#but yeah my ORIGINAL point is she's a flawed character and that's ok! she's allowed to not be perfect or one dimensional

[janeromeroshow]

it makes me sad sometimes that jane seems to always be reduced to only the "mommy" survivor by people in the fandom, or a mentor figure to the others, and part of me worries that it has to do with her body type ( since as we all know, larger women are often relegated to "motherly" roles ), and while nobody in the rpc specifically has made me feel this way and you're all amazing for the most part i want to say this about my portrayal;

jane is a deeply complex, but also deeply broken woman. even prior to being taken by the fog she was suffering with stress that caused her to act erratically and with hostility, even when she seemed to be at her peak. yes, she wanted to be a role model to those around her, but at the state she's in emotionally upon her arrival to the fog, she's probably not a good one.

she's empathetic, kind, and diplomatic, yes! she's also willing to bodily attack a killer from out of a locker. she's used to fighting for the things she deserves, whether it's with carefully chosen words or a more literal manner. one of the biggest emotions she was feeling when she was taken was anger that she'd supposedly been lied to her whole fucking life, only to be treated like an idiot for it in front of millions of people.

#ooc. #musing. #idk my point is let jane be fucking unhinged!! let her get mad and make bad decisions and be selfish and irresponsible sometimes #i also wanted to add in a section abt how she's one of those characters who's both sexualised (bc ''thicc'') #but also STILL pushed into a motherly role bc of the ''mommy'' trope #and yeah thats a huge part bc of her body type #and probably also her ethnicity but i don't feel fully equipped to discuss in detail that since i am not latina #i do know that woc are often pushed into domineering roles bc they're seen as aggressive and i will not stand for that when it comes to jan #anyway yes ppl can find jane attractive! i think she's very beautiful! she's a woman whos in tune w her own sexuality and wants #and they don't necessarily fit the stereotypes that i sometimes see pushed on her #mostly by gross gamer boy fans who've never interacted with an actual woman since school lol #but yeah my ORIGINAL point is she's a flawed character and that's ok! she's allowed to not be perfect or one dimensional

[shizukateal]

Do you think the characters designed by Ume Aoki in the Madokaverse suffer from same face syndrome? Back in my Reddit days, I asked the r/mendrawingwomen subreddit what they thought of the girls in both the original anime and the Madokaverse, and they said that the Ume Aoki characters were victims of that syndrome, even the Holy Quintet. Tbh while a lot of Ume Aoki designed characters do share the same face but not all of them, I think the quintet have distinctive enough faces to tell each other apart.

I mean... yeah, but also... Ugh, you opened the gates to a rant.

See, "same face syndrome" is one of those Internet Media Criticisms™️ that gets flattened into a label you can put on something to make it seem like you do have a point against it, even when the label itself is the most surface-level take you can think of. And applying it to Madoka feels particularly shallow when 90% of anime does the same, but oftentimes even worse. Hell, even anime that portrays more nuanced humans tends to have a base for what attractive, lead-type people look like (think One Piece, Cowboy Bebop, or Gurren Lagann).

That's not to say that I am a fan of this fact. As someone who has been irrevocably influenced by Steven Universe in her artstyle, I find a lot of appeal in media that goes out of its way to not only have very distinct faces but also bodytypes within its cast. But while I don't necessarily want to defend it, that doesn't mean that pointing out Same Face Syndrome as gotcha to call an aesthetic "bad" and leaving it at that counts as valid, insightful criticism.

Like ok, you know Sword Art Online? The anime world's favorite dead horse to beat? Absolute shit of a show, no one should watch it. All the women that are part of the cardboard protagonist's harem have the same plastic figurine body and face, only in different colors and bust size. The most unique variation among them is that 1 (one) of them has freckles, and she is the loser friendzoned one that is clearly meant to not be as appealing as the others, including the pedo and incest baits.

HOWEVER. Individually, all of the character designs ARE appealing. The colors are good, the line art and the ratio of detail are balanced, the hairstyles make sense even if they have some flair of exaggeration and I am sorry to be the one to say this, but the outfits are excellent -at least for the seasons I regrettably watched-, with a clearly defined aesthetic that makes sense, and all the girls have different outfits and just... it looks good, I'm sorry! Have you seen the character designs in other harem anime?

Now, that doesn't make all of that other stuff I said above any less true, nor does it mean that Same Face Syndrome is justified so long as it's pretty*. It just means that for all its flaws, at least SAO put some effort in that area. It was never going to be an effort that would allow for, say, a fat woman to be part of the harem -although no self respecting woman would ever want that- or anything else that would deviate from that base, but the effort was made nonetheless; and as much as I don't like SAO, ignoring the things it does right just to needlessly berate it a little more is disrespectful to the staff members who actually PUT IN THE WORK towards delivering a good product. And it's also, you know, just a bad, counterproductive attitude in general! It's on the same vein as cancelling any piece of media for being "problematic" regardless of how minimum the offense. It's petty spite trying to disguise itself as righteousness.

Now, FINALLY going back to Madoka, YES, Ume Aoki also has a base. And it is fine not to like it. It's fine to want more variety beyond tereme or tsurime eyes, or to just straight-up not like this artstyle where even the adults have this weird big baby-head-and-face above their mostly realistically proportioned bodies. But good media criticism comes from meeting it at its own terms.

I have talked about how good the character designs are individually -and can probably even say more if I have the chance-. I have talked about how well they work as a group. On a general artstyle sense the contrast between the moe cutseyiness but with mostly grounded anatomy works well for the tonal shift, and the animators did well at drawing sad and shocked expressions that don't take the audience out of the action just because it's happening to ridiculously cute girls, at least in my opinion. Everyone is just simple enough to have silhouette that can be replicated with general ease, while being just detailed enough to be memorable. Save for Madoka herself, who is deliberately styled to look archetypical, no other characters in anime look quite like the holy quintet, even taking the clichés they represent into account. I have seen blonde, sisterly anime women with big boobs, but none of them really look like Mami. Same with tomboyish best friends, or fiery redheads, or standoffish, mysterious cool rival girls, none of them have what Sayaka, Kyoko, and Homura have.

My point is YES, PMMM has same face syndrome, but it's fallacious to undermine Ume Aoki's artstyle by ganging on that fact alone. Every piece of media has problems that contribute to a wider net, which means that we can't really interact with anything "pure". Before you dismiss something you really gotta ask what the magnitude of its flaw is: is the same face syndrome here a stain that overshadows everything else, is it one amongst other problems that make the character designs unappealing, or is it just something that is ultimately minimal but should still be taken into account because of how it contributes to a general issue?

*This being said, it is not a failing of moral character to like an artstyle with same face syndrome because you find that base appealing. I mean, like... there's better things to do and worse issues to resolve, right? We all acknowledge that?

#puella magi madoka magica #pmmm #holy quintet #same face syndrome

[prof-peach]

if fans wanted to include peach in stuff they write, would that be okay? and how would they write peach's personality? aside from "FIGHT ME" anyway, i think that much is a given lol. i only really write the anime characters 'cause that's what i know, but it sounds like it'd be kinda fun to try making a version of ash that fits into this blog's universe! nerf'd Obviously, but i think she'd probably appreciate how hands-on he gets when training his pokemon!

Ok, I get a lot of these messages, and I often hear folks wanting to throw peach into their stories and comics and writings, and I will always simply ask that if it’s published online publicly, to be linked to it so I can snoop and enjoy the content too. If someone asks about her in your work, let them know about the blog I guess? But literally I love that people take this stuff, these characters and stories, and make new stuff with it. No ones making money off my work here? So where’s the issue? Go for it buddy, knock yourself out, I’m all for it.

For you, and all the others out there who want to add peach, and other characters to your world building, I will give you a detailed rundown of the main lot, and how they behave, what they do, how they function. You can use that, use bits, or use none of it, I do not mind at all. If you’re creating something, you’re in control, not me.

So, peach doesn’t actually fight people as much as you’d think. She’s very aware most cannot and do not want to do that, and so she likes to keep to herself with regards to that aspect of her life, she doesn’t ask to spar with people, or even bring it up at all, but people ask her all the time, even if they clearly would lose or become hurt should she miscalculate during the fight. She looks at people like they usually create problems, and often has a somewhat reserved nature to other humans. You have to work quite hard to get anything more than formalities out of her. She will dead-pan handle people with blunt and very to-the-point statements, aid whenever possible, but very quickly get back to handling the Pokemon she so carefully tends. Her focus is clear, she’s all about hard work, her very small select family, and the Pokemon.

Her brutal, loud and brash personality only comes out with friends, family, difficult humans, OR any Pokemon. She will joke and laugh and play with Pokemon, but clam up around humans, maintaining tight body language and generally will be a little cold by regular standards. She does however have some weaknesses in this emotionless shield she puts up. When peach was young she was always angry, which swung so fast to sadness, back and forth. Her teenage years it just got worse and worse, it was crippling at points. She is to this day, full of fire and rage, even sadness, but now she has learnt to control it, to use it. When she sees that in others, it’s familiar, and she is pushed to drop the front, and be very real with the person. Underdogs I suppose, people who get bad reps, but deserve the same as everyone else. She can’t ignore it.

Once you start to pry open her personality, you’ll find she’s a lot more laid back and fun than originally appeared, you just have to work hard to find that side of her. She will meme reference, can’t dance to save her life, loves her coffee, and can be caught in quiet contemplation while gardening. This hobby is her calmest, and often is why she can stay so level headed when her quiet rage boils up again. Without time outside she will become grouchy, a little snippy, and lethargic. Will not go in the ocean for any reason other than life or death, is fine with ponds and rivers, or water at wading height. Likes the rain.

With regards to her training others, they usually have to tolerate her somewhat strict nature. She is a little....unforgiving, holds a grudge if you make a lot of mistakes, and has no tolerance for ignorance in the age of information that we all live in. In previous posts I’ve mentioned she’s only recently selected two students, after many years of testing kids who want to learn from her. Hundred tried out, only two have ever been approved. How she teaches is very fast paced, be prepared to get some scrapes and bruises, she will test your physical and emotional tolerances with intense tasks, carefully watching students like a hawk. Bad posture in your stance? She’ll be the first to tell you to sort it out. Not hearing your Pokemon partner? Right, now you spend the day without using words trying to communicate, let’s see how you like not being listened to.

This is a woman who has spent her life saying very little, and watching everything, she watches Pokemon and can see an issue from a mile off, and in battles, her observations are why she can react fast, and chose effective strategy to avoid damage and achieve results. Don’t let her body fool you, her strongest asset is analysing, watching, planning. Those skills have over the years transferred to people too. As a student, mistakes don’t go unnoticed with this professor.

Her methods are harsh but fair, and should you prove yourself, she will protect you with her life.

Because of her disinterest in kids and lots of noise, she does pass the training of students on to the other staff members whenever possible. Grey takes on the lions share of battle lessons, he is far calmer, more open and friendly, with patience for people, and an empathy that peach sometimes struggles to have. When you go through a lot of harsh training, and difficult events, it’s hard to change how you feel or think, with peach, well, she’s been through it. Most do not come out the other end in one piece, but she did, and it made her strong. You may think I mean strong like buff and big, and yeah sure she is, but I mean it mentally more than anything. Peach will not quit. She has learnt to destroy the boundaries that stop people getting hurt, gone is the fear that freezes you in your tracks, that feeling that you’ll pass out if you go one more step. She’s learnt to ignore it.

This means she’s a little forgetful at how it is to be normal, to be vulnerable and soft and squishy like students so usually are.

She has her issues, but for the most part, visitors get a laugh, a smile, a calm assertive confidence, and facts. She will indulge those who have genuine interest, or show a connection with nature, an understanding of the balance that needs to be struck for everyone to live well together.

Despite her many flaws, she’s fiercely protective, and will go above and beyond to defend the island, it’s staff, the Pokemon and the visitors. Injustice is her biggest gripe, along with littering, and she doesn’t stand by quietly if something happens that seems unfair.

You will not see her without Valka, her vulpix, close by. That Pokemon doesn’t like to be touched by strangers, at all, and will run the second someone comes at her with that intent. Peach will scold you for pushing yourself onto her, should you persistently try to get close to pet Val. They are in sync, if peach is sad, Val is sad, if Val is stressed, peach is stressed, and so on. They are inherently connected, it’s just been that long, the psychic bridge between them has been built, and reinforced over the years.

The only other Pokemon who follows her so endlessly is Booker, a teddiursa who’s pretty rough looking. He quietly trots behind, grouchy and stoic, they fight closely together a lot. He lost his mom a long time ago to poachers, and peach took him in, and changed her whole life for him. Not many people know, but Booker was the reason she left the rangers, changed career, and got so strong. Will tolerate people petting him but isn’t keen at all, grumbles a lot and tries to move away.

You may also need to know about the others, for the sake of writing, she here a few more bits that may be important to you, or others wanting to do this.

Grey is very tall, very burly, composed, tells bad dad jokes, is a bit of a goof if allowed to be. If he sees a pun, he’ll say it. Can’t help himself. Very nice guy to work with, good at keeping people calm and grounded. Pokemon are drawn to him like a moth to a flame, he gives off warm energy, and has inhuman amounts of patience. If you wrong his family however, he will snap back.

He grew up in the city, loves to swim and hike and cycle, can snowboard, is really sporty. A total brain box with held items, and boosting stats. He will explore many paths, to make sure visitors and students get the information they need, in a way that can be remembered and retained for later. Is a huge guy, but will get on the floor to play with a tiny Pokemon. Treats big “meaner” looking species like babies, very good with all pokemon.

His free time is spent either tinkering, swimming, or trimming his bonsai trees. This guy stares at screens a lot, so appreciates time away from them. Peach built him his own little greenhouse for his trees and tools, which he keeps clean and loves dearly.

His methods as a teacher are built around fun and games, he makes hard work easier to do by distracting trainers from the difficult bits, and focusing in on something more interesting or compelling.

His most commonly seen Pokemon would be a houndoom, Saxon, old battle veteran, retired now to herding and being a good boy. Very gentle, loves a pet.

Pari, now a fully fledged nurse, often oversees the labs front desk and pokecentre features, such as healing pokemon, and informing trainers who come to visit. Her skills with eggs and hatchlings is high, she’s great with younger Pokemon, and hands out good advice to trainers a lot. She’s not a fighter, never was, but can find any file, any study, any book, and any refrence you may need. A true bookworm, loves her romance novels, chat shows and upbeat celebrity gossip mags. Will cry at a lot of stuff, be it sad or happy.

She’s got a seriously upbeat personality, but if caught off guard or shocked, she gets a little flustered. Too much chaos will overwhelm her, but usually she’s on top of things. The years spent on the island have made her better at maintaining composure in emergencies. With lots of siblings, she’s very competent with others, and has a good ability to disarm cagey people with her jolly nature. Because of this, she can sometimes gain information from trainers that some of the more harsh professors may not have access to. Charming is a word for it.

Her partners are an eevee, and a happiny. They are quite sweet and well adjusted, the eevee gets a bit bouncy if you get it too excited.

#if you dont want to use the refs #im really cool with it #just enjoy yourself buddy #pokemon #prof.peach #peach talks #prof.grey #pari #dotaku island #dotaku staff #PLEASE #just ask me if you dont know something #or feel i missed something in what i wrote

[bestworstcase]

Do you think Rapunzel can be condescending at times?

absolutely yeah

as is the case with most of rapunzel's flaws, it's most evident in her interactions with cassandra because frankly - ok i have to back up here a little and start this off with a hot take™

i don't think rapunzel likes who cassandra is very much.

she does love cassandra. she desperately wants to be friends with cassandra, and she enjoys spending time with cassandra.

but the cass rapunzel knows is this very dependable, steady person who showed her the ropes of coronan society and is always sort of there to provide support when rapunzel needs it, and who is also blunt-spoken, honest, maybe a little too closed off, and a little rough around the edges.

when... the reality is that cassandra is a very ambitious young woman whose driving motivation is to leave. she is a dependable steady presence at rapunzel's side because that is her job. she wants to be a guard. she wants to be respected and seen as her own person. she is very carefully trying to thread the needle of genuinely being rapunzel's friend whilst also fulfilling the requirements of her duty as rapunzel's servant, which necessitates being very careful about what parts of herself she reveals to rapunzel. she's brash. she's very independent. she likes to fight. she feels constrained and stifled in coronan society generally and in rapunzel's shadow specifically.

every single time rapunzel gets a real glimpse of this reality she reacts... well, in pretty condescending ways.

cassandra thinks a romantic holiday is annoying and stupid? rapunzel concludes that she is deeply unhappy because she's single and makes it her mission to cheer cass up, ignoring cassandra's repeated and increasingly firm attempts to get her to stop.

cassandra says something is going on that she isn't ready to talk about and asks rapunzel to be patient until cass is ready to discuss it? rapunzel stalks her to find out what it is, and then blames all the consequences of that decision on cass because if cass had just told her everything then rapunzel wouldn't have interfered.

cassandra breaks her leg and, after having it properly seen to by a doctor, asks to be left alone so she can rest while she heals up, and then gets increasingly frustrated and cranky when rapunzel refuses to stop bothering her? rapunzel can't fathom why cass won't accept her "help" and implies the situation is equivalent to red and angry running away.

cassandra vibes with the vardarans and happily incites a street brawl for fun and to drum up excitement for rapunzel's goodwill festival? rapunzel scolds her ("we're supposed to be celebrating goodwill!") and then tries to apologize to the sheriff on her behalf.

cassandra tries to tell rapunzel that she feels insecure because rapunzel no longer trusts her judgment, and rapunzel shuts her down hard because "i'm going to be the queen someday, and i'm going to make decisions you don't agree with, and i need you to be okay with that."

cassandra is hurt and angry because rapunzel's decision-making left her disabled and likely in horrific and constant pain? rapunzel gets mad at her, blames her for the injury, refuses to apologize, and purposefully isolates cassandra from everyone else in the group including owl with the intention of forcing cass to make up with her so things can go back to normal between them.

like...

every time they have a conflict, no matter how large or small, rapunzel's instinctive reaction is to assume that cassandra is the problem. and that's where the condescension springs from. she has this... underlying and i think probably subconscious feeling that cassandra's independence, her boundaries, her rough edges, her feelings that do not align with what rapunzel wants her to feel... that in small doses these things are okay, even appealing, but the instant they come into conflict with what rapunzel wants or thinks they become. A Problem. that needs to be Fixed.

this happens from time to time with other characters as well but with cassandra it is constant, i think probably because their personalities are so wildly different in so many different ways.

allllllllso there is an extent to which toxic positivity is just. innately condescending in and of itself. like forcing this upbeat peppy attitude on people is inherently patronizing. so there's also this like low-grade constant background radiation of condescension going on as well.

also also, i 100% believe this was an intended flaw and my pet conspiracy theory about the likely executive meddling in s3 was that the tts writing team was forced to scrap an arc that would have involved rapunzel reckoning with this, and i think we can actually still see the vestiges left over. consider the following:

1. in crossing the line, cassandra outright says that rapunzel has been condescending to her for the entirety of their relationship: "this has to stop now/this thing where you think that you've been my friend/and don't even hear how you condescend/the way you've always done" -> crossing the line in general has this odd dissonance with the rest of cassandra's villain arc where, in CTL, cass is very much focusing on rapunzel's treatment of her and the unfairness of her own position in corona more generally - all of which gets swept under the rug in the rest of s3.

2. in both rapunzeltopia and s3 a point is made of emphasizing that rapunzel's view of cass is lady-in-waiting cassandra. lotus dream cass cheerfully occupies her role as rapunzel's servant, and only appears as her "real" self (represented by her appearing in her preferred outfit) once the dream is twisted into a nightmare. and in s3, rapunzel reaches past all of cassandra's weapons - possessions that actually represent who cass is - to cry into her lady-in-waiting uniform; and every time she reminisces about cass, it's cass in the dress. it's never spelled out but the implication of all this is pretty damn clear.

3. at the end of plus est en vous rapunzel says that she always thought cassandra's place was beside her in corona, but acknowledges that was wrong and that cass deserves to leave and be free and live her own life outside of those constraints. she never quite apologizes - because evidently disney vetoed the princess being framed as in the wrong in any way - but there's still a marked difference between the attitude implied by that statement and the attitude she displays towards cass throughout the rest of the show.

so, this is my theory for how s3 was intended to play out originally:

- gothel is merely the last straw. cassandra takes the moonstone and flees after spitting rapunzel's last bit of condescension back in her face.

- zhan tiri encourages cassandra to ruminate on everything rapunzel did that hurt her, slowly cultivating the smoldering embers of her anger into an uncontrollable inferno.

- meanwhile rapunzel struggles to make sense cassandra's betrayal while it slowly dawns on her that... maybe cass was right. maybe she is condescending. maybe she did take cass for granted, and maybe she doesn't know cass as well as she thought she did.

- the symbolism rapunzeltopia set up of this divide between Happy Servant Cass In Her Gown on the one hand and Angry Vengeful Cass In Her Own Clothes + Burnt Hand becomes a visual shorthand the way rapunzel views cassandra, with Happy Servant Cass slowly being discarded as rapunzel more and more sees cass as she truly is: an independent person who has been terribly hurt by the way rapunzel treated her, despite rapunzel having the best intentions

- when they are trapped during zhan tiri's rampage, this is the subject of their conversation rather than rapunzel randomly apologizing for being an obnoxious flower child in the first few weeks; she talks about the traits that she saw that made her want to be friends with cass, and then segues into talking about how despite how much she cares about cass she really... didn't know cass that well, didn't bother to get to know her, and took for granted that cass would always be there and how that led to cass suffering so much pain - both emotionally and physically - and that's what she apologizes for.

- and then all this leads much more naturally into what rapunzel says when she and cass are saying goodbye at the very end, because we've seen that character growth happening on screen.

but since rapunzel wasn't allowed to be wrong because disney princess brand, most of this arc had to be ripped out and all we're left with is these weird hints around the edges of the hole it left behind.

#i sort of drifted away from the question but i think about this all the time #we can see! like! shadows! of character dev that once was there!!! #tts

[miraculouscontent]

(non-Miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Ok this may just be me but I hate deconstructions. I feel like they are always mean spirited and try to be dark and edgy and thinks that every single person is an asshole because that’s “realistic” when no it’s not. This maybe because I like superhero stories and love it when the heroes overcome their struggles.

I can agree for the most part. Whenever I hear “okay but what if it was dArK--” I’m just okay, gonna stop you right there.

Anonymous said:

I swear, nothing bothers me more than people who want Miraculous Ladybug to literally just be Yandere Simulator(with Marinette as Ayano, Alya as Info-chan, Adrien as Taro, Chloe as Osana, Lila as Kizana, Kagami as Megami, and Luka as Budo). It just grinds my gears, especially because they're, once again, framing Marinette as a stalker, which just makes her look bad, AND pits all the girls against each other for Mr. Generic Harem Protagonist, once a-fucking-gain. Just go play the actual game, ok?

All I'm hearing is that now I have to ship Ayano and Budo and write a fic where the ghost girl uses fancy fantasy magic to merge her soul with Ayano and lets her actually have emotions, healing her from being a yandere while the ghost girl (in a way) gets to live a life she was cut short of, also allowing Ayano to be happy and go onto be friends with all the rivals.

Extremely convoluted but that’s the only way we get happy endings in this house.

Anonymous said:

I remember how, when writing Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi refused to bow to older male writers wanted, say, for the girls to be stereotypical manga characters, with one being overweight, one being a stereotypical nerd, etc. But Naoko wanted each of the girls to be beautiful and feminine. While I don't like that they all share a body type, I admire how she didn't listen to grown men when writing for and about young girls. And I can't help but think about how Madoka is the antithesis of all that.

I can appreciate writers who put their foot down to stick to their values. There are limits of course, but yeah, a women writing women probably shouldn’t be listening to a man’s input. I’m sure good advice exists buuut...

Anonymous said:

What is your ranking of the seasons of the year from most to least favorite and why?

Summer - I work best in the warmth

Spring - Always brings images of flowers blooming to mind

Autumn - Things are getting cold and I don’t like it

Winter - It can go choke for all I care

Anonymous asked:

Someone on TV Tropes actually said that the name Feminist Fantasy should be changed because "feminism excludes men the same way meninism excludes women" and actually had the nerve to link that to the "Not So Different" trope, as if women haven't been excluded throughout the history of almost every human society. Fortunately, someone responded to them in a way that technically amounted to "do your damn research" but I'm still facepalming so hard at TV Tropes' "what about the men" rhetoric.

