#and he's talked openly about how a lot of elements were SUPPOSED to be included but weren't able to be due to time and budget constraints

[infinite-infinite-stars]

Literally everything that WKM might have been trying to say about choice and lack thereof, ISWM explores as well, but better. Fight me.

[danggerine]

i made the mistake of reading the notes on a lot of trans naoto posts so now y’all get responses to some of the bad takes i keep seeing. buckle the fuck up

• “naoto’s arc is about sexism specific to the japanese workplace and calling her trans erases that to fit it into a western lens!!!”

you guys do know that there are japanese trans people right. like i agree that there are lots of issues with workplace sexism and gender roles in japan, but there’s also lots of issues with transphobia. y’all do know that you do not have to be white and/or live in a western country to be trans, and that queer stories and issues are GLOBAL stories and issues right.

• “naoto isn’t a man, she just pretended to be one to get respect in a male-dominated field, if you say she’s a trans man you’re ruining that whole character arc about accepting your true self!”

here’s the thing! the way that character arc was done was fucking transphobic! the trope of a woman going into disguise as a man for safety/respect/etc is tried and tested, it shows up literally everywhere, and the trope itself is not inherently transphobic. HOWEVER, when persona 4 incorporates Really Obviously Trans elements into that trope, like chest binding and literal gender reassignment surgery, then we have a problem, because now you have a cis character going through a trans narrative in the name of insecurity.

p4 does everything it can to embody the typical narrative of a young transitioning trans guy: binding, changing your name, revising official documents to be known as a man in work and school records, dressing masculine, and forming a shadow literally based on transitional surgery. plus the stuff naoto’s shadow says isn’t about being “a weak little girl” or “no one will ever take you seriously when you’re just a little girl” like you would expect it to be for someone who’s arc is supposed to be about dealing with misogyny, it’s all “you’ll never be a real man,” “you can’t cross the boundary between the sexes,” “no one will ever see you as you are” comments. you know, textbook trans guy insecurity. but the game backtracks on that and says naoto was just insecure about being a female detective and wanted people to take them seriously, and that they should get rid of these feelings and accept their true, female self.

and this is where the problem lies. when you write an obviously trans-coded narrative, but make the character experiencing it an insecure cis person or someone trying to avoid discrimination, you say either 1. trans people are really their assigned gender and are just insecure, but accepting the gender they were given at birth will make them happier and more confident or 2. being a trans man is a way for cis women to escape misogyny. 1 is obviously stupid and has been talked about by plenty of people, but 2 is a BIG problem and a wild assumption to me. being a trans man is seen as an “out” for naoto, or a solution to a problem, as if once they’re a man they’ll face no discrimination whatsoever, when in reality things like getting their gender marker changed in official documents that would allow them to go by “he” and wear the boy’s uniform at school and passing well enough to be seen as a boy in public would be a HUGE ordeal that includes a lot of stress and rejection and danger. realistically, naoto is putting themself in a really precarious position, because if they are exposed as actually afab to the media, to the detective agency, or to the school, they are set for a hell of a lot of ridicule, discrimination, and potential physical danger. but persona 4 doesn’t reflect this at all, because it’s transphobic and thinks that being trans is the easy way out for cis women experiencing misogyny!

• really any argument that boils down to “naoto is a cis woman in canon whose struggle is about sexism, not being trans”

like i already addressed enough of this, i think, but what really gets me is that kanji’s arc is fucked up in a lot of the same ways naoto is and no one is clowning on posts about kanji being gay? his shadow is a very clear (and offensive) gay caricature, and his narrative is very much one about a mlm guy experiencing homophobia from his peers and acting out because of that. and yet the game backtracks to saying “oh no it’s not about liking men, kanji is insecure about his femininity and softer hobbies because of toxic masculinity” and then literally uses naoto to refute his queerness because “look the only guy kanji was ever shown as attracted to was ACTUALLY a woman all along and now that kanji knows she’s a girl he can be openly attracted to her!” in canon, naoto is about as cis as kanji is straight, and yet EVERYONE is on board for portraying kanji as gay in fan works like it’s not even a question, but there has to be a huge debate anytime anyone wants to call naoto trans. legitimately, i think i’ve seen someone argue about kanji being mlm on a post...once? ever? meanwhile every post about naoto being trans has to have a horde of discourse, i’m literally already prepping for the bad notes this post will get because y’all cannot leave this ALONE

in conclusion, i am not saying that everyone has to think naoto is a trans man or forcing anyone to stop liking a character in the way they want or anything like that. i am saying that the naoto’s canon character arc is transphobic and if you’re trying to fight with trans people about how they want to reclaim something that uses a lot of their experiences, don’t.

[iaintyourbro]

The New Red Herrings: Biggs and Zack and How Avalanche Tells Us the LTD is Dead

Biggs and Zack are seemingly alive at the end of FFVII Remake Part 1 - so what does that mean? Will they live throughout the story? Maybe they’ll be like Wedge and escape death initially, only to be forced to face it shortly after?

There’s also interesting similarities on the death scenes of Biggs and Zack, A while ago I took screenshots of the “death” scene of Biggs and thought it was interesting how they had Biggs touch Cloud’s head and also made him promise something. 

And how are all these things connected to the LTD? 

Now, clearly, neither Biggs or Jessie had as dramatic of a death as Zack or Aerith. We actually see the initial injury or incident that causes each of them to die. Cloud comes upon Biggs while he’s already sitting down injured. Cloud and Tifa come to Jessie after she’s under the rubble and try to save her. 

We know Cloud pretty much loses it when Zack dies. He collapses mentally. He’s already been through enough shit to fill a lifetime, and now his only friend, his best friend, and the guy who saved his life, dies trying to get them back to Midgar. 

Why Zack is Important to Cloud

Relationship wise, Cloud obviously had a much deeper connection to Zack. At the point that Biggs dies, he doesn’t know any of that, but I think his death definitely triggers something in him. Biggs saw through Cloud’s front. We know Biggs dealt with the kids at the Leaf House, and most likely acted like a volunteer in the Big Brother program. He tells Cloud he’s got a lot in common with the kids at the Leaf House.

Zack had Cloud take on the responsibility to be his living legacy. Of course we all know he shuts down about five minutes later. Biggs had Cloud promise that this wouldn’t all be for nothing. In both cases, it doesn’t work out. He forgets what Zack told him and the Sector 7 plate still falls. 

Zack’s death has a major impact on Cloud - it’s ultimately what breaks him. It also gives us these really sad moments of somebody who’s already been through so much and is breaking now. 

Cloud is upset about Biggs. He was becoming his friend. The three Avalanche members really did accept Cloud and tried to be his friend. He was included with them - in most cases. Of course there’s the Avalanche party that he’s kicked out of (mind you - he does this to himself by acting like an ass to Barret and them) and then during Chapter 4, he’s separated to go steal Jessie’s dad’s ID. 

Ultimately, though, we know that Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie all like Cloud. They seem to see through the hard exterior pretty easily. So Cloud loses another person in his life.

The ending of FFVII Remake takes an interesting turn. Anybody who played OG or CC knows what is supposed to happen to Biggs and Zack.

But, Remake’s ending seems to imply that they survive the event that was supposed to take them out. 

Did Zack survive the last stand? Is this a case of the Last Stand in CC being combined with OG where as they walk away, Zack ends up getting shot anyway? 

So we also see Biggs.... wait, wrong picture.

That’s the right one. We get a shot of Charlie Sheen Biggs waking up in a bed in what looks like some type of either infirmary or large room. In OG, we know that all three of the Avalanche members die during the Sector 7 plate fall. In Remake, the only one we get confirmation on is Jessie, and that’s only in the Chapter description. 

Wedge we know survives until the Shinra building, where the Whispers ultimately take him out since he defied fate. 

So, what will happen to Biggs?

The biggest thing talked about seems to be the ending. Zack surviving created a lot of buzz. Is there a second timeline? Is he going to just simply walk another 10 feet and get shot in the back? Did her survive in the first place? Why does Stamp look different on that bootleg chip bag?

Will we have a beautiful Zerith reunion? 

In the OG, the Love Triangle illusion was the red herring. This was mostly to trick and distract the player to focus on something, so later they can destroy you with major twists. It also was used to get the player to like Aerith so her death would be more impactful. In addition, it makes the whole Northern Crater confession from Cloud about Tifa’s opinion being the only one that matters a slam in your face of holy shit what is going on?!

At this point, everybody and their mother knows Aerith dies. It’s not something that was kept a secret. It’s referenced in various materials. The one thing not openly referenced is what’s going on with Cloud. They never reference the Lifestream, the fake persona, or anything outside of the OG and Ultimanias. I think this is a shame since it’s such an important part of his character arc, but I get that they want to try and leave the element of surprise in play.

I think everybody would agree that the moment you find out Cloud was just a grunt that was WITH Zack during the Nibelheim incident is super powerful. I still get chills all these years later. Letting this be a well known thing would take away the element of surprise from new fans. Of course, people can go online and read blogs like this one and know all of this, but for somebody - especially future generations - who may just be looking for a new game to play, you’d want this element of surprise to stay in tact. 

We can’t use Aerith as the only red herring anymore, and we can’t use the love triangle. For many reasons. Everybody knows about it and the love triangle was a poor choice for something like this because some people missed the point completely.

Now, FFVII Twitter is always on fire. 

Also, even though the Lifestream and Cloud’s true identity are pretty well kept secrets in terms of printed media, most of the people who played FFVII Remake played the original game, they know what happens. People who were new and played Remake first most likely went and bought OG and played it. So now they know what happens. 

They knew this, or they probably wouldn’t have shown Cloud in this state, but even for those who don’t, the alternate timeline theory is born. Biggs enhances this theory because he’s alive too. How can Cloud walk past them AND be carried by Zack in some catatonic state?

It keeps us distracted. They want us to think that fate can be changed. In the case of Zack, they’re even saying that the past can be changed. 

Ultimately, whatever they do, it’ll be shocking to most players. I do trust that the devs aren’t being deceitful when they say they are going to keep the major plot points the same and FFVII will be FFVII going forward. Part 1 keeps major plot points but adds substance to a lot of things. They took out unnecessary parts and enhanced others. They also removed a lot of the love triangle stuff. 

Another striking thing with all of this is the Jessie factor. The Chapter screen tells us she died - it only says Biggs was seriously injured. That hasn’t stopped speculation.

The ending shows gloves on the table next to Biggs’ bed and a lot people said oh it’s Jessie’s left glove! And it does appear that it is. There’s only one glove. To me, this seems like they recovered her body and were able to pull of some personal affects of hers to leave with Biggs. Both articles look damaged or faded. 

Faded could mean they’ve been sitting in the sun for a while. The incident happened a few days ago, though we don’t have a definitive time on when we’re shown Biggs. This could be a future look.

They also could simply be damaged and full of dust from the plate collapse. 

It is implied in Chapter 4 if you listen to the conversation between Jessie’s mom and the gang that Biggs and Jessie have a different relationship than Wedge and Jessie. 

I have some thoughts on what this may mean:

Biggs is Jessie’s BFF and her mom likes him.

Jessie and Biggs dated at one point and decided to not tell her mom that they no longer are or that its casual.

Jessie’s mom was hounding Jessie about finding a man so she picked Biggs to be her pretend boyfriend and he agreed.

Biggs and Jessie are secretly dating and only her mom knows.

Which one do I think it is? Well, knowing Jessie, I can definitely see her doing #3. I can absolutely see her acting like Biggs is her boyfriend to get her mom off her back. I think #1 and #2 are also huge possibilities. #4 is far fetched, but they could cover it up by having Jessie flirt relentlessly with Cloud and appear to be single. 

Some people think that Jessie will end up at the Gold Saucer singing. Personally, I really hope not. If they keep a bunch of people alive (even if it’s for a short amount of time), it really takes away one of the major themes of FFVII which is death and moving on. In addition, I think it’s too many people they’d need to kill off later. Jessie is a very popular character, so I hope they don’t take that as an incentive to change that aspect of the story. 

Aerith’s funeral and Jessie’s death are similar as well, so I think it is foreshadowing some things. 

We get a princess style carry here. Aerith and Jessie both get these in Remake. Jessie’s second one ends in her death. Will Aerith get a second princess carry by Cloud? Will it be to take her to her final resting place?

Maybe she won’t even go to the lake - maybe to the sky?

We know Tifa was super upset in OG, and they really don’t touch on it much. We only see her run away crying after this moment. You learn in Case of Tifa that she’s really upset about, but a lot of people don’t read Case of Tifa, so they only know this scene. 

We know that she gets very upset over Jessie’s death.

I think Aerith’s death will be much worse. 

It seems Jessie’s death is a reference to how Aerith’s death was handled in the OG.

Will it be handled the same? Maybe. I think they’re going to make it seem like she’s going to be okay, and then boom.

So the ending gives us hope that we have two friends that are alive. It makes us think that we can save Aerith. I do think Wedge’s death towards the end and comments that Red XIII made in Chapter 17 may also be hinting towards the fact that you cannot change the past and you cannot change fate. 

Over on Discord, @anesuna​ brought up a good point about Wedge’s cats. Biggums survives the plate collapse along with Wedge. The other two cats - Reggie and Smalls - sadly perish (::cries a lot::). This could also be a reference that Biggs survived while Jessie and Wedge do not. 

So what about the LTD?

I think this is a heavy reference to the old OG love triangle. Don’t fall for it! They’re warning players now instead of wanting them to fall for it. 

Why do I say this? Aerith seemed to think the love triangle was fun. Thing is, Cloud wasn’t all there at this point, so it was just an illusion. Since players didn’t seem to get that the first time, they’re going to make it clear now. There were a lot of aspects they seemed to take from Aerith and give to Jessie. Overly flirty (with Jessie they added thirsty) and being overly childish at times. Aerith in remake is still somewhat childish, but not completely.

Oblivious Cloud is Oblivious. Yeah, he was oblivious in OG that Aerith and Tifa had feelings for him. He has no idea what Wedge is talking about now. Earlier in this same conversation he thinks that Wedge is telling him not to come around because people will gossip about Jessie being in Avalanche, but the player knows really what he’s referring to...

I think this is probably a reference to the Gold Saucer date because of the stage part. I take things at face value and don’t really dig too deep, but I think this exchange with Wedge is supposed to tell the player not to fall for these false loves early in the game.

It’s brought up again during Aerith’s resolution scene.

Earlier Wedge said not to fall for Jessie’s trick, because it was a game to her. It wasn’t real love. Aerith is now telling her that if Cloud thinks he falls in love with her, it’s not real. 

We have two separate instances in the game where they’re telling you to beware of the false love. It’s two times the word love is used. 

After all of this, the ending presents us with two guys who should be dead that appear to be alive. One of them is directly connected to Aerith.

This was their way of trying to shut down the LTD and replace it with different red herrings. Will it work as well as the LTD? Well, it seems that the majority of FFVII Remake fans have talked about the ending.

Yes, a lot of people talk about the LTD, but I think the majority of players are more interested overall in what happens next and what’s up with Zack. I think the majority of the fandom is also ready for the LTD to officially be dead so we can actually focus on everything else and stop the madness. 

It’ll never fully stop, but at least it’ll be clear for anybody who plays the game and alleviate the bulk of the chaos. 

Say hello to your new red herrings: Biggs and Zack. 

Say bye to the LTD.

[takerfoxx]

In response to JK Rowling and Joss Whedon, my (former) idols

I really didn’t want to have to do this.

So in addition to…=gestures vaguely=…all of that, the last few months have been kind of sucky when it comes to learning some really unpleasant things about artists that I looked up to, admired, and was in fact inspired by. I’ve already spoken about the Speaking Out movement revealing a lot of ugly behavior from various wrestlers, some of which I was big fans of, and then later we got Chris Jericho being a full-on MAGA. Yeah, that all sucked. But those were just performers whose work I enjoyed watching. The one that really hurt were writers who I deeply admired, whose stories I love, and who I was heavily influenced by.

The first, of course, was finding out that JK Rowling, the author of perhaps the single biggest YA fantasy series of all time Harry Potter, is a TERF. This really sucked for a number of reasons. Firstly, I really like Harry Potter! I mean, I’m not a super fan or anything. I came into it when things were kind of dying down, like the whole book series had already been released and there were only a few movies left, but I still really enjoyed it, have all the books and movies and a fair amount of merchandise swag, including a nifty wand I got at Universal Studios. Shit, I got two replicas of the Sword of Griffyindor, thanks to them screwing up my order in my favor and sending me a duplicate! They’re on my wall right across from me as I type this!

But in addition to writing a book series I really liked, JK Rowling was supposed to be one the good guys. She’s been vocally progressive, often openly comes down on British right-wing nonsense, has supported various persecuted minorities, and is on record as being one of the few self-made billionaires to actually stop being a billionaire for a time because she donated so much money to charity. And while we mock it now, her revealing Dumbledore as gay was a huge deal at the time. Plus, she cultivated this reputation as Auntie Jo, that cool, supportive aunt we all wanted.

But for a while her stock has been dropping. Her preference for confirming “representation” via tweets instead of explicitly putting it in the text of her stories has raised the question of queer-baiting, especially with a whole-ass movie with a young Dumbledore and Grindelwald to make their relationship explicit but failing to do so. The whole Nagini thing from the latest Fantastic Beasts movie was pretty gross. And re-examination of various problematic elements from the original novels has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Now, none of these really looked to be intentionally malicious, of course. Just about everyone’s early work will have problematic elements; that’s just how people work. And the later stuff smacked more of ignorance than anything. But after all this time, it’s like, c’mon. You should know better by now.

But the biggie came when her transphobic views finally came to light. Now, this one had been brewing for a while, due to some questionable likes and statements on her twitter. But then she decided to just go public and published what essentially amounts to a TERF manifesto, one with a very “love the sinner, hate the sin” condescending attitude and had a real persecution complex air to it.

Now, I’m not going to go into detail about what the manifesto was about, what the circumstances surrounding it were, or how wrong it was. It’s already been raked over the coals, dissected, answered, and debunked in detail by people far more qualified than me, so odds are, you’re already well aware of its contents and the subsequent rebuttals. But the gist of it comes down to her basically believing that transwomen are actually cis men claiming to be trans so as to infiltrate and invade female-only spaces.

Yeah.

Okay, that’s gross, but…why? Why is someone so noted for being progressive and wanting to foster an inclusive environment making this the hill of exclusion that she wants to die on?

Well, that’s where things get tricky. She mentions that prior to Harry Potter, her first marriage was highly physically and sexually abusive, and when she escaped from that, she had no place to go, leading her to be homeless for a time.

