#but im. yknow. acknowledging it. i could definitely do more with the female characters!

[hostilemuppet]

wild how a woman can be the protagonist of the majority of the movies and television shows in a franchise and then just get shunted to the side, often without malice, by people who consider themselves fans of the property. i'm talking about poppy but this is a wider problem of insidious fandom misogyny.

i talk a lot about fandom misogyny and male favouritism but it is... so much more egregious in trolls bc of how the protagonist is a woman and the franchise seems mostly targeted to little girls. its like if the mlp fandom zeroed in on, like, raritys dad. or shining armour. or fluttershys brother

[ludinusdaleth]

on a similar note, i do think that there's a lot of people that are just outright evil towards the female characters moreso in this campaign than ever before, with people literally demonizing imogen for so much as breathing in laudna's direction as being an evil, toxic, heartless abuser and "worse than delilah". and people notably didn't care at all about ashton until they realized they could ship them with laudna and further make out imogen to be a monster.

i cant say that this is the worst it's been, historically. the way keyleth/marisha was treated for years was probably the most notable, gruesome, & well known example of misogyny in the fanbase, something that affected marisha ray personally and still does - iirc, part of beau directly spun from her willingness to spite her detractors. many a reddit incel would not shut up about every detail of marisha's rp as the druid. i appreciate that cr responded to that over the years narratively as spitefully as possible.

but, yeah, i think, especially on tumblr, there are some odd attitudes at work. imogen, fearne, & deanna are taking the full brunts of it -

deanna is called evil or disappointing for not being a shining cleric of holy goodness praising the gods bluntly to the screen, and is dehumanized by fans by being put into the mammy stereotype whenever she talks to imogen, even when her plotline is literally centered on realizing she's more than a nurturer (and aabria has liked my tweets on this subject, so maybe, we can assume she shares bitterness at this?). almost no one ever wants to acknowledge her beyond the trait of being motherly, or being lovers with chetney, and dont get me started on how people said she was feral because she killed a goat and made imogen cry?

fearne is treated as a ditzy kooky bimbo fae, with many people ive seen refusing to acknowledge any of her character development - folk get angry when ive mentioned her doing anything, saying shes just a selfish bitch and only that, that she needs to be "put in her place" by any character witnessing her mischief.

and for imogen - i know people dont want to woobify her, but in the process, holy fuck does cr tumblr become judgemental. i have seen, verbatim: "sorry she isnt your girlboss and her actions will hurt others when she turns evil", said pre-solstice, and then, she wasnt. her tendency toward her darker powers and her considering ludinus's pov (yknow. like many a protagonist tries to see the antagonist's pov. thats normal in narratives) because her mother joined him has damned her into the fandom thinking she's a beast to be put down. frankly, even if she did turn evil? id support that narratively, that's fantastic. but she didn't and there is a smugness to the fact that she is now the most clear headed against ludinus when people were sure she would turn, and wanted blood on that assumption.

as for ashton, yeah. i.... have a lot of thoughts on how fandom treats them - they definitely were treaded around til shipping began and only then they were considered palateable, and then were noticeably only called he/him pronouns by the terfs of the marisha/laura-ship brigade. if im being honest, i have not seen them directly used against imogen, and i dont think im the person to discuss imodna or shipping wars with you. but i do think every other bells member is utilized as some kind of cudgel against her (namely, in my experience, orym). to this fanbase, imogen is not allowed to have her traumas in the literal face of ruidis, the source of it.

i know this harsh simpleminded view on the ladies of cr has always existed. i could go into it in every campaign thoroughly. but i do think c3 is unique in how tumblr is treating it. do you know how badly you have to screw up for cr twitter to be calmer & more rational on the topic of women existing in a narrative?

