#doomed magical girl lesbians please

[purrfa1t]

ribbons

[purrfa1t]

MADOHOMU FANS PLEASE CONE THROUGH !!!! MADOHOMU MADOHOMU MADOHOMU PLEAAAE

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Louise Brooks (Pandora's Box, Diary of a Lost Girl)—Louise Brooks started off as a dancer and went to work in the Follies before going to Hollywood. Disappointed with her roles there, she went to Germany and proceeded to make Pandora's Box, the first film to show a lesbian on-screen (not her but one of her many doomed admirers in the film), and Diary of a Lost Girl, both of which are considered two of the greatest films of the 20th century. She helped popularize the bob and natural acting, acting far more subtly than her contemporaries who treated the camera as a stage audience. After the collapse of her film career and a remarkably rough patch as a high-end sex worker, she was rediscovered and did film criticism, notably "Lulu in Hollywood," which Rodger Ebert called "indispensable." Also, christ. Look at her.

Vilma Bánky (The Son of the Sheik, The Eagle)—She's famous now for being a silent star ruined by the transition to talkies, unlike her frequent co-star Ronald Colman. I think that's a shame, as she has a real vivaciousness and charm in The Winning of Barbara Worth. In this *checks notes* western about environmental engineering, she rides around the desert and gets wooed by both Colman and a young Gary Cooper (good for her dot gif.) Even in stills from films that are sadly lost, I think there is a distinctive warmth and individuality to her. Also she is extremely hot in her extremely pre-Code dress in The Magic Flame.

This is round 2 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Louise Brooks:

"Defined the style of the modern flapper. A gaze that could make a stone fall in love."

"Louise Brooks left a legend far greater than her real achievement as an actress, but even today few people have seen her films. In our own time, the fascination with Brooks seems to have begun in 1979 with a profile by Kenneth Tynan in the New Yorker, which revealed that the actress who made her last movie in 1938 was alive and living in Rochester, N.Y. Such was the power of Tynan's prose that people began to seek out her existing films, primarily this one, to discover what the fuss was about. What we see here is a healthy young woman -- she was 23 when the film was released -- with whom the camera, under G.W. Pabst's influence, is fascinated. There is a deep paradox in Brooks and her career: the American girl who found success in the troubled Europe between two wars; the vivid personality who briefly dazzled two continents but faded into obscurity; the liberated woman who had affairs with such prominent men as CBS founder William S. Paley as well as with women including (by her account) Greta Garbo but wound up a solitary recluse. And all of this seems perfectly in keeping with her most celebrated role in Pandora's Box. For despite her bright vitality, her flashing dark eyes and brilliant smile, Brooks's Lulu becomes the ultimate femme fatale, careering her way toward destruction, not only of her lovers but eventually of herself."

"She invented having bangs to indicate that you have borderline personality disorder"

"chances are if youve ever seen a "flapper girl" character or even just art of a generic flapper type made after the 20s it was based on her appearance - particularly the bob hairstyle! she had some pretty rough experiences through her life before during and after her tumultuous acting career which ended in 1938 but she made it to the 80s, wrote an autobiography and did a lot of interviews that she was never afraid of being honest in about her own life or peers of the age, and apparently was unabashed about some affairs she had with well known women (including greta garbo!!)"

"She read Proust and Schopenhauer on set between sets. She was one of the original flappers/new women of the 1920s. She had a one night stand with Garbo and was the inspiration for Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Truly a stone cold fox."

"on her wikipedia page it says her biographer said she "loved women as a homosexual man, rather than as a lesbian, would love them" and while i have no idea if this is true or not i thought that was very gender of her"

"despite being american she was big in german expressionist films and thus her aesthetic was unmatched!!"

So far ahead of her time in regard to portraying complicated women. Timeless elegance. "I learned to act by watching Martha Graham dance, and I learned to dance by watching Charlie Chaplin act.” - Louise Brooks

Vilma Bánky:

I love Vilma Bánky! She was called "the Hungarian Rhapsody" and apparently had a thick Hungarian accent which I think is cute. Several men fighting over the same women can be very cliche but when I saw her in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) I got it because my god she really is that drop dead gorgeous. She's also a wonderful actress though, expressive yet natural. I read once that seeing her in The Dark Angel (1925)—a film now seemingly lost—inspired Merle Oberon to become an actress :)

This is more of a factoid but she was apparently the women's golf champion at Wilshire Country Club through the 1940s. [link] I just think she's neat.

I love herrrrr she’s my everything. Watching her kiss Rudolph Valentino in Son of the Sheik made me so flustered I had to pause the movie to cool down. She’s the prettiest the most beautiful the most incredible woman I’ve ever seen. I could look at a picture of her for hours

[shmowder]

Hi it’s immune reader anon back again! Here to submit my Patho oc i actually have two Patho self inserts but for privacy reasons not submitting either of my self indulgent sillies :D so please accept my offer of the third Patho character I’ve made

The basic stuff is that Her name is Franziska Novikov, her age is a good question as she doesn’t have a birth certificate her parents would only accept a son so they refused to register her at all! Treating her like a shameful secret who needed to prove she deserved to even be alive at all but she’s close in age to Dankovsky possibly a year or two older even. Job/Credentials: she mostly wanders town from town trying to sell snake oil cures so basically she’s an MLM girlie who might also lit your house on fire for fun! If you call her out on being a snake oil salesman

Healer, Bound, or NPC?: I imagine her more so working as a bound but her as a healer would be insane as she straight up has no clue what she’s doing so she just gaslights all the town leaders into thinking shes qualified for this situation. Dankovsky absolutely hates her and at any turn tries to expose her for being a scam artist to everyone unfortunately nobody wants to listen to the capital dandy. she is one but damn let the girlboss scam people bachelor (bachelor stop the girlboss immediately!) Nevermind she’s a healer now…

She only gets involved in the events of the game because she views this as another town to pass through, sell her miracle cure for an over charged price then depart with her riches only to get stuck in a situation where people genuinely believe she is a qualified health professional and now she’s gotta deal with the plague, all the while getting increasingly more and more paranoid which leads to setting fires compulsively in order to ease off the stress… she refuses to believe in any of the more mystic things at play constantly scoffing at the mistresses claims as if she lies for personal gain then everyone else is as well! She projects her own guilt of her lies at everyone else…even when the proof is right in front of her she simply refuses to acknowledge its existence due to her own lies. She doesn’t make any friends for the most part at most she has respectful conversations with Maria and aglaya but they are not friends at all but maybe in another world Franziska would have loved to be friends…but not in this life, she’s actively hostile to everyone else but gives the occasional nice interaction to Clara and yulia on rare occasions. Her interactions with Aglaya and yulia would absolutely have some queer subtext to them as Franziska is a repressed lesbian so deep in the closet she’s found the Bermuda Triangle.

Her ending unsurprisingly doesn’t end with her curing the plague no instead she gets the town wiped off the map completely! Not to mention before this she takes it upon herself to burn both Dankovsky and burakh’s research as she truly believes that if she can’t claim the fame and fortune from creating a cure then nobody should!, her view of life is distorted she only views her existence as one to be proven she has to get fame! Show everyone she deserves to live but in the quest of the broken girls, she dooms the town not out of misplaced good intentions she does it out of selfish desires fueled by an utter obsession to prove herself….she sacrifices all of the damn town leaving only her and the other three healers left…she’s absolutely going to go back to the capital and get executed for her crimes…she’s an absolute awful person but seeing what led to her acting so cruel is tragic I love my evil tragic daughter so much!

That evil tragic lesbian daughter sounds like she'd fit in with our already colourful cast just fine!

A 31 girlboss con-woman who gets people to sign up for her MLM snake oil pyramid scam.

And her having a slight soft spot to Clare is so precious, especially since Clara forces people to tell the truth with her magic sometimes. By all definitions she should be an conman's nightmare yet this fine lady is fistbumping her on the street before giving her a piece of old candy or two.

Any character that adds to the misery and frustration of Dankovsky has a special place in my heart, the Capital dandy being forced to come to terms with how the real world works and that your actual qualifications do not matter as long as you have high enough charisma to convince people snake oil is a viable substitute for antibiotics.

I see Anna Angel falling for her scams on multiple occasions, because Anna already gets scammed like twice ingame canon. Maybe even Peter who just drinks the snake oil? But then you'll have a very vengeful pissed off Andrey on her trail. Oh! Katerina is definitely falling for her scams, much like she fell for the rat prophet ones.

God I love a repressed lesbian who's so deep in the closet she discovered Narnia. Especially her talking with Yulia, Aglaya and Maria. The lesbian icons of the century.

When you mentioned fire and her wiping the town off the map, one idea came to mind. Fire technically eradicates the plague right? She might have set them off to vent stress but indirectly she "cured" these buildings from the plague.

So what if in a last ditch to not be exposed as a fake healer, she pretends that the only way to cure the town is to set it whole ablaze. After burning Daniil and Artemy's research so there is no other alternative.

[alexissara]

Even More Of My Lesbian OCs

It's time for another wave of OC chat! This is my favorite thing to write because, I want to write about my OCs. Please give me more excuses to write about my OCs, ask me questions or some shit, I want to talk about them. This time we're covering my most current Campaigns OC and some older TTRPG OCs as well as one Text based roleplay OC. I figure this is the most fun way to celebrate Lesbian Visibility Week. Let's talk about lesbians.

By Littleinksheep

Flora Feral aka Twister

Flora is a fun OC in that she was based off of a character from my Webcomic Wish from an early issue I never got to release and I reenvisioned the concept for the cancelled podcast I was on Super Streets. Since then she's been slightly tweaked again a few times as she has gone to slightly different settings since Super Streets cancelation and changes in the people that could be in her life. She was a doomed playbook in Masks so she has the associated tropes although those existed in the OG version of the OC which was created before Masks: The Next Generation was even published. Flora Feral is possessed by the goddess Sorra, a powerful elder goddess forgotten to history whom her mother sacrificed her too after finding out she was trans and wanting nothing to do with her. Sorra killed her mother in turn but granted the family the fortune that was her end of the bargain. Flora died but came back perhaps thanks to Sorra or perhaps thanks to her own will regardless she is slowly being consumed by Sorra, every part of her spirit and herself will one day be Sorra and there will be no Flora left at all. With her limited time she tries to hold Sorra back from killing people and to make the world a better place even knowing every time she uses her powers it brings her own demise ever closer. Flora lost her girlfriend getting visions of Sorra killing her if they remained together she broke up with her and had been a solo act since even if she cares deeply for people she worries about how Sorra may hurt them.