Oh.

Well, that makes sense. Someone goes through a highly traumatic experience with a member of the opposite sex, has no support structure when she escapes it, is left to fend for herself, only to suddenly get rocketed into fame, fortune, and influence, which in turn leads to a Never Again mentality. She was hurt, no one was there to help her, and now she’s afraid of men invading women-only spaces to victimize others like she was victimized. So…literally transphobic. Literally a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist.

Guys, this is so fucked up. Like, how do you even approach something like this? She’s a victim in every sense of the word, so of course she’s going to have physiological damage and a warped view of things. I mean, if I found out that a close friend of mine went through the same thing and had the same prejudices, I would be nothing but sympathetic! I mean, I’d still do what I can to convince her to overcome those prejudices, but I’d still show sympathy and support for what she went through.

Abuse warps people. There’s a reason why so many abusers are abuse survivors themselves. It makes you terrified of being hurt again and often causes people to adopt toxic behaviors, beliefs, and reactions to protect themselves. I’ve already talked about it at length while discussing She-Ra and its own handling of the cycle of abuse, which included franks discussions of Catra’s horrible behavior, why she was the way she was, while never losing sympathy for her and rooting for her to overcome it. So if JK Rowling is an abuse survivor, is it really right to come down on her for having warped views because of that abuse?

But that’s the problem. See, she isn’t your troubled friend that you’re trying to help. She isn’t your cousin Leslie who’s a really sweet person but unfortunately adopted some bad ideals due to trauma suffered. She JK freakin’ ROWLING, one of the most famous, wealthy, and influential women in the world. She has a platform of millions, if not billions, which means her voice lends credibility to her bigoted beliefs. Alt-righters and other TERFs have already swooped upon this for giving validation to their awful beliefs, which puts trans people even more at risk. And as horrible as Rowling’s experiences might have been, the trans community is often the victim of far worse, and they don’t have a mountain of money and an army of defenders to protect them like she does. I’ve said it time and time again: just because you’re a victim, that doesn’t give you the right to victimize others! And bringing things back to Catra, as much as I loved her redemption in the final season, she was still a TERRIBLE PERSON for a huge chunk of the show, one that needed to be stood up to and stopped.

So yeah. That’s the messiness that is JK Rowling.

Now, let’s talk about the one that really hurts. Let’s talk about Joss Whedon.

I’ve made no secret of what a huge Whedon fan I am. Unlike Rowling, I was a HUUUUUGE superfan. Seeing Serenity for the first time in theaters was akin to a religious awakening to me as a storyteller, making it one of my top three movies of all time. Firefly is my favorite show ever. And I adored Buffy, Angel, and Dollhouse as well. I love Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers. The very first fanfic I ever wrote was a Firefly fanfic that disappeared along with my old laptop. I know his style isn’t for everyone, but I cannot understate how much of a personal inspiration he is to me as a writer.

And like Rowling, Joss was supposed to be one of the good guys! Buffy was monumental in pushing the needle when it came to female empowerment. Will and Tara were groundbreaking as a gay couple. He’s been outspoken for years about his feminist views and beliefs and was seen as one of the most prominent and influential feminist voices in Hollywood!

And then things started to go bad.

One day he was on top of the world, the mastermind behind the first two Avenger movies. And the next, it seemed like he was in freefall. It’s hard to really pinpoint exactly when the change took place. Some would say him being brought in as a last-minute substitute for Zack Snyder to take over on Justice League after Snyder had to leave due to family tragedy, and the subsequent awful critical reception to that film tarnishing his image, even if those were very unique circumstances that couldn’t really be blamed on him. Others might point to Age of Ultron’s less than stellar reception, as well as criticism of some questionable jokes and certain creative decisions regarding the character of Black Widow, which then led to a more critical examination of how Whedon continues to write female characters, as while his work might have been revolutionary in the 90’s, his failure to evolve with the times had meant that many of his portrayals are now woefully outdated and problematic, with his vision for a Batgirl movie getting hit with a lot of backlash as a result.

Again, I’m not going to go into too much detail, as this is all public knowledge and can be easily looked up, but overall it seemed that Whedon entered into a period where he was getting criticized more than he was celebrated, and his image of a guaranteed hit maker was now in doubt.

But all of this wasn’t the big problem. All creators go through rises and slumps, and everyone hits points where they get hit with a barrage of criticism; that’s just part of being a public creative figure, especially a progressive one. And had nothing happened after, it would have probably faded, got forgotten, and Whedon would have moved onto the next project with no fuss.

But as it turned out, it wasn’t just a minor slump in his career. Instead, it was the priming of the pump.

In 2016, Whedon divorced his wife of sixteen years, Kai Cole, and in an open letter, Kai Cole accused him of being a serial cheater, who would have affairs with a great many women, from co-workers, to actresses, to friends, to even his fans. And in addition to raising questions of him possibly abusing his position as showrunner to elicit sex from those working on his projects, there also is the ugly question of how could someone who speaks so highly of women then go and backstab the person who was supposed to be the most important woman in his life, as well as lying to her and denying her the autonomy of deciding whether or not she even wanted to continue to have a relationship with him?

Furthermore, Whedon himself has not explicitly denied these accusations, and comments made by him seem only to confirm them.

Now if you’ll recall, I reacted publicly to this news, and despite my admiration of Whedon’s work, I came down on Kai Cole’s side, and stated that while things like marriage issues and infidelity were no one’s business but that of the couple’s, it did raise a lot of uncomfortable questions about how Whedon treated the women in his life and he really needed to get his shit in order.

But hey, a messy private life and a guy falling into temptation isn’t that big of a deal, right? Plenty of creators also go through multiple marriages and have problems staying faithful and still continue making great art. We’re all human, it’s a stressful job, and this shit just happens, right? Sure, it’s gross and a shitty thing to do, but ain’t no business of ours, right?

In late 2020, actor Ray Fisher, who played the role of Cyborg in Justice League, openly accused Joss Whedon of fostering a hostile work environment, claiming that the director’s behavior was abusive and unprofessional, and that Whedon in turn was protected by DC executives.

DC and Warner Bros. came down against Fisher, claiming they had done an internal investigation that turned up no evidence of wrongdoing (yeah, sure they did), and soon Fisher was out as Cyborg, apparently for rocking the boat.

But then Charisma Carpenter, noted for her important role as Cordelia Chase in both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, then spoke up, claiming to be inspired by Fisher in doing so. She described Whedon did indeed foster a hostile work environment on his projects, that his often acted in a toxic manner, from asking incredibly invasive and inappropriate questions regarding her pregnancy to insulting her on set. She said that she made excuses for him for years, but after undergoing a lot of therapy and reading what Ray Fisher had to say, she felt compelled to speak out.

And this just open the floodgates. Other actors and actresses also came forward, some with stories of their own, others to offer support. Even Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, confirmed Carpenter’s stories and said that she no longer wanted to be associated with Whedon. Michelle Trachtenberg, who played the character of Dawn, stated that she also experienced toxic treatment from Whedon despite her being a minor at the time, and says that the set had a rule that Whedon wasn’t allowed to be alone with her again, which really raises some sickening questions of what happened the first time. Even male stars have spoken out, from words of support and apologies for not speaking up earlier from Anthony Stewart Head and David Boreanaz, to an earlier interview with James Marsters, in which he described being terrified of Whedon, mainly due to an instance when Whedon was frustrated with the popularity of Marsters’s character of Spike messing with his plans and physically and verbally taking it out on the actor. There have been many corroborating stories of Whedon being casually cruel on set, on seemingly taking delight in making his fellow show writers cry, and even the man himself admitting to enjoying fostering a hostile work environment during his director commentary of the Avengers. We’ve joked about Whedon’s supposed sadism for years, but that was in regards to how he treated the characters in his stories, not the people helping him make them!

So yeah. That’s the problem with Joss Whedon.

So, do I think that Joss Whedon is somehow some kind of sociopath who lied about his feminist principles and deliberately put on a progressive façade specifically to get into a position of power so he could torment people? No, of course not. I think he was sincere about his beliefs, and I do think he didn’t realize the wrongness of his behavior. But that’s kind of the problem. See, it’s one thing to have kind of a trollishness to your nature, a sort of sadistic side. No one can help that. But when someone with that quality gets put into a position of power in which they are protected by both the higher-ups and their legions of fans, they are allowed to mistreat and continue to mistreat people. And by never suffering any consequences, that sort of toxic behavior becomes internalized, becomes a habit, becomes their moda operandi. And when you’re constantly getting praised as a creative genius and a wonderful feminist voice, any self-criticism just gets wiped away, and you think yourself above reproach, leading to what Joss Whedon became and went on being.

And you know what scares me the most about this particular issue? It’s not that I am a fan of his stories. It’s that I can so easily see myself turning out the same way.

Look, I’ll be upfront about it: I’m kind of a sadist myself. You’ve seen it in my stories, you’ve seen me gloating after a particularly dark plot twist makes my readers freak out. That sort of stuff is fun to me. There’s a reason why I have a much easier time in the dark and violent scenes, because I’m channeling something ugly within me. We all have a dark side, and this is mine.

But UNLIKE Whedon, that doesn’t carry over to how I treat people in real life (unless Monopoly or Mario Party are involved, then it’s fair game). Maybe it’s because I wasn’t given the sort of power and praise he did so early, and I was always taught to be considerate of other people’s feelings, but if I ever find out that I hurt another person or went too fair, I feel TERRIBLE, and it just throws me off all day until I apologize. Even if I don’t notice right away that what I said or did wasn’t cool (autistic, remember?), when it’s pointed out to me and I have some time to think on it, yeah, the guilt is on and I make a point to apologize to whoever I’ve hurt. I’ve even made a point to apologize to members of my family for inconsiderate stuff I said years ago as a little punk kid because it wouldn’t stop bugging me.

So maybe Whedon got too big, too fast. Maybe putting people on these sorts of pedestals, especially progressive ones, is ultimately a bad thing.

So where does this leave us? How are we to treat JK Rowling and Joss Whedon, one who developed a lot of transphobia due to abuse suffered while the other became a toxic individual due to unchecked control and a lack of consequences? Can we still enjoy their stories despite them now being colored by their creators’ falls from grace? Can we separate the art from the artist, or do we have to do a clean split?

Honestly, I feel that has to come down to the individual. I can’t remove the influence Rowling and Whedon have had on me as a storyteller, and I still highly respect both of their talents despite taking major issue with their problems as people. And I’m not going go throw away all of my Harry Potter or Firefly stuff. Because that’s my stuff. It has value to me, it doesn’t represent the issues with their creators, and a lot of it was gifts from people who are dear to me. Though I do think it’ll be a long time before I return to either of their work, as I just don’t have the stomach for it now.

But I will be avoiding any projects they have in the future. I don’t want to put money in their pockets that might go on to support their toxic beliefs or behavior. And as for royalties for their past work that would also support the cast and crew of the Harry Potter films or those who worked on Whedon’s shows who do not deserve to lose money because we don’t want any of that money going to the creators? Er, that question is a little above my paygrade. I don’t know. You’ll have to all decide for yourselves. As for me, I still have a lot of thinking to do.

Regardless though, if I or anyone else is still able to enjoy their work, then it’s important to not divorce what these people said or did from the art they created, even if it makes enjoying that art less fun. It’s important to be critical about what we enjoy, to acknowledge the bad aspects along with the good, and open up discussion of those elements, because that’s what mature adults are supposed to do. 

And as for JK Rowling and Joss Whedon, whose stories I love, whose talent I admire, and whose past good work I’ll happily acknowledge, I do hope they both experience some sort of realization and enter into a period of self-examination that leads to them getting help for their issues, for Rowling to get help in coming to terms with her trauma and realizing that she’s wrong about the trans community and a full apology, and for Whedon to also come to terms with his toxic behavior and how he treats people, for him to make no excuse for what he did and sincerely apologize to those he hurt and work on bettering himself, as well as them both examining some of the more problematic tropes still present in their works. Because despite everything, I do feel that they can still be a creative force of good, and it would be a shame if they let themselves self-destruct.

But if not, then if it comes down to choosing between Rowling and the protecting the trans community, if it comes down between choosing between letting Whedon continue to make shows and protecting actors and writers from his abusive behavior, then I know who I’m siding with, and it ain’t the two individuals this whole essay is about. No story, no matter how good, no matter how creative, is worth letting sacrificing vulnerable people in order for it to be made.

[currentfandomkick]

Marinette did not sign up for this part 10: Mari plots plotting

So long time no post. I live. Ish. Also finally figured out readmore on mobile, so yay. Will take forever to edit posts now though. Explanation at the bottom First part here previous part here. Ao3 here

Marinette wanted to go on record that Mandeliev did not, in fact, give her an extra day or so to study for the test. Why? Instead, she was told she may do a paper on the application of physics in gymnastics and principles of evasion in urban areas and how to combine the two to maximize one’s ability to run away from akumas and other dangers.

Or as Nino put it: “I am tormenting you into running better, the eight page essay.”

Alya dubbed it the “Run Better Paper.”

Aurore said it should include more formulas when Marinette showed her the draft. (as Adrien would complain about lack of theories and how she should have used this advanced formula she’d never heard of instead and then Marinette would have to forcibly stop him from taking over her paper. Again.)

Kim had taken to keeping her in his hoodie, escorting her to the bakery and didn’t leave her alone until Adrien said it was his “Marinette Anxiety Watch” shift.

Which she would like to go on record, is just plain mean to say. She has Liar 100% under control when world ending things and metaphorical bomb drops aren’t happening to her constantly.

—-

Bruce tried to contact Diana and Arthur again. Hal was off world, and therefore useless.

Why?

As his missing son hadn’t contacted them yet. Was still in the Miraculous team’s custody. And he saw the footage of Robin—Damian—being hunted by a lving shadow, an element casting swordswoman, and a strategist that seemed to know exactly what to do to keep Robin cornered in battle. The living shadows—Chat Noir—tried to kill his son with Cataclysm.

That was when they were in public, and had Hal watching over them.

He didn’t want to think about what the kids might do unsupervised to someone that tried to kill Ladybug, openly stalked her civilian self, and apparently tried stalk her again, in broad daylight. And possibly may have revealed her secret identity…

From the comments, it seemed that the Parisians hadn’t connected his sons aliases to the pair, writing it off as “Copy-cat Vigilantes” thankfully. And none of them were revealing more than “so the Fashion Disaster tried to go after Chat and Ryuko’s civvie… Not A Smart CopyBird” was the most he was able to get.

His children, on the other hand…

——

“I Fucking KNEW IT!” Tim yelled. “I knew it was her!”

“But,” Jason smirked. “You didn’t tell us.”

“Soup girl, baby bat!” Cass said gleefully.

“Wait, we both talked to her—and you didn’t say you thought it was her either Cass!”

“So what I’m hearing, if my ears don’t deceive me,” Jason continued. “Is that you all lost too.”

“What—“

“Wait a minute!”

“No way—”

Cass shrugged. She was the least invested in winning. She got to meet soup girl, who is very nice and her parents are safe for Baby Bat.

“We don’t have proof,” Dick pointed out. “Didn’t you say something about her being a mouse?”

“I—”

“Well—”

“Yes.” Cass cut through Tim and Stephanie’s waffling. “She is.”

Dick rubbed his forehead. “How many secrets can one kid have?”

“Five?” Jason said without much thought. “Limit is definitely five.”

—-

“Let me get this straight,” Miss Sting began, watching Ladybug very, very carefully. Rena and Carapace were busy that night and couldn’t act as the team’s Common Sense Filter in person. and texts only went so far.

So the job fell to Aurore. To talk (probably Marinette) Ladybug out of a Very, Stupendously, Inconceivably Bad Idea.

“You want to trust Robin—the kid who tried to kill you—to contact his mother—an assassin—to talk strategy about how to take down Hawkmoth’s civilian life’s business, not kill him, and trust that they won’t kill you?”

“…I’m bringing Chat with me.”

“Ladybug.”

“What, do you want me to use a Lucky Charm to prove this is our best bet?”

“You know what?” Miss Sting threw her hands up. “Yes, yes I do.”

“Fine.” Ladybug threw her yoyo skyward. “Lucky Charm!”

A red, spotted ball with an 8 on it came down.

“… you have got to be kidding me.”

Ladybug shrugged. “Uh, Magic Eightball, is it okay to trust Robin with this?”

One shake later and the floating die window read “Without a Doubt.”

“Give me that.” Miss Sting scowled, shaking as she asked. “Should she bring someone besides Chat and Robin—like someone from our team or Wonder Woman or Aquaman?”

The ball answered “Outlook not so good.”

Miss Sting glared at the magic eight ball. “I can’t believe this!”

Ladybug shrugged. “Lucky Charms are Lucky Charms—and I gotta go.”

Miss Sting checked her beeping spinning top. Someone was just akumatized.

“Re-charge first!” Miss Sting yelled before swinging ahead.

—-

“Oh, hey, when’s Demon Spawn going to contact us?” Jason asked as other bats calmed down.

“He’s not answering his communicator.” Bruce growled. “Hal took it earlier.”

The bats paused at that.

“Well then. Trackers?”

“Disabled—what? We didn’t need anyone crashing the apology and he ran off before I could stop him,” Dick defended. He is not Damian’s keeper. Just his Batman (as yes Bruce, he is Damian’s Batman and Damian is his Robin. Current masks not-withstanding).

“Then how are we supposed to find him?” Stephanie asked as the room grew uneasy.

No one answered that.

“How’s this,” Tim began. “Me, Steph and Cass agreed on who Hawkmoth probably is, each of us has a different set of evidence for it—and I’m counting breaking into his evil Liar and the cameras catching him mid-act a few minutes ago as absolute proof.”

“I’m sorry, you did what!” Stephanie leaned over Tim’s shoulder to see. “Oh shit. Isn’t that guy—”

“One of her friends? According to their private Instagram accounts, more like partner in crime and possible Chat Noir. I mean, he’s the one that calls her his “everyday Ladybug” and voices Chat Noir in everything." Tim answered idly. “My money’s on him not knowing at all.”

Bruce twitched. Then began to add ‘stalking social media feeds’ to his to-do list tonight.

“So,” Tim stepped forward. “I suggest we send this to the Wonder Woman and ask for Robin’s comm to be returned, and failing that, I bugged the video so anything they play it on, we get access to its IP and can find where they are.”

“Have Oracle go over the bug, just in case,” Bruce told them. “In the mean time, the rest of you suit up for the night. Gotham needs its vigilantes.”