[floralovebot]

what are ur thoughts... on helia's relationship with masculinity? his earlier wardrobe was softer colors and peasant blouses and his (beautiful, beautiful T^T) hair was kept long. obviously we know that shit slapped even if the show wont acknowledge it now. his look always made him super distinct from the rest of the guys, but i feel like that may have also been an alienizing factor? red fountain is a military school and i promise im not asking for your take on gender roles or toxic masculinity of the entire magic dimension or to write helia a planet and culture and backstory from scratch (unless? 👀, bc your takes are always fascinating), but do you think he was ever taken with that, or felt subject to other's opinions on that sort of thing? has he always been comfortable with his presentation, or did he have any clumsy teenage overcompensating? if the latter, would you say leaving red fountain helped him come to terms with that or reinvent himself to his tastes? or maybe had him overcorrecting in the opposite direction, to distance himself from the red fountain lifestyle as well as account for his two haircuts and more traditionally masculine style later on?

anon i'm in love with you.

I have so many thoughts about Helia's overall aesthetic (and some about his concept designs heheh) but I won't get into all of them since that would make this way too long. To be honest, within canon we don't know a lot about Helia's personal thoughts about Red Fountain or the culture surrounding it and other military/paramilitary establishments. While this does make it harder for people to give him a solid characterization, it actually makes a lot of sense considering how quiet he is in terms of his own thoughts on things. We have random tidbits and rumors from other characters but almost nothing from him.

When it comes to his looks in canon, honestly I don't think it would ever be an issue. While long hair on men is stigmatized in real life, in Winx Club it's not that big of a deal, in fact, it's pretty normal. We see multiple male characters with long hair and not typically considered masculine wardrobes. Saladin, Palladium, Avalon, Valtor, and even background Specialists are just a few examples. Longer hair on men is a normal thing throughout all of the planets and only seems to be weird on Earth (ie Sky and Helia cutting their hair to blend in). While I do have a lot of thoughts on Helia's hair, I really doubt it was ever an issue in canon. It's only an area of topic in the fandom due to a couple of things that don't factor into canon (such as men having long hair being stigmatized in real life or the rumors that Helia was originally a female character [with absolutely no proof of that besides his long hair and slightly more feminine looking face]).

I think when it comes to Helia feeling out of place, it would likely have more to do with his personal interests, aka art, and not necessarily wanting to be a Specialist. Contrary to fanon, Helia likes being a Specialist and we know he respects Saladin and Red Fountain as a whole. Him leaving was largely due to being more interested in art than the "family business" so to speak. It's shown multiple times in canon that Helia feels a lot of pressure from being related to Saladin and that his own actions and opinions affect both Saladin and the school (which says a lot about how the Magix Dimension feels about families and relations). His back and forth between being a Specialist and being an artist have to do with him not wanting to disappoint Saladin or affect his image in a negative way.

We do know that other Specialists and people outside of the school have opinions about him and what he does but we don't actually know how he feels about that or how he deals with it. It gets brought up quite a few times; random people who aren't close to him talking shit for no reason (Brandon in ep.8, Riven multiple times in the comics, other random specialists, etc), and yet, Helia's own feelings about the matter never get revealed. Again, I think this plays into how quiet he is about his own emotions, not wanting to start shit or get into a fight that could later damage Red Fountain's image.

In that way, you could say Helia deals with some amount of rejecting masculinity, but personally, I think his actions have more to do with feeling like he needs to have a "good" image because of his familial relations. Helia doesn't start conflict, he doesn't push things or engage in arguments, he's extremely conscious about how his actions affect Saladin and the school (he even uses this to his advantage in the Shaab Stone arc). We don't know the extent of how much people talk about him, behind his back or to his face, and we don't the extent of how much it affects him.

Personally, I think Helia is conscious enough to have dealt with toxic masculinity, specifically trying to get away with it, earlier in his life. While Red Fountain is a paramilitary school, it's shown explicitly that they don't tolerate that attitude and try to knock it out of any boy that enters (aka don't start dumb fights, don't insult your teammates, don't do dumb shit to prove your worth, etc). The only reason the main boys managed to stay in the school is that they're canonically the best students and Codatorta believed in them (also cause yknow,, they're the love interests).