By Littleinksheep

Mystic Cutie L aka Mara

Mara is from my most active and recent campaign in the Setting Hope At Art's End, a Setting that you may be able to play yourself in the next Thirsty Sword Lesbians expansion. Mara is a magical girl from the world of Mystic Cutie Sailor L. She's the leading lady and when her world was being altered by the Mouse Princess to turn into the "family friendly" Sandwich Squad her girlfriends in a moment of clarity gathered their power up to set her free by launching her into another world and send her into Art's End. Loaded with the trauma of being turned into "Cutie lettuce" Mara attempted to pantomime acting like her old self but she had a deep rage, sorrow and more she felt would manifest when fighting agents of The Mouse Princess. Mara does her best to keep it together but until she saved her world she was really struggling to make connections always feeling like she shouldn't feel real joy when her girlfriends were suffering in their own world forced to act out a shame of a life. She's now happily shifted from the Trickster playbook over to The Matriarch and it was really fun to explore a take on the Trickster that actually worked for me since normally it was one of my least favorite conflicts to play.

By Littleinksheep

Fearless aka Maria, Elena and Sapphire

Coming from a Masks Campaign Fearless is an adaption of some concepts from a comic I have had on the back burner for a long time Lipstick. The Reformed Fearless was made up of two girls fused together and their persona that formed between the two of them as their own person. Maria gave up her life of crime to make it where Elena and Sapphire wouldn't need to have to deal with the consquences of her actions but also to help her crush EliZe the elder goddess live her dream of being a super hero. They joined a team of teen super heroes and helped fight against the wild forces attacking the city from alien dragons to evil companies they dealt with it all. All the while being one of the most chaotic elements on the team always willing to challenge what was good or evil. Maria dated a teenage reincarnation of Morgan Le Fey, the fearless trio had a big polycule, their was time travel and all sorts of good stuff between the three. As they grew together they eventually decided to leave the team behind to open up a bakery Elena wanted to do and for them to return to a life of being gay doing crime now that they've dealt with the system more and saw all of it's flaws. They do keep up friendly relationships with several former team members including becoming the arch enemy of one of their best friends but like in a fun way, almost romantic.

By Littleinksheep

Xena and Seraphina Aka Dreamer and Loki

Another set of OCs I used in a Masks campaign brings in Xena and Seraphina. Xena was The Brain and Seraphina was The Legacy. I played both at the same time unable to pick between the two I simply tied the pair together. Xena and Seraphina are girlfriends who love each other a lot. Xena was kidnapped by the queen of nightmares and while she was kidnapped for her genius mind Seraphina become Loki to try and save her but in the end was still unable to break into the realm of Nightmares. Xena escaped Nightmare and the pair were reunited becoming super heroes as they attempted to defeat an company that was at odds with nightmare too. The pair did their best to play both sides along with their friends eventually managing to take both forces out. The two both fell for other women but remained together in a polyamarous relationship. The two can be a bit co-dependent at first but as they recovered from their trauma they learned to count on the others alot more.

Azucar Scamsly Glasc

Azucar isn't from any particular campaign but instead if an OC that comes from a League Of Legends inspired written roleplay. She is my problematic baby girl, my sweet terrible child. Azucar is Renata Glasc's girlfriend but to keep it under cover she's technically adopted by her and simply a musical talent she is using to earn revenue across Runeterra but particularly from the Piltovens. She is part of a found family of swindlers originally intending to just scam some money from Renata with her job singing at a Zaunite club the two came to mutually respect each other as they both one uped each other in a mental battle. Azucar might have been able to match Renata at wits but she is 100% on her team and devoted to her goals happily submissive to her dommy girlfriend. She's always down to do a murder, manipulate people, put on a role or a character and really just mess around with folks. She is part Fairy but hides that part of herself since people don't believe Fairies are even real but her powers prove they very much are. Azucar has been through the ringer living life as a poor zonite orphan and she's seen the high life of Piltover being the best friend to one of the richest people in Piltover. Azucar refuses to live a life being treated like dirt and she'll do whatever it takes to live the kind of life she wants. Renata puts that into a cause she can believe in, burning down Piltover which puts her in an angsty situation with her best friend and long time crush. It is really fun to really root her in the setting and explore the characters and world that will likely never really get explored to their fullest.

Check out my Patreon and Ko-fi if you want me to make more art and have more free time for more OCs and then posting about them.

[fandomanimatic-tournament]

The winner will have a chance to compete in the real tournament

Propaganda under the cut:

"Dust Bowl Dance" - Mumford & Sons

Propaganda:

"Don't you like a little vengeance? As a treat?"

"Primadonna Girl" - Marina

Propaganda:

"Vriska"

"This Day Aria" - My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic:

No propaganda submitted

"Rewrite the stars" - The Greatest Showman (The Musical)

Propaganda:

"The reason the Greatest Showman became so popular in the animatic community is because all the songs are Emotional enough to be engaging but also generic enough to be applied to basically any character. The perfect sweet spot of very pretty and utterly generic. “Rewrite the Stars” became especially popular for any characters who have a doomed forbidden love story. Just within the warrior cats fandom alone there are animatics of Rewrite the Stars for some wildly different relationships (a Bluestar one, the one with the lesbian cats, one with the incel cat, etc etc.) everyone’s Rewriting the Stars to make this song about their little guys! It’s not the best song ever, but it is Peak Animatic Content song"

"This Guy's In Love With You, Pare" - Parokya Ni Edgar

"It makes for really cute animatics!!! It's so best friends to lovers, if you have a friends to lovers ship this is THEEEE song for them just watch an animatic and imagine your blorbos on it, isn't that cute?? also please god let a filipino song get in I am begging. The fact that it's a popular animatic song despite not being in english (or vocaloid) says a lot, since you don't see that very often"

[yuri-no-majo]

Every contribution is appreciated, but please do not fall into the common mistake to default to D&D as if it was the only rpg system out there.

I have seen many attempts throughout the years and each of them has its own strengths, especially when it comes to simulating the emotional struggles and power of friendship that define magical girls!

Princess the Hopeful is a community homebrew inspired by Madoka Magica and based on the World of Darkness system. WoD has always dealt with monsters on the verge of losing their humanity, so it renders the magical girl as the dangerous and morally troubled creature it is, a desperate attempt to save a doomed universe.

Magical Burst is another homebrew taking inspiration from Madoka Magica and other shows. It uses some elements of the Powered by the Apocalypse system but has a lot of very creative elements of its own.

Guilty Witches is a fully developed Japanese game. It presents its own world where angsty magical girls fight pastry baking witches. Sadly, it remains untranslated.

Mahō Shōjo is a fully developed game with beautiful artwork, which allows for a wide spectrum of magical girl stories, but also shows clear Madoka influence. It is based on the Powered by the Apocalypse system which is very story-focused, pushing both team spirit and big drama. This one is only available in Spanish.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians is an award-winning game focused on queer communities being flirty and fighting for their rights. It presents a wide array of settings, including several magical girl scenarios that wink at Sailor Moon, Utena and She-Ra. Of course, all magical girls are queer somehow. It also uses PbtA. (I’ve been trying to run this for a while, hit me up if you are considering an online game)

If you have any experience in playing TTRPGs, are there any particular games with a setting or system that you would recommend playing for folks who would want to play a Magical Girl type of campaign?

Unfortunately I have zero experience with tabletop games, lol. Can anyone help them out?

[magdasabs]

Book recommendations. I tried to vary the topics so hopefully there's something that interests you. These are all among the best books I have ever read.

Moloka'i - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3273.Moloka_i - it's a novel about a girl (she becomes a woman over the course of the book) growing up in a Hawaiian leper colony in the early 20th century. It sounds depressing but it's one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.

Educated - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35133922-educated - a memoir written by a woman who grew up in a survivalist and fundamentalist Mormon family. I read it and basically only put it down to sleep during the time between starting it and finishing it.

The Great Believers - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45304101-the-great-believers - a novel split between Chicago in the 1980s and Paris in the 2010s. It's about the effects of the AIDS crisis on the gay community in the 1980s and their loved ones.

Tell it to the Bees - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6767519-tell-it-to-the-bees - enjoyable (non-smutty) lesbian romance novel.

In Other Lands - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31944679-in-other-lands - it's a young adult novel about a boy who crosses a barrier that others can't see and enters a magical land where he goes to a magical boarding school. But it's basically a literary deconstruction of the typical books like that you will read, tackling the tropes head on. Fun, funny, serious, and gripping. I can't recommend it enough.

The You I've Never Known - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30312837-the-you-i-ve-never-known - a young adult story, half of which is told in verse. It's about two girls growing up, dealing with difficult family situations and relationships, and discovering their sexualities. Don't read the summary please, as it contains a major spoiler.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12000020-aristotle-and-dante-discover-the-secrets-of-the-universe - a young adult book about two boys in El Paso. It's a love story, it's a coming of age story, it's everything.

Annie on My Mind - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/595375.Annie_on_My_Mind - the ending feels a bit rushed, but I believe this was the first book to tell a lesbian love story with a happy ending.

The Dovekeepers - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10950924-the-dovekeepers - a novel about four women who find themselves in the doomed stronghold of Masada during a war fought in the first century CE. The women all meet over the course of the book, which is divided into four sections, one told from each of their perspectives.

Darling - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51199185-darling - a modern retelling of Peter Pan from Wendy's perspective. You'll never feel the same way about Peter Pan again.

Under the Lights and in the Dark - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33114524-under-the-lights-and-in-the-dark - this one was enjoyable but not as good as the others. I'm including it because it's about woso and I did enjoy reading it. It's non-fiction.

oh wow, thank you so much!!! I really appreciate the effort you put into this, I will absolutely check all of them out

[themollyjay]

The Myths of Forced Diversity and Virtue Signaling.

In my novel Mail Order Bride, the three main characters are a lesbian and two agendered aliens.  In my novel Scatter, the main character is a lesbian, the love interest is a pansexual alien, and the major side characters include a half Cuban, half black Dominican lesbian, a Chinese Dragon, a New York born Jewish Dragon, and a Transgender Welsh Dragon.  In my novel The Master of Puppets, the Main Characters are a lesbian shapeshifting reptilian alien cyborg and a half black, half Japanese lesbian.  The major side characters include three gender fluid shapeshifting reptilian alien cyborgs, and a pansexual human.  In my novel Transistor, the main character is a Trans Lesbian, the love interest is a Half human/Half Angel non-observant Ethiopian Jew, and the major side characters include a Transgender Welsh Dragon (the same one from Scatter), a Transgender woman, a Latino Lesbian, an autistic man, three Middle Eastern Arch Angels, and a hive mind AI with literally hundreds of genders.  In my novel The Inevitable singularity, one of the main characters is a lesbian, another has a less clearly defined sexuality but she is definitely in love with the lesbian, and the third is functionally asexual due to a vow of chastity she takes very seriously.  The major side characters include a straight guy from a social class similar to the Dalit (commonly known as untouchables) in India, a bisexual woman, a man who is from a race of genetically modified human/frog hybrids, and a woman from a race of genetically modified humans who are bred and sold as indentured sex workers.

