#especially flawed female characters who get so much more hate than their equally or more flawed male counterparts

[tequilamoonrock]

reminder that i am the number 1 defender of female characters that people ignore or hate in fandom

[mhsdatgo]

To the point about Rhaenyra being boring, it continues to elude me why the producers, writers, and directors decided they needed to humanize Rhaenyra by downplaying if not outright removing her worst traits. That’s not humanizing, that’s sanitizing.

There are plenty of female characters that exist in fiction who are frustrating to morally ambiguous, to completely evil but still have their fans and are beloved, or at the very least compelling. The comparisons to Shiv Roy from Succession already exist, so I won’t belabor that point, but look at other shows like Mr. Robot, Better Call Saul, and if anyone really wants to press the button for feminism: The Handmaid’s Tale. Those shows have incredibly well-written female characters that aren’t necessarily paragons.

House of the Dragon choosing to center Rhaenyra as the protagonist as opposed to making her part of a true ensemble a la the original Game of Thrones wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The narrative decision to frame her as heroic (as far as S1 is concerned) is how we get the ‘Protagonist Centered Morality/Unreliable Narrator’ trope that results in plenty of media literate fans that are either neutral or Green-leaning who feel frustrated that there’s not an equal balance between characters.

Perfectly put together, anon. I'm sorry I answered so late. -_-

There's nothing wrong with characters that are written to be good people, but you see, that only works when said character is written consistently and somewhat realistically. Something that the writers completely didn't do in Rhaenyra's case. Are you going to tell me I'm supposed to watch her go through Visenya's traumatic birth, which by the way, happened so quickly after learning that her father was dead, keep her calm, and find it believable?

There is no sense of reason when it comes to grief. None. When someone close to you is gone, you check out. They take a part of your mind away with them and sometimes you don't even realize it. Especially if it's as horrid, as painful and helpless as what Rhaenyra went through. I am not going to sit here and blame the Greens for that baby's death, for all we know of her she had dragon features and was 100% going to die either way. That is digestible for us viewers/readers, who have no connection for a baby mentioned in a few lines.

But Rhaenyra's her mother. And rightfully, when she loses her this way, she goes mad with grief. She wants someone to blame, she cannot cope with the idea that there is no one to blame in this situation, that it would've happened either way. So she blames her enemies, the Greens. She isn't right, but she isn't even sane anymore, she's just had a stillbirth, how can you expect her to think before she speaks?

But the show strips her completely of this anger, and makes her push for peace. Is it possible that not even THAT can make this perfect angel Qween lose her temper like any human would? I understand wanting to rid her of any sin so she looks like a Saint, but really, where's the flaw in being angry and irrational after your stillbirth?

I never liked Rhaenyra as a person but I was looking forward (I'm STILL looking forward lol) to the role she will play as a character, a literary device, a tool to tell a story. I'm not saying I hope they bring out the worst of her this season so more people have reasons to hate women and feel justified for it, but LET HER BE RIGHTFULLY ANGRY. I'M BEGGING YOU.

People will always choose and be more obsessed with the evil but interesting one, not the one who's got more morals. It's already been said in a post I saw not so long ago, but Luke shouldn't be winning polls for best character against OTTO HIGHTOWER of all people because we choose morality in none other than a world like ASOIAF. Please give characters nuance. There's so much potential they got lazy with using timeskips etc. already.

[crossdressingdeath]

I wish the game allowed you to challenge Alistair more. Like he gets to throw tantrums and ignore responsibilities willy-nilly but the Warden is an asset of they d9 the same? What? Also in DAI he is bitter about the Warden for seemingly no reason. I mean, sure, the whole situation with Morrigan that happens if the Warden is female sucks but everything about the Blight sucked. And the whole mess with Morrigan is literally the only time Alistair is asked to step up. Again, the whole situation is a crappy one. But he is equally bitter if the Warden is male and did the deed with Morrigan himself.

Basically Alistair gets to throw tantrums and shirk responsibility but is then still bitter 10+ years later for the one time he was asked to do something? Or not in the case of a male Warden. (Side note : I hate that whole situation with Morrigan in DAO)

I can't really speak to Alistair's attitude towards the Warden in DAI, since the only world state I've played in DAI features him as king and the subject doesn't really come up there. I do know that if he's a Warden and the Warden did the ritual but didn't romance Morrigan/follow her through the Eluvian he gets on her case a bit about not letting the Warden meet his kid, which is... kind of sweet, even though a) it's not actually his business and b) that was the deal from the start and the Warden agreed to have said kid with the understanding that he would likely never meet them. Like, that was the deal. Was it a good deal? No, it was an incredibly shitty situation all around and no one is happy with it. But that was the deal.

Similarly I can't comment on Alistair's response to having to do the ritual himself, because the only Warden I've successfully reached that point with is a guy who does it himself. I know Alistair is grossed out by it, which is fair enough given how much he and Morrigan dislike each other, but that's all I know. Loghain making a point of saying that he intends to close his eyes and picture his dead wife, specifically bringing up that she's dead, is just more fun to me (especially with Morrigan then either deliberately or accidentally misunderstanding him and thinking he means to envision said wife's desiccated corpse, the group dynamic with Loghain is everything to me) so I've paid more attention to it.

But yeah, Alistair clearly does not like being told to step up for the sake of the group or the world. Which in and of itself would not be a bad thing character-wise, to be clear! That thing about how he prefers to follow and never wanted or expected to be forced into a position of leadership among the Wardens (and especially not so early into his time with them; he's only more experienced by the Warden because they started like a day ago, not because he's actually experienced) is deeply understandable and sympathetic! It's not bad that Alistair doesn't want to be in charge; god knows I'd be a massive hypocrite if I said it was, some people just are not comfortable with having to be in charge and will default to looking for someone else to listen to whenever possible (and I am one of them). Not wanting to lead is not in and of itself a flaw. If everyone in the world always wanted to be in charge nothing would ever get done.

But see, hypocrisy really is the issue here, because Alistair refuses to consider that maybe the people around him feel the same as he does. If you think about it, if we set aside the Warden themself (since as a player character their views on leadership vary) no one in the Warden's group other than Sten actually wants to be in charge. They all have their own opinions, but only Sten will actually try to claim leadership of the group from the Warden (Leliana, Shale and Wynne will all fight the Warden to the death at certain points, but they're just trying to stop you from doing something specific, not trying to take over the whole group). They can hate you for what you do, but they do not want to take over the group even if doing so would ultimately be better for everyone. These people clearly are not for the most part natural-born leaders comfortable with and/or actively wanting full control; if they were we'd have significantly more scraps over leadership of the group than we do. If everyone in the group said "Well, I don't want to be in charge, so I'm just gonna not" nothing would ever have gotten done and Ferelden would've been fucked! And Alistair clearly understands that, given how pissed he gets at the Warden if they go "Hm, what if I just don't?" about having leadership dumped on them. Someone has to step up, take charge, and do the job that no one wants to do. Alistair grasps that. He just doesn't grasp that his name should be and is in the hat for that particular burden. Someone has to step up no matter how little they want to, Alistair knows this, but he thinks it should be someone else. He calls the Warden out for refusing to take on leadership if they suggest leaving to find other, more experienced Wardens... but it never seems to occur to him that if it's shitty of them to look for someone else to dump the burden onto it was shitty of him to do that to them in the first place. Alistair is basically one of those people who stands around in awful situations going "Someone should do something!" while not actually stepping in even though they could.

Basically the main issue with Alistair isn't that he would much rather have someone else giving the orders, that's entirely fine and sets him up to be a really solid second-in-command. Unless your story is intended to include power struggles you want most of the supporting cast involved in the main group to have no real desire to lead, because that's the easiest way to keep that particular point of contention calm! The issue is that he doesn't want to be in charge and actively rejects that role... but then expects the people around him to take the role he rejected without a fuss even if they also don't want to be in charge. As far as Alistair is concerned he gets to refuse leadership on the grounds that he personally doesn't want it, but no one else gets to do the same. And the way the player is never allowed to call him on that is a huge problem, because that would logically be the number one sticking point between him and a Warden who didn't want to be in charge.