—-

Marinette wanted to go on the record that her plan (to keep the bats away) was going well. Deciding what to do with Mu—R—Damian. Damian. Damian and his offer, was a challenge.

For obvious reasons, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Aquaman were against her asking a bunch of assassins for their help. Chat has more than a few reservations. Carapace, Rena and Miss Sting gave her looks for that plan.

But.

But it would work. She needs more information on how to make the plan burning in the back of her mind work. It’s a lot of chaos (and she may thrive in chaotic battles but this wasn’t her usual battlefield, and her team didn’t know who they were going up against for once). And Marinette? She needs to know its not just her doing this when its so out of her depths.

So despite literally everyone and their disagreements she had Chat on her right side with Damian on her left, meeting up with his Crazy, Semi-Immortal mother. And possibly his Immortal, former Black Cat candidate, grandfather.

Why?

As Marinette isn’t trusting the likely cult that makes up the Gotham Ghost Gang (Batfam if you like them) when she can get real advice and vague directions to immortal and allied (loyal and terrifying) assassins.

And yes, she wasn’t sure if Liar was wrong or right when they said it was a bad idea too.

But fuckit she’s already got Kaalki at her shoulder, looking a bit bored at the deserted rooftop that Kaalki chose for their meeting.

“داميان*,” the woman smiled at her son. “It’s good to see you.”

“Mother,” Robin greeted. “This is Ladybug and Chat Noir. Ladybug wished to speak to you about potential strategies to take down an enemy outside of battle without violence,” Damian stressed.

“I am well-aware of the Kwami and their Chosen, اِبْن.**” The woman spoke calmly. “The League of Assassins formed to act as the Black Cat to restore the world to balance and un-burden the Order with its maintenance.” The woman offer Ladybug her hand. “I am Talia al Ghul, and I am at your service, with or without violence Ladybug.”

Marinette took her hand. “Thank you Talia. Our target being directly exposed like I planned would have…” Ladybug trailed off, thinking over the ramifications not only to Adrien, but to the whole of Gabriel’s brand, workers and all that worked with them. “Some intense ramifications I’d rather avoid.”

Talia nodded her head, waiting for more information.

“I believe its possible to topple them without affecting their employees by uncoupling them from their business, but doing so is, well, stocks and economics isn’t my strongest point.” Ladybug admitted a bit sheepishly.

“I would suggest,” Talia began, “to create a bit of chaos in the stock market. Perhaps a rumor here and there, let investors pull out and grab the abandoned stocks quickly. Consolidate them under one owner and become the company’s owner.”

Marinette twitched a bit at that. “That… sounds complicated.”

“Oh, but it isn’t. My son knows just how to that, or did you forget our lessons?” Talia asked coolly.

Damian twitched at Marinette’s side. “I did not.”

“You know,” Chat chimed in. “I do know a few things about those things. If its general chaos, well…” Chat’s face twisted in a way Marinette forgot he could do after that Chat Blanc episode.

“… I will take that into consideration.”

“Anything else?” Talia asked, watching Ladybug and her son. Specifically, how her son seemed glued to the girl’s side. “I am certain my son is able to take out your target, if all else fails.”

Damian scowled at Marinette’s side.

“However, I do believe that whatever is happening, whatever has you active, might require a more… experience hand.”

Damian brushed against her side. Code for ‘Possible Danger.’

“Thank you for the offer,” Chat moved in front of Marinette. “But mi’lady and the Guardians have that much handled.”

Talia’s eyes shifted from Chat to Ladybug, staying on her. “Is that so?”

“Yes. I merely needed more information on how to execute this type of plan, that’s all!” Ladybug almost, almost slipped into Marinette while Liar, while silenced for the moment, prodded the back of her mind. “I want to minimize collateral damage as much as I can, to everyone. The kwami already said they get to chose the target’s punishment.”

“Ah, I see.” Talia relaxed then. “You are following the kwami’s wishes. I will respect their wishes as well, Chosen.”

Marinette categorized this interaction as one of the “not too horrible, but will avoid a repeat” once they left.

—

*Damian in arabic

**son

so we have Talia now as a Player, sort of. she plays by her word pretty well so hopefully its a cameo more than anything else.

any ideas on how JL will handle the video, and if Miraculous Team should see it and freak out or only LB and keep on the dl while JL assissts in her Chaos Plot?

End of update. Will have to repost from ao3 on my phone now as desktop tumblr is being exceptionally rude. Tags always open, just takes me a bit to do—sorry to vixen for vanishing from tags

TAGS:  @heldtogetherbysafetypins @laurcad123 @raisuke06 @chaosace @jeminiikrystal @toodaloo-kangaroo @kris-pines04 @bisha43rbs @izang @dreamykitty25 @emu-lumberjack @vixen-uchiha

[coffeebeannate]

Not to go on ancient tangents again, but you know. I’ve been thinking.

I checked The Old Guard’s IMDb page again this week and it’s still sitting at 6.6/10 which while not horrendous, isn’t great either. And yet..elsewhere viewer and critic reception has been good, and strong. And positive.

Not accounting for the types of people who may be reviewing on IMDb, I keep thinking about the reasons people are giving it negative reception. Or what I personally consider possible legitimate reasons.

(Nixing any reviews that just called it ‘woke’, ‘liberal garbage’, ‘politically correct pandering’. ‘feminist shit’, ‘gay guys and women empowerment, who needs that??’ and ‘wokeflix’ aside because, IMO those automatically negate a review from possible critique and straight into bullshit territory). I have to think about some other comments I saw.

Some of which seemed to be:

(Under a cut because this gets long)

Low Budget

Badly Acted

Poorly Shot

Poorly Designed

Weak Storytelling

Weak Villains

Anti-Climatic

Generic

Cheap Overall

Within this realm, was some critique towards Gina’s directing (that i don’t agree with at all), poor storytelling (another I don’t agree with) and perhaps one that I REALLY don’t agree with ‘terrible acting’.

Now, I don’t know NEARLY enough about film making to comment on the technical elements, I can say with some assurance that I can at least recognize good acting the same way any casual viewer can? As well as decent, good or strong storytelling.

Because to me, the acting is NOT terrible. To me, the acting is phenomenal? And that is shown pretty strongly! Even breaking down every single character and the like, (yes including the villains), there are a TON of strong points from EVERYONE. And I do mean everyone. From Andy to Celeste, there ISN’T a weak point in any of the acting that I am aware of.

And believe me. I’ve watched enough times to notice.

When I think of the acting in this movie, lets say outside action sequences, I think about how pained Andy looks sitting in the Charlie Safehouse, looking at her hand and asking herself questions we can’t hear. Thoughts we can’t see but understand are happening. I think about Nile in Afghanistan after she becomes immortal, trying to take it all in and just vanishing with her ipod to have one moment to herself. Or how Joe’s brow creases and his hitched ‘I must get this out or else’ breathing when he gives the van speech. Or Nicky’s snarl on the kill floor. Booker talking about his sons. Quiet clarity from Celeste.

I think about Merrick giving his little inane speeches with utter determination and belief. Copley talking about his wife, Keane doing whatever he has to do. Kozak and her detached coldness.

Or how these interactions are always laced with feeling, depth and emotion. A movie with bad acting where you ‘don’t give a shit about these cookie cutter people’ *as some commenters have claimed*, would not make you feel this much. If the characters were poorly acted, why would the audience at large be overcome by feeling for them?

Even Quynh and Lykon, we GET A LOT with them. Even the smallest, most blink and you’ll miss it lines leave an impact.

How come my breath is still held during the van speech, even with my I don’t know how many rewatches? How come Andy’s pained shrieks in the medieval England sequence and Quynh’s terrified cries still hurt enough that I sometimes feel tempted to mute it? Or when Andy screams after Booker shoots her? Broken, betrayed and horrified?

Nile giving her description of her nightmare about Quynh, getting more and more passionate with the rawness of the dream she feels? Feeling Quynh’s pain and rage as her own because it’s just THAT real to her? Quynh panicking when Lykon won’t heal? Asking Andy ‘what’s happening’ with true terror in her voice?

You think you can have something like the Malta scene and think ‘yeah, these actors are moving like zombies through this project’. Why? How? I am not trying to be critical, I legitimately don’t understand.

And on a meta level, KNOWING how much work the actors put forth into their characters, all the little touches added in by themselves. I just question things. I suppose.

What make as good movie? I suppose the answer is always up to the audience at large, and no one person is going to have the same experience. And I’m not saying The Old Guard HAS to be a movie everyone enjoys. Of course it doesn’t. And I would never expect it to be as such. It’s either going to be your cup of tea, or it won’t be.

But I think it’s kind of unfair to completely lash out at it and blast it with comments like ‘bad acting’, ‘bad storytelling’, ‘terrible plot’, ‘boring characters’ just because it’s not running on a Marvel budget and full of CGI and a large cast quickly recognizable to mainstream audiences. Or Idk. the next Taken movie.

Does a movie have to be massive to be good? I don’t think the Old Guard at all qualifies as an indie movie, and it had a decent budget and delivered, in my opinion. Or maybe I do still have those rose-tinted glasses for it. But I think my brain is functional enough to be able to openly critique something, whether I’m obsessed with it or not.

And I gotta say..some of these critiques seem very illegitimate to me, but that is a whole other post.

I guess, end of the day, I want to see it succeed (though I think it has) and I want to see it getting the type of recognition it deserves. And feel salty about the 6.6 rating.

[thegayfromrulid]

for the winter one shots, how about the hamefura gang in a snowball fight, if you want to make it more chaotic they could use their magic, katarina wins by the power of her muscles. That or Katarina inventing Christmas(western version) cause they don't celebrate it in this world

It was a lot of fun plotting this out! I had a bit of a struggle deciding which one to go with!! I might play with the other prompt because I was so indecisive, I loved both of these ideas a lot! I hope this is as fun to read as it was to write!

           Thrusting open the curtains, the darkness of the bedroom suddenly was filled with the brightest, most brilliant white. Katarina’s eyes sparkled with excitement as she gazed at the freshly fallen snow on the ground. It had been a while since the last good snow. She hurried to pull on her warmest clothes and dashed outside, eager to test the snow. She took several steps out into it before she dropped down and scooped up a handful of it in her hands. Grinning, she formed it into a ball. Sure enough, it was sticky enough.

           “Heh, heh, heh,” she chuckled. “It’s the perfect consistency!”

           She heard snow crunching behind her.

           “The perfect consistency for what?”

           Whirling around, and giving no thought to who was behind her, she tossed the ball of snow, hitting her brother squarely in the chest. Unprepared for such an attack, Keith lost his balance and toppled over into the snow.

           “That!” Katarina exclaimed gleefully. “The snow is sticky enough to make snowballs!”

           Keith groaned and sat up.

           “Mother’s not going to like it if you start something, big sister,” he said, sighing.

           His words didn’t reach her. She was relishing the presence of a good snow, already considering how to rope her friends into a large snowball fight. Even lords, ladies, and royals could enjoy some winter fun. There was no harm in that. She placed her hands on her hips and nodded. Before the snow melted, she’d have them all outside for a great snow battle.

           “What do you think of invitations?” she said.

           Keith shook his head, trailing along after her.

           “I don’t think you need to write out invitations for this,” he said. “We’ll all be together after breakfast.”

           Katarina hummed and nodded.

           “True,” she said. “I’ll tell them our after-breakfast plans then and there!”

           Sighing, he silently hoped for someone else to talk her out of this. The gathering around the breakfast table, however, didn’t seem capable of telling her no. Keith’s meager attempt at invoking the possible wrath of their mother was the strongest opposition seen to her declaration that they’d be out playing in the snow at their age. It was all going according to her plans. Though, truth be told, she’d left out certain details—one of which included the throwing of snow at one another.

           The activity had been posed as a friendly stroll through the snow. She’d openly expressed her interest to walk with her best friends, so who, aside from the fully-aware Keith, would suspect that they’d be ambushed as soon as Katarina scooped up a handful of snow? He could have told them, but he supposed that wouldn’t do him any good. They were already all in agreement; they’d join her on a morning after-breakfast stroll out in the snow. With Katarina’s personality, however, there was room to suspect that Keith wasn’t the only one aware of a snowball-filled plot brewing in her mind.

           Everyone donned their warmest garments. They were quite proper-looking—hardly the image of a group of teenagers minutes away from a scuffle in the snow. Finely embroidered winter robes and petticoats covered the lavish noble children, and Sophia lent a spectacularly plush coat to Maria, concerned that she might be a bit cold in her thinner-looking winter attire. It was a perfect picture of young gentlefolk headed out into the cold for a stroll around campus.

           “Did you have a special place in mind to view covered in snow, Lady Katarina?” Sophia asked, hurrying to match Katarina’s pace as they walked.

           Katarina hummed. She’d not thought this far into the ruse. Her main goal had been to get everyone outside; beyond that, she hadn’t thought out the minor details. Laughing, she held up a finger and did her best to come up with a reasonable answer.

           “I-I was thinking we could pick a place together!” she said, chuckling.

           Maria clasped her hands together and smiled warmly.

           “How about the main courtyard where I used to eat my lunches?” she suggested. “I think it would be lovely covered in snow!”

           Mary and Sophia nodded their heads enthusiastically, and the boys didn’t seem all that interested in proposing any other options. They made their way through the halls, headed directly for the courtyard. Katarina thought out her plan of attack carefully. The girls were huddled more closely to her than the boys were, which meant they were in a less difficult range as far as aim went, but they’d suspect her as soon as she dropped to the ground. Aiming for one of the boys in the back, however, would give her the element of surprise.

           Unless…

           She pulled the girls in closer around her and gave a quick glance back.

           “How about we get the upper hand when we get to the courtyard and snowball the boys when they aren’t expecting it?” she asked.

           Maria laughed.

           “Were you wanting a snowball fight all along, Lady Katarina?” she asked.

           Katarina tried to mutter her way into an excuse, but both Mary and Sophia started giggling as well.

           “Of course, she was,” Mary said. “Katarina’s always thrilled in a big snow. She would run outside and test the snow’s consistency, and then we’d all get into a big snowball fight. And then Lady Claes would run outside and insist that we all behave ourselves.”

           Sophia nodded, smiling.

           “Prince Alan used to suspect Prince Geordo of telling on us,” she said, “but I think he was often too humiliated to do so when Lady Katarina always managed to land a hit on him first.”

           The two giggled as they remembered past exploits. Maria couldn’t help but join in with their hushed laughter.

           “So, are we waiting for them to look away, or did you have something else in mind?” Mary asked.

           A grin worthy of her villainess status flashed across her face.

           “Here’s what I was thinking…”

           The plan-sharing was underway. The girls kept their chatter to themselves, just barely inaudible to the unsuspecting group of boys. Only Keith kept his eyes on them, keeping his gaze trained on Katarina as he strained his ears to get a hint as to what they were discussing. It was, naturally, an unsuccessful endeavor, as he could hear nothing, so he resigned himself to working on possible evasion maneuvers when the anticipated snowballs came flying in his direction.

           As planned, the girls stepped into the courtyard first, dashing to the center and looking around at the snow-covered benches and flowerbeds. They gathered around a spot on the ground and dropped down, pretending as if they were inspecting something they’d seen. Katarina nodded her head at each of them as they scooped up a handful of snow and started to form it in their hands. They waited on the ground, whispering to themselves, until finally, Alan and Nicol stepped over to see what they were looking at.

           “Is there something particularly interesting about this spot?” Alan asked.

           The girls leapt up as one and whirled around to toss their snowballs at the boys. Keith, the only one expecting such an attack, ducked behind Geordo and let Katarina’s snowball land in the sweet spot between his shoulder and chest. Alan and Nicol received the brunt of the attack, being so close to the girls. Alan burst out laughing and dropped down to prepare himself for defensive action. And with that, the battle commenced.

           Snowballs flew back and forth, tossed between noble boys and girls without a care as to how silly they might have looked. The girls took their positions behind the benches, while the boys dared to stand out in the open courtyard. At some point, a snowball from Alan’s hand wound up nailing Geordo in the back of the head, and the game turned from a team effort into a free for all. A few students walking past the courtyard leapt out of the way as incoming snowballs landed in the walkway.

           “How do we even determine a winner?” Maria finally shouted as she dodged an incoming snowball from Keith.

           Katarina stood up and threw one that met her brother’s forehead with apparent ease.

           “If you get hit, you’re out!” she said, laughing.

           Keith frowned.

           “Aw, big sister!” he said. “That’s not fair!”

           Ignoring him, Katarina started aiming for her next victim, Geordo. He slipped out of the way, and the snowball hit Mary on the shoulder. The next snowball Katarina threw stopped short in front of Nicol, who had resorted to using his wind magic to stop it from hitting him.

           “Hey, that’s cheating!” Mary exclaimed.

           Katarina thought she detected a hint of a smile on Nicol’s face.

           “Oh-ho,” she said. “Using magic is allowed now, I see!”

           Geordo frowned and shook his head.

           “Really, only wind magic would be helpful here…” he muttered.

           His commentary was quickly nullified when Alan made use of his water magic as a shield. With no rules in place aside from “don’t get hit,” the use of different types of magic didn’t matter; water, fire, and wind all made excellent shields against Katarina’s onslaught, protecting the remaining participants from her powerful throws on all sides. But try as they might, she had her ways of getting around their shields.

           All it took was clever aim when dealing with Geordo—he rarely used his fire magic, so she took the opportunities where he was using manpower alone to throw in his direction. He was out within a few minutes. Nicol and Sophia’s wind magic proved difficult, but she knew how to throw a good curveball, slipping past their defenses to catch first Nicol, then, after a lucky shot that caught Mary in the side, she took the opportunity to also take out Sophia. Maria had been mostly dodging, having no magic powers that were particularly useful in this sort of fight, and was out before she knew it.

           Katarina focused on Alan last. He was spectacularly difficult, his water magic proving to be the perfect shield in this cold. The water shields were solid enough to stop every snowball she hurled in his direction. It was a battle of wills. She would throw them as hard as she could, and Alan would block them whenever possible. Their competitive auras filled the courtyard, and the others gathered around to see how this match would end. They held their breath until finally, one lone snowball smashed through Alan’s defenses and hit him right in the center of his chest. Surprised, he fell over backwards into the snow.

           “I win!” Katarina cried.

           She pumped her fists in the air, celebrating her victory. The girls gathered around her and congratulated her on her win. She stepped out of the group and reached a hand out to help Alan up. They shared a knowing smile, one that two rivals would share after an intense competition. She helped Alan up to his feet and then gave him a firm handshake.

           “Nice game,” she said, grinning up at him.

           He nodded.