Why am I bringing all of this up?  Well, first, because it’s kind of cool to look at the list of different characters I’ve created, but mostly because it connects to what I want to talk about today, which should be obvious from the title of the essay.  The concepts of ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’.

For those who aren’t familiar with these terms, they’re very closely related concepts.  ‘Forced Diversity’ is the idea that characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males are only ever included in a story because of outside pressure from some group (usually called Social Justice Warriors, or The Woke Brigade or something similar) to meet some nebulous political agenda.  The caveat to this is, of course, that you can have a women/women present as long as they are hot, don’t make any major contributions to the resolution of the plot, and the hero/heroes get to fuck them before the end of the story. ‘Virtue Signaling’, according to Wikipedia, is a pejorative neologism for the expression of a disingenuous moral viewpoint with the intent of communicating good character.

The basic argument is that Forced Diversity is a form of virtue signaling.  That no one would ever write characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males because they want to.  They only do it to please the evil SJW’s who are somehow both so powerful that they force everybody to conform to their desires, yet so irrelevant that catering to them dooms any creative project to financial failure via the infamous ‘go woke, go broke’ rule.

What the people who push this idea of Forced Diversity tend to forget is that we exist at a point in time when creators actually have more creative freedom than are any other people in history.  Comic writers can throw up a website and publish their work as a webcomic without having to go through Marvel, DC or one of the other big names, or get a place in the dying realm of the news paper comics page.  Novelists can self-publish with fairly little upfront costs, musicians can use places like YouTube and Soundcloud to get their work out without having to worry about music publishers.  Artists can hock their work on twitter and tumblr and a dozen other places. Podcasts are relatively cheap to make, which has opened up a resurgence in audio dramas.  Even the barrier to entry for live action drama is ridiculously low.

So, in a world where creators have more freedom than ever before, why would they choose to people their stories with characters they don’t want there?  The answer, of course, is that they wouldn’t.  Authors, comic creators, indie film creators and so on aren’t putting diverse characters into their stories because they are being forced to. They’re putting diverse characters into their stories because they want to.  Creators want to tell stories about someone other than the generically handsome hypermasculine cisgendered heterosexual white males that have been the protagonists of so many stories over the years that we’ve choking on it. A lot of times, creators want to tell stories about people like themselves.  Black creators want to tell stories about the black experience. Queer creators want to tell stories about the queer experience.

I’m an autistic, mentally ill trans feminine abuse survivor.  Every day, I get up and I struggle with PTSD, with an eating disorder, with severe body dysmorphia, with anxiety and depression and just the reality of being autistic and transgender.  I deal with the fact that the religious community I grew up in views me as an abomination, and genuinely believes I’m going to spend eternity burning in hell.  I deal with the fact that people I’ve known for decades, even members of my own family, regularly vote for politician who publicly state that they want to strip me of my civil rights because I’m queer.  I’m part of a community that experiences a disproportionately high murder and suicide rate.  I’ve spent multiple years of my life deep in suicidal depression, and to this day, I still don’t trust myself around guns.

As a creator, I want to talk about those issues.  I want to deal with my life experiences.  I want to create characters that embody and express aspects of my lived experience and my day-to-day reality.  No one is forcing me to put diversity into my books.  I try to include Jewish characters as often as I can because there have been a number of important Jewish people in my life.  I include queer people because I’m queer and the vast majority of friends I interact with on a regular basis are queer.  I include people with mental illnesses and trauma because I am mentally ill and have trauma, and I know a lot of people with mental illnesses and trauma.  My work may be full of fantastical elements, aliens and dragons and angels and superheroes and magic and ultra-high technology and AI’s and talking cats and robot dogs and shape shifters and telepaths and all sorts of other things, but at the core of the stories is my own lived experience, and neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males are vanishingly rare in that experience.

Now, I can hear the comments already.  The ‘okay, maybe that’s true for individual creators, but what about corporate artwork?’.   Maybe not in those exact words, but you get the idea.

The thought here is that corporations are bowing to social pressure to include characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males, and that is somehow bad. But here’s the thing. Corporations are going to chase the dollars.  They aren’t bowing to social pressure.  There’s no one holding a gun to some executive’s head saying, “You must have this many diversity tokens in every script.”  What is happening is that corporations are starting to clue into the fact that people who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males have money.  They are putting black characters in their shows and movies because black people watch shows and spend money on movies.  They are putting queer people in shows and movies because queer people watch shows and spend money on movies.  They are putting women in shows and movies because women watch shows and spend money on movies.

No one is forcing these companies to do this.  They are choosing to do it, the same way individual creators are choosing to do it.  In the companies’ cases the choices are made for different reasons.  It’s not because they are necessarily passionate about telling stories about a particular experience, but because they want to create art to be consumed by the largest audience possible, which means that they have to expand their audience beyond the neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white male by including characters from outside of that demographic.

And the reality is, the cries of ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ almost always come from within that demographic.  Note the almost.  There are a scattering of individuals from outside that demographic which do subscribe to the ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ myths, but that is a whole other essay.  However, within that demographic, lot of the people who cry about ‘forced diversity’ see media and content as a Zero-Sum game.  The more that’s created for other people, the less that is created for them.

In a way, they’re right. There are only so many slots for TV shows each week, there are only so many theaters, only so much space on comic bookshelves and so on.  But at the end of the day, its literally impossible for them to consume all the content that’s being produced anyway.  So, while there is, theoretically less content for them to consume, as a practical matter it’s a bit like someone who is a meat eater going to a buffet with two hundred items, and then throwing a tantrum because five of the items happen to be vegan.

The worst part is, if they could let go of how wound up they are about the ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ they could probably enjoy the content that’s produced for people other than them.  I mean, I’m a pasty ass white girl, and I loved Black Panther.

So, to wrap out, creators, make what you want to make, and ignore anyone who cries about forced diversity or virtue signaling.  And to people who are complaining about forced diversity and virtue signaling, I want to go back to the buffet metaphor.  You need to relax.  Even if there are a few vegan options on the buffet, you can still get your medium rare steak, or your chicken teriyaki or whatever it is you want.  Or, maybe, just maybe, you could give the falafel a try. That shit is delicious.

[ellasadventuresinfandoms]

Okay, back in May @isolatedphenomenon asked me if I had an les mis fic recs and I went "oh boy do I !" and then promptly fucked off and disappeared from tumblr for like 6 months...

Anyway on the off chance people are interested, here is my vastly too long list of  my favourite les mis fanfic (that I'm almost 100% sure I'll have accidentally missed some of my favourites off of...)

The vast majority of these are main pairing Enjolras/Grantaire, so I've put those first, divided into multi-chaptered and then one-shots. Below that will be other pairings!

Multi-chaptered

• Witch Boy Series : magic AU, starting with Grantaire solving Enjolras' curse - this is just Incredible world building which gets better as it goes on - my favourite is the Babet interlude

• World Ain't Ready : you know how fandoms tend to have a fic that is just associated with it ? in my experience, for les mis this is it - and well deserved ! High school, fake dating AU with some of the most engaging writing

• BE : Enjolras is dragged back into theatre production, helping Eponine put on a production of Hamlet - really love the characterisation in this, and this is really one of those modern AUs that actually feels like real life - really good writing

• After the End : the definitive apocalypse AU in my eyes - les amis are an underground resistance to the dystopian government - really wonderful characterisation of Grantaire and the amis

• You never have to wonder; you never have to ask. : I tend to find fic by scrolling through bookmarks of a pairing, which means I often see repeats; this is a fic that if I see I just re-read cause I know I'll enjoy it - the amis sparked a failed rebellion, and now 18 months later Grantaire ends up staying at Enjolras' after returning to Paris for Marius and Cosette's wedding

• Your Heart on Your Skin : Soulmate AU with flower tattoos marking important emotions and events - wonderful concept and world building 

• Impatient to Be Free : Daughters of Bilitis AU - if that doesn't make you excited I don't know what else to say to convince you (aside from saying the author is a simply wonderful writer)

• You Dance Dreams : Okay. Not to be over dramatic, but this fic did genuinely qualitatively change my life, in that it was the first thing that got me looking up contemporary ballet and now that's like one of my favourite things and big hobby So. Also its really great writing; music/creative arts school les amis with Grantaire choreohraphing the ballet for Combeferre's opera, with a heavy emphasis on Grantaire realising he really never actually got over Enjolras

• philia : this one is an absolute classic to me, but not given nearly enough recognition - one of the more realistic college AUs ever written, and the writing of Grantaire is so good because it hits the perfect balance of sympathy and annoyance about his behaviour (that's a genuine compliment) 

• Coffee Hooligans : fucking tragedy this never got properly finished, Enjolras leads the amis as social justice vigilantes and tries to hide the criminal bits of his life from R

• Fighting the Hurricane : Pacific Rim AU that's less an AU and more just placing the les mis characters in the Pacific Rim universe. Really good and riveting read, also super interesting depiction of Grantaire

• Weaving Olden Dances : Fairy AU - Grantaire "claims" Enjolras to prevent his execution - really good writing, love Grantaires characterisation 

• Paris Burning : canon era (sort of) where cities have a physical being - Grantaire is Paris and becomes entangled in Enjolras' revolution - oh the world building is truly *chefs kiss*

• Euphoria is You For Me : Enjolras and Grantaire keep meet cuting in a wonderfully written Brooklyn - feels like a love letter to Brooklyn at times, and I really like the characterisation of Grantaire 

• so please just fall in love with me this christmas : Enjolras works for the environmental company Grantaire volunteers at, and keeps getting secret gifts at Christmas - I sound a little like a broken record but the Grantaire characterisation is very good

• You Are the Moon : Wild West esque Space AU - Grantaire has to call on the amis to help rescue Valjean and Cosette, despite Grantaire leaving the amis 6 months before. On re-reading the Enjolras characterisation feels a little rushed, but overall fantastic story telling and the Grantaire arc is a Delight 

• Pandemos : Enjolras is aphrodite, and seeks peace from all his suitors in R/Hephestus' cave

• Pining for You : Hallmark christmas romance - Grantaire returns home to work on his father's tree farm, and Enjolras is the lawyer helping prevent the farm being sold - cute as shit imo

• Once We're Kings : Fantasy AU - a country hosts a ball to marry Prince Enjolras and the rival country sends Grantaire as a fuck you - one of the best ways of doing Enjolras as a prince in a fantasy and just really nicely written

• Never Bitter and All Delicious : Fairy Godmother AU - yes really, yes its genuinely a very good read

• On One Condition : Fantasy AU - Enjolras is a bored knight who finally goes to check out the local dragon, which turns out to be Grantaire - I really like how they capture Enjolras' stubborn nature and it's such a well written soft growth of love between them

• That's How Easy Love Can Be : Les Amis work at a primary school; and its secret santa time! very fun portrayal of Enjolras

• The Lark and Her Lieutenants : re write of canon where Cosette is the leader of the revolution - just *chefs kiss*

• If You Tickle Us, Do We Not Laugh : Grantaire is Enjolras' secret android - really good at writing a relationship that's incredibly loving but just keeps being antagonistic and coming off wrong 

One Shots

• True Colours : AU where you leave colours on the people important to you - Enjolras and Grantaire falling for each other is so soft and gently written its lovely, this is genuinely one of my favourites

• Keep It Kind, Keep It Good, Keep It Right : this one is so good to me, because it builds off my pet hatred of everyone assuming Enjolras doesn't care about (or at least actively show he cares about) his friends

• blooming : very soft post-dystopian utopia that has just a really wonderful sense of hope and light to me

• and the wall leaned away (or: The Pros and Cons of Tilling) : perfectly realised characterizations of the amis, Grantaire needs a date to her final year art exhibition - deals with anxiety over protest in a way that actually hits for me

• not just one of the crowd : R helps run a leftist bakery and bike repair shop - very cute characterisation, and I think more les mis fanfic should link to anarchist essays

• Lovesickness : Enjolras is an idiot and thinks he's sick rather than having a crush - the writing of Joly and Combeferre in this is some of my favourite depictions of these two

• If there's a rocket, tie me to it : absolutely heartbreaking sci-fi AU about the amis as doomed mecha pilots

• Where I Fall is Where I Land : Enjolras is a Roman commander as Rome's power is leaving England, and then meets the pict Grantaire (+ fun soulmark stuff !)