I feel like I lost braincells reading this.

Anonymous asked:

I feel like in fiction written by men there are only three flaws that female protagonists are allowed to have: clumsy, boy-crazy, or ashamed of their flat chests. I hate it.

Don’t forget, “having to listen to the men for how they’re supposed to feel.”

Anonymous asked:

Jatp. Nominated. For. Seven. Emmys. SEVEN!!!! Miraculous could NEVER. Literally.

omg!! Congrats to Julie and the Phantoms!

Anonymous asked:

WHAT ARE YOUR FLASHBACKS TO EVER AFTER HIGH?? I GOTTA KNOW? OMG?

Oh, I’ve seen basically the whole series, though the one I remember most is definitely Epic Winter. It was my favorite one though Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie so I’m biased.

I also like a lot of the “twists” and just--crazy concepts they rolled with, like with Red Riding Hood’s story and how Apple White gets woken up from her slumber.

Anonymous asked:

You're gonna be happy to hear this...I just started watching Cardcaptor Sakura today, and holy shit not only do I love it, but I also love how freaking META it is! I know you said you're not all that knowledgeable about Magical Girl, but this show is AWARE that it's a Magical Girl show! From Tomoyo(the main reason this show is so meta, tbh) realizing Sakura is a Magical Girl and asking if she has a transformation pose, to designing outfits for her(more on that later) to videotaping her(aka literally making a Magical Girl anime out of her Magical Girl friend), it just has fun with itself and plays with Magical Girl tropes without making a mockery of them like all those "dark" male-aimed ones do(lookin' at you, Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna!).

And not only is it hilarious and adorable(especially with Sakura's crush on Yukito, Tomoyo's crush on Sakura, and Touya picking on Sakura, but playfully), but I love how it's riddled with girl power. While watching some of the first episodes I was looking forward to seeing Syaoran(partly because I love male Tsunderes and partly because I can't pronounce his name), and was surprised that he wasn't in the first few episodes, but more importantly I was so happy to see a show that treats its female characters with respect and shows women unironically receiving support from other women and being shown possessing power and authority.

I love Sakura and Tomoyo's friendship even if I hate the trope of "Lesbian Never Gets The Girl"(not that I think she's entitled to Sakura's affections or anything, but still.) and watching her support Sakura in her magic endeavors without being jealous or vindictive, I love that they're allowed to be independent and smart but that the show doesn't forget that they're kids, instead of making them like Manon and Chris, and I love that the show passes the Bechdel test in pretty much the first or second episode, and that pretty much every important and unimportant character we meet that's not Sakura's family members, Kero, or Yukito(plus maaaayyybe the Shadow Clow Card) are female.

Even little things, like all FOUR of Tomoyo's bodyguards in the second episode being female without there being a "reason" or the show making a big deal of it(either in a "yay girl power!" way or a "what but women can't x" way or an objectifying way) fills me with insurmountable joy. Also, I love that the show follows the Magical Girl trend of pretty much admitting that femininity is power, since frilly dresses are stated to be the most "fitting" thing for a Cardcaptor to wear, as without it, they might not be mentally up to the task, and this is an unironic truth rather than a joke(although Sakura is shown to be embarrassed, but it's much more likely that she's simply not used to that kind of gear due to not being rich as Tomoyo is.) or a gag.

I just thought I should tell you this because I know you like Cardcaptor Sakura, and with the crappy episodes that just came out of this show, I think you deserve to read an ask that's about a GENUINE girl power Magical Girl show, instead of yet more Miraculous Ladybug salt or Madoka Magica hate(not that there's anything wrong with either of those two, but it just gets grating after a while.). Overall, I'm looking forward to watching this show, since I've been looking for a Magical Girl show to watch nowadays(I've been meaning to watch Star Twinkle Precure but I can't find the third episode and all of Cardcaptor Sakura is on YouTube now, so.). So excited!

Hey, I’m glad that you’re having fun with it!

Though, just a warning, you might wanna steer clear of the Clear Card arc. It’s a sequel to the original series made waaaay after the original (think the equivalent of Yashahime for Inuyasha, though continuing with the original characters) but omg I hated it.

Anonymous asked:

With the crappy Season 4 episodes that just came out I'm glad I got into Cardcaptor Sakura when I did. Who needs "Marinette needs to make a mistake every episode and learn something from it" when you can have genuine girl power and sweetness incarnate?

Alya could never compete with Tomoyo, I’m just sayin’.

Anonymous asked:

Your comment about white men feeling "disenfranchised" because more shows are about black people and/or women(I say and/or because the two aren't mutually exclusive.), as if there aren't a million other things they could be watching instead is so true! It reminds me of how I was talking to someone recently about the new generation of MLP, in which I stated that we didn't need a male mane pony(spoiler alert: they have one, sadly.), and he claimed that it would be beneficial since many shows aimed at boys at least try to include at least one main girl, and that it would be good for G5 of MLP to have at least one strong male lead so that boys could have a role model and know that the show isn't "girly".

Okay, so far, so good, but this I could chalk up to just unconscious internalized misogyny, especially since he didn't say it in any sort of "way". So I respectfully told him that the scale regarding representation is already not equal and that boys can look up to girls and that a show being girly is not a bad thing and all that stuff that you already know about. Then he responded claiming some stuff about how he keeps trying to pitch stories about straight white male characters and how nobody is accepting his offers and so this means that straight white men are underrepresented compared to everyone else. He even explicitly said, and I quote "White people are actually critically underrepresented in media right now. Especially boys."; I swear to the Goddess above.

At this point I was officially upset as a black girl, to hear this white(and presumably adult) man telling me that he was underrepresented in media compared to me, even saying that the media execs are practicing "quotas and tokenization"(and yes, he repeatedly used those terms for any instance of representation, even when I asked him politely to stop.) by replacing women with men or white people with pocs and are making white men look like incompetent doofuses.

He also kept saying stuff about how shows are always shoehorning people of color in where they don't belong by casting them in settings such as Shakespeare and medieval times when "realistically" there were no people of color during those time periods(which is obviously not true, it's just not what the history books show us.), and made a really insensitive comment about how black children in the USA today don't know the significance of having the first black president because the media supposedly already shows them black people in various professions(despite also claiming he couldn't speak to the "black experience" and yet here he is whitesplaining that shit.).

It got to the point where he was seriously and unironically using the word "blackwashing". When I pointed out to him that white men aren't underrepresented and that it's just his self-centered ego telling him that they are, that the word "blackwashing" isn't a thing, and that mis/underrepresentation in media DOES affect black kids negatively(even citing myself as an example) he went on to claim that I was being tone-deaf and that "blackwashing" is just as bad as whitewashing, and that making Ariel black is just as bad as making Jasmine white.

At this point I had to bang my head on the table and explain to him the difference; his ass still wouldn't get it. Eventually he started saying some really skeevy and hypocritical shite that white men say all the time when whining about how "oppressed and underrepresented" they are: that black people and/or women

(it looks like there might be an ask missing here, in which case, sorry if Tubmlr ate it!)

avor of supporting the commonly believed LIE that "women and/or minority groups don't have as much history worth learning about, so there's no point in focusing on them." He also kept using patronizing, condescending, mansplaining language such as "let me explain it to you" or "you still don't get it do you?", and when he said women had nothing to contribute to society because "oppression" he even had the nerve to tack on "welcome to the unequal society" as if I hadn't been lecturing him about just that.

Because obviously only white men did anything worthwhile or important in history. At this point, I had to block him. I couldn't take it anymore and this was on an MLP site of all places(although I'm probably just as guilty of that part, but at least I wasn't an ass!). I just can't stand white men who "want to be oppressed so bad" but still want to claim that their achievements are more important and deserve to be more prominent. Honestly, so many white men are so fragile the second they're not in the spotlight. I can't help but think that despite all the privilege afforded to their class being a white man sounds like the worst thing ever.

“he claimed that it would be beneficial since many shows aimed at boys at least try to include at least one main girl, and that it would be good for G5 of MLP to have at least one strong male lead so that boys could have a role model and know that the show isn't "girly". “

I might be looking too deep into that but I don’t like the idea of, “Well WE squeezed in a girl and therefore YOUR SHOWS--” like it’s some sort of matter of “fairness” or that boys’ shows aren’t putting in girls out of a genuine like for them but because they “need” one or it’s some sort of obligation.

Also, we need to stop this idea that boys can’t look up to female characters and vice versa for girls. You already said it but yeah.

And yeah, I hear "quotas and tokenization" and I officially tune out of whatever the person is saying, lol. White men are critically underrepresented???? Newsflash, maybe it’s just because others are being represented more??

Just the whole thing about whites being “underrepresented” boggles my mind. White people don’t have some sort of special ability or skill that other races can’t do themselves unless you count the “superpower” of white privilege.

Like, oh my god, all that “whitesplaining” and having to read the word “blackwashing” was physically painful. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I don’t know how they got hold of the technology to communicate with you from whatever time period their from, presumably the Stone Age.

Don’t even blame you for blocking them. There’s just a level of absolute... blindness? Arrogance??? That comes with the territory with them sometimes, I swear. You had every right to be upset; other races come to ask for equality and fair representation and suddenly you have these white men (not all obviously but damn) coming by and crying that they’re being oPpReSsEd. U_U

Like, honestly, my father in particular is absolutely that kind of person so I’ve heard that kind of stuff before. it’s all gross.

On a slightly unrelated note (trying to end this with some positivity), I hadn’t even heard about a fifth generation of MLP until I read this, and just wanted to let you know that I really hope you have a really good time with it! Hopefully the male character isn’t... well, you know.

#other: ask and answer #other: non ml talk

[whentheynameyoujoy]

So the ATLA Movie Is... Good, Actually?

Just kidding, of course it’s not, it’s so bad it sucked the paint off my walls. But after ten years of people pointing out its glaring flaws, why would anyone bother talking about this garbage heap if not to go the other direction? So here’s a very brief and very superficial list of things the movie does get kinda... not atrociously wrong.

And they won’t be fake hipster pokes, like “It’s fun to laugh at”, “The Rifftrax for this is OK”, or “Kudos to the actress for managing to say we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in theirs with a straight face”.

(though now that I mentioned it, it is fun to laugh at, the Rifftrax for this is OK, and massive props indeed.)

Rasta Iroh

Yes, I know it’s not exactly the aesthetic of the real Iroh or that it makes no cultural sense for him to sport this do when no one else in the racebended Indian “OMFG what were you thinking Shyamalan” Nation does but goddamn, long-haired dudes are my one mortal weakness and I will ogle the hell out of him.

Jesus is that a man bun I see that’s it mum I’ve been deaded

Yue’s hair

No.

Now we’re talking. Yue’s hair turned white when the Moon spirit gave her life, so it makes sense for it to go black again when she sacrifices herself to revive the koi fish. It’s a neat detail I find myself expecting whenever I rewatch the scene in the show. Yes, I realize it’d be a pointless hassle to animate since she, unlike in the movie, immediately goes on to become the Moon herself but still. I like.

The Blue Spirit’s mop

Zuko, hun, what’s with the dance-off?

First of all, I want to imagine that Zuko the Theatre Nerd was about to leave his ship with just the mask like in the show but then stuck his head into the cleaning cupboard and went, “Yeah, more coverage might be good, even though it do seem mighty fried to shit”.

Which makes me giggle. I like to giggle.

And secondly, the hair’s movement is what makes the static mess of the Blue Spirit’s solo fight scene appear at least bit more dynamic because God knows the cinematography isn’t doing it.

Any particular reason why it’s at the edge of the action, shot all boring-like?

Now, I get why circular shots would be reserved for Aang while he’s in the practice area and then used once the two join forces. What I don’t get is why Aang’s part of the action scene has a defined visual style while Zuko’s delegated to a few stationary wide shots from afar as though he’s a tertiary goon, meaning that when the time comes to combine the respective pieces of cinema language and visually convey collaboration, there’s not really much to combine.

But as long as Zuko is stuck in this static mess, it’s that awesome disaster on his head flopping about that draws the eye, helping me understand that something even is going on over there.

It also prevents me from paying much attention to how the extras are mostly just staying put and a lot of the hits don’t land, so that’s good.

The music slaps

James Newton Howard is too good for this.

Pls ignore that the word “gods” is used in the ATLA universe

I can’t be the only one who constantly uses this piece to daydream about writing specific fanfic scenes instead of, you know, actually sitting down and writing them. It’s just so good at communicating a sense of sorrow while speaking of rebirth that I find myself getting misty-eyed whenever I listen to it. Unfailingly, the soundtrack as a whole manages to break through the mile-thick crust of horrible acting, confusing writing, and uninspired cinematography and make me feel things. And considering how everything on screen is working against it, that’s no small feat.

Imagine what a powerful experience it would be if the score was used in service of an actual movie.

Dev Patel

No wonder since he’s the only one in the film occupying that crucial intersection between “is a good actor” and “was given something to work with”. It also doesn’t hurt that he breaks with the trend of actors starring in martial arts flicks despite never having done any martial art.

And all EIP-jokes about “stiff and humorless” aside, he’s a pretty decent Zuko considering how abridged this version of the character is. A while ago, I remember hearing a reviewer say that with his comedic chops, Patel should have been cast as Sokka. And on one hand, yes, god, absolutely, I need to see that asap. But on the other? He captures all layers of Book 1!Zuko, the desperate obsession, rage, and self-loathing, and at the same time gives you a peek at the soft momma’s boy dork that’s buried underneath. For Christ sakes, he exudes intensity and ambivalence even when acting against an emotionless hunk of wood that’s giving him nothing in return.

Oh, and I guess there’s a tree in the frame.

Ba dum tss

What can I say, the guy’s good.

Showing vs telling

OK, so this movie is all tell and no show, except for one single moment. And it’s the exact moment where the original goes in the other direction in terms of how information is conveyed.

See, I never liked this. The revelation is preceded by Iroh giving advice to Zuko who scolds him for nagging. Iroh then apologizes, moves in to say the line above, and is interrupted by Zuko who seems rather uncomfortable with Iroh laying his feelings out like this. And once they’re out, Zuko verbally confirms that he knew already and Iroh didn’t need to bother.

All this extraneous information and pussyfooting ends up weakening what should be a profound scene that reveals to us, the viewers, how deep the relationship between these two in fact runs.

Compare to the movie where Dadroh acts like a parent by fussing and worrying, with Sonion needing a single look to tell him and us that he understands what it’s all really about.

It’s genuinely efficient and just good.

No Cataang

Fine, a bit mean-girl bitchy from me since I only start minding the ship in Book 3. And probably unintentional on the part of the creators since there are moments where I think they’re trying to set the romance up? There’s a, well, an attempt to recreate the famous introductory shot of fateful meaningful destiny of meaningness, there’s some slight note of saving each other’s bacon going on, I’m pretty sure they’re the only ones in the film who smile, and oh, right, Katara’s shoved into her post-canon useless role where she doesn’t ever do anything, and is all about Aang right from the get go.

Yes, I will blame the “executive producers” because a) I’m incredibly petty, and b) it’s perfectly in line with their vision of the character so why the hell not.

Hilariously, none of it reads on screen because the actors are just... yeah. These poor kids are struggling so much with delivering their own lines and portraying their own characters they don’t seem to have any strength left to create something between them. To be fair, the bare-bones shot-reverse shot style of their scenes doesn’t exactly lend itself to the idea they occupy the same universe, let alone are friends or each other’s crushes.

And I enjoy this immensely because it allows me to forget the depressing horror show Katara’s life turns into post ATLA.

Yes Zutara

I need to delve into this because it’s fucking hilarious. So in a movie which fails to establish the original’s central romance so spectacularly that if Aang got lost in a crowd I don’t believe Katara would notice, SomEOnE thought it’d be a good idea to add an utterly unnecessary non-canon moment where Zuko for some reason feels the need to pause his character-defining hunt for the Avatar which otherwise has him ignore everything and snap at everyone, and explain his central conflict to an unconscious peasant he doesn’t know, complete with gently pushing the hair from the pretty girl’s the soulmate’s the Water Tribe Ambassador’s the Fire Lady’s the love of his life’s her face away, AFTER his uncle nagged him twice to find a girl and settle down.

I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page and this is what we really saw.

Celibate Avatars

I have no idea why the decision was made, if TPTB thought expecting viewers to understand the story through the lens of Buddhism would be too much, or if the “executive producers” already worked their retconny magic. What I do know, however, is that there’s a big shift in worldbuilding and Aang’s struggle with his role as the Avatar stops being a personal conflict defined by a) his grief for Air Nomads, b) his notion of being robbed of the loved ones in his life, and c) the selfish attachment to Katara he confuses with true love. Instead, what he has a difficulty to accept is apparently a general notion of who Avatars are supposed to be, i.e. a fantasy version of Catholic monks, no family and worldly relations, period.

I guess either someone understood the original’s portrayal of de/attachment as “hermit no freaky”, or thought the audience would so why not go there outright.

Now, do I like this on its own? No, God no, it makes the world infinitely poorer and changes the story from an exploration of ideas which aren’t all that ingrained in the West, to a cliché tropester about a Catholic priest going Protestant so that he could be with a girl.

At least I assume that’s where they were going to take this eventually.

I mean, I think the direction was “look conflicted, this isn’t the final stage of your journey”?

But consider this—the show went there, it built on the concepts of Eastern philosophy and touched upon the ideas of spiritual awakening, only to swerve in the end and strongly imply they’re bullshit and Aang should have never wasted his time with them.

So honestly, I much prefer scanty worldbuilding to an insulting retcon by a damn rock.

Multiracial Air Nomads

Probably the most substantial “no hint of irony” point on this list and a genuinely good addition to the universe’s worldbuilding.

See, the notion of the elemental nations being perfectly separate and never mingling before Sozin has always been sketchy but it’s especially ridiculous in the case of airbenders. It never made sense to me for all airbenders to be Air Nomads and for all Air Nomads to be monks and for all monks to be chilling at the temples all the time to facilitate a quick everyone-dies genocide should an imperialistic warlord ever decide to commit one.

Because committing everyone to a single way of life at a handful of places kinda goes against the central philosophy behind airbending. Like the freedom and nomadism part.

Instead, there should be more variety to the airbending culture, with some staying at the temples as monks, hermits, and teachers while others live as nomads, travelling the world and creating more airbenders, with the resulting children in turn being influenced by the non-airbending cultures they grew up in.

And thus, not only should airbenders not be modeled after a single culture to create a one-size-fits-all lifestyle, but they should have the most diverse and dynamic culture out of the four nations.

And it’d be precisely this diversity which would pave way for an eventual reveal that some of them survived, that their complete extermination is impossible.

Because they’re everywhere.

You know.

Like air.

#atla #atla movie #zutara #anti bryke #dev patel #the last airbender #anti-kataang

[bloodbenderz]

humaniterations (dot) net/2014/10/13/an-anarchist-perspective-on-the-red-lotus/ this article from oct 2014 is very dense — truly, a lot to unpack here, but I feel like you would find this piece interesting. I would love it if you shared your thoughts on the points that stood out to you, whether you agree or disagree. you obv don’t have to respond to it tho, but I’m sending it as an ask jic you feel like penning (and sharing) a magnificent essay, as is your wont 💕

article

i know this took me forever 2 answer SORRY but i just checked off all the things on my to do list for the first time in days today so. Essay incoming ladies!

ok im SO glad u sent me this bc it’s so so good. it’s a genuinely thoughtful criticism of the politics in legend of korra (altho i think its sometimes a little mean to korra unnecessarily like there’s no reason to call her a “petulant brat” or say that she throws tantrums but i do understand their point about her being an immature and reactionary hero, which i’ll get back to) and i think the author has a good balance between acknowledging like Yeah the lok writers were american liberals and wrote their show accordingly and Also writing a thorough analysis of lok’s politics that felt relevant and interesting without throwing their hands up and saying this is all useless liberal bullshit (which i will admit that i tend to do).

this article essentially argues that the red lotus antagonists of s3 were right. And that’s not an uncommon opinion i think but this gives it serious weight. Like, everything that zaheer’s gang did was, in context, fully understandable. of course the red lotus would be invested in making sure that the physically and spiritually and politically most powerful person in the world ISNT raised by world leaders and a secret society of elites that’s completely unaccountable to the people! of course the red lotus wants to bring down tyrannical governments and allow communities to form and self govern organically! and the writers dismiss all of that out of hand by 1. consistently framing the red lotus as insane and murderous (korra never actually gives zaheer’s ideas a chance or truly considers integrating them into her own approach) 2. representing the death of the earth queen as not just something that’s not necessarily popular (what was with mako’s bootlicker grandma, i’d love to know) but as something that causes unbelievable violence and chaos in ba sing se (which, like, a lot of history and research will tell you that people in disasters tend towards prosocial behaviors). so the way the story frames each of these characters and ideologies is fascinating because like. if you wanted to write season 3 of legend of korra with zaheer as the protagonist and korra as the antagonist, you wouldn’t actually have to change the sequence of events at all, really. these writers in particular and liberal writers in general LOVE writing morally-gray-but-ultimately-sympathetic characters (like, almost EVERY SINGLE fire nation character in the first series, who were full on violent colonizers but all to a degree were rehabilitated in the eyes of the viewer) but instead of framing the red lotus as good people who are devoted to justice and freedom and sometimes behave cruelly to get where theyre trying to go, they frame them as psychopaths and murderers who have good intentions don’t really understand how to make the world a better place.

and the interesting thing about all this, about the fact that the red lotus acted in most cases exactly as it should have in context and the only reason its relegated to villain status is bc the show is written by liberals, is that the red lotus actually points out really glaring sociopolitical issues in universe! like, watching the show, u think well why the fuck HASN’T korra done anything about the earth queen oppressing her subjects? why DOESN’T korra do anything about the worse than useless republic president? why the hell are so many people living in poverty while our mains live cushy well fed lives? how come earth kingdom land only seems to belong to various monarchs and settler colonists, instead of the people who are actually indigenous to it? the show does not want to answer these questions, because american liberal capitalism literally survives on the reality of oppressive governments and worse than useless presidents and people living in poverty while the middle/upper class eats and indigenous land being stolen. if the show were to answer these questions honestly, the answer would be that the status quo in real life (and the one on the show that mirrors real life) Has To Change.