[slutneto]

Bfmfjfnfj for REAL like. I think part of it is bc Shiv took a really huge blow with Logan's death so everyone's like how can Tom be an asshole now of all times. But here's the thing. Her dad dying doesn't erase the shit she put Tom through, which is more than just cheating on him (already horrible), and it irks me so much that they downplay Shiv's abuse towards him. Like yes he's an asshole and selfish, but you don't need to pretend like Shiv has done nothing wrong to justify your anger. Like. Shiv's abuse is so layered and constant especially during the first season, practically every scene between the two she's dismissive and mocking with him. And it's not like we're saying Tom isn't equally fucked up in how he behaves with her especially in how he's so pushy about getting her pregnant. And that's the thing, they're both horrible towards each other and we don't need to water these characters down to Victim Woman and Evil Man to enjoy them. Please stop!!!! Also I feel like people jump to Shiv's defense over made up arguments from made up people??? At least here on tumblr I've never seen the "tomgregs who hate Shiv" everyone's always whining about. At most I see posts saying she's not perfect and then people complaining about sexism in fandom LOL. Also also, last ep with the ear flick scene made a lot of people uncomfortable and rightfully so imo, it was meant to, but the virtue signaling is getting a bit too much gjmdjdk and equating an ear flick with domestic violence is a BIT fucked up in my opinion.

In any case I hope the writers aren't planning on escalating this and that it was meant to read as Tom just reacting to Shiv not backing off, bc if they take the Tom-Logan parallels to the extreme I might have to check out lol. I'm scared bc they have shown us Tom's violent side with Greg, and with the dynamics shifting... Idk.

This is going to get me cancelled for sure but fuck it, right?

I like Shiv, but only when she is without Tom? They are just fucking terrible with each other. Shiv uses her sexuality as a weapon, or perhaps a tool to hurt Tom. Perpetually. With cheating, with the open marriage, and trying tom to participate in it, etc., in early season one and late season three by hurting him during sex the first physically, the other mentally. I don’t think it as refreshing and ground-breaking or even entertaining as some fans, but hey, to each their own, tomgreg also has mental and physical abuse in there, to some extent.

I don’t want to defend Tom in anyway, because you are right, he is no saint, but we talk used (before season 4) talk about the pyramid of abuse in succ, where Logan’s abuse of his children was getting passed on to other people via his children, and just how fucked up that was, and how this needs to change, why are we suddenly so against Tom calling Shiv out on her insecurities and pointing out he has been hurt by Shiv? It’s true? Yes, she has just lost her father, but you are right, their issues started way before that.

To me, the ear flick was did not equal to domestic abuse but stayed on the same level of childishness as Shiv relentlessly trying to step on his shoes because she was feeling bad for herself. Tom deciding to take direct action against the source instead of this usual move of weathering through abuse and then taking it out on Greg in most insane ways imaginable is, at least to me, quite interesting. We don’t talk about it and what it might mean enough.

The fandom seeing any critique directed at a female character and saying it borders on fans being sexist is nothing new, but it is worrying here, where, textually, the point of this character is to be flawed and fucked up? We joke about them all being our poor little meow meows but surely critical thinking has not been lost along the way? The whole point of this show is to question how much of the kid’s actions can be blamed on Logan, and how much of it is the kid’s fault. If we decided everything is Logan’s fault, then the kids are nothing but his reflections, his agency in the world, with no autonomy, all of their actions can be traced back to Logan.

I am not sure I enjoy this season at all, which is super odd, because we are now halfway done? The writers did say we will get to find out if tomshiv were ever anything real in the second art of the season, which is good because my POV on this changes daily. Yeah, Tom used his relationship with Shiv to breeze through the ranks, but he also seemed genuinely in love and therefore hurt by Shiv’s actions too? Yes, Shiv has been historically abusive, cold, and dismissive, but she seems to care about Tom from time to time. But is it enough? Idk.

[lunaneko14]

Do you think Kishimoto went out of his way to make Sakura the way she is? Like what do you think her purpose was? So I consider myself Sakura-neutral/critical. I don’t particularly hate her but I’m also meh. I do think I’m one of the few however to be more positive-neutral of her character in part 1. Don’t get me wrong I do think she had many flaws but they weren’t flaws that she couldn’t develop from. While many say she was useless, I think her arc was set up as a wake up call that being a ninja isn’t fun & games. I actually like the part where she cuts her hair in the forest bcz it symbolizes that wake up call. Also the fact she’s a civilian and her only ninja training/knowledge is basically from the academy is enough background imo lol she doesn’t need childhood trauma. The only reason I bring all this up is bcz I hate when Sakura fans claim Kishimoto can’t write female characters. I am not saying he’s the best at writing them either. There’s an argument to be made about having boys/romance being a big part of said characters or even the lack of screen time. But Hinata and Ino both have way less screen time yet even as background characters they have more development. Hinata’s chunin fight and proud failure speech are some of my fave scenes in the manga and it tells us all we need to know about her. Ino going out of her way to learn medical ninjutsu when she’s already got her clan techniques and she’s a sensor shows ambition. Sakura becomes Tsunade’s student and that’s it she becomes a pink-haired Knock off version of her like let’s be real as a civilian she’s limited compared to a Senju descendant (meanwhile Sasuke and Naruto surpassed their sannin masters.) Kishimoto had enough material for Sakura as I mentioned above yet he chose to center her character around Sasuke. Is it purposeful? Is it sexist writing? Idk her character confuses me I guess. What do you think?

As a writer myself I know exactly why Sakura is the way she is.

It’s like when I TRY to write comedy vs it coming from me organically. The organic, genuine stuff is always going to be much better than when you try too hard.

Sakura is Kishimoto trying to write a female character too hard. Because she follows all the stereotypes men think about women: obsessed with beauty and boys with a little “I’m just as good as the guys even though I’ve never shown I could” thrown in.

Hinata on the other hand is the organic stuff. She’s what Kishimoto WANTS in a woman. Feminine yet strong in her own way. She doesn’t need to beat the toughest bad guy as long as she shows up for Naruto the title character and Kishimoto’s self insert.

That’s why most people gravitate towards Hinata especially the target male audience. It’s not because of her boobs or because she’s submissive because we’ve seen her be angry at Naruto before and she earns nothing but his respect. Hinata is an EQUAL not someone who wants to aggressively dominate anyone like Sakura does (see her relationship with Ino and Naruto) which is why SS doesn’t work as a household unless Sasuke is out of the house and Kishimoto knows that.

I think even fictional characters can teach us about basic human psychology because they are based on humans after all.

[smileytiger28]

Quantumania thoughts, by character

The Heist Guys

I love and miss them and removing them from this movie was its biggest flaw. Except the one played by TI because TI is a scumbag.

Scott

As much as everyone, especially my dad, loves Paul Rudd, I don’t buy him in this movie as a dramatic actor. Probably has to do with the tropey writing and stuff more than Paul’s actual chops but there’s no small parts etc. this movie just tried so hard to be taken seriously that gave up its pedestrian, relatable humor — the thing that made the first two movies so great, and the thing that attaches Paul Rudd to this character — and replaced it with contrived and tropey drama. It felt sometimes like Paul Rudd was trying to imitate Generic Action Hero, which he isn’t great at and nobody wants. Highlights of his performance include: the end where he’s like “oh shit did I just mess everything up? No I didn’t, denial time!”, the part where all his “possibilities” pile on each other all saying “Cassie” because they work together driven by the purity of a father’s love.