           “The same to you,” he said, returning it with a small smirk.

           Maria walked over between them, smiling cheerfully as she looked around at everyone.

           “Now, how about some cookies and hot chocolate to warm us all up?” she offered.

           Katarina clasped her hands together over her chest and could hardly contain her excitement.

           “Let’s go!” she said. “Maria’s sweets are waiting!”

           Shaking their heads lovingly, Katarina’s friends followed after her, grateful to be out of the cold for a nice treat. Not one of them would raise a complaint about her rather unladylike behavior, though word managed to make it back to Lady Claes through some presently unknown means. Her mother’s impending scolding blissfully far out of sight, Katarina practically skipped into the lounge to treat herself to Maria’s winter treats.

           The rest of the morning was spent quite warmly by the fireplace, as they laughed, talked, and shared Maria’s fresh gingerbread cookies with cups of steaming cocoa. It reminded Katarina of something she’d nearly forgotten from her past life. Perhaps, someday, she’d introduce her new friends to such things. For now, she was happy to enjoy a snowball fight and finish it up with a lovely batch of the best sweets she’d ever tasted.

[lavenderek]

I love when you fix twilight. It's obviously not fix-able completely, but you make it way better. What do you think about how she calls her parents by their first names?.

i think bella’s relationships with her parents are super weird and sometimes even unhealthy. 

some of the things i’m gonna say, i’ve already said before, and they are VERY VERY LONG, but i’m gonna say them again anyway and i’ve watched jenny nicholson videos for like three days straight, so i’m gonna do it in.... a numbered list!!!! 

seriously it’s super long don’t open the readmore unless you want to look at a super long post

1. bella calls them by their first names, but only in internal narration. 

most teenagers don’t call their parents by their first names, so this is odd and distances the reader from her. i’m not sure if it’s supposed to humanize her parents?

her parents would be humanized if they were acknowledged by the role they’re supposed to be playing in bella’s life; most of her readers would be seeing her as The Typical Teenage Girl, so having her parents be seen as entities separate from her who operate as peers instead of parents is bizarre. 

furthermore, she never does this in dialogue. she only does it in internal narration. 

so is this supposed to make her seem more mature and independent? bella isn’t independent; she’s provided with all her needs by her father, including emotional needs. when edward leaves her in the second book, her father takes care of her and ultimately considers having her go back to live with her mother again, because clearly bella is in need of some parental support. put a pin in maturity, i’ll get back to that in a second. 

if it’s not to make her seem more mature, then it’s just a weird stylistic choice so that the reader knows her parents’ names, which - why? i’m sure when chief swan is talking to his friend and his friend calls him charlie, we will understand through context clues that his name is charlie. also, us knowing her parents’ names doesn’t add anything to the story. bella treats every side character as an obstacle in her life, so we gain nothing from knowing her dad’s name. 

it makes sense for her to call her stepfather phil, but she should call her parents mom and dad. 

2. bella is “super mature” 

ouch! i pricked my finger on the pin i put in maturity. yowie!

we hear a lot about how mature bella is. she condescendingly tells us that her mother is stupid and describes her father’s inability to feed himself. is this true? 

her mother got married and has begun a life with her new husband. her father is a grown-ass man who has kept himself alive for what, forty years? they never do anything particularly immature except one time stephenie meyer has her dad accidentally microwave a can of soup at some point (has he never had soup? in the whole decade since he and renee got divorced, has he been soupless the entire time?). i don’t know that fucking up a can of soup is immature so much as a mistake, but go off i guess. 

so maybe she’s not more mature than her parents, but surely she is just mature in her own right. let’s see all the mature decisions bella makes just in the two years we are present for. 

bella gets a head injury in a car accident. she resists the advice she receives from a medical professional to rest, and plans on not telling her mother about it. she’s even pissed at her dad when he tells her mom. 

bella meets edward and senses from the jump that he’s lying to her. he gives her mixed signals that make her uncomfortable. he and many people in his life talk often about how he could kill her, how much he wants to kill her, but that he is holding back. she decides that she is safe based on her own feelings (she is objectively incorrect about this, by the way, regardless of how her story ends) and chooses to date him anyway.

bella catches the attention of a man who wants to kill her specifically. she does not tell her father. instead, she insults him and runs away from home. she then runs away from the people who are assigned to protect her, because she believes she knows better than they do. 

edward breaks up with bella. i think most people after the ending of a relationship would go to their room and cry and process those feelings of sadness and abandonment. but bella’s not like other girls. she’s mature and has deep emotions. she refuses to accept the breakup and spends hours wandering around in the woods, forcing everyone in her town to go around in the night looking for her. okay. 

she gets a part-time job at some point. but so does her classmate mike, and also 55% of teenagers in her age range (when the book is set, which is in the mid-to-late 90′s). 

oh, but wait, then she withdraws all her savings and uses them to purchase and fix up a motorcycle - a thing she is specifically not allowed to do - in order to spite her ex boyfriend. at this point she has abandoned her plans to become a vampire, so there’s no reason to assume she won’t be going to college in a couple years. with what savings will she be paying the tuition? i’m sure her school counselor will understand when she explains that she spent it all on a motorcycle. 

we are told bella is very mature and stephenie meyer clearly expects us to draw this conclusion based on how bella does her chores without being asked; but when it comes to major decisions about her safety, her future, and the effect she has on others, she repeatedly makes selfish and childish decisions. she hurts her parents, her friends, and herself, a lot. she does all of this based on her own intuition.

and actually, a lot of it tracks with her being a teenager. teenagers are not adults. they biologically do not yet have the full capacity for decision-making. that’s why they’re not adults. bella is not more mature than her parents and her belief that she is is demonstrably dangerous. she really needs more discipline in her life. 

3. bella and her mom

bella is very sad in the beginning of the book. she loves her mom and sees her mom as her best friend. 

she demonstrates her closeness by: 

lying to her mom that she wants to live with her dad, because she believes renee will be happier without bella, her supposed best friend. renee does not notice that bella has lied or question this decision. 

putting off emailing or calling her mom for several days, which makes renee angry. when she finally does, she basically just lists the things she’s done and logs off. 

refusing to share information with her, including that she was injured in a car accident, because she believes renee will be upset. her dad calls renee anyway, and bella is angry and is incredibly reluctant to call her back and talk to her. 

ignoring her emails for months when she’s sad over her breakup. 

visiting her exactly one time in the whole two years spanned in the books. her mom is also never invited to come visit bella in forks. 

renee’s absence from bella’s life actually works for the plot, as she can’t interfere with bella’s duplicity, while leaving the option to add an element of guilt from afar. but it doesn’t make sense as a character decision. 

i think it would make way more sense if bella and her mother aren’t close. bella wants her mom to show interest in her life. she suggested moving in with her dad in the hopes that her mom would be like, “no, honey, stay, i’ll miss you if you go,” but renee doesn’t even question it, she just books her a ticket. 

bella checks her email immediately when she arrives, and hasn’t heard from her mom, so she sends her an email herself, to which she gets a response like, two days later. 

bella calls her mom and gets her answering machine. renee is on her honeymoon and she and her new husband are in the process of moving to another state, so bella reasons that her mom is just busy; but she is also dealing with the knowledge that she’s just not a priority for her mom. 

yeah, this is very sad and makes renee seem like an asshole, but maybe she is an asshole in this version. it would neatly remove renee from the plot, it would explain why bella is so bummed about living with her dad, and it would lay the groundwork for why bella is so gutted when she perceives edward breaking up with her as being abandoned. bella believes she is not worth staying for. 

4. bella and her dad

i don’t even know where to start with bella and her dad. he seems great to me. 

he is the chief of police.

he knows and is respected by everyone in town.

he has friends and hobbies. 

as i said before, he has fed and clothed himself his whole life - at the very least in the decade since his divorce.

...so he seems like a reasonable person and member of the community. 

he treats bella with respect and offers her privacy, but he is always available when she needs help.

he notices and tries to intervene when she’s struggling. 

he has an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and they communicate about their daughter regularly. 

he bought bella a truck and put chains on the tires so that it would be safe for her even when it’s cold and wet out. 

...so he’s clearly an involved and caring father. 

bella goes through a serious depressive episode in new moon after her breakup with edward, and her dad responds to every bit of it. 

he wants to find out why she is upset. 

he is aware of how she’s doing in school and whether or not she’s seeing her friends. 

when bella has night terrors, he jumps out of bed to comfort her. 

when jacob deliberately lashes out at her and triggers another depressive episode, he immediately steps in and calls jake’s dad. 

he is told bella is at fault, but he takes bella’s side and chooses to believe her side of the story. 

throughout her depression, he never once judges her for it. 

after what he perceives to be edward hurting bella and being a bad boyfriend (which - he is observably not wrong about that), bella’s dad is openly against bella dating him again. 

...so he cares for and advocates for bella’s emotional state. 

if bella expresses gratitude or appreciation for any of these things, it’s sort of bitter and backhanded, like “at least charlie leaves me alone.” he fucked up trying to make dinner one time, to which she responds by refusing to let him cook ever again. bella dates edward twice before eclipse, and both times she went missing and then came back injured; so chief swan tells her he doesn’t think she should be dating edward again, at which point she puts down ultimatums and threatens to leave. bella ignores his rules and requests, keeps secrets from him, and runs away from home a few times because she believes she knows better than he does. 

no matter how many times charlie proves himself, it never changes bella’s opinion of him. there’s no arc there. bella arrives thinking her father is incompetent, and she leaves thinking her father is incompetent. 

making bella disrespect her father does benefit the narrative by enabling her to be secretive and makes her feel even more isolated in her experiences. it also makes stephanie have to write about less characters. but bella being secretive and isolated just results in her being stuck in the same situation for like 75% of each book. i think it would make sense for her to want to fix things, even just a little bit. 

there’s no reason for her to disrespect charlie, so her unfounded feelings of disdain toward him are confusing and just make her look like a dick; and furthermore, not giving him a character arc just makes him a boring obstacle. he might as well just be a door that gets stuck shut whenever it rains. 

i think it would be a better idea, for character development, for bella to grow closer to her father over the course of her stay with him. i would like, at least two of the times bella disobeys him, for her to ultimately conclude that he was right and she shouldn’t have done the thing. i would like her to eventually open up to him about some things. 

she doesn’t have to share that the cullens are vampires, but of all the people in her life, who has experience with having a romantic partner with whom he envisioned a future break up with and leave them? it would make sense for her to confide in him - or at the very least, seek comfort from him. 

bella trusting her father’s judgment and showing caution dating edward again after the events of new moon would also be better for the story, and i have more thoughts about that but that’s for another post. 

and probably biggest of all, your only tenuous link to emotional acceptance and fulfillment should not be your romantic partner. that’s so weird and unhealthy. bella is a teenager who, in general throughout the books, feels unmoored and stressed out. she needs someone sturdy and reliable who she can trust to protect her, even if it’s only emotionally. this would also give bella someone to bounce her thoughts and feelings off of and reduce the monotony of the narration a little bit. 

her father is an excellent choice for that. he repeatedly demonstrates that he is in her corner, and her corner alone. (i also think vampires should be just a little bit easier to kill, so that chief swan can protect her just a tiny bit.) 

5. why

stephenie meyer has children herself and it’s so weird to me that she would write a teenager deliberately disobeying and lying to her parents and consequently placing herself and many other people in grave danger, and framing it as a good thing. she makes it clear that bella was correct in doing this. 

bella’s not the only one, either. edward allegedly sees carlisle as his father figure, but A. this was not consensual, and he is frequently unhappy that carlisle bit him and made him a vampire; and B. he often disregards or gets angry about carlisle’s advice. 

wouldn’t stephenie meyer want to know if her son was hurting, or in danger? wouldn’t she want her son to respect her? wouldn’t she want to be able to share her wisdom and help her son make safe choices?

she does make it clear in interviews that this is pretend and she doesn’t believe readers should be seeing her characters as role models; but she made her characters teenagers on purpose, and it strikes me as kind of irresponsible to act as if she assumes her young readers won’t try to identify with them. 

bella’s relationships with her parents are boring and unusual, and the older i get the more frustrating they are. they stifle the characters and make the plot repetitive and tiresome. these are relatively small changes that i think would benefit the story overall. and that’s my opinion, thanks guys

[greycappedjester]

i'm not sure if i've asked this before but, do you have any writing tips? for people who want to write but haven't yet, for people who don't know where to start, even for people just looking for more advice? about anything, like how you handle plots, how you come up with and write characters, how you worldbuild, etc. thanks, and as always, you are awesome!

Thanks for the ask! I really appreciate the questions!

I’ll try to focus on on worldbuilding and character stuff for this one in case it gets too long; but, here’s one where I focus a bit on how I normally do oultines for the stories and one where I talk about general writing motivation stuff--which I know aren’t quite the same as these questions; but, I thought I’d link them for being tangentially related.

Hmmmm, I guess I’ll focus a bit more on my Cards series for this one since I feel like I often focus on Hq at Hogwarts and, honestly, Cards probably has a lot more for worldbuilding.....because I went way too crazy on world building for Cards, lol.

(Putting this under a Read More for length--Spoiler-ish(?) for All in the Cards)

Characters

So, for how I think of characters, I think the most important question for me is: how do they change? How are the characters diferent from where they started to where they end?

...But, that question’s kind of hard to answer. So, also, what made the character what they are already? Is it just general characteristics or did a large event in their lives shape that view? 

For Kageyama in “All in the Cards”, I wanted to focus on his tendency to isolate himself but translate it to fantasy. So, I made him litterally isolate himself and his arc gaining confidence at being King/ exposing himself to the world/ allowing himself to care openly. With that, I needed to give him a reason for why he started to isolate himself so I gave him a backstory that his parents were killed while he was young because he accidentally exposed them to danger by being King.That way Kageyama would have (a) a reason to isolate, (b) a definite emotional obstacle about the people he cared about being in danger, (c) guilt that his wrong actions could put people in danger.

Fo Oikawa in “All in the Cards”, I similarly needed to give him a really good reason to hate the very idea of being King and the Suit system itself....but, I also wanted to show that he had leadership potential (the why he should be King). So, those are the two elements I focused on in his backstory: (a) justifiable resentment for a government that never helped his people, (b) leadership ability in a dificult time.

I think the key is the character needs to change; but, also, if they’re just like that (i.e. purposefully difficult to the plot) for no reason, then they’re also....kind of super annoying to the readers. Which is fine if you want a character that’s annoying; but, if not...give the character a backstory on why they hold those views and why those views are perfectly logical and backed up by their experiences. Then, ask, okay, so what would be enough to change that and how would that character handle that change? 

....Then, there’s characters that change for the worst; but, that’s a tragedy so that would take a lot longer probably than a single ask (plus I don’t write too many tragic character developments)

Worldbuilding

Tbh, I probably do too much worldbuilding really. I think I’ve reached that point when I have lists of character’s wands and electives for Hq at Hogwarts plus an entire timeline for the Hearts’ Civil War in All in the Cards which happened before the story even started. Sigh, yeah, I’ve defintiely gone overboard on Cards. I swear I have a map and a overall timeline that tracks 700+ years of wars between fictional kingdoms and fictional countries’ foundings. Bright side, I do have a minor plan to write something more on Hearts’ Civil War if I can ever convince myself that it won’t bore people to death.

Okay, back to the question. I think the two key questions here is: What can the world do? What can’t the world do?

So, give your baby world some rules (like “Rulers are chosen by Marks that they’re born with”) and, then, pretend you’re an asshole in that world and take it to the absolute plausible extreme (like “Alright, so can you fake that Mark? Why or why not?”). Next, so you’ve got some rules, how do people react to those rules (Is everyone super happy about magic chosing their leaders or do some absolutely not trust it? Has this system ever gone wrong? How? What happened? How did this affect the everyday people and what do they think now?).

I think one of the biggest related things I’ve learned while writing is that those moments where you go “oh, crap, that’s a plothole: why can’t they just do that (insert thing they logically should be able to do)?” But, hey, that’s completely fine. That’s not a plot hole--that’s a plot point! “Why can’t people just fake a Mark and become King?” was the thought that led me to the plot for All in the Cards. “Why the heck does the basilisk only listen to the Heir of Slytherin and not just every parseltongue including Harry?” was how I planned most of Heir of Slytheirn in Hq at Hogwarts. You take those supposed “plotholes” and run with them until they’re yours!

So, yep, I’m not an expert writer by any means; but, here are things I’ve learned while I’ve gone so hope they help! Thanks again for the ask!

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Disney+ What To Watch: My Top 10 Favourite Disney Live-Action Remakes

#8. Lady and the Tramp

This remake was definitely a benefit to getting Disney+, as this was one of the exclusive original movies available at launch with the streaming service.

The streaming service also allowed me to re-watch the original animated movie before seeing this remake so I could refresh my memory. My thoughts on the original are now what they were when I first saw it years ago which are...it was alright, not one of Disney’s best but definitely not one of the worst, somewhere in the midriff.

The live-action remake was a surprisingly good watch considering my laissez-faire opinions on the original because I was expecting to feel the same as I did because the trailer made it seem like they were effectively just hitting the plot-points of the movie but in a live-action setting.

Fortunately though, the live-action Lady and the Tramp had something of an advantage in the live-action field, unlike say The Lion King or Christopher Robin because it is simply a movie about humans and dogs without any anthropomorphic or fantastical elements.

Obviously there was some CGI at play here in order to make the dogs talk and I’m guessing movie how they were supposed to, but they were never distracting to the point where I could tell I was watching fake dogs in a real-life setting.

It’s interesting that the location of the movie seemed to change from the animated New Haven to the live-action New Orleans. especially considering both settings seem to suit the story well but in this version, like The Princess and the Frog, the jazz-originated setting of New Orleans is really played up in the music and scenery of the movie.

Especially considering we never really explored the town properly in the original movie save for Tramp’s introduction scene and the “Belle Notte” scene, having more world building when it comes to stores and the people inhabiting the city.

Also, something that the original would not do given the main issue of Disney’s Golden Age, I really enjoyed the exploration of two main mix-raced couples. Not only with Lady and the Tramp in terms of dog breeds, but also both actors voicing them and portraying Jim Dear and Darling as both women were African-American.

Tessa Thompson as Lady was very good, I think she brought a lot of character, sass and humour to the character and definitely proved that Lady could hold her own against Tramp...but there inlies the slight problem I had. Lady by definition is supposed to be a product of the upper class whereas Tramp is supposed to be a product of the lower class. Yet here, not only does Lady come across as being as common as Tramp is, but also it is revealed that Tramp was formerly a house dog but was abandoned and therefore hardened to the “sheltered life”.

