#its as if the second a character is a woman they can just reduce her down to being only a love interest or tool to use for the male

[martyrbat]

i got such a bad migraine someone pls remind me to come back to this when i can form a good thought™ and word it properly but. dc officials have to have SOME level of awareness of the constent mistreatment of talia's character to reduce her to a punchline or antagonist again and again... like, we see it in worlds finest, gotham knights, whatever recent that features her — you cant tell me that it isnt just intentionally decided again and again to continue writing her like this despite being aware of the problematic qualities of it. they have enough awareness in the fandom to bring up uwu batfam moments and make little gags and schticks in multiple pieces of media but they just coincidentally dont see people being rightfully upset at how dc continues to portray her?? bullshit. its as if theyre constantly trying to pretend she wasnt disgustingly retconned and she was just always like this because then they dont have to admit their own continue history of racism and misogyny.

theres still so many batfam focused ppl that will willingly choose again and again to either ignore or excuse their raciam and misogyny. they know they can get away with it and avoid accountability so they continue to do so. theres no reason she had to be brought up and mentioned for a shitty joke — the only reason it was *talia* was because they HAVE to be aware of the reputation they gave her and it was the essiest, most laziest writing chance they had to make a joke thatll just end up posted on twitter without context. theyre aware of the backlash and outcry but all press is good press and they know theres enough people in the comic fandom to defend them so they can avoid actually acknowledging why shes written this shittily in the first place (again, its from raciam and misogyny. literally thats it.)

in fact!!!! they didnt have to have a joke point blank. let the fucking moment sit or better yet — write an actual decent story that does anything. isnt that the point of creating something? to actually say and mean something instead of just filling the comic with shit thatll age badly in a month, much less be iconic for years to come.

they think theyre making a jokey comic that's a fun adventure but instead all they continue to do is make a joke of once beloved characters and reduce them as two dimensional flat mockeries of themselves. its to the point where the only things that are still so iconic about them is their own fucking names — which even that is dwindling rapidly due to their inability to write sincerity or anything meaningful. everything has to constantly end on a punchline or joke so it can be dismissed easier instead of having to take credibility for their shallow, halfassed characterization thats used to cater to their flat writing — which just gets ignored anyways in the favour of pretty art

#i love run on sentences and being chronically ill i have had a migraine every single day this month #talia i love u u deserve so much better #kara i love u u deserve so much better #its as if the second a character is a woman they can just reduce her down to being only a love interest or tool to use for the male #rather that be as motivation or as tension — its always about their impact to the male world instead of actually having an existence on #their own. i dont know much on kara but theyre so focused on making her a spunky teenage girl instead of a survivor of a mass genocide with #so much trauma and confliction. like i can think of at least 5 different storylines i would give her to actually emphasis on her heing #her own character instead of being something to prop up the closest black hair blue eyed male on the page #ransom rambles

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Finals

Propaganda Under Cut

Sakura Haruno

Her husband is gay and her author doesn't know how to write women. So many people say she's the worst but she. DESERVES. BETTER!!! Save her from this franchise.

My baby girl my bestie my best friend. She committed the crime of um being written by kishimoto who both doesn’t know how to write women and somehow writes men in the gayest way possible specifically naruto and sasuke. Like the thing is naruto and sasuke ARE gay and also she gets so much hate for the crime of kishimoto writing her one dimensionally in love with sasuke. I know her personally she is a butch lesbian to me just trust me she’s in love with Ino and has a lesbian thing going on with Karin okay just trust me. My everything. She needs to divorce the loveless lavender marriage she’s in 

What is there to say, even? The OG Threat to my 90s anime brain, the only woman I've ever hated with such a passion she made me turn away from the color pink. I used to write fics with my friend where she got left behind on purpose so our OCs could join the Naruto and Sasuke team instead. I loathed this bitch until I was 16 and realized the author simply couldnt write women and decided it was time to make peace with Sakura. It is not her fault she's vaguely written and obsessive over Sasuke. She deserves better. Sasuke and Naruto still should be together and Sakura shouldnt be with Sasuke but I no longer believe this because I hate Sakura, it is because I love her. She deserves a spouse who will actually put in the time to treat her like the hero she is.

Misa Amane

she gets treated in-canon the way fandoms treat female characters that Threaten an m/m ship. it's like, "oh why don't you go sit in the corner and be pretty, misa, while the Men have intelligent conversation and pretend they aren't ten seconds from fucking each other, doesn't that sound nice?" it's infuriating. and MAYBE it's better now but i remember her getting treated the same way in fanfiction too, like we all need to do just as badly by our female secondary characters as fucking tsugumi ohba, but with the added insult of making her be alternately oblivious of the relationship between light and L or actively trying to sabotage it—incompetently, of course, because god forbid misa be allowed dignity or moments of cleverness.

she's one of the first characters I think of when I consider old school fandom misogyny. The annoying bitch and clingy crazy gf allegations were AFTER HER ASS. She's also a lot more intelligent than people gave her credit for, but most seem inclined to take the Very Biased word of our unreliable, narcissistic narrator and his homoerotic arch nemesis and claim that just because she's bubbly and into romance that she's also a complete moron. Which is blatantly untrue. Everyone was afraid of Misa girlbossing too hard. Killing people and devoting yourself to the deranged twink of your dreams even though you know he'll never love you back??? Having a hardcore goth aesthetic and being so Hot even literal Death Gods are into you?? God forbid women do ANYTHING!

Not only is she the victim of yaoi culture, she is the victim of early 2000s misogyny by an author that wanted to introduce a girl character because he knew his male rivals were getting too homoerotic. She is a goth bimbo icon who portrays what I think is one of the few callouts for stan culture and what parasocial relationships can do to both the stan and the idol. The fact that she is a toxic fan of Kira and also hot, funny, sociable is tragic in its own way, which I think the author did try to touch on but was too misogynistic too really get through. Of course, she was reduced to villain status by the fandom and anime alike because she got in the way of the supposed romance in their psychological horror anime

#poll #finals #sakura haruno #naruto #misa amane #misa misa #death note

[desert-fern]

A Gun Amongst Daggers - Jake “Hangman” Seresin X Fem!Navy Seal Reader

Part 19: ‘Cause You’re The Reason Love Comes Easy

Summary: When Jake meets a woman at the Hard Deck, the last thing he expects is for her to be a Navy Seal. And not just any Seal, the Commander of Seal Team 3. She’s beautiful, smart, dangerous, and everything about her just makes him want to get close. Her name? Bear. When the Seals need backup, Cyclone puts the Daggers on their radar and now, Jake has to work with Bear and her team, all the while trying to stay professional. Can he do it? Or will he end up falling for the Navy sniper and mission Commander?

A/N: Chapter title is from the song Nights Like This by St. Lundi

MINORS DO NOT ENGAGE! 18+ ONLY. MINORS & BLOGS WITH NO AGE/EMPTY BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED.

Warnings: a little hurt/comfort, flirty Jake (yes that is a warning), it’s mostly fluff this week, but lmk if I missed anything

Word Count: 5.0k

Masterlist >> Part 18 >> Part 20

===

The recovery from the pain inflicted was long and arduous, and there were days where Bear was 10 seconds away from just saying ‘fuck it’ and quitting. But Jake was always there, offering both a steady presence and a shoulder for her to cry on in the midst of her frustration. He never judged her, and despite everything she did to try and push him away from her so that Jake, her Jake, didn’t see her like this, he wouldn’t budge from her side.

“Why are you still next to me?” She had asked him, eyes welling with tears as she struggled to take in another deep breath. “Why haven’t you given up on me?” Her voice was cracking under the strain it took her to try and draw a full breath and the weight of her feelings of failure. Walking for longer than an hour was too much of a strain on her lungs, and forget running. Her lungs burned at the thought and she was so close to bursting into tears, if only she could catch her breath.

It broke Jake’s heart to see her this way, this insanely strong woman reduced down to the foundation of her character, sitting amongst the rubble that was her life. He loved her. Every fiber of his being was drawn to her, had been since they had met, and now, watching her struggle physically hurt. “I haven’t given up because I love you,” he replied, wiping her tears away. “Because you went through all of this because of me, so I am here. And I will be here until you tell me to leave.”

Bear had nodded, grimacing as she took his offered hand and grunted when Jake pulled her to her feet. “I would do it again.” Her eyes were full of the same conviction that was clear in her voice, and Jake could help but smile sadly.

“In a perfect world darlin’, none o’ this would’ve happened,” he told her, holding her close, savoring her nearness in the privacy of the gym at 0200. “We’d already be together, you would kick my ass all the time and I’d love you more for it. Maybe we’d be on a date right now,” he mused aloud, smiling at his thoughts.

“Yeah? Where would you take me?” Bear glanced up, catching the tenderness shining in the green eyes above her. She could feel the love radiating from Jake, could feel it just as she felt the warmth of his body against hers, felt his arms wrapped around her waist and lower back.

Jake hummed, smiling at Bear. “You can never go wrong with the classics right? Movie then dinner, maybe a walk if we weren’t ready for the night to end just yet. That sound about right?” His heart hammered in his chest, just hoping he hadn’t read her wrong. “Maybe I’d kiss you for the first time too?”

But he hadn’t and if Jake hadn’t been holding her up, Bear’s legs might have given out on her. “It sounds perfect,” she admitted, grinning up at him. A hand wound its way up to cup the back of Jake’s head, pulling him close. “I love it. Definitely would have won you some points, Flyboy.” Bear knew that she had a wide grin on her face, mirroring the one Jake was giving her, and she couldn’t help but lean in and kiss him fiercely.

She felt Jake’s smile against her lips as he kissed her back, his arms tightening around her, like he feared she’d slip away from him if he didn’t keep her close. But unfortunately, the tight hold shot pain up her ribs, making Bear gasp, teeth coming down hard on his bottom lip. “Shit! I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” Jake had immediately loosened his hold and would have completely stepped away if Bear didn’t place her hand on his jaw, steadying him and keeping him close.

“Jake, honey I’m okay. I promise,” Bear assured him gently. “Are you okay?”

