#did I mention that gendered traits are kind of bullshit?

[gibor-zolel]

Alright, before I get into this; let me just say this is NOT directed at OP but rather "these types" of posts and the commenters found in said posts. What I'm about to say is less about this post and more about how these types of posts are often read the wrong way or attract certain people.

What do I mean? Ya know the kind of posts that whine about seeing "girlbossification" of female characters and how they don't like seeing all these "witty,snarky,brave,outspoken" female characters because based on the limited media they've consumed they believe "feminine" women are being replaced (LOL). Yeah those posts. They vary in how annoying they are and how much they tread the line between genuine criticism and subtle bioessentialism. I don't think that was the case here but I wanted to address this because I'm tired of seeing this unchecked.

First, I want to talk about how this line of thinking misses the point. The problem isn't that women are snarky, brave, outspoken, or whatever "masculine" traits they have, the problem is that most mainstream media caters to a wide audience and focuses more on pleasing everyone than it does on creating dynamic female characters....although this also happens to male characters as well.

Y'all ain't mad cause of "girlbossification". Y'all are mad because most writers are lazy and not willing to put in the effort to make their characters complex, dynamic, and varied. Women can be all of those things OP mentioned and STILL be feminine! Which apparently some people in the notes don't get...which brings me to someone's tags;

Hey uhhhh....what did you mean by this? What do you mean "act like men"? What does it mean to "act like a man"? Hmmm? Care to explain to the class?

I'm a gnc bisexual woman who uses both she/her and he/him pronouns. Am I acting like a man? Am I now incapable of being sweet and gentle? I also have stereotypical masculine hobbies like weightlifting, video games, and martial arts! Am I acting like a man? Are these "male things"? WHY are they "male things"?

Am I a "girlboss" because I fit into some of these traits?

Let's take a look at another person's tags;

"That's literally how people have viewed female characters almost forever"

Is it tho sis? Is it? Because the patriarchy has been around for a looooonnngg time and this influx of what y'all call "girlboss" characters is pretty new. For thousands of years and across hundreds of cultures; women have been depicted as weak, stupid, passive, incompetent, childish, and overall pathetic throughout most of literature. There have always been exceptions and this varied depending on how misogynistic the culture was.

"Strong and interesting like men"? Again what do you mean by this? Not only is this not true for over 90% of history but what does it mean to be strong and interesting like men?

Here's another one;

Why are y'all implying girly=weak? Sure some girls who are hyperfeminine are weak but this isn't always the case. And again this is how most women in literature where depicted for thousands of years lol. Y'all ain't being clever or revolutionary by saying this.

Here's a thought for y'all;

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ACTING LIKE A MAN OR ACTING LIKE A WOMAN. WE ARE ALL PEOPLE AND FEMININITY AND MASCULINITY ARE MADE UP BULLSHIT.

When y'all say those things y'all are reinforcing gender roles even if you don't see it that way. In order for a woman to "act like a man", this implies that women who do this aren't "real" women and also that men who "act like women" aren't "real" men.

Saying that a woman is "acting like a man" is something I'd hear outta my homophobic, misogynistic, transphobic dad lmao.

But here's the REAL kicker; you can have both "feminine" and "masculine" traits! And still be a woman! And guess what? Most women are like this.

Women can be both snarky and gentle, women can be both brave and afraid, women can sometimes be outspoken but also at times timid.

People are full of contrasting and even contradicting traits and hobbies.

Lastly; let me point out that women who aren't white, straight, cis, or gender conforming don't get the same grace as women who are.

I've seen countless times hyperfeminine trans or WOC get dragged through the mud for "acting like men". For being too outspoken, too loud, too brave, too themselves.

And the second they do that they get their "femininity" taken from them.

So while y'all are too busy watching mainstream crap like Marvel with one dimensional characters and rolling your eyes at "snarky" women; understand that women like me exist, and WOC and trans women aren't allowed to have ANY "masculine" traits without getting shat on.

If y'all want an interesting and dynamic variety of female characters...JUST SAY THAT. But for the love of G-d stop dragging women who don't fit that mold in the mud.

And like I said I've seen much worse posts with much more conservative and misogynistic commenters but I've had it lmao.

not now sweetie, mommy is watching how the massive girlbossification of female characters has led to the belief that weak and vulnerable female characters are badly written characters because apparently every woman needs to be outspoken and witty and snarky and brave in order to be considered “complex” and have any value in a piece of media!!

[nudityandnerdery]

Please explain non-binary genders to me in a manner that isn't over simplified... Everything I find is either from a terf bigoted bullshit perspective, or just kind of a vague love is love be a decent human being that does nothing for those of us who try to be decent even when we don't understand.

Okay. So. We need to start with two facts.

Fact the first:

Gender and sex aren’t the same thing. Your biological sex is pretty much controlled by your chromosomes and the development of your body. Now, looking at these in a binary fashion, i.e., people either are one or the other, is an inaccurate oversimplification of things. But that's a bit really why we're here. We're here about gender, which brings us to9

Fact the second:

Gender is a social construct. There’s no specific universal definition for what counts as masculine or feminine or any other gender in the world. That shit varies from culture to culture and from time to time. So anyone who tells you something along the lines of “This is what a Real Man does” or “This is what makes you a Woman” or anything in a similar vein? Look, they’re full of shit, they’re either pushing conservative rhetoric or radfem bullshit, which are really not nearly as far apart as either of the aforementioned groups wants to believe they are.

So! With those two facts in mind, here’s what we get with our current gender situation. White western christian-influenced culture, in which most of us are soaked, pushes the idea that there’s two genders- masculine and feminine, whatever synonyms of the roles you want to take up. They want to take those two roles, cast them as opposing roles, and split up various traits in life by what side they think they should belong to.

This is bullshit on multiple levels.

First of all, those traits are arbitrary. According to society, where do some things fall out? Physical strength is masculine, empathy is feminine. We see confidence as masculine while tact is feminine. And they get ridiculous, too. Wearing pants? Masculine, apparently. Crying? It’s feminine to acknowledge pain of any sore, I guess. There’s whole lists of this sort of thing if you look into it, but the fact is that western society spends a lot of energy reinforcing this idea.

Did I mention this is bullshit?

They’re arbitrary. They shift as time goes on- a hundred years ago, pink was a “stronger color” that fit boys better while blue was “delicate and dainty” and thus obviously a color for girls. Pants were previously only for men.

These fucking ridiculous norms are, then, entirely entirely subjective- and they are weaponized far, far too often by people who want to attack someone who’s not appropriately manly or lady-like for their taste. It was some standard bullshit that got thrown at the Obamas- making fun of Barack for not being Clint Eastwood macho, insulting Michelle as being too manly. (There’s also a fuck ton of racial weight to this specific instance here, too, and I’ll have to admit, I’m not a person qualified to do that justice. Do some research, there’s people who have addressed that aspect of it better than I have.)

So this means that forcing people into these standardized roles isn’t about helping them find self-confidence and who they are, they’re about ensuring obedience. They’re about punishing people for stepping out of line. They’re about reinforcing the strictures that our society wants us to have to spend energy adhering to, making sure that we’re more scared of being out of compliance with society’s expectations than we want to find the truth of the life we should be living.

(Every dude out there who’s blamed feminism because he was angry that his girlfriend didn’t need him to help carry a heavy box for him? Yeah, buddy. That’s you being suckered into thinking the cultural gender “norms” are more important than acknowledging that maybe your girlfriend doesn’t need you to lift boxes and fix leaky pipes, because it’s easier to get angry at feminism for that than to consider what else you can bring to a relationship other than simple mechanical abilities.)

Another reason they’re dumb? Because very, very, very few people are strictly one side of the register or another. Especially when those registers are politicized in their own way- negative gender stereotypes would tell us that traits of femininity make them gossipy, illogical drama queens, but then traits of masculinity make them territorial, egotists who act without thinking, and is there really much of a difference, or is there just something recursive about trying to describe similar traits in different ways to fit what you’re trying to argue?

And I’m not even qualified to get into the idea that a gender binary is a pretty specific idea. There’s other cultures out there that believe in more than just the two. But White western christian-influenced culture had pushed the idea that there’s men and there’s women and that’s all.

And it’s a pretty bullshit idea, at least to me.

Which. Well. I guess finally gets us to the point of your question here. And the answer is that while there’s all that standard, strict arguments of what counts as masculine and feminine up there? There’s also… everything else. Look, I’m not going to say that I have all the answers to everything. I’m not entirely joking when I say things like my gender identity is a vague handwaving motion. It’s something I’m trying to figure out. It’s not something that’s really got a straight answer to it. All I can give you right now is this.

Yeah, my body is pretty masculine looking. Got the beard, got a dick, got all that. But when it comes to all of those traits that are supposed to be masculine and that are supposed to be feminine?

I look at the masculine side of the register. A lot of that doesn’t fit me. A lot of that isn’t things I want to aspire to. There are things that do fit, but looking at them, do I feel there’s something inherently male about them? I don’t think so.

I look at the feminine side of the register. A lot of that doesn’t fit me. A lot of that isn’t things I want to aspire to. There are things that do fit, but looking at them, do I feel there’s something inherently female about them? I don’t think so. 

And I think that means the only option I have left is to figure out what a third option is that fits me.

I don’t feel comfortable describing myself as masculine. I don’t feel comfortable describing myself as feminine. So. I have to figure out what I do feel comfortable describing myself as. For the time being, that’s genderqueer. It’s a work in progress, and it may never be something I figure out entirely, and I’m okay with that.

Acknowledging that I don’t know was, in and of itself, kind of a relief.

[fillsta]

How to explain Les Mis characters to your friends

Enjolras 'Enjy dearest', 'Enj':

Angry blond boy. "Eat the rich". Either gay or aroace. His celebrity crush is Robespierre. He may or may not have a crush on a specific wine lover. Also Aaron Tveit. That's it

Combeferre 'Ferre':

The 'hot' scholar. Rly likes moths I guess. Wears glasses bc he's smart and smart ppl wear glasses. Has done nothing wrong, ever. We love him .

Courfeyrac 'Courf':

Everybody's friend. Flirty, fruity bitch. Round and lovable. Possibly in a relationship with either Combeferre or Jehan. Marius' own personal extrovert. Keeps the group together. Portrayed by the Mighty, the Fruity Fra Fee.

Grantaire 'R':

Likes to drink. A lot. Bi bitch, hopelessly in love with a certain blondie. Hold-hands-before-getting-shot-to-death kind of crush. Rly good at history and philosophy. Cynic. Also, fandom decided that he draws<3. Big hobo energy. Ask the fandom about the actor in the 2012 musical and they'll shed tears

Jean Prouvaire 'Jehan':

Ah yes, the softie. Love poetry and playing the flute. Most likely smoke weed. Plant parent. Gender unknown. We love their hippie bullshit. I don't remember the actor's name but he was kinda cute

Bahorel 'Baho':

The fruity gym bro. Enjoys fistfighting. Possibly Feuilly's bf. Man bun and beard. Studies law but doesn't want to be a lawyer. Doodles instead. Gavroche's idol. His celebrity crush is probably Dwayne Johnson or sth.

Feuilly:

IwbavajsbJzkabzjsvs. We love him. He's pure and innocent. Orphan. Makes fans for a living. Really loves the countries of the world. Headcannoned as Polish. Enjolras' fav ho. Wears flannels. I'll stop here because oh boi I can go on for ages

Bossuet/Lesgles:

Bald guy. Wholesome. He's also extremely unlucky and Victor made sure that's his only personality trait. Polyamoryyyy. His bf is Joly, his gf is Musichetta. It's just... Bossuet, you know?

Joly:

Doctor? Yeah, did I mention he's a germaphobe? Poor guy. Eccentric asf. Carries a cane everywhere. Will wake up in the middle of the night to align his bed according to the earth's poles and shit. Yes, he has a bf and gf, as previously mentioned.

Gavroche 'Gav':

Best boiiii. Smol, like, 10-12 yrs old. Savage. Absolutely destroyed Enjolras when in an argument. Also managed to trick a skilled criminal once. Rip, he would have loved Minecraft. Eponine and Azelma's brother. Courfeyrac's instant son. Looks up to Bahorel.

Marius Pontmercy:

The Most Awkward Human Being. Like, fr. Courfeyrac's emotional support introvert. Possibly the only straight here but who knows??? Idk he's kinda close with Courf. Anyway Enj amd Ferre scare him. Especially Ferre. He somehow gets a gf??? Survived

Eponine 'Ponine' Thenardieur

Marius' side ho. Has a crush on him. Bit I think she's gayyyy. Or bi. There's no way she's interested in men only. Anyway, poor. Terrible household situation :(. Feminist. I hope she gets a gf in her second life. R had a smol crush on her but that was just a phase. She deserved better, like everyone.

Cosette Fauchelevent/Valjean:

Marius' main ho (how this guy manages to get bitches is beyond me). Cottagecore goth (is that a thing?). Adopted. Such a sweet gal. Eponine could also be her gf <3.

Montparnasse 'Parnasse':

Ah him. Okay this guy. He is s narcissistic but a good one. One day he looked in the mirror and said 'Wow im hot lets murder people' and so he did exactly that. Said criminal tricked by Gavroche. 'Dandy'. He's so cool I love him sm.

Azelma Thenardieur:

Poor girl doesn't get any development. She's just there. Survived. Is rly cool tho, trust me.

Jean Valjean:

Stole bread and went to jail for 19 years. Villain origin story. Then he stole from a child (which may or may not have been Feuilly but that's another story for another post) and he instantly went good. Became mayor and businessman. One of his employees died so he found her daughter and raised her. Survived for a while. Is supposed to be the protagonist lol. Wholesome grandpa

Inspector Javert 'Jav jav man':

Is his life's goal to arrest Valjean. I say enemies to lovers trope. Starts off as a bitch, tbh.

Fantine:

My poor girl deserved the world. Her bf got her pregnant and fled :(. She gave Cosette over to some strangers to raise her while she worked in a nearby town, sending them money for Cosette's expenses. That's a no no there but ok. Gets fired, becomes a prostitute, dies. So of any of you out there shame sex workers I'll choke u while u sleep.

[gildedmuse]

Why I Adore These Dorks Of Wano

(Part 42)

I maybe, kind, sort of perhaps have in the past made a fleeting mentions of my fondness for the Red Scabbards. What did you expect? Seriously, t's like if you got a whole team of Zoro variants together, I don't know, did something absolutely insane. like, say, throw themselves right at a giant

Mystical, Immortal Dragon God 🐉

Which, I mean, is pretty much my dream I mean, is pretty much my dream Zoro arc. Too bad about how they got there.