So they avoid answering these questions honestly in order for the thesis statement to be that the status quo is good. and the only way for the show to escape answering these questions is for them to individualize all these broad social problems down into Good people and Bad people. so while we have obvious bad ones like the earth queen we also have all these capitalists and monarchs and politicians who are actually very nice and lovely people who would never hurt anyone! which is just such an absurd take and it’s liberal propaganda at its best. holding a position of incredible political/economic power in an unjust society is inherently unethical and maintaining that position of power requires violence against the people you have power over. which is literally social justice 101. but there’s literally no normal, average, not-politically-powerful person on the show. so when leftist anarchism is presented and says that destroying systems that enforce extreme power differentials is the only way to bring peace and freedom to all, the show has already set us up to think, hey, fuck you, top cop lin beifong and ford motor ceo asami sato are good people and good people like them exist! and all we have to do to move forward and progress as a society is to make sure we have enough good individuals in enough powerful positions (like zuko as the fire lord ending the war, or wu as the earth king ending the monarchy)! which is of course complete fiction. liberal reform doesn’t work. but by pretending that it could work by saying that the SYSTEM isnt rotten it’s just that the people running it suck and we just need to replace those people, it automatically delegitimizes any radical movements that actually seek to change things.

and that’s the most interesting thing about this article to me is that it posits that the avatar...might actually be a negative presence in the world. the avatar is the exact same thing: it’s a position of immense political and physical power bestowed completely randomly, and depending on the moral character and various actions of who fills that position at any given time, millions of people will or won’t suffer. like kyoshi, who created the fascist dai li, like roku, who refused to remove a genocidal dictator from power, like aang, who facilitated the establishment of a settler colonial state on earth kingdom land. like korra! she’s an incredibly immature avatar and a generally reactionary lead. i’ve talked about this at length before but she never actually gets in touch with the needs of the people. she’s constantly running in elite circles, exposed only to the needs and squabbles of the upper class! how the hell is she supposed to understand the complexities of oppression and privilege when she was raised by a chess club with inordinate amounts of power and associates almost exclusively with politicians and billionaires?? from day 1 we see that she tends to see things in very black and white ways which is FINE if you’re a privileged 17 yr old girl seeing the world for the first time but NOT FINE if you’re the single most powerful person in the world! Yeah, korra thinks the world is probably mostly fine and just needs a little whipping into shape every couple years, because all she has ever known is a mostly fine world! in s1 when mako mentions that he as a homeless impoverished teenager worked for a gang (which is. Not weird. Impoverished people of every background are ALWAYS more likely to resort to socially unacceptable ways of making money) korra is like “you guys are criminals?????!!!!!” she was raised in perfect luxury by a conservative institution and just never developed beyond that. So sure, if the red lotus raised her anarchist, probably a lot would’ve been different/better, but....they didn’t. and korra ended up being a reactionary and conservative avatar who protected monarchs and colonialist politicians. The avatar as a position is completely subject to the whims of whoever is currently the avatar. and not only does that suck for everyone who is not the avatar, not only is it totally unfair to whatever kid who grows up knowing the fate of the world is squarely on their shoulders, but it as a concept is a highly individualist product of the authors’ own western liberal ideas of progress! the idea that one good leader can fix the world (or should even try) based on their own inherent superiority to everyone else is unbelievably flawed and ignores the fact that all real progress is brought about as a result of COMMUNITY work, as a result of normal people working for themselves and their neighbors!

the broader analysis of bending was really interesting to me too, but im honestly not sure i Totally agree with it. the article pretty much accepts the show’s assertion that bending is a privilege (and frankly backs it up much better than the original show did, but whatever), and i don’t think that’s NECESSARILY untrue since it is, like, a physical advantage (the author compares it to, for example, the fact that some people are born athletically gifted and others are born with extreme physical limitations), but i DO think that it discounts the in universe racialization of bending. in any sequel to atla that made sense, bending as a race making fact would have been explored ALONGSIDE the physical advantages it bestows on people. colonialism and its aftermath is generally ignored in this article which is its major weakness i think, especially in conjunction with bending. you can bring up the ideas the author did about individual vs community oriented progress in the avatar universe while safely ignoring the colonialism, but you can’t not bring up race and colonialism when you discuss bending. especially once you get to thinking about how water/earth/airbenders were imprisoned and killed specifically because bending was a physical advantage, and that physical advantage was something that would have given colonized populations a means of resistance and that the fire nation wanted to keep to itself.

i think that’s the best lens thru which to analyze bending tbh! like in the avatar universe bending is a tool that different ethnic groups tend to use in different ways. at its best, bending actually doesn’t represent social power differences (despite representing a physical power difference) because it’s used to represent/maintain community solidarity. like, take the water tribe. katara being the last waterbender, in some way, makes her the last of a part of swt CULTURE. the implication is that when there were a lot of waterbenders in the south, they dedicated their talents to building community and helping their neighbors, because this was something incredibly culturally important and important to the water tribe as a community. the swt as a COLLECTIVE values bending for what it can do for the entire tribe, which counts for basically every other talent a person can have (strength, creativity, etc). the fire nation, by contrast, distorts the community value of bending by racializing it: anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is inherently NOT fire nation (and therefore inherently inferior) and, because of the physical power that bending confers, anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is a threat to fire nation hegemony. and in THAT framework of bending, it’s something that intrinsically assigns worth and reifies race in a way that’s conveniently beneficial to the oppressor.

it IS worth talking about how using Element as a way to categorize people reifies nations, borders, and race in a way that is VERY characteristic of white american liberals. i tried to be conscious of that (and the way that elements/bending can act in DIFFERENT ways, depending on cultural context) but i think it’s pretty clear that the writers did intend for element to unequivocally signify nation (and, by extension, race), which is part of why they screwed up mixed families so bad in lok. when they’ve locked themselves into this idea that element=nation=race, they end up with sets of siblings like mako and bolin or kya tenzin and bumi, who all “take” after only one parent based on the element that they bend. which is just completely stupid but very indicative of how the writers actually INTENDED element/bending to be a race making process. and its both fucked up and interesting that the writers display the same framework of race analysis that the canonical antagonists of atla do.

anyway that’s a few thoughts! thank u again for sending the article i really loved it and i had a lot of fun writing this <3

#this is 2.1k words LMFAOO #asks #analysis #do i have an analysis tag? #crit #lok crit

[aj-anime-blog]

Deca-Dence - Review!

Wooooo Deca-Dence!

Deca-Dence was a summer 2020 anime, and that’s when I originally watched it! I've watched it about a dozen times since, as it landed itself right on my roster of my favorite animes, if not my favorite of all time.

Deca-Dence is an original piece, so no manga source material (whaaat!) and comes from the genius brain of Yuzuru Tachikawa, the director of other fan-favorites like Mob Psycho 100 and Death Parade (a review for Death Parade is in the making!). Original mangas are such a hit-or-miss recently, and I think that this one got the bullseye!

What's our concept?: Set in the future, the world is now plagued by monsters known as Gadolls. In an attempt to keep humans safe from them, mobile fortress Deca-Dence was constructed, where Gears, who live near the top, fight the Gadolls, and Tankers, who live at the bottom, provide support from inside Deca-Dence. Our protag, Natsume, is a Tanker who wants to fight with the Gears, but her prosthetic arm keeps her out of battle. That is until she meets Kaburagi, an older Tanker who seems to know his way around fighting and might have more to him than he lets on.

It's gonna be hard to go through this without spoilers, but I promise that I'll keep it spoiler-free until the section at the bottom!

So overall, what do I think?: 10/10! I've already said it, but Deca-Dence is one of my favorite animes of all time, and it deserves the spot! It has incredible characters, a story that keeps you hooked even through twists and turns, and a pace that manages to cram so much plot into only 12 episodes without feeling overwhelming or rushed! Deca-Dence presents ideas that, at the surface, may seem overused or old, but spins them in such a way that they're completely original. It follows through with character relationships, making them worthwhile and fulfilling.

Let's start with the story this time!: 10/10!! It's going to be really hard to explain the beauty of Deca-Dence's plot without spoiling it, but I'm doing my best! I really do recommend just giving the show a try, though, as it's really worth it! (Don't just drop it after episode 2, like a lot of people did :( That's just judging it wayyy too early!!)

Deca-Dence has a story that's thrilling and new. Everything that happens builds off of itself in a way that's natural and smooth. The elements of the story, no matter how different they may seem, play their part and work together well. The show isn't predictable either - don't go in thinking that you know what's going to become of it. Each twist feels surprising and new without feeling like they're coming out of left field.

I won't say much more in fear of ruining it, but Deca-Dence's story holds up well, and with its strong cast of characters supporting it, it becomes absolutely suburb. I think a lot of people fell into this pit of seeing only the beginning and tossing it aside, but no matter how strange the concepts in it may be, they wind together to form something really unique!

So those characters, huh?: 11/10, I love them so much! I'm a character nerd through and through, and Deca-Dence sends my little character-obsessed heart wild. The protags, Natsume and Kaburagi, are both fascinating, have incredible development, and engage in a character dynamic that is so natural and well-written that I never doubted it.

To be honest, Natsume doesn't have a personality that's anything new. She's young, determined to a fault, naive, and a complete sweetheart. She wants to fight the Gadoll and she'll do anything to achieve that dream. She's not a natural at fighting but her motivation to do so makes her believable and relatable. She's looked down upon because of her prosthetic arm and forced into a job that she doesn't like, but she never gives up on her goals. Even though she's so simple, her interactions and energy make her lovable and a wonderful protagonist.

Kaburagi follows the washed-out warrior trope, as he's an older man assigned to clean-up duty who keeps to himself and never shows too much emotion. While this type of character can sometimes get annoying, the show gives Kaburagi enough time to show his real feelings and explain how he got to his position. This proper development keeps him down-to-Earth and shows him as even more flawed than Natsume. Kaburagi's motivation, which I can't explain for spoiler reasons, is entirely believable and explains perfectly why he decides to put up with Natsume, even though she's his polar opposite.

The relationship between the two characters is balanced and beautiful. It's given the proper time to grow, mature, and ends up being extremely worthwhile. Natsume relies on Kaburagi, as he sees the potential in her and continues to support her in ways no one else ever has, and Kaburagi understands that Natsume is everything that he's trying to rebel against. Their relationship is emotional, runs deep, and leaves you wishing that there was more of them to watch, even after the show has ended.

The villain! The villain. I cannot talk all that much about the villain at the risk of spoiling. He is evil. I really really hated him, and that is a very good thing because it means that he's well-written. His motivation makes sense, his actions make you want to strangle him, his design was really really good! He's not the most interesting thing in the show, as his character is really only there to move the story along, but not every villain needs to be incredibly deep for a show to be good.

Lastly, our supporting characters! While none of them are as wonderful as Natsume or Kaburagi, they're still interesting and hold their own. They play important parts in the show and all of their interactions with the main two feel natural. Their conflicts make sense, their resolutions feel well-earned, and their personalities are all unique! For a 12-episode anime, there's a larger cast of supporting characters than you would think, and nearly all of them are memorable and loveable.

Time to shut up about characters, what about the art?: 9/10, ooooh yes the art! Deca-Dence is gorgeous! It's animated by studio Nut (bwahahhaha), who haven't done that much else in the anime world. Still, for a relatively new studio, it's absolutely amazing! The characters all have unique looks that make them stand out and the fight scenes are to die for. They lose a point on the CG, since it's a little bit less than amazing, but again, for a new studio, it's definitely not the worst I've seen!! (Admittedly, I also don't like CG much at all, so I'm always harsh towards it when it's used).

Deca-Dence switches between two styles that vastly contradict each other, one which is a colorful, happy-go-lucky style, and one that's the more typical anime style. I'll speak more about them in the spoilers section, but they do a wonderful job at maintaining the tone of the show, as to not let it get too dark, and forming a clear divide between the events of the two parts.

Oh goshhh the Gadolls look so cool. I'm so obsessed with cool monsters in anime and woah they look awesome!! They're original, with cool designs that I haven't seen elsewhere. The show could've so easily slapped in some pretty typical-looking dragons or wolves or whatever, but they instead spent time on these epic creatures, and it's so worth it! It makes the setting that much more unique and allows it to stand out from other animes.

Surely there's a flaw in this anime? The pacing, maybe?: 9/10. Yeah, I would argue that the pacing is Deca-Dence's weakest point. Not that the pacing is particularly bad compared to other shows! I still think that, for a 12-episode anime, it does a wonderful job of fitting in a large amount of plot into only about 5 hours! But, at some points, parts felt rushed or confusing, as the show would zoom into them. I never felt like I was truly lost, though. Even if I did wish that there was a break from the action, I never found myself really thinking that the show was leaving me behind in the dust. It's not the kind of show that you can turn on and leave running while you multitask, though. Blink for too long and you might miss something important, which can ruin some of the hard-hitting twists that the anime works so hard to build up.

OK! Time for spoilers! I beg you, go watch the anime before you read past this, because it's totally worth it!!

Woahh episode 2 am I right?? I thought that I clicked into the wrong anime when I began it, it took such a wild turn, and so soon in the anime too. This is what I really mean when I talk about a show not being what it appears to be! Again, I really encourage you to watch it for yourself, but if you're that stubborn on reading this through before you turn it on:

Deca-Dence is not about the heart-wrenching battles between Gears and their desperate attempts to keep humanity alive, because Gears are just avatars for cyborgs! You see, there's a civilization of cyborg people who are living above the Earth, who log in to fight in mobile fortress Deca-Dence as a game. So the Gadolls are genetically grown as prey for the Gears and the entire story surrounding Deca-Dence's battles are scripted. Crazy right!? The best part: the Tankers aren't in on this at all. You heard me: Natsume and her human friends have no idea that Deca-Dence is staged.

From here, Deca-Dence has two distinct parts: we'll call them "Natsume's half" and "Kaburagi's half". Natsume's half refers to the mobile fortress, the Tankers who live unaware of the cyborgs, and the art style that premiered in the first episode. Kaburagi's half is the Solid Quake organization, the Gears who are avatars of the cyborgs, and the goofy, stylized art style with big lines and bright colors.

The twist and the diverging sides of the story set this show up as not your typical sci-fi anime, but as something a little deeper. The stakes are the same, as humanity is in just as much peril as it was before - it becomes abundantly clear that the Gears and cyborgs don't care about them - but the name of the game completely changes as you realize that our so-called "heroes" aren't really all that heroic, and there's a lot more going on.

Kaburagi is, of course, one of these cyborgs, cursed to live among the Tankers because of a mistake he made while playing as a Gear. Now, he's in charge of eliminating "bugs", or mistakes that the system finds. He's upset with his life, frustrated at what he's doing, and contemplating suicide. But when Natsume walks into his life, a little girl that the system considers legally dead, Kaburagi sees a chance to rebel, even the slightest, against the system. He's supposed to kill Natsume, but instead, he takes her under his wing, determined to protect what he's been instructed to eliminate. This development gives their relationship a deeper meaning, even if Natsume doesn't know it.

Deca-Dence does a wonderful job at showing the watchers both sides of the story but keeping Natsume's side in the dark. Even though we see scenes from Kaburagi's side, Natsume knows nothing about them. When Kaburagi leaves after Hugin kills his avatar, Nastume doesn't know where he's gone and has no reason to believe that he hasn't run away. There's no way she could guess that Kaburagi's new form - his weird orange Gear avatar - is the mentor that she once knew. And when Kaburagi, back in his original form, is killed in front of her, she really believes that he is dead. When Natsume finds out about the truth of the Gadolls - that the world she knows is fake - her horror is palpable and realistic, because there's no way she could've known any better.

Kaburagi's world has a goofy style to it, with the cyborgs looking cartoonish rather than realistic. While it might initially seem off-putting, I think that it ends up balancing the tone of the story much better. Consider the hellscape that is the reform facility that Kaburagi visits. Imagine how dark it would've been if it was not in a silly style! By keeping the style cuter rather than realistic, the show doesn't dip too far into dark and gritty, and I really liked it!

It also set up this harsh divide between Kabruagi's half, where things are easygoing, done for pleasure and fun, and not nearly as harsh as Natsume's world (Look at the name of the series! Decadence literally means living in excessive luxury!). Even when the cyborgs are in their Gear forms, which are drawn in Natsume's style, they're still a lot more colorful and vivid, showing that their lives aren't as harsh as that of the Tankers. The art styles reflect the differences between the two halves and give them both distinct tones and personalities!

& finally, let's take an in-depth look at one scene!: I had a really hard time picking what I thought summed up the series in a single scene. In the end, I think that Natsume and Kaburagi's discussion at the end of episode 7 was the best. Here, we see a culmination of a lot of the character development going on. Kaburagi, in this scene, is in a Gears avatar that Natsume doesn't recognize, meeting her for the first time since his normal avatar was killed. Natsume's been working with the Tankers to protect them from Gadolls that infiltrated the fortress, and she's motivated them all to rise up and fix the hole in the fortress themselves.

Kaburagi has encouraged Natsume to be a stronger person, even though she had to be independent and not rely on him any longer. His pessimistic view on the world - that they'll never defeat the Gadolls - has rubbed off on her, but it's only made her more determined to be stronger to stand up to them. In this scene, we see her breaking down as she considers that Kaburagi might be right, and that she'll never kill them all, but that she needs to continue fighting.

Though Kaburagi previously doubted Natsume and her endless determination, he now feels filled with the same motivation. Natsume has convinced him, time and time again, that he can't give up, and so he decides that he's willing to do anything to make sure that she never loses that hope. He wants her dreams to come true, and he knows that she can't accomplish them alone.

This perfectly shows the effects that they have on one another. Natsume is now stronger than she's ever been: independent, able to take down Gadolls on her own, and determined enough to patch up the hole that no one else thought could be fixed. Kaburagi, in stark contrast to his suicidal thoughts from episode two, is now completely devoted to make the world a safe place for Natsume. Their relationship has shaped one another into being the best versions of themselves, and this isn't even the end! They still complete their growth in the last few episodes, but I've rambled about them enough.

We're done!: That's my review of Deca-Dence! I really believe that it's one of the masterpiece animes in recent years, and I wish it got more attention. I'm sure that there's plenty of anime out there like this one - forgotten diamonds in the rough - that I'd love to dig up and fawn over. Tell me if you know any! Or, if you disagree with my review, tell me where you think I'm wrong!

#time to go rewatch deca-dence #writing about it has made me miss it so much #its sooooo good #please check it out #it's so worth it #studio nut #bwahahah #studio NUT #lmaoooo #please tell them to get a better name #deca-dence #anime #anime review #summer 2020

[okayto]

Mini-Review: Inuyasha

15-year-old modern schoolgirl Kagome and grumpy half-demon Inuyasha reluctantly team up to recover the pieces of a magical jewel that were scattered when Kagome fell down a well into magic-filled feudal Japan. On their quest they team up with a monk, a demon slayer, and a young fox demon while trying to stay ahead of the large number of people who want one or all of them dead.

This counts as a classic now, right? I remember plenty of Inuyasha cosplays (including me as Kagome for Halloween once), fanart, and the rare anime merch in real stores while the original series aired in the early aughts. But despite that, I wasn’t a dedicated watcher at the time. Which ended up to my advantage, because now the entire series is easily available.

The premise is simple: Kagome falls down a well at her family’s shrine, and comes out the other side in feudal Japan. She’s attacked by a demon that wants to acquire the magical Shikon Jewel embedded in her body, awakens and is saved by the grumpy half-demon Inuyasha, the jewel shatters, and now they gotta go put it back together. Only, Kagome is the reincarnation of Inuyasha’s former girlfriend, the priestess Kikyo, and the two parted on bad terms each believing their lover had betrayed them. (It was a trick by series Big Bad Naraku, but still.)

And because nothing is ever simple, Kikyo gets brought back to life at one point for Reasons, then proceeds to spent a chunk of the series alternating between helping random peasants (because she’s got such a nice soul) and trying to kill Inuyasha and co (because breakups suck).

This is not an intellectual series, but it is a fun series. Mostly. There’s lot of action, lots of magic and demon-slaying, and the occasional respite/comedy break when Kagome heads home because she’s got a school exam, or needs to stock up on snacks, and say hi to a family who is super chill about their teenager just gallivanting around 500 years in the past, using her archery skills to avoid being eaten for dinner.

Yes. In this portal fantasy the portal remains open, allowing free crossing back and forth, which is convenient. I remain, however, mystified by how far the characters seem to travel while always remaining within a fairly easy trip back to their home base where the well is.

In general, you can’t think about it too hard. It won’t hold up, it’s not supposed to hold up. This is a feudal Japan where no one cares that Kagome is running around in a miniskirt, riding a bicycle and eating cup noodles and bags of chips.

On one hand, Inuyasha, like many action series, is great for the casual viewer: after a brief introduction at the beginning, you know the basic setting and the rest of the story in any given episode is easy to figure out (usually: this brightly-colored character wants to harm these other ones and/or steal their weapons). But what’s fun when viewed in short doses gets old if you’re trying to cram it. Not because it’s bad, but binging does make its flaws more obvious.

Its main flaw is that every single character needs to take a course in communicating.

To be clear, every main character has the emotional intelligence of a sleep-deprived sixth grader. Inuyasha isn’t alone in this, but the number of fights that compelled me to yell please work out your interpersonal drama later when demons are not actively trying to kill you was...a lot.

(Don’t worry, there’s plenty of arguing when they’re not dealing with murder attempts, too!)

Okay, so, why watch? I mean, sometimes you just wanna see cool magical people fighting other magical people in ridiculous ways? I mean look at these people!  You’re not going to mix any of them up with anyone else, huh? And the colors, nice and bright!

Also, initial-minor-antagonist-who-refuses-to-admit-he-would-ever-willingly-be-nice Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha’s older half-brother? He was popular eye candy back then, and he’s still pretty now.

Now, my roommate and I watched this over the course of many months, which is what I recommend. It’s a long series (193 episodes total, excluding movies), and why rush it? A plus to watching now is that the series is complete: the original anime ended before the manga, so 163 episodes in, it just...doesn’t resolve. But a few years later, Inuyasha: The Final Act was released and completed the story.

Even so, the show is long enough that unless you’re really enjoying it, you can go ahead and skip the filler episodes that were stuck in the original run. Just google “Inuyasha filler” and you’ll find multiple lists.

Verdict

English dub? Yes

Visuals: I mean, the first 167 episodes are from 2000-2004, so the aspect ratio is 4:3, but it’s held up OK. Character designs are colorful and distinctive. This isn’t going for anything close to realism, but it’s fun to look at.

Worth watching? Yeah, probably. Sometimes you just need a silly action show, and Inuyasha delivers in spades. It’s not perfect--monk Miroku’s lechery and groping is treated as a small character flaw and usually played for laughs, which gets old real quick. A lot of the side characters are legitimately fun as well, from Sesshoumaru’s little entourage Jaken and Rin (does he care about them? he’ll kill you before admitting it) to Kagome’s easygoing family to the recurring wolf demon allies.

Overall, I think I have to hold a long-running fantasy action show to a different standard of “is it good” than I do, say, something with 12-26 episodes. It’d have to get to the point quickly if it was shorter; even skipping the filler, this is the adaptation of a 56-volume manga so there’s just going to be a lot of adventures where the entire point is just “characters get [magical weapon/power-up/knowledge] and beat up some bad guys.” There’s something fun and also comforting in knowing it’s not going to get deep.

Where to watch (USA, as of November 2020): Hulu (sub and dub episodes 1-167, then 168-193 under the separate listing of Inuyasha The Final Act), Crunchyroll (sub and dub episodes 1-54), Netflix (sub and dub episodes 1-54), Viz.com (sub and dub episodes 1-193); multiple blu-ray and DVD sets

Click my “reviews” tag below or search “mini review” on my blog to find more!

#also wolf demon leader Koga's 2 constant companions Ginta and Hakkaku are CLEARLY boyfriends we decided #Inuyasha #roomie and I had a couple nights a week we'd eat dinner together while sharing the show and it was a good time #anime #reviews #recommendation #kinda #but oh yes Sesshoumaru is p r e t t y

[valkerymillenia]

@animecat33​ tagged me for this

Rules: Name 10 characters from 10 different fandoms that you like, then tag 10 people.

I enjoyed this but... At first I thought, do I even have 10 I consider favs? And then I ended up with a list of, like, 25, and couldn’t pick 10 so I chose more or less at random. And I admit I cheated seeing as some kind of fit in the same fandom in some way.

It’s just too hard picking favorites. 

Undercut, cause it’s gonna be a loooong post.

1. Morticia Addams (Addams Family)

My tattoo probably makes this one obvious. 

I love Morticia so much, not only do I love her aesthetic, I just love her personality and attitude, not to mention her marriage is ‘goals’ and as a mother and matriarch she’s incredibly supportive and loving despite the unorthodox life the Addams’ live. I love a character that can be a mother without having it define her completely.

2. Catwoman/Selina Kyle (DC)

Selina was one of my OG crushes back before I even understood what I crush was or that being queer was even a thing (looking at you, Michelle Pfiffer).

I love her style and strength and personality (when she's well written), her grey morals and competence, and cats are just my thing, ok? Plus bisexual icon.

Have you noticed I have a thing for a dark women with grey morals?

3. Raven/Rachel Roth (Teen Titans/DC)

I kinda share a name with Raven but that's not why I like her. I've always loved the emotional complexity of this character, her incredible power (and how it's also her weakness), and style as well. I'm not too thrilled about some more recent incarnations of her but she'll always be an OG fav.

4. Nightwing/Dick Grayson (DC)

Yeah, yeah, DC again, look the other way, please (they have individual comics anyway).

I couldn't leave out my darling Dickie. I grew up with this dude and I love his backstory and relationship with his family. He's a beautiful ray of sunshine with a dark streak, a competent leader without being a broody bossy jerk like some and he's very well rounded and consistent in his characterization (plus that design is top notch). I know the Romani thing was a ret-con on something just vaguely implied in the past but honestly it was a good one and some much needed rep despite the constant whitewashing (though not as bad as others in his family).

Also, he drinks his 'respect woman juice', he's flawed without being edgy, and has been queer-coded and female-troped for decades which makes him much more likeable as a male character. He actually became an LGBT icon despite the cowards at DC constantly trying to shove heteronormativity into his storyline.

5. Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond (Steve Universe)

Is she problematic? Yes and that's part of the appeal.

