icouldntthinkofabetternamesook

[icouldntthinkofabetternamesook]

HomuMado by another name...

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So much of the horror in Buffy comes from struggling to achieve bodily autonomy in a world where everyone else is trying to take ownership over your body. What if you were forced to be a soldier against your will and your body was changed to be a better weapon? What if someone could build an exact lifelike replica of you so they didn’t have to get your consent? What if someone wanted to kill you so they could repurpose your body parts? What if your body periodically transformed and you blacked out and couldn't remember what you did in that form? What if you were captured? What if you were chained up? What if your body wasn’t yours even in death? What if your body was forcibly changed again and again in a myriad of ways and you knew your enemies were going through the same thing but you still had to fight them anyway?

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ATS WRITERS FOR ONE DOLLAR CARE ABOUT A WOMAN

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shiny happy people is like wow so one of the main female characters of the show gets forcibly impregnated and forced to give birth even though it will kill her and all of the characters act like this is a wonderful thing that is for the greater good and only the one other female main character sees how horrifying the situation really is and everyone else thinks she's being irrational and crazy for it... wow... its almost like.... this concept could have actually allowed for some interesting social commentary... or political allegory even.... if anyone in the writers room knew what the fuck they were doing.... wow its almost like pregnancy horror is inherently going to have a political bent to it and good horror media will embrace that... what a concept!

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Really wished they'd explored the ramifications of sticking a Victorian (Spike) and an Irishman (Angel) in a house together. Really wish this had been cited as causing more of the animosity between them.

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anyway this is why I can never truly get involved in most discussions about cangel bc I feel like a lot of them end up boiling down to people arguing over whether their relationship should have been romantic or platonic while MY stance is that I think there's a certain threshold past which two characters are so insane about each other that it doesn't actually matter what kind of relationship they have. and frankly I think they were already past that point by like halfway through season one and only got less normal about each other as the show went on

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So I had a thought about Scott/Jean vs. Logan/Jean ship dynamics, in the 616 universe and I felt the need to share it. (Without scans for once because I am not at my primary computer. Alas.)

Disclaimer: I am a Scott/Jean fan (I'm sure anyone who's been to my blog is shocked) and I've never really seen the appeal of Logan/Jean outside of a throuple context. That bias will likely come through in this thought.

But anyway, something I find really interesting is how Scott/Jean and Logan/Jean kind of reverse a very common YA fantasy love triangle dynamic.

I mean, reverse is kind of a funny thing to say here, because I think both ships long predate the kind of YA fiction trends that I'm talking about, but it's still kind of funny.

Anyway, this is the trend that I'm thinking about: in many YA fantasy books, there is a female protagonist that is somehow caught in two worlds. Maybe she's secretly a faerie raised by humans. Or she's half elf, half human. But raised human. Basically, the idea is that the female character is an ordinary human girl until something happens that reveals that she has this whole other magical life and potential.

And in many of these books, there is something resembling a love triangle. The girl's got a boyfriend who is an ordinary human. He's in love with her as a human and helps her keep connected to her human side. He's usually conventional and a bit boring. Then there's the bad boy magic guy. He's the one who encourages her to embrace her elf/faerie/whatever magic side. Go wild with your sparkly chaotic magic.

Inevitably the boring dude loses out to the bad boy, because really, there's no competition.

But that's why Scott/Jean and Logan/Jean are kind of funny from that perspective. Because in this badly imagined comparison, Jean is of course, that ordinary girl. Now, she IS a mutant, so she's already not completely baseline ordinary. But we could look at the Phoenix as kind of her whole magical other self.

Scott, of course, is the conventional bland original love interest whose known her since her youth. Logan, of course, is the bad boy, wild guy she meets as an adult.

But the actual dynamics of the relationship are the OPPOSITE of the YA cliches.

Because Logan, for all his wildness, is a pretty conventional romantic. Oh, he's got the dramatic self-loathing and pining, but generally, he's a "bring flowers to the lady" kind of guy. At least with her. She's "Jeannie". She's normal and kind and sweet and she brings out the best in him and makes him want to be a better guy.

I don't know if we ever really get a clear idea of Logan's feelings about Jean AS the Phoenix in 616. Probably because back during the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix Saga, Jean/Logan wasn't really a thing. He liked her, but she seemed primarily disgusted by him. (This got retroactively remedied in some of the X-Men classic stories that rewrote a few of those scenes to add some pining and reciprocity. But that's after the fact.) Basically, during the time when we were supposed to see Jean and the Phoenix as essentially aspects of the same person, Logan wasn't a romantic factor at all.