While the Magix Dimension definitely has some degree of toxic masculinity, Helia in particular mostly battles with toxic perfectionism and family legacy. He's not consciously or subconsciously trying to be the ideal version of a man nor does he base his life or opinions of himself on that. Helia tries to be the perfect Specialist and the perfect grandson. He tries to be the perfect student in a school that's largely associated with the best soldiers in the universe and that's also run by his grandpa, while also dealing with his own actions and opinions affecting the image of said grandpa and school. So honestly, no, I don't think Helia particularly gets affected by masculinity, toxic or otherwise, and I don't think any of his actions in canon could be led by it. However, I do think he's in an awkward situation and tries too hard to live up to other people's (and his own) expectations of him and that some of those expectations can run into the "ideal" version of masculinity (such as Brandon saying "he doesn't like to get his hands dirty" as an insult).

While I do love the idea of Helia going through a little teenage rebellion and him going to art school being a result of that, in canon, it's partially implied that he really didn't change. Saladin sees him as the same person and the specialists recognize who he is. There is no "whomst the fuck are you" kind of moment with any of the characters. This is more implied by canon than directly shown but, I do think that Helia was one of those people who had to mature quickly as a kid. And that him leaving Red Fountain multiple times is mostly him trying to get away from those expectations. We see this theme with multiple characters so I don't think it's a wild conclusion.

When it comes to his haircuts and different aesthetics, I think that's mainly Rainbow mucking things up. His aesthetic change in S4 is so they can blend in, it's not him being himself. Even when their identities get revealed and everyone knows they aren't from Earth, they're still trying to fit in and live within that Earth culture. His changes in the later seasons are largely due to Nickelodeon not understanding the characters and just wanting a group of masculine soldier dudes.

Unpopular opinion but: I think a better way of showing how out of their element the specialists were in S4, would actually be to cut Helia's hair super short, not just the uneven shreds he got, and then have him grow it out through the season (maybe even magically like they did with Musa) to show that they're chill on Earth and people aren't scared of them. Is this an excuse for me to imagine him with a wolf cut? Yes.

[boeing747]

You know what I love? That Hawkeye isn't an Unproblematic Fav. He's incredibly sexist, especially at the beginning. Although he'd never take advantage of a girl, he objectifies them a lot, especially at the beginning. And it's addressed on screen! Houlihan constantly warns the girls about him, and that woman doctor knocks him down a few pegs. That's not his only flaw but it's a big one and the fact that it's addressed on screen and he's confronted about it is absolutely incredible to me! He's got his morals, but they're not perfect, he isn't, and he's given the chance to learn! Amazing!

can I just say "I love how much of a misogynist hawkeye is" is also an absolutely hysterical thing to send

And hm... I have a lot of complicated thoughts on the way they handle Hawkeyes misogyny and the treatment of women in the show in general. Like, I can appreciate the general arc of the show that eventually dropped the Hawkeye womanizer act and had their one female lead actually develop as a character I think it's just more like.

Not praise so much as a sort of acknowledgement that this was a fairly 'not as awful as it could' be way to handle shit like that especially for the time it was airing yknow.

Like. Here's the thing as much as I can appreciate the intentions behind Hawkeye having to actively confront misogyny, this like the lavender scare and the racism episodes are which are.... Idk. Im white so I can't provide much commentary on a lot of the insensitivity in the show beyond the most basic "that's fucked up that they did that"

The Inga episode especially stands out to me because as much as I enjoyed seeing Hawkeye and Charles humiliated, beyond the immediate "misogyny bad" my reaction is that it's fairly tasteless for a show to write a story like that and essentially pat itself on the back for women's rights etc without ever truly addressing the fact that they treated major houlihan absolutely terribly as a female lead in the first few seasons. It just comes out empty. It feels that way for a few other things in the show, tbh.

