#also in a way that will make her drama with izzy in ms all the more compelling bc she's not just gonna roll over for his bullshit

[duffmckagans]

very excited for people to see how all of these characters have changed in subtle ways due to either maturity in nuance or dissatisfaction with the original portrayals, but i think i'm most excited for people to read about valerie this time. which, possibly may be because this book is centered around her, but i just feel like she's gained some good depth. all of her traits are still there, for better or worse, but there's definitely an added realism that i'm really proud of ♡ and i hope is better understood this time around.

[natalynsie]

Boyfriend (Noco Oneshot)

Read full on ao3: Boyfriend - natalynsie - Total Drama (Cartoon) [Archive of Our Own]

Preview:

“How could you think she's not hot?” Cody asked.

Cody, Noah, Izzy, Eva, and Owen were walking back from their English class and headed to homeroom. Noah was getting quite sick of Cody's blabbering, but put up with it.

“I mean, Cody's right, she is pretty hot,” Izzy stated, putting a hand on Noah's shoulder.

“What about me?” Owen asked.

“You're not hot, you're cute!”

“And me?” Eva asked.

“Oh, you're hot as fuck.”

Eva smirked and Owen rolled his eyes.

“Back to the topic,” Owen began. “I don't think Gwen is hot.”

“You're too gay to be a part of this conversation,” Noah joked. “But I agree.”

“I shouldn't have to keep repeating myself! I'm not gay!”

“Noah, you're gay too,” Izzy said. “Don't think I don't see you staring at Cody's ass.”

Noah had to take a moment to process that. Noah had never stared at Cody's ass. Except for that one time but that was once. “What?”

“I'm kidding,” Izzy reassured. “Sort of. You aren't in the ass-staring phase. Yet.”

“Izzy, I'm not into Cody.” Noah usually enjoyed Izzy's observations, he found them quite entertaining, but he found this one strange. Noah didn't like Cody. He thought he was cute, but not much more than that.

“I think Gwen is not hot, Cody is insane, and he's been quiet ever since Izzy started calling Noah gay,” Eva stated.

“Something bothering you, Cody?” Izzy asked, turning back to Cody.

“Oh no, nothing, I don't care. I just didn't know what to say,” Cody informed.

“Okay, we keep on getting off topic,” Izzy noted. “Cody, what are your sexual fantasies about Gwen?”

Cody's face erupted into flames. “WHAT?”

“Good lord, let's keep this PG,” Noah sighed.

“Okay… Cody, what are your non-sexual fantasies about Gwen?”

“I'm not sharing that information with you,” Cody said. “All you guys get to know is that I'm crazy about her.”

“Yeah. We already know. Let's move on,” Noah complained. “Personally, I think Gwen is a bitch and you should stop obsessing over her.”

“What makes Gwen a bitch?” Cody asked. “She's super nice.”

“Yeah, what gives Noah?" Izzy questioned.

Noah took a breath in. “Well for starters, the way she broke up with Trent was terrible. Then she went and kissed Duncan. You don't just do that.”

“Courtney and Duncan weren't even dating!” Cody exclaimed. “Everyone keeps treating her terribly for that as if it were her fault Courtney was crazy!”

“Yeah, but Courtney's her friend. You don't kiss your friend's ex.”

“That's true,” Eva responded.

“Well yeah, but everyone's entitled to a few mistakes,” Cody said.

“She made more than a few.” Noah folded his arms.

“You're just mad he's not into you,” Izzy accused.

“I'm not into him!”

The group walked into Ms. Andrew-O’Halloran's homeroom and sat down at their table just as the bell rang.

“Well, unlike Noah, I think Sierra's in her ass-staring phase,” Izzy stated, glancing over to Sierra’s table

“Please don't tell me these things,” Cody replied.

“Okay. Question. Are you in your ass-staring phase with Gwen?”

“No. I don't stare at girls' asses.”

“Respectful. Reasonable.” Eva nodded.

“Yeah, real respectful of me not to be as low as Sierra,” Cody said sarcastically.

After that, the group decided to talk and rather do their English homework. Noah was writing an essay about themes in the last play they’d read, Macbeth, he was getting distracted by his thoughts.

Why does Cody like Gwen so much? Noah wondered. I just don’t get it.