I already loved Rose when she was this sweet, compassionate and wise old soul, this rebel and leader and mother with many secrets.

I guessed really early on that she was PD so that part didn't surprise me but when the backstory of her as PD finally appeared to give us so more in-depth knowledge I was surprised by the amount of hate the character got. To me, her flaws, pain, mistakes and growth were part of the allure.

Also, gorgeous and much needed plus-size rep. I loved cosplaying her more than anything.

6. Princess Leia (Star Wars)

Did I like her style or design? Nope, I much prefer her mother's but Leia is an immensely competent, wise, strong female character that takes no bullshit from the male-dominated plot around her, she deserved so much better. Honestly, she deserved her own goddamn movie.

Carrie Fisher was a feminist icon and an advocate for mental illness visibility. She's was also fucking hilarious. All this translated into Leia's character very well and she deserved so much better from society than being sexualized in a metal bikini and remembered that way forever.

7. Hela (Thor Ragnarok/Marvel)

I already loved Hela's character in the comics (except the arc where she sexually abuses Thor, that was shitty edgelord writing and I refuse to acknowledge it's existence) but Ragnarok gave her a whole new meaning.

Firstly, my God is she hot! Just.... Umpf! Step on me, queen.

Secondly, she's dark and evil but she has a goddamn point (people are hypocrites). And in the comics she's not even evil, she's neutral and only a villain because she opposes Thor on a personal level. She's also incredibly competent at what she does and if that isn't a turn-on idk what is.

8. Korra (Legend of Korra)

Korra will always be bae. There's a reason my behemoth of a fic revolved around her.

Not only is she incredibly well-rounded and fun, she's also very competent, has a fascinating backstory and is immensely powerful, plus she grows beautifully through her show. Not to mention she's GORGEOUS.

POC and LGBT rep, plus she showcased one of the most incredible arcs on disability and recovery that I've ever seen in a family show.

9. Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff (Marvel)

You can pry Wanda from my cold dead hands.

I'm not even the biggest fan of her movie version, I'm all about comic Wanda.

POC rep and an incredibly visceral portrayal of mental illness and trauma. And she's beautiful beyond reason, morally grey, and powerful as hell.

Most of all what I like about Wanda is how loyal and family-oriented she is without letting it diminish her as an individual or as a powerhouse character, so many female characters loose all agency and individuality when they have kids, they get delegated to role of mother and lose their heroics or become extensions of their husbands and children, Wanda was nothing like that. Her relationship with her brother is fascinating too (let's pretend the incesty vibes in certain alt universes don't exist).

I only hate that she and Pietro always get the short stick in adaptations and their origins keep getting needlessly retconned (Magneto's kids with his Romani wife, raised by someone else- that's it, stop trying to change it and then change it back over and over). That and how she's not allowed to have her well deserved relationship with her babies because of stupid old-fashioned comic rules that led to a needlessly convuloted and far-fetch story arc (the erasure, reencarnation and hyper-aging of her sons).

10. Jessica Rabbit (WFRR)

For most people, Jessica's appeal is "she's hot" and yes, this "pinup femme fatale" look really does things to me, I won't lie about that, but that's not why she's my favorite.

Jessica is fav because she's loyal and loving to her goofy husband, she completely turns the femme fatale trope upside down for love and doesn't give a damn about looks, she uses her appearance as a weapon and she's confident but she's clearly not vain ("I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way" and "He makes me laugh"). She's also hilarious in her own deadpan way.

.

Other worthy mentions to this list are:

Wednesday Addams

Mystique (Marvel)

Shuri (Marvel)

Maleficent (Disney)

Vanya Hargreeves (TUA)

Blind Mag (Repo!)

Venom (Marvel)

Lust (FMA)

Evelyn O'Connell (The Mummy)

Alice Lidell (Alice Madness)

Jessica Jones (Marvel)

The Kagamine twins (vocaloid)

Amon (LoK)

Sesshoumaru (Inuyasha)

Loki (Marvel comics)

Liadan (Sevenwaters)

Furiosa (Mad Max: Fury Road)

Crowley (Good Omens)

Jericho (Titans/DC)

Sadako Yamamura (from the Ring BOOKS)

Susan Sto-Helit (Discworld)

.

I tag... @dymosara @abnaxus @polyx @bluetalesoftheheart @adka2333 @shinladyanarki @i-have-all-these-freaking-uwus @frank-a-lank @fluffynexu @teddy-fluffnhugs

#tag game #10 fav characters

[westudiedfilmfor3years]

Our First Episode: The Bechdel Test and its Various Offspring

Maddy: Hello and welcome to our podcast, "We Studied Film For Three Years And All We Got Was This Podcast". I'm one of your hosts, Maddy Raven. I'm a third-year theatre and film student.

Jemima: I'm Jemima. I'm also a third year, but just straight film student.

Sarah: And I'm Sarah. And I'm also studying film and television.

Maddy: So this podcast is going to be about film criticism, specifically focusing on diversifying female voices in film criticism, because we think that there are a lot of male, straight white voices in film criticism. Shout out to Michael, who is a straight white male editor.

Maddy: He's looking from side to side!

Jemima: We love Michael.

Maddy: And we're putting this together partly as part of our assessment. So this will be assessed, but also because we want to talk about films and we like to talk about films and we have super interesting conversations about them.

Maddy: And we want to share them with the world because frankly, my opinions are fantastic, actually. And I'm going to force them on everyone else.

Jemima: Yeah, our opinions matter. And because we've kind of done three years of this, I think that we can all agree we have a kind of educated response to films that we just want to put across and create a dialogue about.

Jemima: But at the same time, we want to keep it informal. We want every person, people that don't watch films often know nothing about the theory of it,  and then the people who have also studied it as well. We just want to make it fun, accessible and yeah, hope you enjoy it.

Maddy: We'll also be having guests on the show, hopefully including, you know, like friends, even family, I'll get my dad to come on and rant about how much he loves Jeff Bridges. My dad is like a massive crush on Jeff Bridges. And he's like, no, no, I'm sorry. I'm sure I'm straight.

Maddy: It's like, you are gay for Jeff Bridges, like so gay for Jeff Bridges, it's ridiculous.

Maddy: But having people on to talk to people from the film industry as well and hopefully talk about various things to do with the industry as well, because as everyone knows, it is really difficult to get into the film industry and hopefully at least one of us will somehow make it there and we will be able to share knowledge.

Jemima: Yeah, let's hope all of us, but at least one that would be great.

Maddy: There's four of us, one in four should make it. Yeah.

Jemima: Twenty-five percent. That's fine. 

Maddy: So each episode will be about like a topic. We like topics. It's a general topic and we're going to start out. Oh my God, my text has disappeared from my notes. That's terrifying.

Maddy: So we just thought we'd start out pretty gentle and start by talking about the Bechdel test, which since it came out as part of Allison Bechdel's comic, which came out I think was in the 70s when I can't find it in my notes. 

Sarah: I think that one was from nineteen eighty-five.

Maddy: Nineteen eighty five. Thank you Sarah.

Maddy: Since then it has become, you know, this huge thing it has come so far since then, and there's even a website where you can go and search up your favourite films and we'll be talking about some of our favourite films and why they passed the test and why they don't and how we feel about that and also why the Bechdel Test exists, in our opinion. So, um, Sarah, do you mind giving us a little rundown of what the Bechdel Test is? Because you sound super knowledgeable and smart.

Sarah: Thank you. Sure. So it's called the Bechdel-Wallace Test, it originates from a comic strip called The Rule by Allison Bechdel from 1985, part of her comic called Dykes to Watch Out For.

Sarah: Yeah, lesbians to watch out for lesbians, lesbians substituting a word that can be considered a slur.

Sarah: And yeah, basically these two characters in the comic strip, they're walking past the cinema, I think, talking about movies. And one of them says how they only go to see a film if it passes three simple rules. 

Sarah: So it needs to have at least two female characters who talk to each other about something other than men.

Sarah: And I think since then, people have added that the female characters need to have names, so, yeah, it started off as just a kind of tongue in cheek little joke about how few films actually do have something really simple, like two women in them. And I think, yeah, Alison Bechdel said this is inspired by a conversation she had with her friend Liz Wallace, which is why sometimes it's called the Bechdel-Wallace test. But since then, yeah, critics have kind of rolled it and made a more official kind of way to look at films.

Maddy: Yeah, yeah, that's it. So have any of you seen Pacific Rim?

Jemima: Yeah, wait, there's more to say about that.

Jemima: There's the whole Virginia Woolf thing. OK, so also another thing is that Alison Bechdel, she prefers it to be called the Bechdel-Wallace test just because they created it together and she got most of the credit. That's one thing to say. And then the Virginia Woolf thing, she read A Room of One's Own and thought that was a great way of just kind of encouraging the feminist writings to be transferred onto film.

Jemima: So this test should be really easy to just apply. Another thing as well: there's an additional, Sarah, you said the named character one. The other one is a total of more than 60 seconds of conversation. That's another important one.

Maddy: So what is A Room of One's Own, because I've not actually read the book. So when you say the Virginia Woolf thing, what do you mean?

Jemima: So it's a nineteen twenty-nine essay.

Jemima: "All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of my fictitious woman, utterly simple. And I try to remember any case in that course of my readings where two women are represented as friends. They are now and then mothers and daughters are almost without exception, they are shown in relation to men.

Jemima: It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman's life is that?

Maddy: Oh, that's quite pretty, actually. Maybe I should read that, I'll say that, but I won't read it for years to come because I'm bad at concentrating,

Sarah: You can borrow it if you'd like.

Maddy: Yeah, I would. Genuinely, I wish I could read, but I'm probably sitting down and doing it. So obviously, the Bechdel test is a pretty simple test. It has been elaborated on slightly, but I've read a lot of articles about this and in particular, people notice that certain films were passing the test, while other films were failing them. There was such a disparity, like it said here, like Pacific Rim fails the Bechdel Test, despite having like this badass woman, called Mako Mori, she's a Japanese fighter like she because she kicks this guy's ass like ten minutes into the film. It's amazing because the film fails the test essentially and somehow, Thor passes it.

Maddy: So, you know, people are wondering how do we- how do we remedy this? So a Tumblr user called Chila invented the Mako Mori test after watching Pacific Rim. And you will pass this test if you have one female character who gets her own narrative arc that is not supporting a man's story. So moving on from, they have the bare minimum, which is like two female characters talking about, you know, something other than a man to each other: it's also at least one of these women getting a narrative arc and getting to live her own life. And it's not because of a guy, basically.

Maddy: And then Roxane Gay, who is fantastic, you should follow her on Instagram, we love her. She proposed this six-part test. And it says, is there a central female character who is supporting female characters, who doesn't compromise herself for love or live extravagantly for no explained reason? And at least half the time is this character, a woman of colour, transgender and/or queer?

Maddy: And there's also a sixth point, which is a requirement, which is the suggestion that female characters shouldn't have to live up to an unrealistic feminist standard. They can be flawed so long as they feel like they're human beings because, you know, like women, in order to win a place in film a lot of time, it's almost as if women have to be on their best behaviour. They have to be really good. And that's something I'm particularly interested in. I'm really interested in women that are horrible people. I am obsessed with Gone Girl. It's a little bit of a problem. But the Cool Girl Monologue, it changed my life. I know everyone says that everyone, everyone on Twitter was just like the Cool Girl Monologue created so many monsters. And yes, it should have done because I love it. I love women who are horrible. And I think we should allow women to be horrible in films as well. And I think we should allow them to be angry and cry. And just off the top of my head, just like I've seen so many amazing, like montages like this, especially like I tried to with my social media feeds, with a lot of like women that are talking about film and just watching female rage on screen can be so exciting sometimes. Like, um, have any of you watch Lovecraft Country yet? 

Jemima: Yeah, I have.

Maddy: When she smashes the car windows with the baseball bat.

Jemima: Yeah. Yeah. And then everyone's like, oh, I can smash windows too. Yeah.

Maddy: And there's also like well - what were some other examples I was thinking about? Ready or Not. We studied that a couple of weeks ago with Peter Falconer in our Contemporary Hollywood cinema unit. She's just screaming at her husband. She's so angry she doesn't even have words anymore. She just starts yelling. And I'm like, yes, you know, I love that. I've got away from myself. Yeah. I just love women who are horrible people, and I think that should be more of them. Yeah.

Jemima: And Carrie is an awesome one to do female rage about. Of course, she's a flawed, flawed character, but we have compassion for Carrie. We understand her because she has depth to her.

Jemima: And that's all we want, female characters with depth, motivation. We can determine throughout the film, not just prancing off to a man.

Maddy: So then the next test after that was the Sexy Lamp Test, which was made by Kelly Sue DeConnick. I love the name: Sexy Lamp Test. It's quite easy to pass. You pass it if your female character, it could be replaced by a sexy lamp without the plot falling apart. You're a fucking hack. So, yeah, I'm thinking back to maybe, X-Men First Class where that woman who like turns to diamond half the time follows - is it Kevin Bacon? I think it is Kevin Bacon. It's like she's one of the baddies, I swear, because, like, all she does is just be hot, have boobs and turn to diamonds sometimes. I fully believe, like, she could literally turn into a sexy lamp at any point through the film and nothing would change.

Jemima: Like, I mean, her turning into diamonds is kind of commenting on that itself, she's nothing but a mere object of desire in that way.

Maddy: And just talking about like, yeah, if she could literally be replaced by a lamp and the plot wouldn't change. You've got an issue with your female character. And then when you put all these tests together, it's been put together and formed the Crystal Gems test. So it's named after the heroes in Steven Universe, which I still haven't watched and still need to watch Steven Universe.

Maddy: And it creates this big triangle. And you just kind of you can mark whether or not it passes the tests and it creates a cute little graph. And there's also other stuff like the Ellen Willis test, so that requires the story to make sense if the genders were flipped. So I'm thinking about Overboard! Have any of you seen Overboard?

Jemima: The new one?

Maddy: Yeah, I'm thinking about the fact that they swap the genders for the new version like it's problematic both ways. Just for context, Overboard, is it Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn? Yeah, so she's like this rich woman living on a boat and he's like a workman on the boat. And I think they get into that argument because she's a dick and he pushes her off the boat - I don't know, she falls off the boat. She gets amnesia and then he's somehow got a load of kids. His wife is dead or something, I think. And he's got loads of kids. And so instead of like a normal human being, when he finds that she has amnesia, she goes to the police station and she doesn't know where she is, who she is, instead of being like a normal non-psychotic human being and just leaving her on her own, after he's basically- actually I don't think he pushes her off the boat. He takes her home and tells her that she's his wife and makes her help him raise the kids. I think it's supposed to be this comment about like teaching her humility and teaching her to be a good person. But it's not that. It is kidnap. 

Jemima: It's like 50 First Dates. I had a real, real big problem with the fact that she could not consent to any of the dates. She was vulnerable. She had a disability. She was basically being forced to, like, fall in love with Adam Sandler. And great, cute I understand the rom-com assets of that, but at the same time, like you do not know this person. She wakes up every day. Like just because you've invested so much in her does not mean she should be forced to hang out with you every hour of the day and love you.

Jemima: You know, it's just a bit crazy.

Maddy: So, then they obviously remade Overboard, but they were like, oh, instead of, like, remaking it - obviously people would have had an issue with it if they'd remade it today with the same role models, everyone would've refused. Actually not everyone, sane human people would have been like, this is fucked up. You can't just kidnap women and tell them that your wife because they've got amnesia. But like, they decided to swap the gender roles as if that made it better. So this is Chris Pratt's ex-wife. 

Jemima: You just called her Chris Pratt's ex-wife!

Maddy: I did! Because I've been thinking about him a lot and the fact that he's a conservative and he's like a horrible, homophobic Christian.

Jemima: Allegedly.

Maddy: Allegedly, allegedly. Allegedly. Oh, no. I'm already getting sued.

Maddy: But yeah, I was just thinking about - it's still messed up, even if it's a girl kidnapping a guy, it's still messed up. But then in that way, I guess it does pass the Ellen Willis test.

Sarah: It's an awful idea.

Maddy: And in the last one, the last test I really do like is called the Tauriel, the one the Evangeline Lily plays in the altogether too long Hobbit franchise. The one who falls in love with Aidan Turner. 

Maddy: Anyway, it's a test that says that if there's going to be a woman in the film where she works a job the same as a load of guys, she has to be good at what she does. At least one woman has to be good at her job because they never have jobs. It's always like, you're a housewife. That's your job.

Jemima: You're a mother and a wife first and that is your job.

Maddy: Exactly, like if there's going to be a woman, she's going to have a job and she's going to be good at that job. Just one, the rest can be terrible. Just one. Just one of them has to be a smart human being who is capable.

Maddy: That's all we want.

Jemima: Practical skills. I don't know her.

Maddy: Yes, exactly.

Michael: I've had to not interject like three times. The sexy lady from X-Men is called Emma Frost. And turning into diamond is her secondary mutation. And they've just they've just really badly represented the character on film. I'll defend her.

Jemima: When I was like 15, I read this autobiography by one of the world's most famous groupies from the 60s and 70s. Reread it the other day. And it's the most horrendous anti-feminist paedophilic disgustingness I have ever read. I don't know. It's like glamorising everything. And of course, it was a sign of the times. But like even in her, like, epilogue, she was just like, I excuse myself and my behaviour, it's all fine and it's like, no.

Jemima: So I guess it just takes a twenty-first century perspective on things, isn't it? To reflect, hopefully.

Maddy: Yeah, so I guess. Oh, there are so many more tests I could go into if you guys are up for that

Jemima: Do you reckon we should start doing the film stuff? 

Maddy: Yeah, I would like to mention, though, just to make it clear that I'm not a terrible person. There are also lots of tests. So the Deggans rule requires a show that's not about race to include at least two non-white human characters in the main cast.

Maddy: The Morales Rule by actor Natalie Morales, asks that no one calls anybody papi, dances to salsa music, or uses gratuitous Spanish if they're a latinx character.

Maddy: And one of my personal favourites is the DuVernay test, or sometimes referred to as the Kent test, after Clarkisha Kent. She's an interesting film critic. A piece of work passes it if African-Americans and other minorities have fully realised lives rather than serve as scenery in white stories. That makes me think back to The Help, you know, Viola Davis. She's been saying, I regret being part of that film, but a lot of the time it is about making sure that you're not just including women and giving them a seat at the table, but making sure that people of colour and people who are queer as well because there's also - I'm not how to say this, I'm probably going to butcher it, the Vito-Russo test.

Maddy: There are three requirements to pass this test. The film must contain a lesbian, gay or bisexual or transgender character. That character must not be predominantly defined by the orientation or their gender identity. They need to be as unique as straight cis characters, and they must be important enough to affect the plot. They can't just crack some jokes or paint urban authenticity.

Maddy: There's also the Topside test for trans literature and there are plenty of other tests like the Finkbeiner Test for non-fiction and the Lauredhel test for toys. So there's loads of tests. The Bechdel test started quite a few movements in film, and it's all very interesting. So I think next we're going to be looking at some of our favourite films and seeing whether or not they pass the test.

Maddy: And you are welcome to judge us and our favourite films, as I'm sure you will. And I'm sure we'll judge each other. 

Jemima: Please do. 

Maddy: I think Jemima should go first. 

Jemima: Well, I have a few that I can pick from. I think a good one to start would be - have any of you guys in Starship Troopers? OK, so any one of us, which is Michael and he doesn't even speak a lot, so we'll get him to speak - unmute yourself at this point.

Jemima: OK, I'm going to quiz you on it. Do you think it's a feminist film?

Michael: Isn't like - they're fighting bugs, right? Yeah, isn't like the main enemy, like the queen bug.

Jemima: OK, I'm talking about interpersonal, human relationships.

Michael: Yeah, I think there's only two female characters and they're both trying to, like, vie for the attention of one male character. If I remember.

Michael: Is that right?

Jemima: But what is it? What I find to be really interesting about the film is that, basically, the protagonist, male, heterosexual character, he goes into the army because his girlfriend encourages it, she's in the army, he's like, I don't know what to do. I'm going to follow Carmen to the army.

Jemima: And that is a switch from tradition - it's gender play, which I enjoy. And also the other female character, called Izzy, who also enters the army. But her motivation is to get the protagonist because she fancies him. But they met because they both played American football together on the same team. And it's a Paul Verhoeven film. Paul Verhoeven works a lot with eroticism. So you can see the kind of anti-feminist stuff from sexualising women, but at the same time. 

Michael: Is it Showgirls?

Jemima: Yeah, the same time he's giving female voices power and narrative arcs and all this stuff. And I really enjoy it. And I think when I was a kid, some of my favourite films like Starship Troopers, Aliens, all of that stuff, I really enjoy strong female protagonists. And I think he got somewhere with it, although there's a lot of tits and ass. But you got somewhere. 

Jemima: I don't even know - this is just talking to you guys. But I don't even know if it's good to talk about film if we haven't watched it or whatever, because it's hard because you guys haven't got much to comment on those two.

Maddy: Interesting comment.

Sarah: Yeah. I mean, we can cut it out later if it doesn't work, but like you have some interesting stuff say so like. Go ahead.

Jemima: Thank you. I'll just do a bit on the Bechdel test. So the movie does have at least two women in it, surprisingly, only two though. Some of the other women are nameless characters like you do have women captains, all of that stuff. But yeah, I think the point of having women able to do like military stuff, at a time when women couldn't even do that in the 90s. So I appreciate that. And I think it's much better than our world at that point. So that's a good point. And then they don't talk to each other. That's one that interests me. They only talk in relation to the guy. I think - I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but one of the females dies halfway through, so they can't really talk to each other. Plus, it's all narratives in different parts of space and time and super difficult. Three: about something other than a man. Well, obviously, that's not applicable because they don't talk to each other. And when they do discuss it, it's all about men. And then two additional points that we could make is: two women must be named characters, they are called Carmen and Dizzy, so that's yes and/or they must have at least a total of 60 seconds of conversation. If I was to manipulate this, I would say at least 60 seconds of action, because they're both strong, physically strong women in the film. And you see that throughout. Carmen, at the end, she's like there, fully, with this giant bug and all the men and all the army surrounding her, but she keeps her cool and she survives an awful lot and she does it all by herself.

Jemima: So I think that's a good point. Yeah, that's me done.

Maddy: How about Sarah next?

Sarah: So one of my favourite movies is Lady Bird, have we we all seen that one?

Jemima: Yes.

Sarah: So, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, films that are written and directed by women, well, more likely than films written and directed by men, it seems, Lady Bird does pass all of the features of the Bechdel test because when women write, we know that we have lives and we speak to women. And that's a normal thing that would happen in, you know, a character's life.

Sarah: Yeah, we've got several named female characters who are friends who have conversations about various things. They do talk about men now and then. But like that isn't their only interest in life.

Sarah: I think that Lady Bird's like a pretty good bit of female representation, I mean, the characters are quite well rounded, the main character, Lady Bird, but she's a likeable character that lot of people, you know, relate to in some way, but she isn't, like, flawless, she's quite emotional, but not in a sort of derogatory hysterical kind of way - in a kind of stereotyped fashion.

Maddy: Yeah, I was just thinking I've just been thinking about the fact that we've also been looking at Little Women, which is obviously also directed by Greta Gerwig, this term as once again, as part of our Hollywood unit. And I was thinking about, you know, the moment not that not the proposal moment, but the bit where Joe is in the attic with her mom and she's talking about, you know, her life.

Maddy: And she goes women. They have minds and they have souls as well as just hearts. And they've got ambition and they've got talent as well as just beauty. I'm so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for. And I think Greta Gerwig does that very well. I mean, it's the same actress both times. It's Saoirse Ronan and I think they're a very good duo.

Maddy: And I think you're right. You know, female directors and female writers, they are women, they talk to other women a lot of the time, hopefully. And they are aware of the fact that, you know, I can't believe I have to say this, but we have complex inner lives. We have thoughts and stuff.

Maddy: I have many opinions, like I've said, and we deserve to have them represented on screen.

Maddy: And I think for Greta Gerwig, despite the overwhelming whiteness of a lot of the people that she casts in her films, she does a very good job of showing, you know, a particular type of female character.

Maddy: And she's very good at teenage girls as well, I think. Yeah, very good at that age group. And she clearly remembers her own adolescence quite well. And she does a very good job of just kind of like, talking about that kind of stuff. I don't know. I rate her for it, I think it's pretty cool.

