#To the author's defense there's only one good positive nice character that has not annoyed me once till now BUT

[nokhwa]

They wrote the women of this show as all very much unbearable. And it's not in a way that's gender specific (a guy can't be annoying from being a pick me and a girl can't be annoying from being a dude bro, if you reverse the roles these tropes are quite fun), they just made very annoying characters and decided to make all of them women.

[sugarmaplewings-fics]

Baby, You’re Perfect

Pairing: BNHA Boys x reader

Warnings: Weight insecurity, negative body image/icky thoughts, body shaming from relatives, talks about skipping a meal once, general stuff like that. Kirishima’s reader is actively trying to lose weight. Cursing/language throughout (but mostly in Bakugou’s)

Characters: Bakugou, Kirishima, Kaminari

Author’s Note:

And here we have yet another request that is super old. I’m talking this has been chillin in my inbox for three good months. My sincere apologies, anon. And again, I’m sorry that that had to happen to you. Your grandma has no right to speak to you in that way. You’re making great progress and that’s amazing! Keep going strong, I believe in you. Anyhow, I had a lot of fun doing this request! We all need more chubby y/n on this website.

Yes, it says Hawks but I contacted the anon and we switched it to Denki bc I don’t write for Keigo (and we had a lovely conversation. they’re very nice :D). 

Also the first two insults are things that have actually been said/done to me irl (hehe tasty self projection) and the last one in Denki’s is from an episode from Tuca and Birdie (it’s a good show).

Anyway, be nice to people. Respect others and speak to them as equals. We’re all human beings here, trying to get by. We’re also like a month away from 2021, I shouldn’t have to say that >:(

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Sugar

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Bakugou:

You couldn’t take it anymore. You were tired of their faces, tired of their words. You were headed home early, and you would not be sorry.

You didn’t hate your family. They could just be a little . . . difficult sometimes.

At first, it had gone well. You’d arrived at your aunt’s house yesterday for a family gathering and met up with everyone. They’d hugged you and asked you how you were doing. They’d even asked after your pro hero boyfriend, who you had chosen not to bring along for the purpose of spending some quality alone time with your family.

But then it happened; the thing you’d been dreading, the type of comment you’d hoped against all things you wouldn’t hear this time. But there it was.

You were nearly done preparing for lunch, helping to place dishes of food out in the backyard for your family meal. Your aunt was starting to serve people food, and you happened to glance up to see one of your cousins making herself a plate.

“Do you want any more?” your aunt asked your cousin, ready with her ladle.

“No, thank you, I’ve got enough.” Your cousin flipped her long perfect hair over a perfectly narrow shoulder. “I wouldn’t want to get fat like—” her gaze wandered over to you, meeting your eyes pointedly, “—some people.”

You faltered. Had she really just said that? About you? Well, it wasn’t impossible that it would come from her, but seriously? Today?

You swallowed a lump that had started forming in your throat, setting down the new stack of paper plates. Your aunt shot you a pitying glance. Was she even going to say something? Would she call your cousin out on her words?

No. She just moved on. Moved on like you should have. But something about it stuck with you. Your cousin’s words and implications rang through your mind, making you feel sick to your stomach. You shouldn’t let it bother you this much. You were doing better, both with your habits and your confidence. So why did it hurt so bad?

The darker thoughts you’d kept at bay began to come back; you were worthless, you were ugly, you were undeserving. Why wouldn’t they stop? Why was your stomach churning and your hand shaking? Before you knew it, hints of tears began to prick at your eyes.

No.

You weren’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing you this way. But you were no longer interested in staying, any sense of hunger leaving you for sick dread.

Next thing you knew, you had said an early goodbye and put your things in the car, headed back home. Maybe driving wasn’t the best idea, since now you were alone with your thoughts. But crying wasn’t worth it. It was a bad idea, especially since now was the time to focus on the road ahead.

You couldn’t have gotten home sooner, a sense of relief washing over you once you pulled into the driveway. You unlocked your front door, pulling your bags in behind you. You heard movement coming from the kitchen as you set everything down; the sound of the faucet turning off signaling to you that Katsuki had heard you come in.

Heaving a sigh, you tried to chase the negative thoughts from your head. They shouldn’t be there, and it wasn’t something to dwell on. You were home again, and you wouldn’t have to deal with your family for another few months at least.

Bakugou’s head peeked out from around the doorframe, double checking that it was you who had walked in. “What are you doing here?” he called, ducking back to whatever he’d been doing in the kitchen.

“Hello to you too.” You tried to keep the tartness out of your voice, but some of it must have crept back in. The sounds from the other room stopped again, and the house went eerily quiet. Huffing, you dragged your luggage into your shared bedroom.

You felt drained, that was the only way to describe it. You couldn’t even bring yourself to hang your clothes in the closet. Giving up, you laid down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. You couldn’t help but hear your cousin’s words ringing over and over in your head, reminding you of the countless years of both internal and external torment you’d gone through regarding your weight.

The sound of footsteps in the doorway made you glance down, registering a spiky blond head of hair approaching you on the bed. You said nothing as the mattress dipped next to you, indicating that Bakugou had come up on your side.

The two of you were silent together for a long moment, and a stolen glance told you that Katsuki was mirroring you with his head resting on his arms as he stared at the blank ceiling.

“Are you going to tell me what’s got you in this mood?” he finally asked.

You sighed. “My cousin can just be a pain sometimes.”

“She the one you were telling me about or is it someone else?”

“Same girl.”

“Hmm.” Bakugou continued to keep his eyes trained solely up above. “What did she do this time?”

“Called me fat.” You tried to keep your voice even. You were simply stating a fact. It shouldn’t bother you like this, right? Even so, the tears you’d been forcing back once again rushed to your eyes, causing your tone to pitch. You swallowed them down again, blinking rapidly. This wasn’t something to spend time crying over.

“Don’t let it get to you,” Katsuki said, a little unhelpfully. “I don’t want to see you hating yourself.”

You frowned at this. “I don’t hate myself,” you said, thinking about your words for a moment before you spoke them. “I don’t hate my body. It’s just that . . . sometimes I wish it looked a little better, a little different. Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m enough as I am.”

“Don’t tell me you think you’d be happier looking like everyone else.” Bakugou’s gaze had shifted from a blank one to a glare.

“I don’t know,” you said, shrugging. “It’s just . . . hard sometimes. Being like this.”

Finally Bakugou rolled to face you, taking one of your hands in his. “I know you . . . struggle with your self-image or whatever, but you can’t let it take over your life, got it? You can’t just waste it worrying about what everyone thinks of you. You’re never going to be able to please everyone, but if they’ve got a problem with you, then they can go fuck themselves. You want to know the one person’s opinion who matters most? Yours. You have to be the one who’s taking care of yourself.” Katsuki paused for a moment, absentmindedly fiddling with your fingers as he considered his words.

“You want to know who’s opinion is the second most important?” he continued, his voice starting to get a little more mumbly. “Mine. I picked you because I love you. I love everything about you, from your shitty, annoying personality to your gorgeous body. You are so much more than just ‘enough’ for me, so don’t go worrying about that. You’re everything to me, and you know that, right? I love you no matter what, so don’t let this ruin your whole day.” He kissed your knuckles, signaling that he had said his peace.

You smiled at him, a tear or two finally sneaking past your defenses. “How—how do you do that?”

“What?”

“Sometimes you say something horribly stupid and I swear I hate you, and then next thing I know, you’re telling me everything I need to hear.”

“Tch, I can be eloquent whenever I want. It’s a choice.”

“Alright.” You rolled over so you could properly face him. “Can I have a hug?”

Bakugou rolled his eyes, but nevertheless held open his arms. You happily snuggled into the hard, built muscle enveloping you, offering a beautiful contrast to your own soft body.

“Do you need me to talk to your cousin?” Bakugou asked. “I’ll do it.”

“Nah, let her go.” You nuzzled your nose into his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

______________

Kirishima:

You honestly expected your family to last longer when it came to keeping from upsetting you. Nevertheless, maybe you were being a little too optimistic. But come on, did they have to ruin everything the literal second you walked through the door?

Even after the scathing comment, followed by a half-hearted, hasty brushing off, you forced yourself to spend time with them. It wasn’t often that you got to see this half of your family, so you decided to ignore it with the rest of them.

But as you sat on the couch sipping tea, you were unable to focus on the light conversation buzzing around you. The event that happened mere minutes before played over again in your mind, causing you to wince.

You’d walked into the house, prepared to greet everyone and have a nice time, when your aunt looked up from her position on her arm chair. “Hello, (Y/N),” she’d begun. “Ah, look, you’re still fat.”

Your heart had almost literally stopped beating in your chest as you froze in the threshold. Had she just said what you thought you heard? You must have been mistaken, right?

Any positive anticipation you’d had of seeing your relatives had plummeted to your feet, and you strongly considered turning around in place and leaving without another word.

But you couldn’t do that, of course not. Then your aunt had begun to babble something about how it made you look cute like a baby, but her words had already done their damage.

You tolerated the rest of your afternoon with them, but it was a great relief to you when you were finally able to leave and go home. As soon as you pulled into your driveway, you exhaled a sigh of relief. It was over with, and it hadn’t been that bad.

Eijirou wasn’t home, but you knew he wouldn’t be long after you. You went about making dinner, knowing he’d appreciate it once he got home. He was always so tired these days.

Even so, as you stirred broth in a pot, your aunt’s words rang in your head. You vaguely remembered telling her about your weight loss a month ago. You figured you’d been making considerable progress, and you knew that no one was more proud of you than Eijirou himself. But had it really made a difference?

After a moment of fretting, you turned off the stove. You walked into your shared bedroom, flicking on the light. Your eyes caught sight of your reflection in the mirror. You frowned, going up to it. Turning your body this way and that, you tried to see if you recognized a change in your appearance. You lifted your shirt, only to wince at yourself and tug it back down. You pinched at your arms, your thighs, and your cheeks, growing almost angry at the way your fingers sunk into the flesh.

Maybe you hadn’t been making as much progress as you’d thought. Or the progress you had made wasn’t enough. Without you even realizing it, your mind began to toy with ways to speed things up. Guiltily, you found yourself wondering if Eijirou would notice if you just skipped dinner that night.

You shook your head to clear away the intrusive idea. No, that wouldn’t solve anything. Eijirou had told you that he’d help you lose weight the right way, so you’d stay healthy and be able to keep it off. It would be best to listen to him.

Still, you found your eyes glued to your reflection. You wouldn’t consider yourself vain, but there was something in the way that your eyes traced over your curves, wondering just how they might look on you if only you were a little smaller . . . .

Movement behind you in the mirror caught your eye, and you were quick to recognize a head of spiky red hair. You must not have heard Kirishima come in through the front door.

“Hello,” you said with less cheer than usual.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted you, coming up from behind to give you a hug.

You leaned back into his chest as you both stared at each other’s reflections.

“Checking out my perfect girlfriend?” he teased, referring to how your eyes continued to trace down your body. “That’s my job, you know.”

You snorted, gently rubbing at his forearm.

“So how was your family?”

“Okay,” you shrugged.

“I saw you left something on the stove. Are you doing okay?”

Oh, Kirishima. How did he do it?

You shrugged. “I guess I didn’t really have a good time there. Got a little upset is all.”

Eijirou frowned. “What happened?”

You took one of his hands in yours and began to play with his fingers, now determined to keep your eyes from catching another glimpse of yourself. “My aunt told me I was fat.”

You missed the flash of genuine anger that shot through Kirishima’s eyes. He knew this was something you’d struggled with for a long time. Your aunt had no business making comments like that about your body, especially now.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, deciding to keep himself calm for your sake.

You continued to fiddle with his large hands. “I just worry sometimes that I’m not doing enough,” you mumbled. “What if it doesn’t work? What if I’m just meant to look like this?” You sniffled, hating the sudden tears that were beginning to fill your eyes.

“Honey . . .” Eijirou spun you around and held you to his chest, running a hand down the back of your head as you finally let the tears slide down your face. You nuzzled into his shirt, appreciating the warm, familiar feeling of it. “Even if you weren’t able to lose more weight, you know I’d still love you, right?” he said in a tender voice. “I’d think you’re beautiful either way.”

He tilted your chin up so he could look into your eyes, giving you one of the most loving gazes you’d ever seen. “And besides, we’re not together because of how you look. I love you for you. I love your personality, and how you always say and do the cutest things.” He bent down for a quick kiss, caressing your cheek as he pulled away. “I love your laugh, and I love looking into your beautiful eyes . . . .” He kissed you again, beginning to gently guide your bodies to the bed at the other wall.

Eijirou laid you down in the center of the mattress, hovering over you as he went in for another kiss. “I love your body too. This body, just the way it is. I love how it feels to hold you at night—” he kissed your neck. “—I love your chest, your butt, your arms, your thighs—” he nuzzled his nose against your face and neck. “—your cute tummy.” He pushed himself up and gazed down at it with such a genuine expression of love, you almost started tearing up again. “The cutest tummy in the world. And I love it because it’s yours.”

With that, he bent down again and lifted up your shirt just enough to give it a little kiss. You couldn’t help but let a giggle slip from your lips, which only made his ruby red eyes dart up to meet yours mischievously.

“You like that? What if I did it . . . again!” He placed a second kiss in a different spot, going for another and then another. You broke out into laughter, the sensation of his lips and nose brushing over your sensitive skin making you squirm in his hold.

Soon, he was laughing himself. He nuzzled into your skin one last time and blew a raspberry against your skin.

“Eiji—!” you began to protest through a laugh.

“What?” He smirked at you, moving up and settling his chin in the valley of your chest.

You smiled right back at him, bringing up your hand to brush the backs of your fingers against his cheek. “I love you.”

Kirishima took hold of your hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the backs of your knuckles as he looked into your eyes. “I love you too, baby.” He held your hand in his, getting lost for a moment simply looking at your face.

Eventually he sat up, laying down next to you and pulling you into his chest. “I’m proud of you too,” he told you, tucking your head under his chin. “I know you’re actively making a change for the better, and you’re doing really well. Results won’t happen immediately, you just have to stick with it sometimes.”

You sighed through your nose, taking his hand in yours again. “I know. I just get discouraged sometimes is all.”

“And I’ll just be here to put you back on track. You’ve got this, you know.” He hugged you tight against him, rubbing your back. “Are you hungry?” he finally asked. “I’ll help you make dinner.”

“Sure,” you said, chuckling lightly.

“What? We both have to eat, and you know me. I’m a hungry shark.”

You laughed again, leaning up to kiss his jaw.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yeah, a bit.”

“Well, there’s always more where that came from.” He kissed your forehead. “I’m here for you, okay?”

______________

Kaminari:

If there was one thing Denki hated more than anything, it was seeing you upset. 

He could tell something was off the moment you came through the front door. You were too quiet, and that bothered him. When you finally made it up to your shared room, Kaminari was already watching the doorway for you.

He noticed immediately that your eyes were puffy and a little red. Even your posture looked defeated and slumped over.

“Hey, Denks,” you said once you noticed him stretched out on the bed. His heart broke even further when he saw you try for a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes.

“Hey, hey, what’s the matter?” Kaminari got up, clearing the space between you so he could put his hands on your shoulders.

“I—I just,” you began to stammer out, feeling the flimsy dam you’d placed behind your eyes begin to falter. “I . . . don’t know if I want to talk about it right now.” You covered your burning face with your palms. “It’s stupid anyway. I shouldn’t let things like that get to me.”

Kaminari frowned, trying to figure out what might have made you so upset. But he wasn’t one to pry when it came to situations like these, and he knew you’d tell him on your own time.

Even so, he led you to where he’d once taken position on the bed, pulling you up with him. He knew that sometimes you simply wanted to be distracted from things, so he decided to do just that. Allowing you to settle in next to him, he picked his controller up from the covers again where he’d set it down.

You noticed he’d been playing Minecraft. You let yourself take a mild interest in his mining session that you caught him in the middle of. You watched him wander through a cave system; placing torches, killing the occasional zombie, and mining out various ores he happened upon.

What you didn’t see was how often he shot you glances, studying your face for any signs of you getting upset again. He saw when you finally took your eyes off his screen, frowning distantly as you twisted the material of the blanket underneath you.

Before he could ask you again what was going on, you opened your mouth to speak. “Do you think this outfit is too much?”

Denki faltered, confused. “No? What do you mean by that? I think you look really pretty.”

You pursed your lips. Clearly that wasn’t the answer you’d wanted. “I just—I don’t know.” You frowned and went back to avoiding his eyes.

“Are you going to tell me what happened today?” Denki asked. A sudden idea struck him. Before you could answer him again, he stood up on the bed and walked over to a shelf you kept just above it. He pulled down a large stuffed Pikachu he’d gotten you a few years ago, and went back to sitting next to you. “Would it be easier to tell him?”

Denki positioned the toy in his lap, grabbing hold of its little arms and letting it go through various motions, starting with a little wave at you.

You couldn’t help but snort at Kaminari’s antics, looking from the plushie to the curious but concerned expression on your boyfriend’s face.

“Your Pikachus are worried about you.” Denki lifted it up higher on his chest, continuing to fidget and wave the arms back and forth in a little dance. “You saw your family today, right? How did that go?”

Your face fell again and you shrugged. “It went well I guess. My grandma just said something dumb and it made me upset.”

Denki frowned, lifting the arms of the Pikachu so its hands were on its pink cheeks. “What did she say?”

You shrugged again. “I was messing around with my cousins and I said I looked like a snacc. And then she said that snacks were probably what made me so fat in the first place.”

Denki’s frown deepened. “That’s not very nice.”

“I don’t think she knew what I was talking about, to be fair. And maybe it’s a little funny. I mean, she’s not wrong.” You rested your chin in your hands, sighing. “It just caught me off guard. It’s a dumb thing to be upset over, like I said—”

“Hey.” Denki met your eyes. “It’s not dumb. You have every right to be upset.” He held his arms open to you. “Come here.”

You sat up, letting him embrace you.

“Do you need me to remind you how beautiful you are and how much I love you?” he asked from next to your ear. “Because I’ll do it.”

He took your shy smile as a yes, letting you settle back as he proceeded to lift up the stuffed yellow toy.

“Are you hearing this, bro?” he addressed it, throwing a serious look on his face. “The most gorgeous person on the planet is sad. We have to do something about it.”

Denki put the Pikachu’s paw on its chin, tapping it for a second before removing it again. “What’s that?” he asked it. “You have an idea?”

He lifted the toy to his ear, pretending to listen to it for a moment as he nodded along. Once he was satisfied, Denki scooched himself even closer to you. He brought Pikachu’s nose up to your cheek and made a kiss sound with his lips. Setting the toy down beside you on the bed, he motioned for you to come sit in his lap.

You obeyed, settling yourself in between his thighs and wrapping your legs around his hips.

“There you go,” he muttered, slotting his nose beside yours as he touched foreheads with you. “I love you and you’re the most important person in my life. You know that, right?” He waited for you to nod before continuing. “And I know that you can feel a little insecure sometimes with how you look. You’ve got bad days, and you have good days. It’s my job to be there for you on these bad days, and you can be there for me when I have mine. I want you to know that you’re so beautiful and I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

He connected your lips to his for a long moment, trying to convey all his feelings for you into it. “And don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re less-than. They’re not the kind of person you should be listening to. Trust me when I say that you’re perfect just being you.” Denki wiped a tear trail off your cheek with his thumb, leaning in to kiss the skin there. 

“Thanks, Denki,” you said, your voice just above a whisper.

He gave you a soft, caring smile; his fingers still lingering on your cheek. “Is there anything you want to do together to make you feel better? We could watch a movie, we could snuggle, whatever you want.”

You leaned in and hugged him tight. “I love you.”

He hugged you back. “I love you too. You’re my sunshine nugget, and it would take a heck of a lot to ever change that.”

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Taglist: @basicaegyo​ @fourteenow​ @iiminibattlehero​ @katsugay​​ @nabo39​ @onepieceask​ @pyrofanatic​​ @sendhelpimstupid​ @xoxopam4​​ 

[ravenadottir]

Yo! I had so many questions I wanted to ask you while you were gone but I of course wasn’t gonna send in asks while you were on hiatus! I wanted you to have peace. But I should have written them down!! 😭

Now I only have this one question. I saw your ask to Mango about Chelsea’s super power and now I want your take on this. Not on Chelsea but an islander or islanders of your choice. What super powers would you give your favorite islanders? They can have more than one power like super heroes do if you feel like it fits.

hi! i missed you!

oh oh oh oh!! anything you remember, send it my way! i need something to help me wake up from this brain coma i've been in. i blame cmm for that...

ok, so i love this question, thank you for sending it to me! i'll definitely focus on a lot of them because well, i love the genre, and i love talking about them 🥺

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

lucas

fire. he's able to start it, besides dominating and bending it over to his own will. sometimes uses it for (partial) evil and more. being the anti hero i think he is, i would LOVE to see lucas playing with fire while delivering a speech that instigates the good guy in front of him. in a cool, well cut, all black suit with just one (1) red scarf on the lapel, or his neck, he would look amazing sending blazes everywhere! i even have a song for him: play with fire. aaaah the idea of lucas and fire sends me to heaven, hell, purgatory and back! he can be like tuxedo mask, regarding how he annoys everyone with his smugness.

gary

colossus. strength and possibility of turning into a dense metal at will? gary is perfect for it! he has the body shape and weight, and the skills for the maintenance. picture this: you walk down the hallway to go to the bathroom, only to hear him moaning in there. you're uncomfortable, thinking the worst, only to open the door and see him oiling his joints and almost falling on the floor. "a little help? i can't reach some places..." please, give me metal body gary, it would clear all my trauma! plus, as he is in the villa, he would exercise his comic relief role.

carl

brainiac with technology/time bending. (@lasswithumor's idea for 'time' makes me smile! thank you for the inspo!) not actual brainiac from dc though, let me explain. i always get the sense carl could be tony stark or bruce wayne, minus the assholery. he's much humbler and quiet, but still very capable. as for time bending being his power, it could make him overcome this sense of running out of time he always seems to have. he might have a hardship about it because he never seems to find a balance, so this skill is probably the only thing he could actually be good at, and benefit from.

noah

talking to the dead, like klaus hargreeves. something i would love to see is how tormented he would be while it happens. distressed noah is a beautiful concept, and part of the reason why he would be such a troubled character. picture this: he uses those people to fight in exchange of favors, like finding out who killed them, or to tell their families how peaceful they are now, among other things. noah and ghosts ring different to me, and the thought of him being troubled? even more! not like klaus, but definitely close to that. i love that "short temper" side of him, and in this context, it would be perfect. plus, his looks being similar to something from the 1920's, without the hat. so white shirt, suspenders, dark brown pants. ugh, he would look so good in it!

henrik

vines and plant banding, like layla williams in sky high. there's no other answer for him. i thought about making him avalanche, from x men, but i see him more connected to plants than any other element of nature. the way he would smirk and grow a small vine around his pinky while talking about a brilliant idea he just had? PLEASE. GIVE - IT - TO - ME, I LIVE FOR SMUG HENRIK! and you can be damn sure his looks would include this ponytail, by @juggalohenrik.

kassam

at first i thought invisibility, because of his personality and how he behaves in groups, but then it hit me, supersonic scream. he can take his frustrations out on a single booming scream and be done with it. i would love to see kassam being teased and beat up, only to get up from the ground, scrapes all over, bloody nose, only to position himself and close his fists to focus, before delivering a resounding scream to round it up real nicely. that's definitely a power he would find useful and excels in. the visuals definitely don't hurt either!

bobby

he's a very peculiar boy, and so his powers would have to be too. it might sound crazy, but hear me out! laughter inducement. the power itself can cause the person to laugh so hard, eventually the air is expelled from their lungs and they have quite the death! it's gruesome and i love it, it's the perfect juxtaposition between it and bobby's personality that is so bubbly. picture this: battlefield, gary smugly says "i guess that's the only way you could make someone laugh." to which bobby replies with a laugh "including you, tin can" while making colossus!gary laugh and fall on the floor because of it. it might require lots of energy, so bobby can't always cause mass laughter, just like in the villa... jk jk jk! i just know his uniform would be clown like, before priya adjusted to a beautiful dark teal piece. before that? goofy pink mask and cape with sprinkles, and tights everywhere else. he would also be the type of hero that is a comic relief. ironically, in this case.

lottie

rogue. the power and the visuals fit in so well! sucking up someone's power and/or energy SCREAMS lottie's personality all over! if i could adjust it so the girl doesn't manifest it unless she wants to, that's even better. lottie with dark hair and a streak of platinum, or the opposite, would look another level and i'm here for it! plus, the gloves... AAAAH THE GLOVES. she would smirk before taking them off and turning that grin into a determined smug expression before touching her enemy. PLEASE!

priya

TURNING - PEOPLE - INTO - GOLD. i said what i said. similar to medusa's power of turning people into stone. flowy dresses for the goddess looks, a smirk on her lips while she does it, and golden shiny eyes that glow bright when she throws her gold curse upon her enemy! she's goofy, so you know she has a cheesy catchphrase, but i can't think of anything right now. it's there, i just need to find it.

hope

mind control. CAN I JUST SAY? she practically has that power already. being persuasive and having the power of negotiation the way she already does would fit in perfectly. and if i may add, storm looks like the uniform and the "bright white eyes" while it happens???also! hope as the person who plans the attacks and defense.

marisol

persuasion. similar to allison hargreeves. one word and they will do it. at first i considered super strength, for being so unexpected to someone that petit, but if you account for her personality, persuasion as a super power is so much cooler! plus, she doesn't have to try hard, the seed of argumentation is already there. in her origin story you could have marisol having a moral grey area where she debates whether or not using those powers in court. i would love to see this dilemma and her going through it, since there's a clear distinction in what she considers right and wrong, and the ethically correct options to choose. as looks go, all she needs is a suit, similar to the prom one, and definitely a ponytail and gloves.

ibrahim.

flying and speed. something about rahim screams traditional super hero persona and i can't help but stir into it. he's perfect for the superman alter ego, the one that talks about justice and fights the big guy for the little ones. rahim has a way of going around and making people's lives better, at least that's how i see him. i asked for @itsrealityboo 's approval about this, because you know, she's the authority on golf boy, and she added something really cool that i hadn't thought about: "I will say that I could definitely see Rahim as a part of a team tho, like the fantastic four! I think because of his insecurities, he’s need some type of support system or even older mentor. He’d definitely go through that awkward phase of learning how to manage his powers if he wasn’t born with them lol"

i definitely agree after reading it, it makes so much sense! i don't know if that need comes from being the younger brother, or having those expectations at home (about being suave and all) but that would for sure be a part of his origin story as a superhero.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

in case you missed the asks i sent about superpowers, here is chelsea, by mango, and elisa, by kc

[heinzpilsnergonewild]

Vegeta’s Character Analysis Looooooooooong Read

Oh my, what can I say? I just really love to write long essays in a language that isn’t even native to me, lol.

