#but also there are other redeemed characters that don’t just come from children’s tv shows

[15-lizards]

By the age of 25 you should have a good credit score, a stable job, and a favorite character redemption arc that isn’t Prince Zuko

[shipposttt]

The Ship of the Day: Swan Queen

Name: Emma x Regina

Ship name: Swan Queen

Original content: Once Upon a Time (OUAT)

Ship info: Once Upon a Time is a TV show where all of the fairy-tale characters that we know and have been told about all our lives have been cursed by the Evil Queen into our land – the land without magic – and have been frozen in time for 28 years in a small town called Storybrooke. The legend goes that the daughter on Snow White and Prince Charming (the saviour) will come to town and wake everyone up from the curse. Thus, the show starts with Henry, the adopted son of Regina (the evil queen) going to find his birth mother Emma (the saviour/Snow White and Charming’s daughter) and bringing her back to Storybrooke.

Henry (their son) who has found out about the curse through a gifted storybook, spends a long time trying to convince Emma that the curse is real not just a story and that she’s the one that needs to break it. However, Emma has a hard time believing that everyone living in town is a cursed storybook character and only participates in these discussions with Henry to keep him happy.

Emma and Regina’s relationship gets off to a rocky start as Regina immediately begins to feel threatened by Emma, her sons birth mother, and due to the fact that her relationship with Henry is a little fractured during that point in time. It looks like she has nothing to worry about however as Emma vows to leave town that night although on her way out of town she gets run off the road by a wolf ultimately leading to a chain of events that have Emma staying in town. 

During her stay in town Emma spends a lot of time at odds with Regina, they are constantly arguing over Henry (at first), and there is a lot of tension between them when they are making threats to each other and arguing. This arguing however comes to a stop after the fight they have over their son eating a poisoned apple turnover that Regina made for Emma. Emma wakes Henry up with true loves kiss and both mothers are happy their son is not dead. This is arguably the point where their relationship is worst, after this their relationship only gets better. 

After Emma breaks the curse by waking Henry up and true loves kiss magic comes back to Storybrooke. This leads to a lot of instances in which Emma and Regina have to fight together to save the town and their son a lot and even in some instances save each other. There are also many points in the show where people don’t believe that Regina is redeemed and still see her as a villain however Emma has always believed in Regina’s redemption, even going as far as protecting and defending her when Regina is accused of murder. We see moments later on in this show of Emma bringing Regina lunch and the both of them teasing each other which shows how much their relationship has evolved from what it used to be.

There is a lot of tension that can be felt in this teasing and in their ever-present need to save each other and even in simple moment such as Emma declaring that she always knows when Regina is lying and that she wants to help Regina find her happy ending. The move of their relationship from enemies to people who trust one another with their lives – as they have on many occasions – is very important in understanding why these characters are so beloved together. This is because they are both passionate fighters about/for the things that they love and once they get over their differences and realise who similar they actually are, they spend a lot of time fighting to save each other. Even going as far as Emma absorbing the darkness/curse of the dark one in order to save Regina and her goodness.

Additionally, there are also multiple parallels throughout the show both visually and audibly wherein Swan Queen are compared to Snowing (Snow White and Prince Charming) who are a canon heterosexual couple who share two children. Why are moments between Emma and Regina being parallel to a couple in a canon romantic relationship, a couple who are professed to be (canon) romantic True Loves in this show, if Emma and Regina themselves aren’t meant to be in a romantic relationship and/or true loves.

Type of Ship: Queer Bait

Putting aside all of the fairy tale elements and all of the magic in this show, seeing the trope of two people sharing a child implies that by the end of the series these two people will be in a romantic relationship. Instances in which this trope occurs, and the parents have been a man and woman result in a romantic relationship, some examples include: About a Boy (2002), The Switch (2010), Life as We Know It (2010), Love Comes Softly (2003).

In all of these examples the male and female characters who are seen parenting a child together end up in romantic relationships. Why then did the creators of OUAT choose to apply this trope to their show only to have these two parental characters not end up together just because they are both women. They have spent the majority of the show making parenting decisions for their son together, fighting together to save their son and even becoming something resembling a family only for them to not end up together even though if they were a man and a woman instead of both women, they would have ended in a romantic relationship together.

Additionally, there are also instances in the show of prolonged eye contact and wide screen shots of these characters looking at each other. In this same show there are heterosexual characters with examples of the same moment happening that are in or do end up in a romantic relationship. If this is so then why isn’t it the same for Swan Queen, the only difference being that they are both women. The shots of these two characters together are conscious choices made by writers, producers and directors and have been put into the show making people think that what is going to happen is that these characters are going to end up in a romantic relationship, yet they never do! There is no need for creators to tease something that is not going to happen, the only thing that this does is creates outrage from audiences who were invested in this relationship and led to believe that it was a possibility. There have also been instances in which creators have spoken on social media about this ship speculation and actively participating in keeping this audience tuned into the show. They have reeled this audience in only for them to be disappointed by the results. 

Thank you for coming to my ted talk!

Admin 🦈

[fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy]

Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

[mrs-march-ahs]

Hi! I have a request~ The Evans reactions to losing in any sort of game. Can be board games or video games 😅

The Evans Losing At Games

Headcannons for all, imagines for some!

Cute idea, thank you! I didn’t write much for Jimmy, I’m sorry Jimmy I love you<3

Enjoy:)

Tate

-Clearly a teenage boy who lets emotions build up a lot -Definitely cheats if he’s had enough -If he keeps losing in the same part of the video game and rage quits, it takes him forever to get back into the game - “Ohhhh… I forgot that’s where I let off… fuck it” (quits) -Much better and calmer at playing cards, and generally prefers games were the two of you can talk and he doesn’t have to focus too much

--

You laid on your bed, scrolling aimlessly through social media, and occasionally glancing at Tate playing a video game he hasn’t played in a while. When you started talking about games, and you told him you had it, he nostalgically reminisced how much he used to play it when he was alive, so you set it up for him. Every few minutes, when a red screen would pop up, Tate would sigh, and with every passing death, his sighs got louder and angrier.

After only maybe half an hour of playing, Tate clearly couldn’t take it anymore, and threw the control towards the floor, before stomping over to shut the console and TV off. The sound made you flinch, and you had never seen Tate angry before. Nor his body language nor face showed his emotions, just his actions, and when he flopped by your side, he looked fine. If somebody had come in right now, they would just see two teenagers laying next to each other.

“Uhhh… you okay?”, you ask, before rolling over to face him. You poke at his chubby cheek as he stares up at the ceiling and tease him. “Sore loser”.

“Shut up, it’s your fault. You reminded me why I wasn’t allowed to play this game for very long”.

“Wanna play something else? Together? We could play Dragon Ball Z?”, you ask quietly, before going back to your childish sing-song teasing. “Be nice, and I’ll even let you win a few times!”

Tate looks over at you and huffs, before sitting up and getting the controllers, “Good thing you’re used to begging me for mercy”

Kit

-Least sore loser out of them all -Always up for a rematch -He’s pleasant even when he does win - “Want a rematch sugar? So you can have another shot at beating me?” - “Ah you were close, you’re getting good” - “You’re a good rival” - “If I lose, you can drag me to that Rom Com you wanted to see” - “If I win, we make more babies” -Pretends to be competitive when he’s playing with the kids - “I would say Team Girls vs Team Boys… but that’s not fair, the two of you don’t even stand a chance, right Tommy?” -If one of the kids beat him, he’d act super dramatically to give them as much satisfaction of winning -Laser tag is 34 years before Kit’s time, but if he played something like that, he’d try to let the kids win

--

You ran around the garden and chased a giggling Julia. Because of current financial issues, the power was out, but not wanting to worry the children to much, and not wanting them to ask too many questions, you and Kit decided to make the most of the sun and tire them out before it got dark. Kit, being the big kid he is, suggested playing a tag-like game Thomas invented, where you each get three pebbles each, and try to get each other out by throwing them. Gently. Unless you were throwing them at Kit.

Julia started slowing down when she reached the corner of the house, hoping to hide from you, but you were right behind her, making her turn around and burst out in giggles. When the 5-year-old laughed, the only thing you could see was the missing tooth she donated to the tooth fairy last night. Once you circled all around the house, you come back in view of the garden, and see Julia hiding behind Kit.

“That’s cheating!”, he exclaims, trying to run away from her and toss a pebble in her direction, only for her to do it faster. The second Julia’s tiny rock hits Kit’s tummy and bounced, he put his hands over his stomach and held it like a gun wound. He dropped to the floor dramatically, leaving the two little kids to die of laughter, and you walk over to him, Kit peeping open one eye slightly to see if you were watching him, and then stuck his tongue out to play dead. You picked up a stick from the floor and poked at his chest, making Kit chuckle but quickly hide it.

“Is it dead?”, you ask.

Thomas leans in closer to look at his dad on the floor, before Kit opens his eyes and pulls Tommy to the floor with him, rolling over to be on top of him.

“I win!”, Kit announces, before kissing his son on the cheek.

Franken Kyle

-He doesn’t particularly play complicated games, but he isn’t too patient and gets frustrated with himself pretty easily -If on one of his educational games, he messes something up too many times in a row, he’ll shut off the game and throw the tablet on the bed -He’ll avoid even looking at it -If he loses a tickle fight he’ll sit and whine, straddle you and then tickle you until you beg him to stop -Whines even if he loses at rock paper scissors -He likes colouring and drawing, and because it’s good for his motor skills, the two of you made a really simple game together -You drew out a long snake shape on a big piece of paper and drew lines in between for the spaces -Kyle carefully coloured them in with pencil and with a marker you wrote occasional things like ‘Go back two spaces’ or ‘Go forward three spaces’ -Sweet little Ky would roll the dice, and take his time, pushing his little figurine, which was something like a pencil sharpener or a bottle cap, and counted out the spaces -Got super excited if he won, but wouldn’t mind losing -He would insist the two of you keep playing, and you’re only allowed to stop and go to bed if you end on him winning -Sometimes he would try to let you win so that you could keep playing -Whine and pout if you had to stop playing, and how are you meant to say no to him? -You would have to promise you’ll play tomorrow -You’d be able to slowly make more and more complicated games, until eventually he’d be able to play things like checkers or Ludo

Jimmy

-Lowkey a sore loser -If there were loads of different people playing, he would be a lot more friendly -If he lost, he would still be super annoyed, but just wouldn’t show it -But if it was the two of you, he’d be super competitive -The type of person to flip the board game if he was losing -But he’d apologise straight away and pout if you didn’t want to play with him again - “C’mon let’s play again, I’ll be nice this time” - “Loser gets spanked” -Loves playing games like beer pong

James

-Unpleasant loser but also not a pleasant winner -Bitter compliments if you win at cards - “Well done darling, who would have thought with your high school education you were such a poker master” -Only willing to play the same 5 card games, because if you teach him a new board game he is not familiar with and he loses, he’ll claim it’s only because he’s new to the game -Absolutely infuriated if he loses at Monopoly, since he built a hotel after all -Don’t even bother trying to teach him how to play a video game -And of course - “Only amateurs keep score”

--

“What are you doing, dear?”, James said, fascinated at your little character wandering around a shop, on the screen in front of both of you.

“I’m trying to buy this plant, but I don’t have enough money, I want to see if I can sell anything I have”, you explain, pointing at your backpack filled with items that you can exchange for spare coins.

“Nonsense, darling, why don’t you simply stab the storekeeper and steal what you desire?”

“Because this is Animal Crossing, James, there isn’t a stab button”

Kai

-Kai likes playing video games or board games with literally anybody apart from you -He likes playing with Ozzy because he’s a kid so most of the time Kai can beat him easily -Definitely not the type of person to let the kid win, even if Ozzy is sobbing and Ally asks him to let Ozzy win once in a while - “Winning fairly will feel so much better for him” - “He won’t appreciate success if he doesn’t first taste failure” -Sometimes instead of story time with his troops he’ll play some board games -At first, everybody will keep letting Kai win out of fear -But eventually someone will win, and everybody else will be fearful for them, scared Kai will be angry - “Finally somebody capable, somebody strong, not scared to show their true capabilities” -But if you ask him to play a game with you, he probably won’t -If you eventually beg enough that he will agree to play a game with you, he’ll tell you he’s only playing one -If you win, he’ll be like, “Okay, are you happy now?” - “Finally it’s over” - “I let you win, are you happy?” -But if he wins, he’ll try to get you to play a few more games - “Are you giving up already?” - “Don’t be a sore loser, rise up to the challenge” - “I assumed you wanted to win, not just to play”

- (Kai loses) “See… you have to give a humiliated man a chance to redeem himself in his own ey-”

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Gabriel Agreste: Interesting Villain, Horrible Character (400 Follower Special)

I'm honestly surprised more people didn't want me to talk about Gabriel, especially with how often I rag on how horrible of a person he is. But, three character analysis posts later, and we're going to talk about why the main villain of Miraculous Ladybug is a real letdown.