By the time Jean/Logan was a thing, the Phoenix was narratively a separate entity, and Logan's never particularly been in favor of it. He is, however, very into Jean as the girl next door. The human side of her.

But Scott, on the other hand, has always been MASSIVELY into Jean as the Phoenix. He never really seemed that put off by the Dark Phoenix. He was happy to propose marriage just before the Shi'ar decided to poke their heads in and make everything more difficult, and that was AFTER the woman nearly killed them all and ate a star.

There's at least one point in an X-Factor issue, when Scott's admittedly running very hot and cold (mostly due to the Maddie issue), where Jean outright accuses him of loving the Phoenix more than he loves her.

Claremont's had that moment of connection at the orphanage, and we've had at least a couple of Phoenix comes back stories that involved her directly coming for him (Endsong was my favorite. Scott gets her to back down by having Kitty's hand phased through his chest. Such a stupid fucking plan, Scott).

And there was a scene that, back when it came out, got Scott a fair bit of criticism. In New X-Men, to Emma, he vents something about Jean's wardrobe, the mom sweaters verses the Black Queen's corset. Now this was Scott at his most traumatized and self-destructive/self-loathing. I don't think he was literally saying that he preferred her when she was being mentally influenced (especially since she almost killed him at the time). I THINK it was more of an indicator of the out of control way he was feeling, and how her attempt to project normalcy and repress the wilder/more passionate/more powerful aspects of herself were something that he felt very alienated from..

(There were a lot of interesting Jean-and-Phoenix elements going on in that run, alongside Scott's trauma, and Emma's...many issues. It's worth a reread, though not all of it is a comfortable reread..)

There's a reason that the "psychic affair" started with Emma wearing the guise of the Phoenix.

And of course, the more powerful Jean is, the more Scott seems to be into it. This is the man who has, more than once, used "my wife could kick your ass" to win a confrontation. He's clearly turned on when she ignites a star.

It's not that Scott is ONLY into the Phoenix though. He loves Jean too, and we've seen that 100 times over in the 90s and in Krakoa and how they interact on a day to day basis. But to him, her power is an important part of her. And it's hot when she embraces it.

I feel like this may be the fundamental reason that Jean/Logan never really took off as a pairing, even when there was ample opportunity (except in the context of polyamory). Because for all that Logan has that bad boy sex appeal, he doesn't really work as a power fantasy. Not every girl is into civilizing the wild man, after all. Some really want to cut loose with them instead.

And well, when that's not an option, a quiet conventional man who'll happily hold your flower while YOU cut loose, that's got its appeal too.

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Gabriella Papadakis: Moon River

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it's been years since i saw it in full but i'm thinking about the last season of buffy again. crazy how the "back to the beginning" motif manifests as the new high school starting as a huge deal - dawn is a student there, the hellmouth is underneath it, spike's crazy in the basement, the new principal is the son of a slayer. buffy even gets a job as a guidance councilor for troubled students, arguably the best episodes in the season are all about it. and then in the second half they bring in the potentials, a massive group of troubled teenagers who need guidance- a class, one might say- and they just. live at her house. train in her backyard. perhaps there was a second, more thematically significant place for high schoolers to go to learn. oh well.

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Charles buying Erik for their first Chistmas/Chanukka something very expensive, like the car Erik always is talking about, and Erik stammering excuses as he gives Charles "just" a jumper and his favourite flowers. Charles bursting out in tears because no one ever gave him something in return and the flowers are beautiful and the jumper is his favourite colour, how could he ever make it up to Erik?

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Sometimes I find it deeply and darkly hilarious about the moment magneto must have found that twins are his children. Like he must have thought -shit!!! They can't be mine, they won't likely accept me!!! Even he knows somewhere deep down, he majorly majorly screwed up and they won't accept him as their father. And I don't think he has majorly tried to repair relations from his side, he actually killed pietro!!?!! And when pietro was actually right and wanted to save wanda!

Like how can he expect their love when he was the one who abused his power to terrorize them in brotherhood Era. Even though he didn't know that wanda and pietro were his kids, he did, however deeply hurt them. I mean, the relationship between them was going to dysfunctional from start. Maybe that is why editorial is not showing magda as alive, and marya connected with twins- they both would have killed magneto several times over.

I can't believe people (and marvel editors) who want to see wanda as pure daddy's girl. Like atleast, show the growth how they patched up their relation, they could even start with the convo that how their children have been raised by other people-it can be a good introspective and bonding topic. And we need more pietro Lorna moments again, I feel she is at the moment more supportive than wanda. Poor Pietro is always the villain in Wanda's story. He also should be at x men related teams- I feel he gets more good character arc there.