Well, nobody’s perfect, I guess. ... Were you expecting a Cell joke here? I may not be perfect, but that doesn't mean I have to be that predictable.

Ahem, anyway.

This isn't exactly a psychological analysis of the character - more like, hmm, a storytelling analysis. Or something in between, really.

You may not find anything fundamentally new in this text, but I definitely had fun writing it, haha.

It's mostly amateur. I have a useless psychology degree, but not a literature one.

My classic rant about vegebul fics is included, of course.

Summary: proper psychological analysis requires a single continuous personality, which Vegeta simply doesn’t have.

The more I think about Vegeta, the more I come to the conclusion that he is only pretending to be a consistently evolving character.

In fact, he's a bit like 10 different characters in one, which abruptly replace each other (and that's without considering the difference caused by the voice actors’ approach and the changes in his looks). Essentially, Vegeta's a collection of disparate images, arbitrarily lined up by Toriyama and hastily glued together. And the beginning of this line is so far from the end of it that these two extreme images cannot be perceived as belonging to the same person. Well, because human psychology just doesn't work that way.

(Not that Vegeta is unique in this respect – it’s a common feature of characters in long stories that authors compose as they write. Still, his case is quite extreme and interesting as example.)

I mean, take Vegeta in the Saiyan or the Namek arc. He's a complete psychopath. He clearly doesn’t suffer at heart from the unnecessary violence (as, for example, Guts from Berserk). His behavior looks like something natural for him, not an unhealthy defensive reaction. He enjoys it, he smiles happily, killing and torturing weak innocent people. And such a degree of psychopathy is not something that can be healed by a couple of deep personality crises or years of peaceful family life. Vegeta's redemption arc works through strong emotional impact and forgetfulness of the audience, but makes very little sense when viewed in retrospect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps the biggest, hmm, splitting of the personality occurred with Vegeta right after the Namek arc. Toriyama had already made a small retcon of the character’s motives before (to include Vegeta in the context of the Freeza army after the Saiyan arc), but it didn't feel that drastic.

You see, until Vegeta was invited to Bulma’s house…..

(Gosh, Toriyama, you could’ve done it more subtly, really. Vegeta killed Yamcha, threatened to kill Bulma, gutted Zarbon in front of her eyes, slaughtered an entire Namekian village... Oh well.)

…Ahem, anyway, right up to Bulma's invitation, Vegeta looked to me like a character who, hmm, has a life of his own? I mean, you have always felt that his motives and behavior were generated by the bizarre social system, not related to the little world of Goku and his friends. Simply put, Vegeta was a natural product of the big space civilization, an organic part of it. His whole personality was formed by it, all his plans, motivation and ambitions were associated with it. And although in the Saiyan arc, he gave the impression of an independent entrepreneurial chief at the head of a small hierarchy, in the Namek arc it was revealed that Vegeta is actually far from independent. He lost his throne and his people, he was in slavery to the tyrant all his life, and wants to take power for himself. So, his social background and the motives caused by it post factum get much more complex. But in short, Vegeta wanted a highest possible position in the hierarchy he knew. In this way, he was… social? His belonging to the Saiyan race was only a small (although important) part of the overall picture. Because the Saiyans were dead, but the Freeza Empire was alive.

But when Toriyama realized Vegeta's popularity and decided to keep him in the story after Namek, it came as a blow to the character's personality. Apparently, the author simply couldn't come up with an elegant way that could keep the character in all its complexity around, and therefore did a very clumsy thing. He roughly cut Vegeta out of his social context and almost forcibly glued him to the main character group like a poorly done appliqué. But although you see rough edges and glue drips, the story moves on rapidly, distracting you with Freeza and Future Trunks, and you don't stop to think about what happened. This is how, almost imperceptibly, Toriyama changed Vegeta's motives (and, consequently, the basis of his personality). Yes, Vegeta's saiyan pride was also significant part of his character previously, but when it became his sole and central motivation after Namek, you feel like a very big and important piece of him has been arbitrarily cut off. This wouldn't have happened if Toriyama had followed the logic of previously established social motives, rather than his desire to make Vegeta a convenient figure. Now, bound hand and foot by the author, the character is forced to behave as the plot requires.

Still, all this can be justified by the fact that Vegeta experienced a deep emotional shock as a result of death, which forced him to rethink his life priorities and wait for Goku (especially in the manga, where he just lived with Bulma for a whole year after Namek, without even trying to use dragonballs) ... And then he waited for the androids (despite the final death of Freeza and his father, which was an excellent chance to try to take over the decapitated empire). Anyway, this rationalization doesn't negate the fact that the character, as a result, has lost a significant part of the fire that he demonstrated in the Namek arc. His new energy, the energy of obsession with surpassing Goku, turns him into a new character – bitter, marginalized and focused on training.

(Ironically, the very splitting that made him a less attractive character in my eyes allowed vegebul to take place. After all, imagining the romantic relationship of the nice Bulma and Vegeta at the height of his villainous ambition is really difficult. That just would be a psychologically implausible story.)

In the Android and Cell arcs, after brief glimpses of the SSJ superiority, Toriyama turned Vegeta into a plot tool, whose personality flaws he could use to spoil the situation favorable for the heroes. As a result, Vegeta continued to be an angry and unhappy character who has lost most of his charisma, but on top of that, he also started to be really annoying. ... Still, also kinda amusing thanks to his truly impressive inability to draw obvious conclusions from the ego bruises he gets.

(If you ask me, the character's biggest contribution to the Cell arc was to ignore the existence of condoms, lol. Although strictly speaking even it was an achievement of Future Vegeta (RIP). But seriously, Vegeta's relationship with Trunks turned out to be one of the few things that I was really interested in about this part of the story.)

And then there was Goku’s death and the 7-year-gap. ... At the end of which Vegeta still didn't look like a happy man who has found his place in the world. Even though he had seven whole years (and a spaceship) to change something. I mean, this is the case when it'd be logical to expect changes in the character, but for some reason they didn't really happen (or they did, but veeery quietly and unstable). I mean, Vegeta trains with Trunks, yes. And he's married to Bulma now, apparently (which we learn only at the end of the arc though). And he hasn’t killed himself yet, which means that he sees some meaning in his existence. Hurray, I guess?.. The problem is that when we first see Vegeta after the timeskip, he keeps walking around with such a sullen expression, as if Goku had died just yesterday. (Remember Vegeta in the Saiyan arc? He smiled quite often. For the wrong reasons, but hey.) Basically, Toriyama tried to sit on two chairs at the same time here - 1) keep Vegeta as recognizable as possible (because he hasn't decided what to do with him yet) and 2) keep him around (which doesn't make sense for the character if he hasn't undergone significant changes during the timeskip). And the result of this hesitant approach is an undesirable effect - it feels as if Vegeta hasn't built a new life for himself all these years, but only waited for Goku to return.

As if the man is unable to evolve without Goku's influence. Until Kakarot does or says something, or is just around, everyone else in Vegeta's life and his own reflection has little or no meaning. Old social ambitions? His wife and child? New insights gained from life on Earth? Pffft. Goku is able to destroy the seven years’ worth progress (no matter how small it may seem) in one day, and at the same time, one fight with him is enough for Vegeta's character development to jump forward explosively. It sounds like a solid ground for shipping, but In fact it’s just a direct consequence of the author's poorly chosen narrative structure.

The thing is, Toriyama tend to avoid romance and slices of life, and shows Vegeta's personality mainly through fights and their consequences. And at the time Goku just turned out to be the only significant character for Vegeta, the fight against whom could be used as an excuse to develop the character in front of the audience. Well, Toriyama couldn't get Vegeta to fight Bulma or himself, you know.

I believe that the plot structure chosen by the author (rapidly changing action events immediately after a long timeskip) is not a very good basis for a redemption arc. For a good redemption, a character had to have screen time during which small changes accumulate gradually, between the big points. And Vegeta simply didn't have it. Besides, the scheme by which Vegeta develops is really messy. Because at first, Toriyama kinda froze his development at the neutral point (thereby partially devaluing the influence of Vegeta's family on him). Then in one moment, the author abruptly reversed even this the-end-of-the-Cell-arc development with Majin Vegeta (this time completely devaluing the family factor, because the betrayal was Vegeta’s conscious decision). God, how I hated the Majin Vegeta idea. And in the next scene, the author made a quick retcon, which gave the family’s influence the status of a ground for Vegeta’s personal growth again for no apparent reason. It's as if a huge bundle of family values was post factum squeezed into the character in defiance of everything that we just saw with our own eyes. This is a complete narrative mess.

But... oddly enough, Vegeta's redemption still manages to work, and work spectacularly. My guess is that it's because by that time the audience is already SO sick of Vegeta, frozen in his bitter anti-heroism, that it desperately wants the author to finally do something new with the miserable guy. Well, at least get him out of his misery. So people are willing to accept it in any possible form.

... And the author chose the form of a powerful emotional catharsis. The explosion was legendary, haha.

I don't even know if this is a good reason to call Toriyama a genius (after all, he found a very clever way out of a difficult situation, in which he found himself thanks to his own bad decisions.)

The only thing I'm sure of is that despite everything I was very sad because of Vegeta's death. I didn't even realize that I had become emotionally attached to this asshole until he made such a spectacular exit, lol. As if something had broken inside of me, and all the analyticity of my mind couldn’t prevent it. I was surprised when I found myself crying really hard - usually my emotions don't reach this level due to fictional stories. (Well, maybe it was due to the fact that my own father was dying of cancer at that time, and the moment just triggered my emotions. ... Oops, it seems a little too personal, doesn't it? Well, at the end of the day, this fact is an integral part of my unique dbz experience. Come to think of it, in dbz, fathers die regularly).

But while this scene greatly affects emotions and forces a new viewer (or reader) to truly reconsider their attitude towards the character for the first time, the absence of a neat gradual movement towards this moment weakens its influence somewhat.

At this point, Vegeta’s character splits once again (perhaps the last time within DBZ). You simply cease to understand who this man really is and who he was before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, when I look at all the images of Vegeta in general, I come to the conclusion that I like this character the most in the first two arcs and in the end of the last arc. Two directly opposite moral poles.

(Funny enough, because my initial reaction to Vegeta and Nappa was annoyance: "Well hello, the next stereotypical villains who like to chat and laugh maliciously instead of simply killing their victims." (Still, against the background of Freeza, Vegeta turned out to be a much lesser evil in every sense, haha). You see, usually I'm not a person who likes villains. Basically, I only distinguish such characters from others as a result of romance or redemption. It’s only after that I begin to see aesthetics in their villainous charisma as well.)

And now, in retrospective, I believe that at the beginning of the story Vegeta is at the maximum of his vitality and charisma. Especially compared to his ever-crisis moody version (who supposedly lives happily with a loving family). In the Saiyan arc, he's objectively the most powerful character (Freeza didn’t even exist in Toriyama's head at the time). Vegeta is domineering, playful and unpredictable, but most importantly - his self-confidence is fully justified. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. He's really in control. These are, if I may say so, quite exciting qualities in a man, haha. Even if he looks like an evil dwarf in stupid armor and bullies some weaklings. I'd even say his demeanor in the Saiyan arc (especially with the voice of early Horikawa) is suspiciously easy to translate into a sexual context (well, until he loses control and gets hysterical, lol).

The Namek arc, placing Vegeta in a broader context, somewhat spoiled his original image (after all the big words, it turned out that he was running errands for Freeza all this time), but gave him a more interesting background and a strong drive. He had ambitions and a socially significant goal, and he actively and passionately fought for them against a clearly superior enemy. In addition, his inability to defeat Freeza by brute force forced him to use his brains from time to time, and not just pull another power up out of his ass, as is now traditionally done in DragonBall. (Needless to say, I consider high intelligence to be one of the most attractive traits). All this made his position in the plot as interesting as possible. He literally sparkled with energy.

Well, we know what happened next. Brain Death, an eternal chase after Goku, and an off-screen family life on a backwater planet that Vegeta is supposedly happy with. Until he suddenly became a really beautiful character without a proper justification for this (well, at least the explosion was spectacular). Really, I like the general concept of redemption, and yet... the way Toriyama portrays it in the story just doesn't work convincingly enough for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another point I’d like to cover in this already too long essay ahhh I'm a monster is Vegeta’s personality in fanfiction.

Reproducing (?) Vegeta is a bit like playing with a lego set - his personality and behavior is always the result of a conscious reconstruction, which is based around a specific point on the long contradictory line. Depending on which end of the spectrum the chosen point is, the author is forced to shade facts related to the opposite end, or to give new context to Vegeta's past (or future) actions. It's always noticeable when the author extends the later, sympathetic Vegeta's image to an earlier segment of the story. Apparently, it's possible to kill the person who raised you (with an evil smile on your face) just because the situation was too stressful lol. Likewise, when the authors allow Vegeta to remain a charismatic psychopath, the story wouldn't work without ignoring some parts of the later canon.

(And, of course, there is always a "medium" type of Vegeta - Vegeta from the 3-year-gap, whose personality is almost entirely based on anime fillers. Yay, here comes the promised vegebul rant

Honestly, I'm pretty tired of this "gravity room exploded again woman grrr" type of Vegeta.

Because if you take the manga, we have no idea how Vegeta actually behaved with Bulma and her parents, what his training regimen was, and what he did in his free time besides unprotected sex. People elevate his rudeness and irrational self-torturing to the absolute because of all these filler patterns, but this is just one of the possible versions of the events and the character's behavior during this time (albeit partly canonical). But... there are also alternatives. There are smart Vegeta, curious Vegeta, civilized Vegeta. Honestly - I don't think Bulma would've married him later if there was nothing in his personality that’d make communication with him enjoyable. I mean, she's a rich modern woman, she doesn't need a husband just for convenience and Vegeta is a marginal freeloader anyway. And if we subtract good looks (which people often attribute to Vegeta) from the equation, then the idea that he has no interest in anything other than training and cannot maintain an interesting conversation becomes completely unconvincing. Toriyama clearly didn't attach much importance to the fact of their marriage, and generally avoided romantic scenes as if they were on fire (and, perhaps, did the right thing), but these two just had to be capable of adequate and mutually pleasant personal interaction in order to take this step.

In general, Toriyama's lack of attention to most aspects of the characters' lives other than fighting and training, on the one hand, can be considered a drawback of DBZ, but on the other, it creates a lot of room for fans' imagination. But not everyone uses it. Most authors generally repeat the same tropes over and over again and don't try to look at the three-year-gap from a new angle, although the canon provides all the possibilities for this. Because of this, fics in this genre often seem boring. But in fact, it's not the setting itself that is boring, but only dusty formulas in the heads of the authors.)

Ahem, so where were we?.. Oh yes.

Actually, Vegeta's inconsistency is a very handy character trait for the authors, as it minimizes the chance of accidental OOC. Indeed, it's quite difficult to make someone to behave out of character if he has many different canon versions of himself, lol. On the other hand, this leads to the fact that the character seems to... kinda disintegrate. You never see his whole face, because he simply doesn't have it. As a result, Vegeta turns into a mosaic that must be reassembled each time. And I keep staring at this crazy kaleidoscope like an idiot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, that's... quite a lot of contradictions in my relationship to Vegeta, haha. Still, life without contradictions would be somewhat boring, I guess.

Thanks for your attention I suppose?..... lol, as if someone really got to this point

The End.

P.S. 1: The antisocial version of Vegeta who doesn't understand stupid human rituals and hates crowds, but puts up with it for the sake of his family is my spirit animal, haha. This is just so damn relatable to my autistic personality. Maybe I'm an alien myself.

P.S. 2: Actually, my favorite dbz character is Piccolo. Yep.

[rpbetter]

I often see multis post that they want to make a new muse, at the same time as they're backed up on threads and asks, and they get their followers to "enable" them to make that muse in the post replies. What is your take on this? Is it a they-can-do-what-they-want situation, or is it reasonable to be annoyed when I see this? Or both?

Hey, Anon!

Both.

I mean, as usual, this is my opinion of an opinion-based matter. This isn't an equation that has an objectively right to wrong scale, it isn't actually hurting any living person or thing. But...it is incredibly annoying and can be hurtful.

They can totally do what they want, and much of the nature of genuine creativity is exactly that - the allowance of doing whatever you so desire. It's something I support rather adamantly, but it's also something I support trying our best to do responsibly and without being hurtful to anyone in a hobby that involves more than ourselves.

This isn't deciding to write another fic when you've not finished the previous four or five that others were interested in, or never finishing any of your original fiction, but continually starting new projects. While others might be enjoying those things as well, you didn't agree to interact with them. They're audience members, not participants.

When others are participants in a hobby that has to work both ways, it's different. Your actions do affect other, real human beings.

So, I totally feel like you've a right to be annoyed every time you see that happening. I do. I tend to unfollow people who do that repeatedly, as we're not pursuing the hobby in the same way. I'll argue all day that someone has a right to their, sometimes literally, eighty-plus muses they never develop or stick to, but that doesn't mean I want to engage with them as a writing partner.

For those of us who want long-term writing partners with the same, well-developed muses, this kind of thing just is annoying. As is everything else that comes with it.

As in...

They're constantly posting "talk me out of adding x" as code for "talk me into writing x."

No one actually wants to be talked out of it, which was probably more obvious to everyone else here than it was me for a little while lmao I tend to take things rather literally. This was, as one can imagine, not appreciated! Telling someone in total earnestness, "I really don't think that's a good choice. You're always saying how overwhelmed you are and just dropped multiple threads yesterday, so adding another muse is going to make you feel worse eventually. Don't do it! :)" is so not what they were looking for. As was evident by the return meltdown over how they could do what they wanted, like I said they couldn't or had any authority over what they're doing with their time.

It's an obnoxious bit of pandering for a foregone conclusion.

Have you ever seen anyone who posts that sort of thing not pick up that muse? I haven't. I've only seen muns who are legitimately on the fence about it asking others in private conversations or testing out the muse decide against it. The thing that makes this incredibly irritating is the attention-seeking and need to validate something they must know isn't a great choice, otherwise, they'd just do it. They're aware that they're behind on drafts, asks, and other things - aware that this is maybe a dick move when they owe everyone already. So, they're seeking "permission" with full knowledge that multiple mutuals are going to hop on that post with encouragement, even some of the ones being messed over by this choice.

It puts people in a bad situation.

Some of those people genuinely don't care, they just want to interact with any muse, and I'm going to be awful and say it - they don't care about totally interchangeable muses and have them themselves. That's fine, this isn't a problem for them. It is for the mutuals who are hoping that maybe if their writing partner gets into this new muse, they'll get a reply to their threads with that energy, or that they'll stick to this one and they can have consistent interactions with them. It is for the mutuals who feel pressured to respond positively because they fear not responding at all will make them seem like bad rpers.

One more thing playing into the counter logic excuse for shitty behavior of "it's just a hobby" is one more thing too many, and it does exactly that.

No one wants to be accused of being remotely too invested in RP anymore, of taking it too seriously, or having any emotional investment in muses, stories, or muns. Not accepting every choice someone makes that negatively impacts you with a grin on your face while you dump confetti on them for it just isn't a comfortable option for a lot of muns anymore. Honesty isn't a comfortable option. While the other option isn't either, it seems better than that mutual noticing you're the only writing partner who didn't hop onto that post with support any of the multiple times they reblogged it. It's only a hobby in which everyone can do what they want until what one wants clashes. Then, you're getting a callout for being addicted to RP.

And the way it tends to clash most is in having expectations of others. Ones that would be totally normal in any other hobby requiring interaction with other people.

Like not overburdening yourself at the expense not only of yourself but those on your "team." That's what is being done when someone knows they cannot keep up with themselves, but continues to add to the situation with new muses.

Not only are you no longer getting responses already while they're intending to add even more to their overflowing plate, you'll be dropped again when they have to "fresh start" their blog because they're burned out.

I have to put that in quotations because I don't know how it's a fresh start when you keep everything but the blog layout the same. All the muses and all the behaviors, including adding a new one despite not having the time or interest necessary to do so, is inevitably maintaining the problems that led to burnout. Dropping every thread, changing the URL, a new blog layout, new aesthetics, isn't fixing the issue even if it temporarily reinvigorates the mun.

The mun is definitely doing things that are not helpful to them, it's stressful and upsetting to experience burnout, but it's at least that mun's choice. Both to do it and to become defensive over fixing it, thus, never fixing it. It isn't anyone else's choice to be repeatedly dropped or ignored, though...unless they just keep sticking around for it.

Again, we're supposed to respect everyone's choices. That's fine when it really works that way, when it is truly everyone. But it's not an acceptable decision to see a multimuse of twenty or more muses and say that's your limit, that you've experienced too many muns who are serial muse-adders not being able to keep up with themselves, so you don't interact with these blogs. If one feels that way, they had better not put it in their rules or ever be upfront about this as a reason, when one is demanded, for not following back or interacting.

It's not acceptable to see a writing partner adding another muse after they've owed you for months, just wiped their inbox, and keep expressing being overwhelmed/behind and become annoyed. Let alone dropping them or explaining to them why you are doing so.