You can't just make the issue of misogyny all about the main characters fucking character development. Like that's just using womens problems to only talk about a man again lmao

So I do enjoy that they actively make Hawkeye confront his character flaw of misogyny, and I enjoy that the joke for the majority of the show becomes that hawkeye always gets his just desserts for bejng a dick to women but some of the plots are definitely quite dated. And also tbh I'm too far left I guess to praise a show too much for spoon feeding me leftism lmao

This is so not me clowning on you anon btw or being a dick btw! I do agree with you! you just reallt made me think abt it yknow!

[adrunkgiraffe]

I have been through this journey before, so I get to be actually frustrated about it.

IUnder a read more because im not subjecting y’all to this. Also: I should caveat I haven’t watched the episode cause I’m waiting till its on Netflix but I have watched way too many other episodes of Supernatural so I have a right to say these things. 

TL;DR: I mean you all knew Cas’ confession was fucking bullshit and that SPN is...hm. But I’d like to actually express my genuine frustration, for a moment? I’m going to say things you already know, but I have too much knowledge of this show and too much stupid meta in my brain about a series I haven’t genuinely enjoyed for at least 5 years which makes this not just blandly bad but disgustingly insulting to me not even as a gay just as like. A writer?

Or, even shorter: Cas’ confession is just a Charlie Bradbury Speedrun 

So. As some of you may know if, for some reason, you followed me back in 2013 (and till...okay fine 2015), I used to be, uh. Really into SPN. Really, I was into Destiel. Like, as in, I slogged through seasons 1-3 to get to Cas and am also really vulnerable to the Sunk Cost Fallacy and projecting onto characters. (I was in 8th grade in 2013, okay? Get off my back)

Also, because I monopolised use of the TV, I kind of...also got my parents into it? In a “this is silly but fun” kind of way.

Over time, critiques of the show from viewers, learning what queerbaiting is at all, fatigue with how long it was going, and also fatigue from how characters I enjoyed, like Rufus, or Crowley, or Ellen, or Jo, or Kevin, or Charlie, or Cas a few times, kept getting killed off. As time went on, it didn’t escape my notice that, aside from Cas, all of these characters fit one or more of the following criteria:

They were a woman

They were a person of color

Were Queer or Queer-coded in some way (listen Crowley was bad rep but at least Mark Sheppard actually kissed a man on screen)

I also just...generally got tired of the way the show treats women and sidelines people of color. 

The final straw really came with Charlie’s death. It got us all excited, because she hadn’t been back in a bit! And it was interesting to see how reuniting with her dark side from Oz had changed her! (yeah remember the fucking Wizard of Oz storyline? The writers sure don’t!) And maybe she’d get developed! Because at this point, Charlie and the fairly good writing of her character was a major upside for the series! Charlie was cool, fun, gay, and morally complex in a way...none of the female characters had been before her, in large part because by definition, her relationship with the boys would always be platonic.

And then. Offscreen. She is violently murdered. For no damn good reason. Like, literally, her being brought back in this episode after fucking off to europe after having returned from fucking off to Oz seems to have filled two purposes in total. 

The codex is solved (but Sam doesn’t know till next episode)

Charlie is dead, which means Dean can be angry, specifically at Sam, and kill more people because he’s the big bad this season. 

That’s it. Two things. Twooooo whole reasons to do this episode. Whoopee. 

But you didn’t come here for this, you came here for me to rip this reveal to shreds. Don’t worry, I’ll get there. What I want in your minds is that Supernatural already had a really good anddynamic queer character. And then they killed her off to make Dean angry. No, it doesn’t matter that they brought her back in season 13 or whatever. They made that decision. 

After the rage this incited, I started realizing general flaws in the writing (I had probably already noticed them but now I was angry enough to complain.) Every conflict is born of Sam and Dean not communicating/taking on burdens and Dean being angry at Cas for reasons that ranged from good to ridiculous, but in a way that always went way too fucking long, (which...yes, does make the “you do it for love” gifs fucking hilarious). It didn’t help that seasons 11 and 12 were next, which meant Demon Dean and GOD’S FUCKING SISTER, plus the decision to resurrect Mary, which, while I do like her later scenes, as a season 12 finale it...well I’ll be honest it kinda sucked. It undercut the majority of the Winchester’s’ arcs and their slow and painful journey out of their father’s toxic vengeance quest and knowing Mary as a person when it’s too late to know her was one of the last semi-compelling grounders of the narrative. 