I will say, Tramp I was originally slightly creeped out by because of the animation on him when he talks, but Justin Theroux does play Tramp as that cynical and hardened persona quite well...to the point where he is openly prepared to abandon puppies who have also been abandoned because he feels it’s just the natural order of things...those puppies were very cute.

But also, I feel making Tramp so cynical takes away from the likeability he had in the original movie being so nurturing to Lady when she had that muzzle on her, but then you could also argue that their interactions in this movie is more realistic and at least Lady held her own against him.

I am also glad that Jock and Trusty both got more development here, while I did miss the inclusion of Trusty losing his tracking ability due to his age, the addition of Jock firstly being a female voiced brilliantly by Ashley Jensen but also being the subject of her owner’s constant hobbies and ending with finding comfort in being naked.

The main biggest change though was Aunt Sarah and her cats. Firstly, Yvette Nicole Brown was fantastic in the role and I liked the reversal of making her Darling’s aunt this time rather than Jim Dear’s, but the change in her cats from Si & Am to the two Rex Cats was both a necessary alteration but added to the new jazzy tone of the movie. I don’t think it was necessary to make them both boys but they served their purpose.

As for the Pound Dogs, I didn’t think much of them in the original movie save for Peg and to be honest that remains the case here, Janelle Monáe is a great addition to this movie and suits the role of Peg, as the only other female dog in this movie (aside from the gender-bent Jock) rather well.

Meanwhile the movie’s endgame villain of The Rat was surprisingly outshone here by the Dogcatcher...I never understood why the Rat was such a major threat but I did enjoy how he was in it from the start of the movie as a pest not just for the dogs but also the humans and with Aunt Sarah being found out early on in this version of the movie it makes sense The Dogcatcher is in fact the main antagonist.

“Belle Note” and “He’s a Tramp” being the main two songs of the movie are both respectfully done, as I said I enjoyed the change-up to “He’s a Tramp” with Janelle Monáe adding another layer to the song and “Belle Notte” wasn’t as good as powerful as the original version but still enjoyable.

The conclusion of the movie also felt very natural as well, with the evil Dogcatcher being thwarted not just by the dogs but also Jim Dear and Darling, I really enjoyed how the two humans were included in this movie not just being Lady’s owners and Darling giving birth but also being more fully-rounded and realising Tramp isn’t such a scoundrel and deciding to save him from the Dog Pound by adopting him.

While we didn’t get to see Lady and Tramp’s litter in this movie, we did see Jock taking in the two abandoned puppies from the start of the movie, even though they refer to her as their aunt rather than adoptive mother.

Overall this was a very enjoyable movie and a surprisingly good remake. I don’t know whether or not I enjoyed it more than the original but, as I have said before, I am a sucker for dog movies and seeing the puppies in this movie were very cute so I was happy.

So what do you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Disney+ What to Watch Top 10s as well as more Top 10 Lists and other posts.

[ingek73]

Meghan Markle: The Unofficial Patron Saint of Daughters With Toxic Fathers

DADDY DEAREST

Daughters dealing with difficult fathers are connecting online and cheering Meghan Markle on, as her father Thomas Markle uses interviews to try to emotionally blackmail her.

Mandy Velez

Assistant Managing Editor

Published Feb. 04, 2020 4:42AM ET

OPINION

Thomas Markle was recently on the British television show Good Morning Britain, complaining about his favorite subject, estranged daughter Meghan, and how unfairly treated by her and Prince Harry he feels.

“You do acknowledge that doing interviews will not make it easier?” anchor Susanna Reid asked Markle.

“There is no other way to reach them,” he responded, the “them” being his daughter who does not want to talk to him and his son-in-law. In other words, she’s “no contact,” which means quite literally no longer making contact or accepting contact with a loved one. It’s a move that is well-known in the world of toxic relationships.

Not many people understand why a child would cut a parent off, least of all, it seems, Piers Morgan, Reid’s co-presenter and Meghan Markle’s U.K. media agitator-in-chief. Glazing over his colleague’s questioning, he chimed in and attempted to garner empathy for Markle, asserting that Meghan and Harry cut Thomas off for missing the wedding because “they just didn’t believe your health problems were so bad you couldn’t fly.”

This weekend, Sun Online reported that Meghan and Harry don’t want Meghan’s mom, Doria Ragland, to become Thomas’ “pawn” after he revealed he had written to Doria to ask if she could help reconnect him with Meghan.

What a mess—and a triggering mess for me and many other women.

After the Good Morning Britain interview, I immediately logged onto Facebook and made my way to the group I’m in for daughters of narcissistic or toxic fathers. It’s a place of refuge when I’m feeling uneasy or tasked with dealing with my own father’s hurtful behavior.

It’s a place where thousands of women or women-identifying people from around the world, from teenaged to middle-aged and older, can openly ask for advice or just vent about the troubled relationships they have with their parent. Other members lend their support or advice in the comments, which can range from heart emojis to YouTube videos and educational articles. When I got there, there was already a thread about Markle’s comments. The comments ranged from rage to disgust to hurt for Meghan.

I do not know the reality of the situation between Thomas and Meghan, I admit that—but in how he has treated Meghan publicly I feel a strong personal echo of what it is to be a child targeted in such a way by their parent. I am far from alone.

Markle’s attacks against his daughter have gone on for a while, at least publicly since he pulled out of her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry. And, lately, it seems they’ve been a lot more frequent. In the same week he spoke with Piers Morgan—adding that he did not believe she was subject to racism as a royal in the media—he accused his daughter of “cheapening” the royal family and a week later threatened her with weekly interviews until she loved him again. The group has followed it all.

We’re familiar with the tactics of our abusive fathers that mimic Markle’s, whether we are in contact with them or not. We know the feeling of having someone who is supposed to love you the most respect your boundaries the least, and use emotionally manipulative tactics as Markle has (like when he says he misses his grandchild or asks for money) to get you to have a relationship with them again.

We have been lied to, gaslit, trash-talked, and guilt-tripped by either the toxic parent or by those around us who just don’t get it. Like Meghan, many of us have been told we’re the wrong ones for protecting ourselves or to just get over the pain they may have caused us, because they love us, and isn’t that enough? We are asked: why are we trying to hurt them? And if that doesn’t make us come “back,” we will be sure to regret it. And also, if we don’t, they may die—and their death will be our fault.

“He’s making very public what should be a private conversation. At the end of the day, when boundaries are being violated, it can definitely qualify as abusive. It’s a bad lesson on how to be a parent”

Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist and author of works about toxic behavior including Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist, told The Daily Beast that while she can’t diagnose Markle without knowing him, his actions line up with attributes of toxic behavior.

“He’s making very public what should be a private conversation,” she said. “At the end of the day, when boundaries are being violated, it can definitely qualify as abusive. It’s a bad lesson on how to be a parent.”

It is likely the reason that myself, and others in the group, feel the pain so deeply as we watch this all play out. It’s like we’re watching our own lives on a much larger scale. The same week I watched the Piers Morgan interview, my own dad texted me from a fourth new number in an attempt to reach me, despite me asking him for some space.

I’m not the only one. One woman from the group echoed what many replied in the comments of stories on the Markles: that he reminds her of her own father.

“I get anxious when reading or hearing the degrading things he says about Meghan and Harry. It’s all too familiar,” she told The Daily Beast. She explained her own father behaves in ways that are degrading or disrespectful of boundaries, and allegedly threatens her when things don’t go his way.

Another says her experiences make her empathetic toward Meghan: “I understand how hard it is to deal with a situation like this. I grew up with a man just like him.”

The Markle relationship is one that triggers us, but also helps us feel seen. Daughters of fathers with narcissistic traits struggle with issues like anxiety and depression at a rate higher than our peers without a toxic parent in the picture, due to both the abuse and the silence that comes from the shame associated with the subject.

Dr. Stephanie Kriesberg, Pys. D., who has experience studying and counseling victims of narcissistic parent and child relationships, called the daughters who carry this burden “a secret society.”

“[Toxic fathers] can look very different in public than they do in private. Plus, our society doesn’t endorse the idea that we can be critical of our parents,” said Dr. Kriesberg. She didn’t want to comment on Meghan, specifically, but made a broader point: “Society doesn’t expect a woman who says, ‘I’m not inviting my father to my wedding.’”

The result? Daughters of toxic fathers like me grasp at any chance to feel like someone gets it. The situation between Meghan and her dad has triggered us, but at the same time, made us feel so much less alone. Though all fathers who exhibit narcissistic or toxic traits have different styles of abuse—from the silent treatment to threats—Dr. Kriesberg says the common thread among their daughters is rejection. And those of us who experience it find healing and validation in each other, and though she may not know it, Meghan.

A week ago, in a Meghan Markle thread, everything came to a head when a group member officially dubbed her our patron saint: The Patron Saint of Daughters of Toxic Men.

The more Markle chooses to speak ill of his daughter, the more I empathize with her. This, in turn, helps me empathize with myself. The toxicity in the language Markle uses toward his daughter has made me see that abusive family dynamics, whether they stem from mental illness or not, does not discriminate. It’s not the fault of the victim of such abuse in parent-child situations; it’s simply the luck of the draw. Sometimes, the person who draws such a card is a princess.

Meghan is not perfect and neither am I. No human being is. There may well be some very valid criticism of her behavior, of how she and Harry have managed their royal lives, and how they have exited from their royal duties.

“We want to feel our experiences and our choices to protect ourselves are valid. Without saying a word, Meghan gives us that”

But watching her face the onslaught of slights from her father is painful for those of us tied to this special kind of parental emotional abuse, who are desperate to find others who understand. We want to feel our experiences and our choices to protect ourselves are valid. Without saying a word, Meghan gives us that.

She didn’t choose to be a very public image of what family toxicity looks like and I’m not 100 percent sure that is how she views the situation—Lord knows she already wants to shed elements of the royal role she has.

But as long as her father lashes out, I will continue to cheer Meghan Markle on, as will many other daughters. With her as an example, we will grow the strength to deal with our own fathers and whatever fallout that decision may bring. We will discuss the interviews that trigger us and relate to the behaviors we find familiar. And, for once, we will not feel alone.

[octothorpetopus]

SVU Needs Better LGBTQ Representation

I talk about this a lot, but I think a lot of people just hear me, as a queer person, wanting everything to be gayer.

Wrong.

SVU is a show that champions itself as a pioneer for marginalized groups- racial and religious minorities, women, and, of course, the LGBTQ community. And yet, out of over 400 episodes, only 24 have focused on LGBTQ issues.

24. Out of 400. That’s less than 7%.

And keep in mind, these are all episodes in which a queer character was either the victim or the perpetrator. Over the course of all 20 seasons of this show, only two recurring queer characters exist- George Huang and Ken Randall.

George Huang was the forensic psychiatrist on the show, appearing in 15 out of the 20 seasons of the show. However, despite being openly gay, his sexuality is a fairly minor aspect of his character and it only comes up once or twice. While this is in some ways beneficial, because it deviates from the gay character we see often on TV, where being gay is their only major personality trait, it also detracts from the quality of the representation because it feels like that aspect of his character is just there to placate queer viewers.

The only other recurring LGBTQ character is Ken Randall, Fin’s son. This is also the only same-sex relationship on the show, between Ken and his husband, Alejandro. I think the way SVU handled Ken’s strained relationship with his father was actually fairly high quality, but it plays into an overused stereotype by the media. That’s not to say it isn’t realistic and that it doesn’t happen, but it also isn’t a particularly unique storyline.

I have two main issues with both of these characters. One, they’re both gay men, which, while gay men make up a substantial percentage of the LGBTQ community, are just one element of the community. My other is that, although Huang was technically a main cast member, neither one appears consistently in every episode (or almost every episode).

I, like a lot of other people, thought we might find this representation that was lacking in those two characters in Sonny Carisi, especially in his relationship with Rafael Barba. Rumors had spun for years over Barba’s sexuality, given that he had been implied to be attracted to women, but also that Raúl Esparza is openly bisexual. So, when Carisi was introduced and we started to see the between them, it was no wonder that a new ship was born: Barisi. Whether or not you ship barisi, I think it’s undeniably obvious that there was some level of attraction there, especially obvious in the season 17 finale, “Heartfelt Passages.” At the end of the episode, after Dodds’s funeral, when they’re having a drink together, the way Barba looks at Carisi is a look I have never seen before between two people whose relationship is entirely platonic.

What followed is one of the best examples of queerbaiting I’ve ever seen-

For those of you who don’t know, queerbaiting is exactly what it sounds like. Writers will create a character that queer watchers will relate to. They give the character queer-codes behaviors, making them recognizable to queer watchers but not enough so that straight people see it. Once non-queer people start to catch on, they switch gears almost immediately, so that queer watchers are left asking themselves if they were imagining it, if it was all just wishful thinking. Often, writers will do this by putting the character into a straight relationship or creating sexual tension with a character of the opposite sex where previously, there was none. That was how SVU chose to deal with the situation.

Warren Leight’s departure as showrunning following season 17 signaled a major change for barisi. Not only was there nothing that could even be called sexual tension, they almost ceased to interact. They acted differently, spoke differently. They even dressed differently. The show started to focus more on Carisi’s relationship with Rollins, even including a storyline in season 19 in which Carisi’s girlfriend leaked a story from within the NYPD. And that was essentially the end of Barba and Carisi’s entire relationship. Barba didn’t even say goodbye to Carisi when he left.

Some people might say that this isn’t queerbaiting, it’s just people seeing sexual tension where they want to, rather than where it actually is. To that, I say this- replace one of them, either Barba or Carisi, with a woman. Would the general public look at it as sexual tension? I say yes. The trouble is, in this heteronormative society, people don’t want Carisi to be bisexual or gay, because he doesn’t fit their expectations of what that looks like. But that’s also why he would be the perfect choice. He subverts the entire expectation of what a mlm guy should be. His character was revolutionary in the first place because he was so unexpected. The cop who was just supposed to be another brash, rude, Staten Island paper-pusher turned out to be the most empathetic, compassionate, and understanding one of all. So why not make him bi while we’re at it? Peter Scanavino said in an interview, "I think it would be cool because it would kind of against type, you know what I mean? And I think it would be interesting.”

Even if we don’t find what we’re looking for in Carisi (although I hope we do #GiveCarisiABoyfriendChallenge2k19), I hope that season 21 is groundbreaking in more ways than one- it’s the longest running primetime live-action TV series in history- in its diversity as a cast. SVU promotes itself as diverse, and in some ways it is, but this would finally be a way to satisfy what SVU fans have been begging for since the start of the show.

[altik-0]

Personal Revelation

I've spent the last two weeks trying to figure out how to write this post, but my mind has felt like it's tumbling around a washing machine and trying to figure out how to straighten my thoughts into a coherent message has felt impossible. But I'm driving myself crazy continuing to hold off on saying something, so I'm going to just rip off the bandage now, and we can talk in more depth after the cut.

Hi! 👋 I'm Asexual and Aromantic! Let's talk about it.

Where to even start

This month has been a fucking trip.

On the one hand, this has been the fourth month of nearly continuous quarantine for the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other, the end of May was the spark that began a wildfire of protests against police brutality that have swept across the country, including the seemingly milquetoast land of Salt Lake City. I found myself simultaneously figuring out the umpteenth way to keep myself entertained while being in home nearly uninterrupted for over 90 days, while also desperately searching for the courage to exit my home and join the marches against injustice.

And in the background of all of this, it was Pride Month.

On the 12th, a Youtube creator I follow released a video about their experience discovering themselves as non-binary. You should watch it, but what is important for the sake of this post is that the bulk of the video is an asynchronous telling of various moments throughout their life that, in reflection, show them that "[they] were who [they] are now, back then". These moments form a tapestry that tell a story of self discovery, and the result is incredibly powerful.

They released a rough cut about a week earlier for Patreon supporters, and I was immediately transfixed. I watched it three times in a row on the first day it was uploaded. I watched it twice more after the release. Hell, when I pulled this video up now to get the share link I couldn't help but sit and watch through it all over again.

At first I didn't really know why I felt so attached to this piece in particular. Yet still, I spent multiple nights laying awake for hours in what felt like a dreamlike haze at the time. It took three nights like this for me to realize I had spent all this time reflecting on my own past moments, and revisiting them through the lens this video had shared with me.

How I got here

It is September 2005. I am currently at a school dance. I know I am supposed to be finding someone to dance with and enjoy that for some reason, but all I want to do is go home. I might consider mustering up some courage and just asking someone, anyone, to dance, if it weren't for the fact that I still didn't have any friends. Instead, I feel trapped, wandering up and down the side wall, waiting for it to be over so I can finally leave. I stumble across a small group also sitting on the sides; a girl reading manga, and another playing Yu-Gi-Oh! with a boy across from her. I approach: "I didn't realize anyone still played this" They invite me to join, and soon I find myself with genuine friends at school for the first time in years. I never think about asking someone to dance again.

It is the summer of 2017. I am at a bar with some coworkers at the end of the week. I don't drink, but I've opened myself up to joining people for happy hour because it feels like a good way to socialize, and I've genuinely enjoyed getting to know folks. My team lead makes a comment that he feels it's impossible for a man and a woman to ever have a friendly relationship without having some element of sexual tension between them. I rebuff this comment -- initially I feel a sense of feminist frustration at the concept, as if it is implicitly saying that men and women should not work together. As the conversation continues, I realize the real reason I feel so sure this is wrong is because I have never felt this way toward anyone I've worked with.

It is the summer of 2008. I am in church, listening to the new instructor for my Sunday school class shift the discussion towards politics. Since he began, every lesson without fail will eventually derail into right-wing screeds. For him, any issue that is even vaguely left-leaning is a potential avenue for Satan to take hold of you: feminism, activism, even environmentalism. But lately he has had a particular fixation on the topic of gay marriage, and it is beginning to take a toll on my mental health. Being in these classes, hearing a man in a position of authority repeatedly say "it is not that we shouldn't love these people, but we need to still understand that they are committing a sin" has become physically painful to listen to. Of course, I am not queer, just an ally -- I can only imagine how painful this must be for those who are directly affected. I will nearly pass out from exhaustion and anxiety during sacrament meeting a few hours later.