The only "acceptable" course of action is hoping that they totally forget you exist so you can quietly slip away.

I don't feel like that's especially fair or mature. It certainly isn't helping the communication problem we absolutely do have here in the RPC when only one party is allowed to communicate without fear of being labeled, rather ironically, as a bad RP partner.

While this problem seems to be most prevalent in more casual RPers, it's certainly not isolated there. I feel like it's necessary to say that I've had muns I both interacted with and were simply on my dash alike who were not on that more casual side who went from being multis to being muse collectors. Once they hit over fifteen of them or so, they stopped even bothering to try to refrain from picking up at least one muse from every new piece of media they consumed or were inspired by.

It was more annoying because they had been capable of writing truly unique characters they stuck to, and even if they were, with full and upfront admission before interaction, slower to respond, those responses were well worth any wait for the quality of writing and storytelling going on. That's so much worse than someone who was always at a lower skill level as a writer, didn't have a good grasp on characterization, and wasn't especially dedicated to anything. It's depressing and disappointing, but it's also not what you think you're getting into when trying to carefully pick who to write with. Like everyone else, my time to enjoy this hobby is far from twenty-four-seven as well. It's important to me to try to choose muns I'll work out with well so that neither of us is wasting the other's time. And that's what it feels like - the investment of time was a waste because their hobby became adding infinite muses, or rather, the idea of muses.

So, yes, while it is fully everyone's right to write what and how they want to (even if it amounts to not writing at all), it'd be nice if we were all as committed to doing so in a way that was adult enough to respect commitments we've made to each other as we are, as a RPC, to losing our minds when someone merely drops the words "commitments" or "respect."

For the inevitable muse-collectors running across this:

Fiction is inspiring! That doesn't mean you needn't be inspired by anything, just that picking up or creating a whole other muse might not be the best way to follow this inspiration.

If you're considering another muse, but you find yourself already behind and/or overwhelmed? Try one of these instead:

create a plot based on it! Write up the idea and put it in your wanted plots/wishlist tag. Bring it up to partners you think might be interested in it as well, or seek out a crossover from that fandom

make it a new verse for an existing muse! This is as close as you get to creating a new muse without actually doing so, and in many ways, it takes even more creativity. How is your muse different in this AU than they are in canon, how are they the same? In the ways that they are the same, what similar events but done in a way that is natural/logical to this universe have happened to maintain that? Get really creative!

for either/both of these, make some moodboards and aesthetics with that energy while you're waiting on someone to take you up on these new things. Answer some HC asks or tag games using your new verse, or write an independent HC for the verse or plot

talk to writing partners who already love that muse about their new verse/your desired plot! No, not pressuring talk, just normal conversation between friends, but maybe they will be interested in starting a thread

simply be inspired to include some aspect of what you liked in an existent thread. A particular scene you could pull ideas from, the overall mood of a film, or the way something was written in a book - include that in your replies somehow! RP is creative writing, be creative

There are so many, honestly more organic, directions to take inspiration than bluntly adding a new muse. Especially when you're already overburdened, not holding up your end of replies, and/or not able to portray each muse as their own character properly.

Sometimes, it's not just not a great idea to add a whole new muse, and that's alright. There seems to be a serious problem with fomo going on with this whole issue, too. You're not going to miss out if you do not immediately add this character to your multi, and you're never going to fully keep up with what is trending anyway. Do it because you still want to write this muse in four months instead, they're obviously not going anywhere if that's the case, and they'll be a better developed, interesting portrayal for that.

And people do have a right to be annoyed when they feel sidelined by you seeing a shiny object and repeatedly pandering for validation in dropping them for it. Particularly if you're a mun who, further, expects everyone to be just as interested in every new muse you make as the last. As in, you're annoyed when you keep creating muses no one is falling over themselves to interact with, guilting, shaming, or outright demanding that this new muse is interacted with before they have access to the previous ones.

They don't have a right to be mean you to, but they have a right to be annoyed and to drop you. They even have a right to politely decline explaining this to you if they feel unsafe, or to politely explain it to you before they move on.

Absolutely everyone's right to pursue RP and every facet of it as they so please, but no one else has to like what you're doing.

If this response grates on some of you out there? Consider the other options you have, how you might be making others feel, and that it's actually completely okay to tell yourself no. You won't perish if you tell yourself no to taking on a new muse when you, honestly, should not! It'll be okay! Maybe, you just need to evaluate if there is another muse, or more than one, you should remove before adding one. Maybe, you just need some time to reorganize how you reply before you add this one. "No" when told to yourself can simply mean "no, not right now, it isn't a good time/situation."

[sepublic]

Hey! Hope I'm not bothering you, but since you already did an excellent take of Luz meeting the Amphibia girls, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what would happen if Amity were to ever meet Sasha.

           I’m honestly VERY flattered by this ask, this is such a fun one to me and admittedly I went overboard answering this… But I appreciate the compliment, it means a lot, and I myself love YOUR answers to asks regarding Amphibia!

           Sasha and Amity are definitely interesting characters to me! I think one of the key differences between the two, when it comes to either the ‘real’ Amity, or the cold façade she puts up…

           …It’s that she’s really not much for social interaction. I’m sure part of the reason is to keep up appearances of being an elitist Blight who has ‘high standards’ and whatnot regarding who she hangs out with, and her own trauma after the Willow incident definitely encourages Amity to not reach out in general, but. Even without her parents’ elitist abuse, she honestly gives me vibes of someone who’d prefer to mind their own business? That cold façade or not, she doesn’t really actively seek confrontation, and would rather mind her own business; Around Boscha and the others she’s clearly distant and tells them not to bully Willow because there’s no point.

           And with Willow? The one time we DO see her bully Willow, it’s at least implied –through retroactive revelations- that Amity may have legit been trying to reconnect with her friend, and/or didn’t realize how condescending she was being; Or at least, she THOUGHT what she was saying would actually encourage Willow to be better. She’s definitely internalized a lot of toxicity from her parents and siblings.

          Obviously Luz is helping with that, but in the end- Amity comes across as someone who would rather be left alone. If she feels like she’s being attacked or having her space invaded, she WILL retaliate… But again, she just wants to mind her own business and wishes for others to do the same. She only lets in a select few individuals who can really earn her trust, and that trust is something carefully earned and requires a lot of emotional navigation.

           Sasha is different- She’s very much a social person! Whilst Amity will snap and get right to the point, that NO, she does not like you… And when Amity DOES have to hang around others, she puts in the bare minimum of interaction and is clearly cold and distant otherwise; Sasha seems to prefer diplomacy! It’s one of the first things we see about her character, in contrast to Grime… Even if she’s annoyed by someone, she’s learned that honey attracts flies, not vinegar! Sasha doesn’t resort to confrontation or putting her foot down, unless she feels like she’s been specifically ‘pushed’ to that point.

           Not to mention, she very much seeks out people and friends! Sasha loves her social interaction, and while there’s some potential speculation on how her homelife may have contributed to this… This girl has to surround herself with other people to thrive, she gets energy from social interaction! She’s popular back at school, and captain of the cheerleading squad, which we know Sasha and Marcy aren’t members of- So that involves a close leadership and sway over a whole ‘nother group of classmates.

          Obviously a part of her is intrigued on what she can get from others, as seen with the Toads… But in general, I think Sasha does enjoy the feeling of getting to know others, and being loved, or at least adored! When she’s unhappy with Maggie, she makes a point to be diplomatic about the situation… And when Maggie continues pushing her, Sasha gives her another chance, but also adds onto the pressure by threatening to not invite Maggie. So there’s this idea of surrounding herself with others to maintain a sense of control, a certain possessiveness to Sasha here.

           Ultimately… I don’t think they’d really get along, alas! Even if it’s Amity as of now, or when we first see her, interacting with either Sasha pre or post-character development… These two likely wouldn’t get off to a good start! I see only Sasha making the first move; She’s a social butterfly and wants to get to know people, it’s good to make connections so you can utilize them! And this Amity Blight, she’s clearly talented and Top Student, she seems pretty cool! Sasha would likely offer herself up, maybe offer to buy lunch for her, hang out, etc.

           But Amity? Amity’s used to people like Boscha. She’s going to see the similarities. And even if she doesn’t? Well, Amity comes across to me as the kind of person, who… When she’s approached by others, her mind immediately fires on all cylinders as she starts desperately trying to figure out what this person wants, why they’re here, what their goal is, etc.! She can’t really imagine people wanting to get to know her just because… Again, not only because her abuse conditioned Amity to see others –herself included- only in terms of what they can do for others, but also because I think she just doesn’t understand social cues all too well.

           Amity would very much be on the defensive; She’d see Sasha coming in and reflexively put her walls up, become cold and put on a façade. She wouldn’t immediately snap at Sasha, but she’d definitely try to get the point across as subly as she can. The thing about Sasha to me is that she has both exterior and ulterior motives, simultaneously. When Sasha keeps pressing, Amity will likely reach a point where she just exhales, gets blunt, and asks Sasha what she wants and why she’s here, and to just ask or leave!

           And, Sasha will be surprised! She’ll be taken aback, but I don’t think she’ll take it personally- She’ll forgive Amity for the bluntness and try to assume the best before all else. I can see Sasha perhaps saying a thing or two, joking around, and Amity interprets it literally, and gets the impression that Sasha is making fun of her… So Sasha tries to clarify that no, she isn’t making fun of her! She’s being honest, she DOES want to be friends! Maybe she’ll try to laugh it off, tell Amity to relax, but it’s just going to make Amity feel like she’s being patronized.

           I think it’s worth noting that Sasha is friends with Marcy, and while Marcy definitely seems to have more connections with Anne than her… She’s still at least Sasha’s second-best friend, based on how much they hang around. Marcy is Autistic-coded, and to me and many others, Amity is ALSO Autistic-coded as well. If Sasha knows how to humor and handle Marcy’s infodumping and occasionally literal mind, then it’s possible she’d have the experience to navigate Amity.

           Though, Amity is still a VERY different and closed-off person than Marcy. I think a lot of their interaction would be filled with Sasha trying to figure Amity out, see what makes her tick- And Amity is getting all the more uncomfortable and suspicious, because she does NOT like being open or read by others, especially by this girl who probably sees her more as a trophy to collect or whatever… Amity just wants to mind her own business!

           And the thing about Sasha is- She’s also a troublemaker. A bit of a delinquent. She’s totally going to give Amity the same vibes as her older siblings, and that won’t be so great… Even if this is Amity as of the Season Finale, I think she’d still be wary, because she at least KNOWS Ed and Em, but she doesn’t know Sasha. Amity is still a person who’s very beholden to the rules, and unless Sasha specifically ‘proves’ herself to her, she’s going to look down on Sasha’s lack of reverence for school. In particular I think she’d react somewhat negatively to Sasha, should the girl casually dismiss Amity’s desire to study, over hanging out with her.

           And naturally, Sasha is going to get frustrated, she’ll wonder what this Blight girls’ deal is- She’s trying SO hard to be nice and diplomatic, she really is trying to navigate Amity’s ‘eccentricities’! I think she’d sooner just give up and do her own thing, leave Amity be, as the two of them agree to just mind one another’s business and exist separately. I don’t think Sasha would feel the need to specifically step in, especially since Amity isn’t really a friend to begin with, and clearly just wants to be left alone. Sasha only seems to ‘step in’ when she feels she has a certain hold on others, and Amity is far too distant.

           So, Sasha can read the room… She’d approach Amity, want to be friends. Amity gets suspicious and assumes the worst, and even if it’s not the worst she’s just not intrigued in general. Sasha is a troublemaker, and Amity’s trust requires a lot of emotional work and honesty that Sasha isn’t just used to- So Sasha reads the room and leaves, no other questions asked!

           …Although, if Sasha WERE more interested… It’d be interesting if she learned what Amity’s situation is like, specifically with her strict parents. I can’t say much about Sasha’s own upbringing, but given her current scenario as of Toadcatcher and how she’s very much overthrowing the authorities to establish her own rule…

           I think Sasha would try to pull something off similar to Anne (in a scenario where she REALLY wants to get close with Amity), and try to goad Amity into just ignoring her parents, and being her own person! And while her intentions are good and Amity being her own person is a net positive, I think she’d handle it about as constructively as Emira and Edric, and end up just making Amity feel pressured to get into trouble, be far too dismissive and condescending of Amity’s feelings, and cause the girl to feel like she’s being made fun of and all the stuff she looks up to is casually trashed!

           And, Emira and Edric are her siblings. Unless the Blight Parents specifically ask Amity to hang out with Sasha, this girl isn’t going to have any of it; She’s going to snap, and she’ll tell Sasha to back off. And while Sasha might be taken aback and even get a little bit offended, again… She’d rather things go smoothly, and not create unnecessary conflict. I think she’d read the room, and then leave.

          Worst-case scenario, she TRIES to ‘step in’ and exert her influence… But really, Sasha has none over Amity, whose family is considered superior even amongst other noble families, and also she has magic! The girl was the Grudgby Captain for a reason. Sasha is going to recognize the situation and see she’s not wanted, and it’s not worth it- No point getting riled up, this isn’t someone close to her like Anne or Marcy! So again- She leaves! Although…

           This is Sasha prior to Reunion. But as of Toadcatcher, where she’s clearly becoming a lot more blunt about her feelings, a lot more physical and smashing her way through things? Still capable of manipulation, but also doubting her abilities… Amidst her own brief self-reflection over how she treated Anne? Then, depending on exactly what she’s aiming for here (and to be honest my read on Sasha as of Toadcatcher is a little blurry, I think the show is trying to be ambiguous as to her exact headspace given she’s still figuring things out herself)…

           MAYBE Sasha tries to get her way by brute force, but again, I doubt it. Unless it’s something she REALLY specifically needs, I don’t see her picking a fight, because even if she’s getting physically blunt, she’s also being emotionally blunt as well. When it comes to emotions her tactic is to run away and close her eyes, look the other direction- So Sasha is going to deny that this bothers her.

          She’s going to insist that Amity’s constant rejections aren’t getting to her. She’s just going to LEAVE, and let it be! It’s fine, what’re you talking about? And if this is engaging with Amity, as of her character development? Same thing, really… Amity may be a bit less cold and dismissive, a little less elitist- But she’s also learning to prioritize herself and to remove herself from situations she doesn’t like. She’s not going to be ready for Sasha anytime soon, probably not ever!

           Worst-case scenario, Sasha gets a little TOO personal and straight-forward, trying to give advice to Amity on what’ll make her happy- And Amity will snap. Sasha might feel a bit offended, maybe begin to doubt herself and feel like her charisma and ‘touch’ has been waning… but ultimately she’s going to deny her feelings, shrug, and leave Amity be. Both girls will mutually agree to let the other exist in isolation from the other, maybe stepping in if the other is in trouble and somebody else isn’t already there to help.

           …But for fun! Let’s talk about if they WERE friends, by some inexplicable, stroke of fate and circumstance!

           Sasha is definitely going to be someone who’s VERY mindful of how Amity functions, what she likes, what bothers her, that sort of thing! She’ll know Amity’s schedule by heart, and she’ll focus on helping the girl calm down, or be less cold… She’d be a more diplomatic voice for Amity! She’d definitely handle most of Amity’s social interactions for her… In particular, I see Sasha acting as a ‘gatekeeper’, evaluating others who are trying to reach out to Amity, seeing if they’d bother her friend or not; And if so, telling them to get lost, but in a way that’s subtle and casual. But of course, if the person keeps pushing their luck… Well, this is Sasha’s close friend, so she’s going to feel insulted, and eventually she’ll reach a scary point.

           In general, I would see Sasha as someone who can automatically read Amity, and tell whenever she’s in a situation she’s uncomfortable with… So she swoops in and takes Amity’s place, giving her an out and direction the attention to herself! She’s going to help defend Amity from anybody who annoys her, and she’ll do what she can to support the girl; She’ll probably held lead cheerleading rallies for a Grudgby game or two, although Amity would likely tell her to stop, that’s excessive, and you don’t need to do that! And Sasha says that’s silly, they’re friends after all!

           I’m not sure if I can see a scenario where Sasha has control over Amity, though. Again, the Blights come across as more high-class and powerful than Sasha’s family, whatever they might be like. I think she’d be a bit like Boscha to Amity, except a lot more receptive to how this girl feels, telling her that she’s all that and has nothing to worry about; You ARE the Top Student for a reason, don’t let anybody else make you think otherwise! If your parents or siblings are mean to you, they just can’t appreciate you properly! And Amity’s going to appreciate that, but occasionally ask Sasha not to go that far- And Sasha understands, and lets it go!

           As for Amity, I can see her occasionally flexing her power and position, in a scenario where Sasha encounters someone who isn’t impressed. During social events, she’ll quietly gravitate towards Sasha for comfort and reassurance, and Sasha will instantly recognize. I don’t see her helping Sasha cheat or anything, but Amity would definitely at least help her with homework and give pointers, though she wouldn’t outright do it for her, she’s still too beholden to the rules for that.

          Anytime Amity DOES reciprocate or voluntarily show affection, it’s going to mean a lot to Sasha. I can definitely see Sasha beginning to have concerns over the abuse of Amity’s parents and how they’re indoctrinating her, and how she’d see the Emperor’s Coven as a bit toxic… But ultimately, I’m not sure if she’d be able to do much, there’s a LOT of factors to take into consideration here! I feel that should Sasha try to step in, she and Amity still wouldn’t be that close and Amity may rebuke her…

          And because they ARE actual friends, it WILL hurt Sasha, and maybe she’ll take it personally and become a bit bitter. Maybe even entitled, because she’s worked so hard to make Amity happy and protect her, and this is how she gets treated!? I can see Sasha intiating some distance at first, and Amity gets hurt by that and immediately accepts this as her new scenario and doesn’t try going back to Sasha, not because she’s better, but because she’s already screwed up and why would Sasha want to go back to her?

          But ultimately, Sasha’s going to come back because she craves social interaction, and in the end she DOES care. I can also imagine Amity and Sasha contributing some toxicity towards one another, as they never learn to actually confront these issues but just sweep them under the rug; Sasha might enable Amity’s tendency to snap and lash out, tell her she can do no wrong, while Amity would just enable and lowkey encourage Sasha’s controlling behavior over others- At the very least she won’t speak up against it.

          They wouldn’t confront one another over their flaws, especially since they may not be self-aware enough to even notice them in the first place; And in Amity’s case, she might not want to jeopardize her relationship with Sasha, and it’d go against what her parents taught her anyway. She might be a little concerned, but ultimately, what does she know? Sasha seems way more confident, she likely understands herself better than Amity does.

          Due to her lineage, I think Amity would retain the ‘power’ in the friendship, or at least not fall under Sasha’s possessive control… But Amity would still doubt herself in general and not be fully genuine. She’d see what Sasha does as typical things that loved ones do for one another because of her parents, even if Amity wouldn’t really flex this type of control over any of her friends to begin with!

          She’s not going to participate, but she won’t speak out either, and that’s going to contribute to Sasha’s own assumption that she knows and does best. Really, I see these two not quite agreeing with how the other treats people, but otherwise not objecting either! If it were up to them, Sasha and Amity would do things their own way, but besides that there’s no point in jeopardizing their friendship over such a ‘minor’ issue.

          Sasha would come across as the ‘reasonable’ friend, while Amity is more the cold and blunt one. Sometimes Sasha tells someone who bugged Amity to back off, other times she’ll reassure them, tell them that’s just how Amity is, and then invite them to be friends; While still keeping them from Amity of course!

          Amity’s fine with this, she just wants to be left alone and doen’t control who Sasha is without her. The girls at least respect each other in that way. I can definitely see Sasha as someone who can reason with Amity and get her to lower her guard a bit, maybe even reconsider her stance on another person, but that’s about it. Sasha is very much the only person who can really ‘talk’ to Amity. Sometimes she’ll get her to cool down, other times she just steps aside and/or helps defend Amity. It really depends on the mood of the day, the person in question, etc.!

           I don’t think Sasha would be able to fully understand Amity. I think she’d try to listen to Amity’s insecurities, try to give advice and understanding. But ultimately she’s someone with her own issues as well; She’s no Luz, who I think would just naturally get Amity to open up and make her a lot happier! And I can see Sasha maybe even scouting out Luz specifically for this purpose, because she seems like a cool and friendly person, and if she can make Amity happy and openly laugh, then she HAS to have her in the group!

           And… those are more or less my thoughts on how Sasha and Amity would interact, within a few different contexts! I’m not exactly an expert on either character, all of this is speculation, and I confess I don’t know Sasha as well as others… Especially given her mindset in Toadcatcher, where it seems like she’s still figuring herself out! Also, I apologize for VERY much going overboard in answering this ask… I suppose I got excited, because this is a very fascinating concept to me, and I feel obligated to fully explore it in every way I can, in order to do it justice!

[gothmedia]

Movie Review: My Summer as a Goth

”If you don’t care what people think, why did you just ask me what I thought?” Overview and Plot My Summer as a Goth is a crowd funded movie directed by Tara Johnson-Medinger. It stars Joey, a morose teen who constantly talks about her dead dad and gets angry when other people talk about her dead dad. Since her mother is a prolific author set to do a book tour, Joey is shipped about 45 minutes out of town to her grandparents' house for the summer. There she becomes interested in the neighbor boy, an even more sullen teen called Victor. Victor notices Joey's interest and whisks her away into the world of goth summer romance. In terms of production, very nice looking film. Professional. I liked that the beginning of the movie looked very washed-out and reflected the mood well, getting warmer as the summer went on. I also loved the texting graphics. The movie was well-paced and a good length, however the passage of time in the movie was a bit odd. VERY soon after the movie says summer starts it’s the Fourth of July, then again only a short time later everyone’s talking about how the summer is almost over. Joey even gets mad at her mother in one instance for not being available in time, but it seems like the mother responded back in about a day while Joey makes it out that it took weeks. The in-movie passage of time was very confusing for me. Most of the characters were well-written with some hiccups mostly on the grandparent’s and Antonio’s end. Costume design was on-point. Sound was fine and the music choices throughout were wonderful. Overall, the film had really good production value.

Moving into spoiler territory, Joey’s grandparents are a ride as they swing from giving Joey hundreds of dollars and baking her pot brownies to telling at her she can’t stay out late and that she needs an exorcism. Antonio, a punk, starts the movie off by getting into a fist fight with Victor, but later becomes a loveable member of the cast. We meet Cob and Pen, the “goth swan couple”. They’re Victor’s friends and a breath of fresh air; despite having morose interests they’re very bubbly and outgoing. I wish more of the movie had them in it. They along with Victor decide to give Joey a makeover and invite her to a few different events over the summer including a silent disco in a graveyard, a party at Pandora’s house, and a concert. They also go on a camping trip with Joey, her grandparents, and one of Joey’s high school friends. Eventually, Joey gets annoyed with Victor’s constant toxic attitude and finds out he’s cheating on her. Everything’s fine in the end as the summer comes to a close and she goes back to school with Antonio as her new boyfriend and her new, darker look.