Cassie

why did they recast her. I loved Emma Fuhrmann in Endgame and felt really bad when she only learned she has been replaced through comiccon/d23/etc. From a casting perspective, I get it; Fuhrmann was meant to fill a small role in a huge movie, so they probably recast when the part became much more significant (setting up for a young avengers movie). But Kathryn is just not very good. TBF the only other movie I’ve seen her in was Detective Pikachu in which she was much worse. Not sure if it’s the acting or the writing that hurts Cassie more. But her character in this is basically “I am an activist that cares about people” like that’s great in real life but I want to be invested in her and I’m not

hope

Literally did nothing but effective altruism in the beginning of the movie, what a downgrade

Hank

By far the character with the best upgrade in this movie. From movies 1-3, he’s gone through great character development, learning to respect Scott and Hope in their own right. He’s also gradually gone from dry exposition dumper (1) to once-in-a-while joke-maker (2) to “summoned an ant army to defeat a multiversal conqueror”/nerdy/perhaps even autistic about ants (3). I love when he admitted to reading Scott’s book: “every goddamn word”, said both proudly and teasingly.

Kang

Current legal shit aside, I was not expecting to hate him this much. I didn't like Majors in Loki, but I figured that had to do with the direction, not the acting chops of Majors himself. When I saw the reviews for this movie, which generally sold Majors as the film's only merit, I was expecting something great from his performance. Instead, we got Majors doing what I guess was either his best Morgan Freeman impression or a really bad trans-atlantic/English accent (posh vowels and clipped t's). Whatever he was trying to do simply did not work for me. The Council of Kangs post-credit scene looked to me like a bunch of Party City costumes.

Jentorra

Played by Katy O’Brien, who I know from my brief stint watching Black Lightning and who gave an equally meh performance in The Mandalorian S3. The one thing I like about this character, who is otherwise a pretty basic stoic/traumatized my-entire-species-died-and-now-I-am-a-badass-warrior-woman, is her dynamic with Cassie. Yes, Hope could have been Cassie’s female role model, and she basically did nothing in this movie, so that’s kinda sad. But there’s something nice about the Jentorra and Cassie finding what they need in life from each other: Cassie a strong voice for justice and a girlboss internship, and Jentorra a piece of innocence and hope she was too jaded to hold onto. I wish we explored that a bit more.

MODOK

If I read any comics featuring MODOK, or even watched the Patton Oswalt MODOK show, I’m sure I would hate Darren/MODOK. And in a lot of ways I do. But he works most of the time as comic relief, half-satirizing his own role as the old enemy that "came back better than ever!" It never got old when he would introduce himself, a main character would be like "Darren?" and he'd be like "Not anymore! I've been reborn as a new and improved version of myself! mwahaha!" And the main character would be like "Umm improved, sure." I loved when Scott was comming him and he'd only answer to MODOK.

Re: the redemption arc. Before watching the movie, I saw a leaked screenshot of the death scene where he says “at least I died an avenger.” That spoiled the MODOK=Darren reveal + death scene + redemption arc for me, but I was mostly upset that the movie would do something so blatantly cheesy with the dying scene. When I saw the movie, I was mostly glad that the scene wasn't meant to be taken seriously; that monologue is treated as self-righteous rather than earnest. However the redemption arc still does kind of come out of nowhere and it's lame.

Other Minor Characters

I liked Bill Murray as a sleazebag that reeeeally wants to give Hank the impression that he slept with his wife. I liked the group of weirdos fighting against Kang, and the "drink the ooze" scene was cute. Lowkey wish Scott and Hope ended up trapped in the Quantum Realm and became benevolent rulers for a few years. Overall, meh movie, would not watch again. Hope the fanfic is better.

[iamthenightcolormeblack]

My Experience with Jane Austen Part 2: Reading the Books

In part one I laid out which books I read, which ones were my favorites and least favorites, and the adaptations I've seen. Now I'd like to talk about my reading experience.

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert, just a casual reader sharing some observations, feel free to correct me if I get some details wrong. Out of the books I’ve read I’m most familiar with Pride and Prejudice.

Let's face it. Reading Austen can be challenging and I understand why some people dislike Austen.

It's easy to perceive her novels as "boring" because on a surface level, not much happens. The characters are well-off people (in the upper half of society) who spend their time at home or traveling between social calls and it's easy to dismiss their conflicts as "first world issues." Settings are often indoors, reflecting how "confined and unvarying" the lives of the rich (especially women) were. The plots often move forward through dialogue or conversations rather than big dramatic events. The focus on marriage can also make the stories feel like antiquated relics of the past and can be hard to relate to.

The writing style is also different. There isn't much dialogue at times because Austen slips in lots of very subtle commentary or prefers to describe a character's external appearance or characteristics. Often big events like proposals are described briefly after they happen rather than during, which can make the story feel rather "dry." The books are narrated in third person and sometimes there is unreliable narration (Pride and Prejudice) where we get characters' multiple points of view, but all narrated in the third person as to give each one credibility and prove that it's hard to trust others. Austen's writing style means that readers have to fill in the blanks with their imagination. For example, she doesn't give exact physical descriptions of her characters, often relying on general characteristics like "tall," "handsome," or "amiable." In my previous reviews of Pride and Prejudice adaptations, I explored that intentional ambiguity as a big reason why the character of Mr. Darcy is alluring--because the reader forms a personal connection with the character by sketching his portrait alongside Elizabeth. The characters (their physical appearance and some of their motivations) are purposely mysterious and while it gives the reader lots of opportunities for engaging with the text, without historical/literary context for "filling in the blanks" it's easy to see the characters as stiff mannequins in strange clothing rather than human beings.

Austen as a romance writer: Her romances don't always match up with our perception of what a romance should be. Some people start Austen expecting intense emotions and outbursts of passion but become disappointed when presented with formal courting and stately dances instead. Emotions are often veiled behind dialogue and for a first-time reader it can be challenging to see a romance developing. Most of the time readers have to rely on the clues given by Austen (descriptions of characters "blushing," looking "pale," or losing their composure) to detect the stirrings of love, but on a first reading it's difficult to do so when one's trying to figure out the plot and the characters. Finally, the dialogue can't always be taken literally; lots of people, including me, were disturbed when Mr. Knightley said he loved Emma since she was 13, but it was actually a joke made in response to something she said.

Her books are products of their time, and I sure am not an expert in Regency era economics or social norms. Sometimes the implications of certain actions can be lost on a reader if they don't know about the social norms of the time (I had no idea that Darcy following Elizabeth around, alone, on her favorite walk at Rosings was a sign of his love for her). Differences in social class are also very subtle and while one can generalize the characters as all "well-off" people, they are separated by many levels of hierarchy and their ideas about social position and status affect how they interact with others outside of their station. Darcy looks down upon those whom he perceives to be below him, and while Emma wants to make an advantageous match for Harriet, Harriet's lower social position means that Emma's schemes are not likely to work.

Because of the unique quirks within the novels, the reader is required to go beyond the surface level of plot and appearance and read between the lines to understand character motivations and actions. Without historical context (Regency era society having little social mobility, women having few legal rights and needing to make good marriages to secure material comfort) or literary context (the Enlightenment, 18th century Gothic novels referred to in Northanger Abbey, the birth of the novel, early Romantic writers just to name a bit) reading between the lines is nearly impossible.

So why do we read Austen? Below are my personal reasons.

The novels feature female heroines that have dignity and self-respect. It's significant that the stories focus on women who are trying to live according to their own values and speaking their own minds rather than acquiescing to societal dictates. Elizabeth Bennet is revolutionary in part because she wants a marriage based on mutual admiration and respect between two partners who know each other well, rather than an economic arrangement for a home. One could go on forever about how Austen is a feminist, but, the characters don't act like modern day feminists--they are still people of their time. However, it's easy to assume "feminist" heroines have to have "aggressive" characteristics (rebelling, fighting, defiance) in order to be labeled as "feminist." Importantly, Austen's women are allowed to be vulnerable (they cry or struggle with their emotions) without that being a shameful thing. We also see different types of personalities celebrated: Jane Bennet, who is kind to everyone, is seen in a positive light rather than shamed for seeing good in everyone. Anne Elliot, who is regarded as "old," becomes more beautiful as she gets older and has a second chance of love. Emma Woodhouse is spoiled yet confident and assertive and "not likely to be well-loved" (paraphrase of Austen's commentary on Emma). Fanny Price is a shy person but still achieves her happy ending. Her heroines are real people who have flaws and get opportunities to learn and grow so that they can make their aspirations reality.