It is February 2020. I am out to lunch with a friend and coworker. I have just recently changed jobs after less than a year, because I was hopelessly miserable at my last one. It should have been a dream job, marrying two of my closest passions, but instead I felt suffocated by being in a world where everyone seemed indifferent towards me at best, or actively hated me at worst. My friend invited me to join this job, and although it is a miserable job, I find solace in being able to go to lunch and have genuine conversations with someone I get along with. He mentions his wife is pregnant, and the stress of tending for his current child while she is resting. I acknowledge the frustration, though somewhat awkwardly since I am still single. "Oh, yeah, I sometimes forget you aren't married yet, haha. Well, don't worry, you'll get to join in on the fun soon enough!" I want to say "I very much doubt that"; instead I say "Well, I guess we'll see." The conversation does not feel so genuine anymore.

It is January 2009. I am watching House M.D. with my dad. We bond a lot while watching tv. We're both avid fans of MST3K, and we are invariably the obnoxious people in a movie theater a few rows down cracking jokes throughout the film. It feels fun and rebellious, even if we're doing it at home where nobody will be annoyed. This episode starts with Foreman and Thirteen waking up together in bed after clearly spending the night together. My dad cracks a joke about how "they're going to get in trouble, since they aren't married!" I quip back "nah, it's not a big deal, they just slept together, haha." My dad pauses the show and turns to me, deadly serious: "Who told you that was okay?!" I am a deer in headlights. I suddenly realize that I meant "slept together" literally, but nobody else uses it that way. I don't understand how I missed that.

It is October 2010. I am at home, speaking with my mother after coming home from school. She has always been a political firebrand, and especially after I left the church and started college the two of us have connected on this a lot. She has just read an article that mentioned the expanded acronym "LGBTQIA", and says she doesn’t know what all the "I" and "A" refer to. I don't yet know what the "I" refers to, but I suggest the "A" is probably for "asexual". She says she hadn't heard of asexuality, though that does make sense. I realize I don't recall hearing about asexuality before either. I don't actually know if anyone identifies like that. It just somehow feels like something that must exist.

It is the spring of 2007. I am at a local game store playing at a Friday Night Magic event for the first time. I suffer from very extreme social anxiety, and I spent the entire week a ball of nervous energy. Despite myself, I have managed to drive myself to the event and register. I have promised myself dozens of times over that I already knew Magic players were people similar to me, so there was no reason to worry. My first match is against someone wearing a frilly dress, cat ears, and tail. She mews at me several times while playing. On the surface I have frozen and only robotically go through motions of playing the game because my anxiety has boiled over to the point that I cannot quite function properly. Inside, I am filled with pure delight at realizing that someone could feel comfortable expressing themselves that openly in a space like this. I eventually become friends with this person who I will later learn is trans -- I had never met a trans person before. I will become close friends with three more trans people, at least two enbies, and countless other queer people over the next decade of playing this wonderful game.

It is November 2019. I am at work, sitting at my desk, feeling completely numb despite starting the day energetic to the point of mania. I've just had an argument with a close friend -- perhaps the closest friend I've ever had -- and it ended... poorly, to put it mildly. So poorly, in fact, that it is safe to say we are just not friends anymore. The reality was that there were always problems between us, and this was a culmination of conflict that never really got effectively resolved. It might not have even been possible to resolve. In the moment, though, I cannot escape the suffocating feeling that I am a failure as a human being; someone who simply does not know how to maintain a relationship. My mind goes through loops of how I could have said something differently to have it end better. The emotional pain will not fully make sense to me until several months later, when I realize this was the closest thing to a break-up that I've ever experienced.

It is January 2012. I am watching House M.D. with my dad again. Since leaving the church, watching shows like this has been a desperate lifeline for our relationship. We don't joke as much anymore. This episode features a side plot with an asexual couple, who House determines is simply impossible, and uses his power of supreme logic to prove the asexuality wasn't real all along. I have heard of asexuality, though I don't know where or when, so I am angry at this. Of course, as an ally. I want to joke with my dad to release some frustration, but he is still in the church, and I don’t think he will empathize. I stay silent, and do not enjoy this episode.

It is December 2019. I am scrolling through a Discord channel I was invited to from one of the leftist creators I follow. This community has been a breath of fresh air in many ways, and one I found surprisingly helpful was an NSFW adult content chat channel where people are open about sex, fetishes, and more. I've considered myself fairly open-minded and sex-positive, but I'm still a virgin at 28 so I've found there is a lot I just don't know about. Today, someone has started a conversation about what qualifies as "taboo" and relating it to kink-shaming. Another member replies, mentioning they are asexual and find the whole notion of taboos being kind of bizarre. My mind reels at seeing someone who identifies as asexual in this chat. Over time I find out there are several other people who identify at least gray-ace in this chat, some who even draw risque artwork for commission. I realize how little I actually understood about what asexuality really was, and begin scouring the internet for articles and wikis on asexuality.

It is April 2010. I am at an Apollo Burger across the street from the local game store where I am playing in a Magic prerelease. My friends I followed over are talking about weekend plans, and one of them makes a joke about doing some chores to butter up his partner to have sex. The joke does not go over my head -- I am straight, and understand sex, even if I am still a virgin -- but I still can't help but think out loud: "You know, I just don't get why people make such a big deal out of sex." The awkwardness and confused looks are suffocating. I drop the topic immediately.

It is June 2020. I have just watched a video from an enby Youtube creator about their experience discovering their own gender identity. Over the next three days I will see every one of these past experiences, along with hundreds of others, flash before my eyes in rapid succession, over and over, until I begin to realize that I haven't allowed myself to truly identify how I do. Every time I asked "am I asexual?" in the past, I would dismiss it because I understood sex and have a sex drive. Once I actually researched asexuality, though, I almost immediately found stories of people who identify as ace and still experience a sex drive. I also discover a lot of stories from aromantic people that sound painfully similar to feelings I hadn't even realized were not the norm. For the first time I begin to realize I may not just be an ally.

So what does this mean

I came to a sense of satisfaction with living alone and single a long time ago. At first this came with a certain level of shame, because I felt like it was only because I was too cowardly to enter the dating scene and try to find a relationship for myself. Over time the impact of the shame diminished, but it never went away; it just became a quiet background noise that I got accustomed to pushing back.

But now that I feel comfortable calling myself "Aromantic", I don't feel any shame. A romantic relationship is simply something I don't need. Instead, I can focus on fostering the kinds of deep relationships that do feed my soul. That will likely be a difficult thing to do -- awkwardly traversing intimacy was something most people worked through as a teenager or young adult, and I'm nearly 30, haha. But it at least feels possible now.

But really the biggest change for me is that I feel like I can be honest and public about who I am in a way I never was before. Simply being open about this piece of my identity somehow feels important if for no other reason than to let other people who felt like I did growing up that they aren't alone.

So... yeah. I'm aroace. And I always have been.

[wordssometimesfail]

Textual Reddie & Queer!Eddie: A Masterpost

So I’ve been planning on doing something like this for a while, but it had fallen to the wayside until @skinks​ and I started talking about Reddie again, and my weak little heart was rekindled.  

Speaking of reKINDLEd (ehh? Ehhhhh?), my Kindle copy of IT is full of highlighted textual support of unresolved Reddie feelings, and a queer reading of Eddie specifically. And lo, a disjointed essay-type meta was birthed. This fucker’s about to get long, so if you’re interested, dive on under the cut – but be forewarned, there are massive spoilers for the book and (probably) Chapter 2 below!

(Seriously, cannot emphasize the MASSIVE SPOILERS enough. If you don’t know what happens and you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read this.) 

As a very general disclaimer, I am not going to be including everything that I highlighted. There is a fuckton, including a lot of small moments of Richie and Eddie interacting that don’t showcase anything other than their closeness. I’ll be paring it down here to moments that prove a larger theme, and some standout cuteness. With that said, IT is a 1,300-page behemoth, and it’s definitely possible that I skipped over something. If you know of anything significant that I missed, feel free to reblog with additions.

Note: I will be using terrible, half-assed MLA citations for this. Pagination is from my Kindle copy of the novel. All quotes will be italicized to help differentiate them visually from my points (if something was italicized in the original text, it’ll be unitalicized here). Unless otherwise stated, all bolded emphasis is mine. “--” will be used in place of em-dashes, “/” will be used to denote paragraph breaks.  

PART I – ASTHMA

“When Eddie’s nervous he reaches for his aspirator.” (King 372)

It doesn’t get much more explicit than this. We’re told in no uncertain terms that Eddie’s psychosomatic asthma is rooted in nervousness, in things that make him scared and uncomfortable. The trigger for this particular explanation is being overwhelmed by the age and significance of Boston, but in an earlier scene:  

“These shoes no longer looked just right... but he supposed they would do for where he was going. And for whatever he might have to do when he got there. Maybe Richie Tozier would-- / But then the blackness threatened and he felt his throat beginning to close up.” (King 112)  

This is Eddie’s first on-page asthma attack. It hits him the first time we see him as an adult, having just received his call from Mike to return to Derry. And yet it’s the thought of Richie, not It or Derry, that makes Eddie nervous enough to need his aspirator. Notably, the thought goes unfinished. We don’t know, nor do we ever find out in explicit terms, what Eddie thought Richie Tozier would.  

Of course, asthma is the most prominent symptom of Eddie’s hypochondria, so the attacks crop up often in the text. The most interesting of these attacks for our purposes (other than Eddie becoming nervous at the thought of Richie) is the following:  

“‘The first of the ‘new murders’ [...] began on the Main Street Bridge and ended underneath it. The victim was a gay and rather childlike man named Adrian Mellon. He had a bad case of asthma.’ / Eddie’s hand stole out and touched the side of his aspirator.” (King 646)

Mike (speaking) tells the gang about the death of Adrian Mellon, and takes care to note three things about him: he was gay, he was childlike, and he had asthma. The connection between Eddie and Adrian is drawn quickly and obviously as Eddie reaches for his aspirator, seemingly out of reflex - but what we can also infer here is that this is making Eddie nervous. He could be nervous because a man with asthma was just killed by It, and he, too, is a man with asthma. He could also be nervous because the parallel that Mike and the prose have none-too-subtly drawn between Eddie and Adrian implies that they have more in common than a respiratory problem. But what?

PART II – EDDIE/ADRIAN

“[The other Losers] are being called--I know that much. Each murder in this new cycle has been a call.” (King 1116)

Mike writes this in the fourth interlude, referring to the way that It’s murders 27 years later all seem to be calling out to the Losers’ Club. By drawing a parallel between Eddie and Adrian through their asthma, King leads us to believe that Adrian’s murder specifically called to Eddie. He also leads us to consider how else they might be linked.

Adrian is virtually Eddie’s opposite. He’s out and proud and in a loving, unstrained relationship. He flirts openly with other men, teases his aggressors, and, to contrast with the neurotic and nervous Eddie:  

“‘He didn’t have much in the way of protective coloration. He was one of those fools who think things really are going to turn out all right.’” (King 27)  

His openness, however, is what gets him killed. While being harassed by some homophobes, Adrian teases and antagonizes them, and the next time they see him they assault him and unwittingly gift him, half-dead, to Pennywise.  

It especially kills me that Adrian’s asthma is not significantly mentioned in his chapter. He makes a comment to his boyfriend that the “air’s better” (King 36) in Derry, which could imply that he has had less problems since he moved there, but the word “asthma” is never used. It’s not relevant to his story, and it’s not brought up until King has to draw a parallel between Adrian and Eddie. Because it’s not relevant to Adrian’s story, the connection that King draws between them feels almost half-assed and weak, until one considers their contrasting personalities and contrasting happinesses in their respective relationships. Along that same line of thinking, the implications of having Eddie directly paralleled by a gay man killed for being gay cast a suspicious light on Eddie’s presumed straightness.  

If we accept that Eddie and Adrian are linked, that Adrian’s murder was a specific call to Eddie, then it goes without saying that there is a strong implication here that Eddie is closeted. He is being contrasted with an out gay man who fears no consequence for being out in a small, violent, hateful town. Eddie’s neuroses and fixation on his psychosomatic asthma are contrasted with a man who hadn’t a care in the world - not even his (presumably) real physical condition. The fear and self-hate that dogged Eddie his whole life never bothered Adrian Mellon, until it killed him.  

If we accept that Eddie and Adrian are linked, and what that implies, then we can infer that Adrian is what Eddie could have been, were he happy, open, and out - and what happens to Adrian is the exact kind of thing that may have kept poor, terrified Eddie in the closet.  

PART III – SEX, QUEERNESS, AND SELF-LOATHING

So, I think we all remember the leper scene--creepy in the 2017 movie, even creepier in the novel. One notable book-only detail is that the leper “[offers] to give Eddie a blowjob for a quarter” (King 400) in addition to chasing him around and being generally disgusting.  

“Come back here, kid, the hoarse voice whispered. I’ll blow you for free. Come back here! / No, Eddie moaned at it. Please, go away, I don’t want to think about that.” (King 394)

Eddie is immediately terrified by the mere thought of getting a blowjob, of being touched by someone diseased, of being touched by a man. He doesn’t even want to think about it... and then the question becomes, does he not want to think about sex with the leper, or sex at all? Regardless, it seems pretty normal for an eleven-year-old boy to be scared of a blowjob from a strange adult with open sores on his face. But there is, of course, more to unpack here.  

Another difference between book and film comes when Eddie recounts the tale to Richie and Bill...:

“‘He didn’t have leprosy, you dummy,’ Richie said. “He had [syphilis].’ / […] / ‘It’s a disease you get from fucking,’ Richie said. ‘You know about fucking, don’t you, Eds?’ / ‘Sure,’ Eddie said. He hoped he wasn’t blushing.” (King 400)

All of a sudden Eddie isn’t just afraid of disease, but of a sexually transmitted disease. Pennywise’s angle on Eddie is a big fuck-off combo of decay and sex--specifically gay sex. Not only is the “leper” a man offering him sexual favours, but Bill is quick to point out that men can get syphilis from “another g-g-guy if they’re kwuh-kwuh-queer" (King 402). Queerness and gay sex are therefore lumped in with Eddie’s fear of the “leper” from word go.  

Since he’s a pre-pubescent child (in that same scene, Eddie recalls trying to masturbate and nothing happening), Eddie’s disinterest in and general apprehension towards sex makes sense without bringing the element of internalized homophobia into the mix. But this is my post, I can do what I want, and Stephen King already brought it into the mix for me.  

Eddie is frightened by the thought of queer sex at another notable point in the novel as well, when he recalls a vignette from his and the Losers’ past:  

“Patrick Hockstetter was down [in the Barrens]. Before It took him Beverly saw him doing something bad. It made her laugh but she knew it was bad. Something to do with Henry Bowers, wasn’t it? Yes, I think so. And-- / [Eddie] turned away suddenly and started back toward the abandoned depot, not wanting to look down into the Barrens anymore, not liking the thoughts they conjured up. He wanted to be home with Myra.” (King 720)

Myra, for those who haven’t read the novel, is Eddie’s wife. If you’re one of those people (or even if you haven’t read it in a while), you might also be wondering what exactly Patrick Hockstetter did to Henry Bowers in the Barrens that made Eddie balk and suddenly crave his wife’s company. Well, my friends, Patrick tried to give Henry Bowers a blowjob. Eddie has to turn away from the mere thought of two men (well, boys) engaging in a sex act. He has to return to his wife, the implication here being that she is there to shield him from queerness, from queer sex.  

And the scene between Patrick and Henry, which we do see later from Bev’s point of view, is extremely telling as to why Eddie has to turn away. Henry gets violent and angry when Patrick propositions him, just like Adrian Mellon’s assailants got violent and angry, just like Eddie’s own mother gets defensive and cruel at the thought of a pair of (unconfirmed) gay men in their town with a nicer house than hers:  

“‘Any two men who bother keeping a house so nice must be queers,’ Eddie’s mother had once said in a disgruntled sort of way, and Eddie hadn’t dared ask for clarification.” (King 712)  

Eddie here is afraid to even question the root of his mother’s assumptions, or the very fact of her prejudice. Questioning, experimentation, being openly anything other than straight in Derry only earns you bile and violence from the rest of the town, and Eddie knows this. Why would anyone come out? How could they? Isn’t it better to just turn away and leave the thought unfinished?  

And it is explicit that Eddie feels somehow wrong and incomplete, in addition to his general aversion to all things queer and sexual. At one point, compounding himself and the homeless “leper”, Eddie has an internal monologue that ends as follows:  

“I got me a disease that’s eating me up. My skin’s cracking open, my teeth are falling out, and you know what? I can feel myself turning bad like an apple that’s going soft. I can feel it happening, eating from the inside to the out, eating, eating, eating me.” (King 405)

By conflating himself with the “leper”, Eddie makes the disease his own. He makes his fear of the “leper” falling apart a fear he has about himself. He fears something within himself, something rotten, turning him “bad” - bad like offering a blowjob to Henry Bowers in the Barrens. It’s a literal fear of disease, to be sure, but that sense of being rotten to the core, being bad on the inside in a way you cannot change, also feels like an apt metaphor for internalized homophobia in light of the subtextual queerness of the rest of Eddie’s fear. And especially in light of another scene in which he feels inferior, rotten, wrong:

“Simply reaching for the cubes of bread [at communion] became an act which required courage, and he always feared an electrical shock... or worse, that the bread would suddenly change color in his hand, become a blood-clot, and a disembodied Voice would begin to thunder in the church: Not worthy! Not worthy! Damned to Hell! Damned to Hell!” (King 1247)  

We will absolutely come back to the fact that Eddie uses Voice with a capital V, but for now let’s focus on the rest of the scene. Eddie’s fear of being damned and unworthy is rooted in a story his Sunday School teacher told him, about a boy who blasphemed. Even as a small child, he has anxiety about his existence or behaviour cursing him – making him diseased, or turning bread into blood. And, of course, for the purposes of this reading, we can’t ignore the fact that queerness and American Christianity don’t typically go hand-in-hand. This compounded with the suggestion that he is rotten from the inside out suggests that Eddie has some reason to think he has blasphemed – and his persistent association with queerness suggests that this reason may be the knowledge or suspicion that he isn’t straight.  

Eddie’s worries even follow him into adulthood:  

“Get off it, Eds, Richie’s voice seemed to whisper. You ain’t solid at all […].” (King 715)

I included this quote because it reinforces my point about Eddie not feeling whole or right within himself. It’s not quite time for the Reddie part of this meta, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Richie is nowhere in this scene and has absolutely nothing to do with it, and still it’s his voice that voices Eddie’s subconscious fears about not being “solid”. Again, I will be going into this in more detail later. First, there’s one more element of this queer reading of Eddie that needs to be tackled.  