Jemima: Yeah. I think one of the great things about Greta is the fact that she has completely found a niche in the market. How many times have like we heard about a mother-daughter film? Not a lot like - can we think of any right now?

Maddy: Still Alice, I think is it called?

Jemima: Yeah, that's one.

Maddy: I guess, is My Sister's Keeper a mother-daughter film?

Jemima: We do not talk about that film. *inaudible giggling*

Jemima: Yeah, so Greta really works with the kind of bringing - fleshing out people, not just women, people, and then bringing the interplay between them into question. Just flawed characters - we all have- like, we still love each other. We all make mistakes. And her films really brilliantly portray that. And growing up is also like coming of age films, heart-wrenching. And I really enjoy the fact that, like at the end of the film, I feel like men, women, children, anyone can get something out of Lady Bird, get something out of Little Women.

Jemima: But one additional point is that Little Women, the text of it, she is like the film is- it basically keeps the fidelity with the book, so the literature is really, really ultra-feminist, of course.

Jemima: With Little Women, she obviously was inspired by the text and kind of did it in a contemporary fashion. It was feminist in the start and it really encouraged that narrative and pushed it forward. So yeah.

Maddy: Yeah, I found somehow a way to bring up in almost all of my seminars so far with my girl, that being like, hey, you know, Jo March, she's a lesbian, right? And everyone has, like a little debate about it. I'm just like, guys, she is a lesbian. But, yeah, like a lot of fun to talk about Little Women.

Maddy: I was just looking at my little list of films and I kind of wanted to talk about, um, I think in particular The Personal History of David Copperfield.

Maddy: It came out earlier this year, it's Dev Patel as David Copperfield. 

Jemima: We love the casting.

Maddy: We do. So I found a really interesting website and it's called Mediaversity Reviews.

Maddy: And it gives a kind of like A to F grade for overall diversity for films. And it gives really in-depth reviews of just like, you know, films in terms of like their diversity points.

Maddy: But it does it in a really good way. Like it's not to virtue signal-y. And even, you know, it talks about, you know, like the directors.

Maddy: It's got like a little emoji next to the director. And it shows you whether or not the writer like where they're from is a guy, are they white, you know?

Maddy: Basically, The Personal History of David Copperfield gets a B. So A would be the highest, but it gets a B because they give it five out five for- my Internet connection is unstable.

Maddy: Yeah, The Personal History of David Copperfield gets a B, so the technical diversity, which is kind of talking about overall in terms of just like casting and crew was five out five. But despite passing the Bechdel test, it does point out that a lot of the women kind of like- well, the thing is, it is called The Personal History of David Copperfield.

Maddy: And a lot of the women in the film kind of like exist on the periphery of his life. And, you know, it's all about him and his angst and his stuff he's doing.

Maddy: And it - apart from obviously the fact that it's Agnes, the one who ends up marrying him - which is another thing, she ends up marrying him - she helps to uncover Uriah Heep, who voices Paddington, by the way. She obviously helps to, like, expose the fact that he's swindling her dad and that he's taken over the company and is terrible. So for that, it gets points because it's like, yeah, she's a badass. Like she steals the documents, she does a load of stuff. She's super smart. But apart from that, the film is about a guy and the women tend to exist on the periphery. And, you know, even though, like. Did any of you ever watch Wolfblood?

Sarah: Yeah, I did.

Maddy: Did you recognize Maddie from Wolfblood? She's the one that runs off with Steerforth.

Maddy: Yeah, just a random point. You know, it's Maddie from Wolfblood, but like, you know, just thinking about her, like she kind of like exists on the periphery of the story. And the only time she really comes into play is when she's like either engaged to Ham or she runs off with Steerforth and then he abandons her in London, goes off and dies on the boat. I found him hilarious. I probably shouldn't have done. I just- I just love the way he's always like, "remember me at my best." And I'm like, dude, at best your best is literally someone else's rock bottom. You kind of suck. He's like, "remember me at my best" - you're kind of a dick, though. No one thinks that you're the best.

Maddy: Just stop. But yeah, for race, it gets four out of five and they make a point that obviously Charles Dickens when writing the book, everyone he would have been imagining would have been as white as snow. And that's how he saw the world at the time. But they made a point of just like casting actors they knew would do a good job.

Maddy: And you know, it literally doesn't matter, like it's a story - it is a fictional story and the people are like, oh, but why would so-and-so have so-and-so as a father? That doesn't make sense. It's like, yeah, but, you know, this isn't a film for people who are masters of genetics. This is a film for people that enjoy films and enjoy the story. And all would do a fantastic job.

Maddy: So it gets a really good score for race diversity, but it makes a point, it says, 'when white directors cast blindly without making changes to the character based on the actor's ethnicity, it merely ticks a box of diversity. Meanwhile, matters of true representation not just in body but through diverse narratives defaults to a white experience'. So essentially, I think- I think what they're kind of trying to make is kind of like a point is a bit like the Sexy Lamp test. If you could change the race of this character and it would have absolutely no effect on the plot: is that true representation? I think that's the point they're trying to make. I think what they're trying to say is, yes, this is really good, like I know they had Dev Patel in mind to play David Copperfield from the start, but I think they're making the point that, like, if you're going to cast someone as a character, you need to bring into consideration how their race changes the way that they interact with the world around them and how that might be reflected in the narrative.

Maddy: And it's not interchangeable. And, you know, David Copperfield, looking the way he does, would not have had the same experience as a David Copperfield who was white would have done, especially in Victorian England. But in the end, it's a film. It's a fictional film. 

Sarah: It's a difficult balance to strike, isn't it?

Sarah: You don't want to make it all about race all the time, but you still need to like acknowledge it. It's difficult to represent without overshadowing other elements.

Jemima: If you look at the director, Armando Iannuci- butchered his name. But like, if you look at his authorship, so Death of Stalin, he had Russians from Yorkshire, like his thing is and I listened to an interview when he released Personal History and his justification for all of this stuff is the fact that we can put history, not the kind of the racial side of things, but just history and how things would have been accurately presented, we can put that aside to just have quality in cast and crew.

Jemima: And I think that's a very good point. And of course, this stuff does make a great grounds for the other side. But at the same time, I think he and a lot of people and including what's his name, Dev Patel, all of those people they really, really appreciated and kind of acclaimed, the casting direction, because now so many casting decisions are based on-

Jemima: His essentially groundbreaking thing, because obviously the controversy around having a brown person in a white film as the main protagonist, whatever, and now everyone seems to be doing it. So it kind of has some rubbish sides to it, but at the same time, it's encouraging diversity in a lot of different ways.

Maddy: I remember when the trailer came out for the film, when the comments were just full of the, you know, "Charles Dickens would be rolling in his grave". And it's like, yes, he would, because he was a racist. Everyone back then was racist. But I don't care what he has to say because he's dead.

Maddy: And thanks for the books, Charles, but they're ours now. And then it got zero points for disability.

Maddy: It makes a point. Obviously, it's oh, my God, I'm forgetting everyone's names. Hugh Laurie. Yes. Hugh Laurie playing Mr Dick.

Maddy: He obviously has some issues with his mental health and everyone's really lovely to him about it. I don't - I think they get points for that. But then that's kind of cancelled out by the fact that Mr. Wickfield is serious, he has serious alcohol problems and everyone just kind of think this is a big joke.

Maddy: So for all the points that it gains for being like Mr Dick clearly has something going on there and everyone's super lovely to him about it. And they're never mean to him and they appreciate him for his intelligence and he's great, that gets cancelled out by the fact that Mr. Wickfield is a serious alcoholic and they all kind of make fun of him, but they get zero points for that.

Maddy: I don't know if I would count alcoholism as a disability. 

Jemima: It is a mental illness.

Maddy: Yeah, it's mental illness, I think.

Maddy: But that means that overall it gets a B grade. And I just thought that was an interesting article. I'll probably link it below. It was written by - I'm probably butchering this again, Alicia Johnson, but the Alicia's got a J in it. I think it sounds like it's kind of Polish, so I don't know. And yet it seems like a really interesting website like they give diversity grades to loads of different films, including Lion, another film by Dev Patel, which again, because it doesn't pass the Bechdel test but obviously is very diverse. And yeah, I just- I love The Personal History of David Copperfield, it makes me happy. It's also because obviously, like Bleak House, like the actual Bleak House is in Broadstairs and I'm from Broadstairs.

Maddy: So like, like literally the school next to my school growing up is called Charles Dickens. There are so many pubs in town named after various Charles Dickens things like, when I worked in the pharmacy, so many people would like have prescriptions. It would be like, oh, your address is literally Bleak House. That's so cool.

Maddy: And I don't know, I don't think he was a particularly good person, I've really struggled to read a lot of his work because it's long, it's Victorian. But Charles Dickens obviously is a little bit like- I'm very territorial about it. I'm like, oh, my God, Charles Dickens!

Jemima: Heritage, isn't it?

Maddy: I don't know. I shouldn't be so protective over it, but, you know, I enjoy it. Oh, yeah. How long is the recording so far, Michael?

Michael: I can't actually see a time- if I click on recording will it tell me? 

Maddy: Oh, I thought you were timing it. I thought that would have been- 

Michael: Would have made sense when I started, yeah.

Sarah: I've been timing it on my phone and that's coming up to like forty-eight minutes - I set it off a bit before we, like, started.

Jemima: Yeah. Shall we do a conclusion then, we probably can't fit much more.

Maddy: Yeah.

Sarah: I read some stuff about the Oscars and how like only 50 percent of Oscar Best Picture winners have passed the Bechdel test. Yeah, only half of the Best Picture nominations this year did, might be worth mentioning.

Maddy: I don't want to defend any one, but I will make the point that there have been far less films to choose from this year. Like if- the way we're going the Husavik song Eurovision: Fire Saga or whatever is going to be the one that wins the Best Song for the Oscars.

Maddy: And that would obviously not be ideal, but it's a pandemic! Let Will Ferrell win an Oscar.

Jemima: I just think that, like what makes films Oscar-worthy does not make films good. Yeah, I think that's something that we can all agree on.

Jemima: And so it's just like to win Oscars, you basically have to tick a couple of boxes. Is it melodramatic and sloppy? Yes. Like has it got some really pretentious narrative points? Yes. And then is it either a musical or biographical, all of those things, then it passes. But then that's why a lot of directors and auteurs and stuff just completely reject the whole award system. It's just like the most anti-diverse, anti-feminist, anti-everything. But obviously, as we see in the next couple of years, they have just released that new classification - it won't be implemented for a while, as we know, but I guess they just copied the BAFTAs with a lot of it, doing the whole score marking system of they have to have this amount of diversity in the cast and crew for them to even be allowed to be considered for the award.

Maddy: Cool. Who would like to conclude, I would like not to because I introduced.

Jemima: And so I really hope. Well, we really hope that you have enjoyed this. Obviously, it's a first time, but yeah, I think we've made some really insightful points.

Jemima: And if you would like to look into them further, I'm sure, Michael, God bless his soul, our little white guy at the site-

Jemima: Yes. He'll put some great resources, everything that we were talking about in the description. Yeah. Is there any final thoughts from anyone?

Maddy: I love Dev Patel.

Sarah: Yeah, I second that.  

Jemima: I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Resources:

Failing the “DuVernay Test”: 6 signs your on-screen black character is a tired stereotype

The Bechdel Test, and Other Media Representation Tests, Explained

The Personal History of David Copperfield on Mediaversity Reviews

#podcast #transcript #film criticism #dev patel #personal history of david copperfield #greta gerwig #lady bird #saoirse ronan #peter vanhoeven #xmen #bechdel test #ava duvernay

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-04-13

Happy 4/13 upd8!  Glimpsed part of the title when I was checking but otherwise blind.

Time to liveblog this quickly and pile into RevScarecrow’s first-readthrough stream of Cascade.  It REALLY hurts to see him tortured having to read through long conversations with dyslexia, but at least he gets to draw purer enjoyment out of the huge flashes.

EDIT:  Added an important clarification from a friend to the bottom, regarding the tail end of the upd8.

Well here we go.  Whose daughter?  Candy Vrissy as Rose/Kanaya’s?  Or some weirder metaphorical Roxy/RoboRose thing.

> CHAPTER 8. A Daughter Astray

Huh, not where I thought we’d start a chapter named like that.  We can’t leave Candy so soon after cutting to it though.

JANE: Assassinations, open warfare, so-called "revolution," and where has everyone gone? JANE: They've ABANDONED me. They've taken our precious son. And now...

Are we going to see some of the beginnings of John’s plan in action, from her perspective?

> (==>)

Steven King novels???  Like an IT joke?  Sure, I guess?

DIRK: Itadakimasu.

I mean he would.  Especially the Jake-imagined version of him.

JANE: "An eye for an eye." JANE: Once we have rescued our son from their clutches, I'm going to take something of my own; something as valuable to the rebellion as Tavvy is to me. JANE: Two can play at the hostage game. That loathsome daughter of theirs should fit the bill nicely.

Okay.  That’s certainly a plan, I guess.

Wow, she really runs everything by the seat of her pants, doesn’t she.

(She seems less murderous than usual now that the spotlight of HS^2 is on her instead of Epilogue darkness, though, all things considered.  Walking back some of the negativity of the Epilogues in general.  That’s the impression I get anyway.)

> (Kids: Converse.)

Vriska, come on.

--Oh!  Oh and there’s:

That middle photo!  Harry, Roxy, and Calliope hanging out, yes!  Glad to see Candy Roxy and Callie were definitely not as distant as they appeared throughout the Epilogues when we were being convinced everything was going out-of-character as a Meat!Callie-written fanfic instead of what Roxy would plausibly actually do.  (Which... it kinda was, so they need to soften the blow by showing not everything was ruined by the way it was written.)

((And there are lots of cats everywhere, but this is outside Harry’s room so it’s all Roxy, no classpect.))

HARRY ANDERSON: so... HARRY ANDERSON: um. vriska? VRISKA: The one and o........ VRISKA: (Ughhhhhhhh) VRISKA: I mean, yeah. That's me!!!!!!!!

It’s hard to get enough of Vriska’s irritation with her reduced relevance.

VRISKA: From now on your name is just Harry. HARRY: o... k?

Dick move, but I have to thank you for shortening his chat handle there.

HARRY: but um, yeah. john and roxy are my parents.

Yeah, deal with that, Vriska.  Nice job wooing John.  :)

Aaaand then Harry’s Egbert genes kick in and he starts going off on a tangent describing a piece of media he likes with a situation barely mappable onto this one.

HARRY: ok, so have you ever seen the musical calamity jane? HARRY: i guess you probably haven't. HARRY: but so there's this part at the beginning, where the title character comes back from chicago, and she talks to all of the old-timey locals about how bizarre and new-fangled everything was, and VRISKA: Godddddddd it really is like talking to teenage John all over again. VRISKA: No I haven't seen Chastity Jane or whatever the stupid title was. It sounds like a total snooze!!!!!!!!

Calamity Jane and Chastity Jane.  Probably means nothing.

VRISKA: And anyway, what are you trying to say? VRISKA: That I sound outd8ed?

HA.  Now you’re a boomer!  Eat that Vriska.

HARRY: i mean, we've done stage fighting before, but never the real stuff. HARRY: but i bet i could learn. i took kickboxing with my mom for a month and half when i was nine.

Yaaay Roxy-style martial ar-- oh wait only a month and a half, huh?

We’ll have to see if he’s really as inexperienced and kinda-thinking-too-well-of-himself as he looks, or if this is all just a joke setup for when he proves to be pretty combat capable later.

VRISKA: He totally freaked out the first time I told him I killed some8ody. HARRY: haha, that sounds like my dad.

Harry and Vrissy look clearer together by the minute, dynamic-ways.

But now he's not so sure. Ever since hearing that one of his dad's old friends had turned up, that border between past and present has felt fainter by the minute. And as they talk, he begins to think that Vriska seems so much... fresher. More real. An actual, authentic, bona fide god from another universe. Harry can’t imagine his dad even talking to someone like her, let alone punching her in the face.

Freaking out about murder, though; that's definitely something Harry can see his father doing.

Kind of like a fresh breath of relevance, huh?  I mean Vriska had to carry a little in with her.

HARRY: i'm not allowed ONE vriska in my bedroom. HARRY: i don't even want to THINK about how much trouble i'll be in if she finds out i had TWO of them up there.

PFFFF.

And Roxy grew up the kind of mom to set those limits, huh?  Nice.  She’s definitely proving a less lonely and inscrutable mom than she was to Rose.  (And Rose had the additional disadvantages of Horrorterror- and Gamzee-induced fear- and certainty-amplification to help drive her to believe her mother hated her, on TOP of all of Mom’s glaring flaws/abuses vis-a-vis drunken responsibility-aversion.)

HARRY: of course i am freaking out vriska! HARRY: i'm freaking out what i think is probably a good amount about this. the fashionable amount of freaking out.

I’m starting to really take a liking to this asshole.

HARRY: he's going to absolutely flip his fucking lid if he ever finds out about this!! HARRY: or worse, it might just make him as miserable as before, and he'll be really disappointed in me, and then he'll just leave again, or... or SOMETHING!!

Auugh.  God damnit, Past!John, raising him to believe this.  Luckily, Current!John will most likely disabuse him of the notion at least SOMEWHAT by the end of this story.

BECAUSE JELLICLES CAN AND JEEEEEEELLICLES DO JELLICLES DO AND JELLICLES CAN JELLICLES CAN AND JEEEEEELLICLES HARRY: oh fuck.

Why is he hiding the CATS poster in his room, but has a whole ringtone set up with it?  Either a global one or a John-specific one?

Is it John-specific because he has to outwardly play it cool about how much he loves and needs his dad, just like Cats?

VRISSY: Check it out, someone's already cospl8ying my fit from tod8y.

Oh nice!  Inborn popularity at work.

VRISSY: Good? It's Infuri8ing!!!!!!!! VRISSY: UGH! So many f8ke accounts pretending to 8e me. Stealing my hard-earned Clout. Fakey f8ke F8KES.

Mhmm, why give up any attention?  She wouldn’t want to share it.

VRISSY: Damn Right it's import8nt Tavros! Image is a8out as Important as it gets.

(classpect blah blah)

VRISSY: Relax Tavvy. VRISSY: You're starting to Sweat Nervously. You know I H8te it when you Swe8t Nervously. TAVROS: Thank you,, VRISSY: Th8t wasn't a Fucking H8mance Complim8nt, I do genuinely Hate it and not in a Fun Way. TAVROS: Oh,, TAVROS: I'm,, sorry,,,, VRISSY: Ugh. Whatever. VRISSY: I'm just... 8eing a 8itch. Forget about it.

Look how INCREDIBLY much more mature Vrissy is right here than Vriska ever was.

And Vrissy’s understandably a lot more worried than we are about Vriska moving in on Harry.  Even though with Vriska’s experience she would hardly be likely to see anything in him to--

Oh.  Fuck, what am I saying.  Of COURSE Vriska would be tempted to move in if it meant stealing attention from Vrissy.  I keep forgetting this is ORIGINAL VRISKA we’re talking about.  That’s got to be a conflict at some point, right?

TAVROS: I know you don't like to talk about these kinds of things,, TAVROS: Having said, on previous occasions, stuff like,, TAVROS: "Feelings are for adults and babies, not real people," TAVROS: And i'm not,, necessarily, saying that you have some unaddressed feelings, TAVROS: But,, maybe if we're going to be around her, TAVROS: You should try to be honest, about the feelings, that you don't have,,

Nailed it like a true Tavros.

VRISSY: It's Something about the W8y she Looks at him. VRISSY: The Rest of us too. VRISSY: Like we're not even Real.

That’s right.  Making it important that you be extra careful that she doesn’t hurt you, because she’ll undoubtably or neglectfully TRY.

VRISSY: And to 8e Honest, I think I Understand why! VRISSY: Everything Here is so dwee8ish and 8oring!!!!!!!!

A little more complicated than that, Vrissy.

TAVROS: Because you're worried harry anderson thinks she's cooler than you,, TAVROS: Because you're jealous,,,, VRISSY: W8. VRISSY: What? VRISSY: No! VRISSY: Tavros, were you Listening to 8NYTHING I was Just Saying? VRISSY: I'm not worried a8out Harry Fucking 8nderson right now! VRISSY: Hell, I'm so Unconcerned that I think I'm going to start just calling him Harry from now on! It'll Save Everyone a lot of Valua8le Time! VRISSY: Listen Tavros, Vriska will get 8ored of Harry in a Heart8eat! VRISSY: That's the whole point!!!!!!!! VRISSY: She shouldn't 8e w8sting her Time on someone like Him! VRISSY: SHE SHOULD BE T8LKING T8 ME!!!!!!!!

Hm, jealous of the attention Vriska’s giving Harry, not the other way around.  Huh!

And here come the Crocker cops...

> (Harry: Pick up.)

Wait, I don’t understand this picture.  Who are those two silhouettes outside?  Isn’t this Roxy’s house?  (Is that Jake facing away on the left? Them being already here would be pretty good reason for alarm.)

HARRY: ok everyone, my dad's calling. HARRY: if he finds out you're here then he will definitely put two and two together, so PLEASE just keep quiet and let me do the talking.

Is John going to play along?  That could be fun.

Hm.  If Harry hasn’t turned off his phone’s signal, then that could be a way Jane can find and use him to find Vrissy.  (Or already have.)

HARRY: er, HARRY: hi dad. VRISKA: HI JOHN!!!!!!!! VRISSY: Hi Mister Eg8ert!!!!!!!!! HARRY: oh god dammit.

THEIR NEED FOR ATTENTION BYPASSES ALL SURVIVAL INSTINCT.

JOHN: HELLO SON! JOHN: I AM JOHN: SO JOHN: VERY JOHN: PROUD OF YOU!!!!!!!! HARRY: JOHN: PHEW, that felt good to say. JOHN: or to yell, i guess. heheh. JOHN: sorry about that, harry anderson. JOHN: i just didn't think i'd be seeing your handiwork all over the news quite so soon!

Yeah, John really needs to take a page or two out of his Dad’s playbook right now!  Because Harry really fucking doubts that his father is proud of him, and John’s Dad would never have let him come under such a misconception.

JOHN: it looks like you tried to pull one of the biggest pranks i can think of. JOHN: and it backfired! HARRY: y... yeah. JOHN: but that's ok!!! JOHN: it could have happened to the best of us. JOHN: ok, so maybe it wasn't the most original idea. JOHN: and you should probably have steered clear of such a blatant nod to weekend at bernie's without seriously planning some of the logistics in advance.

John, please stop so aggressively framing this in terms of YOUR interests.

JOHN: heh. two vriskas is NOTHING. JOHN: when i was your age i lost count of all the vriskas i had to keep track of. JOHN: it was probably some preposterous number.

¬_¬”

JOHN: now, harry anderson, i know that you and tavros haven't always gotten along. JOHN: but i am going to have to ask you to try and look out for him for the time being.

Harry could really use some reassurance from YOU you know?  That you’re working to make sure he’ll be okay through all this?

JOHN: your uncle jake and i... well, i'll explain later. JOHN: let's just say that gamzee isn't the only family member jane is losing today. HARRY: dad... if you wanted me to KILL tavros, you only had to ask. TAVROS: (Um,,,) HARRY: couldn't resist.

What?  Moved for custody in the divorce?

I feel like the divorce is SOMEHOW involved in whatever John is referring to here.  Even though the Epilogues say that Jane initiated it.  Maybe we’ll find out later that in the cut from then to now, Jane apologized a bit and didn’t go through with it, but he still had the papers to finalize it, or?  No, that doesn’t quite add up with what Jake was afraid of before... hm.

> (==>)

Oh, the paparazzi.  THAT’S a problem.

JOHN: the word "fuck" was invented for moments like this.

Nothing to comment on, just had to quote it.

JOHN: some guidelines that any budding prankster or newly fledged fugitive should know. JOHN: don't panic, JOHN: don't make a scene, JOHN: and whatever you do... JOHN: don't get caught!!

This is a reference to something, right?

> (High above the clouds...)

Jesus, that’s a visual. Hi, probably-the-only-source-of-happiness-between-Kanaya-and-Rose-we-might-have-onscreen-up-until-the-very-end.  (Are those cat chairs, or just headrests with lil horns?)

As the world seethes with the acid sting of war, they have stood steadfast and resolute; when hope has seemed at its most distant, they have shone as a beacon of possibility.