Joey the babybat has daddy issues. In the beginning Joey feels acts catty and defensive about everything. Don’t worry, she never really grows out of that. Pretty much everything about her revolves around either the fact that her father is dead or her relationship with Victor. She does have an art hobby that’s shown throughout the movie but she seems almost embarrassed by it? It’s never actually brought up by any characters and no one ever looks through her sketchbook or shows interest in it. Which I found really odd because a lot of the goths I know in real life tend to be pretty creative and would love it? Anyway, she falls head-first into goth because of a boy. I know that’s how some people get into the subculture, but it kind-of sours the movie because it seems like she also only stays in the subculture because of the boy. In the beginning she mentions liking the music and how it helps her express how she feels inside, but other than Victor, we really don’t get to see how she thinks about the subculture. She’s friends with Cob and Pen because they’re Victor’s friends. She goes to events because Victor goes. She dresses up because Victor wants her to. But once Victor is out of the picture, why does she stay? Other than the passing mention of music at the beginning, she really has no interest in the goth scene. She’s never shown engaging with the scene on her own terms, and I find that a little disappointing. When I was a babybat I was reading goth blogs like Stripy Tights and Dark Delights, I was trying to get my hands on back issues of Gothic Beauty, I was watching a ton of different youtubers talk about the scene and I just wanted more. There’s none of that with Joey save for a short scene where she watches tutorials on how to do her hair and make-up. (Which, admittedly was really cute.) I didn’t understand WHY Joey stays a goth at the end of the movie and I think it’s because the movie really didn’t portray the positive aspects of the subculture as much. Also, Joey needs to work on her attitude problem. She mentions her dead dad quite a bit at the beginning and gets upset when other people mention it back to her. At the end of the film she calls her mom over heartbreak and when her mom tries to talk about it with her, she acts sarcastic and shuts her mother out, getting mad that she reached out at the wrong time. I’m unsure if it was just Joey going back to her old coping strategies or if she was in the right because I have no idea how much time had passed since the phone call. I’ll never know. Either way, she does dump Victor which is nice and she reconciles with her mother as well. I do like that she feels more comfortable with herself at the end of the movie and begins doing things on her own terms, even if others don’t “get it”. Victor is a VERY well-written, manipulative dick.  Storytime! So, there weren’t many goths at my college and we never really had any classes together, but I remember seeing this one kid walking across the street to the art buildings with a flowing black velvet cape over their backpack, an unlaced black poet shirt, platinum white hair in a side-hawk, knee-high black leather boots and a TON of silver jewelry. Honestly, they would have looked so cool if their harem pants weren’t made of chiffon and completely see-through. (Batman boxers!) Seeing Victor for the first time immediately reminded me of that. Over the top, charming, charismatic and a bit silly. I liked him at first. His wit is dry and in the beginning he didn’t take himself of the subculture TOO seriously, making jokes about vampires. I liked that he seemed to be having fun chatting about music and dressing up Joey. And then there came the lipstick. Honestly, the lipstick was used absolutely perfectly to show how the relationship is souring and how manipulative Victor really is. It really is a gradual showing of how things are going south in their relationship and how Victor isn’t as much as a downcast victim as he puts on. Later on in the movie he starts reminding me of that Bruiser sketch where there’s two goths and one of them is just badgering the other one that he can’t take his sweater off in the summer or join in on seasports because it’s “not goth”. He begins chastising Joey for not looking perfect at all times or not knowing things about the subculture despite the fact that he just dresses her up and brings her to parties instead of actually trying to integrate her to the local scene or teaching her about music or history. Eventually he goes back to hooking up with Pandora, something he apparently does frequently because Joey is not the first person he’s cheated on and literally everyone in town warns Joey about it. Victor clearly has a massively inflated ego and you love to hate him in the end. There are definitely his type in goth scenes around the world and I can see how he stays in good graces with the other asshole friends he has. Some people just really like being elitists. The one thing I can’t figure out, though, is why Pen and Cob are friends with him. They’re so nice compared. A punk by jacket only and why casual homophobia makes me salty. Antonio is... hoo boy, is he a thing. First introduced starting a fight with Victor you think, "Ah, this is the antagonist of the movie. I wonder why they made the punk an asshole? Usually punks are okay with goths." Luckily for us, he apologizes for the outburst and becomes a friend of the main cast. We learn he likes canasta and plays guitar. Oddly, he doesn't seem to have any punk patches or pins on his jacket and never actually mentions punk music. He does, however, mention goth music and he seems familiar with the other goths in town going to their events, so it seems he's on good standing with them despite bullying the goths at the beginning of the film. Seeing as goths would rather pretend to be haughty vampires than get their tail coats in a twist, Antonio makes for a heroic figure in the movie when Joey is in trouble. In my notes I wrote, "Ten bucks says punk kid is gonna save her,” and lo and behold, Antonio comes out of nowhere to save Joey from some bullies. I do like that he uses his rough appearance to his advantage to help people and do the right thing. That pretty accurately describes every punk I’ve ever met. They look tough as nails, but you’ll only see that side of them if you absolutely deserve to.

It's also revealed that Antonio is not straight as he's seen making out with some guy at a concert, mentions having had a previous relationship with Victor, and is being made fun of for being gay in the end. He also ends the film by being Joey's boyfriend. Pardon, what? I'm kind-of tired of this heteronormative nonsense where movies have to end with all main characters (Sans the villain, of course.) end up in a happy straight relationship. Joey's non-goth friend who's in the movie for a very short amount of time also ends up with a goth boyfriend because happily-ever-after and all that. It probably wouldn't have sat as poorly with me if they didn't make fun of Antonio for "looking gay" which in context makes no sense since he's pretty gender conforming compared to the goth men in the film. It also didn’t help that there were comments about lesbians at the beginning of the movie. At one point Joey's grandparents suggest she might like girls and Joey rebukes it with vitriol saying her grandparents are "too cool". The same kind of vitriol you hear when a straight person tells you they could never imagine being gay, that's disgusting. Oh, but they support your "choices", hm? I just wish Antonio’s character was a bit more fleshed out and he didn’t end up being back-up male love interest that’s only there to save female lead from bad guys and heartbreak.  First rule of Goth Music is you don’t talk about Goth Music? The movie introduces goth along with music. The music in the film is honestly really good and a good portrayal of what goths actually listen to. Joey mentions she likes the music near the beginning and she goes to events such as a silent disco, a party, and a concert. Despite music obviously being a major source of community in the movie, no one actually talks about it other than that one instance of Joey mentioning she likes it. No one suggests bands to her or actually goes to the parties or concerts to do anything other than make out. The silent disco is the only real instance of them listening and dancing to the music and it feels like it's over in a flash. Though, the corny goth dance moves in that scene kind-of make up for it. At one point Antonio pulls out a guitar and asks if Joey wants him to play “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. She mentions she’s never heard of it which leads Antonio to ask if she’s new to the scene. At another point in the party, Joey asks someone if they like Marylin Manson. While this is an obvious faux pas to anyone actually in the goth scene, no one actually engages with her in conversation about it. How was Joey supposed to know his music isn’t goth? Wasn’t she listening to goth music earlier at the silent disco? Or the music she said sounded pretty from Victor’s room when they met? How did she get this far liking these bands but not noticing that they sound nothing like Marylin Manson and did she never look them up on her own to listen to them later? She obviously likes them, so it really surprises me that she only got in the goth scene for a guy.

Robert Smith NEVER has smeared lipstick. /s The emphasis on appearance is a little annoying throughout the movie, but I guess it had to be. It fits Victor's personality to change Joey's personal style to match his, and the makeover scene was fun, but I wish there would have been more diversity in the cast of townie goths who attend the parties, concerts, and discos. I counted one person with blonde hair and a small handful of older goths. I didn't notice any non-white goths and unfortunately the movie placed quite the emphasis on pale skin and trying to avoid tanning. I know people like the white face along with dark make-up and looking vamp-ish, but when all your characters are in white greasepaint and there's no PoC to be seen in goth garb it sends a message that only white people can be goth and that's really something we need to kill in the subculture. I did, however, like the wardrobe choices. I liked that Joey got her wardrobe from a thrift store and that she dyed a top she already owned. She looked up tutorials on how to do her hair and make-up and it never looked perfect. That's a good thing. Baby Bats won't know how to do a bats nest hairstyle, they won't know to blend foundation to the neck, and they won't have a perfect eyeliner wing. No one mentioned alt-brand name clothing and no one had a perfectly couture outfit that media likes to sell as a stereotypical goth teenager. The goths actually looked like goths. Their wardrobes were things you'd actually see in a club and we get to see that they wear a plain black tank top and shorts when milling about the house, only breaking out the corsets and top hats for big events. The older goths were more well put together and that makes sense because they've been in the subculture longer and have had time to figure out what they like and what looks good on them. The costuming department did a really great job with this. Ah, but as a side note about wardrobe, who donates brand new, tall Docs to a thrift store??? You can’t sit with us. And sadly, the worst part of Goth in the movie- community. What was that, film? Other than the three main goths, we only get to see other goths at large events and they all seem a bit catty? You have the silent disco, which was cute but no one really spoke to or interacted with each other. Pen and Cob are kind-of doing their own thing throughout no matter who they’re with. We also have the house party and the concert. The other goths there are.... pretty much just there to be judgy because Joey’s new? The first time I went to a club in a new city and didn’t know anyone some random person grabbed my hands and dragged me to the dancefloor. It was fun! People would ask the DJ what he was spinning and they weren’t shamed for not knowing. If someone’s jacket ripped, five people would come out of the woodwork with a safety pin and afterwards we’d all pile into Denny’s and laugh and joke and talk about nothing. I’m not saying there’s no “Gothier-than-Thou” types, believe me I’ve met more than a few, but in a movie that’s trying to portray someone WANTING to become a goth, why not portray the subculture as more inviting? Also, with the comments from Victor and a few other remarks, it seems like alcohol is needed to blend into the goth scene, and that definitely isn’t the case. Sure, a lot of us love absinth or a snakebite in black, but it’s not needed to fit in with the cool kids at the club. The community really is my favorite thing about this subculture and I feel it was a disservice that most goths were showcased as uninviting. I can understand Joey not being wanted at the party initially as she wasn’t invited in the first place and perhaps the eldergoths in the room didn’t want to have to have an impromptu etiquette and history lesson with a babybat when they’re supposed to be relaxing, but the point of the movie was to showcase why Joey wants to be a goth. She never makes friends outside of Victor’s immediate group and never tries to find community or information about the scene online or anything. I guess that is how babybats do act a lot of the time, but again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the point of the movie is showing why someone would WANT to be a goth.  Final Thoughts. The goth scene in the movie looked like a regular goth scene. I liked the emphasis on thrifting and DIY and that newcomers don’t come out of the womb knowing the lyrics to the entirety of Floodland. The music was phenomenal. I liked that the music featured was goth music, but not the main five bands that everyone already knows. I liked that the events attended were focused mainly around music. I liked seeing actual goth dance moves on screen. I liked that people in the movie did use terminology found in the subculture and made jokes about the subculture that insiders would actually make. I liked that Pen and Cob were wonderfully peppy despite their dark interests, I liked that we got punk-goth solidarity. I liked that it did remind me a bit of my babybat years and got me missing clubs and events. I miss all my friends... I really do...

I was put off by the passage of time in the movie, Joey’s cattiness with anyone who tries to help her, the light and casual homophobia sprinkled in, and the negative-leaning portrayal of the goth community. Other than that, though, I did think it was a good movie with a satisfying ending and I would really suggest people check it out. It’s probably the most accurate portrayal of goths in any media, really, and it’s worth a watch. At the very least, go listen to the soundtrack on BandCamp. 

[a-duck-with-a-book]

REVIEW // Seven Blades in Black (The Grave of Empires #1) by Sam Sykes

★☆☆☆☆

Disclaimer: while I was reading this book, I found out that Sam Sykes has been accused by numerous women of sexual harassment. You can find more information about it below: - a post listing several accusations of misconduct - twitter post responding to the situation - one of the accusations against Sam Sykes - his quickly-deleted apology Suffice to say, I have no intention of continuing this series or reading any more of his books.

I have a lot to say about this novel, so I’ll begin by making a quick bullet point list outlining what I liked and disliked:

Liked:

Cavric <3

Lisette deserved better

Some interesting concepts in the world building

Disliked:

Sal as a narrator

Sal as an antihero

Sal as a person in general

Writing style

Constant interruptions

Meandering narrative

The “narrator knows something but the writer avoids revealing it until the end for the drama” trope

This is a Big Tough World and Nobody Gets To Be Happy

Lesbians written by a man who harasses women

Unnecessarily long

// image: official cover art Jeremy Wilson //

Let’s begin with the full review by starting with the (few) positives, shall we?

First and foremost, I genuinely enjoyed Cavric and Lisette. It is unfortunate that they had to deal with Sal for the entirety of the novel, but we’ll get to her later. If this book had been a buddy adventure with these two, in which Cavric slowly shows Lisette that she is in a toxic relationships and deserves to move on and find someone better for herself, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. Secondly (and finally), Sykes introduced some genuinely interesting world building. The background of the Empire and the Scar was fascinating to read, but unfortunately did not save the rest of this mess.

Alright now let’s rant.

I have 35 notes and 52 highlights from this book, so this might get block quote heavy. (Go check out my notes if you want to see me slowly lose my sanity)

Sal is awful. I know she’s meant to be awful, but she’s not flawed in the way that I think Sykes was trying to write her. I believe she was intended to be a scruffy, lovable antihero who fought her way through a dangerous landscape with her sharp blade and even sharper tongue. A girl who had wrongs committed against her in the past, who did terrible things but is now on the road to an epic redemption arc. She shoots bad guys, she says f*ck and a*s a lot, and she is morally complex. That’s the character that Sykes was trying to make. The one he created, however, is a genuinely terrible person who I had no desire to see come out on top. I have a myriad of issues with her, but let’s outline a couple below: (1) She is incredibly toxic for Lisette. Am I getting a bit too heated about a fictional relationship? Sure. Was I happy to read a toxic lesbian romance written by a man who sexually harasses women? Nope. It kind of grossed me out, actually. Anyway, let me give you a run down of their relationship. Sal arrives. Sal and Lisette sleep together. Sal asks Lisette to give her weapons and or fix things for her. Sal sneaks away, telling herself no good will come of this relationship and they will only cause each other pain. Sal needs something. Sal comes back. Repeat over and over. She constantly says, throughout the book, that it would be better if they just left each other, but then again Sal is the one who goes back to Lisette over and over, causing her renewed heartbreak. I don’t know if Sykes thought that simply making Sal aware of how terrible this behavior was was enough, but it just made me incredibly frustrated. At one point Sal says:

”Intellect like hers is a curse. The more you understand of the world, the less of it you trust.”

Yes, Sal, that’s what’s giving her trust issues. Her intelligence. Nice. By the end of the book, it seems that they are on the mend-I’m getting end-game vibes from these two. But honestly, I spent the entire time thinking that Lisette deserved so much better than Sal. Like literally a chicken would have provided healthier companionship. I’ll end with this quote, in which Lisette outlines perfectly why Sal does not deserve her:

“What am I doing wrong that you’d choose this over me?”

(2) Sal is annoying. Really, really annoying. I kid you not, half of this book is made up of Sal’s snarky comments. She is badass. She has a gun. She is an outlaw. And she will never, EVER shut up about it. Imagine a quirky line after an otherwise dark or action-packed sequence. Funny, right? Might break the tension, make the narrator more endearing, etc. Now imagine one such line after every. Single. Paragraph. Picture a violent battle scene where the protagonist is fighting for their lives against a ruthless opponent. Now insert a snarky comment after every other paragraph and watch the entire flow of the scene fall apart with constant interruptions. That’s what this book is-which brings me to my next point.

The writing isn’t great. There are constant interruptions, meandering narratives, and the trope that haunts me in nearly every dark fantasy novel I read-This is a Big Tough World and Nobody Gets To Be Happy-is shoved repeatedly in your face. Let’s start with the interruptions, returning to my previous point (ie. Sal never shuts up), by looking at this sequence:

I  followed the shrieking wind. I had come here prepared for something bad. But I wasn’t prepared for just how bad it was. I rounded the corner of the hall, came out atop a battlement. The wind struck me with a screaming gale, forcing me to shield my face and cling to the stone for purchase. My eyes squinted against the harshness of the light, the kind of offensive pale you only see in your nightmares. And through them, I could see the bowed shapes of towers sagging, the flayed flesh of banners whipping in a wind that wouldn’t cease, the shadows of figures frozen in a death that had brought no peace. And I knew where I was. There was nothing that had ever made Fort Dogsjaw special. It had never been crucial for defense, never a hub for trade, it hadn’t even been named for anything special—the commander just liked the sound of it. It lived its whole life a regular, boring Imperial fort on the edge of the Husks. It only got important at the time of its death. Over three hundred mages and a few thousand regulars had assembled here in one day—some to receive assignments, some to man the garrison, some to head back to Cathama on leave. They had been laughing, cursing, drinking when the news came that the new Emperor of Cathama was a nul, born with no magic. And then there had been a moment of silence.

I’ve bolded for emphasis, but do you see what I’m talking about? The paragraph-line-paragraph-line format is so annoying to read, I had to put the book down at certain points because of how frustrated I got. It interrupted the forward movement of the story, making the novel drag on and on.

You know what else makes this feel like the nightmare version of the Never-ending Story? The page count. I don’t mind long books-The Priory of the Orange Tree is one of my favorite reads so far this year, and it’s longer than this one-but they have to have a reason for being so hefty. As I mentioned earlier, a considerable chunk of Seven Blades of Black is Sal making her awful, awful, AWFUL asides. I literally cannot express how much I despise those comments. Okay, let’s move on before I get hung up on THOSE STUPID COM-*cough*

This novel is marred by unnecessary lines and a meandering plot that drag out the story. One instance is the amount of times that Sal is a second away from killing someone and, for some reason (usually not a good one), fails in her goal. She places a gun at someone’s head and goes through a whole monologue in her head until the person miraculously escapes. This type of subversion of expectations is fine every once in a while, but if you are going to build up to a crucial moment and then take away the satisfaction of the defeat of some villain (or mini-boss, as many of the antagonists in this book feel like), then you need to have a good reason for doing it upwards of twenty times in ONE BOOK. Secondly, if you spend almost the entire novel setting up more and more villains and stressing how hard they are to kill and how dangerous their powers are (and presenting them separately and isolated), then when you have them all in one place at the end, at which point the protagonists starts going through them like a plate of french fries at a seagull convention, then you’re kind of taking away the satisfaction of the death. Somehow, this book manages to do both. We are constantly teased with almost-kills, then at the end Sal just blows through everyone in five seconds, easy-peasy.

I’m almost done, I swear-just two more gripes.

So much of the tension of this book rests on the fact that Sal, our narrator and our main viewpoint into the story, knows something that we don’t. I’ll be upfront with you-I hate this trope. If our POV character, the one whose mind we are in constantly, is entirely aware of something that happened before the beginning of the novel, and the author keeps from revealing that something for the entirety of the story solely to add drama, then I will not be a happy reader. Where is the logic. We are in this person’s mind. Just show us already and add tension ELSEWHERE.

And FINALLY (as painful as it was for you to read this, it was worse for me to write it), another issue I have with a lot of dark fantasy (see my review of Nevernight) is that the author really, really wants us to know that this is an incredibly dangerous and dark world by filling it to the brim with edge lord narrators, Big Guns, and, usually, women being harrased-because why not force all your female readers to constantly have to read about women getting assaulted? Apart from Sal’s 300,000 comments explaining to us that she is an asshole, that the Scar is Dangerous, and that she has Killed A Lot of People, we as readers must sit through hundreds of lines of dialogue and exposition that beat us over the head with the fact that this is DARK fantasy. This isn’t your nice little fairy adventure-no sir. Here we have Swear Words and Violence and Men writing Queer Women. To emphasize just how blatant Sykes is with the dark part of dark fantasy, let me tell you about an exchange Sal has with three old ladies who run a criminal empire. In the 2-3 pages that these women appear in, we are told, in some form or other, that they are grandmas who kill people, a grand total of, I kid you not, ELEVEN TIMES. Here are some excerpts from that whole situation:

”“Now, now.” Yoc, old and white haired and sweet as a grandmother—if that grandmother also had people killed on the regular—smiled at me. “I’m sure she has a good reason for being here.” She raised the hand that had signed the contracts that had killed a thousand men and women and took up her whiskey glass. “After all, I’m sure she knows how much we don’t like having our game interrupted.”” *I counted this as one since it’s in the same exchange but technically he mentions it TWICE

”…one didn’t waste the Three’s time if one didn’t want to end up with their teeth pried out.”

”How often do you meet the three old ladies who have people killed for money?”

”I said we should kill her on principle.”

”“But you know how many orphans I’ve made, don’t you, dear?””

”“He’s not so unlike us, is he? A murderer, yes. A monster to some. But, at his heart, a businessman.”

”Theirs were the hands that signed a thousand death contracts a year.”

”When they could be bothered to look up from their game, they decided who lived and died with a stroke of their pen.”

”At a word, they could have me stripped, tied, tortured, and cut up…”

”the Three don’t lie. Their assassins do. Their thieves do. But they don’t.”

”I had already wasted their time and I knew the Three were being generous just letting me fuck off instead of having me killed for the effort.”

TL;DR - Sal is annoying, Sykes is a bad writer, and Someone should have stopped me from reading this book

[arcanny]

Ephemeral

Ephemeral

.

genre: romance [angst fluff]

au: NonIdol!Jaemin

word count: 1.6K

content warning: character death and bad grammar (english is not my first language)

author note: i’m very new to tumblr, it would be nice if you left a comment, a note or even reblogged it. this is my very first oneshot and it was in the draft for long so I brought it out. hope you enjoy reading ! (the header is too big for my desktop theme i’m gonna fix it soon! for now i just advice you (if you read on desktop website; to zoom in and then my header won’t be so annoying hoping it helps)

(adj) lasting for a very short time.

I nearly startled in my seat when a new sound pierced through the deafening silence. Steps and breaths followed by a small cough. I gazed up and realized I wasn’t the only one in the train coupé. Opposite in the plush seats sat a boy. He ran a hand through his blonde hair with a striking streak of blue hair disheveled on his forehead, sniffled with his cute nose, and gave me picture-perfect smile. On his white t-shirt, the print said over there, and he did look over at me.

“You are staring,” He said.

All of the sudden my cheeks felt warm, they would be rosy red.

“You are staring” I replied as I let the defense position take control over my choice of words.

His eyebrow was raised for a short moment before he smirked.

“You are worth looking at.”

—

Two weeks went by and Jaemin and I were together at least seven days out of the 14 days. He continually made me do things that I didn’t even dare to do before. In the public swimming pool, he made a jump from the highest diving board. The sinking you get in the stomach when you stand several meters over the pool’s surface and look down at the pit of it. The sinking feeling typically goes away as soon as you hit the water’s surface. That was not the case for me. For when I swam up through the clear chlorinated water, there stood a beaming Jaemin who would pat my head. He made the sinking feeling continue.

—

I sat with Jaemin in his dining room. The light from the ceiling lamp shone down on the food in the otherwise dark room. There was an awkward silence. Jaemin smiled at me whilst his brother shook his head. The brother gave him a small nudge.

“Is it now wrong to smile at one’s girlfriend” He grinned.

He always did it; he always had to break the silence. I took a bite of my plate, the food burned down my throat.

“It tastes delicious,” I said.

“It’s good you like it, Jaemin told me it’s your favorite dish.” His mother said.

She nodded towards him as he sheepishly grinned while rubbing his neck. He then coughed and the silence came again. Now the brother wasn’t the slightest irritated - he was worried. He looked over at his mother who just looked at the ground mumbling something. Nobody said anything. Butterflies started erupting in my stomach, not the usual colorful tranquil ones. These were dark and panicking in there.

—

Jaemin followed me home. The moon illuminated the small sideway we took as the silence overfilled everything. You could clearly hear the first raindrop that reached the asphalt. It sounded like an earthquake when Jaemin cleared his throat. Or was it a cough? I was reminded by the dinner and the sudden mood shift. The butterflies breaking out of their cocoons.

“Jaemin?” I asked. He froze.

“What happened earlier?”

The sound of his strides became louder and louder, mixed with the splashing sounds by the raindrops. He didn’t say anything, just stared out in the rain, raindrops trickling down his face.

“Jaemin what happened?”

My hand pushed his shoulder the hot tears pressing behind my eyes.

“Just…say something”

He finally stopped and looked at me with a piercing gaze.

“Say we always will be together,” He said.

“What?”

“Y/N, say we always will be together.”

The cold raindrops dripped from his body, but not even a hurricane could move him out of place. Not until he had what he wanted; me.

“We’ll always be together,” I promised.

—

“Do you believe in life after death?” Jaemin asked me once, we’ve had been together for almost a year. Sunlight streamed through the windows, it reached his dreamy eyes framed by long lashes and his astronomic telescope on the table. He also had luminous stars in the ceiling and prints of the universe on the curtains. I liked that about his room.