Gabriel Needs to give the Whining a Rest

The interesting thing is one of the few things I actually liked in Season 3 was Hawkmoth. His plans actually made sense (for the most part), and by playing the long game, he managed to turn Chloe against Ladybug and deprived her of several key allies. Granted, Season 4 immediately undid the latter, but I was still impressed by his strategy.

Generally, one of the better aspects of Gabriel as a character was just how over the top he was as Hawkmoth. Keith Silverstein is clearly giving it his all with his performance, and he is just so enjoyable to watch as a cartoonish supervillain.

And therein lies the first major problem with Gabriel as a character. While he is fun to watch as a simple supervillain, the show tries to give him more depth and unintentionally makes him worse.

In Season 2, when it was revealed that Gabriel was Hawkmoth, many fans speculated on what he needed the Miraculous for, until the Queen Bee Trilogy showed it was to save his possibly dead wife, Emilie. The idea of that is so the show can give more depth to its main villain, and I think it's an interesting idea in concept. After all, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The problem is just how radically different Gabriel is normally compared to how he is as Hawkmoth. He always goes on about how he's “doing this for Emilie”, but it's hard to really sympathize with him when you consider he constantly gives evil monologues and evil laughs, really getting into the supervillain role. And let's not forget all of the “I'm going to wear Ladybug's skin as a suit” faces he loves to make.

Clearly this man is the picture of mental stability.

Gabriel's motivation for being Hawkmoth when compared to what he actually does as Hawkmoth is shady enough, but the thing is that the writers clearly want the audience to at least feel a little bad for him. They want to make the audience sympathize with him despite the way he acts with or without the mask. Without Miraculous Ladybug, he is routinely putting innocent lives in danger and never once shows regret for his actions. All he talks about is how “he's doing this for Emilie”, or that “he'll get their Miraculous soon”. There's no real reason to feel bad for him other than “because the script says so”.

Let's compare Gabriel to Malcolm Merlyn from Arrow. His big plan in the first season of the show is to create a machine that will cause an earthquake to destroy a crime-infested portion of Starling City, claiming to be trying to help everyone, but it's clear he is only doing it out of revenge for his wife getting killed by a criminal from that part of the city. In addition, throughout that season and future seasons, he always makes sure his plans lead to him benefiting in some way, showing he isn't just some noble man trying to achieve his goals with a less than noble method.

If we got some moments that showed that what Gabriel was doing was selfish, it would make him a more complex villain. But we don't get anything like that. What do we get instead? Well...

I Could Really Care Less About Emilie Agreste

We have known Gabriel's motivation has been to save his wife for a little over two years at this point, but at the same time, it's hard to believe that motivation because of how underdeveloped Emilie is as a character.

There have been a total of two lines in the entirety of the show that explain what happened to Emilie, and they're both vague as hell. One of them was from “Feast” that implied Emilie used the broken Peacock Miraculous.

Adrien: My mom used to have dizzy spells… just like Nathalie.

And the other that outright tells the audience what's happening to her in a clip show that most people will skip.

Nathalie: As I've watched Emilie falling deeper into an endless sleep, my sadness for her has deepened, too

That is literally all we get for an explanation, and nothing else. We have no idea of what she's like as a person or what her relationship with her family was like other than Gabriel and Adrien saying they miss her. Other than the way the narrative says she's important to Gabriel and Adrien, we don't really have a reason to care about her as a character. There have also been some lines that imply she went along with Gabriel's questionable parenting techniques, like how he was apparently only homeschooled as a kid (Origins) and never had a birthday party growing up (The Bubbler), so how do we even know if she's a good person? In fact, why not set up this question as a mystery to make the audience wonder if Gabriel has another reason to bring Emilie back?

It ultimately turns Emilie into a plot device and not a character that Gabriel and Adrien only bring up to make the audience feel bad for them, and meant to justify Gabriel's actions by saying that he's “doing this for his family”.

But hey, if he's doing this all for his family, surely Gabriel's redeeming traits come from his relationship with Adrien, right? Right?

As a Parent, Gabriel is Far From the Best

I've talked about this briefly before, but parenting in Miraculous Ladybug is written in such a black and white way, even by the standards of this show. Parents are portrayed in one of two ways. They're either amazing people who love and support their children unconditionally, or they're awful people who treat their own children like trash. And much like a lot of things in this show, there are times where the latter is treated like the former.

There are so many times where the narrative insists on making you see Gabriel as a troubled, but wellmeaning person who tries his best to be a good parent to Adrien, but it is far from the truth.

I'm not going to beat around the bush. Gabriel is a terrible parent. Like, he is awful at being a parent in so many ways, even before you find out he's Hawkmoth. In his first appearance, “The Bubbler”, he delegates getting Adrien a birthday present to Nathalie, his assistant. He literally can't be bothered to take time out of his schedule to get his own son a present for his birthday. And as the show goes on, he becomes more controlling and forbids Adrien from going out with his friends in other episodes (Captain Hardrock, Silencer). While this could be used to show Gabriel getting worse, it's never acknowledged in-universe, with Adrien continually defending his father essentially keeping him on house arrest.

“But IOTA!” You might say. “Gabriel has made efforts to bond with his son in some episodes.” While that might be true, most of those come right after his Akumas have almost gotten Adrien killed. He only hugged Adrien and made an attempt to learn more about him after Simon Says invaded their home, he only decided to watch that movie Emilie was in with Adrien after Gorizilla nearly dropped him off a building, and he only hugged Adrien again in public after he was turned into a gold statue by Style Queen.

In fact, let's talk about how Gabriel acts in the Queen Bee Trilogy. He actually decides to quit being Hawkmoth, but it's not because he realizes all the damage he's caused. Instead, he gave up because his “magnum opus”, a stronger than usual Akuma that only got the advantage on Ladybug ironically because of dumb luck, failed. Sure, he says he can't keep putting his son in danger, but he rarely ever acknowledges that he does so in the first place. When Riposte wanted to fight Adrien, Hawkmoth did nothing to stop her other than giving her a stern warning earlier on and nothing else. Where was this attitude earlier?

Hell, even then, he immediately goes back to being Hawkmoth as soon as he sees an opportunity, not even a day after his “mAgNuM oPuS” blew up in his face (because I guess Scarletmoth was just Plan B). If he made such a big deal about caring for his son, why didn't he try harder to spend time with him? Has he ever had doubts about what he's doing before? If Chloe didn't show up as Queen Bee, was he going to follow through on his promise and try to be a better father to Adrien instead of trying to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous?

And yeah, the whole irony is that Gabriel is doing this for his family when he is unknowingly fighting his own son, which could lead to some interesting drama if done right. The idea of how Gabriel would react to his son being Cat Noir could really lead to some internal struggles for him to go through. But then we got “Cat Blanc”, which shows just how terrible of a character Gabriel is.

In an alternate timeline where he found out his son was Cat Noir, what does Gabriel do? Does he try to steal Adrien's Miraculous while he's sleeping? Does he reconsider his actions or realize he was endangering Adrien's life?

NOPE! He just decides to akumatize him all while emotionally tormenting him, before causing the end of the world.

This is honestly one of the most appalling things I've ever seen in any TV show, because it's basically an abusive father ordering his son to listen to him all while referencing his (kind of) dead mother to back up his point. And rather than use this to show how despicable Gabriel is, the episode decides to blame Marinette for this happening. Yes, according to the show, her present to Adrien caused several events to happen which caused Cat Blanc, but this logic makes no sense. It's like blaming the JFK assassination on the man who sold a gun to Lee Harvey Oswald, instead of, you know, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Not only was this episode yet another excuse to blame Marinette for something that wasn't her fault, it leads into the biggest problem I have with Gabriel as a character.

Sympathize with Gabriel? Surely, You Jest

After everything I've gone over regarding Gabriel as a character, after all the awful things I've talked about, are you really surprised that I don't feel bad for him at all?

Gabriel is just an awful character and a despicable human being, but the show just keeps wanting me to feel bad for him. It's just so hard to when you consider everything he's done has made him anything but sympathetic. I'm just saying, it's kind of hard to feel bad for someone who tries to start World War III with the only justification being “i'M dOiNg It FoR mY fAmIlY”, especially when he treats his family like crap.

The writers go out of their way to show how horrible Gabriel is as Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth, but they think because they throw in a few moments where he looks conflicted, we'll immediately feel bad for him. What makes so many people interested in seeing Chloe become a better person is that they can tell she's the victim of a troubled upbringing, and know that because she's only a teenager, she still has room to grow as a person, represented by having more honest moments of vulnerability. Gabriel is a grown man who once caused the apocalypse because of how terrible of a parent he is, and has even fewer sympathetic moments than Chloe does. Which one of these two is supposedly irredeemable? The answer may surprise you.

But the frustrating thing is that this kind of villain could have worked. Instead of making him this mustache-twirling psychopath, show how much Gabriel regrets what he has to do, but keeps pushing onward despite all the lives he's risking if it means that he can save his wife. Instead of making Gabriel like Lex Luthor, make him like Mr. Freeze, who is basic a better written version of him.

But as it stands, there's a good reason why Gabriel gets little to no respect as a character in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom, as a villain, or as a father.

[wlwsims4]

Back at it again with this whole challenge stuff.

This Challenge is half “Survive this”, half Legacy, and based around the various stages the main group in the TV Show “The Walking Dead” went through. You don’t need to have watched it to play this challenge, but many requirements will feel arbitrary if you haven’t. Since these aren’t really, uh, generations, I will refer to the individual parts of this challenge as “Stages” Packs required: Outdoor Retreat, Seasons, Eco Lifestyle, Get Together, City Living, Discover University, Get to Work

The Setup:

- You will need either Triplis’ “Kids Quit School” mod ot MCCC to make quitting school possible. - Create your founder and any number of other survivors in CAS, Two of these additional survivors need to be children. - Use your own physical dice or find an online dice roller, you will need that!

General Rules:

- It’s the Apocalypse, so buy mode is heavily restricted. You can’t just go to Ikea and buy  new couch! You will need to use the fabrication and handiness skills to make furniture! Some Random Events and generational rules may allow you to get stuff otherwise

- You may only cook with ingredients you have! If you play this after the release of Cottage Living, use the Lot Challenge!

- You will always play off the grid!

- The monetary cost of crafting is considered “materials”. You can "barter” for materials by using the selling table from City Living, or sell furniture and stuff you scavenged, thus “dismantling” it and salvaging it.

- Any children you have aside from the two you create in CAS automatically suffer a -2 penalty to all rolls they perform, on account of being children. 

- Randomized townies you encounter are generally considered zombies. (or WaLkErS of you don’t wanna use the evil Z word). If they engage you in conversation, consider it an attack and roll a d20, adding 1 for every two levels of fitness the Sim in question has. Below a 15, they get injured in the scuffle and are out of comission for the rest of the day. Below a 10, they get infected and die

- Pregnant and elderly Sims cannot perform any chores or other survival tasks and suffer the same -2 penalty as children!

- Every ingame week, roll on the random events table!

- Play with normal lifespan!

Stage 1: The Atlanta Survivors Camp You just survived the Apocalypse’s initial outbreak and you are settling with a small group outside a large city. However, calamity soon threatens your little sanctuary.

- Move your household anywhere with freerealestate, then take a vacation on the campground lot in Granite Falls.  - Set your money to 5k and start your grind. When you can no longer extend your vacation, your camp gets overrun and you are forced to flee. Roll Fitness checks for each member of your group and disable/kill accordingly. - If your founder dies in this, appoint a new one from the surviving sims

Stage 2: Hershel’s Farm After getting out of the overrun camp and having a little happening at the CDC, you are back on the road and lose one of your two kids in a run-in with a horde. Worse, even, your other kid gets shot and is badly injured! Thankfully, you are offered help by a small family on a nearby farm.