By this point it was a hate-watch for my parents and I.

So then, I’m at college, and I’m not watching anymore cause I don’t have the motivation or access to Hulu to continue, and SPN is bad. I watch the Scooby Doo crossover when it comes out and my friend and I make fun of it, and we also continue making jokes about Dean and Cas and queerbaiting because we’re queer, but I don’t keep up. My Dad does though, so when I return, I watch some with the fam and lads. It’s even more tiring without context. 

So flash forward to Quarantine, my sister, the only one with taste, has left, and we have run out of netflix to watch. So we return to the well, and seasons 13-14 are. I’m gonna say it. Bad. Really fucking bad. The cycle of bad communication continues, season 14 has like seven antagonists and the way it’s structured makes it so I literally cannot remember the timeline of a season I watched 3 months ago. Oh also, they have a queer coded cannibal snake monster for...well I guess Jack’s snake bud was cool but like. Huh wow it’s almost like these writers don’t handle queers well. 

Our one saving grace is Cas, but he’s barely in any episodes, though I did note that his deal with the empty, being happy completely for one moment killing him, that struck me as “this has potential and I know they’re gonna half-ass it somehow.” Also Jack and Mary, but then oh...plot….The most compelling it gets is literally the finale.

But then, 3 days later, the first half of season 15 comes out on Netflix and it’s...actually kind of acceptable. The new character they give Jack’s actor is fun to watch him play until they make him evil. Exploring just how toxic Chuck can be gave the series direction again. The alternate future was genuinely scarring, and Eileen’s return was genuinely moving. Most of all, though, Cas got the opportunity to tell Dean no, that Dean was being unfair to him, had always been unfair to him, and he was sick of it. I had no illusions, I knew Destiel was never gonna happen, and Cas was gonna die, but giving him that bit of agency, letting Cas grow and be self-sufficient, and be angry with Dean not for existential reasons but interpersonal ones, was such a good sign for me, and Dean grew too! Dean fucking apologized for being horrible and Jensen Ackles had a...yknow what, ill give it to him, he had a good acting moment. 

But the thing. About. The “I love you.” 

Let’s take it in parts.

What was good: I’m gonna admit it, lads, “Wanting what I can’t have” - AS A LINE - is good, and, structurally, there is something to the Empty Deal that could have been an interesting aspect of Cas’ arc when it comes to self actualization and being on even footing with Dean. The problem is, this is Supernatural, and that arc only comes up when I bring it up because character study, even in bad media, is fun for me. 

What was bad:

I mean. Like. All of it? All of it. 

Okay. Fine. I’ll be specific. 

Cas dies immediately when - possibly because- he is revealed as having feelings for Dean. They kill him as they queer him, that’s a Bury Your Gays Speedrun right there.

Like the least they could have done is have him mention it to someone in another scene or something to establish some romantic feelings on the part of canon a full episode beforehand. That would have been the literal bare minimum. 

When Cas starts praising Dean, for some reason both the writing and Misha’s acting take a bit of a downswing (from...where it already was). Cas, whose most powerful moment this season was acknowledging that Dean’s anger at him is cruel and unfair, flatly praises him for doing everything out of love and it reads with a misunderstanding of both Dean as a character and Cas’ understanding of Dean. Dean is angry! VERY ANGRY! And it’s a problem he needs to work on and rarely does. 

Talking out of my ass, a better speech would have been about how Dean is angry because of his love for Sam, family, and the people around him, how, for better or for worse, he can’t help but be angry on behalf of others, and that his journey of moving that tendency towards the better is what made Cas care so much. Guys this alteration to the metaphor took 2 minutes to write tops I am an Art History student and these are TV WRITERS WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE CAN YOU TELL THEYRE NOT TRYING YET? 

A better speech would, of course, have come out of a better series. My point: this part was half-assed. Poorly written. Wow it’s almost like the series is also poorly written. 