“I would like to believe, in life after death. I don’t like the thought of it all just ends,” I replied after thinking my answer it through. My voice was the only sound that broke the silence.

“I’m not Christian,” He said, “- but I would like to believe in life after death too,”

I shrugged and asked:

“How would Paradise look like?”

“I don’t know. As long as you are there.”

He showcased me a toothy smile, and a warm feeling grew in my body.

—

One night Jaemin and I wanted to watch the meteor shower together. We were laying in my back-yard waiting. A small cloud of steam formed when Jaemin coughed. He was there waiting intently. Like a little kid waiting for permission to take a bite of a cake. My hands fiddled with a brown withered leaf and pulled my hands into my body as the cold feeling started to spread in my body. I was just about to lose my patience and asking if we could stay outside but then Jaemin pointed.

“There!” He shouted with a high-pitched voice. I laughed by his excitement.

I did not see the first shooting star although it did not matter considering there went a few seconds before a new one appeared on the night sky. It continued. Thousands of stars flew across the night sky, like random blobs of paint littered across the sky as it infinite canvas. We were laying for a long time whilst Jaemin eyes were glued to the night sky, wide open, whereas mine were always fluttering waiting to let me shut them.

“Y/N, you can’t fall asleep.”

I rolled onto my side.

“I’m so tired”

However, Jaemin insisted until I promised to stay up with him and watch the meteor shower.

—

The morning after I was awakened by Jaemin, he shook me, and his facial expression was enough to send me trembling. He trashed roughly around in the blankets and his right arm was sticky and sweaty on top of his right leg which was red swollen. With shaking hands, I called an ambulance.

When the ambulance finally arrived, everything was chaos. I had no figures on how many men were running around in luminous jackets, and I tried not to catch a glimpse of Jaemin who laid half-unconscious on the stretcher.

The short trip to the hospital felt like hours. I sat and stared out the window at the tailgate. The world continued. Jaemin laid on the stretcher. At one point I tried to squeeze his hand, but he didn't squeeze back and it made me cry even more

“What is going on?” I asked his mum. She took a deep shuddering breath and looked at the ceiling. I could not see if she was trying to hold her tears back.

“When you have… “Her eyes shut in a concentrating way whilst she continued: “…Lung cancer. When you have lung cancer there is a bigger probability for deep vein thrombosis in the legs.”

There, the mild smell of cleanliness in the hospital went from being pleasant to awful, and the sound of the nurses' clicking shoes outside became unbearable. I was sweating and freezing at the same time and I could not find the normal rhythm in my breathing. Lung cancer. It sounded so wrong in my ears, yet it was the truth. Now I finally realized why Silas insisted on the meteor shower, why he was coughing all the time. I got nausea, I had to clamp a hand over my mouth and stare into the wall so I would not to throw up. Jaemin has Lung cancer.

“Lung cancer?”

My voice thin, so thing it cracked, the tears silently falling down my cheeks. Jaemin’s mother shifted in her seat seconds later crying in her hands.

“He did not tell you?”

I shook my head.

“No”

—

He left us a week ago, I wasn’t even there. He died of his lung cancer which I did not even know about until a week ago. All I know is the phone call from his brother.

“He is dead,” He said.

I guess he just couldn't bear to say more. That is understandable.

I promised Jaemin not to be afraid of new things, but I’m scared. I’m scared of the life I lived before him.

In his notebook, which he had called his will, I received this message:

Dear y/n I love you

Dots started appearing before my eyes as I stumbled around the floor. Trying to stay conscious.

—

I just went out and spread his ashes. They would have buried him, but I told them I would not let him rot. Jaemin was too ethereal to rot in the underground, he belonged to the celestial world like the twinkling star of life he was. That wish is probably the only thing I've said all week. Otherwise, I just nodded. I nod to people when they say they are condoling. I nod to my mother when she glanced sees me with a pitiful look in the eyes sighing.

I don't know what else to do. But I didn't nod as Jaemin flew away with the wind; I cried.

—

I bike home. It's a beautiful day, but it's as if I don't feel the beauty. The sun shines on my face but I can’t feel its warmth. The wind whispers in my neck, but it’s not pleasant. My mind is too clouded to see the truck coming through the sideway. I’m too slow. And just before I hit the truck, I swear I could hear a voice whisper:

“Meet me in Paradise.”

[sol1056]

the most handsome slash nicest guy of the bunch

I was chatting with @ptw30 (as one does, when procrastinating on adulting) about how each season of VLD has given us different pairing-bait for Allura. But if the EPs’ hints (and what seems like a growing assumption in fandom) is that the story’s headed towards allurance, that’s pushing a message that’s... not really good.

Let’s review.

S1 was totally shallura bait, all over the place. S2 continued this to a lesser degree, but it was still a regular note.

I know how you feel, but you have to step away for a while. It's what's best for everyone.

S2 made various attempts at kallura bait, and really... fell pretty flat. Both the hug-in-space and hug-in-hangar were animated as rather physically-awkward interactions, which didn’t help. Then again, having two halves of a potential pairing on opposite sides of a significant racial conflict is gonna make it tough.

Well, sure, they're bad. No doubt about that. But at the same time, couldn't at least a few of them be fighting for good? ... It just seems crazy to lump everyone together.

Especially when one-half’s defense basically amounts to #NotAllGalra. 

S3/S4 was chock full of allurance bait, all the way up to Lance’s impassioned speech inspiring Allura to magic them all out of the Naxzela explosion pokey.

This belongs to you now. If I had to lose Blue to someone, I'm glad it was you.

And then there’s S5, most of which was dominated by equal parts lotura bait and Lance Being Annoyed. Lance’s characterization regressed to shades of who he was in S1, and make it clear exactly what kind of character he really is.

He’s a Nice Guy. 

Behind the cut: behold the evidence, minor salt at VA commentary, and two relationships that stand in contrast.

Lance’s Nice Guy Behavior

In S1/S2, Lance’s flirting is both inappropriate and pervasive, and he continues long after it’s clear that Allura neither welcomes nor enjoys his attention. She’s not even drawn ambiguously; her facial reactions make it clear.

Talking? Eating? Are you asking me out on a date?

Note that the narrative undercuts her agency. She reacts with disgust (and Hunk shows a kind of tired disapproval), but the rest of the casts’ lines treat it as a joke. Her reactions are the punchline. It’s soon clear that one time Shiro smacked Lance down for the inappropriate come-on was the exception, not the rule.

It’s not even “just not that into you,” so much as “does not enjoy being treated like a sexual/romantic object in situations entirely unrelated to that.” And with one exception (when Lance lucks on suggesting the one thing that Allura might actually want to do), her reaction doesn’t change. It’s there from the start.

The way she’s animated is almost as consistent as her irritation. 

Once into S3/S4, one could argue that Lance had finally realized a friendship had more value. He stopped flirting and started treating Allura with respect, listening as a friend, and recognizing her value and skills. 

Until Lotor shows up.

Lance’s opening reaction could be from distrusting Lotor as an enemy...

Look, it’s Prince Lotor, just hangin’ out on the bridge. 

...but he quickly moves into distrusting Lotor as competition.   

Lotor: ...you and I, a royal alliance between Altean and Galra... Lance: How ‘bout we don’t imagine that?

Lotor’s line could be seen as a thinly-veiled marriage proposition, but there’s wiggle room to take his words at face-value as simply suggesting an alliance. Notably, Allura shows no major reaction, let alone anything near the negative reactions she had for Lance’s flirting. 

We get reminders all season that this isn’t a one-time thing. Lance does it over, and over. He’s jealous when Allura responds favorably to Lotor’s compliments.

He’s territorial when Allura and Lotor leave without him, attempting to follow even though the invitation was explicitly only to Allura.

The next shot shows what prompted this reaction: Allura has taken Lotor’s arm. Allura is not animated as particularly physically-demonstrative; most of her touches (except for Coran) tend to be at the shoulders. This specific arm-touch characterizes Allura and Lotor as two people used to formal interactions, and kind of old-fashioned.

The problem is the ambiguity in the framing. I can’t shake the sense it’s meant to ‘reveal’ why Lance reacted badly, and make us sympathize with Lance’s unhappiness at seeing ‘his’ girl off with someone else. 

And then we have Lance stressing over Allura to the exclusion of all else, while the team’s busy trying to fix the ship and save their lives.

What’s happening? What do you think they’re doing now?

I’ve seen arguments this is meant to show he’s just, like, really worried. The narrative undercuts that, though, because Lance is the only one expressing these worries. The others could’ve acknowledged his words, and made it clear that Lance is just saying much louder what everyone else feels. But they’re not only blasé, they’re downright annoyed with Lance to the point that Pidge demands for Shiro to get Lance out of their faces. 

Canonically, we’ve seen nothing to establish that Lance has an exclusive position vis-a-vis Allura. She’s only extended as much friendship to him as she has to anyone else on the team, yet Lance takes that as grounds to scowl, sulk, and obsess.

This is what Nice Guys do. 

To paraphrase an article otherwise not worth quoting, rom-coms teach us ‘the one’ is usually the one who was there all along. (The same article also concluded that “when you get on well already, sometimes all it takes is time (or possibly alcohol) for you to see someone in a new light” and now I think I need to go break something to get over this wave of revulsion.) 

two relationships in contrast

Of course, I can’t mention all of the above without pointing out that in-canon, we have two other characters who’ve done it right: Shiro and Lotor.  

Shiro's respectful of Allura’s knowledge and authority, not only frequently asking her opinion, but then following her orders. He has his own opinion and voices it, but he does so without dismissing Allura's. He worries but is proactive (he'll go with her, instead), and he doesn't get in her way when she makes her own choice.

When Allura insists she’s part of things and will play a role, the rest of the team is a bit taken aback. Not Shiro. His lack of refusal indicates he sees her position as valid. 

Allura: I'm a part of this fight against Zarkon as much as anyone. I'm going. Does anyone have a problem with that? Shiro: Fine. Suit up.

An awful lot of media would have you believe it’s a valid counter-point to say since she’s pretty and a princess, by definition she’s not suited to joining the charge. Shiro doesn’t bother. (Interestingly, the only one who gets sent anywhere alone in S1 is Keith, and there’s an argument to be made that Shiro’s pre-existing knowledge of Keith’s abilities mean Shiro has a greater comfort zone for that.)

Or in short: Shiro is a Good Man.

Meanwhile, Lotor is clearly framed as the ‘bad boy’ -- from his actual position as the son of the Big Bad, to his smooth appearance (that hair), to his accent that codes as ‘high class’ to Americans. If Shiro is the stalwart quasi-military guy who opens doors for women but respects their position in the chain of command, Lotor is the quintessential rebellious rich boy (and even turns out to have a mushy center). 

Yet Lotor consistently shows respect for Allura’s agency and perspective, always checking with her first, rather than presuming. He asks for consent, rather than plowing right past Allura’s dis/comfort.  

He’s deferent when it’s her area of authority, openly credits her, and seeks her opinion. The few times Lotor gets snappish, it’s usually related to his parents, and Allura shows every sign of realizing the distinction.  With no flirtation in play, there’s little reason to see him as having romantic ulterior motives. Sure, he may have other motives, but I’d have a hard time making an argument that Lotor sees Allura as a purely romantic object. 

Lotor may be ‘the bad boy’ in this paradigm, but if you look at the way he -- like Shiro -- treats Allura, he’s not a boy, either. Like Shiro, Lotor is also fundamentally a Good Man.

a dash of VA-related salt

For the most part, I’ve rarely had reason to side-eye Josh Keaton’s interviews, but the recent one where he said something to the effect of Shiro shuts down Lance’s jokes (euphemism for ‘unwelcome flirtation’) because Shiro’s jealous he can’t make those jokes himself...

Cue reaction gif.

Really? We’re talking about a character who insists on persistent attention of a romantic nature, with no regard for the recipient's clear disinterest or obvious discomfort. 

We have a name for this: sexual harassment.

Yet Josh thinks the only character who ever speaks up to shut that shit down is doing so because he’s of the ‘if you can’t, I can’t’ school of reasoning?

Josh, wtf, over. Uncool.

There are a lot of places where @dynared and I will bang heads in our interpretations, but somewhere he commented that fandom might be surprised at how the writers aren’t nearly as progressive as some fans would like to think. (Or that the EPs would like us to believe.)

There are smaller examples of that: Keith pulling a #NotAllGalra, or Lance paraphrasing right-wing tripe as “Galra-on-Galra violence”. Or the way early S3 demotes Allura, or makes her fearful, self-doubting, and incompetent. Lance is the biggest case, though: if the end-game is really allurance, that’s like an entire series of positioning the Nice Guy to eventually win his prize.

In a word, that’s disgusting. 

If they couldn’t manage a romance subplot without falling into such corrosive tropes, personally I would’ve preferred romance be left out altogether.

[letsbfrank4]

Book Review: 4th of July

Rating: ☕☕☕☕

Title: 4th of July

Authors: James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Series: Women’s Murder Club

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Fiction

Pages: 392

Format: Hardcover

Summary: Detective Lindsay Boxer and the Women’s Murder Club make a courageous return for their fourth and most chilling case ever-- one that could easily be their last. In a late-night showdown after a near fatal car chase, San Francisco police lieutenant Lindsay Boxer has to make an instantaneous decision: in self-defense, she fires her weapon-- and sets off a chain of events that leaves a police force disgraced, an entire city divided, and a family destroyed. Now everything she’s worked her entire life for hinges on the decision of twelve jurors. To escape scrutiny during breaks from her trial, Lindsay retreats to the picturesque town of Half Moon Bay. But soon after her arrival, a string of grisly murders punches through the peaceful community. There are no witnesses and there is no discernible pattern. But a key detail recalls a case Lindsay worked on as a rookie year before-- an unsolved murder that has haunted her ever since. As summer comes into full swing, Lindsay and her friends in the Women’s Murder Club battle for her life on two fronts: before a judge and jury as her trial comes to a climax, and facing unknown adversaries who will do anything to keep her from the truth about the killings-- including killing again.

After reading the first book in the Women’s Murder Club series I couldn’t wait to get a hold of the next book in the series. Unfortunately I could only find the 4th and 5th books at my bookstore. Looking on the bright side I thought that this would be a good test to see if the Women’s Murder Club books could stand on their own or if this series would require some long term commitment with 18 books total thus far. While this book still had some of my favorite aspects that I fell in love with in the first book (1st to Die) it also had quite a few problems.

Starting with the positives I’m a huge fan of the way Patterson writes his books. I love the short chapters that make it so easy to find yourself reading 100 pages in one sitting. It is a nice style if your life is a little busy because there is always a good place to pause; saves the reader time and thought when they go back to reading. Patterson also has the right amount of suspense at the end of some of the chapters. Some authors will rain down the suspense to the point where it comes off as desperate but not Patterson. He has enough to keep the reader going but not too much to drown them. To keep adding to Patterson’s style of writing I find it interesting as to how he can put just enough descriptions and details into his writing without making it long winded. I’m not a fan of reading 10 pages of setting setup for just two pages of action and plot. Patterson is an expert at avoiding this popular writing rut. Even the use of fonts and foreshadowing are staggered perfectly throughout; perfect Easter eggs for those who know how to look for them.

The authors also scored some points with the way they maneuvered the characters. Moving the main character to a different location is a common way to change up a series, however, it can be hard to do and fairly obvious that the authors are working hard to change things up. The way Lindsay Boxer (the main character) is moved from her classic San Francisco to a small bay area town is done with great care and dexterity. Not many authors can make this as seamless as it was in this book. Speaking of characters, the Keith character is also used in a variety of ways which is impressive. Is Keith a new love interest, invaluable key to the mystery, an enemy in disguise, and/or a new revisited deep character in the future? There are so many paths this character can take and I love seeing which path the authors decide to take.

While I enjoyed this book there were a lot of little things that I stumbled upon that I was not a fan of. For starters, right in the beginning of the book, Lindsay talks about a cold case she had when she first started and goes on to say that she is making personal. I can only image that one of the first rules of working a case is NOT to make it personal. This sentence almost lowers the respect for Lindsay as a cop if she can’t even be professional enough to separate her emotions from her work. Speaking of cops, the jargon used can be confusing at times. Understandably cops and going to talk like cops but it can make it difficult for the reader if they aren’t accustomed to that type of vocabulary.  

Branching off the idea of trying to get the reader to understand what is happening, some of the descriptions (while time saving) would be confusing as well. Lots of brand names, furniture styles, clothing patterns, and even anthropological knick knacks would be so foreign to me that I would have to stop and look them up on Google to be able to get the imagery in my head correctly. A few of these descriptors are okay but if I’m getting annoyed by having to put my book down every 5 minutes it is too much. On the opposite end of the spectrum the descriptions of the three killers would be nonexistent at times. I understand that the authors are trying to mask the identities of the killers but I’m not a fan of having only dark silhouettes in my mind’s eye when trying to put a scene together. Yes, it is mysterious but it is far from functional.

As I mentioned earlier, I was curious to see if these books could stand on their own. Sadly, they cannot. Unless you are reading the books in order you will be a little lost. There is little to no background of characters (no even physical descriptions), holes in the subplots, and spoilers from the other book. BIG spoilers as in major character deaths and new major relationships. I cannot stress enough that you HAVE to read all the books and in order. So if you want to read a particular book in the series you might have to strap yourself in for up to 18 books.

One thought that I have been chewing on was during one of Lindsay and Joe’s romantic encounters. The authors painted a picture where Lindsay was so happy that her life, for the moment, seemed perfect. Anyone who knows anything about plots knows that when everything seems “perfect” something really bad is about to follow. I’m on the fence as to whether the authors used this cliché unknowingly or if they used this classic cliché to their advantage to lead up to future events. Since Patterson is such an accomplished writer I’m hoping for the latter.

Now for my rating. The first book in this series (1st to Die) I would have to give a 5/5 All-Nighter Worthy rating. Finished the book in 3 days and could not put it down. This book, while still very good, I would give a 4/5. Not as compelling as the first book but I still really enjoyed the characters, story, and plot. Would I recommend this book? As long as you have read the previous books I would, yes. Would I recommend this series? Hands down yes! I can’t wait to read the next book in this series but, as I said before, I think I’m going to wait until I can get copies of the 2nd and 3rd books first.

Let me know what you think of this review below. If you would be interested me writing a review on the first book “1st to Die” let me know! Otherwise, bookmarking this for now.

“Someone had me in his crosshairs, and I had no idea who it was or why.”

“ … I find it interesting that she denies what she can’t admit—and admits what she can’t deny.”

[thesarcastictree]

Chapter 1 - Play of the game

Hey, everyone! 

Author’s note: I did it! The first, however a shorter, part is out. I hope you’re gonna enjoy it. Remember - sharing is caring. ^-^

For my lovely best friend Susan, because she loves when I mention her.

Words: 3063

You have 1 new message.

I rolled my eyes as I heard the painfully familiar vibration coming off from under the pillow. My eyes hurt and my face felt disgusting, blaming the fact I again didn't take off my make­-up before taking an obligatory nap. The yawn was long, making me feel dizzy. I put my hand under the cushion, palpating a rectangularly shaped object, taking it out. 

Unlocking the screen of my phone, I sighed. Had I really been sleeping for only thirty minutes? I quickly tapped in the passcode, internally satisfying my clumsy self, since I hadn't made any mistake in the four meaningless numbers. 

Another message popped up, as my eyes met with the bright white chat.

forever alone bitch: YOU SLEPT ENOUGH COME PLAY noodle mommy: what  noodle mommy: did you seriously wake me up because of stupid ow forever alone bitch: yes now come  forever alone bitch: i wanna play compets noodle mommy: geez, ok noodle mommy: gimme five minutes forever alone bitch: gg noodle mommy: ??? forever alone bitch: you and your five minutes

I chuckled, shaking my head. Somehow, I managed to get off my bed in a record time. The procedure of undoing the paint I had stuffed onto my skin was, as well, quite quick. In a while, I sat down onto a spinning chair, putting on the headphones, giving up on the ball of cables that fell into my lap. As I waited for the Blizzard app to start, I swiftly found the playlist that had been my companion for a few months now. The brisk tones of one of my favorite songs hit my ears, and I laughed at myself and at my poor attempts of singing in Korean. "Geu bojogaen illegal, ille~~gal," I sang quietly, tapping the tips of my fingers in the rhytm, "but I want it anyway, anyway, anywa-" The invite to the group hit my screen, as soon as I got to the loaded menu. I, of course, accepted, joining the voice chat right after.

uncleREYES has joined the voice chat.

"Yo, nibblet, what's up?" I asked with a hoarse vocal, caused by the lack of usage. I got literally no response. Letting out a quiet sigh, the sudden hyped sound made me jump in my seat. "HELLO, HELLO, IT'S YOUR GIIIIR-" The microphone cut off.  "Yeah, hi," laughing, I started the queue for competitives. "-lright, you should totally see the video I sent you, because I'm fucking crying again. Why is MCCree so perfect? Why does Hanzo have to die in every fanfiction? Why can't they just be happy?!" Sometimes, I wondered how she was able to be hysterical over two characters from a game, but then again, I wasn't different. 

Well, okay, I agree. My obsession had gone perhaps too far, being it a few Korean idols, which made it even more difficult. They were real. They existed. They breathed the same air like I did, and their faces were literally everywhere I looked; printed on my phone case, set on my wallpapers - I even had a goddamn pillow case with Taehyung's face, biting his lip in the most seductive way ever. "You need help," I responded to her autistic screeching, glancing at the timer passing by the second minute.  "... and you are the one to say that." Susan barked back with ease. "Yeah, you're right. We both need help."

Susan and I, we had been friends since... pretty much forever. I met her during the start of the first year, as my kind of crazy classmate, also being an idiot into games. We'd argued for a few times, even stopped talking for another few months, but at the end of the day, noone could ever split our brotherhood, as we called it, apart. And there we were, the partners in any crime. However, little did we both know that the upcoming minutes were going to completely change our lives, for good. 

GAME FOUND! Joining the game...

Both of us went silent, as the map of Volskaya Industries showed, together with the name and rank lists of both teams. I briefly went through the players, and... something seemed off. 

"Susan?" I asked, frowning. She responded with a silent, almost unhearable: "Hm?"  "Don't panic, okay? We have a fallen diamond Widowmaker main against us, low plat, in premade with two other platinums," I began, taking a deep breath. It wouldn't be a big deal, if I wasn't a borderline golden rank, and my comrade a bit higher gold. Was our elo getting bigger, or did we just get randomly filled into the missing places of a long-buffering game? I cracked my knuckles, checking out the others' mains, even more confused. "How the hell am I not supposed to panic? I'll just play goddamn D.va, I'm not feeling the Ryu ga wagateki go-fuck yourself tonight." I let out a desperate laugh. "Yeah, enjoy it. One of the... well, the GucciBoy has about 100 hours on D.va. They have a 120 hours MCCree main too, what the fuck?" I whined, comparing the composition of our teams together. We seemingly stood no chance, yet I didn't feel like giving up.  I chose Mercy, even though I wasn't a big fan of her pick. I decided to go for certain, stable decisions, instead of a Hanzo or Widow, and it seemed like I perfectly fullfilled the expectations of our teamcomp. 

My attention, while we waited for the doors on attack to open, got caught by the allchat, as I smiled cheekily.

[ALL] Bunny: sugacheonjae? my ass... [ALL] GucciB0i: LMAO  [ALL] TuandonJuan: IT'S HIGH NOON SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD

Susan's next yak reminded me of a dying whale, but I decided to ignore it. 

[ALL] uncleREYES: YES IN MY BED [ALL] TuandonJuan: GIVE ME YOUR ADDRESS HUCKLEBERRY

"I'm so adding him!" she hissed happily, as I heard the furious clicks of a mouse. We had about twenty seconds towards the beginning, and for some reason, I felt nervous. 

[ALL] Bunny: what is it, suga, you scared? [ALL] SugaCheonjae: Excuse me?  [ALL] Bunny: ;) 

That was the last hit my ego could take. I filled in with my Odile Widowmaker instead, ignoring the desperate cries for a switch back, as I just simply muted the teamchat. 