- Kill of one of your two CAS-created kids. Sorry, Sophia! - The other CAS-created kid is now injured for the rest of thi stage and can’t help you out or build skills. - Move your sims to one of the lots south of the Chalet in Windernburg (Or Henford on Bagley if Cottage Living is out!)  and build a little farmhouse big enough to accommodate four sims, with a small vegetable garden and 2 power generating and 3 water generating items. -Create four Sims that “own” the farm and help you out. One of them has to be an elder! - Two weeks into this stage, the farm will, unfortunately, get overrun and also set on fire. Do your fitness rolls for everyone and run for your life.

Stage 3: The Prison Again, you are on the run, but there’s a little shimmer of light at the end of the tunnel - an abandoned prison! Now, you just need to like... reclaim it.

- Build a Prison, or download one from the gallery! - Cheat one of your sim pregnant, if you don’t have a pregnancy yet. - Reclaim the prison! Make Fitness rolls for each level + the outside. - After your pregnant Sim gives birth, kill her. Sorry, Lori! - Create a rival 8-sim household and put your sims in a club, and their rivals in one too. Have  “fight (other club)” as one of the activities, then have them visit you and... start... a gathering... ;)

Stage 4 The Prison 2, Electric Boogaloo You defeated Woodbury! ... or did you? Well, you don’t really have time to deal with it right now, because there is a deadly strain of influenza wrecking your community. 

- Start placing ads for roommates. Those are the former Woodbury people you took in! - Every Time someone gets one of the GTW illnesses, roll your d20. Below a 10, they die to the sickness. Kill them, and roll fitness for one of your household sims, since the dead turn into walkers! - Three weeks into this stage, your friend, the Governor of Woodbury, comes back with a fresh new group he roped into his nonsense. Roll Fitness checks and book it. (also kill the Governor. RIP in pieces)

Stage 5: Terminus From bad to worse, you’re on the run again, and split up this time. Divided we fall, huh? Good thing there’s this totally not ominous set of markers leading you to a place called Terminus. I’m sure nothing bad will happen there.

- Split your Household and surviving roommates and pop them all into different empty lots. Play a week with each of them (aging off here, this is meant to happen simultaneously!) and roll on the random events table until you have eight sims left in total. Hope you weren’t attached to any of them. - Put them back into the same household again, and create yet another rival club to beat up. That rival club is Terminus. Surprise, the group with the name meaning “Death” was bad! - Switch to your Terminus household and “invite” your sims over, then lock them in the basement, true sims style. Go downstairs and start a club gathering. Keep an eye on them, every time someone loses a fight, kill them. Do this until you have either 5 good guys left or all of Terminus is dead.

Stage 6: Alexandria and The other blokes You got away from the humanitarians and were invited into the community of Alexandria. Thing are finally looking up again!

- Move to a 50x50 lot and build a little “village” with gardens, energy production and everything you might need. - Create two more 8-sim-households on similar situations and create clubs for them, with the activity to be friendly with yours! These two households will be Hilltop and The Kingdom. - Make one of the Evergreen Harbor Community Spaces a marketplace and frequent it! - Stay in this stage for four weeks!

Stage 7: The Saviour War Things just couldn’t stay okay, could they? You ticked off a horrible cult-of-personality-type organization called the Saviours, who now start their reign of terror against you.

- Create another household and club meant to be mean to you, Hilltop and the kingdom. Make their Leader a magnificent bastard and give that one plot armor. Narrative Immunity! - Host a little multi-club gathering and roll a d8 twice. Look at your own household portrait lineup and kill two of your sims whose portrait position corresponds to your rolls. - Take your strongest fighter, aka the highst fitness stat, aka Daryl Dixon and put them into their own household, to take them out of the equation for a while. They’re the Saviours’ prisoner now! - Congrats, you have been promoted to vassal state. The Saviours demand five of every crop you produce. Don’t hav enough to feed your people? Sucks to be you! - Stay in this stage for 4 weeks, then bring back your poor fighter, and kill off half of the Saviours, add the rest to your household and Kingdom & Hilltop. Their Leader must survive! Keep them in your basement from now on and visit them regularly to gloat.

Stage 8: The Whisperer War Finally, some stability. Oh, whats that? New enemy faction, and this one of even worse? Fantastic.

- Cease communication and trade with Hilltop & Kingdom for two weeks, Then hold a big party! - ...during said party,  kill 12 total sims from each faction. - Create a new rival faction called the Whisperers. Make their two leaders, Alpha & Beta, level 10 in fitness. - Hold weekly brawls with the whisperers. Kill every fight loser, but replenish the Whisperers losses. There’s no end to their forces! - Give Alpha a daughter and take her in after your first clash with them. - When you resume trade, roll a D20 every time you travel away from your lot. Below a 10, your travel party gets attacked by the Whisperers! Roll Fitness checks for every Siim traveling. - Remember the Saviour leader? Yeah, they’re doing better. Have them befried one of your household’s children, and gradually integrate them into your community. - After an additional 4 weeks of this, send your redeemed Saviour leader over to the Whisperers and befriend them. They’re a spy now! - Survive another week, then ply s the Whisperers and attack Hilltop! Move the survivors into your main household. - After this attack, your spy strikes and kills Alpha. Put them back into your household, then gear up for a big fight! - Cheat “Roughhousing ecouraged” in your NAPs, then gather all surviving characters along with the Whisperers and fight!

Did you survive this? Well, until season 11 comes out, that’s as far as we go. You can continue playing with the Random Events and general ruleset!

RANDOM EVENTS:

D20: 1.  There’s a drought. Sell all your stored water and reset your money back down 2. Zombie Attack! Roll Fitness and kill accoridngly! 3. Electric whoopsie-doopsie. Sell your stored electricty and set your money bck down 4. Roving bandits! The next time travel, all your traveling sims lose their inventory contents! If they had none, kill one of them! 5. Baby Boom! Get one fo your Sims pregnant 6. Other Survivors! Roll a d4 and add the resulting nuber of sims to your household! 7. Tragic accident! Kill a random sim 8. Extra Ammo! Every Sim gets a +1 to their next fitness roll! 9. Thunderstorm! Your Sims may not leave their lot for this week! 10: Supply thief! select a random sim and hoard food for this week. At the end of the week they get found out nd either killed or exiled! 11. Breach! Your wall has a breach! Reduce your funds by 150 to fix it. If you don’t have that much, kill a random sim in the resulting zombie incusrsion! 12. Illness! There’s a flareup of the deadly flu from the prison! Play with this Stage’s rules (regarding the illness) for this week! 13: Re-roll! 14. Sabotage! Your fabricator and woodworking table cannot be used this week! 15. Zombie Attack! Roll Fitness and kill accordingly! 16. Lost Child! You find a random child, adopt one! (cheat the money for the adoption) 17: Feast! Your Sims make the poorly informed decision to par-tay! Delete all the stored crops you have. 18. Horde! It’s too dangerous to leave the fortifications right now! Suspend all travel this week. 19. Foraging! Cheat yourself enough money and buy a seasonal seed packet that corresponds to this season! 20. Re-Roll!

[theowritesfiction]

Watching ATS has for me really driven home the point of how badly many writers struggle to write evil.

Late in season 4, it has become very easy for me to identify the problems with ATS, and it’s not just about the weak and poorly written protagonists. It’s the absence of a captivating and threatening antagonist that really makes this show suffer.

The closest that ATS has to a central antagonist is the Wolfram & Hart law firm. The trouble with this concept should be obvious. It’s a LAW FIRM. In a show about powerful supernatural demonic creatures, your main antagonist is a LAW FIRM. And they themselves are just puppets in service of mysterious Senior Partners who are never revealed. As a result, the motivations and goals of Wolfram & Hart are… ehhh?! Completely nebulous and unclear. Their motto might as well be ‘Do Unspecified EVIL!’ There’s literally an episode where this massive law firm conspires to steal a few bob from CHILDREN’S CHARITY. Like… could you come up with a more cartoonish portrayal of evil?

The problem with all of this? Wolfram & Hart are completely nonthreatening villains. Even the protagonists never take them seriously. Angel just strolls into their supposedly impenetrable and well secured building and roughs up whoever he pleases whenever he pleases. In a well written show, seeing the villains plot their schemes should leave the viewer tense. In ATS, watching Wolfram & Hart scheme makes me laugh and reach for the popcorn.

Let’s move on to specific characters, starting with Lilah. Three and a half seasons later and after her death, I still fail to understand the point of her character. She was never allowed to be competent, to succeed at any of her schemes or to pose any sort of serious threat to the protagonists. I don’t know anything about her goals, ambitions and motivations other than basic ‘I’m evil, yay!’ But why is she like that? I mean, soulless corporate empty suits exist, but they’re not important characters in TV shows. For her role, Lilah should have had an actual personality, but there was just so little. And that’s disappointing, because if they had only allowed her to be competent and occasionally succeed at thwarting the heroes, she would have been more threatening and a credible villain. As it was, Angel just threatened her whenever he pleased, and she bent over backwards to please him every time. Even her ‘romance’ with Wesley was botched and disappointing. She supposedly seduced Wesley to use him and learn his secrets… except that she failed even at that, and Wesley learned more from her than she did from him. Also, Wesley’s regret at having failed to redeem her was seriously pathetic. I’m sorry, but where was the actual effort to do that? All we saw was them having sex and Wesley talking shit about her. Was he redeeming her with his magic dick? Good grief, this show violates the principle of 'show not tell' ALL THE TIME. How can professional writers be this bad?

Moving on to Cordelia, or should I use air quotes when speaking about Cordelia, because she’s apparently possessed by… the most stupid and ridiculous evil entity ever? Let’s do a resume. First of all, this entity is ostensibly incredibly powerful, and yet for the longest time they don’t actually do anything with this power. The only thing they do is directly speak in the mind of Angelus. And make the cringiest threats ever. Also, this supposedly powerful entity is incredibly incompetent in how they manage to waste an asset in the Beast. Why would you even have Beast confront Angelus? If you wanted Angelus on your side, just go after him yourself… like you literally did an episode later, but only after the Beast was already dead. So moronic. Also, what is even the goal of this evil entity? There is no plan other than just ‘have Beast do unspecific evil things and create chaos’. Like I’m sorry, but antagonists need goals and motivations too, that’s just Writing 101. These hack writers need to hand in their laptops and find a different profession.

And it really would help to make your antagonists feel like credible threats if they actually had a plan, you know? A plan that wasn’t STUPID, I should add. One of the funniest examples is Holtz in season 3. He spends all this time and effort training his vampire slayers to go after Angel. They are all defeated in 15 seconds of screen time. I don’t even… come on you guys! Can professional writers stop making things up as they go, please?

Anyway, that was a really long rant, ATS specific maybe, but I feel like a lot of this applies to writing antagonists in general. I think people who follow my blog for ATLA related reasons can probably apply this to the ATLA comics. I really, really don’t understand why writing evil is so hard for some people. Nothing turns me off a piece of media quicker than only shallow antagonists.

[reallybriefartisan]

lmao hiccstrid aint abusive. Yall just dont like Astrid and try to make up excuses to invalidate them.

Hiccup clearly loves her and she loves him. He's a smart person and if he was in an abusive relationship or in one that he's not happy, he could easily get out of it.

Your crackships are just that, CRACKships🥴

First of all I love Astrid as a character. I've grown up with these characters my whole teenage to adult life and I can spot the differences. She's literally the person we should look up to. But they fucking did her dirty by pairing her with Hiccup. I love Hiccup too. They just. Don't fit right if that makes sense.

The reason why this ship doesn't sit right comes entirely from the first movie. Several times she uses physical aggression towards him. Example, twisting his arms , shoving his head into rock and over all causing him extreme pain. But because she kisses him and becomes interested in him its okay? I don't think so. If it were the other way everyone would be all over it. Saying its not okay a boy did it.