He nodded, but Jake didn’t look convinced. “Yeah.”

But his eyes were looking everywhere, falling on everything but her eyes. “Honey…” she trailed off when she caught sight of the tears on his cheeks and the evident pain rippling in the green eyes Bear had come to adore. “Talk to me.”

Jake swallowed thickly, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He still wasn’t meeting her gaze. “You don’t need to deal with this. You have enough to work through.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to suffer in silence,” Bear’s tone was adamant, full of barely contained anger and softened considerably when she gently turned his face to look at her. “Jake, please. You’ve been here for me for a while now. Let me be there for you too.”

“I-I’m both relieved and terrified that you’re here,” he whispered, ducking his head to stare at the Navy logo on the sweaty t-shirt Bear wore. “I don’t want you to leave me. I don’t think I could handle that again.”

Bear closed her eyes against the onslaught of emotion that slammed into her as she listened to his confessed words. “I fought to come back to you,” she told him softly. “I hope you know that, Jake. I thought about you the whole time they had me. I crawled into the memories of us while all of this,” she gestured up and down her body, “went on. I love you too much to let you go ever again.”

He chuckled, the sound wet but it was a chuckle nonetheless. “I know you love me. Those were the first words you said to me when you woke up, I never doubted that for a second.”

“Good.” Bear paused, taking the time to cradle his face in her hands, brushing her thumbs over his stubble-covered cheeks. When he leaned into her touch, she smiled, pressing a barely-there kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Because out of everything that happened, that is the most important thing. Not what happened to me. Not what that son of a bitch did. None of it. Just that we were finally ready to confess our love. Okay?” She held his gaze, eyes firm but glimmering with kindness and love for the man that had wrapped himself around her.

“Okay,” Jake finally replied, his voice hoarse and eyes so full of love that it was a miracle Bear was still standing. “But you have to admit darlin’, I did a damn fine job beatin’ him up.” His drawl was thicker now from the emotion waltzing through his head and heart, and Bear had never heard anything better.

She grinned, and it looked like a shark’s, all toothy and wide. “You did, Honey. You gave him the beating I wanted to give him but couldn’t.” Pressing a quick kiss to his nose, Bear’s smile softened considerably. “You are my… everything, Jake. Remember that.”

Jake took a shuddering breath, burying his face in her neck as he held her close. He had waited so long for a mere confirmation that the depth of Bear’s feelings matched his, and now? Now it felt like he could see the light through the darkness that had surrounded them both. He felt unstoppable, something he hadn’t felt since before he had met the woman in his arms. “God, I really can’t win, can I? I said I’d love you through it all, and here you are, promisin’ me your everythin’.”

Her answering words fell on his deafened ears as Jake just let himself savor the feeling of Bear in his arms. “You’re my everything too,” he mumbled into her shoulder.

“I know,” Bear murmured, running a hand up and down his back. “God forbid I ever forget that.”

Jake pulled back, catching the glimmer in her eyes as she watched him. His heart always beat like crazy when he was around her, so afraid of ruining this little piece of solitude for themselves. Right now? Now it was calm, knowing deep down, even if his brain didn’t, that Bear was just as much his as he was hers. Being around her now, being held by her, was a balm for a wound he didn’t know existed, a candle in darkness. Bear was his salvation. “I know you won’t. Because I never plan on being away from you long enough for you to forget.”

His words pulled Bear from the depths of her mind, forcing her to inhale sharply. She had been so worried for him, for how she had affected him, that she never stopped moving long enough to realize how much he had affected every piece of her. ‘Bewitched her body and soul’ as Jane Austen had once written, and heaven help the person that ever tried to break them apart. “Jake…” she breathed. “You smooth fucker.”

A boyish grin shot back in her direction made her shake her head. “Gotta keep you on your toes huh, Teddy?”

“Doesn’t mean you need to pull the rug out from under me everytime,” Bear shot back, rolling her eyes playfully.

“Well how else am I gonna justify this?” She looked confused until she found herself up in his arms, bridal style in a sudden swoop. “You’re a serious lady, Teddy. Someone’s gotta make sure you have fun sometimes.” His smirk set butterflies racing through her stomach and all Bear could do in that moment was smack his chest and laugh when he stumbled back in feigned pain.

“Tease,” she replied, laughing. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Hmm…” Jake pretended to think, as he carried her down the deserted halls. “Take me to bed and love me forever?”

Bear smacked him again, giggling. “Well considering that I am having trouble walking for longer than an hour, and we can forget about running, the first option isn’t really an option right now.”

“Shame,” Jake replied, lowering his voice to a near growl, the Southern drawl more prominent than it had ever been. It made him grin when he felt the shiver that raced down Bear’s spine, his chuckle sounding from deep within his chest. “Seems I have plans for later then.”

“Asshole,” Bear grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest, trying to will her blush away. “Why do I put up with you?”

Jake hummed. “Because I’m your everything and you love me?”

“Yeah. I did say that.”

===

Somehow, through the banter and teasing, Jake managed to carry her back down the halls to her room without being seen. Which was a feat in and of itself because Jake kept making Bear laugh, her giggles bouncing off the walls in a sharp turn around from how she had been feeling earlier that night. “Jake,” Bear whispered, eyes shining with mirth. “Just put me down.”

“Nope. Not until we are in your room.”

“Come on, someone could be coming around the corner at any time.” Bear was almost pleading, but it wasn’t in a bad way. She really just wanted to avoid more awkward questions from Bug about how Jake was affecting her. They had discussed at length Bear’s next steps while she was still recuperating in the medical bay, including talking through the email Bear would send to Admiral Harris informing him of her threat. He had merely replied with a meeting time, telling her that he wished to speak with her as soon as she was able. Bear wasn’t dumb enough to think it would be anything other than a recommendation that she take a leave from the Navy, maybe a session or two with a psychologist. The thought made her stomach lurch but that was for future Bear to deal with. Present Bear had to convince Jake to put her down. “Honey please.”

“Fine,” Jake grumbled, begrudgingly placing her feet back on the ground. But his hands shot out seconds later to catch her when Bear wobbled slightly. “I’m not judging if you need help, Teddy.”

“I know. But I need to learn to do this on my own. Those bastards won’t take my life away from me, Jake,” she told him, sending him a soft look. “But I appreciate you helping me.” She pushed her door open, motioning for him to follow her.

And he did. Because if there was any word to describe Jake near Bear, it was soft. Bear brought out a gentler side of him, which was strange, given how he’d nearly beaten a man to death for her, but that was besides the point. “It’s not a problem. You’d do the same for me.” Jake had flicked the light on after he’d shut the door, allowing him to see the room he had grown accustomed to over the last few weeks. “Besides, it means I get to spend more time with you.”

She smiled at him, tossing him the sweatpants he’d tucked under her bag the morning before, and laughing as they hit his chest and landed on the floor. “Come on Flyboy, you already have me. You don’t need to keep using the lines,” Bear teased, as she rifled around for her own pyjamas.

“But what if I like using the lines?” Jake tossed back, swiftly changing out of the uniform he’d been wearing for most of the day and into the sweats that now lay on the floor. “You blush such a pretty pink when I do.” He was shamelessly checking her out now as Bear stepped out of her basketball shorts and into her sleep shorts.

True to his words, Bear’s face was hot and a brilliant pink. “Shut it,” she grumbled, clearly embarrassed by her reaction. She had been struggling with her shirt for the last few weeks, finding it hard to lift her arms over her head. “A little help?” She asked, turning around to face Jake. “This fucking shirt is clinging to me.”

Jake grinned, stepping closer. “Well now, we can’t have that, can we? That’s my job.” He was teasing her again, unable to resist the joy it brought him to see her fumble over her words.

“Jerk.”

“You love me.”

“Unfortunately.” Bear was smiling at him again, her whole being seeming softer in the yellow light of the desk lamp Jake had turned on. “Now can you please help me with my shirt?”

His hands pulled her closer by her hips, before slowly slipping under the hem of her compression shirt. Jake took special care to guide her right arm out through the sleeve first before moving to the injured left side, pressing a gentle kiss to each shoulder as the material was removed. “You okay?” He asked, grabbing the oversized t-shirt that she slept in.

“I’m fine Jake,” Bear told him in exasperation. “I just want to sleep. My everything hurts.” Her eyes flickered over the furrow of Jake’s brow, before slowly lifting her tired arm up to smooth away the creases. “I promise I’d tell you if you hurt me.”

Standing before him half-clothed made her stomach swoop and Bear bit her lip as her shirt slipped over her head, gentle hands guiding it down her body. Jake’s touch left a trail of goosebumps in their wake and she shook her head at him, placing a hand on his bare chest to stop his movements. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jake told her, resting his hand over hers. “I don’t think I've ever been better.” He leaned down, capturing her lips with his own, grinning against her lips.

Bear sighed into the kiss, eyes fluttering closed at the mere press of his mouth on hers. She nearly whimpered when he pulled back, chasing his lips to kiss him again. “It’s late,” she whispered. “Come on Flyboy.”

He followed her lead, letting her settle into the bed before slipping in after her, curling almost protectively around her as they lay facing one another. “You’ve got me stuck, Teddy. Ain’t never wanted to stay stuck on something ‘til I met you,” Jake mumbled, shuffling closer and pulling her to him. He’d rolled over at some point, letting Bear mold herself to his side as she rested her head on his broad chest, his hand combing through her loose hair absentmindedly.

“You sap.” Bear cuddled closer to Jake, reveling in the warmth that just radiated off of him. “But you’re lucky I love saps.”

Jake hummed low in his throat, grinning as he felt Bear smile at the vibration rippling under her ear. In the darkness of her room, Jake let himself mumble “I did get lucky. You gave me a second glance.”

And if he drifted off first, leaving Bear to swallow back the lump in her throat, she wouldn’t tell a soul. He loved her, and she loved him with a ferocity not unlike that in which she fought to return to him. “Of course I looked twice. I saw you,” Bear whispered into the darkness, sleep nipping at her heels and finally pulling her under its wake.