Further cementing Hope’s ties to possibility, then.

Individually, they each represent immeasurable gains for the rebel faction. The rebellion's stratagems have never had a fiercer bite; their uniforms have never looked so fucking sharp.

Why you gotta do Kanaya like that, narrative?

> (==>)

Full glow?  Kanaya must be nervous.

(I don’t think this short hair on Rose quite does the justice that short hair on her should.  I suppose it’s punk to match her clothes, though.  Still, I feel like short hair should look SO GOOD on Rose and the style chosen just doesn’t here.)

ROSE: I just wish I had answers!! My useless powers aren't being any help, and what's worse, ROSE: I can't see ANYTHING useful on this stupid news channel!!

I can imagine that a Seer of Light might find it harder to operate in a realm long void of most of its relevance, not to mention whatever measure of strength she gave up to concede herself into the “specific” and not ult-self manifest... but there are two Thieves of Light involved here and no Void players, beyond this being at Roxy’s house.  Are they really stealing that much visibility from the situation to not blaze like beacons in Rose’s vision?

ALFONZ: excuse me mA'Ams

I don’t know how to feel about this troll’s name or quirk.

Kanaya’s ending every sentence with a shout pole, by the way.

> (==>)

ALFONZ: the reconnAissAnce teAm is bAck eArly, mA'Ams ALFONZ: the ship docked A few moments Ago ROSE: And the scouting party??? ALFONZ: i expect she's Zipping her wAy up here now, mA'Am

Karkat and Meenah?  That’s just a singular “she”-- ah fuck it’s Jade isn’t it.  The Jade here who had Dave ditch her suddenly to become a robot and abscond without telling her.  That’s why there was so much talk about Jade in the background today, dammit.  Please still be generally not despairing???

> (==>)

What is that bulky suit?????  Is it seven layers of sweaters?  Was she scouting the arctic??

> (==>)

Angry camo?

> (==>)

KANAYA: Jade It Is Okay JADE: its........ JADE: *sniffle* KANAYA: Please Take Your Time JADE: we dont HAVE any time!!! JADE: its too late!!!!!! JADE: janes forces were just too fast... KANAYA: Oh No ROSE: You don't mean... JADE: theyve taken her

Jade, you aren’t talking about Vrissy.  Who the fuck ARE you talking about?  Is this gonna be a punchline again?

> (==>)

JADE: THEYVE TAKEN YIFFY!!!!!!! D:

Okay, I’m hoping for the best but there’s precedent that this is Jade in full fucking despair mode right now.  Having named pets like that and being this concerned about them.

Then again, if Dave and Jade had a pet they WOULD name it that wouldn’t they.

> (==>)

Sigh.

Well, let’s hope it’s mostly sunshine and rainbows on Jade’s front, unlike what it looks like?

That can be a caption for HS^2 going into the next two thirds of 2020 like this.  “Let’s hope it’s mostly sunshine and rainbows.”  Catch y’all another time.

EDIT:  Oh fucking MAN, it might not be a pet after all.  Quoting Discord:

[REDACTED] Today at 5:20 PM there’s a reason Rose knows but Kanaya wouldn’t possibly and look back at the chapter title BlastYoBoots Today at 5:21 PM I'll... correct that possibility. Did NOT realize it could have been a pet name for Dave instead of a pet. wait, what? no, they'd never have named a daughter that, Dave is NOT that cruel. (unless it could be nickname-shortened to that, that's just enough plausible deniability for Dave to hide behind.) [REDACTED] Today at 5:22 PM If it were a pet name for Dave, why would they use she/her in reference to him? JANE: Two can play at the hostage game. That loathsome daughter of theirs should fit the bill nicely. BlastYoBoots Today at 5:22 PM oh, and you're implying that the surrogate daughter thing happened with Jade and Rose-- [REDACTED] Today at 5:22 PM yes BlastYoBoots Today at 5:22 PM OH, and that they meant like, not Vrissy? [REDACTED] Today at 5:23 PM perhaps BlastYoBoots Today at 5:23 PM Why would Rose NOT tell Kanaya about her then? or is Kanaya just not interested in keeping up to date? [REDACTED] Today at 5:23 PM unless the yiffy ruse is a distaction BlastYoBoots Today at 5:23 PM it would be a pretty spectacular thing to spring on us though, a child the epilogues didn't mention, so...

SO, this could be a cheeky pet name for their daughter, who we’ve never met and Jane just legitimately planned to kidnap in front of us.  Making Davebot’s abandonment of this timeline all the more dickish, essential as it might be.  On the upside, new interesting HS^2-original characters that have nothing explicitly to do with the epilogues!  (Beyond Jade hinting at how a surrogate child would be conceived possibly!)  Plus another reason for Jade to steel herself and buck up about Dave not being there, to take care of her daughter, possibly.  On the downside... Robo!Dave is going to be a little infuriating.  Maybe to make him a little more palatable to miss if he goes down doing anything dramatic.

((EDIT2: "ROSE: Where is John? KANAYA: Where Is Dave" --ah FUCK, I missed that line. So if Kanaya's asking that, Dave probably only just vanished... I really was hoping she wouldn't have to deal with that onscreen.))

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #bladekindeyewear #blastyoboots

[trulycertain]

Unpopular opinion: god, Batman v Superman had some really good ideas that it chucked down the U-bend, and there are parts of it I really enjoyed. I don’t regret seeing it (and yes, I watched the Extended Cut. All three hours). I was just discussing this with @masutrout​, and here’s a slightly abridged version of my thoughts.

Look, I know no-one sets out to make a bad film, and with so many moving parts, a film getting released at all is a miracle. I know it’s not down to one person and (I’m quite glad) it’s not up to me, because I have no idea how to make films. But if I had, say, a magic lamp and a wish for an ideal BvS and DCEU in general... Here’s what I liked; here’s what I’d magically tweak in a parallel universe; here’s a rant. A 2.2k rant. An Extended Cut rant.

I know it's all desaturated and so on, but I genuinely really love Snyder's style. Dude can set up a shot, and he knows how to use chiaroscuro. In theory, I totally get why they'd look at him and go, "his shit is like comics brought to life, pick him." I wish he'd just... allow a bit more colour into it and let people colour grade properly, because the Metropolis/Gotham Clark/Bruce contrast could've been played up beautifully with visual language and colour too. I mean, I know he can do overwrought iconography and imagery, look at how they went to the trouble of CGI'ing Clark's cape in every scene because it was such a banner, and the pop of red. 

I'll admit, I wasn't always all-in on Affleck's performance, though it was one of his best in his back catalogue (I am one of the few people I know who has zero problems with him as an actor and tends to find it more the material, but I grew up on Kevin Smith films and his shtick works for me, even if he has a manner. I'm not too discerning). But. A Bruce who's tired and broken-down and greying and has lost even more, and still in the aftermath of that, tries to find hope and "I can't let this happen to anyone else" again, in the wake of one more death? God yes give it to me. A Bruce who's taller than Clark and just plain tall in general, because maybe Kryptonian ideals are different and because it'd give Bruce one more thing to desperately play down? God yes. Just... in general, middle-aged Bruce but without a lot of the Batfam stuff (which I like, I have a love for several of the Bats, but my favourite stories are always solo) with a regimen of painkillers and who's turned Wayne from an "I'll just jump into the water feature" jackass to a schmoozer and flirt and maybe a drunk. Take out the branding. I wanted Bruce as a broken idealist, not a fascist. It's actually way more fascistic than the original Dark Knight Returns, even. But goodness, the whole idea of an established, tired Batman is good. There’s a reason the comics and animations keep coming back to it.

"Superman was just a story. Superman was just the dream of some farmer from Kansas." I forget the exact phrasing, but everything about that idea, and this idea that Superman is as much an ideal for Clark to live up to as everyone else, and he’s daunted by it? Yeah. There’s something in there.

I loved everything about Jeremy Irons' Alfred. Seriously, everything. Tech guru, little less RP, little rougher around the edges, clearly has some scars of his own. Absolutely biting, even more than most incarnations, and gets all the best lines. Yes, keep that, it'll do.

I liked the voice changer... halfway. To me it makes way more sense than putting on a voice, which is a bit daft and way more variable. I just wouldn't have gone that heavy on the processing, so that Bruce sounded less like a hacker from 1999. I also thought it was a good way of representing how Bruce desperately tries to emotionally distance himself when he’s the Bat, and how his anger has made him colder.

Batman as just a rumour or an urban legend is great, and a wonderful contrast to Superman, who’s this bright, transparent... common god. Bruce never did it for credit, he did it to get it done. It’s stretching the bounds of credulity, sure, but in this strange, semi-operatic storytelling with heavy myth feel, it makes a bunch of sense thematically.

Bruce meeting Martha Kent, and their first meeting being him saving her life. Even this broken-down Batman who thinks he’s a mess. Actually, just more Martha in the DCEU in general.  I mean, I get why they didn't lean into it so much because they maybe wanted Bruce and Clark to feel more like equal peers, rather than Bruce being too dadly, but... god, again, more Martha. In JL, in something, if nothing else. Martha who's lost a son (Jason); Martha who later has a son in another city trying to do good and is worried as hell about them (Dick's canonically in Bludhaven PD at this point); Martha who is one of about five people in the world who knows who Batman is and hasn't spilt that information; Martha who saw Bruce at the cemetery and might have some really interesting things to say to him, angry or forgiving; Martha who is one of the few people who's seen the good in the Bat (when Bruce himself couldn't)... Man, I was so, so glad that fic leaned into that. I would read a regular comic book of just Martha and Bruce Being Reluctant Friends and Worrying A Little About Their Kids, But Maybe In An Enemies-To-Friends Way Because Holy Shit You Had A Fucking Spear What the Fuck.

No, really, wait, I’m going to go on about Martha again.  The scenes in BvS where she was basically saying, "God, don't kill yourself for them, come home, if they're gonna hate you they don't deserve you..." On the one hand she could've been a contrasting voice to Jon, but this way also makes sense. "I know you want to help but please don't kill yourself..." It was always both parents in the comics who affected him equally, even if the Donner films had his father's death, iirc. It was Martha who pushed to keep him, Jon who taught him not to break people and show off, Martha who taught him how to cook and be gentle with things and in Superman: Birthright, which MoS is heavily, badly based upon (I love that miniseries, time to read it again) she researches alien sightings in the hope he won't be alone. I get why they went for a more "grounded" Kryptonian uniform thing, but Martha made his costume, in the original canon. In all canons, she was a huge help in creating the "Clark Kent" persona (yeah, sure, maybe a woman would have something to say about making yourself quiet and shrinking in a room and having to look helpful and nonthreatening all the time, but Snyder and Goyer were never gonna be the kind of people to explore that and even Waid, whom I love, barely touches on it). Every other film or comic book is crap, dead, or crap and dead dads. Clark's relationship with his mother and father is hugely important.

Getting to see Bruce doing the society beat, and just a little more philanthropy would've been great. You don't have time to build that character? Sure, OK. Take out the Flash dream sequence and the sleeping-with-random-women, maybe don't have a totally unnecessary but kinda hilarious shower scene, and replace it with some identity weirdness where Bruce and Clark are stuck interacting as civilians a little more. Or something about what the hell happened with Jason and the manor, though I don't mind most of it being unexplained. There, still building character, still serving a purpose, you can fit a brief scene into your three hour movie. Civil War had a ton of "Steve Rogers and Tony Stark brood or sit in rooms talking to each other."

If they were going to throw away all the secret-identity potential, they could at least have done it interestingly. That scene at the gala made it clear how hard they both had to act, and Jesus, the idea of Clark eventually, finally finding someone else who has to lie and cut off what they can do, who has to bumble almost the way he does... That could've been interesting and also maybe worried the shit out of him. Or made him want to talk to this crazy billionaire who goes round combat-booting people in the face and try and get what his deal was, which could've led to more interesting misunderstandings. 

And then there's Diana, who's not a bumbler but a "nothing to see here, rich eccentric" type too (no wonder she and Bruce had weird insane chemistry in that "sizing each other up/I know exactly what you are" way), and why the hell does Clark basically never see her? I actually don't mind the whole "she's only here for her photo and never meant to get involved, so she's only needing to chase Bruce," that makes sense, but after Doomsday?! In Justice League?! She understands what it is for the world to be frightened of you, resistant to you, the urge to go and hide where it's safe with your family, the loneliness. I mean, just imagine MoS!Clark meeting her and the goddamn relief of it. And the way it could've played off the whole Jonathan Kent is a creepy "kill em all" weirdo now thing, if they insisted on keeping it.

Similarly, please god please show Clark being a journalist more. Perry chewing him out more. A mild hint of office politics. That's the perfect place to leaven a rough film with a dose of humour. People wouldn't have been so bothered by "Is she with you?", which is actually not that terrible a line next to some Marvel "zingers", except for it being so tonally inconsistent. A gentle thread, a few moments of it. Maybe have Clark save someone and have to scrabble to keep his identity a secret, like in MoS - maybe a minute, you could go for some physical humour or a mild sight gag. Obviously, this'd be pre-bombing the courthouse. Relatedly... 

Take out Nairomi and the branding. They serve very little purpose, story-wise, basically never come back into the plot, and only serve to make Clark and Bruce look like dicks unnecessarily when if you want to inject flaws, you have a ton of opportunities to do it with how they deal with people and their loved ones, how they deal with perps, and their brooding moments. 

Seriously, Bruce kicking the shit out of people and investigating shipments from the Black Zero and World Engine crashes would be enough to worry and piss off Clark, as would the whole "I am the night"/lack of transparency shtick. I mean, for a start, John Byrne retconned their first meeting that way in the 80s and that issue is actually great (Clark is trying to arrest Bruce when they meet, because he's young and idealistic and maybe a little up himself and he's been Supes for about five and a half minutes). Look: Clark is being revered and hates it. He blames himself for Black Zero, at least a little. He has excellent reason to be desperately projecting brightly-coloured not-a-threat and also hate that someone else is terrorising a city and violence is being revered, especially when Metropolis and Gotham are still so raw. I mean... Snyder and Goyer did the fucking stupid offensive 9/11 comparisons. Look at how that affected people and still does to this day; emotions run bloody high, and the entire point of Clark is that he's still human and terrified and guilty. And with Wallace O’Keefe and all the threatening notes... look, there's already a good plot in there! 

Meanwhile, Luthor clearly knows Bruce has been sniffing around the K shipments and could've just tipped off Clark about that as well, saying, "He clearly is gonna use it for his own power, and with how sinister and opaque and violent he's already been, he's gonna hurt people." Having his heritage used against people is one of Clark's worst nightmares, it was implied pretty clearly in MoS, and you'd still have the righteous anger. No branding needed. Kryptonian artefacts and the entire masked violent vigilantism are already enough "this is someone who thinks he's above people and can decide their lives" to piss Clark off. He could even investigate that as himself rather than Supes. You need it to be an unanon tip-off and Keefe wouldn't have access to that information? Sure, OK, just filter it through Mercy Graves and make her a "worried confidential source." I mean, she's in the movie and completely wasted. Why not actually, you know, do something with her? Clark wants to believe the best in people, and he might dislike Luthor personally, but he doesn't know Luthor's out to get him yet - or wouldn't, if the writing was better. Again, Birthright, the text Goyer repeatedly ripped from, did this brilliantly. The brand... it's overkill. Grimdark overkill.

I actually... look, I had a really fun, if baffled, time with this movie, but goodness I’d like to see what it could’ve been. And now all the film sites are waving goodbye to Batfleck again while running DC retrospectives due to Birds of Prey, and Cavill’s blue tights are in doubt, it seemed like as good a time as any.

#tru goes dc #batman v superman: dawn of justice #batman v superman #bvs critical #but also kind of positive? #i'm trying to be positive here too #dceu #dc #meta #ie me rambling

[txladyj-blog]

Chapter 8 - This Time Around

a Daryl Dixon x OFC collaboration written by @xmistressmistrustx​

Rating: Explicit

Relationship: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character

Tags: Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Awkwardness, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Crush, Fluff and Humor, Angst and Humor, Mild Smut, Strong Language, Eventual Sex, Eventual Romance, Slow Burn, Canon Divergence, Some Canon Scenes and Dialogue

Chapters 23/?

Human nature. With all its complexities and flaws, was now the one thing that presided over a land filled with the dead. True human nature, in its most naked, exposed and unapologetic form was now both the best and worst of the world. Jess had seen the best and worst of it from her spot in the city and had managed to live, unnoticed by any survivors passing through. She’d witnessed grown men put themselves in harms way, sacrificing themselves to save children too slow and small to keep up the running pace of the adults in their group as she’d watched from her perch on the corner of the roof. In contrast, she’d stared in horror as another group simply tossed a woman out of a truck like last night’s burger wrapper, onto the street in order to slow down a small herd. She’d been bitten before Jess could grab her bow and race down the stairs. In an act of mercy that allowed her to prove to herself that she was still on the good side of human nature, she’d shot the woman in the head from the roof with a well-placed arrow and spent all night replaying the look of pure terror etched onto the stranger’s face.

Yes, human nature was complicated and destructive, inspiring and devastating. A double-edged sword. Jess was better off on her own, that much was true, but she did miss the conversation, the debate, the ideas swapping over hot chocolates and the late-night hilarity that came from a few glasses of beer and games of pool in a bar. Those days were gone and now all she had in the way of company was a reanimated dead body at the bottom of the elevator shaft and a huge stuffed bear wearing an army jacket that now took up it’s place opposite her on the roof, a stale birthday cake waited to be devoured between them on an upturned, wooden box.

“Well, Sgt Pepper. Looks like it’s just you and I celebrating another trip around the sun.” she commented as she held her glass aloft.

Merle had finished off all the whiskey and she knew better than to go scrounging for more. It wasn’t a necessity and she wasn’t about to get herself killed for a bout of nausea and a fuzzy head the next day.

The bear was tatty, threads pulled from his ears and his jacket splattered with dried blood. Jess found him in the next apartment block where he’d been positioned proudly on the pillow of a perfectly made bed in a room decorated for that of a young adult. On the floor were three bodies, two adults and a girl around 13 years old. Jess carefully nudged each one with her foot as she passed. The bullet holes in their heads told her that they hadn’t turned and like many of the people that chose to remain in the city, they thought suicide to be a better prospect than the exhausting slog to survive day by day. It hurt Jess’s heart to think that some souls felt there was no other way, but it wasn’t an option she could say she hadn’t considered at least once while she resided in her fortress of loneliness.

It was a no brainer to her. She had to leave with that bear. He reminded her so much of her own childhood companion, jacket and all. Her father had gifted it to her and during every tour and every training exercise, she found comfort in the military bear that she had dubbed ‘Sgt Pepper’. Aware that if any other survivors were passing through and saw her, she would look positively ridiculous, scurrying across the rooftops with a huge stuffed animal under her arm. But just as before the turn, she wasn’t going to change who she was to suit anyone else. Especially not in the apocalypse.

“You say it's your birthday” She sang at the bears pinned and permanent smile. She sipped the soda in the glass and slapped her other hand on her thigh to create a beat. “It's my birthday too, yeah”. She paused, looking up at Sgt Pepper as if his plastic eyes would change their expression and for a fleeting second, she was disappointed when they remained exactly the same. She raised the glass to him for a second time. “They say it's your birthday, we’re gonna have a good time” She thudded the glass on the box and began to pluck at imaginary guitar strings, closing her eyes and leaning to one side. “I'm glad it's your birthday, Happy birthday to you!” The Beatles were her favourite band ever since she was a child and that was not something that was going to change just because they and their audience weren't around anymore. Jess was still there and as long as she was, so was her love of their music. She'd found headphones while scavenging, even and old portable CD player, but her rule of keeping a clear head and always being aware of her surroundings meant that the headphones went untouched and she was reduced to singing to herself to stave off the boredom and silence. It wasn't a problem to her, she knew all of the lyrics anyway and there was no one but Ben and Sgt Pepper to complain about it.

Her eyes lowered to the dried birthday cake. Three, colored, marzipan Balloons floated across the top and the rim was adorned with cracked and discolored frosting. The chances of a strong bout of stomach cramps after consuming it were high, but it was her birthday and she was going to have a damn cake if she wanted to. A single candle flame flickered in the center of the off-white frosting and as she blew it out, she wished that she would survive long enough to see mother nature take back the earth. To reclaim what was hers and what was destroyed by the arrogance of human nature. She wanted to see vines and branches seep into the cracks of buildings, pulling them apart and turning them into a ghostly mirage of what once was. But through it all, she wanted to be around, content and safe and able to live into her old age while still being the survivor she had realized she really was.

She also wished for something else; that one day, Daryl would know how much he inspired her. If nothing else, she wanted that for him. Without his guidance, his training and his words, she was certain she would be dead. He may have broken her heart, but at one point, somewhere in between all the angst and anger, he believed in her. She regretted not writing it in the note she left pinned to the tree but time was of the essence and she had to think quickly. Now, when she thought back to the good times spent tracking and hunting in the woods, putting Walkers down and making fun of one another, it made her smile. A smile that was not through genuine happiness. Far from it. It was a smile of sadness for times that she desperately missed. But they were times of blissful ignorance of how he really felt, times based on a lie. She pressed her eyes shut and quickly shook the thoughts from her head. She watched the thin, sliver of smoke drift up from the wick. Picking up a plastic fork, she stabbed the cake and shoveled a large piece of the sponge into her mouth. Wincing at the dryness, she chewed and swallowed hard. It was like eating sand.

“Happy fuckin’ birthday to me.” She sighed.

She had resorted to guessing the time of day by using a sundial or her hands against the horizon from the roof. Her knowledge of such historical practices had proved to be invaluable and she now appreciated her interests much more than she ever did before the turn. The night was creeping in, dulling the view from the roof and creating a cold sting in the air. There was just enough time for some target practice.

The streets below the apartment were far from clear. Walkers milled in and our of side streets and alleys, some amassed in the middle of the road and if it wasn’t for Jess’s diversion tactics from time to time, she was sure the street she lived on would be clogged with festering corpses by now. Fireworks were usually the best, she’d found. They seemed to like fireworks. The dreamer in her liked to think that maybe the noise and the colors stirred something deep inside their mainly inoperative brains, some kind of distant memory of 4th July firework shows or new year celebrations. But the realist side of her knew differently. Now, they were even lower than most animals, driven to move by sounds but completely devoid of thought or any type of feeling. Just shells.

She picked up her bow and slid on her bracers as she approached the small wall that lined the edge of the roof. The faint murmur of the odd, swaying Walker was the only sound that rose from the scene below. Taking a peek over the edge, she nodded in approval at the numbers.

“That’ll do.” She said to herself before picking up a small, children’s chalkboard that rested against the inside of the wall. Her eyes flickered over the names on the list, selecting the first one and shuffling forwards to get into position.

“OK, Madonna. Are you out tonight?”

With one foot placed in front of the other, her body turned and her stance strong, she raised the bow and nocked an arrow. She smiled when she noticed her. A blonde woman with wavy, hair wearing what appeared to be a thin, satin nightgown. She wasn’t as designer clad as the real thing, but she would suffice as a target. She drew the bow string back and exhaled slowly as she took aim. The Arrow embedded in the side of the Walkers head as if it was nothing but a bag of sand and she hit the floor, causing the others around her to start shuffling towards her.

“Oof!” She exclaimed with a fist pumped in the air. “That one was a ten pointer. Sorry, Madonna.” She marked her score on the chalkboard next to the name and checked her next target.

Sarah.

It was now a habit, each time she re-filled the board with names, Sarah and Jodie’s would always be mixed in somewhere. Jess was never one to remain bitter or hold grudges, too many so-called friends had come and gone over the years to make sure she’d got used to it. But she was also never one to not make an exception for some things. When she was feeling low and having a bad day, the list of names on the board changed and she wondered at one point if she should indulge in an ‘abhorrent people target practice day’ once a week, where Sarah and Jodie’s names could mingle with the likes of Hitler, Robert Mugabe and Vlad the Impaler. But it was yet to happen because she wasn’t bitter. Not at all. Or, so she told herself as she chose a doppelganger of Sarah and took aim.  

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Ben was hanging on the bars of the elevator gate when she descended the stairs, his arms were loosely draped through the gaps and his face was pushed against the cold metal. She lifted a hand in acknowledgement before sitting down on the bottom step in front of him and seeing him try to reach out to her. She held her hand out, gently tickling his grasping, blackened fingertips in what could have been seen as a gesture of affection.