Kin'emon is obviously the most Zoro-Like of Oden's Zoros (personality wise it's somehow a weird toss up between Okiku and Cat Viper, but in this situation we're defining Zoro-Like as being less reflective of his personality as a whole and more "being just a stupidly loyal swordsmen who will never stop believing in his captain his master his idiot he's sworn to follow and, if they die, he will travel through the very depths of time itself to slay a giant fucking empire dragon in their honor".

Which, to be fair, I feel like is what Zoro would WANT his name to mean in that context

In case you need any more convincing, here is my break down.

Kin'emon

Zoro Ranking: 8.5 / 10

Despite leadership not being one his his defining qualities, he often fills that position in their leader's absence. He's got Zoro's loyalty, determination, sense of revenge, and also if you hurt his captain this man will track you down to the end of reality itself and make you pay.

Also, surprisingly good with children.

Okiku

Zoro Rating: 8 / 10

Zoro's Samurai Girlfriend Self

The traditionally Wano trained samurai that Zoro is deep inside. Also, proves his theories that gender stuff is bullshit, people aren't just trying (not just girls, most people suck compared to Zoro.) Okiku that calmness that post time skip Zoro has. She is his Traditionally Trained side.

Also, she freaks out the second Luffy is in danger. So that's a definite Zoro trait.

Ashura

Zoro Ranking: 6.5 / 10

So imagine a world where Zoro had grown up exactly how all those people in the east blue thought he was - just a sword demon pirate hunter killer from hell - go with that, add twenty years then have him meet Luffy and basically this. He seems heartless, but let's remember, he tried to stop those men from sacrificing himself, and not doing more has haunted him. But he's stubborn, and not to believe just anyone who comes along with what seems like good news. If Zoro had grown up exactly how all those people in the East Blue thought he was - just a sword demon pirate hunter killer from hell - go with that, add twenty years THEN have him meet Luffy and basically this.

Alternatively: Luffy dies, orders Zoro not to do anything. This is what you end up with twenty years later.

Denjiro/Kyoshiro

Zoro Ranking: 6.5 / 10

Law Ranking: 8 / 10

If Law and Zoro had a child and he was mostly raised by Law except the nine years he spent by Zoro's side learning the most important lesson: You find a captain, then you kill for him or die for him, those are your only options.

I will justify this more later, but let me just say that Denjiro's original plan seemed to be, "get drunk and beat the fuck out of everyone" then paused and thought, no, I can use this.

That is a child who has been raised by these two drama queens right here.

Izou

Zoro Ranking: 6 / 10

To balance out that Samurai side of him is Izo, Okiku's little brother. This is the part of Zoro that got dragged only half willingly onto a pirate ship by some insane kid and decided, fuck it, this is his home now. Izo even stays with Whiteboard after Oden leaves ("but I called him my captain!"). He's clearly got that pirate spirit to him, and is longing for adventure, but will always make time to avenge his friends.

Also, he is hella pretty like Zoro in his Skypiea outfit.

Cat Viper & Dogstorm

Zoro Ranking: 7-5 / 10

They are both loyal and will protect those they've sworn to protect even if it means undergoing extreme pain, because it's for their nakama damnit!

Cat Viper is more like Pre-Time Skip Zoro. He's a lot more upbeat, a lot more careless, lot like Luffy. Dogstorm, on the other hand, is a lot more like Post-Time Skip Zoro who tends to play the more responsible (*cough*) vice captain. At least captain to his own. Or like early Zoro when he had to balance out Luffy being an idiot.

Regardless, they both are basically Zoro whenever he argues with a crew mate. Cat Viper is Zoro when he's arguing with Sanji or early Robin/Nami. Dogstorm is like Older Zoro with Sanji/Zoro With Perona

Raizu

Zoro Ranking: 5 / 10

Usopp Ranking: 7 / 10

Franky Rating: 9.5 /10

If Law and Zoro had a kid also that kid only inherited one father's loyalty and one father genetic disposition for being a total dork about ninjas, and then that child was raised by Franky and Usopp but they let Zoro have visitation rights (because they're literally on the same ship). You'd basically end up with Raizo.

He cries whenever anything is poigant

He refuses to sacrifices himself for others

He's smarter than you think despite his appearence

He's actually fucking amazing at what he does

He believes in honor and tradition

He got separated from the main group

He will ditch either of those to make Chopper and Luffy happy

He says nin-nin (that part is from Law)

Ninja powers are basically major bullshit (that part is also from Law and his "OverPowered-OverPowered Fruit)

Kawamatsu

Zoro Ranking: 4 / 10

Okay, so imagine if Robin wrote a children's story about Chopper and Zoro being bestest bros and it was Zoro's chop to protect Chopper no matter what.

Look, Kawamatsu has no problem starving for Hiyori. He's a sweetheart with Hiyori. He eats poison fish while stuck in a jail cell all so that he can get to Hiyori. And the second he sees Luffy, he protects him.

Also, he's primarily green. I rest my case.

[monochromayhem]

People like @wawhii, @quiteegregiouslychuffed, @xenon-noble and @downtofragglerock asked, so here we gooooooooooo

Also a few of these might be headmates whoops

I’m going to be going into my IP as well, since there are some things from the Bionicle story that translate really well to here.

Keep in mind I based them on a lot of their book personality traits and their Matoran occupations. Not to mention they’re VERY stylized so yeah I understand why someone called Vakama a femboy.

Speaking of…

Vakama is definitely one of my favorites from the books. It’s probably why I did my best to balance his color choices. I wanted to focus on the insecure nature as he dealt with what was equivalent to a young man being robbed of their childhood. The guy just wanted to do what he loved and throughout that time he’s constantly grappling with the fact that he can never go back. Even if it was all necessary— destiny and so forth— it’s still a tragedy that evil and tyranny forces such a scenario to occur.

In the IP I provided a similar experience. His form looks to be elven, though in universe they are called Syrans. He’s actually a native subset of Syran to the heartland of Lucantia known as a “Vilkaean”. They have magic that allows them to transform into dire wolves. He’s a cursed variety of Vilkaean, a curse that causes random transformations into a more monstrous and less self-aware beast (similar to giving into the spirit of the Hordika).

In addition, his destiny is in the hands of two deities, bath of which want him as a successor. From a very young age expectations were placed on this version of Vakama from an early age as he went into his forging work and the pressure makes the curse he bears worse and worse on his mental and physical health.

Nokama. Ah Nokama. Ever diligent and perceptive. I wanted to give her a teacher vibe with the pencil skirt, but also the healer vibe with her magic. She’s likely on the clerical side of her place of employment in the AU, and though she’d love action, like Nokama in the books, she pines for the days of simplicity as well.

IP wise, she seems to be a Syran as well. She’s likely be working for the Alliance as a translator as well as medical backup.

Matau! Probably the one who I wanted to be when I was younger because… I don’t know, green is a pretty color. The fast-speaking guy was always on the move, and I wanted a delivery aesthetic for the guy. Additionally, he’s a bit younger than the rest of the ones here and has the energy to match.

This form is a race known as the Galaeans, gryphonlike people who live in the high mountain ranges to the Northeast of Lucantia. I have no idea on pronouns since sex and gender for their kind is disconnected (their species is hermaphroditic by nature so gender is even more socially constructed than usual). Kinda fitting since Matau in Bionicle is one of few characters to expressly show romantic inclinations and such- he likely breaks from the mold a lot.

Nuju genuinely looked like this when I put him into Syran form. He just… *chef’s kiss*

The way he’s done with everybody’s bullshit, the way he’s aggravated at every little error because he has foresight. I’ve said out before and I’ll stick with it: everything about his personality screams “I don’t have the time nor the crayons to explain why you’re stupid for doing what you did.”

At the Alliance in the IP he’d likely be responsible for translating prophetic tablets. Though it seems more like Nokama’s job, the reason he has to do it is less about his normal job of interpreting revelations and more to do work personal ties. When I actually wrote the damn story it’ll be more clear, but he’s less than enthused to be drawn away from his work for such a task. Especially because it required travel by carriage.

Whenua immediately stuck out as a deserving candidate for the cat people race of this world, and I wanted to style him like a lion. With a big mane of hair that probably has wicked bed head potential, he’s the archivist through and through. I’d imagine that he likes to pibe over both the things he keeps locked up as well as his personal collection of ancient trinkets.

The race he’s depicted as here is Malkin, who range from people with cat ears and tails to full-furred Khajiit-looking bois. He’s used to the heat of the desert despite such dark fur. In addition to his responsibilities he’s also an Alliance watcher in the IP, meaning he acts as a living surveillance unit.

I styled his clothing after the green hexagonal depictions of the Archives in the second film. Though it’s not my depiction when I read the books, I think this gives him an ironically futuristic look compared to his companions. It also reminds me of shiny Zygarde, which is pretty cool.

Hey so I got yelled at by some transphobic loser on Reddit for my chibi and slightly femme drawing style after drawing Bionicle characters. Someone on Bionicle Tumblr PLEASE ask me to show them my take on the Toa Metru. BLEASE

(PS. They’re also fantasy races from my IP.)

[the-breath-in-air]

Fixing "Boy Erased" (2018)

I recently decided to watch Boy Erased (2018) again, now that we're a couple years out from its initial release (and hype). And I came away with some thoughts.

First, something I think worked. You know that scene near the end, when Jared (Lucas Hedges) is trying to leave the conversion camp and he's racing through corridors and whatnot. That whole sequence works, but there's one moment that really stands out.

Jared attempts to get his phone and Michael (one of the 'camp counselors') tries to physically wrestle it away from him. There's a bit of a fight but eventually Jared makes his way to the bathroom and he calls his mom to come take him away. He then emerges from the bathroom and says to Victor Sykes (who runs the camp), "If you, or anyone else puts their hands on me, I have witnesses." Victor puts up his hands and says, "Nobody's gonna put their hands on you. Why would anybody do that? Come and sit. We're gonna wait for your mom, okay?" Then there's a hard cut to this:

Victor Sykes and Brandon literally laying their hands on Jared and praying. And I love that juxtaposition because it brings to light the violence inherent in this situation. They're restraining him through enforced religious acts. There's violence in this prayer.

And on top of that, it serves as a pretty good metaphor for the whole film. Jared's parents (especially his mother) believe they're helping but really they're hurting. They can't see the violence of their actions in sending him to the camp.

If only the rest of the film was working on this level.

Problem the first: Audience as observer. The film is really about observing its subject, Jared, as he experiences these events. But it isn't about giving us any insight into his perspective or interiority as he does so. The camera is looking at Jared more often that it is revealing to us what he's seeing. Perhaps the most obvious example of this issue is with the perfume ad scene. Jared is on a run and he comes across a perfume ad on the side of a bus stop with a bare chested buff guy. The camera shows us the ad, and then the rest of the scene has the camera (and thus, the audience) placed some distance away as we see Jared first touch the ad, then throw a rock at the ad, and then scream "fuck you" at it repeatedly. The ad itself isn't salacious enough to illicit that kind of response in the average audience-goer, and the camera is so disconnected from Jared's experience that we aren't really gaining insight into why this ad is affecting him in such a strong way. It ends up making it so that scene really does not work.

This isn't to critique Lucas Hedges's performance in that scene. It's more to say that all the other elements of that scene make it feel ridiculous - because the audience has not been guided toward viewing that ad in the same way that Jared does in that moment.

The second problem: Casting. To be absolutely clear, this is not a knock against any of the actors performances. On the contrary, I think everyone was pretty dang exceptional. Rather, it's more a conversation about casting choices. Two of those choices really stand out as somewhat misguided: Xavier Dolan as Jon and Emily Hinkler as Lee.

Turns out Emily Hinkler is a nonbinary actress. Lee (the character) is a cis guy who is conspicuously unmasculine. (If you've seen the movie - he's the one who gets hit in the head with a baseball). Casting a nonbinary actress as a cis boy at a conversion camp feels a bit off on it's own in that a conversion camp would be forcing people to adhere to assigned genders at birth. But I could get behind it as a sort of statement, like, a casting decision as direct opposition to the enforced gender binary of a conversion camp. i.e. Why should the movie adhere to the oppressive gender binary that the camp would? However, by casting a nonbinary actress as the least conventionally masculine character - it actually feels like it ends up reinforcing the binary. Lee's defining trait is that he's small and unmanly and, afaik, he's the only one of the male characters who is not portrayed by a cis man.

My issue with Xavier Dolan's casting is much simpler: Jon feels like he was written as a teenager and Xavier Dolan was approaching 30 when this was filmed. Maybe it wouldn't have bugged me so much if I didn't already know who Xavier Dolan was when watching the movie? Like, maybe if you watch it without knowing the actor's age, it works better? But also, the character feels like a teen but isn't explicitly stated to be a teen. So whenever he was on screen I kept wondering if actually part of Jon's situation is meant to be that he is 30 but stuck in a sort-of adolescence due to his relationship with his abusive father. Or did they just cast Xavier Dolan to portray a teenager?

This brings me to the third problem: Not enough of the ensemble. Jared, and thus the audience, spends proportionally, little screen time with the other people at the camp. They are rarely shown talking to each other - especially outside the restrictive observation of the camp's 'counselors.' This could be part of the point - i.e. that the camp is so isolating - but that isolation wasn't really highlighted by the camera/scenes/dialogue...so it really feels more like it's just an oversight. The movie focuses on Jared and his individual story and so the rest just fell by the wayside.

This is really unfortunate because there are some (potentially) great characters in there, especially Jon and Gary. Jon went through the program once before and is now back for a second time. We don't know what happened to make him come back. He appears to be 30-ish but he's staying at a hotel with his abusive father. He is completely invested in the program and treats his sexuality like an addiction. He has even taken it upon himself to forego all physical contact with other men (not even a handshake). His self-loathing is at once horrifying and heartbreaking.

In contrast, Gary (Troye Sivan) knows the entire program is bullshit, but he's playing along for his own survival. He's over 18; he lived with his boyfriend for a year prior to coming to the camp. So that begs the question of how his family convinced him to enter to the program. Also, Gary's so invested in his own survival, that he stays silent and is complacent in the abuse and violence he witnesses against others in the camp. He is both a victim and a bystander (at times).

I think this film would've really benefited from spending more time with these characters (as well as Sarah, portrayed by Jesse LaTourette, and Cameron, portrayed by Britton Sear) in the camp and seeing how they all interacted with each other. Give us a sense of their different contexts and perspectives - and give us a better sense of the ways that conversion camps disempower the people sent there (even people like Gary, who knows it's bullshit). It's the thing that makes all the other movies about conversion camps work so well.