Marvel doesn't do complex families well, I've said this before and will probably engrave it on my headstone. Marvel literally erases everything that makes people interested in the characters to have this generic take that's so bland and boring.

I don't think Erik ever really expected their acceptance or forgiveness, because the highlight of the issue where he reveals his connection to them isn't "I'm your father" it's "I'm Luna's grandfather"

Vision and the Scarlet Witch (1982) #4

Which again to me speaks volumes about how broken Erik's relationship between himself and his children are before he even knew them for who they were. And personally I feel that Erik tries harder to foster a relationship with his grandkids than his actual children because he's grandkids are still young enough for him to shape himself in their minds/lives but also they are a generation removed from him, there's space there for him to attempt an actual relationship without the constant reminder of his past, especially the loss of his first daughter.

This is why he viewed Luna as a fresh new step on his path towards redemption, at least in his grandkids eyes, and why marvel constantly cutting Luna out of the narrative only harms the family dynamic. Even Pietro thinks it's all a trick, that's his first thought when Erik reveals their connection, because of their tumultuous past with the Brotherhood. There could be so much interpersonal introspection and character dynamics if Marvel would JUST LET SOMEONE COMPETENT WRITE THEM.

Instead all we get is some half assed "Lorna and Wanda are his daddy's girls and pietro is the screw up" found family bullshit. Found family does not work with them. Their blood/biological connection was the only tie holding them together because of their past. There's no way the in character writing would any of them have anything to do with Erik if they weren't his bio kids.

We were actually discussing this in the Magnet Family discord the other week how close Pietro is with Lorna, and how good their dynamic is and how it differs from Wanda's. Also how the three of them never actually get good on panel time together. I definitely agree that Pietro is better off on the X-Men adjacent teams than on the Avengers.

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Father make believe for your daughters, Mother take it easy on your sons, Sister balance like a tight rope walker

Quicksilver Week 2024 - Day 1 - Family @magnetfamily Song: Jailbirds - Cold War Kids

Inspiration

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Mid-forties Pietro Maximoff really was top tier though. I'm as much of a fan of teenage quicksilver as anyone else, but burnt-out ex-terrorist divorcee Pietro who's both actively ruining his life and doing his best is so funny.

He's got a kid. Everyone he knows eventually became a teacher. He's on every watch list on the planet. His nephews are superheroes. There's nothing in his fridge except for a bundle of carrots and some expired whipped cream. He insists that his combat days are over and immediately gets into a fist fight with a teenager (Layla) in the middle of the street. Sometimes he and Crystal get into screaming matches in the Avengers' backyard for fun. He's assassinated multiple world leaders. His kiddo is doing his taxes because she seriously thinks they're fun, and he's letting her. He sends his nephews scathing hand-written critiques of their latest battles on funky 1980s postcards that he mails from the office of whatever prison he's supposed to be serving time in. There's more warrants for his arrest than you could imagine. He goes to PTA meetings in last week's clothes while his ex-wife shows up in designer suits. One time he actually dove into a bush to avoid Logan.

Luna thinks he's the greatest person on Earth. He threatens to drop her off a building all the time. Everyone else hates this, and she thinks it's the funniest thing he could do.

He brought about the apocalypse. He saved the world.

He doesn't actually pay rent, he just walked into an empty apartment and called it his. He's such a fucking mess, and his daughter adores him, and he fought his wars as a teenager and he's trying to get on with his life except he literally cannot. Everyone who meets him kind of despises him and he couldn't care less.

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here's some picrews of Luna Maximoff <3 Some of them are meant to be more Inhuman Space Princess and others just more casual. Since I can't draw, this is as good as I can do (i can never decide if her hair should be blonde or white lol)

Bonus Franklin Richards picrews under the cut!

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Hey gays! Uni has been killing me and my art inspo, but I heard a cover of Conan Gray's "Family Line" by Celina Fang on insta and was inspired to make my first ever Capcut edit. It's not perfect, but I think it tells the story I wanted to :))

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This is one of those things that gets even sadder/funnier in the context of the rolling timeline. Because even when this comic came out (2016), Seinfeld would have been an incredibly dated reference.

If we go with the usual "Scott is never quite allowed to be thirty", then he'd have been a really young child when the show came out. Which makes sense, of course. The last time Scott probably had a chance to watch a lot of television would have been with his family before the plane crash.

Now, of course, he's talking about a show that's probably older than he is.

But I also like to think they're side-eyeing him about the whole "since childhood" thing. Because poor, tragic baby Scott, you ARE still a child.

I'd like to think, if Xavier had been alive at around the time of these issues, they'd have gone and egged his house.

(Champions #9)