Fast forward to the shows in between. Similar things happen where Hiccup is very vocal about Astrid hitting him and asks her 26 times throughout the series for her to stop. She doesn't. Not to mention she threw several hissy fits during times of great peril for Hiccup not paying attention to you guessed it her. Also going on so I will make a separate posts about his animation that shows he's not okay and that the animators behind the series didn't seem okay to it either. 😌

In the TV series we find out Astrid and her family are disgraced in the eyes of Berk even worse than Hiccup being the tribe outcast. She has the great potential but they threw it under the bus in my honest opinion.

The other reason why I don't like the ship is because ASTRID IS THE REASON STOICK DIED! Let that one sink in. If she hadn't flown her mouth off as she did in Drago's scene we find out later in the same scene Hiccup and family were going to go to Berk. Safety in numbers. But because of what Astrid said it caused Drago to strike premature and caused the death of Hiccup's father.

Lastly the animation of Hiccups discomfort around Astrid continues in the third movie. I really don't like the third movie cause they tossed out a lot of the character development for the book ending but that's another story for another time but I'm going to say a lot of people who are in abusive relationships find themselves unable to get out of it safely. But in Hiccup's case he wouldn't be able to do so he's the chief. In viking times if something were to happen as him leaving a relationship like that he and his children would be at risk by other tribe members who already don't see him fit to be chief.

In conclusion that whole ship is just a power grab to help redeem and already disgraced family. While the kids are cute he's got better chemistry with other characters. Not to mention there's animated proof behind it too. So.

[stina-is-a-punk-rocker]

jacqueline wilson’s ‘love lessons’

tw: abuse, pedophilia, characters making Bad Decisions, long unnecessary spiel about my childhood like I’m running a recipe blog

It’s funny how loads of the authors who helped shaped me into the vaguely humanoid being I am today have names beginning with the letter ‘J’; Judy Blume, Jeff Kinney, John Green, J.K. Rowling (yikes, I know) … and Jacqueline Wilson.

I’ve never owned a Jacqueline Wilson book of my own; they were always borrowed from a friend, or from a friend of a friend, or from a friend of a cousin- you get the gist. Her books, for me, come with an entire aesthetic: something reminiscent of yard sales, and reading under the covers with a flashlight, and being lulled into a false sense of security by the deceptively innocent Nick Sharratt illustration on the cover until someone’s best friend gets mowed over.

So I knew what I was getting into when I picked up Love Lessons. I knew this was going to be Fucked Up; and boy, was I right.

(Here’s the part where I warn you about spoilers.)

From an abusive dad to creepy child predator teachers to slut-shaming and victim blaming, this book has it all.

The main character is Prudence ‘Prue’ King, who is homeschooled at the beginning of the book, along with her sister, Grace. Their parents remain rooted in the early twentieth century, and are very strict about- well, everything. No TV, no computers, not a single mobile phone in the house; their clothing worse than the orphans’ from Annie; and their father remains distinctly distrustful of modern institutions like the school and the hospital; and so on, and so forth.

Daddy King suffers a stroke, and has to be taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, Mrs. King (a floppy, spineless woman who lives in fear and awe of her, frankly horrid, husband) sends the girls to school, behind the then invalid Mr. King’s back. Cue Prue and Grace being the freakshows of the school, with their strange clothing and overbearing mother.

Grace manages to make friends, but Prue remains alone. The kids are dicks, the teachers are dicks… well, all of them but one. And that’s the art teacher, Mr. Raxberry (I just couldn’t get over that name; it seems like something you’d name a mythical plant from Pixie Hollow or some shit. I’m assuming it isn’t an actual name, since the spelling & grammar check on my computer doesn’t seem to recognize it), or Rax, as he’s called.

Oh, yeah; Prudence’s favorite subject in school is art, and she’s a whiz at it. This is relevant, because reasons.

And here’s where stuff gets murky. Prue develops a crush on Rax- which is perfectly normal. I’m definitely no stranger to it; I’ve had crushes on my teachers, my mum admitted she used to think one of her professors was cute. And yeah, as I grew older, I grew out of those crushes and now have a markedly more refined taste in men (unless he’s 5’ 7’’, born in ’97 and named Bang Chan, I don’t want him); and my mum married my dad, so I’m assuming she did, too. Admittedly, now that my dad teaches at a university, it’s icky to think that there might be students who have crushes on him- but I digress.

My point is, loads of us have liked our teachers. But I doubt the majority of us have acted on it.

And Prue actively showing her interest in Rax isn’t the worst part. That’s a spot reserved for Rax reciprocating her feelings.

Guess Ezra Fitz and Ms. Grundy (yes, I watched Riverdale; please don’t cancel me) have a new addition to the Creep Club.

The age of consent in the UK is 16, if I’m not mistaken. Prue is 14. She’s just barely become a teenager, and she’s being preyed upon.

Because that is what Rax is. He’s a predator; he preys upon this vulnerable girl who’s never been in a relationship before- hell, she’s never even had friends- her father’s abusive, so she obviously doesn’t have the best experience when it comes to men- she’s unpopular at school, with the students and staff alike- and he lures her in. I don’t care how bloody nice he is to Sarah, or what a good dad he is (well, he’s really not, seeing as he cheated on the mother of his children WITH A BLOODY FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD CHILD)- the guy’s a fucking pedophile.

I was staunchly stuck at a yellow light with him; like, sure, maybe Prue thinks he’s flirting with her- maybe she’s looking at this all wrong, she doesn’t know how relationships work- see, he drew a picture of Sarah, too, in his secret notebook- Prue’s just reading into this too much- up until he says he loves her.

Dude. Humbert fucking Humbert. She’s fourteen, for Christ’s sake, and you’re married. You have two children. She’s a child. She’s probably closer to your son’s age than she is to yours.

(This is the part where I bury my head in my pillow. And scream. Extensively, and with passion.)

The book does make some genuinely good commentary on slut-shaming and victim blaming and abusive parenting. And on one hand, I can see why so many people find issue with the romanticization of the when I kissed the teacher trope- but I can defend it, too.

The book is in Prue’s perspective. She thinks she’s in love with Rax, so obviously, she’s not going to throw in some valuable moral at the end- because she’s too young and inexperienced to think otherwise. And sadly, there are loads of instances of child abuse that go unreported because the victims just don’t know better.

What I have issue with is how the school dealt with it, ultimately. Prudence, a child, has to deal with the consequences of the actions of a literal child predator. Sure, Rax ‘clears his name’ by cooking up some bullshit story about how it was only a crush and he didn’t encourage it, but you’d think other adults would know better and, oh, I dunno- dig deeper into it, instead of blaming it on a child?

“She says you told Mr. Raxberry you loved him and he held you in his arms and fondled you.”

Which Prudence denies, because, again, she doesn’t know better. She then goes on to say that they did nothing wrong. To which the adult speaking to her, in this case, the principal, Miss Wilmott, goes on to say:

“I’m not sure that’s entirely true… I feel that there are some aspects of your friendship that could be considered inappropriate.”

FYI, lady, he kissed her- multiple times (not that kissing her once makes him any more redeemable), and told her he loved her, and admitted to fantasizing about running away with her and leaving his family behind. Fun fact: do you know Prudence is underage?

You’d think that Miss Wilmott would maybe give this whole fiasco a favorable ending, but it turns out she listens to school gossip;

“I haven’t been at all happy with your attitude. You don’t seem to understand how to behave in school. I’ve heard tales of unsuitable underwear and then a silly romance with one of the boys in your class. I feel that in the space of a few short weeks you’ve made rather a bad name for yourself… I don’t know whether you intend to be deliberately insolent but you certainly come across as an unpleasantly opinionated and arrogant girl… I can’t help feeling that you’ll be much better off elsewhere. I shall try hard to engineer a suitable transfer to another school.”

And then she comes out with this gem:

“If you won’t leave, then I shall have to ensure that Mr. Raxberry finds another position.”

“No, you can’t do that! He’s a brilliant teacher.”

“You should have thought of that before you started acting in this ridiculous and precocious manner. If I were another kind of headteacher, I would have Mr. Raxberry instantly suspended. There could even be a court case. He would not only lose his job, he could find himself in very serious trouble. Did you ever stop to think about that?”

Girlboss, gaslight and gatekeep. The fucking trifecta.

Also, by ‘another kind of headteacher’, does she mean the kind of headteacher WHO DOESN’T LET CHILD PREDATORS ROAM FREELY WITHIN THEIR HALLS?

This bitch is out here blaming a child, a literal child, for the crimes of an adult man.

The only time Prue seems aware of the fact that Mr. Raxberry is actually a very shit person is her immediate thoughts that follow after she tells Miss Wilmott she’ll take the fall;

I so wanted to save darling Rax- and yet why hadn’t he wanted to save me? Had he told Miss Wilmott it was all my fault, that I’d got a ridiculous crush on him, that I’d made ludicrous advances to him? … I wanted to tell this horrible, patronizing woman how hungrily he’d kissed me, but I couldn’t do it. I loved him. I had to help him.

NO, SWEETHEART; YOU MOST DEFINITELY DO NOT.

And maybe I’m going overboard with all these excerpts, but here’s what Rax has to tell Prue, after school, following her expulsion:

“I let her think the worst of you, the best of me, just to save my skin. I said it was ridiculous talking about a love affair between us. I said you simply had a crush on me, and that I was just trying to be kind… You were brave enough to stand up to me and force me to acknowledge the truth… I love you… That’s why I had to take a risk and see you this one last time. I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care… Every night when I close my eyes, I’ll think of us together in this car and how badly I wanted to drive off with you. I’ll imagine us walking hand in hand at the water’s edge… I wish I wasn’t such a coward.”

(I burrow into the pillow further. I’m trying to suffocate myself.)

And that’s where I think Wilson went wrong. Sure, Prudence getting expelled for something that was completely out of her hands is unfair, and horrible, but it’s real. That shit can happen.

What’s bad is showing Rax in a positive light after all that. If only Wilson had written Rax to not be the Romeo he thinks he is. Make him ignore Prudence, throw her under the bus in front of her face, instead of this star-crossed lovers bullshit it’s made out to be. Show your younger audience that Rax is not a good man. I’ve got a little over two weeks left for my twentieth; I can see why this is unacceptable. But I was a little younger than Prue when I watched Pretty Little Liars, and my only gripe with Aria dating Ezra was that Noel Kahn was so much cuter.

It shows when you scroll down the Goodreads reviews; you’ve got adults giving it one or two stars, and teenagers giving it four or five, with their biggest complaints being, “but Toby was cuter!!!”

Other non-pedophilia related complaints regarding the book include: Prudence being unlikable- which I didn’t really notice, considering she reacted to some people way better than I would’ve, even at 19 (which probably says a lot more about me than it does about Prue, but oh well). Still, Prudence obviously isn’t the most prudent of people- and again, she’s fourteen. Look me in eye and tell me you weren’t an arsehole at that age (unless you’re fourteen now, in which case, I assure you that you’ll look back on yourself someday and go ‘wtf was I thinking’). Bringing up Toby’s dyslexia in an argument was low, though.

There were people who thought the Kings’ almost-Amish lifestyle was exaggerated and unrealistic, but I assure you, it may very well be real. There are 8 billion people on the world- it’s fair to assume that several of them are complete weirdos.

Grace was a sweet character, and I adored her with every fiber of my being. As were her friends Iggy and Figgy. Honestly, I would’ve loved a book about Iggy, Figgy and Piggy’s (mis)adventures too.

[caelum-in-the-avatarverse]

If I'm understanding this right Ozai desires to be Fire Lord, and to that end follows in the family tradition of molding his kids into perfectly apathetic Killing Machines who work to intimidate the nobility, sending them out to the front to better the war effort. LT dies and OZ shows them off to AZ, in hopes of being named the heir by appealing to his dad's logic, but AZ insists that Iroh will remain heir, bcuz Ozai is lazy, has no eye for basic strategy and wants the throne for pure kicks.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my headcanon.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tho I don’t think that it’s a FN Royal Family tradition to mold your kids into “perfectly apathetic killing machines.” Pretty sure that was all Ozai. Iroh was apparently Azulon’s favored child, and while he was good at killing, he had a lot of other traits and interests too, even before his heel-face turn. Lu Ten seemed to have a cheerful childhood per that flashback dream. Azulon can come across as apathetic and you could argue that Sozin raised him to be a killing machine, but I figure Azulon is just old and tired of Ozai’s BS and Sozin, being 82 and preoccupied with world conquest at the time of his birth, didn’t have much hand in raising him.