Which brings us to the fourth problem: the ending. If we spend more time with the ensemble, we'd either end up with a really long movie or we'd have to cut out something else. Well, folks, we can cut about 10 minutes off the end. Everything after the dinner Jared has with his mother post-escape can go. The climax of the film is when Jared finally decides to leave the camp. The resolution comes when his mother places herself in opposition to Jared's father (which she had never done before) and decides that she's going to take Jared home. And the emotional resolution comes when she admits to Jared that they made a mistake and that they harmed him by sending him to the camp.

Everything after that is extraneous. We don't really need to see Jared living in a city with a boyfriend, or see him begin to reconcile with his father. His relationship with his father was never the emotional core for the film. Boy Erased is, in some ways, a movie about self-actualization and that's the sort of movie that's best to end with something a bit open-ended. Y'know...a sort of end-that's-just-the-beginning kind of thing. Because the story of Jared falling in love and dating and moving out and gaining the self-confidence to confront his father - well that's a whole other movie. And here it gets shoved into the epilogue, which does the whole thing a real disservice.

Then there are the informational cards at the end. Two stick out as being particularly frustrating. One, "The real Victor Sykes left L.I.A. in 2008. He now lives in Texas, with his husband," feels irrelevant and unnecessary. The audience cares about what happened to Gerrard Conley (who wrote the story and whom Jared is based off of). But why do we care about what happened to the real guy who ran the camp? We don't...except for the jab about him now being married to a man - which feels like it's a more significant point for the cis straight people in the audience than for anyone queer. Turns-out-ex-gay-pastor-was-actually-just-gay-the-whole-time is not revelatory, I gotta say.

Then there's also this:

The emphasis about conversion therapy "practiced on minors," feels a bit disconnected from the film we just watched - which emphasized how abusive and traumatizing it is, even for adults. And in the U.S., all states currently legally allow conversion therapy for anyone 18+. Only Washington D.C. has banned it. And that, to me, is equally egregious, yet it isn't mentioned. The film itself challenges the notion that it's somehow okay for this to be practiced on adults because it's ostensibly their "choice," and then the info cards at the end shy away from that stance by focusing on kids.

I think the thing I find most frustrating about this movie, is the wasted potential. As I said at the beginning of this, there are some moments that really stand out in how they use the medium to convey meaning. There are some choices in how the film uses light and brightness (or lack thereof), that are pretty dang good, too. But ultimately, it's a film I feel so detached from and I think some of what I explained above is part of why.

[agusvedder]

I DON’T CARE if this doesn’t get any notes. I need to vent.

My name is Agustina, I’m 27 years old. I’m a nonbinary, queer, latinx person, parent of a 4 year old, non-verbal authistic child. I suffer from depression and anxiety.

I’m 9 thousand kilometers away from the woman I love.

I’m not a victim. I am a minority. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I started watching Supernatural in 2015, you know, being a stay-at-home parent, who dropped her career and her job to live the first years of their child, there wasn’t much I could do in my free time but to watch a show. I caught a few episodes of season 11 on tv and then I decided to start from zero. I always acknowledged how problematic it was in terms of representation, but always saw small threads of light filtering in the message it sent, recognizing how its writers were trying to shed a little light, creating a jenga tower of storylines and new characters, only to be thrown away by poor, useless deaths and the erasure of said characters.

Since my first run on season 1 I related to Dean. I saw myself on him. (I will never be as brave and cool as him tho, never ever, but his personality traits, some of his family issues, his self worth issues, his loneliness, his unaddressed childhood trauma, his growth in a circle of violence, his reticence to address his feelings until he explodes?... Yeah. There are days where my girlfriend makes fun of me saying “Ok Dean”). I kept looking up to Dean in his geekiness, in his way he always put his life on the line to protect the people he loves and put them always first… even in the supernatural side of the storyline, he still was profoundly human and abnegated to the people in his life. Also because I’m deeply in love with Castiel but that’s another subject. Thanks to this show, I’ve found people in my own country who now I recognize as my family beyond SPN, who helped me accept myself the way I am, who are always there for me. My found family, my chosen family. Because family don’t end in blood, because family cares about you, not only for what you can do for them, because that’s what all of us have in common, and why this show resonated as strongly as it did for us. That’s why we found each other and ourselves in the process, in a circle of love, support, non-judgement and willingness to find a family in ourselves when our own blood relatives ignored us, abused us, refused to recognize us. We’ve found love and family. I’ve found the woman with whom I wanna spend the rest of my life with because of this show.

That’s the power of this story. I know my small circle is not the only one who lived this, who continues to live it.

I can talk about this forever, but there’s something I wanna talk about specifically here. When the ending aired.. what I felt was… like a bucket of cold water was thrown over my head. You know when your parents come home, or call you and give you the devastating news that someone you love died? that exact feeling. The adrenaline, the heartbreak, the feeling of loss. 

The whole season 15 and 15 years of storyline were completely overturned. The misogyny the writers tried so hard to erase, it was there again, in a faceless woman who was supposed to represent the person a lead chose to spend the rest of his life with, reduced to a lilac dress, a blurry face and a uterus. We never seen acknowledged the existence of Eileen Leahy, Sam Winchester’s romantic interest since season 11, his perfect partner whose disability wasn’t an obstacle for her to be a badass hunter. (BUT COVID!! <- No. Eileen Leahy appeared in two episodes this season without Shoshannah being on set: Last Holiday and Despair. If they wanted to include her, they would have. They didn’t because they don’t give a FUCK). Sam Winchester is an academic, a witch, a leader, a powerful hunter, a kind human being, and the ending that was given to him was living an unfulfilled life, dying at a ridiculous young age, having a son only to replace his dead brother? It was sad. Sammy deserved better. He always did.

My beloved Dean Winchester, who I love so deeply, who taught me a lot about myself, about life, love, family, about *ejem* VICIOUS CIRCLES and the power of breaking free from them, of learning to embrace one’s self, our real tastes, our real identity, to come out of a shadow of being reduced to someone’s caretaker instead of having an identity of our own, to spend life loving family the healthy amount.. well, he was killed in a ridiculous way, on a milk run of a hunt.  After being eager and ready to kill himself so many times. After all he’s been through, after saying he’s good with who he is, after considering retirement, after standing up to his dad, saying he already has a family, ready to cut the “I’m Okay” bullshit, address his feelings, his trauma, don’t letting those define him. He deserved better. He always wanted a family, he always wanted to break free from the version of himself he was created to be, “daddy’s blunt little instrument” (For fuck’s sake, he even said it in the same show 10’ before dying, man. If we don’t keep living, the sacrifice the people who died for us did, was for nothing). Are you telling me this man really would refuse his brother to call an ambulance? Refused his brother to get the first aid kit even knowing it was more serious than his brother thought? He was ready to live. He CHOSE life, and at the end his choice was stripped away from him. He clearly was a bisexual man and they never explored it.

Cas. The misfit. The fish outside of the water. Ambiguous gender and sexuality. Finally makes a homosexual declaration of love after all he’s been through. After being brainwashed, used, suicidal, isolated. After telling Sam and Dean he loved them more than once, that they meant everything for him. After confessing he’s been in love with Dean since he pulled him out of hell…. Was erased from the story. Erased, literally. Two emotionless mentions aren’t enough for a 12 year old family member who pulled both brothers out of hell, who died for them more than once, who until 2 seasons ago he didn’t even feel like he belonged there ‘cause he was never told he was loved. No one ever told him “I love you” back. Not Jack, not Sam, not Dean, not Mary. No one. Ever. And still, he died for love. And with his death, he was erased from the finale, being that the first finale Castiel wasn’t in since his appearance on the show. He deserved better. 

All roads lead to Rome and you know what we got at the end of that road? a bottomless pit of NOTHING. The building up towards a different end isn’t just in s15. It’s been there for years and years. And if you watch the show, you see it at plain sight.

 

Sam Winchester hurried to die to reunite with his brother in heaven EVEN WHEN HE SPENT 30 MORE YEARS WITH A WIFE AND A KID he only wanted to die to go back to his brother? it’s insane, it’s ridiculous. That’s not what the show has been about for seasons now. SEASONS. The road was paved towards a healthy brotherly bond, each brother living their future the way they wanted, finally breaking free from the curse John dropped on Dean that Sam’s destiny was in his hands. No no. What was that? Did it ever happen? Was it a fever dream? They really destroyed everything in 38 minutes of the finale? 

Stupid. 

Representation is important, stories are important. They change lives. You know how it changed mine? After I saw Jonathan Van Ness coming out as non-binary, I started to realize how I never called myself "a woman, a girl" or anything like that, how my "female presenting" aesthetic changes drastically depending on how I feel when I wake up  how I always called myself a "person", no gender involved. I realized I was a non-binary person even after becoming a parent. Thanks to Jonathan Van Ness. Thanks to seeing a person like her being unapologetically herself. 

Representation matters. 

It matters. 

It helped my mom understand me when I was 13 and had a girlfriend. It helped my dad educate himself about trans identities. It helped my sister understand about her demisexuality. It helps break circles of ignorance and stereotypes. It helps people process what these characters wanna tell, and realize they're human beings above it all. We suffer, we laugh, we grieve. We love. We exist. 

Supernatural missed a chance to be a historical show in terms of representation. And it breaks my heart.  I cant believe they decided to erase Dean's sexuality, to erase Castiel after saying loud and proud he's in love with a man, to erase Eileen whose disability only was a disadvantage when they KILLED HER in the most ableistic way in s11, to never show Charlie and her girlfriend again, that they decided to make God bisexual AND a villain, thay they decided to turn the only regular non-binary character of color into the villain too (Billie).

I'm still grieving.

This is why "a stupid show" is so important for me, and for lot of people like me. Cause representation can change lives. Stories can change lives. It certainly changed mine, and I'm not the only one. 

Don't let anyone tell you you're just a butthurt fan because you're suffering this ending. Every one of us have a story and this is mine. All of us are valid, our feelings are valid. And we'll get through this eventually

[trombonesinspace]

Typhoid Mary: feminist femme fatale?

“Season 4 was going to be Typhoid Mary, Alice Eve [who played the role in Iron Fist], we were doing a kind of...I had a much different version of her than what Raven [Metzner] had done in Iron Fist. I was kind of rebooting what she was going to be like, and we were going to do a, you know, kind of a warped love story/murder mystery kind of femme fatale, but kind of a modern-day, feminist version of it, as opposed to kind of the older, sexist kind of femme fatale archetype.”

-Erik Oleson, in conversation with Steven DeKnight, SaveDaredevilCon 

As I said yesterday, I have some thoughts about this! If you want some opinions nobody asked for, about a storyline that may never come to pass, you’ve come to the right place! Let’s dive in.

A femme fatale is a character type with quite a history, that can take various forms. She is always an attractive woman who brings ruin to the man who gets involved with her. But sometimes she is deliberately manipulative, while sometimes she is more a victim of circumstances. She may be evil, or she may be sympathetic/tragic. But whatever her moral alignment, she has two defining traits: sexual allure, and some form of negative consequences for the hero as a result of his involvement with her.

A woman who schemes against the hero, and succeeds in harming him, but without using feminine wiles? Not a femme fatale. The Marvel TV universe has featured several examples on different shows: Madame Gao, Mariah Dillard, Alexandra. And, ironically, the version of Typhoid Mary who appeared in Iron Fist. (We’ll get there.)

A sexy woman who tries to manipulate/damage the hero, but fails? Also not a femme fatale. I wish I could give some examples, but sadly I can’t think of any, in dramas at least. Our current media culture loves a sexy manipulator, no writer ever seems to introduce one into a dramatic story without making her succeed in her schemes, to some extent at least.

Which is unfortunate, from my perspective, because I loathe sexy manipulators. It’s a character type I really dislike, whenever I encounter her. As soon as she shows up, I know the hero is going to fall for her bullshit like a chump, and I’m going to end up respecting him less as a result. I could try to unpack my feelings about this a bit more, but that would probably make a post all on its own, so for now I’ll leave it at that.

This doesn’t mean I hate all femmes fatales—it really depends on her motivation and her behavior. If she isn’t trying to harm the hero, and it happens due to circumstances, then I might like the character, but the story becomes a tragedy. Which is not necessarily bad. Just, you know. Tragic.

Anyway! Let’s talk about Typhoid Mary.

Mary Walker is a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities), and high-level combat skills. In the comics, she is also a mutant with mental powers. She appeared in the Daredevil comics starting in 1988.

In this original version, her personality fragmented due to childhood abuse, leading her to vow as an adult that no man would ever hurt her again. Her personalities are: Mary, who is timid and gentle; Typhoid, who is adventurous, lusty, and violent; and Bloody Mary, who is even more violent, sadistic, and hates all men.

Mary becomes romantically involved with Matt Murdock, who is cheating on his girlfriend, Karen Page, to be with her. At the same time, Typhoid is trying to ruin him, having been hired to do so by the Kingpin. Matt can’t tell they’re the same woman, because when she switches personalities all her bio signs change (voice, scent, heartbeat, etc) so much that he can’t recognize her. (Uh, sure.) She may also be using some of her mutant powers to confuse his senses. I haven’t read the comics, I’m relying here on what I could learn from the internet.

Eventually Typhoid drops him off a bridge, but then Mary finds him and gets him to a hospital, saving him. Karen is with him when he wakes up, but he breaks her heart by calling out for Mary.

This storyline...does not thrill me. As I said, I haven’t read it, but comics writing about mental illness is generally neither nuanced nor accurate, and comics writing about women circa 1988 is also not great, by today’s standards. And comics Matt’s disastrous love life is legendary—cheating on your girlfriend is bad, Matt! Don’t do it! 

I have, however, watched season 2 of Iron Fist, where we get a different version. This Mary Walker is a US army veteran, special ops, who was captured by the Sokovian military. Her personality fragmented due to the brutal abuse she received from her captors for nearly two years, until she finally escaped. She got a medical discharge from the army after being diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Her personalities are: Mary, who is innocent and naive; and Walker, who is a ruthless, coolly efficient mercenary-for-hire. The existence of a third, ultraviolent personality, previously unknown to either Mary or Walker, is revealed near the end of the season. 

Mary meets and befriends Danny Rand, while Walker is hired by his enemies to stalk him, and eventually capture him so they can steal his Iron Fist powers from him. She later changes sides, getting hired to bring down Davos, the season’s main villain, by Joy Meachum, his former ally.

There are clear parallels to the Daredevil comics storyline, albeit in less extreme form—Mary befriends the hero, but isn’t romantically involved with him; her more violent personality works against him and fights him, but doesn’t try to destroy him. 

I enjoyed this version of the character more than I expected to, for a couple of reasons. For one, she is never the out of control, “crazy” stereotype of a person with mental illness. Both Mary and Walker are more-or-less functional adults, managing to live a strange hybrid life, aware of each other’s existence even though they don’t share memories.