Noah truly believed Cody could do better. He was cute, but Noah believed not everybody saw Cody the way he did. Noah tended to only pay attention to appearances once he’d met a person. If he didn’t know someone, he wasn’t able to really tell his opinion on their appearance. Along with that, personality always seemed to taint his opinion just a little. He thought Heather was a little prettier when he’d first met her.

But what Cody also had to offer was his personality- he was clever, and loyal, and dedicated. He truly tried to make people happy, no matter who they were to him. He was open-minded that way.

Cody even treated Sierra nicely. If Noah was in Cody's shoes, he would've told Sierra to screw off first thing. But Cody was still nice to her.

Noah may not have finished his math homework, but he got to do some thinking.

Noah headed to his Spanish class and sat down in his regular spot next to Gwen. Believe him- it was not his decision. If it were up to him, Noah would be sitting alone or with Cody. But, unfortunately for him, his Spanish teacher was insane and gave them a seating chart in high school.

So, he just had to put up with Ezekiel behind him, Courtney at his table, Bridgette and Geoff making out in the back row, and Trent and Gwen always passing notes to each other behind the desks. All he got to do all class was give Cody, who sat next to Trent a row back, bored glances.

The last class had been dedicated to speaking assessments, which would be continuing all week. Noah had finished his packet yesterday right before his own assessment. Figuring there was nothing better to do, he simply watched Gwen over her shoulder while Cody's table was out for assessments.

After a minute or so, Gwen turned to face Noah. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Noah responded blandly.

“You clearly want something.”

“I'm just thinking.”

“About?” Gwen asked. Courtney had moved tables, sitting with her friends in another section of the classroom working on science.

“The fact that Cody likes you is crazy.”

Gwen gave Noah a confused look. “Huh?”

“Well, you know he likes you.”

“Yeah no duh. Why do you think it's crazy.”

“I think it's crazy because he could do better.”

Gwen seemed to be holding back a laugh. “Look, Noah, as much as I love Cody, not in that way by the way, I don't think he could score very high. I'm not hot stuff, but Cody is probably worse.”

“Yeah but his personality is definitely better.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You know.”

“Are you talking about the thing with Duncan? Because it's not my fault Courtney's so insanely overprotective.”

“Courtney is your friend. Or at least she was. You could have treated her better.”

“Courtney sees me more like a statistic than a friend. That's how she treats all her friends, if you haven't noticed.”

Noah shrugged. “Either way, Cody is better than you. At least he's loyal.”

“I don't know if you're trying to make me mad, but it's not gonna work.”

“I'm not.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Just saying.”

Gwen smirked. “You just wanted an excuse to talk about Cody, didn't you?”

Noah felt heat rise to his cheeks in embarrassment. “No. I just wanted to call you out.”

“Oh come on Noah, you aren't fooling anyone. You just went on a rant about how he could 'do better'. That's basically code for telling others you have a crush on someone.”

“Is not!”

Gwen giggled. “You're so oblivious to your own crush, it's hilarious.”

“I’m not oblivious, I don't even like him!”

“You trying to prove you don't like him is just making it worse.”

“Whatever,” Noah turned to the window. It was a bland view of the brick building over, but currently anything was better than looking at Gwen.

Noah figured Gwen was just being crazy today. Like Izzy that morning. Noah was no way in the world into Cody.

“Are you jealous that he likes me and not you?” Gwen asked.

“This conversation is over.”

“I'm gonna take that as a yes.”

Cody's group returned from assessments, and Cody once again returned to his table as the teacher called out Bridgette and Geoff.

“Hey, Noah, do you by chance have the answers to the packet?” Cody asked, and Noah turned to face him. He was doing his typical pleading eyes, which Noah usually gave into for non-gay reasons. But today was not one of those days. Noah couldn't risk Gwen thinking he was into Cody.

“Uh, no,” Noah responded, and Gwen snorted.

“What's going on?” Cody questioned. “By the way, Noah, I saw you finish that packet.”

“Um…”

“You two are so funny to me,” Gwen stated.

This statement just seemed to confuse Cody more.

“You should shoot your shot, man,” Gwen said. Who she was saying that to, Noah was unsure, but it definitely didn't help the red in his cheeks.

“Oh, fine,” Noah handed Cody his binder. “It's in the first pocket on the inside.”

“Thanks?” Cody responded.