Sure, they’re a family of genocidal maniacs, but I think Ozai was the only one who actually abused and purposely traumatized his kids. And the reason he wanted Zuko and Azula to be perfectly apathetic killing machines is because if they were anything else, anything that might allow them their own likes and goals and interests, it might distract them from what Ozai saw as his children’s true purpose, which is to make him look good and be his political tools.

And yeah, that’s exactly how he was using them in the Zuko Alone flashback, and no, Azulon didn’t appreciate it.

I like to think Ozai is, objectively, the worst leader out of the three wartime Fire Lords. Like, politically. He’s the big bad of the series, but history will remember him as an embarrassing six-year blip of a ruler who didn’t do much and got his butt kicked by a 13-year-old. In Fire Nation history textbooks, he’s a brief paragraph bridging Azulon’s assassination and Zuko’s banishment and subsequent victory. Sozin had a vision and set it in motion, Azulon spent the better part of a century leading the war, heck even Iroh was off conquering stuff, and Ozai......I mean you could argue Ozai did something in the military as a prince, but I don’t see it. Everything Ozai does in the series, he does by lying and tricking and getting other people to do it for him - Ursa killed Azulon, Azula conquered Ba Sing Se, and even War Minister Qing was the person obtaining all the Fire Nation’s war technology. When he actually does do something himself, it’s, like, burning off the face of a defenseless 13-year-old who can’t fight back. Wow, what an accomplishment. He didn’t even face Aang during the eclipse. He got his fourteen year old daughter to do it instead. And despite his bravado by sending away the guards when Zuko came to face him, he pretty obviously considered Zuko a threat once the swords were drawn, because loserlord never bothered to put any effort into obtaining any skills beyond burning stuff indiscriminately.

I see Ozai as, like, that guy whose rich parents paid for him to go to college, and now he’s graduated and doesn’t have a job and isn’t interested in getting one or in moving out of the house, or doing anything really, but acts like he’s the universe’s gift to humanity and like he knows everything and can do anything but until destiny comes calling he’s just gonna chill on his parents’ couch and watch TV. He’s happy to coast on his royal status and all the respect that comes with it. Power is great, but responsibility sounds annoying. Then he gets annoyed that Iroh has more power than him just because Iroh has more responsibilities. That is so not fair. And yeah, he basically wants the throne for kicks, he wants it because he wants it, and if you say “but dude doesn’t responsibility give you hives?” he’ll laugh because being the Fire Lord means you get to be powerful, not necessarily responsible.

I wanna take a minute to say that I love coming up with FN Royal Family headcanons that deepens them as people and shows how awful they are and how ruthless and cunning and determined and intelligent they are, too. I try to write them as intriguing characters and terrible people. But with Ozai, I like to just have him be terrible, with no likeable or redeeming qualities, just as the show portrayed him. Ozai is what you get after a century of war, genocide, and Fire Nation supremacy, the natural culmination of his forefathers’ legacy. My Sozin and Azulon are evil, but also good leaders. My Ozai is evil, but a terrible leader due to his extreme self-centeredness.

Ozai certainly did think he was appealing to his dad’s logic in the throne room. Problem is, Ozai is a narcissist who thinks he’s the center of the universe, and thus he assumes all logic revolves around him. He can’t conceive a reality where what he wants isn’t relevant to the situation. In his eyes, Iroh couldn’t be the next Fire Lord, not after showing such weakness and not having any more heirs, and therefore Ozai was the only logical choice to take the throne. Surely Azulon could see that?

That’s Desperate Narcissistic Ozai Logic. Real World Logic works something more like this: Azulon knows exactly what kind of a brat his annoying secondborn is and doesn’t want him anywhere near the throne, Iroh has an impressive resume as a great leader and Azulon has always planned for him to be his successor, and if Iroh doesn’t have his own kid anymore he is still fully capable of naming his niece or nephew as his heir once he’s had time to grieve. The world doesn’t revolve around you, Ozai; you are indeed irrelevant to the line of succession if I decide you are.

Ozai, of course, didn’t take that too well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[pochiperpe90]

Interview with the director of “They Call Me Jeeg”

Interview with director Gabriele Mainetti about the movie and the Zingaro (Luca Marinelli)

When I think back to “They call me Jeeg” I think of the Zingaro. In your film there is one of the most beautiful villains of Italian cinema of recent years, how was he born?

We wanted to create a villain that wasn't just bad. We wanted to give it a three-dimensionality, complicate it and make it fascinating and original. In my opinion, the Zingaro is a very successful character and much loved by everyone for a specific reason: because they feel him close. He is the victim of what is a bit of a contemporary neurosis, that is, the need to showcase himself. We are now victims of how many likes we get on social networks and how many views does the video we post on YouTube, and he’s interesting because when he was a kid he performed in a singing interpretation on ‘Buona Domenica’ and then he lived what many people did: he become a meteor (it means that his fame lasted very little). But it’s as if he had never accepted it and brought with him this narcissistic attitude, and he wants to become a respected and almost famous criminal, but it makes no sense, because criminals when they become so important have to live in basements, it's not that you can show off, so it's a bit of a nonsense, and that's all the madness of the Zingaro.

It was interesting, because when I met people to do the auditions they all came with - as they say in Rome - 'the nostrils of the nose widened like bulls', as the kind of bad guys who beat you. But the Zingaro is an intelligent, sophisticated character, with a talent, who can sing, elegant, who has his own aesthetic idea, he is beautiful, and therefore I needed someone who would bring me the intelligence of the character, and Marinelli although at beginning was very distant from what you saw on the screen, had made me glimpse this necessary feature.

The stakes were high. It was difficult after seeing Luca Marinelli as Cesare in Claudio Caligari's ‘Don't Be Bad’ to think that in a few months he would be back with another strong character.

I shot a year before ‘Don't be bad’ and this helped him a lot, he always recognizes it when he can. Luca was far from the peripheral element, he is a boy who grew up in a modest family, in the streets with his friends, but still he was in Prati, he wasn’t in San Basilio, in Tor Bella Monaca or Corviale. He has never experienced one of these realities, and this character must have had this reality in his blood here, and the need to redeem himself socially and find the famous 'turning point' of the criminal. I took him, took him to Tor Bella Monaca, we did a lot of tests, it was a very intense job. At the beginning there was a moment of jealousy, not because the ‘Maestro’ had taken him, but because it was released first, but it was right. At one point I said: "What do I care!", Caligari taught me so much with two films - if they say that Caligari has made little cinema, it’s the biggest bullshit that can be said, because in Caligari’s movies there is more of that cinema that in a hundred films of many morons. The fact that he saw this light inside Luca and the fact that I also saw it inside him, means that something works. I love Caligari, I love him as much as I loved ‘Don't be bad’.

I admit I was almost upset when at the press conference at the Quattro Fontane, here in Rome, Marinelli arrived in plain clothes, not dressed as the Zingaro …

He is very shy, very reserved, he’s exactly the opposite of his character. Paradoxically in life Santamaria is the Zingaro, and Enzo is Luca Marinelli …

The nice thing about the Zingaro is that we discover his character and his past little by little, when we think that the character has been defined and yet, not really. I loved his unexpected obsession with Italian singers, four queens of the Eighties: Loredana Bertè, Gianna Nannini, Nada and Anna Oxa …

We actually had an Italian singer in mind but we were unable to involve him, we thought of replacing him with another singer but we continued to find only women and we said to ourselves "but she doesn't have the power of this one", and in the end the idea: "but why don't we take several, as if he was an expert?", and this thing was born a lot with Luca, especially the musical choice, we went there, we evaluated them, we discovered which ones we could use - because you know music always has a cost ... I am a lover of all four singers put in the film, TOTAL, which should probably lead me to question myself about my sexual orientation, right now I continue to heterosexualize everything, but I love them, a lot, and I loved Anna Oxa when I was little, Berté despite now looking like Mickey Rourke is always super, great, she always has a crazy voice.

Since we met the Zingaro, with some of my friends, we greet each other with: «C’è una ragione che cresce in me»

To think that someone posted to me on the Internet: "If I started singing such a shitty song, it means that the film is really beautiful!", and I replied to him: "But how dare you saying that “Un’emozione da poco” is a shitty song, you are a shit!».

What was it like shooting the scene in which Luca Marinelli, in a shady club, sings and dances in a sequined jacket, shirtless, with just a glove, with his hair back, with high-heeled boots and tight pants, the song by Anna Oxa?

Luca did it I think 15 times. In the end, the voice was right, Luca has a very strong voice, he is very resistant, he never loses control. I made him do it a lot of times, because he wanted to make it perfect and I kept following him. I have told it through many fields. We have thought about it a lot.

Look, the Zingaro was a very difficult character. The look, how to throw his hair, how to dress him, how he had to sing, how he had to perform, which tattoos… is the character we have thought about the most. Then if you notice he is clearly a quote from David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, especially in the final part.

Another thing that I liked so much about your film is that there are no good and bad characters. Bad guys are never just bad guys. And it’s precisely the weaknesses of the characters that make them close to us, the Zingaro who sings at the top of his voice “Non sono una signora” in the car with friends as if he was at the stadium, Enzo who eats the usual cream pudding in an atmosphere of extreme desolation in front of the TV, Alessia fixed with a single DVD, a cartoon for children. “They call me Jeeg” is a film about superheroes who are real people, who are so real that at different moments in the film we identified with a different protagonist of the three.

Thank you so much because this thing you say, is not easy. Usually the emotional vehicles are always one or two, three is tough. It all depends on how the writing is set up. The character is the most important thing in the film, because it’s the emotional vehicle of the viewer. In America they had already tried it in some films. Super didn’t have super powers but he was a sort of vigilant who disguised himself and went to do good, he was a loser in an American town who clashes with this boss, microboss of the underworld, and must kill the Evil. The Manichean vision between Good and Evil, which is very American, still makes me laugh.

This attempt to mix what I call the ‘Pasolini element’ with the ‘fantastic element’, which I had already tried in my short films ‘Tiger Boy’ and ‘Basette’, comes naturally to me. You know, I was lucky enough to have done the American school, I was part of the University in New York, my grandmother lived the first years of her life in New Jersey, I have relatives in New Jersey, my sister lives in America, I have a very "happy" relationship with America, the American system is total crazy, but I understand their cinema, and I understand their fictions, and I understand why we digest some things and we don't digest others, I know how we work. For me, the only way to get to the suspension of disbelief was to tell characters that are as real as possible, then hook on to a very strong experience. Because if you are so passionate about him, you can't not believe him when he has super power, but he has to react to super power as anyone would react. They are really well written.

This thing here makes me laugh ... No one has ever focused on this thing. This guy falls from the top floor and runs away! Escape! What the fuck are you running away for? He wasn't hurt but he runs away, he has to run away because he's afraid, he goes back home and if he has to, he can't think about it yet, he doesn't think about it yet, but it's typical of someone who doesn't want to have responsibility. Then when he gets angry that he punches the wall, he still struggles, and when he becomes aware of the fact that he has super powers, since he is a criminal, what does he do? He rob an ATM, to buy more yogurt. That's where the stuff works. If, on the other hand, you made him fall from the top floor and then say: "Damn, I’m so strong!", he would jump again, climb up, smash his head, gut, takes his cocaine, it seemed, you know ... but what are we talking about.

The 80s songs, Buona Domenica, YouTube, superheroes, the Roman suburbs, the Olympic stadium ... the mix of elements that are part of the story of “They call me Jeeg” could be very risky, but the way it’s narrated makes this a winning combination. You tell things you know without judging them.