But what I especially like is that she isn’t sexualized, at all. It’s incredibly rare, in my experience, to see a young, female antagonist opposing a male hero, and not have her be sexy. Older women are exempt from this obligation (see my list of examples above), but the young ones always vamp it up, and I am so tired of it. I am not opposed to sexy women, but I am very opposed to the requirement that all women must be sexy. (Unless they’re old.) Male antagonists aren’t required to be alluring, so why should women be? (Yes, I know why. I just don’t like it.)

There’s also a lot of potential YIKES in sexualizing a woman with a severe mental illness, which was caused by (among other things) repeated sexual violence. Could it be done in a way that isn’t super problematic? It’s possible, sure. Am I assuming that most television writers would give the subject the respect it deserves? NOPE! 

I’m really glad they chose to just not go there. Walker is extremely good at what she does, takes no shit from anyone, and (almost) never gets riled up. After everything she’s been through, nothing in her present life has the power to faze her, and none of the men around her have the power to intimidate her. It’s pretty great!

She isn’t the least bit coy or seductive, and, equally refreshing, none of the men try to sexualize her or hit on her. Everyone Walker talks to knows she is a highly skilled professional, and they treat her accordingly. Or, when someone does disrespect her, it’s never gendered as far as I can remember, and it stops as soon as she calmly states what she’s going to do to him if it doesn’t.

As for Mary, although she has a more feminine appearance than Walker (hair down and loose, makeup), she is also not sexualized. Her friendship with Danny, who is in an established relationship with Colleen Wing, is platonic, and no one else tries to hit on her that I remember.

So this is the version of Typhoid Mary that Erik Oleson was going to reboot, into a femme fatale. Only, you know. A feminist one. 

I...have some questions. What does that even mean? What does feminism mean to Erik Oleson? Let’s be real, the idea of a woman becoming an ultraviolent, sadistic man-hater as a result of sexual trauma would have been seen as feminist in some circles, back in 1988 when that version was written. So what, exactly, did he have in mind?

As I said before, sexual allure is a necessary component of a femme fatale. So she was definitely gonna be sexy. And you know now how I feel about sexy female antagonists. As for the “warped love story” part...Matt wouldn’t be cheating on Karen, since they aren’t together (please, for the love of mercy, don’t have them get together right before he meets Mary, we did that once and I do NOT want to see it again), but I am still not a fan of Matt/Mary as a couple.

Her Dissociative Identity Disorder raises some serious issues around consent, and even if the show chose to ignore that, there’s still the issue of past sexual trauma. Unless Oleson’s reworking of the character was going to include a completely different back story, a Matt/Mary relationship would mean Matt unknowingly having sex with a woman who has suffered brutal sexual abuse in her past. Not to mention, having sex with her that only one part of her personality actually wants.

Is it possible for someone with Mary’s past trauma and present mental illness to have a positive sexual relationship? In reality, of course! In the hands of writers with only a layman’s knowledge of psychology, on a show that loves to torment its hero, I wouldn’t bet on it. How do you suppose our poster boy for Catholic guilt would react when he inevitably finds out the truth?

Plus, aside from any issues around Mary herself, Matt starting a relationship with anyone other than the handful of people who already know his secret identity, means a whole new round of Matt lying to someone he cares about. Does anyone really want to see that? I know I don’t. Sure, maybe he’d tell her eventually, but how long would they have to date before he decided to trust her with the truth?

I’m not opposed to the Mary Walker from Iron Fist appearing in Daredevil, if the writers could come up with a new story for her (i.e, don’t just have her repeat all the same plot beats with Matt that she already did with Danny). But bringing her in as a femme fatale really doesn’t sit well with me. We’ve already seen Matt in an ultimately destructive relationship with a sexy, violent, morally grey woman. I really don’t want to watch Round 2: now with multiple personalities!

Of course, maybe we never will. The quote at the beginning of this post is from just a couple of weeks ago (July 25 2020), so Erik Oleson still seems to think it’s a fine idea. But obviously we don’t know yet if there will ever be a season 4, or who the show runner will be if there is. He may never get to make the story he was planning.

So yes, I realize I’m merely speculating about a completely theoretical story that may never happen. But I wanted to write this anyway. I had a strong “ugh, no” reaction to the idea of a feminist femme fatale Typhoid Mary, and I wanted to go deeper and pick apart my reasons for not liking the idea.

To the three of you who have read this all the way through to the end (this post is nearly 2000 words, yikes), thank you for indulging me! These are, as always, my own opinions, and YMMV. 

[popculturebuffet]

Jake Reviews Stuff: Steven Universe: The Answer

Happy pride everyone and naturally, it just wouldn’t feel like a celebration of pride in animation without one of the frontrunners of LBGTQ represintation in Children’s television, as well as quality in storytelling in general: Steven Universe.  Since your seeing this you probably know the gist but as my idol peter parker would say let’s do this one last time:  The story of Steven, a 14 year old, though he dosen’t look it, boy with a boundless amount of love, compassion and empathy,  lives in beach city with his borderline homeless dad , surrogate moms and surrogate until we find out they actually are kinda related sister: Garnet, a fusion of two gems in love and thus the sum total of both them and their feelings, Peal, an emotional but loving gem who grew from a servant to Rose’s right hand, sometimes lover, and confidant, and Amythest, a gem born long after the war that brought everyone else here who acts like a 20 something or teenager half the time. Steven soon finds himself fighting alongside themt o protect earth both from the monsters caused by the final battle of the war his mother fought to save earth from distruction and let her army live life how they choose, and the gem homeworld as it starts to take an intrest in earth again. And as the fight goes on Steven also starts to see just how flawed his family is and how much they haven’t moved on from his moms death and finds himself forced to help them past it while grappling with his mom’s terrible and complicated legacy, everyone expecitng him to basically be her, and what it means to be a  being that’s truly one of a kind.  I absolutley love the show: it’s not without flaws; Characters tend to be ingnored for seasons or episodes at a time,some arcs are really weirdly paced and the slice of life episodes can be jammed in the weirdest places. But the show’s strength: a devotion to having emotional resolution be even more important, and sometimes just as powerful animated and framed, than fighting, though the show’s fight scene’s are incredible, incredibly deep characters with fully fleshed out arcs and growth, and a love for tackling deep, heavy subjects through metaphor or even directly, taking on things such as gender identity, societal conformity, ptsd, grief, gender identity and many many more with grace and weight and helping kids with them in the process.  The show is also the frontrunner for LBGTQ+ representation in cartoons in the 2010′s. While other shows had bits nad pieces, series creator Rebecca Sugar was the one responsible for making Marcline and Princess Bubblegum ex-lovers and making it obvious as possible without saying it because standards were bullshit, Steven Unvierse decided to say fuck subtley and thus had PLENTY OF gay content: Garnet is a fusion of two women and the embodiment of their love and relationship, and when the two show up their very affectionate with one another to the point of bullcrap censorship in less tolerant countries such as india and russia, while Pearl out and out had a CENTURIES LONG romantic relationship with Steven’s mother who was explictly pansexual, and that’s just the main cast!  But I genuinely believe that it’s thanks to Steven Universe that children’s animation is as LBGTQ+ positive as it is now. SU wasn’t the first to have gay leads but it was one of the few kids shows with the balls and, at least in the us, network support to explictily have gay characters as some of the main cast, and I feel the show’s success softend execs at CN and other companies to let more representation too. Since SU”s airing, most CN shows have had gay content great and small, Nick has had gay parents and a bisexual lead, not to mention the korra ending kicking it all off, and Netflix has said hold my beer, having not only multiple gay main characters, but having the finale of she ra be built on a decleration of love between two women saving the universe and being the climax of the entire series.  Not that those crews likely still didn’t have to FIGHT for most of that, i’m not bilind and NOelle Stevenson has outright admitted she had to be sneaky about catradora for season 1 as to not get it shut down, but I feel SU”s sucess and Rebecca and crew’s own likely fights put the various studio goon’s reflector shields down and got more representation into children’s media. And that’s a wonderful thing.  So naturally the show was a lock for this month and for coverage here.. i’ts just given the show’s heavily seralized nature and the fact it dosen’t really have any long romantic story arcs. Sure ther’es plenty of romance, but it’s mostly either in the past or between an already married couple that’s also a person. The show’s arcs were more focused on worldbuilding and character building, which I do prefer and will be doing one in July.  But it did make it tricky to find an episode to spotlight the character I wanted to spotlight: Garnet Garnet is easily my faviorite character, with pearl a very close second: she has a great dynamic, is a decent if flawed mother and leader, and is also damn funny with her deadpanned reactions to things being utterly divine. As well as whatever the hell this is. 

The problem is I also wanted to spotlight the parts making up her: Ruby and Sapphire, their relationship etc as they themselves are fantastic and i’m 100% convinced were the inspriation for one mr mc skat kat and one paula abdul’s magnum opus in steven’s unvierse

The problem is most rupphire episodes are tangled in bigger arcs. They debuted at the end of the invasion arc, they had the baseball episdoe together shortly after another arc, and their wedding is tied up in the reveal rose was pink diamond and the reception is crashed by the climactic battle with Yellow and Blue that sets up the final arc of the whole series. But thankfully season two gave us The Answer to my problem.. ironically named the Answer, basically Garnet Year One as Garnet tells steven how she came to be, a story so beauitful they made a storybook out of it.. and it’s my honor to present it here after the cut. 

We open at the Barn... as a refresher at this point the Gems and Steven have been staying at Greg’s old family farm in order to have the  space and suplies to build a drill to stop the cluster from hatching and destroying earth, with Peridot reluctantly working with them. So as such Steven’s sleeping there when Garnet wakes her.. and in a notable departure for her it’s san’s shade, which shows her adorable excitment as she wakes Steven. Turns out it’s his birthday! And.. I don’t really begrudge the show for takin ga break for two episodes to celebrate it: besides being the only time steven went up a year, on screen, it was a nice break from the peridot/cluster storyline for a second, and this and the following episode are pretty great and both add a lot to the world as a whole. It’s why i don’t MIND when SU takes a break from the plot, as long as they do it for good reason. 

IN a great callback steven asks if garent’s going to tell him she’s a fusion, as Jailbreak revealed the reason she hadn’t yet is she was saving it for his birthday, which is a good joke and a great callback. Garnet cheerfully tells him know but has clearly found a backup: While steven knows she’s a fusion now.. she never told him how she came to be and how ruby and sapphire met after all.  So we journey back about 5000 years to, as we’d learn much later with the pink diamond reveal, the start of the gem war. Earth was to be the next great colony, as we’d learn next season for pink diamond, but something was in the way: The rebel rose quartz and her brutal right hand pearl were causing tons of distruption, so the rest of the diamonds had come to snuff out the rebellion personally.  So that’s where Ruby and Sapphire came in. Sapphire is a higher class gem, and befiting her caste is a precog, with Sapphires brought in to tell the diamonds the future so they can either make sure it happens or change it’s course. Garnet neaturally has this ablility too but vastly improved to see multiple timelines. She’s proper and distant.  Ruby meanwhile is a shy, if more intellgent then her peers grunt soldier. Rubies as we learned here are basically made in groups to fuse. To homeworld, Fusion is simply a tactic to create a slightly stronger gem out of three other gems, and basically creates one giant person. In Contrast up to this point the series has shown fusion as something important to the crystal gems and requriing more work: It requires all parties to be in sync to even happen much less stay together, and requires an emotional connection; Freindship, romance, kinship... whatever it is it’s needed to hold the fusion together. It’s part of what MAKES garnet so impressive: Garnet is a permafusion, only unfusing either when her two halves are needed. or when thier personal conflict is so great they CAN’T stay fused. It also means due to said emotional resonance and combining the best traits of two gems rather than creating just one big gem, that the crystal fusions we’ve seen are vastly more powerful and versitale.. evne if they dont’ speak much because Rebecca made the mistake of getting big artist to do the role and apparently refused to just you know.. recast? It’s something that always baffled me. There’s no shortage of talented poc performers who can sing out there.  Anyways, that’s part of what makes this intresting: up till now, we’d only seen one form of fusion.. we hadn’t seen what homeworld thought of it and used it for, and to the show’s credit it was hinted back during the return arc when Jasper called fusion a “tactic for making weak gems stronger”, since as far as homeworld used it, that’s what it was and it’s a stark contrast to the crystal gems harder to maintain but much more intresting and unique fusions. 

We’ll get more into this later. The two front rubies argue about whose going to punch people whie our ruby just points out the obvious: Their just going to fuse into a really big ruby and punch together. This gets her shoved into sapphire, which despite not being her fault gets gasps and monocle pops from the gems around them. And it’s about time I dug into the episodes unique animation style: instead of the usual, only a handful of characters, the rubies, sapphire, and later rose and pearl, are animated normally and even then, at least for the first half, are brightly lit in their primary colors, while the rest of the gems present are just barely animated sytlistic shadows. It’s a really intresting choice and a clever way to save on budget, while still looking gorgeous. 

Sapphire, while refusing Ruby’s help getting up, is understanding if monotone, but as w’eve seen in the present, tha’ts mostly just a side effect from seeing where everything’s going, and likely the reason garnet’s own emotional process is much like that; Stoic but willing to emote when necessary. Sapphire however has a reason for brushing her ruby off: the reason she was called here.. Blue Diamond.  This is intresting as it’s not only the first time we HEARD of blue, as before this we only heard of Yellow, who’d make her proper debut at the end of this season, but the first time we saw a diamond in any way shape of form. Sure we had murals and such, but given the lack of info about the diamonds this early on it was impossible to tell whow as who and the only giveway there was more than was diamond was the symbols: the era 1 symbols in temples and at the arena showing all 4, hinting at pink, and the modern one shown in jailbreak that was a triforce. We do only see Blue in a hood, covered by her palquin and her voice done by Garnet, but it’s still the first tiem we’d see any of the diamonds in any onscreen form. The Garnet voice is also notcable as every other voice in the flashabck, including characters who aren’t either part of garnet or the same gem type as part of her, is normal.. it’s only blue Garnet does a voice for.. and a clever way of covering for the fact they likely hadn’t cast her voice actress yet. It’s also notable for the introduction of Blue Pearl, who silently stands by her Diamond teh whole time.. it’s weird thinking back to the fact that this was the first time we’d really SEEN other versions of our main cast: other rubies and another pearl. Sure we knew they were all part of one type or another with the obvious exception of garnet.. but this episode is notable, and weird to think about giiven how many variants we see as the series goes on, for being the FIRST time we see this on screen. 

