#I rambled wayyyy too much very sorry op

[stranger-feathers]

(this ended up being way longer and rambly than intented, very sorry for this OP. Your take rocks btw, you're very right)

The treatment of Lucas is so pathetic, both in fandom and writing. He was one of the best written kids in Season 1, got hated on purely because of racism (Mike was also awful to El in S1, and everyone swept it under the rug with zero issues when it came to him) to the point Caleb's parents apparently had to explain to him why most fans of the show didn't like him (downright criminal that it was necessary, he was what, 15 ?). And if that wasn't enough, the writers squandered his character so badly afterwards it makes me want to scream. I don't even dislike his dynamic with Mike or with Max, I think they're cool ! But can he please exist as an independant character again ? Can he get his own developped character arc without it randomly getting cut short by the call of the supernatural/girlfriend/best friend's plot ?

Why, oh why, is Lucas (an OG main character) reduced to playing second fiddle to his girlfriend (who got introduced a whole season after him) and mostly being her moral support, despite having an arc of his own to deal with in that same season ? I loved the Lumax scenes in S4, but Lucas' arc deserved wayyyyy better. I will never forgive the writers for failling him so badly in S4, they completely wasted the setup with the jocks vs nerds because they couldn't actually adress the real issue behind Lucas' behavior (racism).

Like sure, Lucas On The Line exists, and it's apparently one of, if not the best book. But that shit should have been in the actual show, if they weren't cowards who only bring up the topic of racism when it can serve their white leads (aka the Billy subplot in S2 being mostly about Max instead of his actual reaction and feelings about the situation ? And then cutting his own plotline short to help her deal with her grief of that very same guy, and to help the other white dude who treated him terribly at the start of the season ? What the hell duffers, why are you even doing this).

Why is Lucas running around playing love guru for Mike ? What is there in it for him ? Doesn't he have better shit to do ? Apparently not according to the writers, because he spends most of S3 doing that. He also gets to interact for like 3 comedic scenes with Will I guess, and the firework idea was his, so there's that I guess. (To be fair, I struggle with the tone shift on everyone in S3, Lucas is clearly not the only one who suffered in that season, just one of the worst to me.)

In my opinion, Lucas is THE biggest lost potential in the show : he deserved writers who actually gave a shit about him as an individual character, instead of a prop for Mike & Max like he's been lately. I can't even say they never bothered writing him (a common issue for black characters) because they did it pretty well in the first season in my opinion. He was allowed to disagree with Mike, go do his own thing and be independant, and even had his own arc to develop his friendship with El. They simply proceeded to never do it again, who even knows why at this point.

I really hope he gets to have something cool next season, but I'm afraid they kind of threw away their shot when they fucked up last season, unfortunately.

To be fair, I acknowledge a lot of the issues with Lucas are global issues the entire show has with its writing. They're just even worse with him, and it's sad because he could have been so much more. Missed potential as always with this show.

lucas really just ping pongs between helping max and helping mike every season, huh. season 1? mike. season 2? max. season 3? mike again. season 4? max again.

I feel like his only real character arc was in season 1, and the hate both the character and the actor got because god FORBID a little black boy be suspicious of the weird white girl who was possibly involved in his best friend's disappearance, was INSANE

[1-800-dead-boy]

THANK GOD SOMEONE ELSE SAID IT

Okay so, relatively speaking, I am a complete amateur when it comes to historical fashion but in all honesty, you don’t NEED to be an expert in it to understand that what OP is saying is completely true.

Working women had been wearing something similar to corsets for hundreds of years before it evolved into what we know as corsets. They were called “stays” or “a pair of stays”.

From my pretty limited knowledge and fairly intense research, the original version of Stays were made of structured cloth that had straps that were adjustable using ribbons and laced in the front instead of the back. It was essentially a bra mixed with a back brace for women working in factories or domestic service. Even poor women had a pair.

Now, in my opinion, corsets aren’t too much different. While older iterations of Stays weren’t boned yet, (forgive my lack of dates it is very late at night and i am sleepy) I believe they were layered up with fabric to give them structure or treated in some way (im not as knowledgeable in stays as i would like to be so take this with a hefty dose of “this is an amateur fashion historian”).

Boning in Stays didn’t come until later, before that there was some kind of “plate” they would slip into it to act as support, and even then they used a method called Cording which was essentially layering two fabrics with you guessed it a cord in between to give structure and strength to it. When boned corsets became the norm is when you bring in whale-boned corsets and steel boned ones. (Keep in mind that heavily boned corsets we’re for the upper class as they didn’t really need the freedom that was required for working class women).

Now let’s talk about tight-lacing, for the most part, it wasn’t really a thing as OP stated. Like, yeah it happened but it wasn’t common place. Do y’all remember in Pirates of the Caribbean when Elizabeth fainted from her corset being wayyyy too tight? In my opinion, that’s makes sense for someone of her stature. It didn’t need to be strictly practical, so there is an element of “look at what I can afford to do”. That’s all that tight-lacing boils down to.

Moral of the story: corsets were simply back and bust support for a LARGE majority of women, they were not “torture devices” and every writer for period dramas that has ever written a scene like OP described is basically giving a huge “fuck you” to history.

Also I love Emma Watson a little less for what she said about the corset she tried to wear in Beauty and the Beast, like babe, that’s an issue with the costuming department. Actually, the entire Beauty and the Beast live-action and atrocious when it came to period accurate costumes, like her dress should be Fucking Massive for someone who’s supposed to be impersonating a member of the French Aristocracy but nooooo, it had to look like it came off the clearance rack of a David’s Bridal back in 2011 like dude I wouldn’t wear that shit to homecoming and you wore it as a “centerpiece” of the costumes????

Rant over, I’m sorry for the long post and the rambling. If I got anything wrong please correct me POLITELY i am fragile and just want to spread the good word.

You know my favorite bits in period dramas are the ones where the heroine is “not like other girls” and chooses not to wear a corset because let’s be real, no inteligent woman in a period drama setting would do that.

And then you can tell it was written by someone without a chest because next thing you know, they’ll be running off across a field or something.

Like girl, you just took off the only breast support you had, and now you’re sprinting across a field?? How is this not an issue??

And then they’re like “I’m a woman of science” but clearly no, because any woman who knows anything about weight distribution wouldn’t choose to fling off their corset whilst still wearing a poofy skirt. Like it’s there for a reason. It distributes the weight and keeps your 50 lbs of skirts from digging into your bare skin. And I cannot stress this strongly enough, IT SUPPORTS THE BUST. WHAT ARE YOU DOING. I’ll make an exception if they’re dressing as a man or have anything gender going on, but otherwise, WHAT ARE YOU DOING??

And then they say it’s because they’re painful or that they’re “instruments of the patriarchy”, except no they fucking weren’t, men wore corsets too, they were literally just bust support and historical corsets didn’t hurt, because they were made to fit your body, and they actually molded to fit it more the more you wore them. I know, I have multiple.

And if you think one couldn’t breathe, yes you could, people wore corset like garments for like 500 years, you think they would wear them if they couldn’t breathe? And no they didn’t lace them tightly except for special occasions and that was only a few people. In fact for most of history, it was physically impossible to lace boned garments any tighter then they were supposed to go because metal eyelets weren’t invented yet. You achieved the small waist look by padding out your hips and maybe your chest and sleeves creating an optical illusion