• You Started Foreign to Me : Enjolras moves to america and R is the overnight grocery clerk who helps her learn Spanish - cute fluffy lesbians with a wonderfully written driven Enjolras

• Love Is Touching Souls : very cute soulmate AU - and one I really love for really truly considering the implications of soul marks and creating historical lore around it

• Ten Years : R is a musician, and it non-linearly charts his relationship to Enj from high school to 10 years later

• put up with me then I'll make you see : Grantaire lives above Enjolras, and its christmas - I find it to have a very fun interpretation of pining Enjolras

• A Cat Called Trash Can : this was one of the first les mis fics I ever read (yes I know it says it was published in 2020, but I think it has to be a re-upload or something?) and it does still have a special place in my heart - Grantaire rescues a cat, but Enjolras is the only one with an apartment free to look after it 

• Still I'm Begging to Be Free : inception AU where les amis have to rescue a sleeping R from his own brain

•I'm in it for You : cw: illness, cancer - R has cancer and is being a martyr about telling his friends so Enjolras drives him back from chemo

• walls come tumbling down : sky high au - a very good high school AU with the perfect level of campy superhero powers

• This brave new world's not like yesterday : Enjolras needs a job, so ends up working in a bowling alley with Grantaire and bonding

Enjolras/Grantaire/Combeferre

• In Defiance of All Geometry : les amis are a student co-op house, Enjolras and Combeferre are pining friends and Grantaire is the newbie

• Still the Same : this is very good writing and very compelling - if you can get over the (imo) plot hole of Enjolras working for the FBI. R was an art thief Enj put away and is briefly helping the FBI out, and Combeferre is Enjolras' husband

• To Kingdom Come : cw: war and PTSD from that, Enjolras and Combeferre are part of a group of refugees that have crossed into a more fantasy land, and Grantaire is a lone traveller from that land that attempts to help - that was a shit summary of this very emotional, wonderfully written fic about war and love in all forms

• Gonna need (a spark to ignite) : I always love a twist on a classic trope, and this is a very fun take on the soulmate AU - Enjolras loses feeling in his soul mark as a child, falls in love with Grantaire and then his soulmate, Combeferre, turns up

Eponine/Cosette

• Pretty Girls Don't Know the Things That I Know : simply stunning writing - perfect example of soft writing about a harsh world

• she knows her way around : Eponine and Cosette bond, ostensibly so Eponine can find out about her for Marius, and their interactions are so playful and realistic, its wonderful

• always find me floating on oceans : Cosette stows away on Eponine's pirate ship - I do always have a soft spot for eposette fics (not just cause I ship it) because they truly characterise Cosette in a really considered and interesting way

• There's No Making Love : I'm putting this under eposette even though there is some significant enjolras/grantaire content, because the Cosette characterisation is so fun and cute

• round and round again : this fic really beautifully translates Cosette's bad childhood and then isolated teenage years, and the impact that would have on her as an adult into a modern AU

• Underwater Thunderheards : this is based off the book The Scorpio Races, and is just a really nice short fic  about longing

• How To Change The World Without Taking Power : Marius has a crush on Cosette and she's tried being polite and subtle in turning him down, so just ends up fake dating Eponine instead

• blood red fruit and poison's kiss : Snow White AU - Cosette as Snow White

• The Winters Cannot Fade Her : Snow White Au 2.0 - Eponine as Snow White - this was written as a pair to the one above which is just so cute to me

• marriage à la mode : Cosette and Eponine run a bridal shop together and it's very cute !

• Temporary Hold : I personally find this a really fun and very unique take on Cosette - with exams coming up she decides she needs to get laid on the reg and so hits up Eponine to act as if they're already long term girlfriends

Combeferre/Courfeyrac

• better than you had it : fake dating but kick it up an emotional notch - Courf and Ferre pretend to still be together after breaking up for a family event

• take flight, come near : nice and cute low fantasy, where Combeferre runs a dragon sanctuary and Courf finds an injured dragon

Rare Pairs

• The Future's Owned by You and Me : cute Enjolras/Feuilly with actual radical politics and real life organising difficulties and wins

• First Dates and Other Dangers : Combeferre and Grantaire agree to go on a blind date and it's awkward until it isn't - just cute !

• after midnight : Combeferre has insomnia and meets Grantaire in various all night fast food chains

• as you are : Bahorel and Jehan getting ready together

• Almost Romantic : Jehan works at a museum, and takes Combeferre on a little tour

• Understudy : Jehan/Combeferre, with Combeferre's insecurities regarding being seen as second best to Enjolras

• Here There Be Dragons : Courf/Enj/Ferre - Courf and Enj are superheroes and Ferre is the doctor that patches them up

• To Let it Occur (Laisser Faire la Nature) : Feuilly has a stupidly long stopover in Paris and meets Enjolras

• rule of three : Courf/Enj/Ferre as spies and loving boyfriends

• Good Rhetoric : snapshots of cute cuddly courf/enj/ferre

• subluxate, dislocate, replace : found family and chronic illness with Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta

• Strike stone, strike home (like lightning) : so this fic took one minor piece of lore about Tolkien's dwarves and made a beautiful j/b/m fic from it

• Almost Inevitable : Bahorel/Feuilly friends-with-benefits

• god only knows (what I'd be without you) : Bahorel/Feuilly with a closeted Feuilly and a beautiful Feuilly and Eponine friendship

[ratchedspeach]

Prompt

Alice (Mrs America) ends up in part of the student section at the ERA event and reader is one of the students. The reader helps her back to her room safely, reader comes to check on her the next day and Alice invites her out for dinner.

I'll let you have fun with it from there.

Love your work!

I’ve never written a /reader fic before. I hope I lived up to the challenge! I changed the dinner bit just slightly. Hope that’s alright! This is an AU based of Episode 8

You first notice her standing in one of the far corners of the room, fingers tracing the diamond shaped patter of the wallpaper with her lips drawn into a soft “o”. Clad in a soft lavender dress, her loose curls spill over her shoulders and mingle with the sheen of sweat slicked against her forehead. She backs away when she sees you approach, cramming into the corner like she thinks she might be able to pass through the other side. Her pupils are the size of saucers, and you smile, knowing the signs of an LSD trip all too well from personal experience. She tells you her name is Alice with tight smile. When you give her yours, she repeats it like she can taste the sylabols as they roll off her tongue.

“You’re a little lost, aren’t ya?” She bobs her head in agreement, giggling like a child whose had too much sugar. Her tongue darts across her upper lip, and she studies you. “C’mon,” you take her by the forearm, “let’s get you to your room.”

“How long have you been with them?” Alice asks you with a slight rasp in her voice. She’s surprisingly lucid for someone whose tripping. “You know ... the lesbians.” She whispers the last words like she’s protecting you from the empty hotel lobby her nose crinkling.

You choke on a laugh, and her brown eyes go wide. “No, no, it’s alright!” You assure her before she can recant. In truth, you’re touched by the innocence of her prodding. “I came out my first year of college. I’m a senior at Oberlin. The ERA gave me a family when my own decided they didn’t want me anymore.” Alice stops mid stride and looks at you in earnest, tears prickling the corners of her vision. High people are so sensitive. “In hindsight, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” You wipe away a single tear that’s escaped with your thumb before taking her by the hand and pulling her forward.

Maybe it’s the way she watches the world through new eyes, like she’s seeing it for the first time, or maybe it’s how cool the skin of her fingertips fees against yours; the sheer knowledge that she’s nearby sends your stomach twisting into knots. Guilt knocks against your throat as you pull her through the hotel. She’s not like me. She’s just lost ... in more ways than one.

Alice stops around the corner from where she says her room is, taking you by the shoulders and planting a kiss swiftly on your cheek. “Thank you.” She breaths it like it’s a secret, eyes glinting. You stammer around your words as she strokes the cotton of your sweater with her thumb. She begins to study the material, a gasp hitching in her throat. “It’s moving!” She marvels, licking her lips before she turns her gaze to you. “Your sweater is magic. How’d you make it do that?”

You snort in spite of yourself, placing a hand over hers. “Christ, you’re high. Do you even know that you’re high?”

Alice bites the inside of her cheek as she ponders it. “I think so.” She decides. “I hung up on my mother earlier.” A soft giggle lilts in her voice.

“Have dinner with me?” The words spill over your lips before you can stop yourself. Shit. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean - I don’t want to assume that you ... I just-“

Alice puts a finger to your lips, brow furrowing. “Ok.” She says it so plainly, like it’s obvious.

“I ... oh, ok. Alright, yes. Um, tomorrow? 8 o’clock? I can meet you right here, if you’d like.”

The older woman nods, squeezing your shoulder gently, before she saunters off in the direction of her room.

*

“You’re a reject!

Alice’s head throbs - it has all day. Her memory of the night before is muddled at best. She remembers speaking to people, but can’t make out faces. She remembers being hungry, so very hungry, and there’s the faintest recall of kissing someone. She chalks it all up to alcohol.

She’s lying to herself, and she knows it.

Alice spends most of the day in bed nursing a bad hangover and ignoring the sinking sense of guilt that she owes Pamela an apology. She pops two Advil and swallows them dry as pressure builds behind her retinas.

She’s supposed to see Phyllis today - she’s supposed to stand in solidarity with her STOP ERA “sisters”. She’s supposed to do something else, too, but she can’t quite recall what it is. Alice goes to the window of her hotel room, squinting as she opens the blinds in preparation for the sun. When light doesn’t hit her face, she checks her watch.