“Hey dude. So, my birthday cake tasted like feet but it was one hell of a pity party you missed.”

The sound of her voice was like fuel for Ben. He instantly began to clamber up from his spot, hanging through the gate and started to snarl at her, his mouth hanging open and his teeth bared.

“Not that I know what feet taste like.” She added, her eyes locking on his now cloudy, pale and blinded orbs. “I guess you might though. Depending on how long you’ve been locked in there.”

Stepping back, Ben’s arms dropped from the grate and he stumbled backwards, his body hitting the back of the elevator and causing it to shake. A slight jingle caught her attention and she froze, straining her ears. As he moved back towards her, his pocket gave off a tinkling sound and Jess quickly put the pieces of the puzzle together. Many a week had passed when she’d been sitting on that same step engrossed in a one-way conversation with the dead man trapped inside his cell. Sometimes she even contemplated if he really would try to hurt her if she managed to somehow release him from the confined space he occupied. But then she reminded herself of her own naivety and how that kind of thinking could get her killed. Ben was a Walker. A mindless, stinking, lump of useless flesh but still a predator in his own right.  

“You have the goddamn keys to the elevator in your pocket, don’t you?” She asked him.

He stilled and her eyebrows raised. She knew better than to think he could understand her, but it was strange nonetheless. The keys would change everything. She could get him out of there and actually make use of him. She sprang up from her spot.

“I have an idea. Wait here.” She told him. After striding up two steps she rolled her eyes and sighed at her own stupidity.

Like he’s going to go anywhere.

When she returned, she placed her supplies in front of her; a cylindrical block of wood with a dish cloth tightly wound around it, attached at either end to a string of thick, rubber bands, a hockey mask and a length of rope tied into a slipknot. Another one of her skills acquired from the thousands of books she had now amassed in her apartment. She paced back and forth for a few moments, observing how Ben followed her every move from behind the barrier like a magnet. Although she was almost certain he was blind, he was completely obsessed with her and she huffed with amusement when she figured that he was only guy that had ever been obsessed with her…and he was dead.

She picked up the block of wood and tilted her head to the side, it would fit through the gaps perfectly but her task was not going to be easy. Her left arm was covered with three, thick layers of tape, strapped over a Kevlar sleeve and glove in case Ben fancied a snack halfway through his rescue mission. She was now glad of her forethought. She threaded her arm through the grid, silently and without rattling the metal. Ben, who could detect no sound whatsoever, merely peered around through his useless eyes as she used her armor covered hand to quickly grasp the back of his head. He jolted and began to gnash at her, the sounds bubbling up from his throat as his lips parted provoking a rush of bile from her own stomach. She couldn’t have prepared for the smell or the sound of liquidated, rotting human organs no matter how much she knew about Walkers. She snapped his head back as he grabbed a hold of her police issue vest and dragged her forwards, slamming her body against the gate. With her other hand, she managed to wedge the piece of wood so far between his jaws that they became locked in position. She quickly stretched the string of bands over his head, creating a most macabre and brutal gag but an effective one regardless.

He thrashed and growled, throwing himself at the gate over and over until Jess was able to shove a hand into his pocket and pulled out the biggest bunch of keys she had ever seen. Her heart dropped as she stepped back and sat down, the racket of Ben desperately trying to get to her now drowned out by just how many keys she had to contend with.

“Guys got the keys to every lock in the city on here.” She mumbled.

She began sorting through them, checking the branding on the lock and looking for a match. She must have gone through at least twenty keys before she stopped and pinched one particular one between her fingers. She looked up at the lock again.

“Nova” She whispered.

The key boasted the exact same branding. She stood up, moved closer to the lock and slid the key into the chamber. Holding onto the gate as tightly as she could, she gently and quietly turned the key, a subtle click made her smile. She’d found it. The whole time he’d been locked inside, Ben possessed the key to his freedom all along. At first, she didn’t know if someone else had thrown him in there but now it was evident; he’d been bitten and locked himself in.

“That was noble of you. But this is my apartment complex now and you’re going to earn your keep.” She quipped, swiping up the hockey mask and rope from the floor. She shoved the mask under her arm and released the lock, slowly sliding the gate back. The rattling noise sent Ben into a frenzy and he collided with the gap she’d created in the gate with such force that she doubted her ability to follow through with her plan for a moment. She took a deep breath, reached into the gap and snapped the mask over his gagged face. Next, she threw the rope around his neck and pulled it tight before throwing the gate open.

He threw himself at her, knocking the mask against the side of her face while she tried to tighten her grip on the rope enough to keep his head away from hers.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m pleased to see you too buddy.” She remarked.

Ben couldn’t have been more than 30 years old when he was alive and Jess gathered that even thought he was now deceased and extremely dangerous, he was once a good-looking guy. She felt a pang of sympathy for such a wasted life. But what else was left to hang around for? The experience of wresting the undead from elevators and up the stairs to a roof wasn’t one she’d wish on anyone else. By the time she’d maneuvered him to the top of the steps and shoved open the heavy, metal door to the roof, he’d quieted considerably. Jess knew Walkers didn’t get tired; they no longer possessed the brain capacity to register fatigue. Nor were they able to come to the conclusion that something wasn’t worth the trouble. She didn’t know why he became more compliant, but she certainly wasn’t about to complain.

Tying him to a pipe inside a ramshackle, wooden shed. She stood back and looked him over, pleased with her efforts and feeling triumphant at the result. She now had a moving target, a sparring partner and little did Ben know; he was about to become her Sensei.

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She’d lost track of time. It had been months, she knew that to be a fact, but just how many had escaped her. Her need to journal would have helped keep tabs on just how long she’d been housed in the apartment block in the city, but she had Sgt Pepper and Ben and she chattered away to them without a care in the world, dispelling her darkest fears and her inner most private thoughts. There wasn’t a need to write everything down anymore, not in a world where no one and everyone was listening all at once. If she tried to guess, she looked at her crops which filled the balcony and most of the rooftop, they were huge, prospering in the summertime and struggling during the winter. But they still existed she thought it had maybe been close to a year that she’d lived alone.

People below had come and gone. Rarely was it that anyone would try her apartment. If they did, they found it to be locked up tighter than a secret military camp and soon moved on when they realized the noise and time it would take to enter such a building while surrounded by Walkers just wasn’t worth it. In so many months she had uttered hardly a word to anyone but Merle, who’s absence was felt much greater than she ever would have expected or would care to admit.

Training with Ben was one of life’s perks, she enjoyed experiencing the change in not only her body, but her mind as she jabbed and kicked her way into a full, self-defense skill set using a dead guy as her fake attacker. She goaded him, riled him up until he would lunge at her and swipe with his arms and kick out with his legs. His hands constantly grabbed for her, the need to taste human flesh far too great for him to ignore. But Ben could only go as far as his leash allowed and his hockey mask was eventually replaced each evening before he was led back to his shack.

Gunfire interrupted one sparring session during a hot, summers evening and Jess’s head snapped around while the rest of her body completely froze. Ben also stilled and started to jolt and snarl at the source of the bangs. It was close, much too close for comfort. She wiped the sweat from her brow and eyes and crept to the edge of the roof, her heart almost stopped at the view below.

Is that a…a TANK?!

Driving towards her corner apartment block with a speed that couldn’t be easily stopped, was an M1 Abrams Tank. Jess had seen them many times before, a sight that Army brats tended to get used to. It was flanked by a dozen, heavily armed men with their weapons pointed at the door to her block. Her chest constricted when she heard them start to jeer and her eyes clocked another vehicle turn a corner at the top of the street. A large, black truck that was equipped with an animal cage on the flatbed. Inside the cage, was a screaming woman. She scanned each face as quickly as she could. Blackened teeth. Then, she observed their hands and movements. Tremors. Poor coordination. She’d read about the depths some humans would reach on the moral scale in a post-apocalyptic situation. Fear raged through her body and she stumbled back when the tank collided with the door on the ground floor.

I have to get out of here.

The building shook and she whirled around, her mind racing and her heart hammering. Adrenaline began to surge through her veins, urging her to remove herself from the threat. She grabbed Ben’s rope and sprinted to the roof door. Dragging him down the steps, sweat trickled into her eyes and she cursed the timing of the attack above all things.

Could have waited until training was over. Jesus.

Crashing through the door to her apartment, she fastened Ben’s rope to the radiator and he thrashed and clawed at her as she dashed around the living space, filling her bag with handguns and supplies. She quickly slipped on anything Kevlar or armored she could find and collected what seemed like millions of arrows from almost every room. Now, there was shouting ringing out from the floors below.

“Place is cleared. Someone lives here, keep searching!” ordered a man’s voice that she could just about make out as a muffled sound through the floorboards. They were on the floor below. She had to be fast. Now wasn’t the time for sentiment, now, she had to be practical, smart and stealthy. She threw the backpack she’d lifted from yet another dead policeman onto her back, the barrels of the guns inside poked at her back but she paid it no mind as she collected her primary weapon, her bow from the hook on the back of the front door. A machete nudged against her leg as she walked, pinned there by the loop on its handle around the belt loop on her pants. She quickly freed it, clutching it in her hand as she adjusted her backpack. She stopped and looked at Ben.

He was glaring at her with his white eyes in the middle of the room, his rope was pulled taut and his neck tendons protruded. His hands were locked out in front of him with his fingers fanned out. She could hear the men clearly now, they were on the other side of the door and with every harsh bang of the wood in the frame, her heart jumped. She closed the gap between her and the corpse. Taking hold of one of his hands but not allowing him to pull her any closer. She gradually shifted his position in the room and gently squeezed his fingers.

“Don’t let me down” She whispered.

She raised the machete, sliced through his rope and ripped the wooden gag from his mouth. Then, she turned on her heels, taking hold of the window frame and diving through the gap. Outside, she slammed the window shut and watched as Ben’s hands slapped against the glass.

“Slow ‘em down, buddy. Thanks for the lessons.” She smiled.

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Daryl chewed his bottom lip as he adjusted his position on the rickety, prison mattress. His back was pressed against the wall and no matter how hard he tried, she couldn’t shake the thought that of all the places the group could have ended up, a prison had to be one of them. He hated being forced to sleep in a cage and live behind heavy, clanking doors. Even the sound of Rick’s keys irritated him. Rick, the leader. Rick the prison guard.

He wasn’t a regular at the Georgia Department of Corrections like his brother. But he’d been on the wrong side of the law just enough to know what staring at the same four walls, sitting at the same metal table and taking a dump in the same room that you sleep in was like. Charges for drug possession and fighting were hardly the kind of things he wanted to share with the rest of the group and so, he kept himself to himself, merely stating that he’d rather sleep outside of the cells. That was when he slept at all.

In his hands, he held a newly carved bolt for his crossbow. His ability to make them had improved some over the months and it was now second nature to him to create as many as possible while sat around, babysitting his brother who was locked in the cell opposite him.

Merle hadn’t managed to track Daryl down since leaving the city. Instead, he’d come across another group of survivors led by a callous psychopath and had slotted perfectly into his role as the main foot soldier. Everything had been fine and dandy for Merle at first, he was given a metal prosthetic arm with a removable bayonet attachment which meant he was never short of a weapon against the undead. He had a roof over his head, food in his belly and medicine at his disposal. Above all else, he had a purpose, a job that he did well and with gusto. That was, until Daryl appeared in front of him. The Atlanta groups run in with the Governor and his community has resulted in a lot of pain, injuries, fear and grudges, some of it at the hands of Merle, who was at the center of it all, but he was Daryl’s blood and he had made it clear that now they were together again, he would not be parted from Merle again. Initially, the two of them left the group and headed into the woods, but things were not as they used to be. Daryl had changed and with it, Merle felt outcast, even from the lifelong bond the two of them had shared since Daryl had entered the world as a sensitive and observant child. Merle quickly realized that Daryl had a code that he stuck by no matter what. A code that meant others were put before himself which infuriated and baffled Merle. A fight in the woods revealed a childhood trauma that they both shared, much to Merle’s surprise. He was aware that Daryl was a witness to violence in their household, but the extent of which was only evident upon a scuffle in which Daryl’s shirt was ripped, revealing deep, scarred lacerations to his skin. Then, everything changed.

Daryl made it clear that he was going back to the prison. Back to the group he belonged with and Merle had the choice to either walk away or try to make nice with the others. Being parted from his little brother for a second time was the less favorable option and so, Merle decided to tag along with Daryl. Upon their arrival at the fences, they found the place under attack from Walkers and although Merle helped to save lives, he was still bundled into a cell and scowled at by every other member of the group. No one had forgotten the things he had done and no one was about to forgive and forget.

“The hell were ya doin, running with that psycho?” Daryl asked.

Merle was leaning on the bars, his good hand smoothing a thumb around the edging of his prosthetic stump. His hooded, weathered eyes fixed on his brother. He found it difficult to believe that someone could change as much as Daryl had. He saw him, carrying out orders for Rick, going out on runs alone, doing as he was told. It was unlike the Daryl he’d grown up with, yet he’d always known that his baby brother was more emotionally driven than he had ever been.

“Everybody’s a psycho now, little brother. Everybody’s got a gun, a kill number and a big ol’ chip on their shoulder. Hell, I’d be more worried if some sommbitch walked up to me with his mitts in his pockets.” He reasoned with a small shrug.

Daryl shook his head in disbelief at his brother’s casual attitude to his actions. Merle was never one to take responsibility for anything, least of all his misgivings. Apparently, the end of the world hadn’t changed that in him.

“They ain’t never gonna trust ya, ya know that, right?” Daryl confirmed.

“Yeah, I know.” Merle agreed with a hint of exasperation in his voice. Daryl went back to carving his bolts, slicing through thin pieces of wood with his sharp hunting knife. “I don’t know why I do the things I do. I’m a damn mystery to me.” Merle added.

Daryl scoffed and glanced up from his task.

“You’re a dumb ass, man.” He mumbled.

They both huffed in amusement and Merle couldn’t help but revisit the last few months and how he’d come to be locked up in a cell, even after everyone died and started eating one another. Was this really where he was meant to be? Maybe he was bad through and through, just like their daddy used to say. Maybe he didn’t deserve any more chances after the one he’d been given in the city. Then, he remembered her. Jess.  

“Remember the little, fat chick from the quarry?” He asked.

Daryl's body tensed and his eyes slowly worked back up from his bolt. He remembered her. Of course, he did. He thought about her every single day, especially when he closed his eyes at night. He wished he could wake up one day and she’d just be there, having never ran away. He remembered her because she was the only person he’d managed to connect with in his entire, sorry life.

“What ���bout her?” he rasped.

“I seen her” Merle stated, his expression becoming smug as he straightened up and tilted his head back, looking down his nose at Daryl.

“She’s alive?!” Daryl exclaimed as he sat up to gain a better view of his brother’s expression. It was not lost on him that this could all be a lie to get him out of the cell.

“Was a few months back, mind. But yeah, all in one piece.” Merle told him.

Daryl stood up, dropping his knife and bolt and slowly approaching the cell door.

“Where is she?” he wanted to know.

Merle grunted and rubbed his face as he watched Daryl’s entire demeanor change. He was becoming irritated at the lack of information and it was apparent to Merle that Jess meant something to him, after all.

“Asked me to keep my mouth shut about that part.”

With his teeth locked together and his breathing increasing, Daryl began to stalk back and forth in front of the cell door, his boots scuffing on the smooth surface of the floor. He no longer thought it was a lie. He knew well enough that Jess would have made herself known if she wanted to, especially by then. After all, he found a note to prove it.

“She don’t wanna be found, kid. Let it go.” Merle added.

He stopped his pacing and let out a loud sigh. This kind of discussion was rare for the Dixons, it involved a degree of emotion and honestly which was something Merle didn’t seem to possess and Daryl managed to hide extremely well. Until the mention of her name.

“She doin OK?” He questioned “Least tell me that much. Please”

“She’s good. She’s real smart.” Merle nodded.

Picking up a pile of previously carved arrows from a table, Daryl began to sift through them with his fingertips. It looked to Merle like he was counting them, but he knew Daryl better than he knew himself. He was using them as a distraction. Merle didn’t even flinch when Daryl angrily threw the handful of wood onto the floor, the sound was like a million pencils falling from a table and rolling across the ground.

“Just tell me where she is!” Daryl raged.

Merle couldn’t help it when the corners of his mouth lifted into a small smile.

“Ooof! You got it bad, huh, boy?”

“Shut up.” Daryl hissed, turning his back and trying to calm himself. His shoulders heaved as he breathed. “I’m your fuckin’ brother” He muttered, hearing a rasped growl from behind him. A glance over his shoulder told him that Merle did really want to tell him as he witnessed him lean his head on the bars and close his eyes.

“I owe her, OK? She did right by me. Mans only as good as his word.” Merle explained.

Daryl spun around, his face now enraged and reddening fast, his eyes were filled with the kind of anger that Merle had usually only seen when the two of them fought and it was never the same kind of rage that presented itself in a fight with anyone else. It was different. It was real.

“Word?! WORD?! You can’t be fuckin’ serious! Your word counts for shit, Merle! You tortured Glenn and Maggie so don’t start pretendin’ you’re some good guy, ya ain’t!” Daryl yelled.

“I ain’t no good guy but I got a code. Just like you.” Merle retorted.

Stooping down to collect his arrows, Daryl knew he had to remove himself from the building or he would end up strangling the truth out of his own brother. With all of the arrows gripped in his hand, he pointed them at Merle and narrowed his gaze.

“If they wanna starve ya, I’mma let ‘em. If they wanna torture ya, I’mma walk away. I ain’t doin’ nothin’ for ya until ya tell me where Jess is. They can keep ya in that damn cage for all I care.”

Before he could think of an answer, Merle was left alone in the room with nothing but the fading echo of the door slamming for company.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Jess was running for so long that her feet were starting to burn and her knees were seizing up. She needed to stop somewhere and rest but being snared by the group of men with the black teeth and the woman in the cage was a thought that struck pure terror into her soul. She was sure she’d rather be eaten by Walkers than trapped with such a group. She’d stayed away from any roads, trekking through woodland and climbing over fences to remain undetected. Her clothing had helped keep her under the radar; a tight, black Kevlar top covered with her police vest and a black, hooded jacket. Dark camouflage cargo pants, black hand gun holsters and a mask that covered her mouth with a plastic outer shell that she had found on a dead biker as she fled the city.

Her bag was starting to feel heavier with every step as she approached a small town filled with abandoned cars. It looked as though people may have tried to settle there after the outbreak and the vehicles were left in a panic. She surged forwards, trying each car, looking for keys and gas. If she could just find one with enough to get her further away from the city, she could take some time to rest up. Darkness enveloped the town and birds and crickets sang a chorus as she wound her way through the cars, pleading with whatever deity would listen to just give her a break.

Then, her prayers were answered. A station wagon filled with boxes of clothes roared to life and to Jess’s delight, the tank was almost full. She set to work removing all the boxes, lightening the load so the gas wouldn’t be consumed as quickly and settled in the front seat. She pulled the door closed and drove off. Her destination was unknown but as far away from the city as she could get would be a start.

It was days before the truck ran out of gas and Jess had managed to put many, many miles in between her and the group that had almost captured her. On her journey, she’d swept through houses and collected anything she could carry on foot. She slept in buildings where they could be secured and had more than one exit, consumed any food she found in strict intervals, ensuring it lasted as long as possible and continued in the same direction she’d been travelling in for two weeks. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for in a settlement, just that it had to be safe, away from other people and walkers and with the capacity to be self-sustainable. Then, she found the boat.

Situated in the middle of a lake, accessible only by a large, fortified gate at the end of a dirt track that was well hidden from any passersby, Jess thought it might have been an old quarry due to its similarities to the old camp. The top of the gate was covered with razor wire and she narrowly avoided being sliced to ribbons when she caught her backpack on the barbs. But a rigorous wiggle and some quick thinking had literally saved her skin. The boat was so far away from the shoreline that Jess accepted that she had to use a canoe that was moored by a jetty. The water appeared to be untouched and there wasn’t a walker in sight. But chances weren’t to be taken when the dead roam the earth and she had to be sure. A collection of rocks of all sizes ended up in the lake, she threw them out as far as she could, trying to cause a stir and encourage any swimming walkers to rise to the surface. But nothing came to pass. By the evening, she’d hunted a rabbit and cooked it over a small fire on the beach. Using the skin attached to a tree branch, she dangled it in the water as the sun was going down and pondered how relaxing the place seemed.

“Huh. Walker fishing.” She mumbled to herself.

When nothing happened and the rabbit skin floated off the branch and out into the body of water, she decided to risk rowing out to the boat. Much to her surprise, the water was crystal clear and she spotted fish swimming below. Her stomach growled, the stringy, fatty meat of a rabbit hardly sufficing when such plump, and apparently disease-free fish were swimming all around her.

I need a fishing rod.

Climbing aboard, it was clear that she was not stood on a regular boat. This was luxurious, spacious and well looked after. The deck was starting to show signs of disrepair but it was a far cry from the dilapidated state of some of the houses she’d stayed in. She crept inside, sweeping the rooms one by one and eventually finding the inhabitants of the vessel. A middle-aged couple on the double bed in the largest bedroom of three. Both wrapped in an embrace in the middle of a mass of bottles of pills. She moved into the room, draping a sheet over them and resting her hand on the man’s arm.

“I hope you’re at peace. The world sure isn’t”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Merle stared at the dangerous, powerful and very angry black woman in the passenger seat of his car. She was not one to be messed with and that explained why he needed to knock her out before bundling her into the car and driving her to the Governor. It was all the man wanted. Michonne was responsible for his life changing injury after taking one of his eyes out with her samurai sword. Now, he wanted revenge and Merle was more than aware that if the Governor didn’t get what he wanted; he would obliterate the entire group. The group his brother was a part of.

“So, he takes you in, cleans you up and feeds you a load of bullshit. Why would you kill someone else for him?” She asked.

Merle didn’t answer, his eyes were on the road but his attention was elsewhere, with the safety of his brother back at the prison. He didn’t want to be there, handing Michonne over to the man that would ultimately torture and kill her was most definitely not something he wanted to do. But there were little options that he could see. Only he knew the true wrath of the Governor.

“We could go back. You and me. We could just go back.” She suggested.

“Ain’t gonna happen.” He commented.

“Why?”

Her eyes were bearing into his soul and wished he could put into words the things that were circulating in his mind. He had killed sixteen people since he’d been with the governor. Before that, he’d killed none. It dawned on him that Michonne was right, why would he kill any more people when he did have another way out? The alternative was less appealing and altogether more permanent. But it was an alternative nevertheless. He stopped the car and raised his prosthetic hand, the bayonet was fixed to the end. Michonne leaned back slightly in her seat, wondering if he might slit her throat there and then and cut out all the talking. Instead, Merle hooked the blade through her wire handcuffs and cut her free.

“You go back. I got somethin’ I gotta do on my own.” He told her, nodding towards the door. “But you’re gonna tell my brother somethin’ for me.”