===

The next morning, Bear woke up with an arm slung over her waist, her back against something solid, and the feeling of someone breathing against the back of her neck. Her eyes had just blinked open, adjusting to the light in the room, and she shifted back, her head bonking into the one behind her. “Shit,” Bear whispered, turning slowly to face Jake. “God I hope I’m not hallucinating again. I can’t handle it if this isn’t real.”

“Hmmm?” Jake mumbled, pulling Bear closer and burying his head against her shoulder. “What time isssit?” In just a short breath, he’d dispelled every fear she’d had about waking up alone. Simply because she wasn’t alone, and Jake was here.

Bear grinned, running a hand through his blonde hair and messing it up even more as she watched his eyes flutter under her gesture. “Too damn early,” she whispered back.

“Then why’re you awake?”

“I don’t know.” Blame the Navy for making it so she could never sleep in, but if she woke up to this sight every morning, she’d gladly wake up early every morning. Jake’s hair was fluffy and askew, flattened on one side from the pillow, and standing on end on the other. It was enough to make Bear giggle quietly as she took in the sleepy smile he gave her as she continued to comb her fingers along his scalp, watching as he sunk deeper into the bed. “But I’m not mad about it.”

Fingers that had snuck up her shirt tightened their grip, pulling her even closer so their chests were pressed together. “Me…. Neither,” he yawned. Green eyes met brown and her heart soared at how a mere glance made it seem like everything was and would be okay. “You’re starin’, Teddy.”

“Can you blame me? You’re pretty in the morning.”

“Only in the mornin’?” His voice was a deep, rasping thing and it sent sparks racing through her blood. “Darlin’ don’t tease.”

“‘M not teasing,” Bear replied, a yawn nearly splitting her head in two.

“I think you are,” Jake shot back, a smirk wiping the sleepiness from his face. “You’re a real minx, Teddy, ya know that?” He’d rolled from his side to his back, chuckling at the gasp Bear let out at the position change now that she sat straddling his hips.

“Jake!”

“What? Always knew you’d be pretty from down here,” Jake continued, hands bracketing her hips, holding her still.

Bear was stuck in a state of shock at just how suddenly he’d moved her. How it had taken next to no effort for him to shift positions. “This fucking rib,” Bear thought angrily, “If it weren’t for this, we have have done something by now.” But she swallowed that thought and leaned down, bracing her hands on either side of his head. “Did you now? You think about that a lot, Flyboy?”

“Oh darlin’, if you only knew,” he answered honestly, watching the light flicker in her eyes that were oh so close. “There isn’t a day that goes by without me thinkin’ ‘bout you.”

Bear’s face went pink again. “Shut it.”

“Nope. And if I were a betting man, I’d wager that you do the same.”

“Confident, are we?” He was right, of course, but Jake didn’t need to know that.

He hummed in agreement, a hand leaving her hip to gently caress her cheek, pulling her down for a sweet kiss that had Bear sighing against his mouth. Everything about the kiss was lazy, no one fought for dominance, there was none. Just pure love filling both of them, slipping through their blood in a way that made two hearts sing as one. It was simple, and it was innocent, but it was just them. Just Bear and Jake savoring the moment of peace that they had.

Pulling back, Jake watched Bear’s eyes blink open, smiling at the brief haziness of them before she pressed another kiss to his mouth. “I heard what you said when you woke up, about hoping this wasn’t a dream.”

Her face fell, as the hazy memories of her hallucinations spun through her mind. The infection of her wounds had ravaged her body, creating delusions that included moments like this one, but those weren’t real. She’d woken up alone on the cold and dingy floor of a compound that was hundreds of miles from where Jake was with a sinking feeling in her chest.

This, however, couldn’t be more different. Jake was warm and solid under her, his calloused hand cupping her cheek and winding into her hair. She could feel the rise and fall of his bare chest under a hand that skated over the exposed skin. “You did?” She whispered, biting the inside of her cheek.

“I did.” Jake didn’t know what she had seen, what she had gone through, or what she had done to get back to him, but it didn’t matter to him. He was here and would continue to be there for her whether she chose to tell him what happened or not. “But,” he paused to press a kiss to her forehead, “I’m here. Ain’t leavin’ without a fight.”

Bear nodded, eyes welling up with tears at his silent understanding of her pain. “I know.”

“Come here, darlin’. I need to cuddle my girl.”

===

The only surprise that came while still in Riyadh was the announcement that Chip had confessed to working with Hazard. The man had come with her to save Jake, to bring him home, and he had betrayed them. Bear had been furious at Chip for not only throwing everything for his family away, but also for herself and Jake.

While he hadn’t been among her Lieutenants, she had still trusted the man. How could she not have? He had been loyal through everything, one of the few men who remembered their old CO and supported her in her bid to become the new Commander of Seal Team 3. It cut her deep, deeper than the still-healing gashes in her skin that would leave permanent reminders of the acts committed with stolen information. Permanent reminders of the betrayal that had rotted out the very soul of her team.

But worse still, was the news that Hazard had threatened Chip’s family, his wife and daughter, in order to gain his cooperation. He had been collateral damage, sought after only for his technical knowledge and then forced to keep silent lest Hazard alert the men that were supposedly watching his home and family.

All of it had hurt her.

While she was glad that some of the information had been deciphered and uncovered, Bear hated the results. It was all too much and she didn’t know how much more of it she could take.

If it weren’t for Jake beside her, Bear would have descended on Hazard herself and ripped him limb from limb, committing an action befalling her callsign to the highest degree. Bear would have killed him, but Jake was able to sway her with gentle words and promises that the violence unleashed would not help her healing, that it would only make her pain worse.

And god fucking damnit he was right. So Bear wrote and wrote, filling page after page with her angry thoughts before setting them alight and watching the ashes spiral away and be carried through the Arabian night air. In the end, Chip had tried to protect his family, but it had resulted in him betraying his team. The realization was stunning and Bear found herself hating Hazard for far more than just what he had done to her. She hated him for threatening a now guilty man’s family to get him to comply with their demands. Hated him for being able to pull the rug over her eyes so easily.

Bear hated that she hadn’t known about any of this.

But Jake. Sweet, gentle, compassionate Jake had stayed by her side the whole time, held and consoled her through her angry tears and listened quietly and patiently as she ranted and raved about how she should have known. He never once made her feel like she was to blame, refuting every claim of the sort that she dared try to make.

He put her back together over and over through nightmares and panic attacks and so gently too that Bear was always afraid that if she touched him, that he would disappear in a cloud of smoke. But he never did and she thanked him at every chance she got, returning the favor when his own nightmares threatened to steal her away in the dark of the night. Yet, just like Jake and his immovable love for her, Bear remained there, soothing his fears just as he had done with her own.

===

The days passed quickly. Bear was slowly gaining strength, only letting her weakness be seen by Jake, and refusing to even entertain the idea of taking back her position as team leader. What she had done, regardless if it was warranted or not, and she knew it was, her actions were enough to warrant removal from her position or possibly discharge from the Navy.

But that would be worked out later. For now, she and Jake were locked in yet another mindless conversation that they were both taking entirely too seriously for the subject matter. “No!” Jake yelled from the floor of the gym. “They are not the same bird!”

Bear just stared at him. “They look identical! Why can’t they be the same bird?” She was just saying these things to wind him up, and while that may not normally be the smartest thing to do, it was just too much fun to resist. “A dove is just a fancy pigeon.”

Jake groaned in frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose. “If they were the same, they’d have the same name! Just because one looks like the other doesn’t mean that-” he cut himself off, eyes narrowing at Bear, who was doing a terrible job at hiding her laughter. “You’re winding me up!”

“I’m sorry!” Bear wheezed out, having doubled over laughing after he’d called her out. “It’s too easy!”

Jake just shook his head, grinning. Bear was healing, laughing not causing her much pain anymore and the sight always made his heart swell. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“Mmm,” she hummed. “I am.”

“Now who’s the sap?”

“Still you.” Bear watched him approach, kissing her gently. “Still always going to be you.”

Jake nodded. “Fair enough. I was meaning to ask. What are we?”

“What do you mean?” Bear asked, head tilting to the side. She had been under the impression that they were dating. Ever since she’d woken up, Bear had been calling him her boyfriend in her head, but if he didn’t… No, they needed to talk about that before she spiraled. “I thought that we were dating.”

“And I thought we weren’t quite there yet because of your job and how you’re still technically my boss.”

She nodded, heart sinking a little at his words. “Did you not… want us to be…?”

“No! I mean, yes! I mean… Yes, I want us to be together. But I thought that we were waiting until we were stateside for that,” Jake explained, eyes wide in panic at the thought of Bear even coming up with the idea that he didn’t want her.

Bear visibly sagged in relief. “I was worried,” she admitted. “I hoped that we were thinking the same thing but I didn’t want to assume.”

“We are, Teddy. I promise.” And Jake meant every word of that promise. Bear was everything to him. “Why don’t we put a pin in defining this for now? We can talk about it when the logistics aren’t so complicated, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. God I love you, darlin’.”

“I love you too, Honey.”

===

Two days later, Bear was overseeing her team’s transit from Riyadh back to the Abraham Lincoln at Jebel Ali. She’d arrived first, relying on Bug back at the Air Base for her information and watched the Daggers land from her place in the ship’s bridge for the moment. Jake had hitched a ride in the same helicopter as her, and was down on the deck helping out Phoenix and Bob in securing their jet.

She watched his blonde hair get tossed around by the wind through the port and took a breath. “This would be a challenge,” she thought. “Getting through this journey home without being attached at the hip.” But if they had managed on the way here, they could manage on the way back. Of that, she was certain.

Only when all the Seals had landed and were disappearing below deck, Hazard being thrown in a special guarded area of the ship, did Bear leave the bridge, running smack into Jake amid the hustle and bustle. It was her first day back in her uniform since her capture and Jake couldn’t help but stare at how beautiful she looked. “I’d really like to kiss you,” he mumbled as he moved to step past her down the narrow hallway.