7:30 pm.

The number looms like death sentence, and Alice’s eyes go wide. “That ... that girl!” She says it like she’s expecting her to appear in front of her. Shuffling towards her suitcase, Alice tears through dresses and skirts. I must look awful. She cringes at the thought of looking in a mirror as she shimmies in a flannel dress - deep blue, and soft to the touch.

Her suspicions are confirmed when she finally chances a look at herself in the mirror. Mascara still creases the bags under her eyes, and her hair is matted with sleep. “I don’t have time.” Alice runs her fingers through her waves, tucking a few lose strands behind her ears, washes her face with soap at water without waiting for the sink stream to warm up.

“A reject. You’re a reject!”

Alice shakes her head, glancing at herself once more in the mirror before accepting that this is as good as it will get.

*

You get there early, waiting in the bend of the hotel hallway as you fidget with the buckle on your cross-body satchel. You know there’s a chance that this will all be some cruel cosmic joke, that Alice won’t know what it is she was agreeing to, that she might not even remember -

“Hello.” Her voice pulls your gaze upwards. She’s smiling at you with only the faintest recollection twisting in her eyes. Your stomach churns. She doesn’t remember.

“Alice, hi. I-I’m -“

“Oh good.” She breaths, cutting you off befor you can stumble over your own tongue any longer. “It is you. I thought I thought maybe I was wrong. I was ... pretty drunk last night.”

You quirk an eyebrow. “Oh, is that all?” Blood rushes to her cheeks.

“Yes, well, I suppose you’d know better, wouldn’t you?” She picks at her nailbed, smiling sheepishly. Please don’t hate me for it. “I’m sorry if I was any trouble.”

“Oh, no! No you were ... you were just fine.” You clear your throat and will your knees to stop shaking. “Are you hungry?” Alice nods. “I know a place around the corner from here. It’s nothing fancy, but I figured if you were interested, we could -“

“I’d like that.” I would? I would. Alice catches herself off guard with her self assurance.

She’s soft spoken, but there’s a fortitude to her words that makes your throat close. You swallow the lump in your throat and offer her your hand. She studied it for a moment like she’s not sure it’s really there, before taking it in her own, and following you down the hall.

Alice looks like a fish out of water. You release her hand when you see the way she pales in the hotel lobby. Be patient with her. You remind yourself as you open the lobby door and usher her through it. True to your word, the restaurant is around the corner - a quaint little Italian spot that you’d spent the last few nights at with college friends.

“I told you it’s not much.” You apologize before you’ve even walked inside.

Alice’s eyes are fixed on the red awning. “I think it’s nice.” She tucks a few pieces of hair behind her ears and smiles up at the gold letters reading Preggo in practically illegible calligraphy. “I always wanted to study Italian.” Alice admits when you’ve been seated at a table in the far corner of the trattoria.

“Oh? Why didn’t you?”

Alice’s brow furrows. “Well, I ... I never went to college.” She picks at a piece of bread, holing it out in the center without ever actually eating any of it. “I got married at 19, and from there ... well ... Buck I wanted to have a family. There wasn’t much time with babies in the house.”

Your stomach drops through the soles of your shoes. “You’re married?”

Brown eyes flick towards you, wide with something akin to fear. “I suppose I should have told you.”

You shake your head. “I’ve dated married women before, Alice. There’s more of you than you think.”

“More of ... me?”

You lean back in your chair, taking a sip of ice water to steady yourself. “You know ... women who ... who are curious about what it’s like to be with other ... you know.” Alice’s lips pull into a thin line. You’re scaring her. Alice stills, Christ, she barely even blinks, and you think that this is it; this is the end of this doomed date. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have presumed that you were-“

“You’re right.” There it is again, that blunt naievity that you’ve only ever seen in children before. “I ... I suppose I hadn’t given it much thought before now, but why else would I have said yes?”

You smile, giving her the benefit of the doubt. “I mean, you were positively rolling.” You wink, and Alice blushes, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She’s so beautiful.

“Fair point.” She concedes as the waiter comes to take your order.

PART 2 HERE

[backupblogforjg]

The racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism and cruel tropes in Voltron

So, it’s the anniversary of the ending of Voltron. And I’m getting really, really tired of people saying that only shippers hated the ending. There were many issues with Voltron, and they were neither limited to shipping nor to S8.

So, I’ve decided to compile a list.

It gets LONG. Turns out there was a hell of a lot of racist, sexist, ableist and cruel tropes in VLD.

In fact, I had originally planned on writing a list of both the terrible tropes and the plot holes. But there just wasn’t enough room for both. The post is huge as it is, and with the plot holes, it would have been twice as long, so I had to focus on only one thing.

Salt, obviously. So, so, so much salt. I could turn a lake into a sea here. You’ve been warned.

RACISM:

1) The Alteans are genocide survivors. Out of all the Alteans, only the black Altean was used for a Reverse Racism story where she resents a teammate for belonging to the race that exterminated hers. The white Alteans are totally cool with him, and with his race in general, and only hate the bad people. But the black one had to be taught that hating people because of their race is wrong.

2) VLD Allura is also the only version of Allura who is black. In every other Voltron media (several different cartoons and comics), Allura is blond with blue eyes. All the white versions of the character get a happy ending, while only the black version ends up dying to save the world.

While "hero sacrifices their life to save the world" is not a bad trope in and of itself, it becomes bad when it kills off one of the extremely few black female characters in leading roles. You kill off a white male hero, there are 463278462387 more. You kill off the black female hero, you are kinda screwed. Making it worse, Allura had been portrayed as suffering from depression throughout the latest seasons, so that her death comes across less as heroic sacrifice and more as suicide.

3) The brown Cuban kid who dreamed of being a pilot, and never once in 78 episodes ever expressed anything but sheer love for an exciting life, in the final two minutes of the final episode ends up realizing that the place for him is a farm.

4) As told in interviews, Lotor was meant to be a bad example of mixed-race person, to contrast him with Keith as good example of mixed race person. Do I even have to point out how messed up this is?

5) Even before they became Space Nazis, back when they were still on the side of the angels, the Galra invaded and conquered planets. This is portrayed as totally cool when they happily name the prince after a "hero" who invaded and conquered a lot of worlds, and the peaceful Alteans think the guy is just as heroic as one of their greatest scientists. Apparently there is such a thing as ethically killing people to steal their land.

6) They whitewashed Keith, a character who is poc in every other iteration of Voltron.

I’m sure a lot of people are going to get angry here, claiming that I hate Keith. Let me assure you, I don’t. I love Keith, and I hate what was done to him. I hate that they took a traditionally poc character and went to frankly ridiculous lengths to erase that part of his character. Keith should be Asian, and it would be incredibly easy to make him so in VLD (seriously, all they’d have to do is update the freaking bios, an intern could do it right now in 5 minutes). But they refuse to do it.

A lot of people don’t realise that the surname “Kogane” in VLD is fanon.

I’m serious. Check his official bios page. Keith is not actually called Keith Kogane in VLD. Fans started calling him that in fanfiction, and it stuck, but it’s not canon.

In every other Voltron media, Keith is an Asian guy. But in VLD, they:

- went out of their way to always avoid giving him an Asian surname

- gave him a Texan father

- refused to confirm his race, even when every other character had a specific race. Again, check his official bios. All the other characters got a race, Keith gets “human.” It got so ridiculous it would be funny if it weren’t sad. It pretty much went like this:

Fans: Keith is half alien, but about his human half, what is his ethnicity? EPs: oh, we couldn't possibly say, because the story takes place in the future, and in the future, everybody is mixed up! So, Keith is HUMAN, we can't give him a specific race because there are no specific races in the future! Fans: ok. And what are the races of the other characters? EPs: Pidge is Italian, Lance is Cuban, Hunk is half-black half- Samoan, Shiro is Japanese. Fans: but Keith...? EPs: HUMAN! There is no such thing as race in the future!

Some people at least hoped that Keith's Texan father had Asian ancestry because he kinda looked like Shiro, who is Japanese. But the EPs confirmed that the resemblance was just a coincidence, they never meant for the dad to look Japanese.

At this point pretty much the only evidence that Keith is Asian is that he is voiced by an Asian person. But then, Josh Keaton is not Japanese, is he?

7) After whitewashing Keith, they claimed he is the best leader of Voltron, better than his poc predecessor, because he has Galra blood.

So, instead of bringing up any sort of legit reason to justify why Keith should be in charge (like his empathy or pilot skills), they go with "the half-white guy is also half space-nazi and that's why he should give the orders instead of the poc guy."

If you think I’m bashing Keith here, please ask yourself why you are getting angry at the person pointing out the whitewashing instead of getting angry at the whitewashing. Especially when, again, making VLD Keith canonically poc could be done anytime with zero cost and zero effort, and DW just doesn’t want to.

- Hunk, the half-black half-Samoan guy, was going to be killed and replaced as Paladin by a blue alien. The EPs were pissed when DW forbade them to, and complained in the interview about it.

SEXISM:

Every single woman who is ever put in charge ends up going insane, making terrible decisions that endanger her planet, or losing all of her authority.

Allura starts out as co-leader of Voltron and leader of the Coalition. Ends up as a foot soldier who takes orders from the new leader and his right-hand man, and is treated as a cadet by the Earth military.

HOMOPHOBIA:

1) Dreamworks, Netflix and the EPs very, very, very heavily promoted S7 as GLBT-friendly. The EPs gave whole interviews about the past relationship between Shiro and new character Adam, retweeted a ton of posts celebrating Shiro’s homosexuality, and enthusiastically sent tweets like "you are going to see more of Adam in S7! :D" from their personal accounts after they showed the episode that introduced him.

In S7:

- Shiro's homosexuality is so ambiguous that even the Brazilian voice actor didn't realize that he was supposed to be gay. Just by watching the show, without knowing the World Of God, you can’t tell he and the other guy were engaged.

- Adam gets about 30 seconds of screentime after that one episode they had already shown. Then he dies screaming in pain and terror in a fire.

A lot of people claimed that it was okay to kill Adam because Shiro was supposed to be our rep, not Adam, who was a brand new character we knew little about. And, out of context, that would be true. Adam was pretty much a NPC, why would his death matter?

But the problem here is the context:

- Shiro is closeted in S7, you need to read interviews to know he is gay. So, if only Shiro is meant to be the rep, they couldn’t even do that right.

- They very heavily marketed both Shiro and Adam as gay rep, and specifically talked at length about Adam in several interviews.

In THAT context, REGARDLESS of what you ship, killing off Adam revealed a complete willingness to manipulate the audience to the point of outright lying. Even if you hated Adam, even if Adashi is your NOTP, the clear evidence that the creators had absolutely no problem making empty promises was NOT a good sign.

2) The moment Shiro is revealed to be gay in interviews, he is practically quarantined from the Team.

3) Shiro is also given a Totally Not AIDS deadly disease.