“No problem.”

Noah returned to staring out of the window and not talking to anyone. He thought about what Gwen had said, and officially decided that she was crazy. There was no way he liked Cody. Absolutely no way.

[kalinara]

You know what I loved best about Shadowhunters?

It is the first time I’ve seen anyone tackle the idea of a deconstructive adaptation outside of fanfiction.

The Mortal Instruments novels were pretty popular as I recall.  They sold well, built up a pretty passionate fanbase, and even got a movie that I never actually saw.  I think I read maybe the first one, and it wasn’t really to my taste, but I didn’t think it was terrible.  It just had a lot of the common flaws that I see in a lot of YA books.  

And generally, when you get an adaptation, it doesn’t tend to touch on these problematic elements.  Or if it does, it kind of sidles away from them.  The Twilight movies, for example, show us a couple of POC as vampires, even though technically according to the books, all vampires get paler with age.  But at the same time, neither movies nor books really address the inherent racist dynamic between the vampires and the werewolves.  And so on.

Shadowhunters is different.

When I watch Shadowhunters as an adaptation, I get the sense that a lot of the people involved genuinely do love the Mortal Instruments as a series, but that they’re not willing to overlook the problematic elements.  They want to explore them instead.

And they did.  Starting with the Clave.  Because, at least from what I recall, there’s not a whole lot TO the Clave in the books.  I mean, it’s there.  Sort of.  But our main trio (Jace, Alec, and Izzy) seem to be primarily fighting demons on their own.  They’re literally children.  I think Alec is the oldest at what, seventeen?  And while they’re meant to protect Downworlders and only kill demons, there’s a certain level of probably unconscious superiority.  I mean obviously they don’t support Valentine, the villain who wants to genocide all the downworlders.  But the elements are still there.  Our heroes have angel blood, our heroes are special, and their authority is righteous.

I’m not trying to attack Ms. Clare with this, because I think this kind of thing is very very common in YA books in general.  But I love what Shadowhunters did with this set up.

First, Shadowhunters did away with the idea of Jace, Alec, and Izzy as lone child soldiers against demons.  The Clave exists, and it’s very visible.  The Institute is bustling, filled with all sorts of background personnel.  Something is always happening.  Things are always being monitored.  There are missions happening that our characters aren’t necessarily involved in.  This does create a bit of narrative awkwardness in the first season, when the show tended to cleave more loyally to the books.  (Alec’s role as de facto leader of the Institute early on in particular seems to wax and wane in terms of level of authority.).  But it smooths itself out early on.  And it makes more sense: fighting demons is pretty important.  Not a matter to be left to three teenagers alone.

The show both ages up our characters, which makes certain romantic plots a lot less creepy, and actually addresses the idea that these people have been essentially soldiers from childhood, and that there is a LOT of institutionalized racism and superiority, along with militant duty, that gets drilled into these people from birth.  We get to see the kind of environment that builds a Valentine, and how even generally rational adults like Luke and Jocelyn might have gotten caught up in his fanatic ideology.  It takes the throwaway comments and superiority displayed by the protagonists in the book and extrapolates where that came from.

I remember reading somewhere that Ms. Clare was really unhappy with Alec’s actions early on in season one, when he was in support of Meliorn being taken to the City of Bones for interrogation (torture).    And I can understand that.  I’m sure Ms. Clare has a very clear idea in her mind about who Alexander Lightwood is.  And her Alec Lightwood would never agree to take a man to be tortured.

But I think that, in terms of the show, it was important to show Alec like that.  Because we needed to see exactly how ingrained this ideology actually is.  Jace is the brooding rebel.  Izzy is the bleeding heart half in love with Meliorn already.  Alec is the responsible one, the dutiful one who shoulders the burdens.  Which means, he’s the character most likely (at this point in the story) to swallow his conscience and misgivings and do what he thinks he’s supposed to do.

It’s an ugly moment, but it provides us with a focal point for his eventual growth.  Alec’s multi-season plot, of overcoming both overt and unconscious personal racism, to tackling the problems of the Clave itself, is one of my favorite parts of the series.  And it had to start somewhere.

One of the touches that initially made me uncomfortable, but now I rather like, is how most of the Shadowhunters are white, while most of the Downworlders are POC.  There are exceptions on both sides (the Penhallows, Luke-pre-Werewolfing, Iris Rouse), but that’s the general gist.  And at first, I thought this was a really bad thing.  Until I realized that the show actually was making a point.