Bear grabbed his wrist, squeezing it lightly. “We can’t. I’m still your boss, Flyboy. Just a bit longer, and then we can give this a go, okay?”

He nodded, sending her a small smile before slipping off down the hallway to his quarters, leaving Bear to find her own.

God damn this would be a long trip home.

===

A/N: 🥹 I will admit that this was my face while writing this beast of a chapter. Bug, big thank you to @startrekfangirl2233 and @sarahsmi13s because I might have made one or two of them cry with this one. And I can’t forget @dakotakazansky for her help in ensuring that my underlying plot line is in place and still running strong.

Taglist: @horseshoegirl @roosters-girl @lovinglyeternal @lavenderbradshaw @roosterforme @bobby-r2d2-floyd @bradleybeachbabe @footprintsinthesxnd @twsssmlmaa @fandomxpreferences @dempy @gizmodear @fighterpilothoe @chaoticassidy @eli2447 @iwantmyredvelvetcupcake @djs8891 @rhirhikingston @sisterslytherinog @impossiblebagelcowboyfreak @sgt-barnesveins @taytaylala12 @urmom-999 @formulapierre @pinkpantheris @havlindzk @a-beaverhausen @killcomet @buxkybarnez @topgunruinedme @hangmanscoming @smoothdogsgirl @a-court-of-roscoe-and-baby

#fern writes #a gun amonst daggers #jake hangman seresin x reader #bear and hangman #jake seresin x reader #top gun maverick #jake seresin imagine #top gun maverick x reader #jake seresin #Jake hangman fluff #jake hangman seresin #top gun maverick imagine #top gun maverick fanfiction #jake seresin series

[bohemian-nights]

No this fandom is actually insane

Do people think it’s ok to write “he was teaching her how to bathe”?????? I’m honestly scared to go read the post that they were talking about. The lengths that these people will go to just to prove that dettles never happened

Read at your own risk.

The person who wrote that is actually Black(or so they claim), but is willing to throw Black characters and Black fans under the bus and promote negative stereotypes about us for their mostly (racist) followers in defense of a racist characters desirability.

Sir/ma’am, if you are reading this, get some self respect. I’m actually embarrassed for you cause this shit is actually pathetic. You’re better than this.

Case in point they wrote this crap a while back with 100% sincerity:

(I should also note that I actually had a run in with them about a year and some change ago and they threatened to block me after I asked them if Corlys bathing with Rhaenyra would be normal father daughter figure bonding time so I blocked them first😊).

Like you don’t have to like Dettles, but when you are pushing harmful ideology and stereotypes (Black people are so stupid/dirty that we need the white mans help to civilize us) as a way to discredit them and make those who ship it look like angry Black women jealous of the poor helpless white woman and her stans, you’ve gone too far.

Let’s keep in mind that this poor helpless white woman was actively trying to kill a Black girl for a crime she claims she didn’t commit and that despite claiming that Nettles definitely didn’t sleep with Daemon her stans spazz out everytime you mention her name and actively want her cut from the show.

Or how about the fact that these same stans actively stalk and harass Dettles shippers whose only crime has been pointing out y’all’s bullshit.

Let’s keep in mind all of this shall we:

So who is actually jealous of who here? Who in this scenario wants racial revenge?* Who is the problem in this hellhole of a fandom?

Is it the people merely pointing out Nettles importance to the Dance and Daemon’s arc or the people who hurl racial insults and stereotypes? The people who want her erased from the narrative in its entirety cause she disrupts the status quo?

(The fact that someone would even fix their mouth to say that when Black people have been beaten, raped, enslaved, terrorized, tortured, disenfranchised, abused, subjected, and not even given common decency and respect for centuries by these people. If we wanted racial revenge it damn sure wouldn’t be off the back of a fucking fictional character).

The fact that they can’t see Nettles value and only see her as some irrelevant Black girl and reduce people liking her down to a gotcha/“woke” moment is fandom misogynoir in action.

They forget that she comes from nothing, claims a dragon, has a prince willing to give his life for her(six men or sixty remember that since y’all claim to be capable of reading🙃), survives the Dance and becomes a firewitch worshipped by a group of people, because they don’t want to acknowledge her importance.

It makes them uncomfortable to do so because she doesn’t look like them, but people like I’m not like those other Negros cover up for them so that when they are called out for it they can go see this n-I mean this Black person agrees with me.

Imagine being this butt hurt about a fictional character that you can’t even leave your racism or tap dancing at the door for five seconds.

Nettles doesn’t fit the mold, but that’s the point of her story.

They can recognize maester propaganda and scream about feminism when it comes to their white faves, but when it comes to the Black girl who is actively being stereotyped and maligned for her gender, race, and social standing in the source material they believe it no questions asked?

Again, what does it say about you that you are so willing to believe that a Black girl who was clever enough to claim a wild dragon doesn’t know how to bathe herself? What does it say about you that you think Daemon would never touch her with a ten foot pole just because she’s Black?

What does it say about you don’t want her on the show because of her race? What does it say about you that a fictional character who just so happens to be Black has you worked up into a tizzy.

Y’all claim to be for women(real or fictional), but in reality you only care about the women who look like you and shit on women you see as beneath you. Women who you think are a threat to the status quo. You’re no better than the men who oppress you.

#bnask #bnasks #this is longer than I wanted but black people and black characters aren’t the problem here #nettles #anti daemyra stans #anti rhaenyra stans #full of bullshit #hotd fandom misogynoir #hotd fandom bs

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

@thegoatsongs asked about my Jonathan Is Too Human To Be A Man In This Culture hypothesis and i have to like restrain myself from developing it at length or getting too attached to it as of yet because tbh i have never actually watched any dracula adaptation so i’m going off second- and thirdhand impressions + cultural osmosis.  but (vague spoilers herein!) there seems to be consensus among jonathan enjoyers who have partaken of adaptations that our friend jonathan is poorly served by them on the whole, suggesting that, at the very least, dracula adapters are mostly not looking at this guy and saying as we have declared here “hey this dude is a compelling protagonist on which to focus narrative energy more or less as he appears in the original text.” which has bothered me for like almost a full year now because like i can kind of see how you would get there from the castle portion but i don’t get how you get there from the castle portion PLUS like… everything that happens in october. like, jonathan enters the book as a gothic heroine, but he leaves it on very firm footing as more or less an action hero. i like many people on this website find this insanely viscerally compelling even just at face value as a fun juicy emotionally engaging pulpy fictional narrative. The Culture At Large meanwhile seems to have totally left it on the table over the course of 6 million adaptations.

and like, on the other hand i don’t ever wanna make definitive over-determined claims and i think it’s always worth keeping in mind that adaptations influence future adaptations and once even one adaptation exists future go-rounds are almost never reacting solely to the original source text and are influenced not only by other adaptations but by other cultural trends and developments etc etc etc. but on the other hand i got 5 hours of sleep last night and am Posting through it and we’re all on tumblr to be bisexual eat hot chip and speculate in wild overgeneralizations about The Culture so given all those caveats i will say that especially given that the book’s been fully in the public domain since fucking 1962 and given that its popularity remains such that two separate New Take On Content From The Novel Dracula movies came out this year alone, it’s hard for me not to get a little But Why re: the jonathan of it all, and it’s also hard for me not to feel like part of the issue here is that people don’t know what to make of a male character who is so profoundly vulnerable and victimized, who is shown in moments of terrible weakness both narratively (through his powerlessness and at times literal paralysis in the castle) and emotionally (through his delicate and frazzled post-castle state in which mina must take care of him)…. and who is also shown to be a competent, decisive, courageous, knife-sharpening vampire-slaying badass.

i don’t think this is necessarily unique to jonathan in the cast of dracula or in the culture at large (one thing i’ve been meaning to revisit is megan abbott’s paper on how screen depictions of philip marlowe smooth out the “troubled masculinity” that jumps off the page in chandler’s novels), and i also don’t think the problem of “this whole ass human is breaking gender” is limited to male characters (absolutely unhinged and derangedly niche reference to make but i got five hours of sleep last night: i did think while writing this out that it reminded me of the ways animorphs ghostwriters kind of reduced rachel to a tormented badass while failing to capture her clearly established vulnerability and compassion). but jonathan is a character that i have thought about a lot in this regard simply because i find him so appealing for frankly unsophisticated reasons.

somewhere in there also is floating the thing about straight men responding with incredulity to the fact that any woman might find timothee chalamet hot when meanwhile many women are like “uh guys who look like consumptive orphans are my number one type and always have been hello???” like, something something the assumption that there’s an inherent contradiction between weakness and masculine appeal when many women attracted to men know it’s The Opposite. (what is the castle sequence if not something that would get tagged “whump” on ao3? what did stoker do to jonathan if not break the cutie?) but again (1) this is not a well developed or articulated theory i am simply Posting please no one @ me about coherence or evidence at this time (2) legit i slept like 5 hours. probably less.