PART IV – THIS ONE QUOTE GETS TO BE ITS OWN PART BECAUSE MY GOD

Most of you are probably familiar with Anthony Perkins, even if you don’t know you are – if you’ve ever been exposed to Psycho, either by watching it or through pop-cultural osmosis, you'll know him as Norman Bates. You also may or may not know that he was famously closeted. He reportedly only had relationships with men until he met and married Berinthia Berenson in his early 40s, and never came out during his lifetime. (Obviously one’s sexual history doesn’t necessarily determine one’s sexuality, but most sources I can find suggest that he was gay, not bisexual.)

Now, if you read Eddie Kaspbrak as gay, this may sound somewhat familiar. Married a woman, never came out, horror icon, it’s all there. But why do I bring it up? Well, because of this:  

“Eddie--it was weird but true--had grown up to look quite a little bit like Anthony Perkins.” (King 628)

On its own, it’s a seemingly innocuous, if oddly specific, pop-cultural reference. Nothing to write home about. Compounded with everything else we know about Eddie, and everything else I’ve covered above? It’s telling as balls. King could have simply described Eddie, as he does immediately after this line, but he takes the time to compare a character repeatedly associated with queerness and sexual repression to a closeted gay man who eventually married a woman.  

(Note: admittedly, IT would’ve been written in the early-mid 80s, at which point Perkins was not officially known to be gay, but according to my father there were plenty of rumours. He was, additionally, known as a repressed, shy “mama’s boy” who was made nervous by female attention. Sound like anyone else we know?)  

PART V – REDDIE

And now for the main event.  

If I unpack every individual piece of Reddie goodness to the degree that I’ve unpacked Eddie himself, we’ll be here for another 2,500 words. So, I’m only going to hit three major points:  

PART VA – CLOSENESS

Richie is all over Eddie. He frequently pinches Eddie’s cheeks, calls him cute, and is all-around physically and verbally affectionate with him. Some notable examples:  

“Richie […] pinched Eddie’s cheek. / ‘Don’t do that! I hate it when you do that, Richie.’ / ‘Ah, you love it, Eds,’ Richie said, and beamed at him.” (King 384-85)

This is their first on-page interaction, mind you. This moment sets the stage for the rest of their relationship.

“Richie jumped to his feet a second time and pinched Eddie’s cheek. ‘Cute, cute, cute!’ Richie exclaimed.” (King 390)  

“‘[My aunts] all pinch my cheek and tell me how much I’ve grown,’ Eddie said. / ‘That’s cause they know how cute you are, Eds--just like me. I saw what a cutie you were the first time I met you.’” (King 446-47)  

Listen. Do you think I’ll ever get over this? Do you think I can move on, knowing that this exists? Richie teases everyone, but he only ever uses “cute” for Eddie.  

“‘Take it easy, Eds,’ Richie soothed, and leaned toward him. / ‘Don’t call me Eds and don’t you dare pinch my cheek!’ [Eddie] cried, rounding on Richie. ‘You know I hate that! I always hated it!’ / Richie recoiled, blinking.” (King 668)

This scene takes place when they’re adults, and I love it for a number of reasons – the easy return to form for both of them, Richie genuinely trying to comfort Eddie, and Richie’s surprise at being snapped at. My heart goes out to the man. 

“‘I hate it when you call me Eds.’ / ‘I know,’ Richie said, hugging him tightly, ‘but somebody has to toughen you up, Eds. When you stop leading the sheltered igs-zistence of a child and grow up, you gonna, Ah say, Ah say you gonna find out life ain’t always this easy, boy!’ / Eddie began to shriek with laughter.” (King 1334)

There are quite a few scenes where they make each other laugh, but this one is my personal favourite.  

And the cherry on top:  

“[Richie] slapped Eddie’s can.” (King 1322)  

The context of this is less than shippy (they’re squeezing through a tight passageway, Richie is behind Eddie and needs him to move forward), but there are few ships that can say that party A has canonically smacked party B’s ass, and I think we should appreciate that more as a fandom.  

There��s also a strong element of protectiveness – Richie is very protective of Eddie in a way that Eddie’s mother isn’t. He genuinely pays attention to Eddie’s needs and tries to do right by him:  

“It was Richie and Bev who went to Eddie. […] Richie dug his aspirator out of his pocket. ‘Bite on this, Eddie,’ he said, and Eddie took a hitching, gasping breath as Richie pulled the trigger.” (King 903)  

“Richie heard Eddie cough twice […] and then fall silent again. He shouldn’t be down here, he thought […].” (King 968)  

“...Eddie [agreed to follow Bill into the sewers] last. / ‘I don’t think so, Eddie,’ Richie said. ‘Your arm’s not, you know, looking too cool.’” (King 1251)  

“Richie turned Bill toward him, looked at him as you would look at a man who is hopelessly raving. ‘Bill, we have to take care of Eddie. We have to get a tourniquet on him, get him out of here.’” (King 1396)

Hey fun fact? Fun fucking fact, Eddie’s already dead in this scene and Richie knows that.  

On a cheerier note, and to add one last dimension to Eddie and Richie’s closeness, Richie is the only person with whom we see Eddie intentionally swapping spit/germs (outside of ritualistic bloodletting). Not only does Richie use Eddie’s aspirator at one point, but there’s also this scene:  

“‘I can carry [the Parcheesi board],’ Eddie said, a little out of breath. ‘How about a lick on your Rocket?’ / ‘Your mom wouldn’t approve, Eddie,’ Richie said sadly. […] ‘[…] Ah say you kin get germs eatin after someone else!’ / ‘I’ll chance it,’ Eddie said. / Reluctantly, Richie held his Rocket up to Eddie’s mouth... and snatched it away quickly as soon as Eddie had gotten in a couple of moderately serious licks.” (King 1243)  

The obvious humour of this scene aside (poor Richie, having to share), the fact that hypochondriac Mama’s boy Eddie doesn’t mind Richie’s germs in particular is both sweet and interesting. The imagery here, of Eddie licking Richie’s Rocket despite his mother’s disapproval (compounded with the pre-established association between Eddie and blowjobs) is just... interesting, to say the least. As is the fact that I totally stole this scene and reversed the roles for the sake of a fic that I would like to pimp as a reward for making it this far into this monstrosity. It has a happy ending, don’t worry. 

What does all of this put together signify? Richie and Eddie are close. They clearly love each other as friends, and the almost flirtatious touching, cute-calling, teasing, protectiveness, and Rocket-licking can also all signify the beginnings of something else as well. If nothing else, it’s fun, sweet fic fodder.  

PART VB – THE VOICE (WITH A CAPITAL V)

This is one of my favourite details. Eddie thinks of all the Losers from time to time, but Richie is straight-up one of the voices in his head. Richie refers to his impressions and characters as Voices with a capital V, and Very often, Eddie will think in them. He’ll hear jokes in them, Pennywise will taunt him with them, he’ll hear the very criticism and hate that he fears hurled back at him in Voices. Right from the start:  

“‘Had any good chucks lately, Eds?’ [Eddie] says out loud, and laughs again.” (King 374)  

As he drives to Derry, Eddie is already laughing and delighting in the thought of his friends (specifically Bill and Richie) and the way they used to be. Later in the same scene:  

“‘Sure, kid, EV-ery day,’ he says in a Richie Tozier Voice, and laughs again.” (King 376)  

King quickly establishes that Richie’s Voices are a source of joy for Eddie, and that Richie himself is one of the Losers that Eddie is most looking forward to seeing. Indeed, in several scenes (including one of the ones quoted above), we see Eddie laughing at or with Richie when he does his Voices, both in the present and the past. But Eddie’s love of the Voices gets twisted by his own subconscious fears – I mentioned earlier that it is a Voice with a capital V that tells Eddie that he’s damned to Hell during his imaginary blood-communion. And it’s Richie’s voice that reminds Eddie that he’s not “solid”, to cap off a scene where he literally runs away from thoughts of queerness and sex. Eddie’s fear of himself becomes conflated with the Voices in a way that suggests his fear is of Richie, of Richie’s hatred, contempt, and dismissal. He is afraid that Richie sees him as unworthy, damned, unsolid. He is afraid that Richie sees the thing that’s eating him from the inside out.  

Eddie wants to be home with Myra. It’s easier to keep Richie and his Voices in his head than to risk what they would (--) do if they saw all of Eddie clearly.  

PART VC – EDS & EDDIE’S DEATH

Yes, we all know and love “Eds”. We love Richie being a little shit, we love Eddie being his tsundere self, and we love that Eddie canonically has a soft spot for the nickname:  

“Man, he had hated it when Richie called him Eds... but he had sort of liked it, too.” (King 374)

We also love (or hate) that “Eds” factors into Eddie and Richie’s final exchange in the novel:  

“But there was something else [Eddie] had to say [before he died]. / ‘Richie,’ he whispered. / ‘What?’ Richie was down on his hands and knees, staring at him desperately. / ‘Don’t call me Eds,’ he said, and smiled. He raised his left hand slowly and touched Richie’s cheek. Richie was crying. ‘You know I... I...’ Eddie closed his eyes, thinking how to finish, and while he was still thinking it over he died.” (King 1386)  

(A.k.a. the scene that nearly made me throw my Kindle across the room.)  

This ties into a broader theme with Eddie that I only began noticing when I started compiling my notes for this meta – his thoughts, when connected to other men, queerness, or sex, often go unfinished. He cuts them off before they stray somewhere that makes him nervous (the thought of Richie giving him an asthma attack), before they stray anywhere at all (the memory of Patrick and Henry making him yearn for Myra, not wanting to think about blowjobs), or before they even become thoughts (not daring to question his mother’s homophobic comments). And here, when he has to say one thing before he dies, when he’s finally allowing himself to conclude a sentimental, intimate thought that he doesn’t even know how to word... he’s cut off one last time.  

And we don’t know what he was going to say. We can speculate, we can infer, but we don’t know, just as we will never know what “Richie Tozier would”.  

Richie Tozier seems to know, though. When he realizes they’ll have to leave Eddie’s body behind, he kisses Eddie’s cheek (just as Eddie touched his in his final moments, and in contrast to the way he used to pinch them) and...:  

“Richie got up and turned toward the door. ‘Fuck you, Bitch!’ he cried suddenly, and kicked the door shut with his foot. It made a solid chukking sound as it closed and latched. / ‘Why’d you do that?’ Beverly asked. / ‘I don’t know,’ Richie said, but he knew well enough.” (King 1427)

Richie’s shutting the door on Pennywise and the sewers and the whole horrible tragedy of it all, yes. But he’s also furious with the grief of losing Eddie, and shutting the door that will now forever separate Eddie’s final resting place from the hole where he died. Bev’s question allows Richie to do just what Eddie did, too – keep it quiet, cut it off, not acknowledge what he’s avoiding or what he’s just lost. Still, he knows well enough.  

PART VI – CONCLUSION  

I don’t know for sure that King intended for Eddie to be closeted, but I think he did. He’s gone on the record that he believes in leaving stuff like this for the reader to figure out. There are a lot of scenes, a lot of small moments, that suggest that Eddie is gay, and while many of them make sense without that reading, the entirety of the picture they paint does not. I’m partial to Reddie, and as I’ve demonstrated above, I believe there is a lot of textual evidence to support the theory that they had feelings for each other. Eddie’s death alone, and the fact that the last thing he had to say needed to be addressed to Richie while Eddie held his face in his hands, is... a LOT. But I’ll be honest – my loyalty is to queer!Eddie on its own.  

If Eddie Kaspbrak is gay, then his story is ten times more heartbreaking. It’s a story of fear, not just of the supernatural but of the very real hatred and pain he would have faced being openly gay in Derry. It’s a story of fearing that something inside of him was rotten and sick and sinful, and that one of his closest friends in the world thought so too. It’s a story of self-loathing. And it’s a story without an end, because Eddie could never let himself think of how to finish admitting what he needed to admit to himself. The truth was lost in asthma attacks, in Myra, in death. In that sense, it’s fitting that King never explicitly stated that Eddie was gay, if that was indeed his intent – it's one more thing we’ll never know for sure, because Eddie couldn’t bring himself to tell us.  

THAT BEING SAID. My loyalty is to queer!Eddie. Which means that my loyalty is to making this shit better, exploring and dissecting the hell out of it, and fixing it. Give Eddie Kaspbrak the ending he deserved! Let him finish his thoughts! Take these quotes, draw inspiration from them, and let’s all cling to each other in preparation for Chapter 2.  

[lizzybeth1986]

I love the code name, and I'll hopefully remember to sign my messages with it from now on. I'm actually quite flattered that I've earned one, so ty for that. I somehow came up with 2 more questions, most likely to turn into essays, for you. 1 should be more lighthearted than the other, so I'm gonna start heavy if ya don't mind xD. You've touched briefly on how families affect the courtly ladies, so I wanted to see your take on how families have shaped the people at court. Have fun!-CL anon :D

You come up with such amazing questions, CL anon! How do you do it! 😁

So...hmm...how families shape the people in court. That's a pretty loaded question! And I mean "loaded" in the sense that when we're talking about "family" in an environment like this, we're also talking about the larger society they inhabit and what values from that society these parents were busy instilling in these children.

Sometimes the struggle I have with theorizing on these things, is that Book 1 starts out with very different ideas of what modern Cordonian society is supposed to be like, but by Book 3 or Book 4 they have developed other ideas that contradict it...or that you have to really work around to make sense of. For instance, the entire idea of open relationships being accepted in Cordonia that crops up conveniently in Book 2 just so the MC can sleep with whoever she wants after she's gotten engaged...yet the same society has such a strong disapproval of PDA that you can lose points with the general public for even joking about being intimate with someone (can these two things happen in the same space? Of course!! But that point from Book 2 does make the overall stuffy atmosphere in Book 1 about displaying affection look a little confusing, you have to admit). So...making sense of these things with the way the books have changed over the series is challenging, but doable.

The one thing that gets clearer and clearer as the story progresses...is that most noble children seem to grow into an awareness from a younger age itself that their public life should not reflect their private ones. Another is that, in the political climate of the time - they may not understand everything that is going on...but their parents have inadvertently taught them to grow up in fear (a legitimate fear, considering the threats at the time). I'll start with the palace, then move to the duchies. (I won't include Drake and Hana much in this, as Drake's family seemed to operate very differently - and honestly we know way more about his American roots than his Cordonian ones - and Hana grew up in another country...though there will be a short paragraph about her towards the end).

--

Liam

Liam grew up in the palace, the second son and younger brother to the royal heir, but you can tell there were things he had to learn pretty early on in his childhood. Things like compromise. Things like weighing what was more important to the country at a time when many children should be caring about their own needs.

It's not a very easy life, Liam's. His mother was murdered when he was still a young boy. His father often neglected him (remember the Eiffel Tower sequence where he justifies Constantine breaking a promise to visit the landmark with him, by recognizing that his father had bigger responsibilities as King?) and expected a great deal from him even at an early age (I mean...forcing an eight year old into hours of diplomacy meetings for three whole weeks??). And while race is never really mentioned in the books, the subtext is there that Eleanor and Liam possibly might have had to work harder for approval from the court than, say, Leo.

Added to this is the entry of Regina later on, after Eleanor's death. I feel like some aspects of her are based on Queen Elizabeth II - especially the way she advocates for stoicism in Book 1 (which is why she is so hard on herself after Constantine's death, in Book 3). Every move of hers is consciously planned and measured so that only certain aspects of herself will be visible to the general public, and I do think Liam draws a little bit on that with his own public image as well. This can be advantageous, because that means someone like Regina (and Liam) will be in control of their image. Only what they want to show, is shown. But it does mean that they have to weigh anything and everything they do with particular care.

In the "wedding advice" scene in Book 3, Liam speaks of how - even if they did have a conflict - Constantine and Regina would always show a publicly united front (and we see elements of that in the aftermath of the MC's scandal. Regina doesn't openly disagree with Constantine's actions, but she does adopt countermeasures because she sees a bigger picture that Constantine isn't willing to see). The family as a whole seems to be very image conscious (and they would be! The royals will be subject to way more scrutiny from the press and the public than most children, so parents will do whatever they can to protect those children from the worst aspects of it) and have to keep in mind that even their slightest reactions in public could have consequences. You see this pretty clearly in the way Liam handles the chaos at the Coronation Ball. He does what he has to, to calm the court down even though he is personally in turmoil - and we see how much turmoil he is in right after he has made his way to the MC's room.

This might be more extensive than most of the other characters, most coz he is an LI and some of his arc was supposed to revolve around being a different man from his father (they...dropped the ball on that one in Book 3).

Maxwell

To me, at least in the beginning, the Beaumonts were supposed to represent two extremes in one House. Propriety is extremely important, and you see this clearly in the way Bertrand speaks and acts and even thinks. But at the same time, their space is also a space for the nobility to let loose and go wild, as one can see from their Beaumont Bashes. These two extremes are represented pretty accurately in both Bertrand and Maxwell, and in a limited way in their parents as well.

Barthelemy expects a great deal out of his sons (even though he isn't exactly the best at meeting expectations himself. In that way he reminds me a little of Sebastian Delacroix's father from The Junior) and requires that they keep the honour of Beaumont House first. But the mother...even though we never actually meet her or even know her name (a pity)...we do know that she made people relaxed and comfortable around her, and wanted her younger boy to be happy with who he was. In Maxwell's wedding advice, he speaks of the importance of laughter - how his mother made his serious-looking father laugh and that was the most enduring image he had of their relationship.

But it's not like the family wasn't prey to the tense political climate that was there in the country when the boys were younger. For instance, Maxwell's fear of carousels is deeply rooted in his own family's fears of their children getting targeted - because he tells us "I was only three, I had no idea what was going on...And because our parents had spent so much time trying to warn us about dangers, I thought I was going to get murdered". I mean...imagine being three and having those thoughts!! I think that kind of insight should give us pause, because it does direct us to how an unstable political climate can bleed its way into the personal life or people, of their families and children.

I do wonder what implications and impact the discussions between Bartie Sr and Godfrey have on the family, though. Because if most of the fandom is right about what those two were planning, I see Bertrand and Madeleine as the people who will correct the wrongs of their parents in their support of the Crown, much in the way Olivia was last book.

Kiara

Kiki's family is actually my favourite of the lot, and we can see how she developed her skills in an environment that was supportive, and vibrant with challenges and creative stimulation. It's clear that she is one of the few people who really thrived in her family environment. Nothing was really forced on her: learning languages, and mock-treaties, and diplomacy were all things she had an aptitude for, so she went for them. And I'm guessing given the speed at which the book had Hakim and Joelle accept Zeke's decision (which could be retconning for all we know, but I do think it doesn't jar with their characterization until that point)...had Zeke opened up to them earlier, they would have figured out a way without the MC or Penelope having to convince him to open up in the first place.