Exactly. Many kids call me and tell me: «Ah, but how did you do it, but how did you do it», «How it should be done» I replied: «Guys, you should talk about things that concern you!». You have to talk about the things that belong to you, and try to insert them into what the cinematographic genre is, that genre has its codes, if you want to do an even more extreme operation, but I don't recommend it, you have to completely subvert them. But you have to make it work for what you are doing. I am an admirer, for example, of Puglielli's ‘Dorme’, it's a WONDERFUL film; he recounted the frustration of his height, which is actually a shortness. We must start from the things we know, from our frailties. Unfortunately, the American superheroes, especially the Marvel ones, lately, are all plastic. I always ask myself, a question that always arises spontaneously, but how the fuck do they put all that spandex stuff on? How do they get into it? Do they all oil themselves first? It looks like a wetsuit ... I find it really ridiculous. In fact, it's not that I don't like superhero movies, I like Batman, because he still has a great internal conflict and everything, but here I need characters with great fragility. My favorite superhero movie is The Guardians of the Galaxy, because I know five ramshackle people who have the responsibility of saving the world. And they manage to do it, how? Because they establish a true relationship between them, which is that of friendship, and realizing that they love each other, they understand that they can also love others and say to each other "Oh well, let's save these assholes", it's fantastic, it's fantastic, it's beautiful. I can empathize with them. Certainly with Superman I can’t, I can’t succeed.

In the days I watched “They call me Jeeg” I had arrived at the third episode of Jessica Jones, the Netflix series in which the protagonist takes the opposite path of Enzo, from superheroine to 'normal' person, investigator with somewhat special powers. What do you think of recent series or movies that have a superhero at the center?

I saw the first two episodes but it bored me a bit. Deadpool is just the answer to this clean cinema, with him farting, getting sodomized by his partner and he's nice, but he didn't convince me too much, because he is in reaction to the plastic of these super heroes, and therefore he mocks everyone. But I don't give a damn about that either. I want the story of a person, I want the story of a character, that's the thing that excites me. I saw Daredevil and I didn't mind, it wasn't bad.

The background of Rome in “They Call Me Jeeg” is an important component. Are there any Italian films set in recent years, in the capital, that you care most about? I think of Romanzo Criminale, The great beauty, Don't be bad, Suburra.

They are very different films. Sorrentino has such a unique look that one cannot fail to recognize it. Formally it’s indisputable. Sometimes, from a content point of view, there are some things that I probably can't grasp, and I don't know if it's my limit; I like to get excited, the staging excites me, but I don't know, I love ‘La dolce vita’, I love Fellini, I love ‘Otto e mezzo’, that distorted and grotesque vision that he had ... but there is no comparison, that would be nonsense.

“Don’t be bad” is certainly the one that excited me the most. Who wants to make a certain type of cinema, social cinema, committed cinema, should study this ability of Caligari (but how much has he been criticized? Because yes, "Masterpiece" and that and that, but everyone criticizes a lot of it, because they are infamous ‘rosiconi’ → jealous people in the Roman dialect). What Caligari teaches is that he puts you next to a character with extreme problems but makes him feel like a friend, makes you understand that he is like you and allows you to identify. He has a deep friendship which is that between Cesare and Vittorio, he has a love story, the character of Cesare, as well as that of Vittorio, even the drug itself is experienced as fun at the beginning, as a sort of pact of love between the two of them, then you understand many things, that is something that is a great lesson in cinema, it’s a lesson in profound cinema, of cinema that interests me, cinema that excites you.

Romanzo Criminale is a very successful genre operation, which has highlighted the possibility of tackling the genre when it was thought to be banned; when I had this subject in 2010 I used to shoot like a jerk for all the productions and they said to me that: "Don't have to do this thing, because it doesn't make sense, genre cinema isn’t liked in Italy, it doesn't work, it's a waste of time, among other things, we don't have the skills to organize it», and instead Romanzo Criminale, then the series, then Gomorra the series, Suburra, now they make Suburra the series, is telling the opposite. Fortunately there is a Romanzo Criminale, fortunately there is ‘The Great Beauty’ who won the Oscar, fortunately there is ‘Don't be bad’.

DUDEMAG

Just wanted to translate this old interview for the non-italian’s fans ^^ (sorry for my English)  

[nos4a2-fanpage]

My name is Hannah and in this essay I will be utilizing the skills I learned in AP lit for the first time ever to explain how the AMC TV show NOS4A2 did Charles Talent Manx dirty. Now, I have only seen season 1 (because I’m poor and can’t afford cable) so just keep that in mind.

~FIRST AND FOREMOST, this has nothing to do with acting. Zachary Quinto is a great actor and was absolutely perfect for this role.~

To begin with, in the novel of the same name by Joe Hill, Charlie was borderline a morally grey character. (For the sake of the argument, let’s ignore the fact that he kidnapped children and turned them into small vampires for the time being). He was mild mannered unless provoked, and even then only acted in defense. In the show, one of the first things Charlie does on screen is kill Haley’s cat, Mittens, without reason. (In the novel, Mittens wandered off and was hit by a car, which is how Vic found it using her shorter way.) The show vilified him and made it hard to root for him as a character, because no one wants to root for an antagonist who’s cruel to animals.

Another key difference in character is TV Charlie’s lack of humor. In the novel, Charlie is witty and snarky, even after Bing shoots him in the ear. In the show, his humor is much more dry, and used only to get a cheap laugh. He’s portrayed as a more serious character, and one could argue that in the novel, Charlie’s charm and good nature is part of what makes him such a likable antagonist. Most of those redeeming qualities were stripped away.

My third and final point is, perhaps, the most controversial: his relationship with the protagonist, Vic McQueen. When Charlie first meets Vic in the novel, he chases her into Sleigh House and tries to burn her alive. In the show, the second Charlie sees Vic, he starts simping over her. Like, third line out of his mouth is “my kids need a mother... you’d be very welcome in Christmasland.” He then proceeds to simp over her for the next few episodes. WHAT?! Where did that come from? (Let’s keep in mind that Vic is 18 and Charlie is, like, a hundred.) He only stops simping when he realizes that Vic slept with her boyfriend, and then we finally(!) get to the whole “light her up!” bits. I don’t even know where to begin to unpack this. In the novel, Charlie is (happily) a bachelor, after being married twice to two horrible women. He also hates women in general, after having a neglectful mother and being married to two awful women. Towards the end of the novel, he implies that he and Vic might have had chemistry in another life, but that’s the extent of their “romance”. He prefers his women to not be heavily tattooed and swearing like sailors, apparently.

In conclusion, for these reasons (and so many others, let’s be real here), the TV series portrayed Charlie Manx in a way that made him almost unlikable. The show was entertaining, don’t get me wrong, but NOS4A2 is one of my all time favorite books, and I just think the show could have kept certain elements in.

[monysmediareview]

Shadowhunters (Freeform show) Review

Review #2!!

In case you missed it, I wrote a review on the Mortal Instruments book series books 1-3 (they’re the only ones I read because a chapter into book 4 and I was over it). I had mixed feelings on it, as I do with most things - including the Shadowhunters TV show, which is what this review is about!

Casting

Let’s talk about the casting in this show. First of all, I think the cast matched the physical descriptions of each character in the books and I very much enjoyed that. I do like when shows take liberties with casting, especially for the sake of things like diversity but there’s something very satisfying about seeing the characters exactly as they were written. 

I don’t think all of the acting was fantastic, but it’s FreeForm so I really didn’t expect much. It did get a lot better as the series went on and I think the actors really found their footing with these characters. It’s one of the reasons that I love series so much more than movies for things like this because there’s growth and the chance to really explore characters as they exist. These characters really took on a life of their own in a way, but we’ll get into that as I go through the rest of my points here. 

One thing I will say is, while this show did much better than others in terms of diversity it is not lost on me that the BIPOC characters in this show (and in the book series as well) were all “other” characters. As is often the case, people of color in fantasy media are usually portrayed as animals such as werewolves, or other “undesirable” characters. This is an incredibly complex part of casting, creating, and writing, and I will not get into it here, but I didn’t want to not mention it. 

Gay Pride & True Love

If you read my review of the Mortal Instruments series then you already know that I love love love Alec and Magnus, but that love grew exponentially when I watched the show. Magnus was an interesting character in the books but Harry Shum Jr. really brought the character to life and that show especially in the scenes with Alec. The show also gives Alec a ton more depth than in the books and I love that they didn’t keep him hung up on Jace (a straight man) for most of the story. He fell for Magnus and he fell for him hard. Magnus is the one that broke through Alec’s shell and encouraged him to be himself. By cutting away all the petty teenager shit that was in the books we were able to see this real, complex, but honest and deep love story that rivaled the main love interests immensely. I would watch this show over and over just to watch these two again. 

Representation and diversity are two huge factors when I think about whether or not I liked a piece of media. These kinds of things are what makes media so relatable, real, and ultimately enjoyable in a lot of ways. This show didn’t make the characters gay-ness a main factor of their relationship; they just showed a relationship as they would with a straight couple. They didn’t ignore their gay-ness either, though, and acknowledged the difficulties within that. By making this normal, they took huge strides in showing these kinds of relationships on TV and I adore that. And I just cannot get enough of this pairing in general - there are so many contrasts and compliments in their relationship and it’s what I honestly consider to be a perfect OTP relationship in any kind of romantic plot. 

10/10 would watch the show just for Alec and Magnus. 

I like Clary better in the show than in the books

Clary is by far, not one of my favorite characters in the fantasy genre. I find her to be selfish, martyr-like, and just kind of annoying but I really felt like the show was able to redeem the decent characteristics that she has and shed off most of the aggravating ones. 

As a whole, I am not a fan of how stupid the books make Clary out to be. Clary falls into the category of characters I don’t like because there is ultimately nothing very special about them yet they end up with a guy who is completely out of their league in every way who is head over heels in love with them. It infuriates me so much and Clary is not an exception to this rule. Her character is still this way in the show but it is much less evident because she seems to be more of an active participant in her own life and I don’t have to sit through her endless internal monologues about how attractive or strong or whatever Jace is. Thoughts that she still has while she thinks they’re siblings. At least in the show, these characters seem to draw a strong boundary here when they think they’re related rather than making out in a field like they did in the books. 

Clary also has a much stronger sense of self in the show and often reflects on what her life was and what it has become, how she’s grown. And I think that’s a huge part of it - that she has grown when in the books she was just constantly such a dumbstruck teenager who only thought of herself. I absolutely love the difference in her character here so I’ll give the show a star for that. 

Her relationships with other characters is also so much stronger. I believe this is in part because we don’t know her every inner thought about them and we also aren’t distracted by her distraction that is Jace. Her relationship with Izzy is so much better and stronger. I’ll always give good reviews to strong female relationships! Even her friendship and relationship with Simon is more in depth in the show. Their book friendship is very baseline; they constantly say they’re best friends but that’s not really reflected in the way they act around each other. In the show they have anecdotes about the past we never see in the books, they talk in a comfortable way and even show their relationship with each other’s families a lot more. This plays into her being an active participant in her own life as well. 

The Lightwood Family Drama

This might be something that happens later on in the books (however I don’t think so because of some spoilers I’ve received on my main account) but I really liked the Lightwood family subplot. I would imagine they have some marital problems after Max’s death in the books but considering they don’t kill him in the show, divorcing them earlier and giving Maryse a second chance was a fantastic choice. I kind of wish they had kept Max’s death because to me, it was the driving force between Izzy and Simon, but overall I don’t mind the way they did it. It just felt like a missed opportunity for drama and angst.

Back to the point at hand - families are complicated and the only “normal” or rather, nuclear family we see in this series is the Lightwoods. Clary was raised by a single parent, as was Simon, and no one else really has parents that we’re introduced to to be able to judge their family life. By making their family story a complicated one, rather than the “ideal”, it becomes not only more dramatic, which is fun and interesting, but real. And it may seem counterintuitive to make things seem real in a fantasy genre show/book series but that, in my opinion, is what makes it easier to believe the fake stuff. I can focus more on the magic and the demons and the end of the world as we know it if it’s grounded in something that’s familiar to me. The Lightwoods feel like a very real family with complicated relationships between kids and parents, adopted children/siblings, and marital issues that affect everyone differently, which invites us as an audience to relate to them and doesn’t make the Shadow world so different from ours. 

A scene I loved specifically is when Izzy brings the doctor she’s seeing to the Hunter’s Moon and they’re all messing with each other, eating, drinking, laughing, talking. They really felt like a family there, like adult siblings which can be a really difficult feeling to capture but I think it was done very well. I didn’t want to go through this review without mentioning that part since it was something very special for me. 