A unique take on the universal conflict of humans versus society: Austen's characters are bound by social norms of etiquette as well as a value system that idolizes wealth and connections above all else. Persuasion is a great story in part because it focuses on how Anne Elliot learns to follow her heart and avoid being "persuaded" by others (and by society) to follow a path that will not make her happy. She's had to live with the regret of following the well-intentioned but harmful advice of others (Austen notes that Lady Russell values social connections too highly) over her own feelings and judgment, nearly losing her chance to be with Wentworth. The romances are significant in that they reinforce the dignity and self-respect of the female heroines. To a certain extent, Austen's stories are realistic in that marriage is necessary for material well-being in a patriarchal society that provides few ways for women to provide for themselves. But most importantly, she also sees marriage as a means of affirming self-respect and dignity of the women. It's one of the few parts of their lives over which they have any control because they get to choose whom they marry (for the most part, unless the marriage is arranged). Their wish to marry for love is revolutionary because they dare to aspire for something more than wealth. They want their future partners to be their equals, someone who they can love and respect (or be totally honest with them) and who will provide the same in return. This line from Emma (the 2020 movie adaptation) sums it up: "I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Fame I do not want. Fortune I do not want. Consequence I do not want."

The difference between outward appearances and inner character is a fascinating theme that appears in several Austen novels, most notably Pride and Prejudice, where Wickham and Darcy are foils of each other ("one has got all the goodness, the other all the appearance of it"). A lot of the villains in Austen's novels are those who deceive others about their motivations or lie for their own advantage. A common trait these villains all have is that they have a charming outward appearance that masks their true natures; they don't look ugly nor are they unpleasant (ex. Wickham having great social skills, Willoughby following the trope of the knight rescuing Marianne as the damsel in distress but leaving behind many broken hearts, Mr. Elliott being charming and knowing exactly what to say and how to act but actually a swindler). In contrast, the "good" characters are honest, even at the cost of social displeasure, use manners/etiquette to show respect rather than deceive people, and act selflessly to prove their worth (actions speak louder than words). It can be summed up this way: "don't judge a book by its cover."

Psychology: Austen very effectively described hindsight bias when sarcastically commenting on how the village of Meryton turned on Wickham after the elopement with Lydia, when previously they regarded him as an "angel of light." She also understands how easy it is to manipulate peoples' minds through confirmation bias (Wickham telling Elizabeth all the dirt about Darcy, which she eagerly takes because she hates Darcy so much). She also knows that emotions can override people's judgment: "angry people are not always wise." It's fun seeing how her people are social animals who make flawed judgments based on first impressions/emotions.

The secondary characters: Mr. Collins the clergyman is the most famous and he's so funny because of his arrogance in spite of his low social position (he keeps worshiping Lady Catherine instead of respecting God). Another great one is Sir Walter Elliott, a nobleman who is vain and constantly checks himself in the mirror (the most obvious social criticism). Also Austen understood how women insult each other: through passive aggression (ex. Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst talking negatively about Elizabeth behind her back). Austen's female bullies use their talent and "good breeding" to intimidate or shame others.

The romance (no explanation needed): "You pierce my soul. I am half-agony, half-hope. I have loved none but you." I love how the couples learn about each other through many spirited conversations and become slowly fascinated with each other until they realize they are in love and then have a conflict between formality and their growing passion...or they fall back in love with each other...or they are friends who slowly realize that they are more than friends...okay I'll stop talking nonsense I've been trying so hard to be semi-scholarly

Tags: @talkaustentome @austengivesmeserotonin @austengeek @princesssarisa @appleinducedsleep @colonelfitzwilliams

[bookofmirth]

Lele! I'm following up on that Valkyries/cultural appropriation ask. So Feyre using wings would be an example of appropriation? Or at least a little questionable? I've seen this discourse so much but I guess I've never really seen it as a character flaw of Feyre's since it's more like sjm didn't even think about the implications because she's white

Hello!

Every time I talk about this I can't find my previous posts where I talked about it (this makes the third time haha) and it makes me HATE tumblr. I am saving this one in my meta list istfg.

Feyre using the wings for sex is very questionable. It makes sense when she uses them to fight - why not use her shapeshifting for good? it's not benefiting her, it is benefiting her people that she can defend them - but imo it is quite distasteful when she's doing it just to level up her Sexy Times. Things that go into my thinking:

Wings are not culture, they are biology.

However, clipping women's wings are part of a bigger cultural picture which includes Illyrian women not being equal to the men.

There is a similar issue irl, female genital mutilation. That is a cultural practice that people have worked really hard to put a stop to. I don't want to get too much into that comparison though because I am not an expert on FGM, I just know it exists and how it has impacted women/teen girls.

The whole thing with benefit/discrimination in cultural appropriation is that the culture being taken from suffers from The Thing or doesn't receive any benefits from The Thing (in this case, wing clipping), while the culture taking only gets the benefits from The Thing (in this case, better sexy times).

So... yeah, I think it makes sense for Feyre to use her wings to fight and train. That's how the Illyrians use theirs, and they are recognized for that, yes?

But to shift during sex - especially since that was the basis of that whole stupid plot 😭 - is unnecessary and gives her, a non-Illyrian woman, a benefit to having wings that... idk if Illyrian women have? Both actions, the fighting and the fucking, certainly allow her to bypass the drawbacks of growing up an Illyrian woman with wings.

Two more things though - and yes I am good at answering a question without having a definitive answer 😂

Emerie. Do we think that Emerie, or any other Illyrian woman, would begrudge Feyre? Idk. That's tricky. I can see some of them being angry about it. I can see other saying "hey if she gets to do it even though I couldn't, that's great." I am the person who would say the second thing, but I don't blame anyone who would be bitter or angry over her ability to fly at whim. Other Illyrian women (Rhys's mom) retained the ability to fly. And yeah she's Illyrian so it's different, but Feyre is their High Lady and married to an Illyrian. So there's nuance there too, imo.

Second thing is Rhys. Yes, Rhys is Illyrian, but he also isn't the one who could suffer from having Illyrian wings. That is distinctly an Illyrian women problem, so I don't think we could say that his approval is enough to make it okay because... he isn't the one affected by wing clipping. I do think that he would have the "authority" to say if it's okay for people to wear the tattoos, for example, because he would be the one impacted by that. Speaking on wing clipping is just not his territory.

So is Feyre appropriating from Illyrian culture? Meh. It's debatable, in my opinion. It's almost the opposite of the Valkyrie issue because while there there was culture but no appropriation, here there is the taking (use of wings) without the culture? Because the cultural issue in question here is wing clipping. I am definitely side-eyeing Feyre more for having wings than I am the Valkyries for being Valkyries. The Valkyries are like "let's make a cool fight club and make it based on these women who did the same a long time ago", whereas with Feyre it is a demonstrable problem that Illyrian women have to deal with and are currently suffering for.

I think that sjm didn't think it through. She probably has the two situations - wing clipping and sexy sensitive wings - as completely separate issues in her mind. But to me it's also like - even if we were to say that this is cultural appropriation, it's cool to recognize that, but it's not a real culture from the real world. We are talking about a fictional character potentially appropriating from a fictional culture, not sjm appropriating from a real culture to make money selling her books. Does she do that in places? She's a veritable grab-bag of random cultural references, so yeah, I think people could make that argument (and probably have). Feyre's issue just doesn't have the gravitas to me, in the same way that discussion of sjm profiting from cultures that are not her own, might.

[usergreenpixel]

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 4: IN THE REIGN OF TERROR: THE ADVENTURES OF A WESTMINSTER BOY(1888)

1. The Introduction

Well hello there again, dearest readers! I’m back at it again and this time I brought you something more obscure.

Honestly, I would’ve never found out about this book had I not seen the category for books set in the French Revolution era on Wikipedia after a deliberate google search.