Making it even worse, Shiro never actually gets cured in canon. We are told he is cured in interviews, but the show itself drops the topic entirely. Depending on where you lean in the Word Of God VS Death Of The Author debate, Shiro may be doomed to die.

4) A female villain is revealed to be a lesbian. 30 seconds later she gleefully tortures a little girl. Then she, too, dies in a fire.

(Fan outrage about pulling two Bury Your Gays in the Season that had been very heavily promoted as GLBT-friendly caused DW to retcon her death and bring her back in S8, but she was originally meant to die in the explosion)

5) Shiro ends up marrying a random character who doesn’t even get a name in the show.

ABLEISM:

1) Shiro's PTSD magically disappears offscreen. In interviews, the EPs claimed that he "got over it" between S6 and S7 because "he is a professional." Wow! Who knew being a professional magically cures mental illnesses!

2) Shiro is an amputee. The EPs admitted that they never put any thought into his status as disabled rep, they just wanted a character with a cool-looking arm. It literally didn't occur to them that making him lose his arm (TWICE! First up to the biceps, then up to the shoulder) meant anything. Also worth noting that Shiro’s new arm makes him look like the guy who tormented him.

3) Shiro is systematically robbed of his agency.

- He is the only Paladin who never gets to use his bayard.

- He loses his bond with Black for no given canon reason (and the reason they give in interviews makes no sense, they basically say that transferring his soul out of the Black Lion makes her stop loving him. But she still lets Zarkon fly her!).

I know that Keith is traditionally Black’s pilot in Voltron media (although that shouldn’t matter, because VLD made a lot of huge changes to the traditional status quo). But if they wanted Black Paladin Keith that badly, they could have given some non-insulting reason for it. For example, say “because Shiro has spent so much time within Black, their bond is now so strong that he will get absorbed again if he flies her again.” Or co-pilots in Black (if Pidge can co-pilot with Matt, why can’t Shiro co-pilot with Keith?).

- He is defeated not only by Sendak, but also by a bunch of random Alteans. He basically can’t win a fight anymore unless it’s played for laughs.

- His new robot Atlas is bigger than Voltron, but also much weaker, and can only buy a few minutes for Voltron to come save the day.

- Every single enemy he ever defeated comes back to be finished off by somebody else (even the friggin' Gladiator from S1 comes back in S8). In the epilogue, he retires in his twenties.

4) Narti, the disabled General, is fridged shortly after her introduction. For a while at least it seemed like her death had affected the remaining three Generals, but then it turns out that the "For Narti" line was a trick and they never actually planned on avenging her.

CRUEL TROPES:

1) They intentionally baited the fans by pushing the plot thread that Lotor would be redeemed. They named the episode where he defects "A New Defender," they kept saying in interviews that they come from Avatar and they are very familiar with Zuko *hint hint*, they showed his family as incredibly abusive and Lotor himself as desperate, they showed that Lotor was a victim of severe racism (he is mixed race, and as stated above, the Galra are Space Nazis and are pretty obsessed with blood purity).

Then, after revealing him to be a villain, they gave an interview where they practically dislocated their shoulders by patting themselves on the back as they gleefully bragged that "we made them think we would give them a Zuko, but we gave them an Azula!"

(Nevermind the fact that Azula herself was a 14-year-old child, not a monster, and that Aaron Ehasz himself confirmed that he always wanted her to be redeemed).

When fans who are survivors of child abuse told them that the bait-and-switch was really hurtful, they laughed it off, and claimed that Lotor was just beyond redemption. Then they proceeded to redeem Lotor's abusive parents, who were objectively much worse.

2) Shiro’s clone, who sincerely believed he was Shiro and always meant well, was dehumanised, demonised and discarded like his life meant nothing. His short existence was full of pain from literally the moment he first opened his eyes, as Haggar kept torturing him with migraines to manipulate him. In the end, she brutally violates him body and mind, and brainwashes him to force him to turn on the family he was so desperate to find in The Journey. He dies in incredibly questionable circumstances, without ever getting to learn that his family survived Haggar’s plans. He is victim-blamed for the things she forced him to do against his will with mind-control, and is never mourned because the only family he ever had writes him off as a “thing” and “evil.”

In fact, the horrific treatment of Kuron foreshadowed S8. The Medium article “It never stops at one - Why Voltron: Legendary Defender's tragic ending wasn't a surprise and why more DreamWorks' series will follow suit” explains how.

The tl;dr version is that, when a story posits that the circumstances of your birth determine the value of your life, so that good intentions and hard work mean nothing, and long-established bonds can be discarded with zero thought and care, and your very humanity can be revoked over something you have absolutely no control over, and the whole sociopathic disaster is celebrated as a happy ending... it really, really can’t end well. Not just for you, but for the entire cast.

[mdwatchestv]

Best Television (Of the Things I Watched) 2018

IndieWire's Liz Miller put together a staggering list of all the television shows that aired this year, excluding most reality and children's programming, to help narrow down top ten lists. If you would like to view it and despair, you may do so by clicking here.

Per her list there were o/a 554 shows on television this annum. Stare into the gaping void of that number, and let it, in turn, stare back into you. Of the television shows on this list, I have seen, at least one episode, of 136 of them. Although I am not a "professional" television "critic" who "gets paid" to give opinions, I am a "television professional" who also writes about it as an "amateur" "hobby". What I'm really trying to say here is that I have never seen an episode of The Americans.

But what I'm REALLY trying to say is that I watch a lot of TV, and work in TV, and love TV and have only seen 25% of the shows currently on television (and yes, I had to Google how to do that math). 25%! That's a quarter! That's an F- -, that is a paltry drip in this vast ocean of content. How is anyone supposed to keep up with that! The only thing I keep up with are the Kardashians, and that show isn't even included on the list of 554 shows!

And so with the disclaimer that any true distillation and subsequent ranking of the current landscape of television is, for all intents and purposes, impossible- I present to  you my picks for the best shows of 2018. Or perhaps more accurately ~*~my~*~ favorite shows, or the shows that brought me the most joy, or who managed to rise above the froth of the seething hoard of content, or shows I’d like you all to watch so we may talk about them. 

Killing Eve - BBC America

Okay so forget everything I just said about the insurmountable tv landscape and the inability to make an accurate judgement of quality, because Killing Eve was the BEST show this year. Watching this show, the latest outing from Phoebe Waller-Bridge, felt like suddenly finding out you've been holding your breath your entire life and finally filling your lungs. Killing Eve is the show I have always wanted to watch, and yet could never have previously imagined being possible. It is a spy thriller that maintains a heady tension, it's a pitch black comedy, it's a love story, it's violent, it's stylish, it's sexy, and it's unapologetically female. I could write an entire blog about this show in regards to women's spaces, sexuality, violence, and the female gaze but there WAS other television this year that I GUESS you want to read about. Real quick: the music was amazing, the clothes were amazing, Jodie Comer has shamed all other psychopath performances, and Sandra Oh held this whole jumble together with a deeply grounded yet intimately vulnerable performance and that shit AIN'T EASY Y'ALL. Also this is on Hulu now....so....

The Terror - AMC

I can say without question that The Terror is the most enjoyable show I've ever seen about men rotting to death on a boat. AMC did a terrible (lol) job of advertising this gem of a series based on an 800 page novel, which itself is based on a real (doomed) expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Yes, the The Terror is about all the ways men can die (many!), but it was also easily the most aesthetically beautiful series I watched this year. Sure, it was scary and there were zombie polar bears, but it also created a subtle unease as delicate as it was unsettling. The natural world is unforgiving and unknowable, but is it more dangerous than what lies in the hearts of men? (Free tagline for you AMC) Everyone slept on this show like they were dying of hypothermia.

Queer Eye - Netflix

Imagine you're you, and you've had a really rough couple of years. I mean, the news is terrible, the planet is dying, and you're never going to be a homeowner. The only thing that brings you joy is lying listlessly on your couch playing cooking games on your phone and trying to pretend that you don't have to haul your corporeal form to work tomorrow. Suddenly, there is a knock on your (over-priced apartment's) door. Who could be visiting you here, at such an hour? Who is there left in the world that cares? You pull on a bathrobe and shuffle over, opening the door and blinking owlishly into outside world. Before you are five beautifully appointed men, they have gifts, salsa, bomber jackets, soft-silken hair,  their energy is non-threatening. They join you on the couch and you cry in their toned arms for hours, for days, for weeks. For the first time in a long time you think maybe humanity is worth saving after all.

Sharp Objects - HBO

I have never fully boarded the Gillian Flynn train, my reaction to watching Gone Girl and reading Dark Places was "Oh...that's it?" So despite the creative heavy hitters (Marti Noxon, Marc-Jean Vallee, Amy Adams) attached, I had reservations about this HBO miniseries. On its surface Sharp Objects is another one of Flynn's lurid mysteries, but its on-screen adaptation created a fully realized world for this particular mystery to inhabit. A world that at turns felt stifling and magical, that oozed resentment, and pain, and fear. A world filled with women who had anger simmering under the skin, caught in their hands, trapped in their mouths. For once this wasn't a story where the twist was the final destination, but rather an inevitability of cruelty wrought on women by their world and by each other.

The Good Place - NBC

Everything on this list so far has been new series. Maybe that's because newness is more interesting, or maybe it's because goodness is hard to sustain. However everyone's favorite philosophy comedy just seems to be getting better and better the longer it goes on, continuing to invent itself from season to season, and even episode to episode.  The Good Place is the only show that can make you a fan of Blake Bortles and also a genuinely better person.

Okay those were my five best shows of the year and now I'm tired. Here are some rapid fire honorable mentions!!!!

Honorable Mentions:

Barry (HBO)- The season finale didn't stick the landing for me, but I can assure you Barry’s actor struggle was documentary-level. Cannot speak for hitman authenticity.....publicly...

GLOW S2 (Netflix) - Improving on the promise of its first season, GLOW can sometimes be a bit messy in delivery but I admire their go big or go home attitude. This season dealt with workplace sexual harassment, parenthood, the AIDs crisis, race, and even had time for a lesbian dream ballet and an anti-kidnapping PSA. Betty Gilpin forever.

Doctor Who (BBC America) - Jodie Whittaker is a sheer delight as the Doctor, and a breath of fresh air for the series. This new season has also taken the back-in-time episodes (always my fav) to a new level- I LEARNED STUFF.

Aggretsuko (Netflix) - Aggretsuko is a Sanrio anime about a red panda named Retsuko. She is 25, she works in an office for a sexist pig boss, she hates her life, and at night she sings death metal karaoke. She is....extremely relatable. Sam please watch this.

The Magicians S3 (SyFy)- I may be biased, but at the same time, I have always loved The Magicians. This is another rare show that gets better the longer it goes on, having carved out a strange little genre space with a tone all of its own. Within the forest of snappy quips and surly fantasy characters, is a beating heart and an ability to achieve real emotional catharsis.