[ALL] xHeroO: can u pls report widow shes trolling [ALL] uncleREYES: can you please stfu and play, she's good  [ALL] Bunny: we will see about that [ALL] TuandonJuan: uuu [ALL] GucciB0i: spicy, I like that

"It's fine, yo, I muted them, anyway." I whispered to the microphone, to prevent Susy from distracting herself on pointless arguments with some kids. Wrapping my fingers tightly around the mouse, I covered the red light with my palm. The three of the enemy premades started to slowly dip over the edge of the cup of patience, that had already been pretty full.  The last seconds disappeared, and we rushed out of the building, with Reinhardt's shield leading us towards the point we were supposed to capture. I hooked myself at the edge of another house, dragging myself up in a long jump. Seeing the Symmetra's sentry turrets in the scope, I sighed, knowing already that it'd be pretty difficult to get over the arc, and then my point of view disappeared.  "Shit..." I cursed under my breath, waiting for the respawn. The first kill of the game was shining in the corner, as Bunny eliminated my courageous positioning. 

[ALL] Bunny: :) 

"Motherfucker."  Susy cleared out her throat with a loud cough, and before I tried to shut her up, her words pierced my ears: "Calm down, Natalie, you got this."  I nodded, not quite sure of myself, but I did. I truly also didn't feel like losing against a bunch of pricky platinum asses. Susy flew behind the entrance through the arc, destroying the sentry turrets, and losing her Mecha in exchange. Low on health, she jumped behind the corner, meeting up with Reinhardt's half-destroyed shield and Zenyatta's healing orb. I took a deep breath. It was my time to shine. I dediced to not make the same mistake twice. Instead of jumping on a visible place, I slowly looked out from behind one of the slopes, with my rifle scoped into the enemy team. At first, I couldn't quite spot a single thing not hidden behind Orisa's barrier, but then Symmetra made a simple, greedy mistake. I found the weak spot, quickly eliminating one of their major defense mechanism, dying to a bullet of the enemy Widowmaker again, afterwards. 

[ALL] Bunny: nice try :) [ALL] SugaCheonjae: Are you always this annoying? 

The beeping of a movement around the point assured me that I made a great move. Symmetra was down, and after the death recap, their Mercy too. Roadhog's hook wasn't something she could just simply survive. I bit my lip. The only proper problem on their team was Widowmaker, killing our squishy damage dealers without a fuss.  "She's on the rooftop-" I grinned, victoriously, pinning down Bunny's killing spree with a precise headshot. Reinhardt's shield protected us in front of the enemy's D.va ultimate and mister High noon got a bullet back, thanks to Genji's deflection. I got to kill Orisa on low health, before she placed the barrier, as we successfully captured the first point.

[ALL] SugaCheonjae: Everything's alright down there? 

I mocked at the cockiness the enemy Widowmaker showed before, Susy's 'ooooh' giving me the courage I didn't even know I had. 

[ALL] Bunny: you're just lucky

Yeah, of course, I thought to myself, hitting one head after another. Not even three minutes into the end of our timer we'd captured the second point, setting the score to 2:0 for our team.  "Good job, they don't even know what hit 'em."  I loved the enthusiasm in my friend's voice. And she was right - after a bad start, we didn't even let them move from their attack spawn, as Susan's arrow hit every spotted movement, and I finished off the rest. We won, almost effortlessly claiming the clear score. The victory poses triked through my screen and Susy, all proud, screamed, watching the animation of Widowmaker swinging, with my name underneath.

Play of the game SUGACHEONJAE as WIDOWMAKER. 

I quickly recognized the one last seconds before we captured the last point of the objective.  "Now, watch this." I grinned, biting the side of my index finger. TuandonJuan fell first. D.va's mech disappeared in Susy's scattered arrows and I quickly dragged my mouse over, finding Widow's peaking head, shutting down even the Mercy's desperate try to resurrect their last hope. 

[ALL] GucciB0i: GG [ALL] TuandonJuan: I'll find you in another life, unclereyes [ALL] uncleREYES: ;-; [ALL] Bunny: I could really use a hug right now... 

"Tsk..." I snapped. Disrespectful idiot, no wonder he fell to such low elo. We returned back into the menu. "Let me just go grab a coffee, and we can continue," I announced, taking off the headphones, heading to the kitchen. It felt good, really. I'd always liked to prove my skill, especially to such douchebags. 

Returning back to my room, I silently closed the door, placing the cup next to my laptop. What caught my attention were the extra three icons next to ours, and the names shining bright in the groupchat. 

[GROUP] TuandonJuan: howdy [GROUP] GucciB0i: HOW ON EARTH DID YOU TWO GOT ONLY GOLD FROM PLACEMENTS, I DON'T GET IT [GROUP] uncleREYES: its called skill, something you dont have [GROUP] GucciB0i: that doesn't make any sense [GROUP] uncleREYES: jeff hates us [GROUP] GucciB0i: touché [GROUP] uncleREYES: :^) [GROUP] Bunny: what are we waiting for? [GROUP] uncleREYES: coffeegirl [GROUP] GucciB0i: why did I read cowgirl [GROUP] uncleREYES: I almost wrote cowboy tbh [GROUP] TuandonJuan: what do you mean cowboy, im here all the time darlin [GROUP] uncleREYES: >.> [GROUP] uncleREYES: voice? [GROUP] Bunny: I'll pass [GROUP] GucciB0i: YA BOIIIIIIIIIIII [GROUP] TuandonJuan: anything for you

I slammed the M key, muting my microphone, hearing the honest laugh of my bestfriend and two as loud voices. 

TO: uncleREYES: WHAT THE HELL, SUSAN?!  FROM: uncleREYES: come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn he mains mccree i love him  TO: uncleREYES: i'm not playing with the bitchass widow  FROM: uncleREYES: he isnt even talking FROM: uncleREYES: please FROM: uncleREYES: i'll buy you cigs TO: uncleREYES: ...

"Hey, you can start, I'm back." I jumped into their conversation, which madly whirled around the best MCCree skin. TuandonJuan's voice made me chuckle, because he'd just found out that Susy also loved the Lifesaver skin the most.  "Is it the best Widowmaker under the sun?" I sort of cringed at the weird accent of the GucciB0i, but I took the compliment, proudly.  "Well, I'm definitely not Bunny, so it has to be me?" I grinned, as Susy started the quickplay queue, relieved that we weren't going to tryhard, because honestly, I felt like I gave everything skillful I had left in the competive game. However, that didn't mean I was going to be an easy prey to make jokes of, still visibly hurt by the offensive humor from the game before.   "Oh, shit, you're my new best friend," GucciB0i's oddly famous deep voice responded. Susy almost immediately grunted back: "Fuck off, would you? The spot is already taken!"  "I hope the spot of your boyfriend isn't taken, uncleREYES, because I'd definitely want to nominate myself." I choked on the sip of coffee, clapping as soon as I placed the cup back at its spot. "Alright, that was just too fucking smooth," I hissed, shaking my head. I felt utterly happy, because Susan deserved an equally disabled person in her life, to weight off all the bad events from the past. 

FROM: uncleREYES: im FROM: uncleREYES: fucking FROM: uncleREYES: in FROM: uncleREYES: love FROM: uncleREYES: who is that guy TO: uncleREYES: XDDDD idk

"Talking behind our backs, much?" GucciB0i seemed to have ears everywhere.  "Maybe...?" I teasily asked, laughing it off. The silence got quickly filled by TuadonJuan's adoration towards Susy's McHanzo kink. 

It... somehow felt right, yet stupid. Bunny still hadn't spoken and I felt guilty for making fun of him, but the again, he was the same in the competitive. I shrugged it off, mindlessly skipping the songs, finally getting to a slower cover of Adam Levine's Lost Stars from Jungkook.

"Please, don't see, just a boy caught up in dreams and fanta~sies-" I quietly hummed to the rhytm, as we finally joined the Dorado map. I didn't make a big deal about them hearing me sing, because honestly, in the talk of those two it occured to be as effective as hearing of a deaf person. I remained silent for next few seconds, until Jungkook's soft voice reached the refrain.  "Damn, I love that boy." I scoffed. "Who? Who?!" I rolled my eyes for a hunderth time that evening. "Jungkook, who else could I mean?" The only response in suddenly quiet voicechat was careless Susy and her laughing voice. "Girl, you love everyone. You have a pillow with Taehyung's face, Suga in name, Jin on hoodie, you want to rap like Namjoon and dance like Hobi. And now you say you love Jungkook, I'm confused."  "It's not my fault, okay, they are all perfect, shut up!" I whined, covering my blushing face, even though noone could see me, both in the darkness and through the screen.  "Sure, whatever," she chuckled back, paying all of her attention to damage-boosting of TuandonJuan's ass, playing, surprisingly, McCree, again. I picked Ana, thoughtlessly shooting my darts at everything that moved, either reducing or adding up on health. 

The final push seemed to be endless, as we either died or killed during the overtime. Finally finishing charging up my ultimate, I nanoboosed Reaper, who completely cleared out the point of the enemies, scoring a precise teamkill. Briefly realizing it was Bunny, I coughed, trying to somehow sound friendlier than before.

"Good job, bunny boy," I cheered, watching the scenario all over again from his point of view in the play of the game. He seemed to unmute himself, because the icon of him talking showed. I was expecting everything but not what I heard. Listening to the cover of Lost Stars on replay still, I gasped, as Bunny murmured a modest, yet elated: "Thank you very much for your ultimate, Sugasuga." 

For a brief second I couldn't quite believe what I heard.

"Why do you sound exactly like Jungkook?" I said more to myself, than to him, completely amazed by the discovery. "Nah, he doesn't." Susy opposed, visibly still annoyed by his previous behavior.  "I agree, he sounds nothing like the korean dude," TuandonJuan's voice interfered, and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "You know BTS?"  I caught him off guard, visibly.  He laughed, embrarassed: "Yeah, my-my little sister won't shut up about them."  I smiled. "That's... well, understandable." 

"Aight, I agree with Sugasuga, though, he has something that makes him sound like Jungkook, but not quit-"  "Can you not compare me to that gaypop shit? Thank you." Bunny's voice went off again, and I scowled. "Did I say something wrong?" 

"Nah, he is... acting like an ass, tonight. You know, periods-" I held back my laughter. Guccib0i was cool, I could give Susy that. "Don't even fucking get me started about the periods, dude," she hissed, and I just legitimately bursted out, together with the others.

[GROUP] Bunny: fuck you too, T

We managed to play a few more games, before we said all the goodnights, and thanks for playing. I turned off the laptop, wiping my eyes, sliding under the cold bedsheets with the phone in my hand. 

forever alone bitch: told you they are not so bad noodle mommy: yeah, BUT im lowkey crushing on Bunny's voice forever alone bitch: wtf noodle mommy: fuck him though, GucciB0i is the S H I T  forever alone bitch: yeah we ship you two noodle mommy: "we"?  forever alone bitch: mark and me noodle mommy: ???? forever alone bitch: last seen a minute ago

Susan was right, though. They didn't seem like bad people. We had some decent laughs and giggles, plus, the GucciB0i turned out to be a pretty huge fanboy of Taehyung. 

Somehow, I couldn't wait for the next night, because that was the time we estabilished as another gaming session. I closed my eyes, hugging Taehyung's stuffed face, with a dorky smile, first time in a while feeling upon satisfied with how the day had ended,

[bi-lullaby]

I already sent you the list of male characters, so here's a list of our amazing GA women to try to rank from your favorite to least favorite, no ties allowed! :) Meredith, Cristina, Bailey, Izzie, Callie, Lexie, April, Jo, Arizona, Maggie, Amelia, Teddy, Addison, Erica. Good luck, and as always, feel free to include your reasons why because I love your answers! I realized while typing this that overall I love the way GA writes its female characters a lot more than its male ones, btw

Oh honey, same! Here’s my list, whoch has some Solid Reasons but the main one is who makes me recreate this gif:

More enthusiastically, which is very personal, otherwise by level of awesomeness it’d be, like, a 10-way tie!

1 - Meredith. I feel in love with her in the first ep and that has only grow exponentially over the last 15 seasons. Is she perfect? As far for it as possible. She can be harsh and inconsiderate of other people’s feelings, she can be arrogant and agressive. I know that. But I also feel she’s the character who’s the most aware of her own flaws and who actively tries to overcome them. Her whole relationship with Derek was a six season long of her working over her issues until she felt ready to be more intimate and close to someone and marry him. I feel like everyone is a little too harsh on her (main character curse). Every other person on the show is allowed to have bad days, to lash out and mourn and be sefish whrn they’re going through a lot (i mean, Amy has a whole speech to Mer about how “she’s never lost the love of her life” and “she doesn’t know how that messes a person up, and yet I see so many people agreeing with that and hating Mer when she was the one in Amy’s position and also took some less than stellar, hurtful decisions) but Mer, who has quantitatively gone through the most (not a competition because I feel she, Jo and Amy are on equal footing, just by sheer number of bad things), is called whinny, bitchy, cold, uncaring, when she is anything but! She cares so freaking much she’s willingb to go to any distance! Donating her liver to her stranded father because of her loved little sister? Risking her job and career for someone she loves? Risking her life/career/license for patients? Welcomig people in her home with open arms? Operating through a miscarriage while her husband lies dying on the next OR? Being a great friend who defends, sticks by, forgives, comforts and protects who she loves from abusive exes, jail, judgment or tests? She has done all that and more. Also, she’s so empathetic/compassionate! She refused to bet on George’s failure on season one, she was the only one to try and shield that “tumor pregnancy” patient from judgment, she was the only one (not her best and oldest friend or hes husband, Mer) to get Jo to talk after she became depressed, she defended Cristina’s choice to Owen even if that was not what she’d personally do (she had tried so hard for a baby! She went out of her way to adopt Zola!) not just because she had empathy for the fetus that would grow to mimic her own situation, but for the woman who would mimic her mother’s (also, low-key one of the best speeches, damn)! She feels everyone’s pains and tries her best to help! She’s dorky and fun and smiles so often, no matter how bad her life has been! She pushes people to be their best (Alex, Cristina, Jo). She’s a great teacher! Also, one of the things that make me the softest is how she recognizes the flaws in her upbringing and tries her best to correct them and not continue that bad cycle with her own children! When she’s mad and needs to be alone, she tells Zola “you’re perfect, and mommy needs a minute”. When she’s dating, she puts her kid’s feelings first and foremost! When she’s away from them, she misses them like crazy! She talks about them with a brilliant, vivid smile! All of her relationships are fantastic (she’s such a people-person, as much as she tries to cover it up and doesn’t know how to truly express it) and some criminally underrated. She’s a kind, brilliant, loving, still flawed, beautiful woman who deserves the world and more, and I’m on Meredith Grey’s defense squad from now till forever!

2 - Arizona. As a bubbly blonde wlw who’s interested in being a pediatric surgeon, has authority+parental issues and an older sibling she loves, Arizona is one of those “I see myself in them” characters that just make me so happy! I felt both represented and inspired to try my best, to be at the top of my game but jot let go of my humanity and compassion and happiness. It’s weird because I didn’t quite like her in the first few eps she appeared, as she was rude and biphobic and kinda crass. Then she grew on me enormously. I think her relationships are all so criminally underrated, and that she should come back with Callie and Sophia and April in tow and make my day. I suffered when she suffered, and when she smiles, I feel lighter and happier, truly! She showcases some important messages! I have said this in a previous post, but I love that she... Came into the show and left pretty much the same. Her arc wasn’t as much about change as it was about finding herself again, glueing her pieces back together again. She entered a bubbly, hardcore, brilliant peds surgeon who had a very strong, clear set of values, was able-bodied, enamorated with Callie Torres and didn’t want to have children, out and proud and beautiful. She left a bubbly, hardcore peds+fetal surgeon, a mother, with a very strong, clear set of values, woman with a disability, enamorated with Callie Torres, out and proud and beautiful. Some things changed and she grew, like any healthy, normal human being, but seeing her get lost in such a dark place where so litte of the true Arizona showed through and then have her come back to who she truly was, stronger and wiser and more determined, really puts out a hopeful message that I adore.

3 - Amelia. Has she been inconsistent? Did they apparently slap the tumor storyline on her already suffering character just to make up for it? Yeah. But overall I completely adore Amy. She has been through so much, so repeatedly, and I’m amazed at how she’s still... Such a deeply good person. She smiles and laughs and cares and helps and works and saves and emphatisazes and worries and loves. She’s adorable with children and so loving with Mer’s. She’s kind to the point of almost being a pushover, but knows when to stand up for herself. I adore her and Mer’s relationsjip and wish it was a lot more developed! I love those two strong, tragedy-plaged women having each other as a support system! I love how soft she is with Maggie, how she’s so considerate of her! I love how she fughts to be in Leo’s life! I love how she worries about what’s best for everyone! And I hope she has a lot of good coming her way those next seasons. She deserves the world.

4 - Maggie. She’s such a breathe of fresh air! She’s bubbly and awkward and stuttering and idealistic and worry-prone! She is learning! She feel so real, so relatable! Can she be annoying? Sure! A lot of the times! I have been annoyed with her a lot! But there are so many characters who have that flaw and worse and are so loved, why is she so scorned? Being brilliant, young, still figuring things out, hard-worker, sensitive, those are not flaws or bad things. Maggie deserves a world of happiness and some kids of her own to smother with that gentle love of hers, and to have more developed relationship with everyone in that show. Also, the lady-chief trifecta gives me life! She’s a good balance to all thsoe tragedy-stricken, life-weary people at GSMH and I stand by that.

5 - Bailey is fantastic and badass and one part of a powercouple that owns my heart and a goddamn talented surgeon and an adorable mother and probably gives the best hugs and the actress is SO DAMN TALENTED like that eye acting? A MASTERPIECE. She’s also one of the hearts of the show and it’d not be the same without her. She reminds me a lot of Peggy Carter - golden hearted badassess who’ve been put through the ringer by people who ask her to measure up to her male (and, in bailey’s case, white) colleagues - and who not only does it but is usually better than then. Not gonna lie, when she got chief, I felt like it had been my own flesh and blood being promoted to her dream job! But I don’t feel like it did her too well (neither does the narrative, apparently, since they had her get a heartattack and a sabatical and relationship problems because of it). I know it wont happen but I wish she’d, like, take a nice trip, maybe write a book, vacay, breath, work on her mental health and come back feeling good and ready to take on the world! One of the scenes that makes her be so awesome to me is her talk with Cristina when they’re both pregnant: Bailey, cuddling her stomach and loving her unborn baby, telling Cristina (wary and tired and absolutely not wanting to be carrying a fetus) that no one can judge her for her choice and that she is able to make that choice! Talk about supporting women on different paths than you! What pushes her “ranking” a bit lower on my list than what it’d have been in the first seasons is that the fandom put her on such a pedestal that she cannot be or do no wrong, ever, and that quickly makes me sick of a character. Bailey commits insurance fraud (changing the hour on a surgery so it’d be covered) to help a patient? Have never seen anyone even comment on it. Mer/Alex do the same? Oh nooooo, go off on them, Bailey! Bailey’s such a hardass she’s nicknamed “the Nazi”? BADASS (and she was). Any other character is hard on their interns/residents? Monsters, bitches, poor things. It’s more an issue with the fandom, ofc, but well, that has made me hate characters I previously loved, so I’m really sad it happed to her (not that I hate her, I love her, I’ve just became annoyed with the character), and with characters that become “mouthpieces” to the narrative (wanna show the character is wrong? Have Bailey yell at them, even if Bailey might be on their side/not care/have done the same or similar/isn’t that close to them) and thus, loose a bit of their authenticity. Plus, there’s this one thing that’s core to her personality and makes me annoyed (probs irrationally): any doctor: screws up bailey: I RAISED YOU BETTER THAN THIS. Like, you... Didn’t? They were grown-ass adults when they came to know her, were her interns for... Under a year? (it felt like a long time to us but the first three seasons were a year and they had vacation and she went on maternity leave). And then went their merry ways with her being a resident and them too (not to count the ones that weren’t even her interns, like April and Jackson. Plus, have you considered that with all their screw-ups (and there have been maaaaany), she should either realize that she isn’t responsible for their actions and stop pulling that tired, over-used, untrue card, or that she might not have “raised” them so well, if she insists that’s what she did? I get the feeling and it’s sweet, just... not True and kinda overused.

6 - Lexie. Death I cried the hardest. She was such a baby, trying her goddamn best! So smart, so kind, so passionate! I also really identified wither her “dorky, clumsy younger sibling who most people would (wrongly) name “the smart one”, the overeating and the romanticism and the passionate arguing over facorite characters). She’s just not quite as far up on my list because A) It’s been so long and I’m not yet on my rewatch where she shows up, so I feel like I might be glorifying/glossing over her flaws, B) Her immaturity in the relationship with Mark is annoying, C) The fandom glosses over all her flaws and always, always, always places her as 100% the only, sole, victim, which turns me off a lot, D) She was kind of a Mary Sue. I mean, photographic memory that allows her borderline superpowers and being so sweet it was almost nauseating and never being wrong and being irresistible and and and...and E) SHE HAD THE AUDACITY TO DIE LIKE THAT AND BREAK MY GODDAMN HEART.

7 -Callie! My sweet angel Callie! She’s just... I don’t even have words! Her relationships are all funny and amazing and I loved her from when she first appeared, as much as she’s changed throughout the seasons! I love that she is selfless and brave and wild and fun and quitky. It breaks my heart to see her sad, and I’ll never forgive her mother for the treatment of her! She definetly deserves better. I am so sad she’s not on the show anymore, just hope that she’s happy with Ari and their kid (s? Now? Maybe? Wouldn’t that be great?).

8 - Cristina. He character is refreshing, because she is allowed. To continue not being a people person. To have moments and realizations and weakness without taking a 180° turn and going from a type A to B in a second with no explanation (like in every Holidays movie in which a successful business woman who’s dedicated herself to her career all her life moves to a small city and suddenly, after meeting one “soft”guy, is a farm girl at heart who wants to have ten children and a traditional wedding and quit her job to stay-at-home because reasons). To have an abortion. To continue not wanting children. To marry and divorce and still be a whole person. To have her years of sacrifice and hard work pay off with the biggest career glow-up. Sandra’s acting knocks it out of the park, too, there’s no contest. Also, for a “robot”, she has some of the most emotional, deep, telling scenes in the show! Taking care of Mer before the boards even if it might mean she’d get sick too? Her scene with George’s dad? Crying to Webber because she “lost her edge?” The “i’m free” scene? Talking about her father? Ugh, my heart! I placed her “low” (Still top ten female characters and top ten Grey’s characters tho) because, as amazing as she is, she also reminds me a lot of people that ruined my life or made it miserable. That sass and arrogance and and self-centered tendencies might be endearing in-character but irl, I’d suffer if I had to be around her. Also, because I’m too much a Mer stan (and I admit that this point is a total bias), I kinda still can’t let go of their fight in season 9 (when Mer had Bailey and Cristina felt left out and just... Was not nice about it). Humans make mistakes! She wasn’t 100% in the wrong! Mer said some crap too! But as I said, this is based on feelings more than fact and that one fight left me so uncomfortable and I felt Cristina crossed some really personally-important-to-me lines. Plus, there’s this glorification some things of her that just... Make me angry. This is coming from someone from a family with lots of doctors, who’s studying to be a doctor, who’s had all her teachers stop in class to beg us to ask for help and work on our mental health, whose choice in profession was the reason the university kick-started one of the country’s first mental health support system for students (that now includes all curses but was created for Med students): The profession is sick. Doctors are suicidal and overworked and unhealthy and tired and dropping dead like freaking flies, and that’s even worse in surgeons. My uncle (also a cardiologist, funnily enough) died at fifty from a heart attack because he worked himself to death. My aunt died from a manageable condition in a minor procedure because she let it go on to long before treating (working). My other aunt has lost many close doctor friends to heart problems. My cousin and another uncle are depressed. My sister almost developed a tachycardia from trying to stay awake using energetics during her residency. My class is all physically sick (I’m writting this from bed) because we’re so overwhelmed with a course that’s not only integral but demands so much, and we’re just students. A doctor in my city died with his son in a car crash that left his daughter severely injured and on the brink of death coming back from the beach in the middle of the night because he was going to be on-call!