“In the Reign of Terror” is an adventure novel aimed at young boys that was published in 1888 by one G. A. Henty, an English novelist who has other adventure novels to his name too, but today we’ll only take a look at this one.

It’s available on Project Gutenberg in the ebook format and is in public domain so it’s free to download, which is how I obtained the book.

2. The Summary

The book takes place in the French Revolution era, specifically from 1790 to about 1792. It tells the story of Harry Sandwith, a boy whose physician father sends him from London to Burgundy to live with Marquis de St. Caux and his family.

As the brother of the Marquis had been cured by Harry’s father during his stay in London, the entire arrangement was his idea. The Marquis himself also believes that by having an English companion, his sons can learn a lot about English customs while Harry learns the language and the traditions of France.

But as the Revolution is drawing nearer than ever, clouds gather above the heads of Harry’s host family and Harry himself...

This is the basic premise of the story, but how did the finished product turn out? Let’s find that out for ourselves, Citizens!

3. The Story

Now, at first the story itself seems a bit implausible on the level of the premise. The Marquis believes that his sons should learn a thing or two about masculinity and sports from Harry, as English boys are supposedly more manly than their “feminine” French peers.

I find it hard to believe that a French nobleman would think this way but I was still willing to suspend my disbelief somewhat because Anglophiles do exist and despite the rivalry between France and the UK, the two countries did borrow bits and pieces of culture from each other.

Here’s the part that gave me pause and kind of ruined the experience for me. The entire book reeks of a sense of English superiority. Harry, the main character, is English and is portrayed as the bravest, strongest and most masculine member of the cast, while his French companions, Ernest and Jules, the sons of the Marquis, are basically treated like feminine “sissies”.

(Spoiler alert!)

For example, in the beginning of Harry’s adventures, the daughters of the Marquis are attacked by a rabid dog and who saves them? Harry, of course. This is one of the instances where the author demonstrates how strong English boys are and this is the moment after which Harry is finally seen as an equal by the noble siblings.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for patriotism and taking pride in your country. I’m Russian and proud of it. However, too much pride and you get this obnoxious sense of superiority. If you need a prime example of how that usually plays out, look at the Axis during WW2.

What Henty chooses to portray is specifically a sense of superiority. Characters like Harry’s father take pride in the fact that England has less strict class divisions, that apparently English commoners have already obtained more liberties while the French peasants are merely a mob of bloodthirsty savages, etc.

Don’t know about you, Citizens, but I really don’t like such narratives shoved in my face and considering how often this nationalism shows up, I had a lot of trouble getting through the story.

I’m all for healthy patriotism that acknowledges the good and the bad in one’s country but this is just too much nationalism for me and I believe that the book would’ve been more enjoyable without this narrative showing up every couple of pages or so like jumpscares in a bad horror movie.

4. The Characters

I know this was the 19th century so the audiences were probably not pampered with complex stories and characters as much yet, but honestly I didn’t find Harry a truly likable and relatable protagonist.

(Spoiler alert!)

He starts out as a pretty average school student but while in France he proves to be heroic - killing a rabid dog, slaying a man eating wolf (not completely by himself) and generally always proving himself to be the manly hero that Ernest and Jules can never be. Basically it was easy to predict that he will emerge from any trouble victorious so I didn’t have many reasons to be worried about him.

The sons and the daughters of the Marquis all end up liking him. Too much may I add.

In short, I personally got a bit of Harry Stu vibe. 😉

He does have one glaring flaw that unfortunately doesn’t do him any favors in my eyes. The English superiority complex that the author expresses in the story shines in Harry brighter than the Sun. He doesn’t express much empathy either.

(Spoiler alert!)

When Harry saves a man from getting attacked by an assassin and sees that the man is scared out of his mind, the first thing Harry feels towards him is disdain for apparently being a “pussy”. Um, hello, Harry?! How would you react if you got attacked out of the blue! Not everyone is as “strong and manly” as you are!

Then Harry also regrets saving the man when it turns out to be Robespierre. Our protagonist, dear Citizens!

Speaking of Robespierre, here (and this goes for most French characters) he is portrayed as a weak feeble “sissy”, thirsty for blood but neat and frugal in outfit and lifestyle, someone who won’t hesitate to have half of France slaughtered. Of course. 🙄

The female characters are bland helpless ingénues. Also typical of the literature of the time period.

By the way, Robespierre is the only revolutionary who is actually featured in the story. Marat and Danton are mentioned but it’s all negative in their department too, especially when it comes to Marat.

The Parisian crowd is little more than a bloodthirsty mob of savage uneducated peasants ready to slaughter all nobles just because they’re well, nobles.

Honestly, nothing new here.

5. The Setting

Honestly, I feel like there weren’t that many descriptions and those that were present simply weren’t vivid enough to immerse myself into the story. Too many descriptions are bad too, of course, but here the opposite happens - too little descriptions so sometimes the surroundings feel like vacuum and there’s not enough world building to imagine yourself in that era, beside the characters.

It’s all just bland caricatured setting one would expect from an amateur puppet show at daycare.

Remember, dear Citizens. Even if you write about your own era and country, world building is extremely important so please don’t underestimate the power of good and vivid descriptions, just use them in moderation.

Anyway, onto the final point.

6. The Conclusion

Despite all the drawbacks, I didn’t quite hate the book. I simply think it could’ve been written a lot better, without shoving the supposed superiority of England in our faces, without bland characters, without the unlikeable protagonist, without cardboard settings and definitely without machismo and layers upon layers of Thermidorian propaganda.

I wouldn’t recommend this story unless you really want to kill time and have nothing else to do.

With that in mind, allow me to conclude the fourth meeting of our Convention. Stay tuned for the announcement of the topic of the next meeting and have a good day, Citizens.

Love,

- Citizen Green Pixel

[skunked-up-kicks]

About Allison yeah. I think people acknowledge she’s a bit ableist and classist but they erase the fact she was fine/complicit with Seth’s homophobia and treatment of Nicky (tbh it seems like all the upperclassmen were??) + what that post said. This isn’t hate I love Allison! But I think she’s much more interesting as a character with flaws that make sense with her upbringing and backstory rather than just #girlboss.

okay my response to this is ungodly long so, if you're interested...

1. her ableism

the thing is when people do acknowledge her ableism it's always with how she treats andrew (which makes sense cause it's the most obvious, and they're not wrong) but it kinda results in an issue. the way these fics that acknowledge this usually go is that allison calls andrew 'monster' and maybe talks about how he's 'psychotic' or something. then it goes one of few ways:

1) neil tells her (and usually all the upperclassmen as they get grouped together seeing as they all do this) not to speak about andrew like that, maybe he threatens her or something. the problem with this is that he's just scaring her into being silent, her mindset doesn't actually change.

2) neil gives a speech about how andrew is actually good, and generally how he's 'not as bad as she thinks' or something. now correct me if i'm wrong, but the issue i see with this is that, it's not actually telling her that her mindset about people with mental illnesses and/or trauma is wrong- just that andrew isn't the right person to direct her ableism too, but there are people out there who are 'as bad as she thinks'. it's kinda like the attitude that as long as andrew does enough to redeem himself he can be treated as human and not a 'monster' which is... yeah.

3) basically the same issue as the last one, andrew proves he's actually good because allison and the others see him do something outwardly affectionate. thereby proving he is actually all good now.

sometimes fics have a mix of these but basically the thing is that her ableism is never actually 'fixed' (for lack of a better word). most that happens is that it's no longer directed at andrew, but this is a worldview that she has, it's not just a dislike of andrew- realistically it's not just isolated to him.

to clarify though, i'm genuinely not intending to shame people who write these fics cause they are acknowledging her ableism, which is good. and similar with how people approach aarons homophobia, it's incredibly hard to write someone overcoming a prejudice. i certainly couldn't do it, and realistically maybe it's not somethìng that can be done in a fic. given that often it's a long-term process where you have to check yourself often.

it's especially complicated because she somehow needs to come to the realization that villifying andrew isn't right because despite the wrong that he has done- and he has done wrong, we can't deny that- he is still a person deserving of at least the deceny to not be compared to a monster and dehumanised in that way. she needs to realise that while andrew shouldn't do those things and can be called out for it, that the way he acts is a product of his trauma. BUT he is still responsible for his actions, and while she can rightfully choose to not associate with andrew, she shouldn't discourage others from doing so in the way that she does. it really is complicated and there's a lot of nuance there which makes it a hard topic to deal with cause... how do you write someone learning that?

but yeah, that's my thoughts on that.