One thing that I loved about Kiara's family arc was that if the MC tried to sass her about whether "everything in your family is a negotiation", or tried to cast Kiara and her family into this bland, staid stereotype of "negotiators who have no personal connection as a family", Kiki would shut that nonsense down. Every single time. She would establish that these are things important and personal to the family, and make it clear that the MC is no one to judge how they interact as a family.

Hakim and Joelle are my favourite older couple in the series, honestly. We're told they met and fell in love in college, and that their political views align more with Liam's than they do with Constantine's. In fact Liam at one point even tells us that Joelle was "the kind of person King Fabian would have approved of", and she speaks the same language about how it isn't merely enough for the country to be safe - it needs to thrive as well.

Hakim and Joelle are very different people, and in her wedding advice Kiara tells us they "delight in their differences". This is especially apparent in a fail play, where Hakim plans to go to the wedding, and Joelle winds up going to Switzerland. There's plenty of banter between them beforehand about their different ways of thinking, but expressing the same delight.

If there is only one flaw, it's in the writers - because in their mad rush to make Kiara's trauma look like it didn't matter in Castelserraillian, everyone was made to look as if they didn't care...including her parents. Which is bizarre coz the entire reason Hakim was going to leave in the first place was the fact that his daughter suffered in that attack! They never let Joelle mention anything about what Kiara went through, up until the end where she asks us if we took care of Kiara during the tour (and we are the fucking lowlifes here who didn't put the effort to, so Kiara ends up having to lie through her teeth that we "had my back").

I do see Kiara having a particular idea of "strength" that she holds everyone up to, including herself. The whole reason she even agrees with us when we manipulate/emotionally blackmail her into coming for the wedding, is because she's ashamed of herself. She wants to handle her trauma the way she handled everything else, and finds it impossible. I don't see anything that proves this is something she picked up from her family, because even while diplomatic, Hakim is open about his feelings when upset (eg. Constantine) and Joelle is expressive as well. It probably might be more of something she has imbibed in court, and in the overall culture of Cordonia itself. But the fact that the writers made sure she had support from no one, not even her family, up until readers raised questions....that is bizarre, and pretty disgusting.

But other than that, the family is interesting for their political views, and their openmindedness, which is rare in the noble family dynamics we have seen so far.

Olivia

Besides her love for knives and weapons, Olivia's determination to make the Nevrakis name one to look up to...is her entire story arc. Her story revolves around doing the exact opposite of what her parents did, of what her aunt and Anton Severus wanted to do.

Olivia is the rare person in the books who is shown without her family at all, and that is because she lost hers at the age of five. Her aunt (great-aunt in Book 1, but they made Lucretia her mother's sister in Book 3) left her and hid in the French Riviera, insisting that "the Nevrakis heir shouldn't have needed me to hold her hand and wipe away her little tears". This is something Olivia is angry about, but accepts because she has equally high standards of her own resilience.

There is plenty in the culture of Lythikos that contributes to Olivia's character as well. These people pride in their ability to survive, their determination to power through the most challenging, exacting situations. They're a militaristic society, and Olivia takes to that mindset like a fish to water. She believes in self-reliance because it's a hard bitter lesson she has had to grow up with (though one must not discount the value of Liam as a support) and because it's part of her culture, and it's become so much a part of her thinking that when the MC insists to Lucretia that relying on friends and allies is not weakness, just common sense - Olivia is equal parts grateful and shocked by the logic of that statement. It has literally never occurred to her that she can voluntarily reach out for help!

Olivia grew up in circumstances no child should have to grow up in, and manages to embody the best of her culture in contrast to her family. She adopts her father's moniker "if you can breathe you can stand, if you can stand you can fight", but reinterprets it to mean she can fight for her beliefs, fight for more than just her family and duchy. She adopts all the good in the Nevrakis clan while working to obliterate the parts that can place her loved ones in danger.

Penelope

I've actually mentioned this before, but one of the best examples of "winging it" you can see from the books, is Penelope. The writing for her just bounces from one gaffe to another so that when you look at her overall story, nothing adds up. You have to literally stretch logic to connect the dots in her story! (I know, because I've tried).

In Book 1 she suffers from seasickness, but somehow in Book 3 she has grown up by the seaside and there is practically no mention of aforementioned seasickness. In Book 2 her family insist that she not return to court without a suitor (both her parents!) yet somehow in Book 3 when we actually meet her family you'd wonder how Landon would have allowed such things to be said to his daughter. There's a no-pets-allowed rule among the royals that Liam somehow changed when he became King, so how the hell did Penelope's parents think she was going to manage court without her emotional support animals? That too a social season and an entire world tour after that?? A lot about the writing for this family doesn't even make sense, and in some ways you can tell that the writers realized they hit a goldmine with the arc about Penelope's anxiety only when they published it, and then milked it for all it was worth (I know that sounds awful, and it is. But if they'd really, genuinely planned this properly, Penelope wouldn't appear so poorly developed as a character).

Landon and Emmeline are meant to serve as an inspiration to Drake, for their commitment to their people is something he wants to emulate (either as a Duke, or as someone who will do...something in court, I guess). The writing splits the major concerns between them: Emmeline is the Duchess who inherited this estate, and who will work through any condition or situation she is in to do her best for them. Emmeline particularly, seems to have a similar drive to power through - as Olivia, Regina and Madeleine show - the worst situations in the name of "stand up for Portavira".

Landon on the other hand, is more concerned about Penelope's well-being (not that Emmeline isn't, it's more like she doesn't fully understand how difficult it all is for Penelope), and reluctant to place her in situations where she is not comfortable (which is why the hints about them in Book 2 sound so jarring on rereads).

What stands out to me, especially in Penelope's characterization is how much coddling she has come to expect, from everyone. There is very little effort - or even inclination - to right her wrongs. Part of this is the writers seriously retconning the narrative on what Penelope did to the MC, so that NO ONE ever brings it up again. But it's partly also because, as I said, they were fully ready to commit to her story in a way they didn't for Kiara. Often I wonder what it would be like if Landon and Emmeline did get to know about Penelope's involvement. I think they'd focus their anger on the Crown for placing her in that situation in the first place, and going by this characterization they may also make Penelope out to be the victim in this situation (which isn't too far off the mark - but we also mustn't ignore how coddled Penelope is most of the time and how entitled she often sounds). But even this wouldn't be so bad if we saw Penelope take responsibility for her actions, which she never does in Book 3.

One thing I do remember from her "wedding advice" was how she spoke a lot about the need to relax in their relationship, and how in-tune they are as a couple. So in a lot of ways their success with their duchy lies in how they balance their work and family (which apparently Landon seems more comfortable doing? Because he doesn't keep as much pressure on himself for Portavira in the way Emmeline does).

Penelope's family honestly...is a mixed bag. But I can say that for the most part they're supposed to represent a supportive family that deals with a child's diagnosis of their mental health by providing support, and a couple that is dedicated to their people.

Madeleine

The characterization for Madeleine also bounces from one concept to another, tbh. They started out with writing her as merely power-hungry, manipulative, duplicitous....before retconning completely and putting all of this under the label "patriotic". There is a huge, huge disconnect between the Madeleine that rejoiced in almost breaking her lady-in-waiting, and the one who places too much pressure on herself "for the sake of Cordonia". A North Pole to South Pole sized gap, really.

If it weren't for the fact that they wrote her family storyline only because they were really that desperate to make us sympathize with Madeleine, I would have found it interesting. The seeds of it begin in the second half of Book 2, when we notice Adeleide worrying about the pressure becoming Queen is going to place on Madeleine.

In Book 3, we're faced with her father who constantly dubs her a failure and doesn't see her as worthy of attention unless he can benefit from it. And with her mother, who wants to show her support, but can't in a way her daughter is comfortable with. There is a constant emphasis in Madeleine's storyline on expectations, dealing with constant failure, and resilience. She doesn't have the kind of support system she wants from either of her parents, so she has to find her own way to make lemonade out of those lemons. So each time she has to convince herself that each failure is only another step towards the biggest success possible (marrying into the royal family), and when she is robbed of that, twice, she is left having nothing else to muster up the motivation for. Which is why, then, they promote the Cordonia angle so aggressively.

Only problem is, you don't exactly get this impression from Book 2. A person with Book 3 Madeleine's bent of mind, whose main aim was to do her best for Cordonia and who spoke of the importance of an entourage...wouldn't be so short sighted as to think that just because she was engaged she won everything, esp when her last fiancé fell in love and broke off his engagement to her as well. She wouldn't be so careless in her treatment of her own ladies-in-waiting, all of whom (except Hana, and even her family has immense influence even though her mother is from a minor noble house) are from powerful Houses and families, whose support she would need in the future.

Even if one brushes off her bullying of Hana and Penelope as no big deal (as I'm very sure some of her fans do), the fact remains that at the very least such behaviour is short-sighted and in a better story would reveal that she doesn't exactly have Cordonia's best interests in mind after all, if she jumps at the slightest excuse to burn bridges with these powerful families before she even becomes Queen.

In any case...Madeleine's family ranks as one of the messiest of the lot - her father is uninterested/feigns disinterest in the country unless it involves being involved in some elaborate plot against the monarchy, and her mother shows disinterest in her duchy overall, but is clearly invested in what makes her daughter happy. Her mother is supportive, just not in the way Madeleine wants support.

Regina also hails from Krona, and Madeleine is in some ways a reflection of her values and beliefs - which is why the two get along so well. So even though Adeleide is the Duchess of Krona, I'm pretty sure she's an anomaly in a family full of women who practice stoicism and diplomacy in their regular lives.

Hana

This note is going to be small, because as I explained earlier she was brought up in a completely different environment. Hana was brought up in a manner meant to make her flexible to whichever family she would marry into - so she learns different styles of horse riding, learns diplomacy over a toy tea set, is expected to know all the 26 important dance varieties in Cordonia by the time she is an adult, grows up learning about the countries neighbouring Cordonia as well. I have a whole other essay that speaks about her upbringing alone, so I won't speak much about that here, but you definitely get the feeling that her parents spent so much time trying to cultivate an asset for themselves that they rarely ever stopped to think about her as a person.

--

The overall impression I do get from modern Cordonian nobility in the books (not just from these guys, but also interactions with other nobles like Rashad and Neville, and palace staff like Bastien) is that Cordonia is a culturally diverse place, and people in different estates have different dynamics that are influenced by their family situation and by the culture they were born into, but overall there is more of an inclination to show resilience and power, than to confess to weakness. Which makes sense, because many of them are public figures under immense scrutiny, who are aware of the kind of message they could send if they show the slightest signs of weakness. That's my overall impression of this.

I hope you enjoyed that, CL anon! Now I'm curious about what the next question is 😀

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Ego

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Years ago, comic book movies were absolutely, totally afraid to be even a little weird. Raimi carried the weirdness torch for a while thanks to the success of the Spider-Man trilogy, but for some reason he was the only person unafraid to be goofy; even Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, a movie about one of the more fun and campy classical hero teams, was completely and utterly afraid to show a big man in purple armor who eats planets and so instead opted to show us an intergalactic fart cloud. The precedent set by franchises like Blade, X-Men, and Nolan’s Batman films lingered for a long time.

Then along came James Gunn.

Gunn is a man unafraid to be weird, and Guardians of the Galaxy really changed the game in 2014. There’s a gun-toting raccoon, a talking tree, a bald blue cyborg woman, and an alcoholic duck, and the movie is a smash hit critically and financially; there is now no excuse not to put the wierdest stuff from the comics faithfully into film. And for the sequel, Gunn apparently saw fit to bring in one of Marvel’s most bonkers bad guys: Ego, the Living Planet.

Ego is the perfect example of how to adapt something utterly bizarre from the comics, changing some major elements while still staying true to the nature of the character himself. Ego here is Peter Quill’s father, something that isn’t true in the comics, as well as a Celestial, something also not true in the comics… but he is still a sentient planet, and he is still completely and utterly evil.

Actor: Kurt Russell, 80s superstar and the reason Solid Snake exists, plays Ego to perfection. Ego is a character with, well, an ego; he’s selfish, self-centered, and lacking in empathy, but he also needs to come off as charming and friendly or we the audience would see through him immediately. Russell is the exact perfect man for that job; this is a guy who managed to play a character who was mildly transphobic and still have them come off as likable. Russell is also able to switch from affable and charming to scary and furious with ease, which is a big help after the reveal when Ego drops all pretense. Russell just kills it, there’s no other way to put it.

Motivation/Goals: Ego has an almost sympathetic goal, one that, from a certain point of view, makes him come off as a bit sympathetic. The guy was drifting alone in the void for eons and had to piece himself together, so is it any wonder he was horrifically lonely when he was finally able to set out to find life? Of course, that loneliness and isolation led to him developing some really nasty personality traits, and so he decided the best course of action after finding out other intelligent life was “boring” was to plant seeds on every planet, sire a child with powers just like him, and then wipe out all life and turn all the planets in the universe into extensions of himself. It is a plan truly befitting a character with the name “Ego,” and while it is true his motivation is at least a little deserving of sympathy, his goals and how he goes about trying to ameliorate his pain is what makes Ego an irredeemable monster.

Personality: Ego is perhaps one of the most aptly named characters in all of fiction, and he’s also one of the few characters one could make the honest claim that his ego is literally the size of a planet. Ego puts forth this identity of a charming, fatherly figure, happy, affable, jokey… just really sweet and charming. But much like the avatar he uses, it’s all just a mask.

Look at how he talks about what he did to Peter’s mom; he says it with such a wistful, resigned melancholy flavored with this “I did what I had to do” smugness that is a twisted reflection of how one might recall their first date, and then follows it up with a horrifically callous response of “I know that sounds bad.” Ego is such a monstrous, unrepentant sociopath with so little regard for life that is beneath his lofty stature that I just don’t think he really comprehends things like empathy. He is the ultimate psychopathic manchild, an arrogant egotist who hides behind this friendly veneer until the moment things don’t go the way he wants, at which point he starts screaming, ranting, and raving. The fact he is completely and utterly taken aback that Peter would unload multiple shots into him after being told Ego gave his mother a brain tumor is really telling of just what kind of person he really is.

Final Fate: The bomb Groot planted on Ego’s brain goes off, and Ego’s avatar crumbles to dust as the planet begins to blow up, seeing as its brain just got obliterated. The beautiful karma of this moment makes it extra delicious; after putting that tumor on Meredith Quill’s brain, is it not fitting he die after having something planted on his brain?

Best Scene: Ego just really dominates every scene he’s in, but I think the big reveal, where he shows just what a sick and depraved villain with a lack of care for life as he reveals what he did to Meredith Quill, is one of the MCU’s finest scenes.

Best Quote: It took only one single line to cement Ego as the most horrible, evil, disgusting monster in the MCU: “It broke my heart to put that tumor in her head.”

Final Thoughts & Score: Ego is fantastic on so many levels, but one level I think should not be overlooked is on a meta level. As I mentioned, for the longest time silliness and weird concepts were out the door when it came to superhero films. One needs only look at the X-Men franchise to see how dour things were, with their dull black costumes and overwhelmingly miserable and unfun atmospheres. More lighthearted or sillier fare did not go over well, as Iron Man 2 and Green Lantern can attest, and magic was totally absent for a while in the MCU probably because of fears audiences wouldn’t take it seriously. But James Gunn changed all that, and I think Ego definitely played a huge role in cementing that audiences will embrace and love in the weirdest stuff out of comics. Thanks to Ego, I think a lot of other creators became unafraid to let that freak flag fly and put things in movies they might have been too worried to put in before, with the ultimate and best example being Mister Mind joining the DCEU in the end of Shazam! It gives me hope that Tawky Tawny might show up there in a sequel.

On a character level, Ego is without a doubt the most punchable scumbag in the entire MCU, with only Mysterio coming close. The fact he casually admits to killing Peter’s mother and expects him to be okay with it… Can you really blame Peter for immediately unloading his guns into his father? I mean, when faced with a man who is utterly unrepentant in killing a loved one that they also claimed they loved and says they had to do it to further their goals, would you not also have a knee-jerk reaction like that? Yes, I am getting at this being a canon moment that shows Peter’s reaction to Thanos in Infinity War was not a stupid moment, it was a moment that was built up by what he did to Ego. And I think that just adds to Ego even more, because he helped cement a character trait of Peter’s that would lead to one of the most horrific gut punches in cinematic history.

Ego is an easy 10/10, and is one of the MCU’s greatest villains. He’s a perfect “love to hate” character, and he’s also a perfect villain for a story about family. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has family as a focal point of the story, with the arcs of every single character revolving around the idea that family doesn’t have to be blood ties, it can be with the people who love you and who you’ve bonded with the most. Yondu’s line of “He may’ve been your father, boy, but he wasn’t your daddy” is what really sells it, honestly; Ego is Peter’s biological father, yes, but Yondu raised him and even if he didn’t always do right by him, in the end he showed himself to be a better man and better dad than Ego ever could have hoped to be. I suppose that’s a bit off topic from Ego himself, but I feel like it’s important to note just how deeply thematic he is as a villain, tying into the core message of the story while also letting loose in utter sociopathic villainy.

I think there is a great irony in Ego’s ultimate plan; for all his claims of being lonely and desiring others like him, what exactly does he think would happen if the entire universe was nothing but himself? Would he truly have been satisfied? Perhaps; he was a narcissistic to the highest degree for sure. But I like that there is some ambiguity to things about Ego, I like how there are some things to think about, I like how a villain who has a plan that is not clearly thought out by them yet that they believe is the proper course of action is something of a setup for what Thanos would be.

And really, out of every other villain in the MCU, Ego is most like Thanos. The obvious part is the plan, though only Endgame Thanos really wanted to reshape the universe in his image; still, as I mentioned, their plans are both something they believe is the true and righteous course of action, though Thanos is far more sympathetic in this regard. They also both felt the need to sacrifice loved ones in pursuit of their goals, and they both have incredibly poor relationships with some of their kids. I think the main difference is that Thanos, for all his faults, does have some empathy, he does have some sympathetic traits even if they don’t redeem how much of an awful person he was. Ego has none of that. Ego squanders any sympathy he could have gained by being utterly unrepentant and casual about his misdeeds, which include slaughtering his other children and killing Peter’s mother despite claiming to have loved her dearly. At least Thanos openly wept at what he did to Gamora, at least he felt sadness,  guilt, and regret. Ego just doesn’t care. He did it because whatever he really felt for Meredith, there was only one person he could ever truly love: Himself.

In short, Yondu was right: that guy was a jackass.