NEXT CHAPTER

#daryl dixon #the walking dead daryl #daryl fanfiction #daryl x oc #twd fanfiction #twd #daryl dixion imagine

[roxannepolice]

But yah rey as a character is just so frustrating you know? Cause like, yeah sure she could be complex with a powerful arc where shes forced to come to terms with the fact she wasted years of her life on self-imposed delusions in a cathartic way, or she could be a flat piece of marketing cardboard which Disney is banking on vagina+superpowers=profit without having to go through that persnicty character flaw overcoming or the like. Because like you said, hearing shes a nobody (which ngl, her assuming she was a somebody wasn’t really ever supported in tfa, just that her family was coming back and she desperately wanted them to) is apparently the worst thing but it changes absolutely nothing, not her approach, not her demeanor , if vaguely sad is the absolute worse a character is gonna experience in a goddamn space opera then yeah, full offense ill take the l on Mary sue discourse but her character will definitely be a boring ass wash. We all make fun of whiny new hope Luke but him being a kinda nuisance to both the audience and those around him is what made is transformation into full blown Jedi knight so powerful. With Rey so far what weve got is badass perfect cinnamon roll finally get her due as such, which is clearly working for some people, but I fail to see how that isn’t spectacularly tone deaf to make a protag in this genre such. Operas about drama, not patting you on the back. Rey (assuming she remains as is) would’ve been fine as a protag s the only piece of Star Wars media we ever got was a new hope. But rn she a chosen one architype (and I know that bunch of ppl are gonna go but the series ‘but shes not the chosen one, Anakin still is, the new series isn’t trying to make her one!’ but lets not beat around the burning bush, if u got a character that walks on water and the reason why is because god said so, ur dealing with a chosen one trope and if a character is star wars is made ultrapowerful in lore breaking ways because force said so? Yeah were dealing with a chosen one.) when we had both the deconstruction and the reconstruction done. Shes a straight hero when the success of the ot rest on hitting the formula near perfect the first time. What exactly is Rey, the individual character, bringing to the table? What makes her story supposedly so important the a perfectly good ending had to be made invalid to tell it? A bunch of ppl will say heroines’ journey! But if that’s the case I gotta say, wheres all the feminine shit? Im serious, if the heroines journey is reintegrating the feminine and realizing ‘oh shit mom had a point’ there where is both the feminine skills/coping mechanism and the mom? I mean I saw some ppl arguing for leia in a ‘reys Persephone!’ meta (she isn’t, you can make a much better case for ben himself as Persephone to be quite frank, yall are focusing so much on the trees ((girl gets abducted by guy)) that u forgot the forest existed, the actually story ((girl winds up queen on the underworld, well gee whiz which character just took control of that after leaving the world of living and a grieving divine mother behind, it’s a mystery apparently) behind, it’s a mystery apparently) ((but seriously though even if we hope for dark rey does anyone assume its gonna be taking control of a dark/dead coded org at least partially at this point, do you, do you really??). but given the fact she had what, one line of screen dialogue that’s breaking ur arm with that stretch. As far as skills go I guess you could make an argument for scavenging, but if that’s the case dlf did a shit job of conveying that as female-coded. Everything about rey in tfa seems deliberately androgynous, and yeah, she had her hair let down/mascara moment, but that’s tied to her ‘failure’ on the supremacy thus something nw.SPEAKIGN OF FAILURES ON THE SUPERAMCY AND LACK THERE OF. I find it kind funny that bunch of reylo bnfs (you know who they are) are all ‘hur dur fanboys/antis are dumb and don’t get story structure.’ And then going, ‘why are yall asking how/assuming rey fucked up in throne room/climax of her story in the second portion/darkest point of her character arc? Why do you hate women/ur own ovaries so much?’ because it like walking into a prefurnished house and being told by the relator ‘HERES THE LIVING ROOM’ and having no damn couch. It’s a living room, I expect a couch here. And in a movie where it’s the low point of a character arc and they drag puppet yoda out to tell me the movie is about failure, I expect a damn failure in whats clearly the climax of the characters arc for this movie. As it stands now there are three possibilities imo. 1st, rey had no failure, she is the pure badass maid o light ppl want and every inch the boring cardboard she is accused of by fanbros, remains static, and is relegated to an also ran to benlo taking the most compelling character trophy this trilogy in 10 yrs2nd possibility and the one im hoping for, failure speech wasn’t just thematic explanation but also foreshadowing, rey fucks up big and dramatic in a way that makes her manage to stand out as unique with both her contemporaries and her predecessors(last part, if its ever to much lemme know pls im sorry i just gotta get it out) 3rd and most likely possibility, rey isn’t the main character, benlo is and that’s why his failure both moral in the throne room and logistic on criat take center stage for the last third or so of the movie. Rey is merely a pov character to tell the dramatic villain protag story they wanted and have their very marketable unproblematic Disney heroine cake too.

Ok, so this discourse kinda died down by now, but thanks to that it’s possible to maybe have a calmer look at it I’m totally not trying to justify my late response.

Anyway, the good result is that quite recently my brother, who’s not overly taken with Rey - or the sequels in general, for that matter - said something which really stuck with me as a possible crux of the problem: 

She’s neither comical nor tragical. Just bland. 

This neither comical nor tragical really struck me. And the more I though about it, the more it was appearing to me that this qualm really applies to the sequels as a whole. The thing is that DLF are essentially telling a straightforward story that they’re trying to make captivatingly convoluted. And not just make, but keep this appearance over four years. And this is... a narrative teeth crasher. Like, when you’re honest about the endgame (in the context of the most structural meanings of comedy and tragedy), you can maintain a decorum, though you can also play with it, of course, whereas when you don’t want to be honest about the endgame, you end up mixing the styles somewhat messily. You can’t break or discuss with the rules without acknowledging them, so to speak. Because the originals were honest about the happy/hopeful endgame (the first episode is title A New Hope ffs), they could allow themselves deeply tragic moments like Larses’ deaths, Han getting frozen, destruction of Alderaan, etc. Because the prequels were open about being a tragedy, they could allow themselves lighthearted comic relief for the sake of lighthearted comic relief. 

The sequels... badly want us to consider the possibility of FO winning and Ben dying unredeemed while simultaneously insisting we root for those things not happening, while appearing conscious we’re definitely not buying the former and the latter only somewhat. And it’s tiresome. Dishonest. And indeed, bland. If the story is a tragedy it will be a bloodcurdlingly real one, if it’s a comedy it will be a borderline grotesque one. 

But yeah, returning to Rey, I guess as the main character she’s a lens which focuses the above problems. A very bitter tragedy of what her parents did t her prevents her from being comfortably comical whereas whoohooos I like thats and prancing like a husky on red bull over idols and visions because it’s for children so it must be hopeful prevents her from being intriguingly tragical. So I guess the intentioned effect was tragicomism but, from pov of an engaged casual fan that is my bro, it’s neither. 

As far as Rey’s heroine’s journey lacking some of the usual elements, I blame it on Disney being... a bit too ambitious, maybe. I think they tried to make a heroine’s journey that isn’t ostentaciously seeped in traditional feminine/masculine traits, maintains the structure without what could be called accidentals. On the one hand, I would point out that hero’s journey has pretty much desexualised itself over time, we are rather accustomed to “shero’s” journeys, but on the other... maybe Disney set out on a too novel a territory and may crack their teeth on it, alongside trying to out-Vader Vader at redemption. To elucidate, “toxic femininity” in which a heroine is supposed to find herself in the beginning of her journey, in Rey’s case is uprooted from any of our usual concepts of feminine-masculine social roles (it’s space, duh). My interpretation is that Rey’s version of toxic femininity kind of exists in contrast with Kylo Ben’s version of toxic masculinity - and since the apparent focus of the story is the attitude towards the past/parent figures, toxic femininity would mean her clutching onto the past. Which is why I predict that some act of IX will find Rey inebriated with apparent success in masculine world, meaning she’ll be the one rejecting the old gods this time - and I would point out that panel in Poe comic where she shows herself more sceptical towards idolisation of past don’t mind me, I’m just expressingmy trash dreams for a proper sith lady Rey.

Then again, Rian Johnson said she already found perfect balance between Luke’s clinginess and Kylo’s rejection of the past, so... idk, maybe I’m giving DLF too much credit again.

As for the Persephone thing, I guess the rub is that this reylo reading focuses less on the traditional reading of the myth (where Demeter is the actual main character and Kore is a Princess Peach MacGuffin) and more of an interpretation of it as one of the eldest (at least in Europe) versions of story depicting a transition of a girl into a woman, making Persephone more of a protagonist. 

Like, y’know, this Persephone (D. G. Rosetti, source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proserpine_(Rossetti_painting))

I’m no expert, but myths can lose their original meanings because of power relations (anyone still remember about Dionysus, the god associated with excessive drinking, going through a very Christ-like death and resurrection?) and I think it’s possible that this is the case with the story of Persephone becoming a pre-scientific explanation of seasons changing over the year. So teah, that’s how I always understood the Persephone theme regarding Rey.

But yes, I must agree that I’m confused about Disney’s handling of the mother figure, which... Look, SW became a legend of a modern myth because of how epically Lucas handled the hero dealing with his very explicit father. So yes, I don’t understand what exactly is their game with Rey Nobody from Nowhere in this regard. It’s one thing that they had a cool idea with giving her no lineage, another that parent figures are an essential element of archetypal journeys and from symbolic viewpoint the case of a female character the biological relationship is even more crucial than in male’s. And I swear to all the ewoks and porgs in the galaxy, I do hope Disney’s idea of Rey healing the mother/daughter divide isn’t through her healing the divide between Leia and Ben. Again, this isn’t the idealistic sphere. Just... no. 

Anyway, I still maintain hope (this whole meta blog is built on hope) that Rey will indeed turn out to have a proper personal mistake which will make her stand out in the saga. I do have to admit, though, that I find your last theory very likely. I mean, even when I read all the reylo metas going oh, Rey is going to have such an exciting arc in IX, she has so much to deal with though of course it’s not going to compromise her morally, it will be sooo exciting, I just... f*ck’s sake, what you’re describing isn’t a dramatic character only a dramatised role model. It’s great if that’s your thing, but don’t claim it is space opera-worthy, in operas people drown themselves because of cursed sailors, kill over a break up, decapitate over a bad dream and get dragged to hell over a dinner, not persuade their fallen lovers to change their ways, let alone patienly wait for them the understand the error of their ways (and if they do it’s doomed to end in someone dying).

#asks #sw negativity #just because i love doesn't mean i can't be critical #heroine's journey #long asks anon

[pxiao]

Yoshida Salt

An anon wanted me to salt Y_ma but know what, I’ll just salt the writer in general. Take out the middleman, list my complaints of his lazy writing. This man has been with the franchise for years, at least he’s been with YGO since the D_ma arc. He’s the main writer of the Genex season 4, FiveD’s season 2 and all of ZXL and VR. With A5 being the only show that he didn’t touch even if he did touch the manga ... So let’s get to it.  

Action, no thought

As LK said it best during his abridging of season 4, yeah his writing sounds cool but if you think about it for a second, it falls part. In general a lot of his writing sounds cool but under any scruinity it falls apart. I’m not saying his writing has to be perfect but some of these issues are just him not even paying attention. Like D_ma arc. Why does Amelid_ hate Ka_ba? He knows Ka_ba isn’t related to Gozub_ro at all. He hates his step father AND he changed the company from a weapon manufacturer to a gaming company. Him hating Gozub_ro fine, it makes sense but Ka_ba has no reason for the hate at all. It’s just really really dumb. Why did those bikers kidnap that Professor Hawkins ... and then release him hours later for no reason. And for the added bonus that means that A_em lost to Rafael and lost Y_gi’s soul FOR NO REASON. It surely isn’t that Professor Hawkins’ is still needed for the plot but if A_em is going to lose they aren’t going to get him back. 

ZXL’s final arc is just ... stupid .... Again Sh_rk is all angsty that he HAS to fight for the Ba_ians and he has to fight his friends. And this war will be bloody and sadness and blah blah. But why???? If he knows Y_ma as well as he SAYS he does, why doesn’t he talk. Y_ma HATED the idea of the war, he didn’t want to fight and was wanted to talk to Sh_rk. Sure As_ral is iffy BUT he should know much of an influence Y_ma is on the guy and HE SAW HIS ME_ORIES, so he saw how Y_ma hates the idea of murder and stuff. Like why didn’t he at least TALK about it. Keep war as an option BUT AS THE LAST OPTION. AS GUESS WHAT, Y_MA DUELED AS_RAL TO SAVE THE BA_IANS AND EVEN THEN AS_RAL DIDN’T WANT TO KILL THEM ANYWAY. So all of Sh_rk whining and bitching was 1000000% a waste of time and lives. Good job dumbass.

Same for VR’s season 1 final arc. So apparently the only way to stop the tower of H_noi is if Ry_ken wills it. .... SO WHY IS HE ON THE FUCKING INTERNET. That means the heroes have no way to turn it off without Ry_ken. If he and Spe_ctre stay offline, they get to live and the internet is destroyed without ANYONE BEING ABLE TO STOP THEM. How dumb are these guys? Yoshida dumb. 

Characters

so adding to the no thought part ... Yoshida’s characters are never consistent. It’s almost infuriating really. This will mainly focus on ZXL and VR as those are his creations. 

Lets start with ZXL, the characters can switch personalities PER SCENE. Ka_to’s first scene is him all moody about having to take the numbers and steal the owner’s souls. Ok fine as he doesn’t want to do that. That’s perfectly fine. So why is it, that everytime. he. duels. he. has. the. biggest. slasher. smile. EVER. How is he sad about what’s he’s doing? HOW DOES HE CARE ABOUT OTHERS, HE FUCKING ENJOYS BEING A MONSTER. Words are cheap, he might say he hates it but if he’s being a sadistic monster, he enjoying it. Like if you want him to be cocky there are other ways of doing it. LIKE A5!KA_IO! He was cocky, brutal and bitter but he was never happy. He cared plenty of people but he never felt like a sociopath, just a bittered kid. He was cocky sure. If anything A5!Ka_to is more faithful to the Ka_to’s concept than the original Ka_to. And then there is As_ral. So when Y_ma’s “friends” are captured and threatened. As_ral refuses to help as he’s still not over Ka_io nearly killing him and he has reason to think Ka_io is involved. And you know what, that’s fine. As_ral is an alien and he has never met or talked to them, makes sense he doesn’t care. But the next episode has As_ral DARE TO SAY HE DEEP DOWN WANTED TO HELP Y_MA’S FRIENDS. No ... no no no. As_ral was completely stoic and uncaring in that scene. YOU CAN’T HAVE HIM SAY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THAT SCENE SHOWED. THAT’S HORRIBLE WRITING. 

VR has Go change his entire personality between seasons. Season 1 was a competitive guy that wanted to be number 1 both because he liked it and to gain money for the kids. He wanted to beat PM to be number 1 BUT when he lost, he was FINE WITH IT. Sure he has always wanted to beat PM but he never let it consume him. So why is it in season 2, he becomes a big baby over it. ....... In season 2 THAT IS ALL HE IS ABOUT. During an interview they only wanted to talk about PM BUT HE SHOULD KNOW THAT. HE TALKED ABOUT HOW PM IS LEADING THE NEW GENERATION OF DUELISTS(gross by the way) SO IS HE NOW ALL PISSY ABOUT IT. And then he quits his job to be a bounty hunter ... and NEVER thinks about the kids. truly amazing writing. 

An in general Yoshida’s characters are so simple. Everyone is so one-note. Yu_aku is PTSD man, Y_ma is hyper active, Kot_ri is there, Vecto_ is evil hammy. There is no other side to them and if there is, it lasts an episode or two. Y_ma realizes he could die. And he is reasonably scared, good. He gets a lesson that dueling always involves death(NO IT DOESN’T) and never scared EVER AGAIN. And now he’s just either hyper active or sad that he might cause As_ral’s death.  

Protagonists

They get their own section. THEY ARE ANNOYING PERFECT. Just the protagonist is NEVER allowed to fail and if they do, it’s never in a major way. Y_sei never lost in season 2 and that includes one moment that EVERYONE HATES HOW HE WON. Fucking team Unicorn duel. 

Y_ma character NEVER GROWS, that’s A FACT. Yoshida even wrote on the last Zxl manga volume, he stopped him from changing. And it’s dumb when Y_ma has a real flaw. HE’S FUCKING NAIVE. He blinded trusted Shingetsu which was revealed to be Ve_tor just fucking with him. AND HE NEVER GETS AFFECT BY THIS SHIT. He’s not overally careful, he’s still as trusting to not only everyone around him BUT EVEN VEC_OR. HE WILLINGLY LET VEC_OR TRICK HIM EVEN AFTER VEC_OR REVEALED HE WANTED TO KILL Y_MA TO SAVE HIS OWN SKIN, HE WAS FINE WITH IT. THAT IS NOT A GOOD THING AT ALL. Look you can’t distrust everyone around you but the opposite is not right either, you can’t trust everyone instantly. And characters like Sh_rk who would call Y_ma out for this stupidity would later say, “no wait that’s a good thing. YOU SHOULD INSTANTLY TRUST EVERYONE YOU MEET AND SAY YOU’RE FRIENDS WITH EVERYONE YOU DUEL.” 

Yu_aku is just infuriating. He has no character besides REVENGE. He never losses and VR is OBSESSED WITH TELLING US HOW PERFECT HE IS. He’s the best duelist ever, everyone loves him and he beats everyone around him. Realize how he sounds like a Marty sue, well he is. Shockingly every human character has a backstory now. but. him.

And then he never has the other characters really help. I mean in ZXL who else but Sh_rk and Ka_io did anything of value? The final arc has the Ba_rians die for no reason. Y_ma’s friends die mostly offscreen. And the arclights die for no reason. the entire cast dies for no reason.

Same for VR the final arc as A0i and Go lose their first duel to hype Spe_tre and Ry_ken. Same for GG and Ak_ra died to let Yu_saku duel which Kus_nagi did nothing of value but comment. What was the point of these characters if they do jack shit. And the same for Genex. J_dai does everything! All his friends died again then Fub_ki failed to do anything of value and then Jo_an sacrified himself for no reason. And then they all disappear so Ju_ai can face darkness all by himself. Though to be fair that’s a Genex issue overall.

Cheats  

Oh boy. So his protagonists cheat ... ALL THE TIME. Y_ma has the fucking Sh_ning draw which lets him MAKE THE EXACT CARDS HE NEEDS TO WIN. And they’re all so fucking specific. To beat Galaxy-E_es that can remove itself from play, he makes a monster that prevents that. AND HE DOES THIS SO MANY TIMES. How are we supposed to have fun watching him win IF HE MAKES THE EXACT CARDS HE NEEDS TO WIN. There is nothing to enjoy. 

YU_AKU IS WORSE. HIS STORM ACCESS IS JUST AS ANNOYING. BUT HE ALWAYS ABUSES IT. There are few duels where YU_AKU DOESN’T ABUSE IT. And those are master duels BECAUSE HE CAN’T. His go-to strategy is to use it. The show cares him a “master duelist” but honestly how good is he if he needs to cheat a new card to get out of the situation. Answer, not a good one.

Girls 

Allow me to say this. He is sexist. And the dumbest thing is, he always adds these “you go girl episodes” and then proves them wrong. 

With A_i, he had her meet these overly sexist guys saying as a girl, she can’t ride a D-Wheel. And she proves them wrong, yay right? Then why is it in the Team Unicorn duel she couldn’t beat And_e DESPITE THE FACT THAT J_CK ALREADY TOOK HIM ON, TOOK A GOOD CHUNK OF HIS LP OUT. I mean sure it’s her first riding duel, maybe her next riding duel will be ... oh wait she never duels individually again. And even then it’s not a riding duel. So yeah good way of proving that girls can totally turbo duel BY HAVING AK_ NOT WIN A SINGLE TURB_ DUEL. 

Ri_’s first episode has her be this perfect woman that doesn’t want to be a weakness for her brother but wants to be see as her own person. Fine. And that’s why she never once thinks for herself ever. When Ve_tor revealed that he killed her and Sh_rk as Bar_an. She gives no fuck that she died once, that she had to fight her friends, no it’s all HOW SH_RK SUFFERED. When Sh_rk and Ri_ are getting their memories back, she just says to Sh_rk, I’ll do anything you decide. Great way stand out from your br_ther there, let him do all your thinking for you.

A0i ... honestly she’s just sad. Just after she was in a coma, Ak_ra is nervous over letting her duel cause you know coma. But someone is like, let her duel. And she wins yay. Next duel, she loses. LIKE REALLY BADLY. She’s a mess, her opponent was not only toying with her the entire time, but he completely mocks her and she’s humiliated her. How was Ak_ra wrong to be nervous? She just proved she isn’t good enough to take care of herself. 

The issue is I don’t think he hates girls, but he doesn’t care for the girl characters and perfectly willing to use them to create “drama” which leads us to 

Fanservice

So I can enjoy fanservice as long as it isn’t crammed in there. So why is it that a show about card games NEEDS THIS. Look YGO has never been innocent with this. An_u, M_i and DMG have moments of fanservice but it isn’t never this in your face. And yes Asu_ka and A_i are pretty fanservicy too. But WHY DO WE NEED K_TORI’S SKIRT TO NOT COVER ANYTHING, WHY DO WE HAVE TO SEE HER TOWER SLIP. Did I forget to mention SHE’S 13 AND BOY DOES SHE LOOK IT. 

VR IS IN NO WAY INNOCENT. How many ass shots do we need when GG duels? And the second A_i becomes BG, she gets the same ass shots. And why is Queen always in a bikini. When talking to an employee. IN VIRTUAL REALITY??? Any reason? Cleavage? YEP. 

Filler 

He is lousy with filler. ZXl has so much pointless duels. What is the point of the fucking tomato episode which is only funny cause of A5 by the way. Did we need a cat girl to duel a dog girl????? Did we need the time when Ko_ori and cat girl were brainwashed to duel duel Y_ma?

Season 2 of 5D’s has so many plot points that make no sense. Ghost boy kidnaps Ru_a, random kid wants Stardust, Crashtown, J_ck duels a tax collector. Does this further the show? Ha. 

Vr is mostly free of filler but season 1 has plenty of recaps and I refuse to let the fandom forget that.

Redemptions

my god he sucks at these. He hands them out like candy and few deserve it. Like did you know that the Leviathan, the dragon like thing, the big bad monster of the D_ma arc. In the original japanese language, it lost all it’s hate and was allowed to live with DMG and the three dragon knights. Does that make no sense? OF COURSE IT DOESN’T. IT HAS DONE NOTHING TO EARN THAT REDEMPTION, IT WAS A MASS OF HATE THAT TRIED TO DESTROY TWO WORLDS TWICE!!! 

Dr. Faker who said he see his oldest son Ka_io as a pawn and plans to sacrifice him so he can commit genocide but it’s ok cause he was doing it to save his youngest son. Yes that’s good, commit genocide and kill your older son for your younger son. That isn’t horrible selfish and you get no comeuppance at all. ..... FUCK THAT.

Oh Genex .... So Sa_ou, villain of season 2 who was taken over by the light. He lost his powers and duels Ju_ai to get his sister back, who still has her psychic powers which includes some really powerful shit by the way. But it’s revealed that he actually MISSES HIS POWERS AND DEEP DOWN JUST WANTS THAT POWER BACK SO FUCKING MUCH THAT HE’S BECOMING EVIL. So is Ju_ai disgusted? Nope, he just beats him and plans to save him later and nothing ever happens to him. So you’re just going to ignore that he’s a power manic. Ok good, just ignore that like you do everything else Ju_ai, you bum. 

Or Fujiwara .... Ok so let me get this straight, you decide that you want to cover the world in darkness and forget EVERYTHING because you lost your parents .... Ok look losing your parents is sad BUT THERE ARE OTHER FUCKING THINGS TO DO. LIKE GRIEF COUNSELING! And you had Honest to help you through it. THERE ARE PLENTY OF ORPHANS IN THE WORLD AND THEY DON’T FUCKING DECIDE TO COVER THE WORLD IN DARKNESS. And what’s his punishment? Did you guess nothing. YEP

Consequences

HE HAS NONE. EVERYTHING WILL ALWAYS BE REDONE WHICH MAKES YOU WONDER WHAT WAS THE POINT! Genex has everyone die and come back, AGAIN, seriously GeneX what is wrong with you? 

ZXL has everyone die and then at the end, As_ral literally RETCONS THAT GONE. WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ALL OF THAT???? Ka_to’s dramatic death, nope nothing. Sh_rk’s death? Nope. HELL the show building up to As_ral and Y_ma separating like Y_gi and A_em. NOPE LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES THEY NEED TO TEAM UP AGAIN TO FIGHT A NEW THREAT. HONESTLY I HOPE THEY LOSE. 

VR’s season 1 has everyone in a coma and then PM beats Ry_ken and then they wake up. Hell Ai was dead for a few minutes and he had a dramatic good bye and then he comes back. AND HE AND YU_AKU ALSO HAVE A DRAMATIC GOODBYE AND THEN HE COMES BACK THE VERY NEXT EPISODE.

Everything has to be reset back. Everything has no lasting changes so let me ask you, why should I care? Why should I worry if I know everything is fine? Answer, I don’t. FUCKING AS_RAL HAD DIED MORE THAN ONCE. It’s like Dragonb_ll death means nothing. Thus this all means nothing. 

And you know the biggest joke? HE REUSES THIS SHIT OVER AND OVER AND OVER. So if you disliked it before, you’ll grow to hate it as he repeats over and over. 

If you like his writing whatever. But in my opinion, he doesn’t fucking care.

#yoshida damn it #genex damn it #zxl damn it #vr damn it #fiveD's damn it