2. her classism

i honestly don't see people acknowledge this a lot? i think one of the ways we see it manifest is how she talks about the way neil dresses... and in fics she often insists neil buys better clothes, usually more expensive ones. which is portrayed usually as her being a caring friend, which i get, but i think neil would actually find this really annoying lol.

i think an interesting way to look at her classism would be in her and dans relationship given the extreme differences they grew up. same thing with her relationship with seth, as he grew up poor too.

with seth, she might have sometimes been ashamed of the way he acted and dressed, maybe of the way he spoke too...? i can picture them fighting over that and her being a bitch about it. she would probably speak badly about the place seth grew up in too..

with dan, i feel like dan might get frustrated when allison, for example, doesn't know how much ordinary things cost (a thing a lot of celebs have shown to have no knowledge of). or dan might even get jealous or angry at the way allison can just throw away her moneyvand buy things carelessly (think of her reaction when her car got trashed, she could just get another 'toy'), while she was brought up saving money at any instance she could.

not much to say on this tbh... i think it would be cool to see this explored a bit more though.

3. complicit in homophobia

someone made a post on here about how allison would be the type of girl to preach equality while having a homophobic boyfriend... and yeah.. that's it really lol, hit the nail on the head.

again, a lot of people make her very progressive and woke, and i think this is tied to the very common hc of her being bi. (despite the fact that when betting on neils sexuality she doesn't consider bi an option which makes me think she is canonically straight..). i think it's hard for people to address the fact that she is complicit in homophobia while also headcanonning her as bi, cause it seems like she wouldn't be if she actually was bi. from my knowledge, bi women (and bi ppl in general) not being supportive of gay people and/or not standing up against homophobia isn't really a common issue? (pls correct me if i am wrong though) usually prejudice goes the other way due to the biphobia in the LGBTQ+ community. so it's hard to think about and write about.

when it comes to the other upperclassmen, i seem to remember dan and matt standing up against seth? though i could be remembering that wrong or getting it confused with a fic.

4. #girlboss

i highly agree with you that she really does just get reduced to just a #girlboss a LOT. and i think the same thing happens with the other female characters... i mean, just look at katelyn. there's no evidence that she is some kind of badass but many want to make her one.. but she can be an interesting character without having to fit this ideal #girlboss.

i understand wanting to make female characters cool and badass but in the process it feels like we're losing variety... i personally don't want the exact same personality and way of acting plastered onto every female character.

a strong female character is not defined by how much they can kick a guy in the balls but rather how well they are written, and to be written well they need flaws. and when making female characters #girlbosses we usually lose the flaws :(

like you said, this isn't to hate on allison. i just think sometimes we miss the parts of her character that make her truly interesting.. and i think that's a real shame..

anyway, i think that that's all that i had to say lol. if you read up till this point, thank you! and thank you for the ask anon :)

[seattlesea]

✨My (maybe) Unpopular Heroes of Olympus Opinions✨

(maybe part one??? idk)

-I don’t really ship any of the main canon ships in HoO. None of them had any chemistry and most of them are either pedophilic, forced and rushed, or toxic in some way

-Most of the characters that were shoved into relationships (Leo, Nico, and Hazel especially) really did not need a love interest to complete their character arcs and their relationships ended up boring and flat cause Riordan just wanted everyone to have a love interest and it never went deeper than the skin

-Piper took advantage over Jason’s amnesiac state and manipulated him. She really went ‘But what if he has a girlfriend he can’t remember 👉👈 it would be wrong to start a relationship with him while he still has amnesia 👉👈 and cause it was based off lies and fake memories 👉👈 lmao imma just jump all over him and make him fall for me while he’s still amnesiac 🤪’ as if that’s not taking advantage over someone’s mental state

-And then she blamed her relationship being forced on Aphrodite and Hera saying they ‘forced her into a relationship’ and ‘arranged their relationship’ even though Aphrodite never said anything about or did anything to them and Hera gave Piper fake memories of them being a couple but it was Piper’s conscious choice to act out on those memories she knew were fake and her relationship was in no way influenced by anyone (especially Hera and Aphrodite) other than herself

-Shelper and Solangelo were way too rushed and forced (inside and outside of the books) and were only added for publicity, plus it seems like most of the fandom only like them cause they’re LGBTQ+ ships

-I hate Pipeyna and Pipabeth. My girls (especially Reyna) deserve better than some manipulative little girl who went ‘we were friends? no weren’t ❤️’

-The fandom portrays the characters really inaccurately (tweaking them a bit for humor is fine, but changing their entire personality is a different thing)

-The movies actually aren’t that bad when not compared to the books (I mean, you gotta admit- it’s pretty good effects for 2010)

-And speaking of the movies, they did a better job at portraying Thalia and Annabeth’s relationship in one movie than Riordan did in 5+ books

-Speaking of which, Riordan wrote pretty much every platonic friendship that weren’t Thalia/Nico and Reyna horribly and most of them shouldn’t have been friends and wasted all the potential for the good friendships

-Calypso should’ve joined the Hunters, not Reyna

-Annabeth and Piper are horrible friends lmao (separately and together)

-Silena is a hero and deserves redemption, but Luke doesn’t despite most of the fandom agreeing he does (he was a pedophile y’all)

-The fandom over-exaggerated the Tartarus fall, it wasn’t really that bad tbh

-Reyna is stronger and a better leader than Annabeth

-Annabeth’s intelligence is more tell than show (and quite a few characters including Leo, Reyna, and Octavian have shown more intelligence than her)

-Riordan over-glorifies and overpowers Percy way too much. Just cause he’s the main character doesn’t mean he has to be the best of the best after barely 8 months of training (four years at CHB only in the summers is 8 months total)

-Speaking of which, Jason can beat Percy (8 months versus Jason’s twelve years) and so can Annabeth, Reyna, Thalia, Hylla, Luke, Hazel and maybe Frank and Nico. Percy’s skill is overrated and unrealistic

-And I feel like most of the fandom knows that Jason can beat Percy but just doesn’t want to admit it cause they like Percy more

-Same thing with the Greeks and Romans- the majority know the Romans are stronger and can easily beat the Greeks but they don’t want to believe it cause they favor the Greeks more

-Percy and Annabeth shouldn’t have been part of the Seven, they already had their chance to shine. Riordan should’ve brought minor characters into light instead

-And Piper shouldn’t have been part of the Seven either. Riordan really expects me to believe that she’s stronger, more powerful, and a greater/better hero and deserved to be part of the Seven more than Reyna, Nico, Clarisse, Thalia, etc.?

-Riordan’s women line-up of Reyna, Annabeth, Hazel, and Piper was really cheap and boring (Avengers: Endgame women line-up who?)

-Percy (in HoO) and Piper are easily some of the worst, most underdeveloped characters Riordan has ever written

-Annabeth got really bland and weak in HoO and couldn’t do shit for herself without others (especially newbies) having to help and/or save her. She pretty much became exclusively Percy fangirl

-As much as I like them, Frank and Hazel don’t have what it takes to be Praetors and Reyna and Jason should’ve stayed as them

-Jason’s whole ‘am I more Greek or Roman’ arc was dumb af

-Riordan’s bias towards the Romans is also dumb af (the Romans could beat the Greeks in an instant)

-Jeyna is and always will be 1000x better than Jiper

-Hazel is the most powerful demigod (way more than Percy and even Jason)

-My hot take on who should’ve been the Seven: Reyna, Nico, Thalia, Frank, Hazel, Leo, and Clovis (son of the god of sleep puts Gaea back to sleep who?)