Design Choices

Changing topic just a little bit, I wanted to talk about the design of the show. First thing I noticed was that the runes were not at all how I pictured them. Now, that may be a fault of the writer because they weren’t very well described so it all landed on imagination which is different for everyone. The show design gave me kind of Henna tattoo vibes, whereas the books gave me full black ink vibes. 

The clothing was also something very strange to me. Izzy was always described as wearing long silvery skirts. I very much imagined her as wearing borderline rave outfits in most of these scenes but she mostly just wore crop tops and low cut shirts. I also noticed that as the series went on she dressed in a bit more of a conservative way compared to the first half of season 1 when I recall her wearing literally just a sports bra as a shirt in a few scenes. It was apparent to me in the books that the way Shadowhunters dressed was something that separated them from humans, made them stand out, and the show lacked that. I think this also took away the idea that Shadowhunters are a whole race of people with a history and culture separate from being human (they are, in essence mixed raced, but this comes with a lot of implications and is not a complete statement or comparison in any way). My point with this is mostly that I wish there had been more of a separation visually between Shadowhunters and humans beyond their runes. 

I also pictured the Institute to have a very non-human, Catholic type of design and instead just got pseudo-futuristic feel. I didn’t hate it, it just feels overdone in these kinds of shows and movies. For example, the Divergent series or Maze Runner or even Tomorrowland all have this type of vibe and I was hoping for more of a DmC: Devil May Cry approach. 

Jace Wayland is a beautiful character

I had mixed feelings about Jace in the books; he felt stale and like every other straight, white, male, romantic lead. In the show, however, I think Dominic Sherwood did him a great deal of justice and gave him the depth that actually made him a desirable person that I could understand someone being in love with. He’s charming, and a little cocky but we also get to see a deeper side of him than we do in the books. We see his emotions, especially his unconditional love for Clary (whether I agree with that or not). 

The Owl plotline was a waste of time in my opinion, but the scene when Izzy and Alec go to save him from inside his mind and we see him break down is absolutely beautiful. Jace is introduced to us from the start as hard, strong, calloused and here we see him vulnerable and scared with two of the people he trusts most in the world. I will accept the Owl plotline if only to keep this scene because I think it is absolutely essential to his character arc. 

I also found that scene to be indicative of his relationship with Izzy. In the books it’s often alluded to that he and Izzy had been together in one way or another but that’s not the case for the show (thank the angel) and here you can really see them as siblings more than in any ther scene, I think. But this takes me to his relationship with Alec as well. 

Parabatai 

I don’t remember Parabatai being mentioned much in the books but it is a huge deal and talked about quite a bit. I this this is super cool, personally and it’s not something I can really think of too much in fantasy outside of sires or singers or the like in many vampire novels but that has a whole “owner” vibe that doesn’t exist with Parabatai. I am super intrigued by this idea and I loved how much they played with it being a strength and an essential part of their existence. 

The relationship between Alec and Jace is obviously stronger than just brothers, but it also isn’t quite love in the romantic sense. It’s something else and it makes them vulnerable to each other. They feel everything the other person feels, sometimes literally, and while that can weaken them they use it as a strength. It’s really beautiful how honest and open these men are with each other. I feel like the Parabatai bond breaks down a lot of the toxic masculinity traits these characters might have otherwise and I will always be in favor of tearing down those walls. A+ characterization if you ask me. 

I thought Izzy deserved better in the books - the show gave it to her

In the show Izzy is way more badass than in the books, which I wasn’t sure was possible. They made her so much smarter, gave her important roles at the institute like head of weapons and she even did autopsies? In the last episodes we even see her as Head of the Institute. Beauty, brains, and brawn simply can’t be beat. 

Her love life was even more interesting! She wasn’t boiled down to just a slut who slept with everyone regardless of species: she was a lover who fell quickly and saw the best in people despite what people might tell her about “their kind”. She’s strong and very sure of herself; she doesn’t need a man in her life but she wants love and I think that’s a really amazing trait they gave her that deepens the character. 

They made her an activist, too in a way. She’s found really standing up for her beliefs in the show and challenging the way things are. In the books Izzy is pretty stuck in the way Shadowhunters do things but in the show she speaks up when something isn’t right. Her connections to downworlders does a lot of really great things for the Shadow world as a whole. They certainly could have beefed this up a little bit, but it wasn’t a huge part of the show in general so I’ll allow the pass on it. 

Her Yin-Fen addiction was so interesting! Again, I don’t know if this is something that happened in later books in the series but this is just another layer to Isabelle that I really loved. No one is perfect, even her, and it built her relationship with Rafael (another plot I was a huge fan of) which was incredibly complex. 

All in all, I would die for Izzy. Please give me shows and books about her and more characters like her. 

This series was steamy as hell

I can’t write a review on this series without mentioning all of the steamy scenes with so many of the characters. I mean, of course, I expected as much with Jace and he got a lot but so did everyone else. We got saucy scenes with Alec, Magnus, Simon, Izzy, Maia, everyone. (Not all at the same time, thankfully). But they were all very well directed and acted and I enjoyed them quite a bit. What can I say? Sex sells. 

In conclusion, I liked this series a lot. I really was not expecting to. I was warned that it was bad, and to start off it was but I found myself unexpectedly enjoying a lot of it. There’s still work to be done and it is by no means perfect but it was entertaining and had some really good moments. I also give so much credit to the actors and creative team for doing so much with material that didn’t give them much depth in the first place. 

Would recommend for something to enjoy but maybe not think too hard about.

xoxo

Mony

[agir1ukn0w]

Attention Reylo Fam!

After hearing some disturbing rumors on social media that Lucasfilm may be considering pulling back the release of The Rise of Kylo Ren in order to change some major plot details of Ben Solo’s journey to becoming Kylo Ren (specifically his involvement in the destruction of Luke’s academy), I have decided to write a letter to Lucasfilm asking them, if the rumors are indeed true, not to do so. Obviously it is more than likely that the things I’ve been hearing are no more than supposition, given that I’ve only seen them on Tumblr, however I would still like to voice some of my concerns and the collective concerns of the fandom to Lucasfilm if there is a small chance they will receive my letter and take it seriously.

I have just finished my first draft, and I wanted to post it here so that you may read it and give me suggestions on things I should change or add on in the comments. I value the input of my reylo family, and I want to be as truthful and accurately representative of the feelings of the collective fandom as I can. I will post the draft below the cut, and also, if you would like your name to be included in the signing of the letter (either your blog url or, if you are comfortable, your real name), please let me know and I will add you to the list.

Dear Disney Lucasfilm Ltd.,

I would like to preface this letter by saying think you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all the wonderment and inspiration that you have given me these past four years of my life. These movies, tv shows, books, etc. have been a cornerstone of my cultural upbringing since before I can remember and I personally believe that Star Wars is the single greatest tale in the history of the world. I thank you with all my heart for carrying it forward so honorably.

That being said, I still very much believe in this story’s potential to be a beacon of empowerment for those who feel so disenfranchised and even oppressed in the real world. I still believe that this story is capable of making children look up and believe in themselves and their power to make a difference.

I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand the reasons why you made the choices you made with regards to Episode IX: TROS. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. No work of art can possibly please everyone, and I would also like to thank the cast and crew for working so hard and putting their entire souls into these projects these past several years.

This has all been a roundabout way of coming to the main point of my letter to you. Specifically, this letter concerns the character Ben Solo.

I’m sure that you have been hearing and seeing a variety of heated emotions on social media concerning the fate of this character. The first time I met him way back in TFA, I knew that he was someone special; even then I felt a very deep connection with his struggle and began to root for him. The arc that you gave him in TROS was beautiful, and everything I really wanted to see. I’d been hoping for his redemption for a long time, and to see it so beautifully acted on screen was truly inspiring. Although I must say that I really could have done without his death, for the purpose of this particular letter, I will digress from that opinion, even though I know for a fact that I am not the only one who holds it. At the end of the day, Ben’s storyline was fulfilled because he overcame the darkness within him, helped Rey to defeat the ultimate Evil, and brought her back to life with his love. I couldn’t have asked for more.

However, I have been hearing rumors on social media which are very concerning. A few people have suggested that Lucasfilm plans to pull back the release of the comic The Rise of Kylo Ren by Charles Soule in order to change some of the major details of Ben Solo’s story to better fit with what happened in the movie. Specifically, I am referring to the very important fact that Ben actually didn’t kill his fellow students in cold blood and that he didn’t set his uncle’s academy on fire. I don’t know if this rumor is even true, and I pray that it isn’t. The fact that I have as yet only seen these rumors on social media leads me to believe that there is little probability to it.

However, I cannot convey to you the depth of my despair should they turn out to be true. And I know that I am not alone. The fandom has already seen the plates, clearly showing that it was not Ben who set fire to his uncle’s academy. It would be a huge mistake to completely redo them now, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that you would lose the good faith and trust of many people in this fanbase.

I have written this letter to implore you all at Lucasfilm, if these rumors are indeed true, to please rethink your strategies; Speak with your fans directly, understand their viewpoints and how important this character is to so many. I won’t tell you how much I personally love and care for the character of Ben Solo so as not to take up too much space in the letter, but there are many others who love him feel a much deeper connection with the character than I. Should you chose to do this, you would not only be drastically changing important details of the character’s life, but you would also be taking his own past from him. So many dedicated fans will feel disenfranchised. Furthermore, your sales would go down drastically. I cannot tell you how devastated the vast majority of your fans would be. We all want justice for Ben Solo, and if we cannot have it through him living a long and happy life, we deserve to see it through the truthful telling of his past.

Both Disney and Lucasfilm have been major centers of hope and inspiration for me throughout my life. The messages that you send, that even those who have made terrible decisions in their lives can be gravely misunderstood by others, and that they can always make things right, is extremely important to me. And the story of Ben Solo is one which I have followed closely since I saw The Force Awakens for the first time. I believed in his ability to redeem himself even before the information that what happened at Luke’s academy wasn’t his fault came out. Even when it was assumed that he had killed his fellow students, I believed in him because that is what Star Wars is about. Belief, hope, and understanding. In The Last Jedi, Leia says, “Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night.” I have held on to that message ever since I heard it, and it has gotten me through many tough, emotional times in my life. I know that you respect your fans, and we as a fandom have not given up hope that you will do what is right for these characters.

Once again, before I close out this letter, please accept my deepest gratitude for all that this company has done to bring Star Wars into a new generation, inspiring us to go forward and create our own stories and modern myths. I am, and always will be proud to be a Star Wars fan.

Sincerely,

…………

Let me know what you guys think, I am excited to mail this letter!

Peace, Love, and Reylo💜

[sineala]

Do you think that without the series of events with Marvel licensing out their more popular IP’s and the resulting Iron Man movie that would probably not have been made had they had, like, Spider-Man to make their own movies, and it’s resulting success, post-post-CW they would have killed off/benched Tony’s character for years and/or made him like a full time villain-ish character? Like how they kinda benched Wanda or Jean Grey or how Namor or Professor X are kinda antagonists these days. Because without the movie I could have seen them go the route of, do a Big Thing with a second/third tier popularity character and just put them in a box after due to how big the fallout is. Or would they have made him more and more reviled in the Marvel Universe and not kinda hit the reset button once they were done with the CW stuff?

It’s hard to say what would have happened in, uh, this canon-divergent AU of reality.

My understanding of the history of Marvel’s finances is that they probably wouldn’t have survived, like, the year 1996 without selling off the X-Men and the Spider-Man movie rights. I don’t actually know when all the rights got sold off -- the internet is giving me conflicting dates -- but I do know that things did not look good for Marvel in 1996. Like, when you have to have Image, WildStorm, and... uh... whoever Rob Liefeld was working for make your comics for you, it’s bad. Like, “they had declared bankruptcy” levels of bad.

So it’s hard for me to imagine a world where they didn’t sell the rights because that would also be a world where the comics had ended because they ran out of money. I also don’t know when they started development of the MCU; it’s possible that it was already ongoing when CW was in the planning stages, in which case that may have been an attempt to push Avengers into prominence for the future MCU.

But I also don’t think that Civil War was trying to make Tony a villain. Everything I have read in interviews suggests that they were honestly trying to balance both sides of the fight and that they were surprised to find that a whole lot of readers were against Registration and came away with a bad opinion of Tony. And once Marvel figured that out I think they tried to course-correct and... didn’t do a great job at it either. But they did keep him in the comics.