Sapphire reveals that while she, and two of her rubies, will poof the rebllion will end here, and Blue is releaved to here this, thanks sapphire and dismisses her. As Garnet explains, Sapphire had no issue with this as she simply saw her life as one straight line: No choice no, option: Fate would just come as it may. Sapphire also muses to Our Ruby on the fact that she finds this planet a wonderful place for a colony.. and that she wishes she could’ve seen more of it. While Our Ruby says theirs more time, Sapphire, while appricating the sentiment gently shoots it down.  This little moment is interuptted however as Rose shouts out, signaling her and Pearl’s arrival. The battle has begun. And I do like the clever use of storytelling here.. not in presetnation but in what we’d learn muchhhh later with the big reveal: To a first time watcher, we just thought that it was only rose and pearl for story purposes or it was a small attack. After all the rest of the characters we’d seen were just shadows, so I, and I presume many others just assumed the rest were off screen or failing that this was just a small strike. As we’d learn once we got the full story of Pink Diamond becoming rose.. it was indeed JUST them, and only them at the time. it’s probably why in the future sapphire saw the rebellion ended her: Pink while powerful had to reign it in as not to be found out and pearl, while as we see her is already utterly badass and an ace with a sword as she mows down Quartz soldiers, is still one gem going up against a literal army.  Another noticable thing, that hints at when this takes place is the fact that when Rose takes down the fused rubies, poofing two of them and leaving ours to flump to the ground.. she uses her fists. At this point her iconic sword is well established and it’s assumed it was just left out for artistic purpose.. but since we meet who made it next season with Bismuth, it’s another clever hint this is before there was a proper army. Bismuth wasn’t a gem yet so Rose/Pink just had her natural strength and shield to protect her, which wasn’t nothing, but the sword probably made it far easier to hold back. 

And thus we come to the moment of truth: Pearl has come back and is about to mow down sapphire.. when Ruby realizes just waht Sapphire meant and waht she’s about to do and thus.. the future changed. Ruby tackles her out of the way. And Garnet is born. 

I absolutley love Garnet’s cotton candy design, both as a sensible evolution, as this is a garnet formed in a moment of passion and accidently versus the one we see in the present or even in flashbacks: a person formed by choice and love and thus having a more stable form. Naturally, Rose and Pearl are baffled by this.. and it’s even more understandable.. as the above mentioned pink diamond origin episode explained.. they had never SEEN this kind of fusion before. While i’m sure this isn’t the first time this happend in gem history, any others were likely killed as soon as it were over or went into hiding as we saw with the off colors. And Pink being sheltered and Pearl being created for her, probalby simply never thought of something like this existing. But they also realize this never before seen to them miracle is their cue to skidoo and book it out of there.  Naturally Blue is pissed and the court are disgusted as the two defuse and both have about the same reacation. 

Before Blue can murder Ruby for you know, doing her fucking job, Sapphire ttakes her by the hand and books it off the sky arena and the two plummet to earth  while ruby screams no a lot. The foundation of any good relationship. 

They float down to earth.. because she’s Mary Poppins Ya’ll. Ruby reveals why she’s upset: Because as she sees it, there’s dozens of her. She’s not WORTH this. Sapphire has no reaction because for the first time, she has no idea what the future brings, what it means and the future she saw was just shattered. She’s frozen. 

Jokes aside I really love that pun. Ruby worries and quickly scoops her up bridal carry style and quickly finds the two a cave. In the cave the two light that flame get that and Ruby continues to freak out over what happened,  upset with her self that she’s supposed to save sapphire.. with Sapphire gently reassuring her “you already did.”  It’s also intresting as it shows even garnet, or at least half of her, had to go through what peridot did.. it went down a bit easier since exile happened right away, but Ruby still had to shake off the homeworld conceived notion that she was WRONG for saving sapphire simply because it lost them the fight and got them fused and all that. It’s also a nice metaphor for someone whose been told, for a nightmarish rainbow assortment of bullshit resaons, that being gay is wrong only to discover they are and having to realize there’s nothing wrong with who they are. 

After a breif flash the two finally talk about their fusion, with Sapphire being suprised considering she figured fusion wasn’t anything like they experinced.. only for Ruby to chime in that sh’es RIGHT: Their fusion wasn’t anything like Ruby’s normal “me but bigger’ fusion.. they lost htemselves.. and both clearly enjoyed it, expressing it through having a third eye for ruby and more than one for sapphi 

We then get the utterly adorable musical number: “Something Entirely New”Which takes the so far mildly subtle “This is like two people who had sex with the oppsite gender for the first time “ metaphor.. and just makes it texual as the song basically screams of two people talking over an unfamiliar sexual experince, but in a cute, well done, and intentionally awkward way that’s still approraite for the kids. it’s a real beautiful song and also shows the burgoning couple bond on earth. This is important as a previous episode had garent and out and out say that love takes time and work, accurate and that love at first sight simply dosen’t exist.. and we also see she practices waht she preaches as the montage does show some time past and even before that the two genuiely bonded. Sure they FUSED on the spur of the moment.. but actually loving each other took time and bonding. 

As the song ends, the two dance romantically,deciding to be Garnet for good as we get some nice callbacks to jailbreak: the two hum the tune to stronger than you, now revealed to be their song and spin similarilty to the way they have when they’ve fused, a nice callback that also add’s weight to those previous moments.. and thus two become one and Garnet is reborn. 

Garnet narrates as her past self gets used to her strange new form.. and just as she does she falls down a ditch. Eh could’ve been worse. 

Garnet finds herself face to sword with Pearl. Pearl backs off a bit once she realizes who their dealing with, and Garnet panickedly offers to unfuse.. only for Rose to enter. Garnet narrates them as Rose Quartz and her terrifying renegade pearl. 

Truly a force to be reckoned with. Rose dosen’t care about her own feelings though “What you feel is bound to be more intresting” It’s a good moment both because Garnet , up to this point hasn’t had to think about what they are or how they feel.. but more notably... no one but the two gems makingthem up ever cared, not before they were garnet and after all the homeworld gems wanted was to kill her. We also get a great line from garnet: “Why am I sure that i’d rather be this than anything else and that i’d rather do this than anything else i’m supposed to do? “  Rose’s response.. to give a giant grin while saying welcome to earth. As Garnet continues to question things, Rose tells her to never question this, never question what you are... which is a damn good message for a kids show to give out. The metaphor is crystal clear: no matter where you are on that beautiful lbgtq+ rainbow: NEVER be ashamed of who you are, never question it.. just enjoy it. Be who your meant to be and love that person. It’s a damn good message and one badly needed in a medium that for way too fucking long was SCARED to tell messages like this: Of sponsors, of foreign markets, and of idiots like one million moms. it took people like rebecca and her crew to say “fuck that”, to say that queer kids NEED these kinds of stories to know they aren’t alone, they are beautiful how they are. They shoudln’t have to wait to find out what they are.. is okay. And that’s beautiful. 

As Rose Tells Garnet that she is the answer, and as we cut back to the present, Steven asks what the answer is. Garnet simply answers: Love. And we close on one great exchange Steven: I knew it Garnet; (wistfully) So did I. 

Final Thoughts: While I remembered the episode being good, hence part of the reason I choose it I forgot just HOW great this episode was, especially post reveal. The art direction is goregous, shot like a fairy tail and rightfully so since this episode is told as one, the story is heartwarming and erica and charlene really act their hearts out as ruby and sapphire while Estelle kills it as both present garnet narrating and past garnet, a garnet ENTIRELY diffrent from what we’ve seen but acted beautifully. It’s espcially noticable since unlike the other two lead gems, we obviously wouldn’t see more garnets like we would amythests and pearls, so unlike her contepraries estelle really didn’t get to flex her vocal range as much playing alternate versions as the seasons went on, with this being the closest she got.  The episode is beautiful, has a wonderful message, and is just utterly charming and is agian why I DON’T mind that every su episode dosen’t advance the plot: Sometimes it dosen’t need to. And even so this one ended up being WAY more important than I remembered, introducing blue diamond and turning out to be MASSIVELY important once the reveal kicked it: For it was Garnet, and the love dthat forged her that changed Pink’s direction. Before the rebellion was simply a way to stop the occupation of earth and would’ve been snuffed out if not for ruby’s actions.. but seeing garnet, seeing how earth and being free from homeworld’s restraints could positvely impact someone.. it changed rose. Besides bringing her and Pearl together, it also made her realize just what her rebellion could bring to people and what a gem could be and even more how precious her future home was. By forming in an act of Love, garnet changed the entire future of gemkind. By staying that way she did so once more. And that’s beautifully. overall an underated, even by me, little masterwork with once again a damn fine message.  We’ll get back to SU soon enough, as I plan to cover the series first full arc as we meet peridot, and see into the souls of our heroines. But first Pride isn’t over yet, and I have one last card on the table as we todd it up a bit with my first look at bojack horseman. Like this if you enjoyed it, comments subscirbe etc etc and don’t be afraid to comission a review for 3 bucks, and until we meet agian, later days. 

[raccoon-wizard]

Two and Half Assholes

An entire one person (shout out to @jumpfiend) expressed their wish for me to write an angry essay about the long dead show Two and Half Men (2003-2015) and all the problems it has. Allow me to start by saying that I am by no means a professional critic and I have never really written an in-depth review of anything. But I have a lot of feelings that I need to get out about this shitshow, otherwise my head is gonna explode next time my father insists on watching it.

Just a warning, this is a very long post.

What is Two and Half Men about?

If I tried to write my own summary here, I would probably end up tearing it to shreds already. Instead, I’m going to borrow the annotation from IMDB.com: “A hedonistic jingle writer's free-wheeling life comes to an abrupt halt when his brother and 10-year-old nephew move into his beachfront house.”

That doesn’t really say much, does it now. Luckily, the same site also provides us with a wide range of plot (hahahah “plot”) summaries written by users. This one tells us a little more: “The Harper brothers Charlie and Alan are almost opposites but form a great team. They have little in common except their dislike for their mundane, maternally cold and domineering mother, Evelyn. Alan, a compulsively neat chiropractor and control-freak, is thrown out by his manipulative wife Judith who nevertheless gets him to pay for everything and do most jobs in the house. Charlie is a freelance jingle composer and irresistible Casanova who lives in a luxurious beach-house and rarely gets up before noon. Charlie "temporarily" allows Alan and his son Jake, a food-obsessed, lazy kid who shuttles between his parents, to move in with them after Alan's separation/divorce. The sitcom revolves around their conflicting lifestyles, raising Jake (who has the efficient, caring dad while having a ball with his fun-loving sugar uncle who teaches him boyish things), and bantering with Evelyn and various other friends and family. Other fairly regular characters include Charlie's cleaning lady Berta and his rich, self-confessed stalker neighbor Rose who often sneaks in to spy on Charlie.”

Now that’s much better. It gives us quite a decent picture of the show’s ensemble. At least for the starter episodes, this is pretty much what it is. But as the show progresses, we see that the characters have a little bit more depth to them. But not that much. 

Let’s start with Charlie Harper, the “freelance jingle composer and irresistible Casanova who lives in a luxurious beach-house and rarely gets up before noon” portrayed by Charlie Sheen. (Is that man still a thing?) I think we can get a lot by taking apart this brief description of him. Freelance jingle composer pretty much means that he has a grand piano in his house and we can occasionally see him playing it while trying to put together words for a commercial for some random product. And that’s it. He has a few other musician friends who are just as big of assholes as he is, but we’ll get to that later. Other than that, we don’t really see him working at all. I think there is one episode about him writing kids’ songs because his girlfriend’s kid likes them. And one about him getting an award?? I don’t know man. The second part of that statement is a much more prominent “personality” trait of Charlie’s. In nearly every episode, we see him “dating” (meaning shagging and then dumping) another woman. I have mentioned in my initial post that this show is misogynistic. Don’t worry, I will also get into that later. For now I’m going to say that Charlie treats all these women absolutely disgustingly and we’re supposed to laugh at that. On the rare occasions we see him in a long term relationship (which happens twice I think? I’m not sure now), we get the stereotypical ball and chain bullshit. The woman takes all his freedom and tries to make him better. While I hate that trope with burning passion, I have to admit that in this case, she does have a solid point. Charlie is a pathetic excuse of a man who has to count on his good looks (questionable) and his riches. By the way, where did he even get them? Does composing jingles really make that much money? Is he that good of a gambler? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen another episode addressing the fact that the answer to both of these questions is no. Where the hell did this luxurious beach-house come from??? So many questions about a show that deserves so little.

Surprisingly, Charlie is the better one out of the two brothers. At the start, we really do feel sorry for Alan. His wife (who is a HORRIBLE person by the way) kicks him out and manipulates him into still paying for everything and doing many things for her around the house. Who wouldn’t feel bad for someone like this? He moves in with Charlie “for the time being”. Soon, we realise that he is not leaving the house anytime soon. He becomes a disgusting leech, a truly pathetic excuse of a man. And he doesn’t even bother hiding it. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to feel sorry for him or laugh at him, but either case doesn’t really work if you spend at least ten seconds thinking about it. How are we supposed to sympathise with a man that lives off of others and barely lifts a finger to change it? The worst part is, the show presents it as something completely normal. We don’t really see Alan’s actions turning against him, do we? Most of the time, whatever shit he does, works just fine for him. 

Another prominent character is Alan’s son, Jake, who grows up throughout the series. A fat little boy, not exactly bright. A spoiled brat (if it’s the fault of Alan or Judith is questionable) that has everything handed to him, as Charlie points out in one episode. It’s another bad personality trait that we’re supposed to find funny. And at first, we kind of do. But once again, as the show progresses, it gets worse. Jake becomes the oldest kid in his class because he fails so many times. He only gets to start middle school because “he’s too big for the desks in his class now”. A bit of a watered down Dudley Dursley now that I think about it. It feels that the older Jake gets, the dumber he is. He eventually joins the military because he is too daft to realise. (If I remember correctly, that was done only so Jake’s actor could leave the show because he pretty much realised how bad it was.)

The main reason why I hate this show so much, however, is its way of handling female characters. There’s a few prominent ones - the aforementioned Judith, Alan’s ex wife, a cold hearted manipulative bitch, that also follows the trope of “I’m breaking up with you because I’m a lesbian” for a while, but then it’s never addressed again, not even once. Then we have Alan and Charlie’s mother, Evelyn, also a cold hearted bitch lacking any motherly instincts whatsoever that the men blame for how they turned out. Honestly, I can kind of see it. There’s Rose, Charlie’s neighbour whom he had slept with once and who’s been obsessed with him ever since, following him pretty much wherever he goes and inappropriately visiting him, usually in order to chase any woman that gets close to him away. We have Berta, Charlie’s housekeeper that I would like to believe is there to show the differences between different classes, as she has a large family to take care of, fending of her daughters’ admirers and dealing with drug and alcohol issues. But at this point we all know she’s only there so we can laugh at her struggles and the witty remarks she likes to make. 