-Riordan confirming Piper bi was a cheap move to make her more likable. It didn’t even make any sense. A character is confirmed LGBT only after they become a minor character despite being a main character before and kisses some random unnamed girl only three months after her ex-boyfriend whom she still loved dies??? girl what??? Kinda obvious it was just for publicity. Like- Riordan, honey, the LGBTQ+ community is not a circus you can plop your characters into to make them more entertaining❤️

-The PJ series as a whole isn’t that creative. It’s legit just a copy of exactly what past mythological figures have already done and a bunch of character tropes and clichés shoved into one book

-And in general it’s not even that well-written (like HP, it’s over-exaggerated a lot)

-All of the romantic relationships and platonic friendships are extremely unrealistic. Like they never argue/fight, disagree, etc. (then grow stronger from those fights) at all??? Even if they’re complete opposites???

-Reyna is the best-written character in the whole series and a queen she deserved better and y’all sit on her too much

-Theyna is ✨amazing✨ their dynamic and chemistry was just *mwah Pansexual Muslim blessings to you* and people are allowed to ship them even though they’re Hunters and swore off love

-Rachel doesn’t deserve all the hate she gets. Y’all hate on her cause she crushed on Percy when half of you are doing the same thing and then y’all go and ship Percy with Nico, Jason, Artemis, Athena, etc. 

-If y’all want to hate on Jason for ‘not having a personality’ you’d also have to hate on most of the main HoO characters except Reyna, Nico, and Leo (and maybe Hazel) for the same reason cause they have the exact same problem tbh

-Zoë and Bianca’s deaths weren’t actually that sad. We didn’t get to see them enough nor did they have enough development for their deaths to have a real impact. The only sad thing about them was Zoë’s last words and Nico’s reaction

-Thalia needed more time in the books

-Reyna was the only main female character in HoO that wasn’t a boring, bland Mary Sue that all the other characters automatically loved. She was the only one with real flaws and distinct personality traits she’s my queen

-Piper, Annabeth, and Calypso did have flaws but the fact that they weren’t called out by other characters or even noticed are what makes them Mary Sues. It doesn’t matter how many flaws a character has, if they’re not called out by other characters (more specifically, other protagonists who actually like them) they don’t count as real character flaws

-Riordan can’t write female characters for shit

-Clarisse, Drew, and Octavian deserved better than being completely antagonized for no explained reason other than to make the protagonists seem better and to make the readers root for them. Those three had more potential than most of the Seven combined

-The whole ‘Aphrodite kids don’t train’ thing is bs. It’s specifically stated that all the demigods follow a strict schedule and have to follow it or they’ll be on stable duty or smth and the Aphrodite kids shouldn’t (and can’t) be excused from that

-Therefore, Drew should be way more powerful and skilled than Piper, at least enough to not back down automatically from a duel by a newbie who hasn’t even learned how to fight (Drew can control an entire cabin of people at once and Piper can barely control one person at a time, who’s more powerful again??)

-Also I have no idea why Riordan portrays all the Aphrodite kids as weak and girly in the first place. ‘Femininity’ and ‘weakness’ are not synonymous and ‘love’ and ‘beauty’ don’t equal ‘feminine’

-Speaking of which, love is actually really powerful but Piper doesn’t stand for love or ‘inner beauty’ and all her ‘thoughtful/insightful’ quotes in ToA/TBM about love were complete bs

-Riordan using the LGBTQ+ community for the sole purpose of making Piper seem more likable and ‘special’ was disgusting and proves he thinks that straight is the default- “...Or Hera’s ideas of what a perfect couple looked like. Piper finding her own way, not the one people expected of her” my ass. In other words, he’s saying ‘The expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are a heterosexual relationship, and anyone who 'finds their own way instead of the ones people expect’ are different’. ‘Different’ and ‘default’ are antonyms, so if you think LGBT people are different, then you think that straight is the default. Aphrodite is the goddess of love not heteronormative bullshit. Like Riordan, honey, you’re the one who thinks that the expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are heterosexual couples, not fictional gods from a fictional mythology. Remember kiddos- an author writes their own beliefs

If you don’t agree with some of these that’s fine sis it doesn’t matter if you have different opinions than me❤️

[miraculouscontent]

(non-Miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Ok this may just be me but I hate deconstructions. I feel like they are always mean spirited and try to be dark and edgy and thinks that every single person is an asshole because that’s “realistic” when no it’s not. This maybe because I like superhero stories and love it when the heroes overcome their struggles.

I can agree for the most part. Whenever I hear “okay but what if it was dArK--” I’m just okay, gonna stop you right there.

Anonymous said:

I swear, nothing bothers me more than people who want Miraculous Ladybug to literally just be Yandere Simulator(with Marinette as Ayano, Alya as Info-chan, Adrien as Taro, Chloe as Osana, Lila as Kizana, Kagami as Megami, and Luka as Budo). It just grinds my gears, especially because they're, once again, framing Marinette as a stalker, which just makes her look bad, AND pits all the girls against each other for Mr. Generic Harem Protagonist, once a-fucking-gain. Just go play the actual game, ok?

All I'm hearing is that now I have to ship Ayano and Budo and write a fic where the ghost girl uses fancy fantasy magic to merge her soul with Ayano and lets her actually have emotions, healing her from being a yandere while the ghost girl (in a way) gets to live a life she was cut short of, also allowing Ayano to be happy and go onto be friends with all the rivals.

Extremely convoluted but that’s the only way we get happy endings in this house.

Anonymous said:

I remember how, when writing Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi refused to bow to older male writers wanted, say, for the girls to be stereotypical manga characters, with one being overweight, one being a stereotypical nerd, etc. But Naoko wanted each of the girls to be beautiful and feminine. While I don't like that they all share a body type, I admire how she didn't listen to grown men when writing for and about young girls. And I can't help but think about how Madoka is the antithesis of all that.

I can appreciate writers who put their foot down to stick to their values. There are limits of course, but yeah, a women writing women probably shouldn’t be listening to a man’s input. I’m sure good advice exists buuut...

Anonymous said:

What is your ranking of the seasons of the year from most to least favorite and why?

Summer - I work best in the warmth

Spring - Always brings images of flowers blooming to mind

Autumn - Things are getting cold and I don’t like it

Winter - It can go choke for all I care

Anonymous asked:

Someone on TV Tropes actually said that the name Feminist Fantasy should be changed because "feminism excludes men the same way meninism excludes women" and actually had the nerve to link that to the "Not So Different" trope, as if women haven't been excluded throughout the history of almost every human society. Fortunately, someone responded to them in a way that technically amounted to "do your damn research" but I'm still facepalming so hard at TV Tropes' "what about the men" rhetoric.

I feel like I lost braincells reading this.

Anonymous asked:

I feel like in fiction written by men there are only three flaws that female protagonists are allowed to have: clumsy, boy-crazy, or ashamed of their flat chests. I hate it.

Don’t forget, “having to listen to the men for how they’re supposed to feel.”

Anonymous asked:

Jatp. Nominated. For. Seven. Emmys. SEVEN!!!! Miraculous could NEVER. Literally.

omg!! Congrats to Julie and the Phantoms!

Anonymous asked:

WHAT ARE YOUR FLASHBACKS TO EVER AFTER HIGH?? I GOTTA KNOW? OMG?

Oh, I’ve seen basically the whole series, though the one I remember most is definitely Epic Winter. It was my favorite one though Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie so I’m biased.

I also like a lot of the “twists” and just--crazy concepts they rolled with, like with Red Riding Hood’s story and how Apple White gets woken up from her slumber.

Anonymous asked:

You're gonna be happy to hear this...I just started watching Cardcaptor Sakura today, and holy shit not only do I love it, but I also love how freaking META it is! I know you said you're not all that knowledgeable about Magical Girl, but this show is AWARE that it's a Magical Girl show! From Tomoyo(the main reason this show is so meta, tbh) realizing Sakura is a Magical Girl and asking if she has a transformation pose, to designing outfits for her(more on that later) to videotaping her(aka literally making a Magical Girl anime out of her Magical Girl friend), it just has fun with itself and plays with Magical Girl tropes without making a mockery of them like all those "dark" male-aimed ones do(lookin' at you, Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna!).