#dracula daily #dracula spoilers #sorry for referencing tv tropes in 2023 you can’t get mad at me on this the day i am so sleepy

[opera-ghost]

thought this needed to be shared on its own since the sweeney team have decided to edge us with releasing the cast album

this is from the second night of previews, february 28th. i gifted the full audio here, and shared a clip of the final sequence here as well

(more notes on the clip + the production under the cut)

after the verse about the beadle, annaleigh ashford attempts to swing onto the table and misses twice, before succeeding as the audience cheers. it was really funny in the moment and played into the vibe of the song as both ashford and groban continued to crack up. this seemed to happen on more than one night during previews from what i've read, which had me suspecting that it was a planned break-in a la the music man revival. but outside of previews i haven't heard of this happening again, so they could very well have just had difficulty with this bit during the first few shows. either way, the audience couldn't get enough of it. it was just amazing to hear this whole sequence live after only ever watching the movie and concerts (where the audience volume is significantly reduced). there was just the most contagious laughter at all the right moments, and it makes me really upset in hindsight that this number was butchered so much in the movie

so much to say about ashford and groban's performances in general. they clearly have so much fun with these roles and they do this particular number such justice, in my opinion. their visual comedy is just on a whole other level, and it really let the material shine along with their vocals. some people have criticized ashford for her accent/general characterization of mrs. lovett, but i'm so obsessed with what she's brought to the role. her lovett skews younger and, to me, she offers a mix of the iconic actresses who have taken a stab at the character before. others have had things to say against groban being cast as sweeney, but i personally enjoyed him very much, and he's of course at the top of his game vocally. this production plays things pretty straight and doesn't do anything super imaginative with the staging, but it really lets the actors performances shine

as a general note for the whole show, maria bilbao absolutely kills it as johanna, john rapson as the beadle makes parlor songs into one of my favorite bits of the show, and i want to print a little picture of nicholas christopher's pirelli and keep it in my wallet. gaten mattarazo is a great tobias, ruthie ann miles's beggar woman is as entertaining as she is soul-crushing. though he's since departed, jordan fisher had amazing chemistry with maria bilbao and his anthony was very sweet. jamie jackson as judge turpin was everything you could want out of that character, though i really really would've loved to see mea culpa here. i think the judge in this production especially feels a bit empty without it

this revival makes the weird choice to remove the factory whistle, which really takes away from a lot of the drama and overall makes it feel less sweeney-esque. although, i did read that they were maybe having technical issues during previews and added it back in later? but i watched/listened to some bits after opening and didn't hear it, so... still must be noted

despite some general criticisms i'm just so obsessed with this show, it's amazing to have a full staging of it on broadway once again and the 26-piece orchestra still has me in a chokehold. i highly recommend seeing it if you can!

#just needed to talk about this again bc despite my best efforts i am NOT off my sweeney bullshit yet #release the damn album for the love of god so i can move on /j #sweeney todd #josh groban #annaleigh ashford #save #audio gift

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

MIKAN TSUMIKI (DANGANRONPA 2: GOODBYE DESPAIR) (CW: Mind Control, Bullying)

1.) She is literally the saddest side character I know out of the series. She canonically went through severe abuse and bullying, oversexualizes herself as a defense mechanism, and has really bad anxiety that interferes with her interactions.

Does she get better? No.

Even though the whole theme of Danganronpa is overcoming despair, she never gets the support she needs despite having a lot of supposedly nice classmates. She CONTINUES to get verbally abused by another classmate nobody really bothers to stop, and one of her best friend even ENABLES some of her bad coping mechanisms. She's also the main source of fanservice for the second game.

Then she gets fucking brainwashed into one of the main villain's henchwoman. Yeah, the writers did NOT let her catch a break.

2.) The first two chapters are obsessed with having her do that stupid 'oh nooo all my clothes came off :"( u can see my panties :"(' shit and her free time events especially drift into the 'I'm accidentally saying something that's sexy but I don't know the connotations' brand of jokes. Idk what the spoiler policy is so I won't say much about her actual good points, but when she gets a chance to shine, she's really really interesting! For sure one of my favorite characters in the game! She's got nuance and character and relationships and motivations and interests and all that good stuff! She's even gay! It's just that its almost completely eclipsed by mediocre at best horny jokes for the first 2/3rds of her screentime in game and it drives me actually insane.

3.) You could put nearly all of the dr girls in this bracket, actually. But I picked Mikan because she's such a clear example. They just put her in there to sexualize her and her trauma. There were many ideas that could have been executed well with Mikan (I can relate to the aspect of her sexualizing herself, but the fact that they use it for fanservice is. Wow! And not in a good way) but they use her for fanservice instead. And she had the WORST execution or at least it was somewhere in the top 3. They unceremoniously cut off her development with the "despair disease" (hate that motive btw) and basically made her whole personality in what was supposed to be sorta love her 3rd act villain breakdown into "oooh my beloved ahaha I can't wait to be reunited with my beloved." I don't know shit about the anime but she seems to have been treated just as terribly there if not made worse! If it weren't for the fact that I refuse to acknowledge the animes existence it might have made me dislike her during the time I still actively liked the franchise. All the outfits they give her also feel like they were made just for fanservice shots (most of the outfits themselves aren't really bad at least not the ones I've seen it's that they were made with the intent to sexualize her and not to look good and fit her character) which is super frustrating. Oh and she was treated terribly in the game by Hiyoko but when she killed hiyoko it was just whoops she saw me kill ibuki gotta end her instead of giving her an interesting motive for even one of her kills. Honestly what makes me says she's screwed over by misogyny specifically is the fact that shit like this probably would not have happened if she were a guy. She wouldn't be written perfectly but her writing would be so much better. Like she was reduced to fanservice so so so many times and treated awfully.

OCHETTE (OCTOPATH TRAVELER 2) (CW: Racism, Ableism)

1.) SO. actually she's combod by the heavy anti-pasifika racism in ot2 but one of the strongest elements of that is that ochette herself is infantilized to the point of a 20 year old woman, who is a fully trained adult warrior and ingame stated to be like a week away from replacing her island's ultrabeast white lion guardian, being characterized by cool normal things like "having the white catholic inquisitor character promise to teach her backward people human language(the fantasy pasifika tribe she's from are kemonomimi because of course they are)", "haha ochette no understand human custom and have funny naive misunderstanding", "ochette draws the catholic inquisitor character a cutesy kiddie drawing", and being completely removed from any discussions around sex because octopath has this sexism problem where the only two types of women are innocent babies and femme fatales which is so cool AND normal. so ochette gets actually written to be essentially a "mental child" or sometimes an actual animal and is never, ever, ever allowed to have any dynamic with a human that is not paternal in nature because she is Baby. so she's also fighting the ableism. and despite all odds being stacked against her she manages to fuck super hard in a way that makes it so obvious that if ot2 was just less sexist and less racist and less ableist and someone suplexed the non-pasifika dev team and brought in at least a sensitivity reader, she could have fucked SO much harder. honestly imo the fact that the racism against her is superficially gender neutral is not proof that it's not sexism but proof that it IS, as a major part of racist sexism is treating the womanhood of woc as either unimportant or inferior compared to white womanhood, where pasifika woc specifically are often treated as eternal innocent girls who just can never understand an adult woman's relationship with gender. ochette not being allowed to be a woman and trapped at "child too young to even have a gender" is sickeningly sexist. she should have been allowed to have zest for life and be literally the "my daughter might have autism but god damn she can work a grill" lady and be unsure about taking on a hugely important position without it being used as shorthand for her being a toddler in the body of a notably very skinny girl considering she is canonically jacked enough to carry an iguana the size of a bus but WHATEVER. she should also have been allowed to hunt the white catholic inquisitor whose story climaxes with him killing an indigenous woman who secretly infiltrated the church in order to get revenge for them massacring her entire tribe that confirms ochette's people are kemonomimi because an ancient wizard cursed the brutish natives for their violence. actually fuck it i would put kaldena in too but thinking about her actually makes me depressed im so fucking sorry girl. they should BOTH have gotten a ten minute cutscene of beating hm to death with hammers

#polls #round 1 #week 1 #new #cw mind control #cw bullying #cw racism #cw ableism

[kajaono]

Killing off Ilsa was both damaging for Grace and Ilsa

I already saw two accusation flying around saying that 1. we are pitting Grace and Ilsa against each other and 2. that we are reducing Grace to a love interest.

So let me give some context. When I was sitting in MI7 i was hoping the whole time we would see Grace and Ilsa working together. Or we would see Ilsa working with the female killer, to cause chaos. In short, for the movie to pass the Bechdel test. It didn't happened. Which already left me disappointed. So many women and none of them has a single interaction with eachother. What a shame

But why do I care so much? Its an action movie after all. Why do I excpect female characters to be treated correctly in the MI movies? In short, when the MI movies started they were like a second Bond. Especially the women were Bond girls. Easy replacable. Don't get me started on the femme fatale trope of MI1 or the damsel in distress in MI2. And the Bond movies struggle so much to get away from this hurtful potrayal of female characters. The MI movie didn't. Quickly they developed cool, kick ass female agents who were equal to Ethan and NOT his love interests. BUT (and that is thing everything boils down to eventually) they were still replacable. Not the men, they weren't, because they are men. But the female actresses all got replaced with every new movie being released. UNTIL Ilsa. And that makes her so special. We finally finally had a woman who got her time to devlop a character, a back story, because she stayed longer then one movie. And from the beginning onwards she was a troubled character (and not in the tragic damsel in distress way Nyah was.) She was complex because she had time to be complex. This isn't about ilsa. This could also have been Jane Carter or Nyah or Zhen, because they all deserved it. But it took us five movies and 16 years to finally get a female character who was allowed to stay around.

Then Grace appeared. When I saw her, my hope was that she would be yet another cool kick ass female character who would stay around for longer (so far, i was true) and work together with Ilsa. Female soldiarity. As equals. Finally making the team more female, moving it away from the whole tierd trope "three men and one women" (which is so outdated and still gets used in shows like Paw Patrol. It is like we haven't moved a single bit in female representation. there can only be one woman)

And this is the problem. I am sure there are Ilsa stans who pit Ilsa against Grace, no question on that. But the bigger problem is that the movie did it first. MI6 had this wonderful scene where Ilsa says about Julia: "I like her".

I hoped for something like that between Ilsa and Grace but what did we got: "Only one can survive" So it was always one against another. There can only be one woman. But why? Why MCQ? Why can't there be two?

Because now Ilsa is dead. And she isn't THE woman anymore. She isn't the woman anymore who was not replaced by yet another female character. No, now she is just one of many. Claire, Nyah, Zhen, Jane, Lindsey, Ilsa, Grace.

Ilsa is now just a name on a list. And the horrible thing is: Grace as well. By killing off Ilsa you showed that BOTH Ilsa and Grace are replacable. And thats horrible.