A special category of women in this show are the lovers and girlfriends. All of them end up either leaving the men for someone better (good for them tbh), or getting left by them. But remember, we’re supposed to always be siding with the men. The women are there for us to laugh at and hate. Rose the stalker? The only reason Charlie never gets rid of her is so we can laugh as she appears unexpected on his balcony over and over again. Are her apparent mental health issues ever addressed? Maybe once, but as a joke. You know, the classic ha ha ha ha look an insane person that’s hilarious. Judith the ex wife and her flock of weird friends (that Charlie converts)? Look, evil wives hating men, ha ha ha ha. Better run away from there, men, or they’ll eat you alive! Ha ha ha ha. Judith wanting support from friends and claiming she deserves to be happy is played off as something we scoff at. Chelsea, Charlie’s girlfriend and fiancée? The ball and chain thing, similarly to Judith, but not nearly as manipulative - this one we can see really means well and wants to help Charlie, but he’s a Man™ and cannot handle that, despite claiming to love her very dearly. Lindsay, Alan’s on again, off again girlfriend? Oof. Where to even start with that one. As most of the characters (save for maybe Judith), she starts off decent, despite her inexplicable desire for Alan. (Seriously though what in the world is up with that.) Also, now that I mentioned Alan’s weird sex appeal (not to me but to the female characters of the show, ew), what the hell was up with Judith wanting to suddenly fuck him again and HIM ENDING UP BEING THE FATHER OF HER DAUGHTER???? Was that the point when the writers just said “you know what, fuck this” or?

Some additional things the men on the show did to women:

Infidelity. Aka “ha ha ha many women want man what a lucky bastard he gets to fuck many women ha ha ha oh no he’s been caught ha ha ha funny”.

Infidelity with their friends/family members. I’m pretty sure this happened multiple times. One of the male protagonists gets a girlfriend. Girlfriend has an attractive daughter. Man sleeps with daughter. Girlfriend is mad. Man claims that it is actually a compliment to her because the daughter is just a younger version of her. Man gets upset when girlfriend disagrees. Poor man, girlfriend mean :(((

Another thing I would like to point out is the show’s dumbass approach to sexuality and gender. It’s the age old, straight men bullshit that lesbians = hot, gay men = ew. We see that throughout the whole thing a bunch of times. Alan ends up marrying Walden (whom I will talk about as well) so they can scam an adoption agency. That’s just wrong, man. That’s awful. And regarding gender, the way this shitshow handles trans people is disgusting. I can currently only think of one instance of this, but I have a feeling it happened multiple times, but with Charlie and Alan. They meet a woman, flirt, sleep together, all fun and games. But for some god forsaken reason, after all is done, the woman decides to be like “yeah by the way I used to be a dude” and?? Why?? First of, why would any trans person want to tell anyone their deadname and other things after successfully transitioning? I’m a cis woman, but this really makes no sense to me. Please correct me if I’m wrong on this one, but if you’ve spent years trying to pass as whatever gender you identify with, transitioned, you wouldn’t exactly go around sleeping with people and afterwards telling them about it, would you? And second of all, the entire reason why these characters appear are so we can be like “eww he slept with someone who used to have a penis eww” and laugh as they have a small crisis because of it. Just. Why?? I am aware that this is a thing other shows do/have done as well, but it really bothers me. And even when the guy decides to roll with it, all we get are those jokes that the woman is “more manly” than him. I remember vividly Alan hooking up with a trans lady and briefly dating her, only so we can see her pick a fight with a man, pay for their food and shit and Alan being flustered because he feels like less of a man. Again, please correct me if I’m wrong since my knowledge of gender is limited, but I’m about 97 % sure this is not how it works.

One would have thought that most of this would end after Charlie’s death. His place is taken by Walden Schmidt, portrayed by the angel that is Ashton Kutcher, a “billionaire internet entrepreneur who has recently been divorced and is now suicidal” (wiki). Before I dig in to how it actually got worse, let’s talk about Walden for a while. He really is a nice change. Walden is a genuinely good character, we see him working super hard and treating women well and just being great. I actually like him. The problem the show has when it comes to him is treating his suicidal-ness as just another little joke. Ha ha ha man wants to die man weak. Funny. But as we get over this part (rather quickly tbh), things involving Walden get actually good (besides the part where he sleeps with Alan’s mother). We do see some annoyingly familiar divorce related things, but in contrast to Alan, we see Walden actually get back on his own two feet. 

Alan will forever be my biggest issue with this show. I don’t know if he gets worse or if it’s just the contrast with Walden that makes it seem that way, but he becomes a bigger and bigger parasite, exploiting Walden’s kindness, becoming a lover to his, at that point, former girlfriend Lindsay and somehow exploiting her current boyfriend? He just goes haywire is what I’m trying to say.

I’m not saying that people like that don’t exist. We see it every day, the rich playboys, the pathetic incels. They are everywhere and we totally should talk about them. But not like this. We shouldn’t feel like we should sympathise with them, we shouldn’t hate those that try to criticise them, or those who want to get rid of them. We shouldn’t laugh when they hurt people around them. Men shouldn’t want to relate to them. Characters like this should be presented as something we should avoid becoming.

“What’s your problem? It’s just something I watch to unwind,” my father scoffs at me as I complain about yet another evening we all have to spend listening to the nonsense Two and Half Men brings us. Yea, maybe for you. Maybe you know better than to treat people around you, especially women, like they’re just something you can play around with and then throw into the sewers. Maybe you give everyone equal respect. (No he doesn’t, by the way.) But you know, with the way this TV channel plays this show over and over and over and over again (five episodes a day, every day, and the second they get to the end, they just start over), there’s probably a number of young people who don’t realise how wrong it is and take what’s said there as something to live by. Maybe they’ll think that it’s okay to use people to their advantage. Maybe they’ll think like a rich entitled middle aged straight white man. That’s my problem. Even though the show ended five years ago, it still lives on our televisions and it still gives us wrong examples on how to live our lives. That’s why I hate the show. Not just the awful writing and “plot” holes. It’s the way it treats people and presents it as something that’s totally fine. 

[cooperfm]

          hello  beautiful  people  !  lenny  here  (  23  ,  she  /  her  ,  mst  )  and  i’m  so  excited  to  be  here  !  i’ve  been  really  missing  my  boy  cooper  ,  and  this  group  really  felt  like  such  a  good  fit  for  him  .  i  cannot  wait  to  introduce  him  to  you  and  meet  all  of  you  !  everything  you  need  to  know  about  him  can  be  find  right  below  the  cut  ,  and  if  you  like  what  you  see  just  click  that  heart  or  slide  into  my  dms  and  we  can  plot  !  my  tumblr  ims  are  open  ,  or  you  can  reach  me  via  dis  of  the  cord @  *  ɪ'ᴍ ᴀ ʟᴏɴᴇʟʏ 𝒃𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉 .#3088

did you just see cooper averton walking down fifth avenue ? the twenty three year old, singer / songwriter has been living in the nyc for five years and has a net worth of $124mill & 28.5m followers on instagram. some say they tend to be quite charming , but also reticent . however, they seem to enjoy posting about fingers adorned with silver rings , missed calls from california , lyrics scribbled in a rush on their social media. ( austin butler  ✕   he / him   ✕   cis male )   &   ( lenny  ✕   23  ✕   she / her  ✕   mst )

*  /  𝑻𝑯𝑬  𝑩𝑨𝑺𝑰𝑪𝑺  :

full  name  :  cooper jonathon averton

nicknames  :  coop , cj , c.jave

age  /  birthdate  :  twenty3 / june 27 , 1996

gender  /  pronouns  :  cis male / he , him

sexuality  :  pansexual

hometown  :  bel air , california

occupation  :  singer , songwriter

*  /  𝑻𝑯𝑬  𝑩𝑨𝑪𝑲𝑮𝑹𝑶𝑼𝑵𝑫  :  (  tw : mention of drugs , addiction , overdose  )

so i have a full bio written up for cooper , which you can find here — fair warning , it’s a novel because i tend to ramble and cooper has a fairly elaborate history . but below will be my attempt at the cliff notes of his story , though i can almost guarantee it may still get out of hand because i , like jenna marbles , have a too much gene and i can’t control it !!!

cooper was born in bel air , california , and i know you know what that means — the silver spoon was shoved right into his mouth from the get go . mr averton was a well - known and reputable lawyer , so money was far from an issue for the family . the only issue was upholding their reputation and the family legacy .

being the eldest child , cooper was immediately expected to be the one to follow in his father’s footsteps and take control of the firm . except young cooper turned out to be far from lawyer - material . he was sweet , outgoing , and a little weak - willed — and thus , the family disappointment .

long story short , coop was the black sheep of the averton family . he stretched to reach the high expectations of his family , particularly his demanding father — but always seemed to fall short . cue the daddy issues .

cooper’s peers took advantage of his kind , personable nature in order to rise to gain their own popularity . he eventually caught on to his fake friends when he caught his girlfriend cheating with his best friend , and he sorta spiralled . loneliness and rejection are his greatest fears and he couldn’t swallow losing everyone around him , so he swallowed his pride and just kept letting people take advantage of him — all while burying himself in bel air’s partying scene .

that is where his addiction started , the drugs numbing him in a way nothing else could — well , aside from music . his creative streak was just another thing that differed him from his family and cooper embraced it . he always loved the way music made him feel , strumming a guitar or humming a lyric . he had two loves in his life : drugs and music .

following high school graduation , cooper’s parents were pushing him towards college , crossing their fingers that their son would find his way back from his little detour in life . but cooper had a different route in mind for himself — he wanted to pursue his passion for music . this obviously did not sit well with his parents , who couldn’t fathom how their rockstar son would further tarnish their pristine reputation as bel air’s finest . tensions rose in the averton mansion until they finally exploded one night , leaving cooper to pack his bags and leave the place he had called home for eighteen years .

being eighteen , cooper had full access to his trust fund and he booked a one way ticket to new york city , eager to put as much distance as he could between himself and his family . he didn’t want to solely live off of his parents’ money though , so he began busking and bartending to pay for his little apartment .

cooper could have easily bought his way to the top , to the career he dreamt of , but he wanted to earn it , to know that his talent was what pushed him to success . so he played on the streets , in as many bars that would let him , and uploaded his music online until he finally caught the attention of a rising record label .

his career generally follows that of his claim , sir sly , except his first single was released in 2017 . i’ll be working on a general timeline for his career , but he’s been active since 2017 and just released his newest single “ all your love ” !

last year , cooper ended up in rehab after a near - fatal overdose while touring . he went off the grid for three months until returning in the fall a brighter version of himself . it seemed to have done him good , except he eventually fell off the wagon after a few too many nights back in his usual clubs . that’s all on the downlow though , not many know he’s back to using and he’s careful to only be caught with a drink in his hand .

he’s also slowly reconnected with his family since his teens . they still don’t love his lifestyle choices , but there’s still the random phone call every now and then .

** i don’t know where else to weave this in , but his stage name is c.jave — sort of a little alias for him so he wasn’t leaning on the averton name .

*  /  𝑻𝑯𝑬  𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹  :

label(s)  :  the maverick , the benevolent , the contingent ,

traits  :  charming , reclusive , diligent , trusting , loyal , naive , addictive , creative , short - tempered , obsessive 

aesthetics  :  fingers adorned with silver rings , a journal bound in leather , missed calls from california , shirt sleeves pushed up to elbows , lyrics scribbled in a rush , cigarette smoke curling from parted lips , broken guitar strings

personality wise , cooper’s a walking enigma . at first glance , he’s quiet , mysterious , and a little intimidating . his resting “ don’t fuck with me ” face can put most off , and he’s unlikely to make the first move with strangers — unless he has something in his bloodstream .

give him a few drinks ( or pills ) though , and cooper can become the life of the party . he honestly just loves to have fun and enjoy his freedom in nyc . he’s a well - known face at the bars and is often photographed stumbling home to his loft apartment in times square .

his walls are unfortunately let down a little too quickly for his own good though . even though it’s fucked him over in the past , he trusts too easily and wants to believe in the best of everyone . he’s quite charming and sweet so he can easily win over most , but those cold - blooded enough find it easy to take advantage of him and his generosity .

once you earn his trust , cooper while fight tooth and nail for you . he’s fiercely loyal , catch him throwing hands at anyone who tries to mess with his friends .

he’s also a major gentleman . manners were ingrained in him from the start , so he’ll open doors for strangers , text you to make sure you got home safe , and offer help with anything you need .

this isn’t a major thing , but i wanted to include it , but he’s a really great conversationalist . he’s just so curious , so he listens really well , and is so intelligent and well - thought that any conversation can twist into some deep , philosophical exchange if you’re not careful with him .

oh and — his look is current austin : the short , dark brown hair — v elvis of him . he had the original long , blond hair for a good few years but cut it shortly after rehab for a “ fresh start ” or some bullshit .

*  /  𝑻𝑯𝑬  𝑪𝑶𝑵𝑵𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵𝑺  :

i truly want anything and everything plot wise for coop . i’m down to brainstorm , fill wanted connections , and / or work off of chemistry ! but i’ll list a few ideas that come to mind rn :

first nyc friends . he’s been here since 2015 and sorta bounced all over the place . i would love a roomie from back in the day in coop’s old , run down apartment , some og party buddies ?

exes ! he’s openly pansexual , so this is open to any . please break his heart ( sir sly has a song about a cheating ex soo 👀  )

friends with benefits , random hookups . drunken one night stands !

writing partners ? cooper writes all of his own music and also writes for other artists .

bromances . partners in crime . brother / sister friendship !

neighbours ?? cooper lives on his own in a really beautiful loft apartment , but i’d love a neighbour in the building or something !

flirtationship or cute crush !!!

[gravitasfalls]

A rant on fandom etiquette, the GF fandom, and what they did 4 years ago (and now)

By now, my “bullshit” tag has refuted most of the ridiculous hot takes, fun policing, and harassment that fans of Stanford Pines have had to face from the wider Gravity Falls fandom. But these rebuttals fall short of naming the real problem with anti-Ford wank: we never should have seen it in the first place.

People might have genuinely forgotten this, but fandom used to have etiquette against character hate. We called it “wank” and “bashing” instead of dignifying it as “discourse”. As late as 2014, fandoms on this very site had “X hate” or “anti-X” tagging systems for blacklisting, as courtesy to people who liked X thing...

...a far cry from GF fans of 2015 demonizing Ford in the most inexplicable ways, making every post a platform for that, siccing their followers on anyone fully positive about him, then pretending that never happened post-finale as they continue the bashing more insidiously to this day.