The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix) - I said earlier this year that I had never found a television show truly scary, but this was before I had seen Haunting of Hill House.  I have not yet finished this show because it started giving me nightmares and I can only watch it in the light of day. That being said, the Bent-Neck Lady episode alone is such a tight, terrifying, piece of storytelling it deserves a shout out on this list. Also A+ kid casting, that shit is HARD. 

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (NBC) Probably the time I felt most alive this year were the harrowing  hours between Brooklyn 99's cancellation by Fox and subsequent saving by NBC. During that wretched purgatory it was decided by the internet that B99 was the Last Good and Pure Thing Left and its salvation would mark some sort of victory in the losing battle against the darkness that will  one day overtake us all. Luckily, the day was saved (no thanks to Fox), but the abyss still looms.

That's it! This is everything I thought was good on TV this year! If you thought something else was good, or you would like to shame me for something I did not watch, feel free to do so in the comments or on Twitter.  There are over 550 after all and I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT watch them all.

The television wheel begins inexorably turning again in a few scant weeks, so buckle up buttercups!!! If you read the blog this year, or are reading right now - thank you for your time! If you thought the writing was poor, at least I gave you some entertaining gifs. 

XO MD

[soulcrossed]

HEADCANON / VALKYRIE CAIN :   POST TDOTL RELATIONSHIPS

with a great thanks to  MAY  ( @foulefairs / @aasmahni )   for letting me ramble for a couple of hours. kind of a pt. 2 to  this ;  i’m going more into detail about her reaction to other people after her return from meek ridge,  AND  i’m explaining my interpretation of val & skul’s dynamic, their relationship in general, and how they ended up where they are. again, this is long af  ---  feel free to ask me for a tl;dr, but  please  note: i differ heavily from phase 2.

REACTION TO OTHERS

listen, here’s the thing. everybody HATES val. at least everybody she comes into casual contact with  ---  and she knows this. she expects this. that’s fair. but sorcerer politics is mainly an  image thing,  so -----  she’d not only avoid people who simply don’t like her, but also those who she  IS  on friendly / neutral terms with, if just to avoid damaging  their  reputation / career. it doesn’t really matter if people see her with skulduggery because a) skug doesn't give a shit about any of this and b) his reputation is fucked already anyway, so nothing to lose there. but say, like, fletcher? tanith? the remaining dead men? even militsa?* they’re all doing fairly well after ... everything and she wouldn’t want to make it any worse for them; wouldn’t want people to bother them  about her  and she’d. avoid them at all costs, in the beginning. anything beyond texting / skyping that isn’t case-related will be. cancelled. with the most ridiculous excuses. untill someone literally drags her out of the house. and the thing is, it doesn't really occur to her that these people  ( fletcher / tanith / dead men, other people from before )  also have major trauma she might possibly help them work through with providing the opportunity to  talk,  to get  closure,  since, you know, she played a major part in  causing  that trauma.  ( val is still self-centred at heart. she tries to take others into consideration, especially after tdotl and her exile but like. she's trained this into her since she was twelve and she didn’t really have any chances to work on that when completely isolated; it's a habit that is going to take her  A LOT  longer to unlearn. essentially, it’s good intention with bad results  ------  it’s partly fear for her friends’ reputations, and partly because she is simply not ready to confront  everything,  at least not all at once. listen. my girl needs therapy. badly. )   valkyrie feels so GUILTY looking at everyone and  still  has it so ingrained in her that she's bad for people. and she comes back to work on that because she feels  ready  to  work on that  again but? she's still super convinced that Any Association With Her is Bad. essentially, she’s still very in her head about it, and isolates herself  again  for a good while, just. on the same continent, this time.

( * i don’t personally like militsa’s attitude of almost-stanning val and i find the “hey so i was attacked by a lady with parasites coming out of her hands” - “haha was she hot” interaction ... questionable.  especially  with blandy’s track record of fetishizing lesbians / the train wreck that was dem.on ro.ad so. i’m not,, comfortable with blandy’s canon stuff. i’m willing to work something out with militsa muses but that’s something that needs to be  carefully  plotted out, especially if it goes into ship territory. note: at this point in time, i have not read bed.lam. )

gordon’s mansion / grimwood becomes her safe space and she does  NOT  do well with having that invaded. xena is a part of that, skulduggery is tolerated  ( in sight! she’s  very  uncomfortable with people in her space. especially when they’re off somewhere making noises --- she forgets they’re there and she’s  jumpy )  and very, very occasionally her parents  ( and only in the living room / in sight as well )  it’s just. hard for her to coexist with living beings again, it’s something she has to  RELEARN.  this also ties into meetings  ------  ALWAYS on neutral ground / preferably in the mortal world somewhere. and even then, she’s going to be twitchy. she has emergency plans memorized. she’ll want to call it off and she’ll want to take the opportunity to Run. she’s not going to, but--- things are hard and uncomfortable and when has val cain ever dealt with things like this properly? 

the thing is, dealing with other people, especially people she used to know, brings on a whole different type of guilt, and not one she can actively think about, at least not at first. there's a disparity between the "i almost destroyed the world and killed a shitton of people including my sister" kinda guilt  ( which is about an objectively bad thing )  and the "i left literally everyone to deal with the fallout of this, and i'm pretty sure i would've just made it worse in the state of mind i was in then, but what if i've been making it worse on other people after all and oh my god there's no way to know what would've been right and no matter what i would've done my existence is just not right" type of guilt that goes. a little deeper.  ( because  also  that was her active choice, just like alice. )  and it takes her a little longer to confront that than it does for the other things.

it’s going to take a lot of time and work for her to reintegrate herself and learn how to be around people again  ------ especially since said people have moved on with their lives. she's not a part of that anymore after five years in exile literally not speaking to anybody. and a big part of her coming back is a) accpeting her decisions and b) integrating herself in a sort of community again, if just so they can peacefully coexist without her having a panic attack every time she randomly meets someone on the streets or at the sanctuary. in summary, my interpretation has a long road ahead of her to work through things with most other canon characters.

RELATIONSHIP TO SKULDUGGERY

this also goes for skuldug  -----  and as an  IMPORTANT NOTE:  skul forcing her back into working cases is not part of my canon. it’s just bull, imho, and it goes against both how i interpret val and their dynamic as a whole. she comes back from america because she (thinks she)'s ready. she  decides  to go on cases again, but few and far between, and besides that mostly (really) keeps to herself and won't set foot into roarhaven if she can help it. and  THAT's  were skuldug pressures her ------ the getting back to roarhaven / old friends / acquaintances / the magical community itself; he knows she  needs  to find this connection again, and as i said,  she  knows it too, she just. avoids it at all costs, otherwise. when she’s not ready for  case work,  though, skulduggery couldn’t pull her back into that if he tried. if she learned anything in america it's  independence  and how to make her own decisions, and she's starting to stand firmer on that. before, she always had it somewhere in the back of her mind that she needed to impress skul to some degree, at least subconsciously. this is gone, now. don’t get me wrong, they’re still codependent af for reasons i will get into below, but val did become a lot more independent in her decision making in those five years. she's a lot less succeptible to skuldug's suggestions and she does, sometimes, put his ego in check  ( he's not getting away with ignoring issues anymore. he needs to actively apologize and confront them. death bringer level sneaking back into her good graces doesn't work anymore. )

the thing is. in those five years, val spent  A LOT  of time dissecting their relationship. and she  knows  it's very codependent and unhealthy and not good, but no matter how she turns and twists it,  none of this could've gone any other way.  she spends so much time on constructing alternate realities in her mind, changing details upon details, but they always would've ended up just the same. she always would've ended up on that first case with him, because it was her uncle, and because it was magic. what kid would decide to not go after that? and YES skuldug probably should've been a responsible adult, but then. she was literally the first one who believed him and didn't try to gaslight him about serpine.  ( she also spent a lot of time dissecting skug's personality and history. she never brings it up to him, though. )  so, yeah. he kept her around. the serpine issue is resolved and i think he actually would have made her walk away then, except by then, val has pretty much seen it all. she knows china, tanith and the sanctuary and where to find / how to contact them. and people know HER now. serpine's old goons know her name. she's a dot on the magical radar now and she knows this, and she thinks skuldug knew this and tanith, too, and that's why they agreed to train her. by the time faceless ones rolls around she's in too deep. skuldug was her connection to the magic world and to being a detective, a job she loves. skuldug comes back and he feels like he owes her, he'll always owe her. and when they discover the other's respective Murder Alter Ego, they're screwed, because no one else knows and there's no way anymore they can deal with this alone. they need this one person who loves and who they know will support them anyway. and is this fair to put on a teen? absolutely not. and val  RECOGNIZES  that. but she also knows that darquesse would've found a way, anyway, after the point she was introduced to magic. so from the point her uncle left her the scepter, essentially, she was doomed. 

and to sum up this way too long meta: val is VERY aware of all the ways her relationship to skul is just a little fucked up and she doesn't actively defend HIS choices, but she'll defend her  OWN  choices. because of her own issue about agency, her own choices are what she can really rely on  ( and lay blame upon )  so any conversation about her relationship to skulduggery is always going to be kinda uncomfortable and frustrating with everyone who tries to talk to her about it because. she see their point? but it doesn't change anything. they ended up where they ended up, and besides the fact that it, in her opinion, couldn’t have gone any other way, she also wouldn’t have  wanted  it to. she loves him. not necessarily in a familial or a romantic way, but simply because after everything they’ve been through and everything they  are  and are to each other, there’s just. no way not to. in the context of all of this  ( context most people lack! as they don’t know about the vile issue and barely know anything about the whole darquesse situatione except  evil worldbreaker )  that’s just. the way it is. plain and simple. she'll always stand by him and she knows he’ll always stand by her, no matter what. and that might not be good  ( for them or the world at large )  and it might not be right but that's what her character is like, as i see it.

[verytamenow]

Reputation Tour Movie: Reactions

On the off chance anyone has wanted to know what it’s like to deal with my commentary when I will not shut the fuck up, click that read more to get my Reputation Movie commentary!

Opening

- Taylor is the most extra bitch. I love her.

- Opening video still gives me chills

...Ready For It?

- The strobe lights make this as sometimes irritating to watch as it was live. Which is a pity because I love the performance.

I Did Something Bad

- Will idsb ever not give me chills and murder me?

- I want her to bite me when she snarls

- Her hips. The idiot giraffe is blessed.

- Her vocals

- Fuck Me Up

- The most precious happiest koala😭

- (spots a rep room wristband) lucky bitch

Gorgeous

- I’m So disappointed a step above gorgeous being gorgeous didn’t get immortalized in the tour video

- The assholes (I say out of jealousy) with the triangles. Why didn’t we think of that!

- “And I’m Taylor” Bitch I hope so. I spend so much on your ass.

