx those 3 heard that, and they just couldn't get quiet. They went and tell all the girls about it. Some of them didn't believe them, the guys said they were CRAZY, and were LYING (what a shock)

The confrontation scene:

So one of them said: If I am lying, I will be eliminated this round. If I'm back, then you are the lier. So, regular reality show stuff right?

Here are some things you should know: Marcela, the leader ( as she was the one with the initiatives) was anonymous when she first got on the show, and 13 days later, she had 2 MILLION FOLLOWERS. Every feminist, every LGBT+ and ally on this country just woke up ya know?. We were all mad as hell that they were being treated as liars, but, and that's a HUGE but, the guy mentioned earlier was against one that was even worse. He was touching inappropriately the girls while they were completely DRUNK at the parties ( they wouldn't remember later), he was the one who actually made said plan mentioned before, but they didn't knew at the house because he was a completely different person when he was alone with the guys. A complete scumbag, he mocked and made fun of every woman on the house because of their looks etc. Sooo, all those millions of feminists watching were like : "do we take the biggest jerk and make the girls think we think they are lying or ?" Well, we decided to take the bigger toxic monster first, and left the other one for the next. But we had a special card. Every year, after the show starts, they put a glass house in the middle of a mall, with 4 candidates inside, we vote for 2 of them to be on the actual show yada yada. What happened was:people started showing off by the mall, with posters, begging for whomever got in the house to :"PLEASE TELL THE GIRLS EVERYONE BELIEVE THEM. THAT THEY ARE NOT LYING. THAT THEY HAVE MILLIONS OF SUPPORTERS. THAT HE ONLY CAME BACK BECAUSE THE OTHER WAS WORSE ETC"

So, last night was elimination day, the worst one got out with 80% elimination A victory for us (there were 4 people on this run, and one of them is a Black guy, fat, older than everyone else, and by history, he would obviously be the first eliminated but he was the one with LESS VOTES. AGAIN THIS IS UNPRECEDENTED IN OUR COUNTRY SPECIALLY SINC THE FOURTH PERSON COMPETING IS A CARISMATIC YOUNG KOREAN MAGICIAN YOUTUBER WITH A NETWORTH OF MILLIONS, BUT THE BLACK GUY WAS LESS VOTED THAN HIM, GUYS I CAN'T STOP WRITING IN CAPS.The second worst one tho, comeback celebrating, saying he knew he was right. Singing victory. The girls were crashed. No one understood and they all started crying and talking about how it was a reflection of our country, but that they wouldn't change their ideals etc. (Again, they didn't knew everything trash bag number one did, cuz he did it in secret so they thought it was an answer)... well, 2am, the couple from the glass house got in. And they told them. They said everything. How the public loves them, and the why the other one got out first, and how we knew they were saying the truth. This part is just a sweet ending for y'all. They then proceeded to get all the woman in one bedroom and talked and talked, they even explained to the ones who had some deep patriarchal mindset and were believing the boys up until that point, they had conversations about feminism, about not accepting to be treated that way, they cried, they were so relieved, it's silly because is a reality show, but last night everyone felt like we were supported. Like, people got our backs! People agree that we wont take that bullshit anymore. In other editions those guys would be the handsome guys that all the girls would die to be with, you know? But know they are the villains. It happened. The girls are not the crazy ones. They are not the powerless wones. They were the STRONG ONES forming OPINIONS, moving the big pieces on the board.

I can't even talk about how this will impact on many young girls, especially with all those girls having such strong stories you know? Today is a reality show but whatch us on the booting vote! Watch us at the March's. Just watch us. I'm telling y'all. Brasil is gonna turn this shit upside down.

Anyways here is a little clip of when our guardian Angel Dan, told the girls that they should trust Marcela's word

The relief the felt, we all felt. Having your word taken seriously after being called crazy and lier...

( even the production of the show tryied to deny the guys plan was real before the videos started pouring up, and they had to take back after saying on national television that Marcela was lying. Because that was the standard)

#big brother #BBB #Big Brother Brazil #big brother brasil #marcela mc gowan #Feminism #third wave feminism #inclusive feminism #liberal feminism #lgbt+

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