(Had to split it in paragraphs bc tumblr) Two doctors under forty-five died from sudden heart failures from being over-worked this year! And that’s just in my city (which is not a big city! At all) ! And being like Cristina (obsessed, power-hungry, sleeping at the hospital, eating basically crap to save time, havingonly one really close friend to the point that when they fought, living at the hospital, feeling like surgery is the only thing that completed her) is a recipe to disaster. You know what the profession also is? Divided. From the society that some consider they are “a gift to” to other health professions that they put themselves on a pedestal away from and everyone else is inferior, and from themselves, students that sabotage each other or refuse to colaborate and thus create teams that don’t work together, doctors that don’t communicate, don’t appreciate each other’s specialties and knowledge and help. Cristina doesn’t meet all that criteria, but some really remind me of her. So it kills me when I hear people say she was the best doctor, because she reminds me of so much that’s just... Wrong, that I see everyday, and it frustrates me. That is incredibly personal, and applying too much of the optics of reality to the show, but it’s my truth, and no matter how iconic the character is, I can’t shake it off.

9 - Jo. Baby girl is so ready to take on the world! I said this in my “Meredith x People” post, but Jo reminds me a lot of Mer! Same fierceness, stubborness, same rough edges, talented, caring, protective. Love her and Camilla’s acting makes her one of the deepest, most fascinating characters, and her storylines tell so many important messages! I just... Don’t have a lot to say about her, now that I’ve come to think about it, I feel like she’s pretty self-explanatory. Loved her-centric eps!

10 - Erica. I didn’t understand then and don’t understand now why the fuck is there so much hatred for her! She stood up for her rights! She didn’t take Cristina’s crap like everyone else (Cristina has her quirks and was bound to meet someone with whom they clashed who wouldn’t stand for it! That happened to be Erica!) She was ethical! She was so sweet with Callie! She was a great doctor! She wanted the hospital to be great and was willing to work for it! I feel like the main factors in it are that back then we were told, through the narrative, that we should and we were all young so we accepted that, and because the actress isn’t one of those bombshell model-likr beauties. Had it been, like, Jessica playing her in a more recent season, I doubt she would be that hated! Anyhow, I miss her.

11 - Addison. She was so great! Maybe not my favorite, but she had great moments and was criminally underrated! Maybe one day her coming back won’t be a delusion and I’ll have more to say here. What I do have to say is that she can be another example of the “show’s mouthpiece”, at least in regards to Derek. Like, we have her come back to Seattle and promptly scream at Mer for “letting Derek go” like he was the best thing in the world (lmao) without even knowing what had happened when... In reality... She literally cheated because she felt neglected and forgotten in their marriage, had a talk to Mer where she learned Derek had hurt her too... It feels cheap and unauthentic and gets in the way of my immersion.

12 - April. I can feel the confusion at why she’s ranking so low, but... April never really spoke to me. She had good moments, she was sweet, a good doctor, had great relationships and went through bad things, but in none of those moments was I standing up on my seat like I was with others. She went through a journey like Arizona’s, to find herself after something terrible instead of to change who she was, but still she’s called “the biggest evolution” by some fans and I just... Don’t see that (maybe it’s because Sarah Drew got even prettier with time so it was a visual evolution). I like her well enough. Lets put it that way: I’d not be at all opposed if she came back into the show, but I’d be also disappointed it wasn’t some other character I love more. I widh he had gotten more of her, actually! I’d probably like her more! I wanted more developed relationships, like with Mer (we could have had it aaaaaaaalllll x3) or Owen (they were in a war zone together and we barely see the aftermath besides a couple scenes with her telling hima bt the baby and at her first wedding), maybe with Riggs and Alex and even more fleshing out of Japril instead of more drama! She’d feel more real and appealing. Plus her whole storyline with taking the position of head of surgery and switching sides after she’d been one of the main advocators for Webber, then refusing to acknowledge she might not have been the nicest for it, kinda threw me off a bit (not a lot, it just felt random? Like, didn’t feel like something she’d do, but I didn’t think I knew enough about her to say it wasn’t, for sure?).

13 - Izzie. Again, she never appealed to me personally. She had amazing moments, but they were just moments. Opening a multi-million dollar beneficiary clinic? Top shelf-good. But she also had bad moments and, more importantly, bad patterns. She judged and judged Mer’s inappropriate relationship, almost got to the point of talking about it around the hospital to get her in trouble, called her a slut basically to her face, and whined about George’s “too fast, not based on anything” relationship... But would not accept to be judged on her own, even more inappropriate (and illegal) and equally rushed relationship. She did not approve when someone made a decision that she would not have made. She berated Meredith’s and Cristina’s close friendship like she was entitled to the same treatment and like she also didn’t have a best friend. I was bored by her most of the times, angry others, and only rarely pleased/happy/empathetic with.

As you can see, I only dislike the very last place, and hate none, so go girls! Hope you liked this!

[redorblue]

Books 27-29/2017 - The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan

If you have any kind of positive feelings for this book - stay away. I mean it. This was possibly - probably - the worst read of my life. The only reason I made it through all three of them was that I wanted to make an educated complaint and pick up everything I could of what is wrong with these books. And believe me, it’s a lot: not just quality-wise, it has a whole lot of other issues like misogyny, racism and internalized homophobia. I just finished the last part, and normally I let a book settle for a few days before I write about it, but I’m so mad about this, and I have been since I was a few chapters into the first part, that I can’t put this off.

I’m gonna put this under a cut because I don’t wanna spread my hate for this book farther than necessary where possibly underaged fans could see it, and because it’s gonna be looong. I have a lot to say.

First, let’s start with why it is simply not a good book. I have to add, I read a German translation that I picked up from the flea market (thank God I didn’t spend more money on this. I get why someone wanted to get rid of them now). I’m not used to reading in German, and there are bad translations, but there are also very good translations, and normally I get used to German a few chapters in. I guess in the end it happened here, too, so although the translator may be to blame, I really don’t believe so, because even if she screwed it up, there’s so many other things screaming that Trudi Canavan is a bad writer that I strongly tend to blame the author. Again, I may be wrong, and she may have improved, considering that this is her first published work - however that happened - and after all style is subjective and all that, but I really didn’t like the way this book was written. I don’t mean to be arrogant and play the high-and-mighty literary critic here, there’s lots of books that aren’t considered literature which I love, and many of those are YA books with some fantasy elements. So these books could have appealed to me. But apart from all the things that alternately made me mad, annoyed, and second-hand embarassed, the way this series is written just didn’t do anything for me. Not even the gay romance, which is normally a pretty sure-fire way to get me interested. Everything about these characters, their interactions and the story in general just felt so way beyond belief, so implausible, that it didn’t make me feel anything at all at best, and cringing away at worst. And to me, that’s just bad writing.

Let me elaborate on why I found so many things so implausible. First, the romances. The books cover around 2,5 years I think, which means that there would have been time to develop them properly, but most of them just went from either hating the other person or not knowing them at all, to all-out love in two or three weeks. And while that may happen in real life, you have to lay the groundwork for that in a book, drop some hints, have some reflections, show the audience where this is going, instead of just dropping it into their laps. It wasn’t a surprise who fell for whom because it’s all very predictable and cliché, but still, you can’t just do that and expect your readers to accept it and get emotionally invested (only it seems like you can?? Because there’s people who like this book and give it good reviews?? Dear God how...). Like, it was soo obvious that the main protagonist (Sonea) was going to pick the tall-dark-handsome mystery guy in the end, and that at first she was going to have a thing for this shiny Nice Guy^TM who was the first to ever pay her any attention, all while her childhood friend was pining away for her which of course she never noticed evva. This childhood friend thing I was still ready to overlook because it happened early when I was still optimistic that these books would get better, and because they at least had a relationship at some point - even though they hadn’t seen each other for years and he fell for her in about an hour. Sorry, but love on first sight is really not a thing for me. But yeah, okay. With the second guy, the Nice one, I was starting to get really impatient, because they had two short scenes together in which they barely talked, and all of a sudden they were kissing and talking about the future and she was thinking about waiting for him for four more years while he disappeared into his backwater village... I’m sorry girl, but didn’t you have a life, and dreams, and plans for the future?? Like those you talked about for the last book and a half so that even the dumbest reader would get sick of it? But hey, who needs a personality, or (female) agency, especially in your protagonist, when you can have so much love with this really dreamy guy? Not the author, I guess.

And then, there’s boyfriend No. 3, the one who makes it all the way into her heart in the end, but then he dies and she loses all her will to live. After hating him for two years, falling for him for three days and being with him for two weeks. Yeah, sounds romantic, and it gets even better when you consider the fact that she’s half is age. If you thought the first two guys were stereotypes, this is the one to rule them all. He has it all - tall, dark, mysterious, handsome, powerful, and I guess the author wanted him to have a soft and loving heart under his unapproachable shell, but she waaayyy overdid it. He’s not just gruff, he’s downright cruel, he’s a narcissist who believes he’s the only one who can be trusted with anything, he’s dismissive and arrogant and indifferent even toward those he calls his friends (until they die, but then it’s a bit late for that buddy) and just overall an awful person. Which really doesn’t make me inclined to care for his oh so terrible backstory. Yes it’s sad that you were a slave for a few years, kept for the magical energy your master could harvest from you, I get that, but it doesn’t give you the right to behave like an asshole and manipulate and emotionally abuse everyone around you. The author has him sacrifice himself in the end, which comes straight outta nowhere character-wise, so he ends up a glorified martyr and war hero with no one ever challenging him in any way, making him face up to his mistakes and the consequences they had for everyone’s lives. I’m sorry, but this is bad writing, this makes it look like he was right to treat everyone like shit. And, even worse, this is the guy who gets the girl and is presented like this oh so desirable man that he really is not. This isn’t supposed to sound sexist from my side, it’s just the way this relationship is presented. At some point the protagonist even says it exactly that way, when Nice Guy and Asshole have a fit of jealousy because of course she’s something to possess and have a pissing contest over. God I hate him, this whole relationship is so cringy, and I don’t even wanna get into the misogyny yet because it is not an isolated incident and I’m not done with him yet.

So he fails as a person, and also as a boyfriend, but even the one thing that he could do well because of all his power and forbidden knowledge - he fucks it up. The third book ends with an invasion of the magician guild’s city by some Bad Guys, and yes, he fights them then, but he knew that they were a danger for the last ten years or so, and he never told anybody although people were dying because of it, because of course he knows best and doesn’t need anybody to help him. So when the bad guys finally arrive the city is woefully unprepared because he told them all of two weeks ago, as part of his defense while he is being accused of practising black magic and having killed people - so the whole thing doesn’t look at all like an excuse, oh no, not coming from him who lied to them for like ten years. Don’t get me wrong, this guild is terrible and annoyingly obstinate in its own way, but I don’t blame them for not entirely believing him when he tells them after such a long time, as part of an excuse for committing pretty much the worst crime they can think of, and without offering any easily verifiable evidence. Good plan, yeah. You just managed to severely weaken the one force that has at least a tiny chance of fighting off the bad guys by dividing them and being too secretive to give them any proof, instead of having spent the last years preparing them for a war that you knew very well was at least a possibility. Amazing job.

So yeah, that’s the guy young girls reading these books are supposed to pine for. Great message. By comparison the two other romances in the books are better than this, but it hurts my fingers to write that because one is laden with orientalism and fetishization, and the other, while trying really hard to be progressive, falls into so many silently homophobic pitfalls, it’s pathetic. In both cases I’m pretty sure it’s not intentional, but when you’re a writer creating a whole new world and you want to include diverse ethnicities and sexual orientations - which in and of itself is laudable - you have to be careful how you write your LGBT+ and your characters of colour. There’s many harmful tropes out there, and I certainly don’t expect a book to avoid every single one out there, or claim to notice every problematic thing, but in this book it’s not an isolated incident, it’s simple ignorance and lazyness to do a bit of research about the harmful stereotypes you have inadvertently absorbed your whole life so as not to repeat them.

This kind of reflection clearly didn’t happen neither during the writing process nor during editing, so what we get is a mess. What we get is one relationship where the woman is described as looking like someone of Central Asian descent, with all the stereotypes commonly to be found in an Oriental tale written by a Western person. This woman never gets a backstory, she just kinda appears on the scene and the reader never really knows what she wants, only that she’s there to help out her white, male love interest in his time of need, before maliciously abusing his trust and disappearing into the woods again. We’re told that she’s good at fighting, but we never see her really doing it - the only one she ever really shares screentime with is her love interest with whom she has a whole lot of sex. Really, every scene either ends with them having sex, or her talking dirty to him, which makes it appear as if all that’s on her mind is sex! And ain’t that stereotypical of the mysterious, Oriental seductress who spends all of her time either spinning intrigues or plotting how to get the next innocent white boy into her clutches. So, overall, absolutely terrible romance, and I’m gonna come back to this because like sexism, this orientalism/racism is not an isolated incident either.

The other relationship lacking reflection that we get is the one between this gay magician from the very conservative country where the main story is set, and this also gay scholar from a slightly less conservative, but all the more patronizing culture. The book at least questions the first country’s stance on the issue, although it only does so through its gay characters, which severely restricts the validity of the point considering that none of the straight characters ever even thinks to reflect if this stance on homosexuality might be wrong. What I can’t forgive is that the narrative never once questions the stance of the slightly less conservative country, which treats its gays (only men, mind you, there’s never once mention of a gay woman) as lewd weirdos and outcasts and calls them “boys”. This is so bad. It’s one thing to present a culture that views gay men as not-quite-men - we all know it happens often enough - but if you write such a culture and you don’t want this to be the point you’re making, you have to criticize and contradict such a view through your narrative. Have them talk about it, have them think about it, I don’t care, just make it explicit that it’s wrong. And don’t be lazy and hide behind this excuse that the readers will get it through plot alone - you have to write it down somewhere so that casual readers won’t miss it. Otherwise you end up with something like this where this culture you wanted to present as so progressive and kind of a save haven ends up patronizing and emasculating your gay male characters, and this doesn’t subvert neither harmful tropes nor real-life views. Just like the fact that your gay characters hide their relationship until after the end of the books, and find nothing wrong with it because it’s just the culture they’re living in. This is a latent confirmation that it’s right that gay couples have to hide their relationship and don’t confront others with their being different, and again, if this is not what you wanted as a writer, make it explicit. And for God’s sake, include more than one kiss in three whole books between your gay couple, when the straight ones kiss all the time and even get explicit scenes. Because otherwise your oh-so-progressive gay couple is just two really close male friends who happened to kiss once. Better write a great platonic relationship then and leave the gay stuff to the people who actually know how to handle it and won’t turn it around on itself.

So, I think I’ve established that in my opinion, the romantic relationships are absolute rubbish. I would like to say that the platonic ones fare better, but honestly, they just don’t get enough screentime for me to say. It’s quite astonishing - in a book series with 1840 pages (in my paperback edition) there doesn’t seem to be any space for friendships or family bonds. We’re told that they exist, mind you, but I personally didn’t really understand why those two people are friends, what makes their friendship special, what characterizes it. Not even what characterizes the characters, for that matter, because even the way the main characters are fleshed out feels a bit half-assed, and don’t even get me started on the secondary characters. And with a bit of good will, I could ignore that fact if the plot was really great, but it’s not either, so I honestly don’t get what the author did with all that space. I can summarize what happens in each book with one sentence: The first is about Sonea hiding from the mages because they’re bad, then being scared of them because they’re bad, and then suddenly joining them because plot. In the second book, she’s bullied by her classmates, but doesn’t do anything about it on her own because oh no, she could hurt them, and doesn’t tell anyone who could do something about it either because plot. The third is about the great conspiracy with the war and all that and fares a bit better action-wise, but it’s still mainly Sonea following this guy of hers along because apparently he needs her, and I guess he does, but he still treats her like shit right until they have sex. So yeah, plenty of space for character development, but for some reason it just doesn’t happen.

To be fair, I guess Sonea developed a bit, considering that she’s not as scared of pretty much everything as she was in the beginning - although the number of times that “her blood froze in her veins” really made me dislike that phrase. Her childhood friend developed a bit in that he gained a higher position in the city’s underworld. And Mr. Tall-Dark-Mysterious (TDM, for future reference) opened up a bit about his oh-so-tragic past. But is that really character development? I guess if you squinted you could count it as that if these were some unimportant secondary characters, but these are the main protagonists and POVs! In almost 2000 pages there should be a bit more than that! And if that’s what the main characters get... There was this one character that I kinda liked, another POV but a secondary one, who was Sonea’s first mentor in the guild and some kind of father figure for her. That was the one relationship where I saw a bit of potential - until the second half of the second book, when TDM takes Sonea hostage (romantic, I know) and forbids her to ever speak to her former mentor again, which effectively ends their relationship for good. So no development there, either.

But for a character to develop, and especially for a relationship between two characters two develop, you first need exactly that: characters. And this book doesn’t have any. There’s very few things I could tell you about the POVs’ personality traits, and it’s mostly just stereotypes - Sonea’s a classic Mary Sue, TDM is... well, TDM, the mentor is fatherly and benevolent, the childhood friend is adventurous, and the gay magician represses his feelings for his friends. I’m not kidding, that’s basically it. The same goes for backstory - none of them seems to have parents, siblings or other relatives, except for Sonea who has an aunt and an uncle that she’s apparently close to, but who briefly show up on screen around three times and get mentioned three more. Everyone’s fathers just kinda disappeared into the void, and the mothers are all dead to make it a bit more tragic - another tired trope that is a bit beyond belief because how on earth did all those mothers get dead, and why doesn’t even one father seem to care for his offspring? There’s one exception, the mentor guy about whom we’re told that he cares for his son, but again, it’s just that - we’re told he does, because otherwise, from their interactions, we wouldn’t get it. And that doesn’t count. The same goes for all other aspects of backstory, which is typically limited to a handful of sentences except for when we’re supposed to care for TDM - he actually gets a handful of paragraphs. So generous. I normally prefer character-driven stories over plot-driven stories, so I don’t mind that much when there’s not an awful lot of plot if (!!!) the characters are well done and engaging. But they’re not, they’re basically walking paper stands, and that I can’t forgive.

So far I mainly talked about what makes this trilogy lazy writing. Now I’m gonna talk about what makes it not only bad, but really problematic. I already touched on homophobia, but due to the lack of real gay representation there’s not much more I can add to that, so I’ll focus on misogyny/sexism and on racism/orientalism. I’m not sure how established the latter concept is outside my academic circle, so here’s a good summary of what it means. Basically, orientalism refers to a binary worldview that presents the West as progressive, dynamic, and inherently superior to a backward, barbaric and static East that therefore has to be rescued and remodeled by the West. Of course there are other issues like racism and imperialism tied into it that also refer to other non-Western cultures and ethnicities, but orientalism transports a specific set of stereotypes about people and cultures from the Middle East and North Africa, typically Muslims. It’s hateful, it’s patronizing, it harms people, and it’s all to be found in these books. 

There’s two main examples of this. This fantasy world that the author describes includes two countries inhabited by people of colour: Lonmar, where the people are described as dark-skinned, and Sachaka, where they look like someone of Central Asian descent. First of all, there aren’t many characters from these countries that even get a bit of individuality - they’re mainly just there for background noise and never step outside the crowd (a stereotype that is also to be found in orientalism, specifically in the “Arab Street”). For Lonmar, there’s one named, recurring character who isn’t entirely to be trusted, but overall a decent guy - because, and here’s the problem, he has been socialized in white Kyralia (another thing typical of orientalism - the distinction between the “good”, Westernized muslims, and the “bad” oriental ones, easily distinguishable by dress and socialization). All the other (few) characters from Lonmar are not characters but crowds with not a single speck of individuality and one feature that unites them all: they’re all members of this really strict, intolerant religion specific to Lonmar that is so obviously modeled after - you guessed it - Islam. Or rather the monolithic, prejudiced version of Islam an uninformed Westerner might think of if they only consumed what was given to them by mainstream media and never talked to a Muslim person in their entire life. This religion locks up its female adherents, it punishes homosexuality with public execution, it talks a lot about the unbelievers and is generally intolerant, it doesn’t give a f* about individual wishes and desires, and - maybe worst of all - it’s canonically all based on a lie. On the imaginary ramblings of a madman who for some reason was able to trick people into believing in him and making him a prophet. I can’t begin to express how awful this is. With the homophobia I don’t believe it was intentional - but this is. This has to be. And I’m so, so mad at this woman for mocking the beliefs, the worldview and the very lives of 1,6 billion people on earth in such a an offhanded, cruel way.

And that’s not even the only example, oh no. There’s also Sachaka. Sachaka, happens to be the homecountry of the murderous lunatics who terrorize the city in the first two books and assault it in the third, and who all happen to be brown-skinned. There are a few more characters from this country who had the honour to receive a name, but the way they’re described is in no way less problematic than the Lonmars. The only character who’s not openly evil, is the deceitful nymphomaniac who serves as a love interest to the white childhood friend. I already mentioned how unbearably sexualized she is, which is terrible in and of its own, but takes on a whole other dimension in combination with her race. It’s another feature of orientalism to either present oriental women as sheepish victims of oppression waiting to be rescued, or as eroticized/fetishized succubus-like beings, beautiful and alluring and generally a (white) man’s slavering fantasy. And not only is the only woman and morally okay character from Sachaka presented in such a way, she also - surprisingly- doesn’t get not a single line of backstory. We don’t know what she does back home, who she is, why the hell she ended up in this white-hot mess of a story, what she wants... Nothing. She’s literally just there to seduce the white guy, help him get over the protagonist, and save his ass once before she betrays him and disappears again. A ripped-out page out of a playboy edition could fulfil every single purpose she has in the story, even the saving part. There, white guy gets attacked by one of the evil magicians, and she mainly buys him time to get away, although we’re told (ha!) that she’s a good fighter. Put the playboy page in evil guy’s face, wait until his sex-crazed oriental mind gets distracted, run away, problem solved.

Because of course he’s sex-crazed, he’s oriental, what did you expect? They’re all that way, men and women, sexual predators all over the board. In addition to being cruel, sadistic, conniving, good at killing but bad at healing and collaborating, power-hungry, scheming... And did I mention that they keep their slaves like cattle? Yeah, no idea what that reminds me of. Plus, as cunning as they are presented, they’re also really stupid. Before the invasion, the bad guys have been sending slaves to the magicians’ city for years to spy on them and find out whether they know how to use black magic or not (they don’t, except for TDM which is why he’s the only one who can kill them and has to go on this lonesome quest alone, isolated from everyone he ever cared about... You get the idea). This is so stupid. They do it for years, they send slave after slave with no result at all, when at the same time it’s a well-established fact that when magicians communicate with each other mentally, anyone can listen in! You can’t tell me that in all this time, no one ever mentioned black magic being forbidden! Because it’s not a secret anyone except for TDM even knows is necessary to keep, so no one knows that they can’t talk about it. This is another instance of the plot being unnecessary complicated and like a desperate attempt to create some artificial conflict that could have been solved within five minutes... But I’m digressing.