Like, what even was that? There’s a lot to unpack in those people’s arguments but let’s just throw out the whole suitcase.

(Under the cut: Snapshots of discourse I shouldn’t have had to put up with over the years, and snark-based coping with that. It gets ugly, you’ve been warned.)

Ford is irredeemable/deserves to suffer, why he didn’t even thank Stan!!1

Thanks I hate it! “It” being your apparent decision that, because you can’t make the fictional character suffer, real people who like him are the next best thing.

Ford is egotistical! Have I mentioned on literally every post I think his only trait is “egotistical”?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. But while that is just, like, your opinion man, you’re entitled to it on your own posts; you’re falsely entitled about it by forcing it on dissenters’ posts and inboxes.

*dumps negativity into inboxes anyway*

Your Hot Takes have disturbed and insulted me. You fools are unworthy of my great knowledge. The era of human enlightenment shall never come to pass.

You really think Ford is some kind of hero?

Only after you told me I wasn’t Allowed to see him as one and I Examined My Desires™ like you demanded! Funny how critical thinking ≠ agreeing with you.

Ford is your favorite? WHY DO YOU HATE MABEL.

Better question, why are you copying “WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA” logic? 9/11 did fan drama I swear

Ford is NOT PURE OF HEEEAAART, so you have to Constantly Explicitly Acknowledge his Sins and interrogate what relating to him says about you.

I got no friends ‘cause they read the papers. It’s funny, actually, projecting onto him got me dangerously close to processing some negative experiences from my past... good thing I have you here to shut those thoughts down <3 Thanks for saving me from myself uwu

If you just want to project onto a comfort character in peace, Stan is right there! His lack of fantasy elements makes him more relatable anyway!

Ford brought Bill’s manipulation on himself!

Damn fandom, back at it again with the GROSS VICTIM BLAMING

FFS why is this take as prominent now as ever??? at least the outlandish criticisms were funny, this one just makes me want to be dead.

Ford is abusive/manipulative because he doesn’t make fun of Dipper/ made a case for his apprenticeship/ called Mabel good/ complimented her personality!

(Yes, people did these mental gymnastics; yes, my soul left my body instantly.)

STOP trying to justify Ford’s actio-ma’am this is an Arby’s. also:

Ford is the Epitome of Toxic Masculinity, if you defend him either he’s your Male Power Fantasy or you’re a ditzy fangirl broad with ovaries for brains!

Ah yes, the two genders. Pack it in, everyone, we’ve reached peak feminism and patriarchy is over.

Someone negativity-tagged my Ford post, WTF?! I’m not “anti-Ford”, I’m “pro Ford-learning-a-lesson”!

And pro his-fans-never-having-a-moment-of-peace, apparently! Sorry I assumed you were a hater by your complete lack of positive things to say about him tho

Ford is a sociopath/deserves death for having no empathy!

"Tumblr is as ableist as any majority-conservative site," I say into the mic. The crowd boos. I begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room. "You’re right," they say. I look for the owner of the voice. There in the 3rd row stands: tumblr.

*Dozens of 10000+ note posts calling Ford stupid, manipulative, solely at fault for everything that went wrong, other inanities*

(This is the fandom that made me get Xkit. I’m sure hundreds of my 1000+ blocked posts are theirs.)

If you like Ford on any terms but ours then I’m sorry, but Gravity Falls just isn’t for you, k?

I don’t have a flippant response to this one. Just... stop. No one has to agree with you about this character; no, nor with me. No one even has to engage with fandom moralistically; I promise it wouldn’t hurt anyone if I were to watch this show without having to Interrogate its Morality. It wouldn’t even hurt if people voiced character hate within reasonable bounds of tagging, as I’ve said. But instead they spread it like the plague in the name of Purity and insinuated (using ages-old “ur a fake fan!!1″ no less) that we don’t get to have outlets. I’m tired.

Look at my hilarious/satisfying art of Ford saying OOC strawman things, Stan beating him up, the kids turning their backs on him! (Srsly look at it I’ve put it in all the tags)

You’re madness, Gravity Falls fandom. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you.

This is only a fraction of shit we’ve had to wade through, practically every day while the show was running. You couldn’t avoid it if you followed popular blogs. I saw the best meta writers of my fandom dogpiled by BNFs, dragging themselves through the blue hellsite at dawn looking for a fix-it fix. And people now expect me to believe it was “just Discourse” or that anything equivalent happened “in reverse” toward Stan. If I didn’t know better that they don’t know better, I’d call gaslighting.

I don’t expect to change anything. In fact, until this blog’s next go-around I don’t intend on seeking out new content anymore. I can’t keep looking at a fandom where the consensus on a canonically abused character’s victimization is that it was stupid, funny, a moral failing, or deserved, and expect anything to improve.

But to anyone else these people hurt: your anger or upset is valid, and I’m sorry. None of us deserved this. And I’m not letting it follow me into the next decade and make me forget why I liked this show in the first place, even if the only way to do that right now is cut off from the fandom a bit. I’m telling you, it never should have come to that. I don’t know if negativity-tagging can ever catch on here, considering tumblr has no boundaries by design and fandom no boundaries by choice... but for the sake of everyone who comes next, Gravity Falls fandom, make an effort.

[yundaysss]

AAAA hello everyone i’m peep and this is my bb evelyn !! :~) i haven’t tumblr rp’d in like two years so a bitch is gonna be learnin as she goes but i’m soooo excited bc everyone’s muses look dope as hell and everyone seems so cool and UGH y’all i am so Ready ... IOJEQIQJW but yes this is evelyn shes sweet dramatic naive idealistic and just started her dj career and lowkey has a secret child ugh anyway lets mf GO <3

˖ °╰ ⌜ [ MUSE 3, KIM CHUNGHA, TWENTY-THREE, CIS FEMALE, SHE/HER ] hey, have you seen EVELYN YUN ? last time i saw them i think they were hanging around THE GOOD ROOM. they can kind of be IDEALISTIC but can also be pretty SUSCEPTIBLE. they’re often caught listening to HERE BY NAMASENDA ! they also tend to remind me of  NEON FAUX FUR, Y2K ERA BUBBLEGUM POP, CHARLIE’S ANGELS, ZENON: GIRL OF THE 21ST CENTURY, POWERPUFF GIRLS ! let me know if you’ve seen them around, they’ve been working at the championship around ONE YEAR and they’re late for their shift ! (  peep , 22 , est , she/her )

STATISTICS  

FULL NAME:  evelyn  yun NICKNAME(S): evie,  eve,  e AGE:  twenty - four GENDER + PRONOUNS:  cis  female + she/her ORIENTATION:  bisexual ZODIAC:  cancer  sun,  leo  moon BIRTHDAY: june  30th,  1996 PLACE OF BIRTH:  syracuse,  new  york LOVE LANGUAGE:  words  of  affirmation,  quality  time OCCUPATION(S):  championship  vinyl  employee  by  day,  aspiring  dj  by  night DRINKING / DRUGS / SMOKING:  yes / yes / sometimes LABEL:  the  loose  cannon / one  who  cannot  control  their  own  emotions  and  may  act  out  as  a  result  of  this TRAITS: (+) idealistic,  good-natured,  reflective,  loyal,  sensitive,  playful,  reliable,  resourceful,  sentimental,  shrewd,  / (-) susceptible,  imprudent,  escapist,  dependent,  naive,  distracted,  moody,  overemotional,  dramatic

BIOGRAPHY

the following biography page contains the following: abortion mention, underage partying.

read at your own risk.  

she was born in the 90′s, in the midst of europop and grunge. and yet, evelyn was born into what she would later feel to be a very boring situation — two scientists working at syracuse university who were on the cusp of their forties. besides her parents, she has one older brother who is seven years his junior, which caused a bit of a power struggle in her childhood. from a very young age, she felt the weight of filling shoes that were too big for her. never seeing her parents fail openly in front of her caused the girl to have an enormous weight of pressure as soon as grades started mattering in middle school. the pressure didn’t just come from her parents, either. as evelyn was coming into her own, her brother was there every step of the way to push her confidence back down. always under the guise of ‘playing around’ and ‘just teasing’, her self worth quickly eroded until he moved out when she was fourteen. 

which lead to the mess that was her high school experience. it wasn’t long before she realized she didn’t have a knack for school and her wilted self worth was convincing her that she never will. eventually, she found comfort in online forums and social network platforms, often friending complete strangers, which later evolved into coming across profiles of people in the nyc underground nightclub scene. from this, these profiles soon became her closest friends and the people she felt truly understood her the most. so of course, by the time she was able to drive, she decided to sneak out on the weekends to new york city and meet these people.

and, truthfully, it wasn’t bad. at first. they were very welcoming and supportive, and always knew where to go to have the chaotic night they all wanted. they helped evelyn score a fake id (though, to their knowledge, she was nineteen, never realizing she was sixteen the whole time) and eventually helped score her smaller drugs like weed. but after having weed and later trying pills, the teenager kept craving more and more, wanting to both escape and feel closer to the music, the people, everything, more more more. which is where things got rough.

first off, it was inevitable that her parents would find out as evelyn was never good with lying. she would tell them she’s going to nyc to network or some bullshit, she would come home the next day clearly looking wrecked, her parents would yell at her, take her car away too. but she’d always find a way back to the city on the weekends. when she wouldn’t come home for days? and even miss days of school? yeah, they were starting to worry the fuck out. also because, evelyn stopped coming home one weekend. she didn’t answer her parents’ messages and truthfully, she felt like she’d be happy never returning back to her old life. which is why she moved in with her club boyfriend at the time at seventeen.

it was a mature decision for sure, but very reckless. and the severity of the situation did not hit her until a year later, when she realized she missed her period. and she wanted to get an abortion, definitely, but honestly a part of her thought maybe this was the plan for her life. that this would give her structure, force her to grow up a bit, and her boyfriend had surprisingly been supportive at this point; the two still being in the honeymoon phase a whole year later. so, at 3:04am on december 3rd, 2014, her beautiful boy charlie was born. and at 8:32pm on july 26th, 2016, her boyfriend left. apparently deciding to spend some time in thailand to ‘figure his shit out’. must be fucking nice.

it stabbed her to her core that this person, who helped define her recent years, was suddenly gone and she had to raise his child all alone at twenty. the bone-crushing pressure she was so successful at escaping for years returned in full again and she wasn’t able to handle it. she decided to contact her ex-boyfriend’s parents, knowing calling her own for advice was not an option and recognizing that the child would grow up in a more emotionally and financially stable environment with them. and since that day, his parents has been charlie’s legal guardians. though, evelyn still makes a trip to the upper east side every weekend to see him.

WANTED CONNECTIONS / OTHER

i have a page HERE with like four ideas but lets def plot and figure out our own thing too ayooo <3 

also lmk if you want me to give you a rundown of the bio since it’s long :~)

[laneymeadows]

Hey is that [SYDNEY SWEENEY]? No, that’s just [DELANEY ANGELICA MEADOWS]. They’re [TWENTY-THREE], and have spent [TWO WEEKS] in Dayton. I hear that they’re kind of [LOYAL AND INTELLIGENT], but also [UNRELIABLE AND SELFISH]. Did you hear their vices are [PROMISCUITY AND COMMITMENT ISSUES]? Can’t wait to see [HER] at the next party! 

( TW: MENTIONS OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT. )

full name: delaney angelica meadows

nickname: laney, lane, angel, angie, d.

age: twenty-three

date of birth: november 26th

place of birth: nowhere, ky

zodiac: saggitarius

gender: cis-female

nationality: american

sexual orientation: pansexual

romantic orientation: panromantic

relationship status: single 

PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES.

height:  5′3′

weight: 119 pounds

hair color: blonde

eye color: blue

need glasses/contacts? yes

tattoos: sagittarius tattoo star constellation just above the bend of her elbow, lotus on the other with a free flying bird leaving a sitting flock from her left to right shoulder, leaving stardust in it’s wake

distinguishing marks: signs of healed scars across her upper thighs and a couple on her wrists. 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION.

hometown: nowhere, ky

current residence: dayton, ca

past residences: las vegas, nevada. eugene & portland, oregon. seattle, washington.

living arrangement: apartment 

spoken languages: english

financial status: enough to get by but still getting settled

education level: finished high school at 17.

occupation: stripper at plan b

FAMILIAL INFORMATION.

father: wade meadows. 58. doesn’t remember much but the abandonment has weighed on her.

mother: farrah meadows. 56. hates her and hates even more that she’s become a carbon copy.

siblings: jamie & ryleigh meadows (twins, 21) aiden o’connor (brother, 31)

children: none

other: n/a

pets? dog named tank

PERSONALITY.

positive traits: adventurous, independent, loyal, easy going and charismatic.

negative traits: reckless, unreliable, selfish, detatched, aloof, irresponsible.

likes: sex, ecstasy, no strings attached, cocaine, tequila and taking her clothes off without a second thought, tik tok, money && freedom.

dislikes: relationships, being held down, being told what to do, people putting their hands on her unless she’s calling the shots and being responsible for someone else’s well being.

quirks: talks to herself when she’s trying to figure something out (she got it from her brother), pulls herself away the moment feelings get involved or she gets too comfortable, gets blacked out everynight and wakes up with someone she doesn’t know, not knowing where she is, loves being on her own and having her quiet space to herself.

moral alignment: lawful neutral/sometimes lawful evil.

If you were to ask Delaney Meadows what she wanted, she’d simply stare, a glint of hope in her eyes as a mess of a smile sputtered across her lips, a blunt between her fingertips and the once word that slip between them would be “free”. Ever since she was younger, she’d never quiet... fit. Maybe it was the fact that her father hadn’t been present, chalking it up to the typical daddy issues trope before letting the thought slip into obscurity until the next time someone asked what the fuck was her problem. Nowhere, Kentucky; the name alone weaved the truth of what her life’s course had taken her, constantly drifting through as the ones that were supposed to car most simply slipped between her fingertips. An afterthought, that was the cursed middle syndrome main essence had been, hadn’t it? Always left to be the one thought of last, or at least, that’s the way it’d felt. Mom and dad, well, they hadn’t hung around long. Dad took the first chance he’d had to run for the hills, and mom well -- the shit show that Laney had become herself was enough of a storybook. 

It was never meant to turn out this way, her brother being her caretaker, a teacher taking the place of a father, and where was she? Floating. Doing what she could to bust her ass and take care of as much slack that was left behind as she could. She loved Aiden, really. He tried with her, but the more he reeled her in, the harder she fought against the line he’d cast out. So much potential, wasted. A smart girl, graduated at 17, one of the highest SAT and ACT scores in the country, acceptances to colleges with scholarships some would sell their newborns for and where would she take it? Anywhere but here. That life wasn’t for her, college and all this mundane bullshit. It was the last fight, that had been the main catalyst for her departure in the same cold manner as their parents, the one where she’d brought a boy home, nothing new, except this time, she’d gotten caught; that was the last time. If you’re so grown, get a job, get a hotel. The words played like a symphony on a never ending loop, so, that’s what she did -- except this time, she didn’t turn back.