 Also, Misha is the better actor of the three(***OF THE THREE), but his choices in that scene are jarringly out of character which. Makes the bad writing worse. It doesn’t help that they cut to the same fucking shot of Dean 3 times. The chemistry in that scene makes it feel so fucking hackneyed. Because it is. 

This combines lead me to the point: (wait there was a point to this?)

As someone who does not have the luxury of watching this capsized ship fall into boiling seas from a distance, it is less insulting to me that they did this so last minute and then sent Cas to the Void than it is how they did it. They had ingredients for something that could have been compelling enough to me as a former fan of the show to think that they had put effort into it, that they had decided months, perhaps even years ago to do this, and had crafted a storyline around it. That this was an intentional decision they cared about. It wasn’t. It was barely even pandering, because it’s almost insultingly blatant. 

SPN kinda proved to me that it didn’t care about queers when Charlie was killed off. It proved it to me again when Cas, not only died in confessing his love for Dean but did it in the weakest result of what could have been a surprisingly strong story.

[eatgraypes]

Surprise

Character/Person : John Laurens

Pairing : John Laurens x Reader

Time : Modern

Reader’s Gender : Not Specified 

Side Note : okay so i know you guys keep requesting soft, cute fluff but i cant help joking about the good ol fuck and im sorry but im not sorry AlsO sorry this is a drabble :/

Warnings : mentions of sex, vulgar language (if you follow me it really shouldnt be a warning since its in all of my fics)

Possibility Of Having Another Part : nah

Genre : Fluff

Request : I have a request! Can you pls do a john laurens x reader fic where it’s almost the reader’s birthday and john just tries to surprise the reader with a puppy and all that jazz and it’s just super really cute and shit? Thankksssssssssss by @alittlebitofhamilton

Word Count : 1111

Summary : You go away to visit your family before your birthday and come back when a bunch of surprising phone calls mislead you into thinking your boyfriend, John, is cheating on you. You find out it’s definitely not a person he’s hiding from you. It’s a bitch. get it cause female dogs are called bitches.

“How about a necklace?” John suggested, running his fingers through your hair.

“How about no,” you sat up, removing your head from John’s lap to face him fully. He’d been suggesting things to do for you for your birthday. Half of what he offered was either way too expensive or a bit too over the top for your liking. He offered to be a birthday cake and pour chocolate on himself so you can lick it off.

”We can just go out to a restaurant or something with the others, then at home..” You trailed off slowly, biting back a laugh at John’s sudden interest.

“Spend all night..” John continued, leaning forward and licking his bottom lip before taking it in between his teeth.

“Watching movies.” You finished with a chirp. John groaned and dramatically threw himself back onto the couch, “baby! I know it’s your birthday, but at least a little birthday fuck can’t be bad.”

You rolled your eyes and stood up from your position on the floor, needing to get back to making food. “I want birthday luck, not a birthday fuck.” You laughed.

John pouted, watching you sway your hips as you made your way over to the kitchen; just to spite John.

“Hey!” He says, crossing his arms over his chest.

You turn around from your spot in front of the kitchen counter, eyeing him with a raised eyebrow and innocent expression, “what?”

He groans, tossing his head back into the comfort of the couch cushions, “fuckin’ tease.”

Suddenly, he lifts his head up and points at your frame accusingly, “you know what?” You perk up, propping a hand on your hip, “what?”

He purses his lips, as if in thought, then huffs, “I hope you have a bad birthday, babe.” He says, sorta aggressively.

You laugh and move your attention over to the cutting board in front of you, “thanks, babe.”

John spent the next few days without you; not alone, but without you.

You were off visiting family across the country and, despite John’s protests and begs for you to stay, you promised you’d be back at least a day before your birthday.

While you were away, John was hopping from pet shop to pet shop in search of his ideal birthday present for you: a dog.