And it’s not only the evil mages who are presented in such a bad light; the few lines we get about the country (it’s a desert, by the way, just like Lonmar. Surprise) suggest that the rest is pretty much the same. Not as mad maybe, but just as power-hungry and conniving as the bad guys, and certainly not as civilized as the white countries around it. So it’s no surprise when the protagonist, no less, starts thinking about some White Man’s Burden kind of shit. The backstory is this: Some 500 years ago there was a war between Sachaka (bad) and Kyralia (good). Kyralia won and, when drawing back, operated on a scorched earth-policy, leaving behind a wasteland and turning their backs, for which the people from Sachaka still want revenge (500! years! later!) because that’s what orientals do when their honour is scratched. The protagonist reflects on that story and then honestly starts thinking about how Kyralia should have stayed in Sachaka, basically occupying it, in order to try and teach the backward Sachakans how to be civilized. This... is some seriously fucked-up shit. My dear author, not only is every single one of your big bad guys a person of colour, and not only is the description of their cultures and their characterization creaking under the weight of all your prejudice, but now you have your protagonist want to civilize them? Who are you, George Bush? Or some 19th-century missionary despairing under the terrible weight of his burden to make the barbaric indigenous half-apes wear silk hats? Whoever your soul was in the last go-round, let me tell you, you’re not making a point for the almighty Western civilization if you write crap like this.

Okay deep breaths. Last issue, sexism and misogyny. I feel like the author wanted these books to make a point about female agency and Strong Female Characters^TM, but as with gay representation she entirely missed the mark and instead wrote something that’s more detrimental to positive female representation than anything. I already mentioned in the relationship part how her boyfriend treat the protagonist as a possession to fight over and how she has apparently internalized and endorsed that view, and in the character part how the mothers were all killed off before the story even started in order to add some trauma to the characters’ backstories. This is lazy, it’s misogynistic in that it robs these women of everything that makes them human (mostly they’re not even named) for the sake of shock value, and then the narrative doesn’t even use what it bought so dearly and minimizes the effect the deaths of the mothers have on the characters, and thereby a mother’s contribution to her child’s development. It makes the mothers mere means to an end, and it doesn’t do the same to the fathers, which makes it deeply misogynist.

This misogyny is glaringly obvious in the off-stage deaths of two women: the mentor guy’s wife, and TDM’s first love. About the mentor guy’s wife, we know barely more than that she was the mentor guy’s wife, and that her name was Yilara. Mentor guy loved her, and had a son with her, and then she died of... something. Doesn’t matter what it was, really, because her only purpose in the story was to give mentor guy a sad past. And it can’t have been that sad, because he mentions her like twice, and their son doesn’t mention her at all. I don’t know how old he was when she died (see what I mean), so he might not remember, but considering that mentor guy claims he still loves her, he could think about her a bit more often and remember a bit more about her than her lying in her bed, softly smiling, like a saintly martyr. This is already bad, but the other case is infinitely worse. Naturally, it involves TDM. He got to know his first love while he was a slave in Sachaka as she belonged to the same evil guy he did. She was evil guy’s sex slave (this author has no imagination), and when evil guy found out she and TDM loved each other, he raped her to death. Poor her, you might think, what a terrible end to a terrible life. Well, that’s not what our dear protagonist thought. What she thought was, poor TDM, this is so sad for him, he had to suffer through so much. Him, him him, him. I don’t even want to call the slave girl (no name)’s death shock value or manpain any more, because this is on a totally different level. There’s this girl, probably a woman of colour, against whom a horrific, sexualized and clearly gendered form of violence was used repeatedly, and in the end to kill her no less, and all our also female protagonist can think of is how much her boyfriend must have suffered. She doesn’t spend a single thought on the girl. Not one. And neither does the narrative itself, this is all we ever hear about her. TDM had the hots for her, she was brutally murdered, he got sad, the end. It’s astonishing how often the sheer wrongness of these books leaves me speechless.

And there’s more. I’ve read a few times that this book has some Strong Female Characters^TM and generally does well on female representation. Well, no. I recently came across this amazing article about this particular brand of Strong Female Characters that comes to the conclusion that lots of allegedly strong women in media, typically tomboy-like women with “male” interests and skills and no meaningful relationships with other women, are nothing but empty tropes whose only function is to prop up the male protagonist who saves the day. This is exactly what happens here, with the male skill being magic/fighting. Not only is there an astonishing lack of female characters featuring exactly no diversity at all (except for the nymphomaniac of course), but they also don’t interact. There’s a few snippets of conversation here and there, but those are all influenced by social hierarchy and consist of barely more than small talk, and none of the women except Sonea get any depth at all. They get names and functions, if they’re lucky, but that’s it. And even Sonea, whose head we spend more time in than anyone else’s, is so consumed by his wishes every time a man comes along and expresses the slightest interest in her that it’s hard to spot a personality underneath. Like honestly, she looses the will to live, along with all of her plans and other relationships, because the guy she was in a relationship with for all of 2-3 weeks died. That’s so over the top, and so frustrating... I mean I get it, you loved him, love can be quick I guess, but that quick?? I get that you can’t turn to your girl-friends or your mother for support because oopsie daisy you don’t have any of those, but there’s some men who care about you, and not even in a sexual way, so come on.

And then there’s the ending. Oh how I love the ending. I mentioned that TDM dies in the end - the first good decision the author made, although I can’t shake the feeling that the protagonist’s role in the end is mainly to augment the impact his sacrifice has. Not only is he presented as a martyr and the ultimate hero of the story who gave all of his life energy to save the city from evil, conveniently never having to face up to all the wrong he’s done and the impact it had on the lives of those around him. His death also practically ends life for the protagonist with his death being her last POV scene. I guess some may find that romantic, but it seems as though her voice just disappears after he’s dead, never to be heard of again, and that robs her of all agency of personality. It’s as if she only has those things with him, while through his backstory we know that he had them without her. And I can’t shake the feeling that that’s because he’s male, and oh so dreamy. But that’s not the last we hear of him, oh no. Because after the last chapter, there’s an epilogue where we learn (from another person’s POV) that he left something of his behind. Namely his sperm, inside the protagonist, who’s pregnant with his child now. She mentions at some point that it’s too early for her to have a child, but now it happened, and we have no idea how she feels about that because this huge turning point in her life still isn’t told from her point of view to drive the point home that TDM’s death really meant the end of her. Again the narrative puts him over her although she’s the supposed protagonist of the story, which fits neatly into the Strong Female Character concept I mentioned earlier.

And it’s not only that, the story of how she got pregnant in the first place is incredibly sexist, too. Apparently there’s a way for both male and female magicians to avoid pregnancy. But the males are only taught how to do it per personal request because obviously it’s not a man’s responsibility whether he puts children in the world or not. The women get taught a bit more regularly, someone takes them aside to teach them when they begin to show interest in boys and the danger arises, but no one ever did that for Sonea because as far as the teachers knew, no one wanted to sleep with her. First of all, this is stupid because what if the teachers don’t notice in time or the sex just happens without a lot of courting before the actual act? And second of all... The message is basically that if no one likes you while you’re in school, or probably if you’re ugly, you are never going to have sex anyway, so you don’t need to be told how to avoid unwanted consequences. If you’re a woman, that is, for the men it’s different. This is so incredibly sexist. And in Sonea’s case this kind of thinking had the worst possible consequences: he thought she’d take care of it, and she thought he would, so now there’s a baby, and not even a father to match (bad as he would have been) and that is that. I’m yet undecided as to whether this sexist arrangement is just another carelessness from the side of the author, or a way to get the author what she wanted plot-wise because an ending to a romance novel needs to have a baby, no matter if it makes sense together with the rest of the story or not.

I could elaborate further on pretty much any point I made here, but I think I got the gist across, so fear not, I’m gonna stop (if anyone even made it to this point which I doubt). Writing up all of this made me so mad that I’m actually considering writing to the author to let her know what I think of this trilogy of hers. A bit more politely than this (maybe), but I feel like this is so problematic that I can’t just let it stand there without objecting to its messages in any way I can. After being done with this I have no doubt whatsoever that this was the most awful book I’ve ever read, and I dearly hope that it will keep this position for the rest of my life.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i mean i know off the top of my head everything jk rowling has said Word Of God about hp is like, some blend of useless and stuff you didnt want to hear, but the thing about snape being a “morally grey” character is especially annoying because of that whole idea that like if people manage to do any decent things ever, that totally counterbalances a completely disproportionate amount of shittiness and damage they deal out constantly to the point that you can’t make moral judgments but instead just agree that humanity is so complex right. it is annoying because of how useless that sentiment is re: irl things.

like saying people can be good people doing bad things and that everyone does shitty things is true but its not proof that morality is just too complex and everyone is a hero if you look close enough and you can just wave away the incredibly harmful shit they do if they have anything at all on the other side of the scales

and like considering especially how crappy this is specifically re: people in abusive relationships? abusers can be kind and generous and caring to everyone but their targeted victims, or just know how to front politeness around everyone outside of the people theyre abusing, and the targets of abuse might feel like they have nobody to confide in or turn to for help because everyone will think that someone they know as a “nice person” couldnt possibly be abusive

not to mention the difficulty for people in even realizing when theyre being treated abusively, because they might love the abuser / sometimes be treated well by and have good experiences with the abuser, and they think that means it can’t REALLY be abuse, because abusers can never act decently. and then even when you do know fully that someone is an abuser and you experience abuse and you’re comfortable talking about it, it still feels like you have to use all these cushioning phrases like “it wasnt that bad / couldve been worse” and “its not like things were always bad” etc etc

like, the concept that the only real Bad Guys are people who always seem 100% evil 100% of the time to 100% of the people they encounter is totally untrue and useless because it applies to practically no one. and the idea that people who are harming people don’t know how to hide it is only placing a huge burden on people being harmed out of sight of others and under threat of future harm when theres other people around who could witness it. assuming that abusers are always going to be complete monsters whose wholly evil nature is going to be very visible to everyone gives every abuser the easiest defense in the world. theyre sorry about something bad theyve done? they volunteer? they treat other people kindly? they have a cute hobby? they made a scrapbook? they have a nice smile? they give their grandkids money? they exercise basic politeness? they can’t be Just a bad person!! all that great stuff about them outweighs the bad! theyre only human! life is so complicated

arguing that people who do horrible things all the time still have a “good side” is useful, but only because people think that thats untrue and thus will always be excusing awful things because as long as they dont know an incarnation of any caricatures of The Devil, they dont know any Really Bad People!! people should understand that shitty people who want to keep getting away with doing continuously shitty will do so by targeting people they have a position of power/authority over and in a way that isnt face-value obvious to whoever isnt being targeted. its a copout to wave away revelations about someone you thought was okay with notions about the situation being “complicated” and “not black and white” and shit. and people who know theyre suffering abuse know that people react like that and the abuser knows people react like that

the experience of abuse IS extremely complicated and individual and pretending its simple is harmful. but whether or not abuse is bad is the least complicated thing and deciding how Actually Abuse-y it is based on the other qualities of an abuser is, at best, more than a total waste of time

[wittywallflower]

So I clicked on some clickbait on FB, as one does, and started reading 25 Things Wrong With Gilmore Girls We All Choose To Ignore thinking “I’m not gonna get defensive on every little point because no media, even my faves, are perfect”. And several of the points made were actually good points that highlighted problematic elements of the show.

But. Plenty of the points still left me with Things To Say.

I’m not gonna touch on all 25, feel free to click the link to see them all. But here’s the ones I decided to nitpick about:

19. STARS HOLLOW'S WEIRD OBSESSION WITH RORY

"Seriously, were there no other cool kids in Stars Hollow for the entire town to creepily focus its attention on? Everyone is obsessed with Rory – Taylor basically forces her to be Queen of Stars Hollow and everyone else is thinks the sun shines out of her forehead for literally no reason.

Sure, she’s nice and the whole “it takes a village to raise a child” idea is endearing, but at the end of the day, the Stars Hollow residents’ level of investment in Rory Gilmore is creepy, inappropriate, and kind of annoying. What about Lane?"

I feel this entry has a little tunnel vision. The show is about the Gilmores so the focus is on Rory as the cool kid the town loves. But i see plenty of evidence the townspeople act similarly towards other kids, not just Rory. Everyone in town knows what Mrs. Kim is like but instead of respecting her parenting decisions, they are happy to slyly aid and abet Lane in breaking all her rules. They give her rehearsal space and hire her band for events. They dont tell Mrs Kim when they see Lane change into a Sex Pistols tshirt in a phone booth (example invented: we all know it was the Dead Kennedys) Dean is in town for like 2 minutes before everyone (including people who haven’t met him yet) know he is looking for a job and they all start comparing notes on where he should work. I think there is enough evidence in those glimpses to suggest that SH adults are like this with more kids than just Rory. We just dont see a whole about many SH kids. Frankly we get to see more about some of the Chilton’s kids (I know exactly where Louise’s father is (prison) yet no fucking clue about Mr Kim).

THE GILMORES ARE IMPOSSIBLY JUDGMENTAL

"Okay, we get it, the Gilmores were dysfunctional. It made sense that after the first few seasons of them getting to know each other again they would still hit roadblocks.

It took Emily and Richard nearly seven years to give Lorelai the credit she deserved.

We get that they wanted her to succeed on a higher level than she already was, but after seven years of Lorelai insisting on living her life the way she wanted to, the most Richard and Emily could do was basically give her a punch on the arm in the series finale. That made both of them seem more emotionally stunted than they actually were.”

This is where i started to wonder if the author of this listicle had actually… met real life people. They WERE emotionally stunted in more than one way, but also they were prideful. Pride will make it so people refuse to bend even when they know they are wrong. Especially when they know they are wrong. I find this completely realistic and it makes sense to me because I know people whose parents still haven’t forgiven them for choosing a different college than their parents wanted them to attend and well into their kid’s (successful) adult life were casting shade on their career choices because of it. This isn’t something that is “wrong with the show” (the entire premise of the listicle), this is something that is a negative personality trait of two characters.

16 THE STARS HOLLOW VORTEX

“Part of the charm of Gilmore Girls was the idyllic town of Stars Hollow. It was adorably and sometimes painfully charming, but at the end of the day provided a dreamy backdrop for the real-life difficulties Lorelai and Rory faced regularly.

The show made it seem as though no one in Stars Hollow had any ambition to do anything else but to live out their lives in Stars Hollow.

Neither Lane nor Dean go to college and both settle there, and none of the adults have lives that take them out of Stars Hollow. It’s completely self-contained and kind of weird.”

This is making so many assumptions about characters whose backstories were never developed. Did Gypsy live in SH all her life? Did Sookie and Jackson? Did the town troubadour? For all we really know, Taylor backpacked through Europe and served in the Marines before he turned into Taylor...

Lane toured with her band, which was her goal from the second she fell in love with that drumset. Who knows what else she would have done if she hadn’t gotten pregnant? (blame the babies, not the town!) Dean got married and then divorced. He talked enough about college that I feel he probably would have gone if he hadn’t decided to get married too young.  

Patty was on Broadway. Michel is from France. At what age did Mrs Kim move to Stars Hollow, even? the other characters were not the focus and so we never learned about their ambitions or their past. This entry gives me a vibe of coming from someone who just cant understand why life in a small town would be so appealing to so many different people. I cannot shake my assumption that OP is younger than i am by a decade or so.

15.LORELAI IS ACTUALLY REALLY UNGRATEFUL TO HER PARENTS

“Lorelai had a point about not wanting to live in her parents 'world, especially given how insistent they were that she do so while she was young. But once she struck out on her own and they had no choice but to accept that, she should’ve softened a little toward them.

Any help they offered she resented, to the point of hurting Emily’s feelings on a regular basis. Richard had to point out to Lorelai how devastated Emily was when her only daughter ran away because Lorelai had never thought to ask. It’s just too much.”

She should have softened to the people we were just saying were way too judgemental of her for Rory’s entire childhood? Accepted their help that always came with strings? And where would young Lorelai learn that emotionally mature tactic? From said emotionally stunted parents? She is Emily’s daughter as much as she doesn’t want to admit she is anything like her mother. The example she was given as she grew up was that if someone displeases you, you freeze them out. Hell, Lorelai even does that to her own daughter when Rory drops out of Yale.

Parents or not, Lorelai making nice to people who have berated her probably her entire life (if we judge by the flashback of Lorelai’s coming-out dress fitting), and definitely since she got pregnant is unreasonable to expect. They have criticized every choice she made up until midway through the series. Why does she owe them gratitude for anything except “thanks for feeding and clothing me till i started doing it myself literally as young as i legally could?

Also throwback to my talk about pride: Lorelai learned pride from her parents. She is less officious about it by far, but she still has the Gilmore pride. Plus she was a literal child herself the first couple years of Rory’s life. There were things she just couldn’t understand (like Emily’s devastation) until she experienced parenting a teen herself.

10.RORY'S ANTI-DIGITAL ATTITUDE

“Let's discuss Rory’s performance at her job interview with SandeeSays, the Buzzfeed-type company she considers a job far beneath her.

She shows up completely unprepared, she has no pitches to offer, and she generally comes across as completely entitled.

Her interviewer at SandeeSays was totally courteous, and Rory was totally shortsighted to act as though she was too good for a job there. That job has benefits, Rory Gilmore! Just who do you think you are and when did you start exemplifying entitled rich people stereotypes?”

Who does Rory think she is? The person who already got the job. Rory very clearly thought she had been offered the position, not offered the chance to interview for the position. Whether she thought that because of a misunderstanding, because of an unconsious sense of privilege, or because SandeeSays doesnt have a hiring manager to run these things smoothly, we don’t know… i’d guess a combination of all three. But SandeeSays repeatedly contacted her and asked her to come to them even when she kinda blew them off about it. That is just not normal for people to do for someone they just want to interview. But Rory though she was showing up for her first day on the job, not a job interview. We know Rory, she would have been over-prepared. She never would have worn that dress, she would have wore her Conde Nast dress. But she arrives and is asked to jump through a bunch of hoops for a job she didnt even want in the first place. They are reasonable hoops for a job interview like that. I would think someone showing up for a job interview in journalism without being prepared for that is a fool. But Rory didn’t know it was a job interview!!!

Also her interviewer at SandeeSays was pretentious and smug af, don’t lie.

9,WHY DID PEOPLE TOLERATE TAYLOR?

“Oh, man was Taylor Doose a a pill. He was pushy, selfish, vindictive and weirdly obsessed with his town. We can forgive the last one – everyone has a thing, but the rest of his behavior is rude at best and abusive at worst.

Yes, Stars Hollow is a magical fairyland that allows for everyone within it to live their idiosyncrasies, but Taylor Doose crossed the line.

He demanded whatever he wanted, abused his position by using it to push people around and then had the gall to get all mopey and depressed when Jackson beat him in the town selectman election. Get a job, man.”

Why do people tolerate Taylor? Because he is a white man with political power. (Granted its only a tiny bit of power that applies only locally. Taylor makes it seem like he controls a lot more than he does… or maybe not, since we do find out he owns like half the rental properties in town)

The author of this listicle seems young, like they havent been around. Its pretty realistic for people to put up with a shitty white man throwing his weight around. The only unrealistic part was that brief moment where he was mopey and depressed, but then Taylor did the realistic thing: he belligerently doubled down when he asked for a recall election.

That’s 100% authentic believable Shitty White Man behavior there. If anyone could explain why people tolerate it in real life, we wouldnt have Trump destroying the country rn. Art is just imitating life here.

6.MICHEL WAS NEVER FIRED

“While Sookie was brilliant comic relief, she also did her job fantastically well. Michel was great comic relief, but also literally the worst person to work customer service in the hospitality industry.

We almost never saw him do his job well.

In fact, we saw him shirk his duties so often it stopped being charming and started becoming ridiculous. There’s a way to write someone who hates working customer service but is actually good at customer service and make it funny. Michel just stopped making sense after a while. We still love him, though.”

Author of listicle has clearly never had a shitty boss that was terrible at their job and also a jerk. These people dont get fired nearly as often as they probably should.

the actual way this is super unrealistic is the fact that Michel didnt get fired despite being a black, gay, foreign man. If he was a white American dude, i wouldnt question it at all. (It would be more realistic for Sookie to get fired because despite being an amazing chef, she clearly hemorrhages money in the kitchen, scrapping entire menus when the perfectly edible vegetables aren’t perfect enough for her.)

And its not true we never see Michel do his job well. He did a great job as concierge in that scene when Lorelai and Sookie go to visit him at the other hotel he is working at while the Dragonfly is being built.

4.RORY COULDN'T HAVE GRADUATED ON TIME FROM YALE

“Rory took nearly a year off from Yale after a major breakdown – sometimes you need to take a break. But realistically, Yale is a demanding school. There is no way Rory could’ve made up all the credits necessary to graduate on time without taking summer classes, while still putting in considerable hours at the Yale Daily News as well as having a boyfriend and a social life.

While it was ultimately very realistic for her to finally crack under some pressure, the fact that she didn’t have to pay for the long break she took speaks to the inherent privilege at work on the show.”

IIRC Rory only missed a semester. (Remember she points it out when they are talking about electing a new head of the Daily News? when they nominate her she says “I did miss that semester so i dont have seniority”)  Which would be difficult to make up, but far from impossible... Rory has experience coming from behind and catching (Chilton). I don’t know exactly how credits work at Yale but in my own university experience, you’re only take a couple classes a semester. Remember Rory being upset that she had to drop a course because 5 classes was more than she could juggle. If she missed a semester of say 3 classes (a reasonable number if one of those courses was a lab or a difficult upper level course), she would only have to add an extra class to on to 3 semesters: her first semester back and then each semester the next year. She mentions taking extra classes (and being stressed by that). Things like independent studies also exist. Some schools give credit for internships (shadowing THE Mitchum Huntzberger would be worth one credit at least for a journalism major). The extra courses and eventually cracking under the pressure WAS Rory paying for the long break.

2.JACKSON LYING ABOUT HIS VASECTOMY

“This was so messed up. Not only did Jackson lie to his wife about something incredibly important, but he didn’t take other precautions to make sure she wouldn’t get pregnant. Sookie didn’t basically got pregnant through no choice of her own the third time and that is not something that is funny at all.

The show made light of it because Sookie and Jackson were never anything but comic relief, but this is a part of the show that absolutely does not hold up in any way shape or form. Shame on you, Jackson.”

I ain’t here to dispute this one but to chime in and agree. Shame on you, Jackson. This show is largely pretty wholesome and tbh i consider this to be one of the worst things one person does to another in the series. Completely devoid of any maliciousness, yes, he 100% did not intend it to happen but it did. Rory can steal a yacht and I’m like “whatever, they got the boat back intact, Rory probably even filled the gas tank later cuz she felt bad for stealing it” But Jackson knocking up a woman who did not want to have that baby because he was too cowardly to get snipped and then too cowardly to admit he didnt do it… is super uncool. (idk what kind of pressure exactly Sookie was putting on him to have the vasectomy. trying to force him into it would also be super uncool. But did Jackson even really try to make Sookie understand how very much he didnt want to do it? Neither party is innocent, but Jackson didn’t have to grow a whole baby so frankly, he gets my scorn)

1RORY ENDING UP BACK AT THE BEGINNING

“Part of what made Gilmore Girls so successful in the first place is that Rory and Lorelai went through very different experiences. That's why it made sense that they would relate on a friendship level as opposed to butting heads like Emily and Lorelai did.

Rory getting pregnant at the end of A Year in the Life kind of undermined a lot of the show.

It also felt really tacked on and contrived. Considering there was no second season promised at that point, it was a really strange way to end. It seemed odd to make Rory so driven and career-minded, only to lead her back to same place as her mother.”

Author of listicle is charmingly naive. That’s just life sometimes, kid. Shit happens to screw up our plans and goals. A lot of us end up more like our mothers than we wanted to when we spent out teen years swearing we wouldnt. Given Rory’s lifestyle of living out of boxes stashed at three different houses, jetsetting between Stars Hollow, Hartford, New York and London, being so stressed out that she continually forgets she has a boyfriend… who is surprised the girl missed a pill or two??

Accidents happen. There’s at least 3 major accidental pregnancies in the series that have life-changing consequences for the woman. 4 if we count Lorelai’s teen pregnancy that kicks off the entire premise of the show. I don’t see how it undermines the show when the show has clearly made an minor theme of this. They show that it can happen to anyone in any situation from a brand new bride like Lane who had dreams she wanted to pursue, to a happily married mother of two who wasnt planning a third, to a relationship that is actively in the stage of crumbling (a la Sherry).

Its not contrived. Its realistic. OP just hasn’t experienced enough reality to see that.