Hayley (Grace) was/is supposed to be the next Ethan Hunt. But now her role of a hero will be always founded on a dead woman. Which btw is the reason that many casual fans already said: They love Grace but the moment Ilsa died, they started hating Grace/ or: The moment ilsa died they decided they wouldn't watch another MI movie EVEN THOUGH they love Grace and thinks its a pity for her

And thats what I think too, you could have had TWO amazing female heros. But instead MCQ killed one of them to bring up the other. This is NOT the female representation i want in my movies

Also if Hayley will take over the MI movies she needs good starting conditions. Look how much people hated that a woman of color took over the 007 title for one minute. Imagine what will happen when studios say: Ethan Hunt is done, here is Grace" People (Men) will be furious anyway. Already making them furious now by pitting her against Ilsa and building her legancy on Ilsa is the worst start her character could have and i wonder why MCQ didn't considered that. I mean MI TV show stans are still angry at the first MI movie and refuse to watch the movie movies completly for what happened in MI1.

2. So is saying "Grace is just a stand in for Ilsa" sexist? No. But the movie treats her like one and thats sexists. Grace is amazing! She is funny, she is lovable, she is deeply human and a really clever thief. But instead of using those talents to let the movie shine, MCQ decided that Ethan would turn to her minutes after Ilsa died, touch her, nearly kiss her etc. Which is like...? Same things he did with Ilsa one hour ago in the desert. Does that reduces Ilsa and Grace to a love intrerest? No, both are so much more. But it is established that Ethan has a thing for brown haired women. His wife was one, his girlfriend was one, Ilsa was one and then Grace walks on the screen, with the same fashion scene as Ilsa etc. But without the established backstory. Still kinda helpless und clueless. Yeah she can fight and save herself and is kickass. But the whole thing is that Grace is "Before joining an agent organisation" and Ilsa is "after leaving an agent organisation" was... really telling imo. Take that the way you like

That Ethan seemed to have an instant attraction to both Grace and Ilsa was only a part of the mirroring, part of a bigger picture, it doesn't reduce Ilsa or Grace to a love interest

Edit: I noticed this part sounds confusing. To summarize it. Ilsa is: established backstory + fighting skills + saves herself + love interested. Grace is: no established backstory + thief skills + kinda saves herself + love interest. Because she doesn't has a troubled past like Ilsa the focus was shifting so much stronger to the love interest part of her, that even though that she is so much more then that, eventually she just felt like another: Amazing super agent who can kick ass, but who is eventually only there to kiss the male main character to boost his ego and to help him learn a lesson and become more humble" What we already had so so many times. And is so boring. Ilsa was more then that because of her backstory. But then go a stand in with Grace. And so we end up at the „both are replaceable“ part again

Funny that MCQ hated the idea of Ilsa being a love interest so much that he rather had her dying then her kissing Ethan. While it was him who wrote multiple kissing scenes in the first place and it was him who immeditaly wrote "and ethan gets all touchy touchy on Grace" So MCQ, whats the truth?

TL:DR: Killing of Ilsa hurted both Grace and Ilsa and was a step backwards in female representation in action movies because Ilsa and Grace should have fought along side each other. The legacy of one woman shouldn't be build on the death of another

#mission impossible #mi7 #ilsa faust #grace #mission impossible dead reckoning

[originalleftist]

Dolph Lundgren on Amber Heard and Aquaman II cuts.

Looks like Dolph Lundgren isn't following the studio line:

"Action movie icon and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom star Dolph Lundgren has revealed that Jason Momoa "got spooked" with the "Amber Heard situation," and believes that the Aquaman franchise is now over. In an exclusive interview with MovieWeb, Lundgren addressed the future of the Aquaman franchise and says he has heard "through somebody else" that Momoa wants to move on to other things.

"I don't know what's gonna happen with Aquaman. I've heard Jason Momoa thinks it's just his last one, and he wants to do something else. I heard it through somebody else. But it's hard to know what's going to happen in the future, except I just thought they had a great script, and they had a great director and good cast [for the second film]."

After praising the script, director, and cast of the sequel, Lundgren reasoned that Momoa grew concerned about the involvement of Amber Heard, the bad press the actress was getting at the time, and how this would affect the box office and audience response.

"And I guess he got spooked with this Amber Heard situation and the fact that people weren't gonna see the movie because she's in it. I always thought that was overrated. I mean, I think when you make a movie, you've got to stick to your guns a little bit... So, I personally wish they stuck with the original because I thought it was quite good."

Lundgren also referred to "the original," by which he means the first version of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. A version in which both he and Amber Heard reportedly had much bigger roles.

Lundgren is likely right in thinking that the Aquaman franchise in its current form is over, with Momoa rumored to be changing characters and playing Lobo in James Gunn and Peter Safran's rebooted DCU.

The Aquaman sequel was hammered with delays and negative reports from behind the scenes, with documents released as part of the Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard defamation trial even claiming that Momoa had arrived to set drunk and "pushed" to have Heard removed from the project entirely.

While his time underwater may now be done, Dolph Lundgren has plenty in the pipeline. The action star will next lead Wanted Man, a movie that he has also directed, co-wrote, and produced. Starring Christina Villa, Kelsey Grammer, and Michael Paré alongside Lundgren, Wanted Man follows the Rocky IV star as an aging detective who travels to Mexico to extradite a woman who witnessed the murders of two DEA agents. Of course, things are never as simple as that, with Lundgren soon finding himself unable to trust anyone admit flying bullets fired from every side.

Wanted Man is due to be released by Quiver Distribution in select theatres and on video on demand from January 19, 2024. You can check out the trailer below:"

Some takeaways here:

Further corroboration that Amber Heard was telling the truth about her role being reduced, that this was done to placate the hate mob.

Jason Momoa is a self-absorbed coward who threw his costar under the bus for the sake of his own career.

There was a prior version of the film (not sure if it was ever all actually shot or just scripted) that would have had expanded roles for Heard and likely also Lundgren, and was probably superior to what was released.

Glad to have supported Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (#OnlyForMera), will not be watching the reboot as things stand. Nor anything by Wan or Momoa.

#ReleaseTheAmberCut

#Warner Bros #DC #Aquaman #Aquaman II #Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom #Dolph Lundgren #James Wan #Jason Momoa #Amber Heard #Mera #Only For Mera #Release the Amber Cut

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 1

Propaganda Under Cut

Misa Amane

she gets treated in-canon the way fandoms treat female characters that Threaten an m/m ship. it's like, "oh why don't you go sit in the corner and be pretty, misa, while the Men have intelligent conversation and pretend they aren't ten seconds from fucking each other, doesn't that sound nice?" it's infuriating. and MAYBE it's better now but i remember her getting treated the same way in fanfiction too, like we all need to do just as badly by our female secondary characters as fucking tsugumi ohba, but with the added insult of making her be alternately oblivious of the relationship between light and L or actively trying to sabotage it—incompetently, of course, because god forbid misa be allowed dignity or moments of cleverness.

she's one of the first characters I think of when I consider old school fandom misogyny. The annoying bitch and clingy crazy gf allegations were AFTER HER ASS. She's also a lot more intelligent than people gave her credit for, but most seem inclined to take the Very Biased word of our unreliable, narcissistic narrator and his homoerotic arch nemesis and claim that just because she's bubbly and into romance that she's also a complete moron. Which is blatantly untrue. Everyone was afraid of Misa girlbossing too hard. Killing people and devoting yourself to the deranged twink of your dreams even though you know he'll never love you back??? Having a hardcore goth aesthetic and being so Hot even literal Death Gods are into you?? God forbid women do ANYTHING!

Not only is she the victim of yaoi culture, she is the victim of early 2000s misogyny by an author that wanted to introduce a girl character because he knew his male rivals were getting too homoerotic. She is a goth bimbo icon who portrays what I think is one of the few callouts for stan culture and what parasocial relationships can do to both the stan and the idol. The fact that she is a toxic fan of Kira and also hot, funny, sociable is tragic in its own way, which I think the author did try to touch on but was too misogynistic too really get through. Of course, she was reduced to villain status by the fandom and anime alike because she got in the way of the supposed romance in their psychological horror anime.

Téa Gardener/Anzu Mazaki

She's friends with Yugi, the main protagonist, who is usually either shipped with his other self (Yami Yugi), or Yugi/Yami will be shipped with the main antagonist (Seto Kaiba). She tends to get demonised a LOT. I have read SO many stories where she is turned into this evil, scheming harpy of a woman who will get in the way of Twu Wuv. 

the fandom does her so dirty bc she's in the way of at least 3 different yaoi ships she's so amazing and underrated tho she's such a great character

Was portrayed as a bitch very often in fandom! Is very not a bitch in canon! Supportive, occasionally snarky, occasional damsel in distress, good card player in her own right (this is important in universe, trust me), and very very loyal! 

#poll #round 1 #misa amane #misa misa #death note #tea gardner #anzu mazaki #yu gi oh

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group D Round 1: #D4 vs #D5

#D4: Two kids join in hunting monsters and uncovering secrets

While in search of his precious friend, a young boy named Nai falls captive to a beautiful woman, whose looks are matched only by her taste for human flesh. Meanwhile Gareki, a clever thief, is in the midst of robbing her luxurious home. After causing a distraction, Gareki agrees to help Nai escape, but they are discovered upon the woman's return. As she transforms into a ghoulish monster, the boys flee.

On the run, Nai and Gareki are found by “Circus,” a government defense agency that deals with criminal activity too difficult for the police to handle and protects civilians from “varuga”—terrible monsters that devour humans for sustenance. In the hope that it will lead Nai to his missing friend, he and Gareki decide to join Circus. On their perilous journey, they face dangerous varuga and begin to uncover the secrets behind a shadowy organization known as Kafka.

#D5: Three brothers work together to stop an ancient evil

The story follows the Kumo brother, three well-known samurai brothers who send criminals to the secluded prison Gokumonjo in the middle of Lake Biwa. Together with the former Fuma ninja Shirasu Kinjou, the Kumou brothers live a frugal and joyful life, mostly dedicated to studying and training. However, the Kumo brothers soon learn how they are tied to the Orochi’s vessel, a human host possessed by a demon serpent from ancient times, and how they are destined to destroy it once and for all.

Titles, propagandas, trailers, and poll under the cut!