And, I mean, seeing as how they have movie rights now to most if not all of the other characters you named -- I’m honestly not sure if Namor has reverted yet -- I don’t think having movie rights prevents them from making a character into an antagonist. I mean, they just made an entire TV show that was all about Wanda and 616 did not give us a conveniently-timed redemption arc or another volume of the Wanda solo. I am pretty sure that the last time we saw Wanda do something big in the comics was in the Empyre tie-ins when she decided to turn all the dead of Genosha into zombies and everyone was mad at her. And, I mean, Empyre was a run where one of her children got married! They could have focused on her in a big way! But the only thing I remember her doing is reanimating dead mutants. Tony and Reed got to save the world.

So, yeah, I don’t think that without the MCU Tony would have been a villain because having the MCU sure didn’t get them to redeem Wanda in the comics. And even with the MCU there are still a lot of comics fans who are not Tony fans, and it’s not like the presence of the MCU stopped them from having a run where Tony became a literal supervillain. I think that they’ve definitely ported MCU elements into the comics in an attempt to increase overall comics popularity but I don’t think they’ve deliberately tried to rehabilitate characters because of the MCU, except maybe Howard.

So I don’t think they’d have benched Tony if the MCU hadn’t existed. Before the MCU existed, he had a continuous solo run and he was pretty much continuously an Avenger, even if he wasn’t on the main team for most of the 80s and 90s. And he did some mean things in big crossovers over the years -- Operation Galactic Storm and The Crossing come to mind -- and, like, if even without the movies they were willing to put effort into cleaning up Tony’s image after making him murder a bunch of people under mind-control and then killing him off, I feel like they’d still have brought him back after Civil War.

[midnight-aether]

Why Vox by Christina Dalcher is not a good novel: Review & Analysis

The premise of this novel is incredibly interesting, don’t get me wrong: Vox (2018) is about a dystopian future, in which US American women are only allowed to speak 100 words per day and must wear a bracelet that shocks them if they go over that limit. Women also aren’t allowed to write, read or use sign language. The main character is a genius linguist called Jean who hates every man in her life, including her husband Patrick and her own sons.

The first sentence already tells us three things about this novel: (1) it’s told from a first-person perspective, which means the reader will be aware of the protagonist’s every thought, (2) the oppressive regime in the novel goes by the name of Pure Movement, so it’s probably going to have something to do with religion, and (3) the action takes place in the span of a week, which I feel like it’s a huge spoiler for the fact that I won’t care for any of the characters at the end of the book, since there’s only so much character development that can happen in that time.

If anyone told me I could bring down the President, and the Pure Movement, and that incompetent little shit Morgan LeBron in a week’s time, I wouldn’t believe them.

There will be spoilers from this point on.

The Setting and the Protagonist

The main character in Vox, Dr. Jean McClellan, is a specialist researcher in the field of aphasia, that is, according to Wikipedia, “an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions”. At some point in the novel we are made aware that a colleague of Jean’s, with her help, has discovered a cure for aphasia, even though they are both linguists and neither a chemist nor a medical researcher. However, she was unable to publish this discovery, due to the conveniently timed sexist apocalypse that stripped her of all her academic titles, as the reader is often reminded.

Jean is married to her husband Patrick and has four children with him:  three boys and a girl. Jean evidently resents every man in her family,  especially Patrick and their 17-year-old son, Steven. Apparently they’ve  all been very quickly indoctrinated to believe women shouldn’t be  allowed to speak, so they treat Jean and Sonia, the daughter,  accordingly.

There is a whole subplot about Steven, but it’s so plain and uninteresting that there isn’t much to say about it. Basically, he is all for the Pure Movement and their ideals of purity for women, but then still sleeps with his high school girlfriend and proceeds to tattle on her. When she is taken away to a camp, he realizes his mistake a leaves to save her. At some point he is captured by the Movement and ridiculed on TV. Jean doesn’t really care that he’s gone, but is pleasantly surprised when he reappears at the end safe and sound.

At this point, the Pure Movement has only been in power for less  than a year and a half. This movement is very overtly described as a Christian uprising that originated within the bible belt  and had spread to the entirety of the USA. The followers of the  Movement also adopt overly conservative views on gender roles, marriage  and sex, leaving very little doubt about the roots of the oppressive regime in Vox.

The Plot

The main intrigue in Vox begins when the brother of the US president starts suffering from aphasia after a “skiing accident” and the government comes to Jean for help, despite her being a woman in a society that literally won’t let women speak. Why do they come to her instead of going to any other male scientist? Because apparently Jean is the best linguist in the whole country... even though, as far as the government (and the reader) knows, she’s only been researching aphasia for a couple of years and hasn’t found a cure yet. Well, the author herself has a doctorate in linguistics (not in the field of aphasia), which brings me to my first problem with this novel: the blatant and, quite frankly conceited, self-insert.

You may have noticed that I wrote “skiing accident” in quotation marks on the last paragraph. That’s because it’s hinted a couple of times throughout the novel that the president’s brother was actually injured on purpose by the government, but this turns out to be false. Later it seems like he was never even injured in the first place, but this is never clearly resolved, as the character himself never appears “onscreen”; however, it’s not a cliffhanger that perpetually haunts the reader.

Back to the story: Jean agrees to help because, by taking the job, she and her daughter get to remove the shock bracelets for the duration of the research. The government then proceeds to give Jean one week (remember the novel’s first sentence) to produce a cure that, to the best of their knowledge, hasn’t even been found yet. If that sounds like a stretch, they even let her work with her old research team of three people, which is supposed to fully convince the reader that a week is a completely plausible time frame to discover, produce, test and approve a cure for an illness.

The Side Characters

This team is composed of Jean, her former colleagues Lin and Lorenzo, and their supervisor Morgan, who you might remember from the novel’s opening sentence. Morgan is apparently an idiot linguist who is very unfit for his position, which is supposed to show how twisted the society in Vox is, as they put the dumb people in charge just because they’re men, and silence the smart women. What it actually does is show that this version of the USA apparently only has a handful of linguists and no other skilled scientists.

This is the novel’s description of Lin:

Lin Kwan is a small woman. I often told Patrick she could fit in one of my pant legs – and I’m only five and a half feet and 120 soaking wet, thanks to the stress diet I’ve been on for the past several months. Everything about her is small: her voice, her almond eyes, the sleek bob that barely reaches below her ears. Lin’s breasts and ass make me look like a Peter Paul Rubens model. But her brain – her brain is a leviathan of gray matter. It would have to be; MIT doesn’t hand out dual PhDs for nothing.

Here we learn that Lin is small, not conventionally attractive (read: small boobs and ass), and finally that she is incredibly intelligent. For some reason, Jean finds it important to describe Lin’s curves, as well as her own, before mentioning Lin’s intelligence. No, this novel was not written by Michael Bay. Also, for representation’s sake, Lin is Asian and a lesbian, yet every other major character in this novel is a white straight person.

Well, there is another lesbian in this story, actually. Jean’s old college roommate, Jackie Juarez, who Jean hasn’t seen since before the machocalypse. We get to know Jackie through flashbacks: the novel tries to portray her as this loud, over-the-top feminist who often tries to make Jean join the rallies and protests against the growing Pure Movement. Alas, Jean chooses to focus on school instead of going to protests and forever regrets this, thinking that if only she had fought, she might have changed history.

I don’t know how to feel about this novel’s depiction of Jackie. She is made out to be a stereotypical feminist lesbian, who actively protests against the uprising of the Pure Movement, and yet whose efforts are in vain. Here is an excerpt that characterizes how Jean sees Jackie, and therefore how the reader is supposed to see her:

“You have to vote, Jean,” [Jackie] said, throwing down the stack of campaign leaflets she’d been running around campus with while I was prepping for what I knew would be a monster of an oral exam. “You have to.”

“The only things I have to do are pay taxes and die,” I said, not holding back the sneer in my voice. That semester was the beginning of the end for Jackie an me. I’d started dating Patrick and preferred our nightly discussions about cognitive processes to Jackie’s rants about whatever new thing she had found to protest.

Here you can see that Jean clearly dismisses Jackie and “whatever new thing she had found to protest”, and instead muses about what an intellectual she is. I understand that this is a flashback, and it’s supposed to show that Jean was wrong not to care about protesting the Pure Movement, but this is told from present Jean’s perspective, so it’s clear she still rolls her eyes at Jackie’s activism in general. It feels like Vox is trying to say that actively expressing your ideas and concerns is useless, since Jean eventually overthrows the government with science and not through activism – and it even takes her no longer than a week to do it, as we learn at the beginning of this novel. There is a lot to unpack here,  but I still wouldn’t recommend thinking too hard about the ideas in this book.  

Jackie only becomes relevant to the plot towards the end. At some point she is held hostage by the government, so that Jean is forced to finish her work. Why the government chose to kidnap Jean’s old college roommate who she hasn’t seen or spoken about in years instead of, say, her daughter, we will never know. In the end, Jackie is only there so that Jean can save her and “redeem” herself for not having been there for Jackie in the past.

Lorenzo, the last member of the team, is Jean’s love affair since way before the Pure Movement effectively took over. The novel likes to remind the reader that Jean is with the Italian hunk Lorenzo because she despises her husband Patrick, so that makes cheating okay. Eventually we learn that Jean is pregnant with Lorenzo’s child, so he offers to let her escape with him to Italy as his wife. Yet Jean can’t allow herself to leave without her daughter Sonia – she’s fine with never seeing any of her sons again, though. She considers this for a while as she works on the cure for aphasia.

The Ending

At some point during the week, Lin disappears (we later learn she was imprisoned due to big gay activity). Jean and Lorenzo announce that they’ve discovered the cure and even test the serum on a random neighbour of Jean’s who happens to have aphasia as well. Also, Jean’s mother had an aneurysm earlier that week and also started suffering from aphasia. The government is pleased with the results and take the serum away.

Later, Morgan, the supervisor, takes Jean and Lorenzo to a strange lab underground to have them further develop the cure. There they walk through a hallway full of chimpanzees in cages, and there is a bizarre scene in which Jean gets too close to a cage and is attacked by a chimpanzee. There is no purpose to this scene other than to shock the reader, honestly. Here, the novel briefly, yet disrespectfully brings up a very real woman who was mauled by a chimpanzee in 2009 and managed to survive (Wikipedia link, no pictures), by having Jean think something along the lines of “oh no, I don’t want to end up like her!” during the attack.

Jean is fine, obviously. We’re over 200 pages in and nearing the end of the novel when the first interesting development happens in the form of a plot twist: the government has been using their cure in order to create an anti-serum that gives people aphasia. Their plan is to create a more effective means to silence women, of course, since they  wouldn’t be able to comprehend or formulate language any more. When Jean discovers this, she wants to quit, but is forced to stay when they reveal they’ve been keeping Jackie, Lin and Lin’s girlfriend hostage in the same building for this very occasion. And maybe also Steven back at that camp, but we don’t even care about him at this point.

The climax of the story arrives, and everything happens so quickly the reader doesn’t have time to digest it. I had to reread what actually happened at the end, because I couldn’t remeber it anymore. I’ll try to recreate the pacing of the ending in the following paragraph, so you can understand what I mean:

Jean and Lorenzo save the lesbians (who are the only likeable characters, so that made me happy), Morgan dies, I think, and they escape with the anti-serum. Patrick appears and decides to help, so they send him to the White House with an anti-serum bomb that suceeds, giving the president and all evil politicians aphasia. Patrick is killed during this, freeing Jean from their marriage and allowing her to escape with Lorenzo and all of her children, whom she suddenly stopped resenting. The Pure Movement collapses and all is well, thanks to... well, thanks to Patrick and Lorenzo.

Conclusion

Vox is a mess of a novel. The characters are unlikeable, the plot is badly paced and the ending is too sudden. I really didn’t care about what happened to any character at any point, which is incredibly disappointing. Additionally, there are many things wrong with the political message in Vox, namely the idea that all religious people are inherently evil and that men generally wish to control and silence women. The premise was good, the writing was fine, but the performance was terrible, unfortunately. Vox feels like it was rushed to come out in time for the dystopian fiction craze of 2017-18 caused by the release of The Handmaid’s Tale TV series. Hopefully we’ll see better work from the author in the future.

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