Because the racism against Downworlders is fantastic racism.   And all too often, fantastic racism becomes an excuse to use real world narrative tropes meant for poc and apply them to white people.  And look, I like X-Men as much as anyone, but this isn’t our story.  (And there are very few things that annoy me more than when we see fantasy racism applied in ways that lead to POC being racist against white people: see the anti-alien senator during one season of Supergirl who just happened to be Latina.)

Even though it’s still a little uncomfortable that most of the people with “angel blood” are white and most of the people with “demon blood” are not, it does mean that we’re basically returning the focus of the fantastic racism back where it should be: on the POC victims.

Most of the Downworlders we see on the show are good people.  They’re trying to live their lives the best they can.  And the Clave uses the actions of a few bad apples (many of whom have some significant provocation!) to justify a draconian rule over all of them.

The parallels are hard to miss, and the show doesn’t actually try to miss them.  I always think particularly of the episode in season 2, where the Clave starts to chip Downworlders in response to a serial killer targeting Shadowhunters.  It’s heavy handed, sure, but it hits hard when Maia talks about real world racism and how the Shadowhunters are supposed to be better than that.  It’s another episode where a main character is complicit in the institutional racism, and that gets called out too.

It’s not perfect, of course.  And I think Jace, in particular, ends up getting off scott free for things that he really shouldn’t.  (For example, kidnapping the werewolf girl and bringing her to Valentine makes him literally guilty of her murder under the law.)  But it’s something.

Another improvement from the books is in Alec and Magnus’s relationship.  For one thing, they’re a side couple in the books, given a handful of scenes here and there, but very much in the shadow of Clary and Jace’s drama.  Their plots have some seriously uncomfortable elements: the age difference, the way Magnus presses Alec to come out, Alec’s paranoia over Magnus’s sexuality and past experience, Alec’s plotting with Camille to remove Magnus’s immortality.  It’s a mess.

Now whether or not it’s a worse mess than Clary and Jace’s nonsense.  You got me.  But it wasn’t fun.

But even with the problems, Magnus and Alec meant something to a lot of fans.  And I think the show really delivers on that front.  Magnus and Alec go from being a side couple with a handful of scenes, to in many ways, being the pillar of the series.  The age difference is less of an issue (I mean, Magnus is still many times Alec’s age, but Alec is actually an adult in this version).  The biphobia is gone, and while Alec is occasionally intimidated by the difference in their experiences, it never turns into a critique of Magnus. 

Their conflicts and obstacles are much more compelling.  Alec’s initial coming out story was triumphant and the best part of season 1 to me.  The fact that Magnus is a Downworlder, and Alec is a Shadowhunter, with all that entails isn’t forgotten.  The romance, and Alec’s plot of overcoming his racism, are deeply intertwined.  And Magnus isn’t a bit part in the story either.  His plot, especially with regard to his self-identity and relationship to his magic, is just as important, if not more so, by the last season.

The weakest part of the series for me was when they were more faithful to the books, but I thought the show did a good job of refocusing later season events on Clary rather than Jace.  One of the things that annoyed me about book and the early part of the series is that, as soon as we had Jace’s (not) parentage reveal, he seemed to end up with 90% of the focus in any of the family drama.  Clary discovers her long lost father is a genocidal maniac, but Jace was raised by the man so it gets more focus.  The dynamic between Jace and Jonathan had a lot more focus in the books too.  Sometimes it seemed like the story forgot that Clary also had a family stake in more than just her mother.  So I was really happy when the show started digging into Clary’s identity as a Morgenstern, and went the route of linking her to Jonathan.  (Even if I could definitely do without incestuous overtones.)  Jace, as a character, tends to work better when he isn’t the center focus, in my opinion.  Or at least when the focus is shared, and he gets to react and take part in other characters’ plotlines.

You’ll occasionally see this sort of deconstruction in fanfiction (when it’s not a joyous celebration of unlikely characters banging - not that there’s anything wrong with that), but rarely to this extent, and certainly never with this kind of budget.  The idea of a “Shadowhunters style deconstruction” is a really interesting thought exercise to apply to all sorts of media that has both enjoyable and problematic elements.