#D4: Karneval

Propaganda:

Karneval has two of the best protagonists I’ve ever seen. Gareki is superior to every other teenage boy protagonist in anime. His character arc, even in this one season that covers just a fraction of the manga, is so well-developed. I like that his arc is an emotionally driven coming-of-age and not a power fantasy.

Along with the main characters, Karneval has fantastic characters across the board. There is not a single supporting character I don't love (even the ones who annoy me). None of the female characters are reduced to love interests and are all unique and interesting, which can be hard to find sometimes in anime.

It is made by a female writer, which is always great to see, and for people who aren't really interested in romance, the anime is extremely friendship and found family driven. The found family aspect is really at the forefront of the series as Circus is not a glorified group and they don't get to have families which makes the bond between members so important.

The tone balance is amazing. In one episode, you can go on an emotional journey from laughing to crying in seconds. The plot is engaging with wild reveals and compelling mysteries to follow. The fantastical world is unique with the contrast of the dark monsters in a bright and colorful world. If you watch it in Japanese, the voice cast is so good and the soundtrack is also really good.

TL;DR it’s an interesting story with amazing characters to whom you will get attached.

Trigger Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore, Misrepresentation of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

#D5: Laughing Under the Clouds (Donten ni Warau)

Propaganda:

I found this series absolutely entrancing when I originally watched it, the portrayal of the characters and themes is really interesting to watch.

It tells a fantastic story about trying to defeat a legendary evil that can corrupt those around it to do its biding, all the while mixing in comedy and really heartfelt moments between family. For a 12 episode series they did a really good job of tying up any loose ends and finishing the plot, some things could have been expanded upon a bit more, but for what it is they producers did a wonderful job.

The series might not be the most groundbreaking anime ever, but it does have some lovely moments and explorations of its characters. I really like the themes of family, and wanting to do anything you can to help the people you love, it’s always nice to see and I think it’s done really well in this anime.

Trigger Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore, Suicide.

If you’re reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

#anime #best underrated anime #polls #poll tournament #tournament #anime tournament #animation #animated show #group stage #group stage round 1 #tournament polls #karneval #laughing under the clouds #donten ni warau #group d

[bohemian-nights]

Let’s talk about the changed between white book laena to black show laena

Book leana had a pretty awesome life. She married at the age of 22 to a man she loved, traveled the world with him, had 2 babies and they lived happily on driftmark with her family together until she passed away at childbirth despite her loving husband doing everything he can to save her. + her husband remarried 6 months after her death.

Now let’s talk about show leana

She married daemon much younger than book laena, was neglected and unloved by him, was forced to live away from her beloved family and burned herself to death because “feminism” 🤡 only to have her husband sleep with another woman on her fucking funeral. And the showrunners claim they wanted to respect her character?????? Disgusting.

In the book laena is the only wife that daemon seemed to truly love. (Until nettles). He never cheated and they had a happy marriage. But when she’s black suddenly she’s the second choice to the white female lead. What a fucking joke. And then they absolutely spit on her by having her husband sleep with said white female main character on her funeral. This show treats its black characters like shit. I really don’t understand why people aren’t talking about this.

This shows deranged fandom tells you everything you need to know about the problematic way they treat black characters. We haven’t even got nettles’s casting yet. The most important dragon seed. Literally who gives a shit about the others? But I wonder why we have their castings but not the casting of the only canonically black character in the dance???? If nettles is not in season 2 I’m going to drop this show. If they’ll introduce the dragonseeds without nettles they are fucking disgusting.

All of this is why I criticize this shitty show and equally shitty fandom👏🏽

People try to act like you’re the crazy one for noticing how these changes affect the treatment of the characters, but nope fandom racism, more specifically fandom misogynoir, is real and it’s happening with HOTD.

Book!Laena was treated with love and respect, but the moment she became Black-ish she became worthless to both the showrunners and the fandom. All she's good for is to be a prop/placeholder. Hell, when she died people seemed more concerned about Vhagar, a dragon, rather than the woman who lit herself on fucking fire.

They made Laena into a stereotype just to make a crazed white woman’s death look better than it was and this demented ass fandom cheers it on.

Because she’s Black and not a cookie-cutter stereotype in the source material, Nettles' whole existence is a problem to these people and she must be cut, erased, reduced, etc.

They try to say she’s completely irrelevant. That the only reason people like her is because she's Black or out of spite, but I can think of a dozen white characters who don’t even come close to reaching her relevancy to the plot

This is why she’s always included where some characters like Ulf, Hugh, Sara Snow, Alys Rivers, Gwayne Hightower, and Silver Denys are omitted, and 5/6 of those characters are confirmed for s2. And I'm not trying to say none of these characters shouldn't be included(well we could do without 2 of them), but they aren't more important than her.

Nettles literally has all the qualities people usually like in characters(the ordinary girl who despite all odds does the unthinkable, she’s a survivor, she’s a final girl, she has one of if not the most powerful men in the realm willing to die for her, and she becomes a goddess like figure) yet she’s hated for it because she dares to be Black. They won't even try to relate to her or see her importance because she is Black.

They’d rather prop up psychos or mediocre flops just because they are white rather than ever admit that Nettles is an interesting and integral character to the Dance. She’s awesome. The man who created these freaking books that you claim to love and swear his word is law thinks she’s awesome and yet you want to deny that she’s awesome and has no real value because you’re scared shitless she’ll upstage your psycho(book!Missy Anne)/boring(show!Missy Anne) fave.

It’s nuts and like you, I won’t be watching s2 if Netty’s not there. They found time for a maid who shouldn't even be there, propped up Addam to the Gods, and gave Hugh an unnecessary sex scene, all while cutting Nettles out. Nope. I’ll skip straight to s3 cause I’m not dealing with this show's BS and blatant disrespect. It’s unacceptable!

#I’m so tired #anti hotd #I’d quit this fandom if I thought it would do any good but I’m not being driven out by crazy’s #bnask #bnasks #nettles #laena velaryon #anti hotd fandom

[cherrytea556]

Catra didnt only want adora - The problem with the original save the cat script

Tw: Abuse and mention of murder

In the original script of 'save the cat', there was a line from horde prime that really bothers me:

Its the part where horde prime says to adora: 'all she ever wanted was you' and fans definitely uses that as catradora content when its just not true in the slightest and it removes the nuance she has just to hype an already toxic ship. First, lets discuss the very second episode of shera in season 1.

We see in this scene, adora offers catra to come with her yet catra rejects. If adora was all she ever wanted, why didnt she come with her on the spot? That wouldnt make sense if catra only wanted adora right? Well, heres where it starts to get interesting:

This is a callback from a previous scene, the scene where shadow weaver uses her electric magic onto catra then threatens to bring adora back. Sure, you can argue that she does only want adora but shadow weaver is holding her back, an obstacle to overcome for her actual wants but if thats the case, why does she actively seeking that obstacles affection if all she ever wanted was adora?

Especially her blaming adora for shadow weaver betraying her, let alone almost destroying the whole planet because of her blaming adora for shadow weaver's favouritism. Why would she if adora was all she ever wanted? Its simple. Given how shadow weaver favors adora more than catra during childhood, shes going to be seeking out shadow weavers affection in hopes she can finally gain the love she was looking for from her abuser. It also explains why she had an attachment to adora.

Adora was catras safety blanket as they made a promise to look out for each other and since shadow weaver told catra that she only stuck around because adora liked her, catra will depend on adora in order to be safe which is also why she hit lonnie when her and adora was being friendly, she was scared that she will get abandoned by adora if she has new friends which means that shadow weaver would dispose her (and with the word disposing, it may imply murder so catras life couldve ended or at least cause her more truama by her having 9 lives) It makes sense why she had attachment to adora, it makes sense why she seeks shadow weavers love, it doesnt make any sense if all she wanted was adora because the show proves otherwise through the exploration of catras character, why she does the things she does. Also theres this moment:

This is where we see catra be truly happy or at least the most prominently happy and it doesnt even involve adora, it was her taking over the crimson waste where shes given respect for her abilities and personality. This also makes sense by shadow weavers abuse/favouritism, catra being the scapegoat who relied on adora for protection to not only be her own leader to people but also be respected when your life was filled with not being respected. But when the show points out that shes truly happy when adora isnt even there despite them originally wanting us to believe she only wanted adora is non sense. Basically, saying catra only wanted adora makes no sense and removes nuance of her character, reducing her to a love interest. Now I know this line wasnt put in the actual show which is good but theres still fans who use it to hype up catradora in which another reason why the line doesnt work is this:

If she wanted adora all along then the ways she done it makes it more disturbing then it already is by those actions alone. I dont even need to explain why because this pic already says enough. Although i will say, she thought adora left her, not the horde (which the horde was the actual reason why adora left) and when she left, she was now unprotected from shadow weaver, feeling betrayed in which caused her to do all of this to adora, along with blaming her for shadow weavers betrayal, the woman she was prominetly searching for love that the woman gives to the golden child/adora. It was from misunderstanding and vegeance, not from love.

Last thing is how its honestly really funny how when the line of catra only wanting adora that removes nuance and misunderstood her character was used by fans for catradora content in which barely anyone on that content called it out yet when people call catra out for her actions, theres many fans in their comment sections who act like they misunderstood her character/remove her nuance just from mentioning the harm catra's done, even saying that they dont know complex characters? So reducing catra as a love interest is fine but god forbid someone mentions catras harmful actions that impact people because they just dont know complex characters? (when the line literally shows how even the show originally didnt know about catra as a complex character) The fact that catra was clearly shown to be the writers favourite but even they didnt understand her originally really shows how season 5 was too focused on catradora happening and even that was shit in the end for how poor catras redemption was if there is any by that confession in the series finale. Just the fact that this line even existed baffles me.