- Stop looking like that Taylor it makes me feel things

Style

- I get why style made the set list and love the songs but justice for ootw

- That guitar riff gives me ALL THE FEELS

- yes bitch strut! Thank you Karlie Kloss

Love Story

- Aww all the throwback and legacy feels 

- Is it legal not to jump during this song?

- Boop.

- “I keep waiting for you but you never cum” is probably not a problem Taylor has. On either end.

You Belong With Me

- (proceeds to bounce in place because Taylor owns me)

- The parent holding up her daughter is Kristen in the future

Look What You Made Me Do

- The lwymmd pre video is my sexuality

- I want murderess snake queen Taylor to end. my. life.

- Would let her choke me

- I’m the bitch mouthing oh my god

- This is my favourite part of the tour ngl

- THAT SMIRK

- side note: also remember when we thought it was a dragon and not a snake?

- She really snapped and killed a bitch with this song

- THE INTENSITY WENT OFF AND HOW IS PIT NOT LOSING THEIR SHIT

- like mosh or something fuckers

- KARYN!

- I weirdly love the back vocals she recorded for lwymmd. The short “ah”s really make it

- The sass

- A queen

- I’m so gay

- This is why I’m doomed with whoever I date

End Game

- The disappointment Ed never guested on the tour

- The choreo for this is 🔥

- I mean all of it is but her hips

- Her legs are worth every penny of 40 million

- The hand over the face bit is an objectively weird closing move

King Of My Heart

- How do we actually make her America’s queen

- This is the softest song

- I stan komh so hard

- Like I love delicate but this is just as soft. Softer even

- I love I’m getting to see the other half of the choreo because we sat on the left side each time

- Up on the roof with a school girl crush /  Drinking beer out of plastic cups / Say you fancy me not fancy stuff / BABY ALL IT ONCE THIS IS ENOUGH

- This is the closest we’ve come to a poc love interest in anything she’s filmed. Except the End Game MV sort of.

- We didn’t stan the dancers hard enough

- The drums made this tbh

Delicate

- Oh gods I’m not ready for the delicate speech

- I’m the dude who screamed he loved her

- Bless the rainbow dress

- “Shit is that what is was on my wrist? I thought her stalker and taylurking ways had just finally gone to tracking bracelets.”

- (knock at the door) Me, pausing: umm I blocked out this entire 2 hours for our lorde and saviour Taylor Swift???

- (Scott Swift voice) I’m going back into my zone

- The lights are so pretty. No wonder Taylor loves the bracelets

- Bitch we know your unreleased stuff

- Do let’s go/battle as a surprise song and be shook

- 1! 2! 3! LET’S GO BITCH!

- Can you believe she flew right over us

- That little dance. She’s so fucking precious

Shake It Off

- B stage. Remember how she gave invisible to the gays

- And finally played breath

- The only redeeming thing for shake it off is that she made it as gay as she could

-I still wanna know what inspired “my ex man brought his new girlfriend...to the fella over there with the hella good hair” bit

- What did Di do? And who did Taylor hit on? Or is Karlie the one with the hella good hair?

- Giuseppe got down on one knee long before Karlie ever will

Dancing With Our Hands Tied

- How smug was Taylor when her jump to pop worked?

- There must have been so many I told you so’s

- It started raining. The closest I’ll ever come to a rain show.

- I can’t believe she played this song in Nashville with Karlie right there and kept her shit together

- Taylor’s never more magical then when it’s just her and a guitar

- I would give anything and go deep in debt to go to an acoustic show

- This filter was unnecessary and such a call out

- She had one fuck left and it’s name is alliterative All Too Well

- I hope she keeps doing acoustic surprise songs like this next tour. Where it’s a set thing.

- I’m so relieved she approves of lyric tattoos. Like....imagine if she didn’t and I have my entire forearm

- Put down your fucking phones and watch her be magic personified

- Also fuck this song for being so powerful

- The way she sings the bridge

- Now did she really lose the 12 minute version or is it just a little too obvious who it’s about

- Her wink! I’d die

- Is that chick okay? Did she live?

Blank Space

- The crowd walk! I’m still so so fucking endlessly proud

- Look at her!

- My precious angel reclaiming walking through her fans

- How the fuck are these people not dying tho?

- Still want her to hit me in the face with the golf club

- And kick me in the face with her boots

- This is also still my favourite mv

- It was so perfect

- This is also quality choreo. I wouldn’t have made it had it seen it right in front of me

- Gay icons

Dress

- Holy fuck dress is so gay

- Like.....we been knew but still

- This song is why she didn’t dare film in Nashville

- The vocals should be illegal

- Like, they’re NSFL (Not Safe For Lesbians)

- The first time she did that (strip tease thing) and the Nashville show were the best ones

Should Have Said No / Bad Blood

- This is still the most fucking random mash up

- I mean it works and redeems bad blood but wtf

- The person sitting on someone else’s shoulders has to really be pissing off someone else who can’t see

- Aggressive banjo

- Can’t believe she puts on a show and sells like this and Borschetta wouldn’t give her the masters. Idiot

- The dudes dangling are braver than any US Marine

- Instead she negotiated for better artist pay AND her future masters. The Legend jumped out

- I remember watching this the first time and being briefly confused because this sort of drawn out thing is what they normally do for show closing but it was too early

Don’t Blame Me

- Oh fuck here we go

- THIS IS MY FAVOURITE TOUR OUTFIT

- PERIOD

- ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES

- this entire fucking performance. No words

- I love all the dude dancers had the blinders like headgear. As if such powerful sapphic love is distinctly not for their consumption

- I have found religion

- I stan a queen

Long Live / New Year’s Day

- I love she knows how many people work on the tour and genuinely appreciates their effort

- I hope this mashup sticks around, at least as the surprise song at the closing show of the next tour

- I’m not crying you’re crying

- Hold on to the memories, they/I will hold onto you is one on my favourite lines she’s written

- Along with with please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

- Oh my fucking god stop letting her be this precious

- Remember how fucking loud we were in Denver?

- This is my favourite moment of the entire show - for her. You can tell how much it means to her

- She owns my ass and wallet forevermore

- “I had the time of my life....with you” is a whole emotional mood

- Her quick little thank you 😭

Why She Disappeared

- Oh that’s the first time I’ve heard the echos

- Those boots probably cost more than my life

- This should have been the close or open of the getaway car mv

- Imagine if it shows up in an mv next era. Starts with a car on a pink x

Getaway Car

- The 1989 neon is an interesting choice

- Is that the shift to pop being a getaway or the close of the 1989 era being one? (More thoughts on this later)

- Hits you like a shotgun shot to the Heart is a fucking amazing line

- I loved that bit straight away

- I can lowkey see getaway car being about switching labels tbh

- This last album maybe IS the getaway car (more, again, later)

Call It What You Want

- Ciwyw is one on my favourite love songs of hers

- Trust him like NO OTHER was right at her fingertips

- Who the fuck would say no to running away with her?

- I would let her RUN ME OVER, running away WITH her? Fuck yes

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together / This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

- WANEGBT/TIWWCHNT is a brilliant mash up

- But fucking ridiculous to type

- “But I’m not the friend you’ve lost lately” is the shadiest fucking line and I love it

- I’m disappointed we never got video of her recording “cause forgiveness is a nice thing to do”. I can only imagine the sass and snark

- “Taylor the mic is picking up you muttering ‘fucking prick’. You need to record it again.”

- “.....Taylor, muttering ‘backstabbing motherfucker’ isn’t any better. Maybe try it without the muttering?”

- The mouthed “I love you guys” ❤😭

- They’re not showing people collecting confetti? How unrealistic.

- Oh, there they are.

- “The words are all the same over and over again and I know that’s my fault....” still funny as hell

- “What’s a 767?” What’s it like to have that kind of money?

- Will pay to watch Taylor skip through a stadium

In conclusion: Taylor owns me. Kristen puts up with a lot from me. And I can’t wait for the next chapter.

[ahotpeaceofshit]

Lesbian fairytale (based on a story my baba used to tell me)

In a time like now, in a place far away, there lived a young girl. This girl loved to paint, to create worlds that she imagined and worlds she wished to be in. She created colourful things, things that glowed in the sunshine and made people smile when they saw it. She also created dark things, things that would make people wonder and other people afraid. Her talent was known far and wide, people from corners of the globe saw her art and liked it.

But a shadow hung over her life, making her tear flow and her head hang low. It's dark hands gripping her very soul and crushing it day after day. She no longer showed people her art, the things she had created were meaningless to her. People became worried and then slowly, they forgot. The world became a dark place without joy for the young artist.

Humans had failed her and before long, the shadow had her wishing she was dead because it had killed every part of her that felt joy.

As a last resort, the artist headed out to see the witch who was said to live in these woods. It sounds fake and pathetic but she was very desperate and broken. Emptiness held her heart hostage as the sun went down and the girl wandered aimlessly through the creepy woods. She felt no fear, in fact she almost hoped that something would come along and kill her. She would also be glad to find the witch, it was a win win situation.

Then, when she was laughing at herself and this stupid idea, a lamp shown through the pitch blackness. She held up her hands, blinded by the light before the world went dark again and she fell fast asleep.

When she awoke, the dark forest was gone. A simple nightmare, replaced with a soft bed and the smell of cookies. She opened her eyes to see herself in a room that was only lit with dim candle light. A soft song surfed through the air, like a colours for her ears and light for her heart.

A girl entered the room, warm colours playing off her lips and the sweet words made the artist smile. The young witch wasn't beautiful in the traditional sense but her deep thoughts and joyous laugh made the artists blush harder and smile happier then she had ever done her whole life.

And with the witch in mind, the girl began to draw again. Her art glowing with the magic of her love for her magic sweetheart and making the witch blush in return. The pictures were not for the masses or for money but as an offering to the love of her life, the woman who had saved her life all that time ago.

Time passed and their love grew like a tree, spreading it's branches, growing leaves and losing them again. Flowers blooming and the seeds growing. The artist was never rid of her shadow that had haunted her life but it was small and hidden in the darkness. Her wife and her grew old together, watching their beautiful son and handsome daughter grow and learn witchcraft from their mother and art from their other.

One day their children will be old enough to leave the nest and grow on their own but for now they loved to watch their mother draw flowers and their mother sing her lovely songs.

They were happy but all good thing come to an end, the artist whispered on her death bed. Unlike her wife and children, she was mortal. Doomed to die and leave the people she loved. She had lived a long life and a very happy one and was tired and wanted to sleep. That still didn't stop her wife and children from crying as she took her last breath.

Her children moved on but her wife never could. The witch, doomed to live forever without the woman she loved, turned them both into stone so they could be together, even in death.

So if you see a statue of two women holding each other, please do leave flower. It is said that their children live near by and will bless you if you do so. But if you harm their mothers, they are known to hunt you to the ends of the earth and eat your flesh until only your heart is left, untouched.