Hours turned to days, days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and months turned to a year. All she had was a brain, her body, and a boy. One who’d taken every chance he could to remind her exactly what she’d been worth, the bruises on her body the proof of the so called love he’d shown her. But even through it all, she knew better. She’d suffered, yes. Experienced the anguish and the pain, but not out of love, out of convenience. Out of mere circumstance. A fast car, some cash -- it was your typical Bonnie and Clyde, except she wouldn’t let that tragedy unveil, so she did what she did best the moment she hit eighteen, she escaped his grasp and ran for the nearest club she could find. One where they’d welcomed her with opened arms and a plethora of suitors. It was perfect, really. But no matter how she’d tried to block that year from her memory database, the scars left their painful reminder, keeping her up at night and she swore -- if she stood in one place for too long, she could feel them flare in searing pain. So, she ran. Oregon was nice, peaceful and quiet -- what a fucking joke, then, Seattle. Better, but still, her heart yearned for California, whispers of a certain town that had a history of sin woven into it’s core called out to her. It was her mission, so she worked. 

She should’ve been happy, a bird finally breaking free of it’s flock, flying in it’s own direction, but still, the thought of her mother and father plagued her memories, the blows itching at her until it had turned her numb and fuck, all she wanted to do was feel again. Feel pain, feel anger, feel hopelessness even, but it was all for not. The drugs, the alcohol rolled in, rolling through her body as they breathed life back into her once more. Then came along Dayton. She wasn’t proud of how she’d gotten there, proud of the things she’d done on the side of bearing her naked body in the small quarters of the VIP rooms, but -- fuck it, survival of the fittest. Plan B was her, well, Plan B and she’d tell you to call her Angel, though she knew it was the furthest from the truth, though still it wiped behind the past she still begrudgingly left behind with nothing more than a series of letters and ignored calls. And even now, to this day, if you asked her what she’d aspired to be in her life, with a mind so full of potential, she’d simply smile, though the glint of hope dying with each moment -- she’d still whisper to you... free.

[dgcatanisiri]

The thing that really bugs me with the BioWare writers saying that they don’t want to do the all-bi romances again because (quoting from tweets by Patrick Weekes), they were more comfortable with people being angry they couldn’t romance a character with a certain gender than being angry about the idea that gay/lesbian people don’t exist...

One, that misses a very obvious point, that you’re locking queer people out of stories they need to experience with those barriers (as I bring up, my example is that Cullen’s story hits home for me, the trauma, the PTSD, the recovery, but I can’t romance him with a male character, and it HURTS). You put up these barriers, you lock people out of seeing the story they need in the way they need. Because it doesn’t help me, a queer man, to roll a female Inquisitor in the name of romancing Cullen and seeing him recover with someone who loves him, because I will not ever find that with a woman. 

Two, the way this has been done locks the gay characters (specifically the men) into stories that REQUIRE them to be gay in order to function, which... Conceptually, I understand the gist of it, that it’s making them unapologetically gay. BUT these are stories that have been repeated over and over for gay people in media for decades now - even fucking GLEE did the “will my family accept my queerness?” storyline, and for multiple characters. You’re not breaking ground by playing the same story over and over and over and over again. To say nothing of the fact that Gil’s story is dreadfully homophobic, reducing him to a turkey baster acting to benefit his straight female friend who we learn more about than HIM... 

Like I said above, we NEED more stories. Right now, it’s like going to a buffet and being told we can only choose from one or two things, while straight players are able to access the whole menu - sure, something we like might be one of our options, but when it’s obvious we COULD have more, but it’s restricted to the straight people, it’s not helping anything.

And then there’s point three: If your two options are going to piss people off either way, go with the one that offers options to the most people, because that’s actually doing the work of trying to offer something to everyone. And then make side characters who are in same-sex relations, if you’re concerned about not representing gay/lesbians in the game.

Yeah, it’s impossible to please everyone. But you know something? The all bi romances offers at least the most options that do as much to NORMALIZE same sex relationships. Because Dorian’s story just gave another instance of “being gay sucks.” That’s great empowerment there. Yeah, okay, you might be reaching out to the closeted person afraid of coming out by having these characters whose whole purpose comes down to standing defiantly against homophobia, but if you’re out, all it does is reiterate the idea that the hardships in life you, as a gay person, will face all stem from the result of your sexuality, that all that you come down to is How Well You Gay. 

Because Dorian’s personal quest being about his father wanting to make him straight REDUCES HIM DOWN. This is the thing that Inquisition chooses to make the most important facet of him, the thing it wants you to walk away from the game knowing about him. His personal quest does not involve any of him being the Redeemer of Tevinter he was hyped as. It does not use him to explore the fact that Tevinter may be beyond redemption, given all the evils that linger and evils that it still perpetrates. Hell, if anything, Inquisition paints Dorian as an abuse victim WHO CHOOSES TO RETURN TO HIS ABUSER - he cites “Tevinter cares” as a reason he cares so much about it, and then in practice, if not in words, seems to all but dump the Inquisitor to go back there - sending stones or not, going off the epilogue slides, it’s only ever the Inquisitor who drops everything and goes to him. 

And, it bares repeating, Gil is actively reduced to an accessory in Andromeda, reduced to little more than a turkey baster for Jill, a character who’s in the game for all of two minutes tops, and is the literal worst friend ever, telling her “best friend” that he’s “part of the problem” by being gay and not having kids (which is bullshit - if anything, if/when he decides to have kids, he would actually be a guaranteed customer for her, the fertility tech), when the guy’s maybe barely THIRTY - this is not something that needs to happen RIGHTTHISFUCKINGSECOND - on TOP of the fact that, when she knows he’s impulsive, it’s a really shitty thing to push for him to become a parent - if you question him on this, unless Ryder’s his boyfriend, he effectively digs in his heels to say “I’ll show you!” and doing it out of SPITE. To say nothing of where the fuck is this kid (assuming he agrees to it) supposed to be while Gil’s on the Tempest? Do they make the cargo bay into a play pen? Does Gil take a dirtside transfer (something that the guy who is willingly putting in forty plus hour work days is probably not looking for)?

Hell, even Steve Cortez... Yeah, it’s great that his story is the kind that could have easily have been about a deceased wife, but... What do I know about him BEYOND “have I mentioned my dead husband?” That’s all that he gets in the damn game.

This is the idea of providing something for gay men? Yeah, considering the track record, I don’t WANT them providing for me. So far, the straight men and even the bi men get a lot more actual character growth and development. They’re not reduced to “I’m gay, and that’s all you need to know about me!” as the extent of their character arcs.

Until BioWare can prove to me that they can give nuance and development and character to their gay characters, I really don’t want them doing gay characters. Because they don’t build them up beyond that. Their dominant, even only, real trait of note is “I’m gay.” Give me a gay character with meat on their bones, fine, yeah, we can talk. But until then... No. I don’t want these. Stick with bisexual romances.

And yeah, THAT’S an issue all its own, that male characters who are written as female romances first are getting better and nuanced characterization, but I’ve ranted enough as it is, so...

[ohlukcs]

( alex wolff, male ) did you hear how LUKAS TOZER is applying to columbia university as a FILM & MEDIA STUDIES major ?! the 19 year old is living in the WALLACH HALL. i heard that they got in because they are + PASSIONATE and +THOUGHTFUL, but honestly i think HE can be -ASSUMING and -CYNICAL. they’re a real MAVERICK. oh well, only time will tell if the SOPHOMORE will make it til the end.

about the mun !!

hi hello my name is sam (she/her), im 22, and im a big fat mess at all times :) um but a lil more about me is that i’m australian and a recently graduated film student lmao. i’ve been rping for like ten years now i think idk but i am a NERVOUS BITCH !!!!!!! and it sometimes takes me forever to reply to things (ic and ooc) bc of that so pls be patient with me lmao. anyway, happy 2 be here !! if u like this post i’m gonna assume u wanna plot with me and my idiot and hit u up !!! lets mcfreakin lose it !!!!

about lukas !!

full name: lukas joshua tozer

nickname(s): luk-ass idk whatever u can come up with lmao

age: nineteen

gender: cis male

pronouns: he/him

hometown: jackson, new jersey

date of birth: nov 4th

occupation: student ( film and media studies, sophomore ), cook/server at a nearby 24hr pizza joint

relationship status: single

drink / smoke / drugs: yes / yes / yes

faceclaim: alex wolff

positive traits: passionate, thoughtful, creative, ambitious, untethered, humorous

negative traits: assuming, cynical, insensitive, rebellious, resentful, irresponsible

if he was in a hogwarts house: slytherin

now some more dot points that are just me talking about lukas !!

was born in fort lauderdale florida but there is a vERY low chance he will ever admit that, he’ll just say he’s from new jersey. as far as he’s concerned, he’s always been from new jersey even if his family did move there after he turned twelve

speaking of things lukas probably wont ever tell u but i’m including them anyway: his family is kind of messy. not majorly but like a little bit more than average. he had two brothers, now he only has one. i’m not gonna include a whole lot of nitty gritty here i’ll save it for when i write the real bio and can actually do it justice but its the reason they moved from florida and it has had a pretty major effect on lukas over time obviously

he’s the baby of the family and he’s pretty much always been treated like one. it has left him pretty immature and irresponsible. still learning that his actions have consequences and that he cant just be a total dick all the time. he’s improved in those areas a fair bit since he started at columbia a year ago but he still has a long way to go

he didn’t ever really expect to go to columbia, he’s from a middle class family and his dad didn’t even go to college. he applied for columbia just as a might as well give it a go thing. like maybe it will happen. they had a film course and although the course itself isn’t really great, the connections to the industry available at columbia were valuable enough for him to try. he was wait listed up until basically the last minute, preparing to go to a college in boston instead but when he was accepted he knew he had to go. for himself, for his family, and for his lost brother.

obviously irresponsible attitude has led to some Bad Decision Making including but not limited to partying and drugs. he doesn’t prioritise that lifestyle over his school work (bc he knows how lucky he is to be at columbia at all) but he is a big believer that you need to experience things to be a great artist and he plans on being the greatest artist so bad decision town here we come !!!!

he has a pet goldfish named michael bublé pls dont nark

for more info on him click here to check his about page, no bio there yet but hopefully soon

wanted connections babey !!

course friends/rivals/anything: i am writing these before acceptances happen so i have no good god damn idea if any other characters are film majors but hit me the hell up if they are bc i would love to plot some stuff out

old roommate(s) : lukas was probably an entertaining roommate but probably verged on annoying pretty easily. he’s messy, gross, probably didn’t respect the do ur fucking dishes rule in first year ( probs still doesnt tbh ). but he also has a password to every streaming account plus a phat hard drive full of movies and shows that he is absolutely willing to share with u so just depends what ur into i guess. maybe this connection led to friendship or maybe they hate each other now. im down for either/both 

dealer: hi welcome back to bad decision town. lukas isn’t into any hard stuff but is a big weed smoker (to my understanding medicinal cannabis is allowed but lukas def doesn’t have a prescription), then after that it’s kind of just experimenting. will chat more details if u wanna take this connection

booze leachers: so yes lukas is 19 but he has four, thats right, four fake ids. he is not willing to give u his contact for fake ids but he is willing to buy u booze if u pay him. dont hate the player hate the game

gang gang: pretty much just a close group of friends. i imagine all pretty relaxed, all pretty chill. idk what to say here except i want people to care about him and let him put on dumb movies and watch them with him and probably have dumb matching stick and poke tattoos and hog a communal tv to play mario kart but lets talk about it

fast food workers deserve respect too: as mentioned, lukas works at a 24hr pizza joint near campus which means he’s seen some shit. one of the things he’s seen multiple times is drunk student trashing the place. whether it be vomit, forgetting how to hold a cup, or bet try at a food fight lukas has seen it and he’s cleaned it up too. this connection could be that maybe he helped someone out and cleaned them up and got them back to campus when their friends ditched and now they look out for lukas too and its a positive connection. or maybe lukas hates their guts and spits on their food whenever they show up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ who’s to say

hot girl bummer by blackbear: now listen here’s an angsty connection i want, and i def want to plot it out way more with whoever takes it on but basic outline of what i have in mind: they’ve kind of sort of been dating for a while but they’re just falling out of whatever they had to begin with. they were never official, they probs def fucked around with other people while they were ““““together”””””, lots of oh sorry ur taking it so seriously i thought we were just chilling bullshit. all of this girls friends probs hate lukas and he definitely hates them back. were probably once really good friends and had a really good time together but they’ve lost it. will they find it again or will it fizzle out? lets find out together xoxo

new girl(s) : i hate the connection title too but i couldnt think of anything better. we’re in bad decision town and now we’re going to thot street babey. since things have been falling apart with hot girl bummer and even before that lukas a little bit of a thottie. this doesnt mean he’s good at it, please also feel free for a part of this to be that they rejected lukas and he got butt hurt about it idk lukas being attracted to them is basically this whole idea and i would wanna plot the rest of it more depending on specific characters wooo

lukas is a bad influence: if u have gotten this far u may have noticed that lukas is not a very good influence at all. this is someone probs his age or younger that wants to loosen up and have a good time and lukas completely encourages that. bonus points if this connection is a combo with the above connection bc lukas is a gross boi and would be like wow listening to my bad ideas thats so sexy and cool of u ya know. but also doesnt have to be that ! could just be lukas thinks its funny and thinks that someone listening to him is just like good content that could get him on barstool

lukas is badly influenced: this is basic as hell but someone that tells him to leave his impluse control at the door and encourages him to be trash. probs older than him and i def see this as more of a masc connection than a fem but like all my plot ideas: lets talk about it. this one probs v much depends on ur character so gonna leave this one nice and short

lukas is good-ly (??????) influenced: also basic as hell and p much just the opposite of above. someone who is a good influence on lukas. encourages creativity and ambition instead of straight up recklessness. again, i see it as an older character but no gender seen here. a lot of this would be based around ur character so lets chat

michael bublé’s co parents: lukas has a goldfish named michael bublé (or just michael), i picture him having got it while high as heck during the day and just being like This Is A Good Idea. maybe ur character was with him and they were co parents from the start or maybbe they came into the picture later ??? i’m honestly down for whichever just give michael the love he deserves pls

and probably just about anything else these are just some ideas, i totally wanna plot further and brainstorm so please still hmu if none of these fit ur character we’ll plot something up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!