#antic//a #spop critical #spop salt #adoradeservesbetter #catradeservesbetter #txt

[delulu-with-wandanat]

When I see people from all sorts of backgrounds: incels, feminists,... yell from the top of their lungs about how Natasha Romanoff is sexualized & an eye candy. I assume that must be a very prominent part of her characterisation but then when I revisit her whole screentime, I can only think of : the suit not it's tightness all superhero suits are tight but the below average lower zip, don't come at me but didn't Wanda's suits in EG, IW,CW & lowkey AOU kinda accentuate her chest not to mention every Spiderman's suit accentuating his dick, I didn't see anyone reducing their characterisation to how they were physically represented. There are also 2 ass shots in IR2 &CA:TWS done for "surprise" effet which shares with her Steve in A1 & EG where there's a running joke about his ass and everyone got over those minutes where his ass was focused. There's that photo (in lingerie) that appeared on Tony's ipad? for like 0.1second but isn't that reasonable considering she is an undercover spy on a honeypot mission? I might also add that backseat car scene in IR2 is kinda understandable I mean it's just her changing her clothes and we can only get glimpse of Scarlett's bra and leg for fucks sake why are people acting like we got full minutes of Scarlett's naked body for no fucking reason? We are talking about a character with very loose (not in that slut shaming way but in morally gray/complex way)views on everything including where/how to change, what to do in her missions,... Her undercover time in IR2 is literally the embodiment of that statement "Natasha is comfortable with everything" that is said by Nick to Steve. This honestly an aspect of hers people overlook &is remembered only to describe her as the team's slut, a pass around who has no values. There's also that 1 scene in AOU where Bruce falls from what I don't remember" on her boobs I get it it was unnecessary but if people just for a second ignored their hatred for brucenat this scene can be overlooked if it was done in a way that makes it spontaneous and reasons why exactly Bruce would fall on nat instead of elsewhere, plus it's just 1 scene. It's sad that even her fans start by "even though she's so sexualized, I like her". I just want to know where is this grand sexualization to a point it's constitute part of the character. I know she was sexualized in a way, that fucking lower zip always drove me insane like ZIP IT UP WOMAN but she got a total of 3:45 min screentime, it's stupid or maybe very telling of the people's part if her unzipped suit is the most memorable of those nearly 4 hours. I honestly think it's because Scarlett is a hot woman with ample chest & those misogynist dudebro nerds only cared for her body & treated as an eye candy and refused to acknowledge her effectiveness then others just believed in the loud notices, it's like circular victim blaming.

I get ur point, but i think its good that ppl point this out so studios will stop with the unnecessary shots on female characters. And maybe actually put more efforts on building their story and their arc.

A character can be sexy and loose in a non sexualized way. They can be sexy spy without having to appeal to men or to anyone. I don’t think ppl meant to reduce her character to how she was represented visually, rather theyre pointing it out.

Because if we don’t, she’ll just stay a side character that they use to uplift other characters. I mean look where we are now? All the og avengers had their back stories all fleshed out, they showed it on screen and we get an even deeper understanding of their character.

Albeit Natasha is not a side character, but how much do we actually know about her? How long did it take til she had her own solo movie? No disrespect to Captain Marvel, but she was the first female avengers to be introduced in the mcu. Why did it took her death to get her a movie? how much did we get to enjoy her story on screen? They kept talking about the infamous Budapest story, yeah Nat told us the story, but are u really fucking staisfied with that??

You see where I’m getting at?

Natasha is such an amazing character with an amazing story and complex personality, yet we barely get to see it. Instead of exploring her character they often use her to push another character’s arc. It’s stupid, it’s lazy, and honestly waste of potential.

I love ur take on that car scene where she changed her clothes. But in my opinion that scene could’ve been done in a different way, yet still showed her loose personality. You can tell the studio meant for that scene to appeal to men. Compare that scene, with her changing clothes in BW movie. See the difference? Same type of scene, shot in a different way, with a different mindset.

As much as i would love to brush off those scenes as part of her character, if we keep letting these studios go like that. They’re just gonna keep using great female characters as a tool to push the arc of male characters while disregarding her own story.

#vlake answers

[kitkatt0430]

Hi! 6, 19, 26 please :)

6.) Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

While fandom has made me consider ships I hadn't thought of previously, I can't really think of a ship that I've hated and been brought around on.

Admittedly, it takes a lot for me to hate a ship - I'm much more likely to simply dislike a ship. And fandom isn't generally going to bring me around on ships I dislike either. Sometimes I just don't vibe with a ship. Maybe because it's a canon ship that I don't enjoy for being poorly written or boring or just touching on tropes I don't like (Oliver/Felicity, Gwen/Owen or Gwen/Jack...). Or maybe their canon platonic relationship is just so interesting to me that I really don't like the idea of seeing it get turned romantic (Cisco/Caitlin, Colette/Lloyd). It doesn't automatically mean I won't read something with those ships in it, but they're just... not a draw for me in fandom.

19.) What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

For the Flash fandom specifically, I think its the treatment Iris gets from a lot of fans. She gets twice the amount of hate a female lead normally gets since she's not only a female lead and love interest, she's a black woman. I'm able to avoid a lot of it by curating what blogs I follow and fics I read really well, but I've had people come on to my own fics and leave disparaging comments about her on occasion. Thus sometimes avoiding isn't enough because it gets brought to my doorstep anyway. So I do what I can to boost the voices of black (or other PoC) members of fandom who call this behavior out and try to support actions to reduce this kind of thing in fandom at large. And I try to check myself so that I'm not contributing to the problem either.

26.) Most shippable character?

Cisco. I ship him with sooooo many characters. Be it romantic or QPR ships. Though Barry is probably a close second.

#kitkatt0430 answers #salty writers ask

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

CHLOE BOURGEOIS (MIRACULOUS LADYBUG) (CW: Child Abuse)

1.) Girl was done so dirty… She was starting to develop and could’ve had a redemption arc and then they made her even more one-dimensional than she was at the start, dumbed her down, and the creator on twitter claimed she was never abused and that she never cared about her childhood friend, only his status. And in a scene that thankfully got cut by editors, her father was going to disown her, adopt her sister instead (who is like a “nicer” replacement for her) and pass Chloe onto her abusive mother.

And then a male character gets introduced who is also at first an antagonist with a backstory that gets revealed later, also a childhood friend of the same character, but it’s acknowledged that he got abused by his parent and he gets a redemption arc and a romantic subplot and a spot on the hero team (which Chloe was excluded from because she was irresponsible with her power and revealed her identity publicly… Except he also did that)

This show is about girl power btw.

2.) Chloe was done so fucking dirty. So basically, the creator of the show (Thomas Astruc) created the character in the first place as a stand-in for his childhood bully (red flag no.1) Because of this, any development that she as a character got from the other writers (and it was a lot) got retconned, just because he hated her. Other, objectively much more evil, (male) characters (the main villain!) were portrayed as more sympathetic than her, because god forbid a hurt, abused, emotionally immature, unloved little girl be portrayed as anything other than an unlovable, unforgiveable unchangeable demon. Also she’s obsessed with clothes, shoes and handbags, because she’s a mean girl, don’t you see, so obviously the nice girls (who don’t wear makeup while Chloe does) are better than her.

3.) Stuck up spoiled rich girl is treated as worse than the actual villains of the show. At some point we get a glimpse into her awful traumatizing home life and she starts to be redeemed, but the second something doesn’t go her way she backslides and is suddenly even more evil and dumb. Also her father is incredibly neglectful but it’s portrayed as her somehow abusing him into doing what she wants and he’s so sad about his awful evil daughter. He gets a redemption arc but never actually becomes a better father. She’s seen as unfixable.

CHI-CHI (DRAGON BALL)

1.) okay so to start at the beginning, she was introduced as a young kid but they put her in a super revealing bikini styled outfit. pretty sure it was supposed to be armor too, so besides just being a disgusting design choice even in-universe it’s impractical. but besides that she was pretty charming as a kid, she was cute and funny and pretty tough, and had a cool gimmick in her blade/ laser helmet. even when she reappeared in late Dragon Ball, she was a bit abrasive but was overall rational and kind. she was strong enough to make it into the World Martial Arts Tournament, one of only 16 to qualify.

but come Dragon Ball Z and on, she’s reduced to just a shrill, nagging, aggressive wife and mother. all she gets to do is cook, worry, and berate her husband and sons. her physical strength is only used so she can comically hit Goku. sure its played for laughs, but he’s shown to be afraid of her. I only recall her leaving her house once or twice in DBZ. just the worst mother character stereotype, with nothing left to make her likeable. she’s portrayed as irrational but despite her aggressiveness, half the time her wants are completely reasonable. can’t blame a woman for not wanting her husband to die every other day!! her writing us ass but I still love her and she deserves better!!!

2.) So in Dragon Ball she wasn’t the BEST character to start out with. Toriyama hasn’t ever been the best at writing women or not making stupid fucking sex jokes about them. So she had to deal with that. The outfit she wore as a kid was… NOT GREAT. Let’s say that! Then in late Dragon Ball her entire character revolves around Goku and trying to marry him, which she gets by tricking Goku and getting beaten by Goku in a tournament in one hit. Not off to a great start. Then Z started and Toriyama just… gave her an ENTIRELY NEW new personality, and that new personality was just a stereotype of a tiger mom. Regardless of how correct she might’ve been about letting Gohan fight (and she WAS completely correct, he was 5-6 for a HUGE chunk of Z) the narrative frames her as a hysterical and unreasonable woman nagging at the menfolk and not letting them do things. So naturally people hate her without even considering why she’s upset because the story itself frames her as in-the-wrong. The whole franchise also just forgets that she’s a martial artist and never has her DO ANYTHING.

This is only scratching the surface, there’s a LOT more because the franchise is like 40 years old and we’d be here all day.

3.) GODDDD okay so full disclosure i guess shonen is such an easy pick but like. out of every shonen wife she was and is THE most hated by the narrative and creator (maybe tied with sakura omfg). shes always made out to be a beast, got her fighting skills shafted after she got married, was always played like she was hysterical for worrying about her kid dying in battle, and not to mention the creator actively HATES her. like toriyama just straight up hates writing her. its bad. its really bad. shes just “bitch wife” but for no reason :(

#polls #round 2 #week 3 #new #cw child abuse