Sure, you’ve both talked about having a pet together, a dog in fact, but you never actually had the time to go out and buy one. You’ve always talked about having this large Australian shepherd roaming around in your house, John’s pretty sure he’s heard you talk about having one in your sleep, so that’s why he took the liberty of going out while you were away and buying a dog to run around in your shared apartment, without your permission and acknowledgement. He almost got caught, too.

“I know! But when are you coming back,” John dropped his voice, whispering instead, “I miss you.”

You smiled into your pillow and rubbed at your sleep deprived eyes, opening your mouth to reply when something cut you off sharply. What was it? A voice?

John hurriedly scrambled out of the room, away from the small dog that was yapping continuously in your shared bedroom.

Confused, your mind could only think of the worst possible thing.

“Are you cheating on me?”

John shook his head, even though you couldn’t see it, and denied whatever you had to say as quick as he humanly could.

“Are you sure?” You pressed your ear closer to your phone, trying to pick up on any background noise, only to be met with the faint sounds of yelping. You pulled away and grinned, “are the neighbors at it again?”

“Yes! Yeah, they are.” John lied, nervously side eyeing the bedroom where the dog inched closer. “Look, I gotta go, bye Y/N! I love you!”

“I love you too,” you smile, biting back a yawn.

The call ended shortly after and events similar to that one occurred; quite a lot, too.

Your neighbors called you and told you to keep it down, you had simply replied with “I’m across the country.”

It happened over and over, slightly different, yet similar at the same time. It always ended with your suspicion growing more and more.

It took one more odd phone call to get you to pack your bags, kiss your parents and siblings, if you have any, goodbye and fly back to New York. I always make it take place in new york cause yknow thats where hamilton took place.

You unlocked the door silently, determined to catch John in the act. Angrily, you swung the door open and stormed in. Frustration was practically radiating off of you.

Rushing towards the sounds of panting and moans, you made a beeline towards your bedroom and swung the door open, shocked to see not John and whoever he chose to bring home into your bed, but a dog.

A dog, in the middle of crying and panting, with John hunched over it with a dog treat.

You pulled your hand that was once resting on the knob to your chest, as if it would provide some sort of comfort.

“Babe, you’re back! Happy birthday! Surprise!” John exclaims over dramatically, pushing the dog behind his back and guiltily smiling widely.

You furrowed your eyebrows and tilted your head, trying to take a peek at the dog behind his back but he shifted so you remained facing him.

“My birthday’s next week..” You trailed off, fidgeting in your shoes.

“Oh, uh, you’re early then!” He exclaims, keeping up the happy facade.

You frowned, “what’s happening? I thought you were cheating on me.”

John pushes the grin off his face for a moment then smiles slightly, “you’re disappointed I’m not cheating on you?” He jokes.

You roll your eyes and set down your suitcase, sitting down beside him, sneaking a glance at the dog. “You got a dog?”

You’re conflicted at first. Sure, you’ve wanted a dog since forever but now you’ve got to care for it.

“You’ve always said you wanted one, so I got one.” He says matter of factly, puffing up his chest proudly. You laugh and push your finger into his chest, deflating it, “yeah, but now we have to take care of it.”

He stops smiling, shoulders dropping in realization, “oh.”

You peck his cheek and chuckle, “alright, you’re wasting my time. Move, I wanna spend time with my baby.” He pouts, “ I thought I was your baby.”

You rub behind the dogs ear, glancing at John who sat cross legged on the floor after you kicked him off the bed.

“Surprise,” you mimic.

sorry its a drabble

[lookwhatilost]

i still haven’t gotten enough of my thoughts in order to further elaborate on any of these things and rly dive deeply into them (either that or I’m jst a lil stupid, not sure which yet) but this is my tentative list of complaints abt tlj

a lot of stylistic stuff on Johnson’s part tbqh. i posted it when I left the theater but i felt like I’d had jst walked out of something joss whedon had directed bc the tone was so similar. he does, like, the exact same thing that whedon does where you can tell he’s trying to create something that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and I’ve never seen any blockbuster drama execute that in a way that I personally didn’t find annoying. i dnt like when you’ll have a dramatic or emotional scene only to disrupt the tone with some slapstick comedy directly following it. It’s always struck me as something that writers insert into their films bc they’re doubt their capabilities & want to avoid the drama in the scene coming off as cheesy, so they slap a joke on at the end to deflect attention off the moment as a safeguard. You see it in marvel movies a lot, and it’s a big part of the rzn why i dislike them. I think it’s a very inorganic way to write an interaction. I’ve never had any drama moment in my life softened by humor and I doubt a lot of people have. if I did, I probably would have acknowledged the humor in the interaction as feeling sort of, yknow, clunky. off. it may jst be a question of personal taste but i personally find it irritating as hell & an indication of bad writing. comic relief is whatever but the timing of it is everything

the attempt to humanize kylo ren and make him morally grey or three dimensional or whatever was straight up stupid tbqh and sort of undercuts his role in the story—Finn as a hero is supposed to show that good can arise from an evil environment, whilst kylo proves that evil can arise in a good one. we already knew that kylo had Good TM inside him at one point. like we went into the fucking movie know that. i dnt want him to have anything resembling a redemption arc and the Let’s Humanize Kylo thing obvi falls under that umbrella to me

as the second act in a trilogy, i feel like there are certain things that need to happen narratively that it jst didn’t deliver—mainly, like, it didn’t do much of anything to set the stage for the final act. and generally the progression of trilogies sort of go like 1) introducing the characters and the concept and building the world 2) further developing the dynamic btwn the characters, more world building, and the stakes are raised dramatically speaking and finally 3) resolution... and I dnt think they did that much to raise the stakes in this new episode. sure, snoke is dead and kylo blamed rey for his murder, but we dnt have any concrete idea of what that means, so it falls flat above all else. all we took away from it as viewers was “kylo ren is bad and must be stopped” which we knew going into the movie. so like. it was pointless

poe being mishandled was a big one for me and a lot of why goes back to my initial “i felt like I was watching a joss whedon movie” complaint. like the big obvious one was, like, before tlj came out, a lot of the discussion around him was surrounding the possibility that he may be gay, stormpilot, whatever. im not deluding myself into thinking that it’s going to be canonized but I also think there’s jst something, idk, insidious abt shifting the discussion around him from “this may be the first gay star wars character!” to him being a chauvinist and shit. esp considering that lucasfilm rly aggressively responded to people shipping hanluke Back In The Day, when slash was something that was p much confined to underground zines and shit, it’s jst sort of uncomfortable to see. & you’re definitely meant to hate him, as a viewer. his interactions w holdo are supposed to prompt a very specific response in female viewers and it’s like... useless tbqh. like what’s gained from making him a misogynist other than, like, maybe some shit tier journalists writing bad clickbait abt Feminist Laura Dern Clap Back. which is like, the exact kind of flaccid Feminist Win! kind of thing that you see in whedon’s films a lot and i honestly hate it. like what’s it worth and who’s it for? there’s also been a lot of discussion around the greater implications of characterizing a latino man as impulsive and hot headed and misogynistic & then sort of using that as a prop in this weird useless subplot abt him being cut down to size by a white woman, which I’m not going to touch w a 30 foot pole but I feel like if this kind of thing is being talked abt to the extent of which I’ve seen it, like there’s probably an issue

Finn was horrendously underutilized and there were soooo many moments where he could have been developed or his scenes could have had emotional payoff that jst, like, didn’t happen... he honestly jst felt like he was along for the ride for a lot of the movie and i hated that. han and leia never felt like supporting characters in the OT, but Finn and poe both do and i... wait for it... hate that

there r a few other ones but that’s abt it for now. obligatory addendum that i dnt feel strongly one way or the other abt luke in the movie. i dnt think it was the massive breach in character that everyone seems to be complaining that it is, and even so, it’s been like 30 years since the events of rotj and i feel like it’s perfectly acceptable for him not to be the exact same person, whatever that entails. and yeah, probs goes w/o specifying but my feelings towards the movie in general are relatively negative.