And not only is it hilarious and adorable(especially with Sakura's crush on Yukito, Tomoyo's crush on Sakura, and Touya picking on Sakura, but playfully), but I love how it's riddled with girl power. While watching some of the first episodes I was looking forward to seeing Syaoran(partly because I love male Tsunderes and partly because I can't pronounce his name), and was surprised that he wasn't in the first few episodes, but more importantly I was so happy to see a show that treats its female characters with respect and shows women unironically receiving support from other women and being shown possessing power and authority.

I love Sakura and Tomoyo's friendship even if I hate the trope of "Lesbian Never Gets The Girl"(not that I think she's entitled to Sakura's affections or anything, but still.) and watching her support Sakura in her magic endeavors without being jealous or vindictive, I love that they're allowed to be independent and smart but that the show doesn't forget that they're kids, instead of making them like Manon and Chris, and I love that the show passes the Bechdel test in pretty much the first or second episode, and that pretty much every important and unimportant character we meet that's not Sakura's family members, Kero, or Yukito(plus maaaayyybe the Shadow Clow Card) are female.

Even little things, like all FOUR of Tomoyo's bodyguards in the second episode being female without there being a "reason" or the show making a big deal of it(either in a "yay girl power!" way or a "what but women can't x" way or an objectifying way) fills me with insurmountable joy. Also, I love that the show follows the Magical Girl trend of pretty much admitting that femininity is power, since frilly dresses are stated to be the most "fitting" thing for a Cardcaptor to wear, as without it, they might not be mentally up to the task, and this is an unironic truth rather than a joke(although Sakura is shown to be embarrassed, but it's much more likely that she's simply not used to that kind of gear due to not being rich as Tomoyo is.) or a gag.

I just thought I should tell you this because I know you like Cardcaptor Sakura, and with the crappy episodes that just came out of this show, I think you deserve to read an ask that's about a GENUINE girl power Magical Girl show, instead of yet more Miraculous Ladybug salt or Madoka Magica hate(not that there's anything wrong with either of those two, but it just gets grating after a while.). Overall, I'm looking forward to watching this show, since I've been looking for a Magical Girl show to watch nowadays(I've been meaning to watch Star Twinkle Precure but I can't find the third episode and all of Cardcaptor Sakura is on YouTube now, so.). So excited!

Hey, I’m glad that you’re having fun with it!

Though, just a warning, you might wanna steer clear of the Clear Card arc. It’s a sequel to the original series made waaaay after the original (think the equivalent of Yashahime for Inuyasha, though continuing with the original characters) but omg I hated it.

Anonymous asked:

With the crappy Season 4 episodes that just came out I'm glad I got into Cardcaptor Sakura when I did. Who needs "Marinette needs to make a mistake every episode and learn something from it" when you can have genuine girl power and sweetness incarnate?

Alya could never compete with Tomoyo, I’m just sayin’.

Anonymous asked:

Your comment about white men feeling "disenfranchised" because more shows are about black people and/or women(I say and/or because the two aren't mutually exclusive.), as if there aren't a million other things they could be watching instead is so true! It reminds me of how I was talking to someone recently about the new generation of MLP, in which I stated that we didn't need a male mane pony(spoiler alert: they have one, sadly.), and he claimed that it would be beneficial since many shows aimed at boys at least try to include at least one main girl, and that it would be good for G5 of MLP to have at least one strong male lead so that boys could have a role model and know that the show isn't "girly".

Okay, so far, so good, but this I could chalk up to just unconscious internalized misogyny, especially since he didn't say it in any sort of "way". So I respectfully told him that the scale regarding representation is already not equal and that boys can look up to girls and that a show being girly is not a bad thing and all that stuff that you already know about. Then he responded claiming some stuff about how he keeps trying to pitch stories about straight white male characters and how nobody is accepting his offers and so this means that straight white men are underrepresented compared to everyone else. He even explicitly said, and I quote "White people are actually critically underrepresented in media right now. Especially boys."; I swear to the Goddess above.

At this point I was officially upset as a black girl, to hear this white(and presumably adult) man telling me that he was underrepresented in media compared to me, even saying that the media execs are practicing "quotas and tokenization"(and yes, he repeatedly used those terms for any instance of representation, even when I asked him politely to stop.) by replacing women with men or white people with pocs and are making white men look like incompetent doofuses.

He also kept saying stuff about how shows are always shoehorning people of color in where they don't belong by casting them in settings such as Shakespeare and medieval times when "realistically" there were no people of color during those time periods(which is obviously not true, it's just not what the history books show us.), and made a really insensitive comment about how black children in the USA today don't know the significance of having the first black president because the media supposedly already shows them black people in various professions(despite also claiming he couldn't speak to the "black experience" and yet here he is whitesplaining that shit.).

It got to the point where he was seriously and unironically using the word "blackwashing". When I pointed out to him that white men aren't underrepresented and that it's just his self-centered ego telling him that they are, that the word "blackwashing" isn't a thing, and that mis/underrepresentation in media DOES affect black kids negatively(even citing myself as an example) he went on to claim that I was being tone-deaf and that "blackwashing" is just as bad as whitewashing, and that making Ariel black is just as bad as making Jasmine white.

At this point I had to bang my head on the table and explain to him the difference; his ass still wouldn't get it. Eventually he started saying some really skeevy and hypocritical shite that white men say all the time when whining about how "oppressed and underrepresented" they are: that black people and/or women

(it looks like there might be an ask missing here, in which case, sorry if Tubmlr ate it!)

avor of supporting the commonly believed LIE that "women and/or minority groups don't have as much history worth learning about, so there's no point in focusing on them." He also kept using patronizing, condescending, mansplaining language such as "let me explain it to you" or "you still don't get it do you?", and when he said women had nothing to contribute to society because "oppression" he even had the nerve to tack on "welcome to the unequal society" as if I hadn't been lecturing him about just that.

Because obviously only white men did anything worthwhile or important in history. At this point, I had to block him. I couldn't take it anymore and this was on an MLP site of all places(although I'm probably just as guilty of that part, but at least I wasn't an ass!). I just can't stand white men who "want to be oppressed so bad" but still want to claim that their achievements are more important and deserve to be more prominent. Honestly, so many white men are so fragile the second they're not in the spotlight. I can't help but think that despite all the privilege afforded to their class being a white man sounds like the worst thing ever.

“he claimed that it would be beneficial since many shows aimed at boys at least try to include at least one main girl, and that it would be good for G5 of MLP to have at least one strong male lead so that boys could have a role model and know that the show isn't "girly". “

I might be looking too deep into that but I don’t like the idea of, “Well WE squeezed in a girl and therefore YOUR SHOWS--” like it’s some sort of matter of “fairness” or that boys’ shows aren’t putting in girls out of a genuine like for them but because they “need” one or it’s some sort of obligation.

Also, we need to stop this idea that boys can’t look up to female characters and vice versa for girls. You already said it but yeah.

And yeah, I hear "quotas and tokenization" and I officially tune out of whatever the person is saying, lol. White men are critically underrepresented???? Newsflash, maybe it’s just because others are being represented more??

Just the whole thing about whites being “underrepresented” boggles my mind. White people don’t have some sort of special ability or skill that other races can’t do themselves unless you count the “superpower” of white privilege.

Like, oh my god, all that “whitesplaining” and having to read the word “blackwashing” was physically painful. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I don’t know how they got hold of the technology to communicate with you from whatever time period their from, presumably the Stone Age.

Don’t even blame you for blocking them. There’s just a level of absolute... blindness? Arrogance??? That comes with the territory with them sometimes, I swear. You had every right to be upset; other races come to ask for equality and fair representation and suddenly you have these white men (not all obviously but damn) coming by and crying that they’re being oPpReSsEd. U_U

Like, honestly, my father in particular is absolutely that kind of person so I’ve heard that kind of stuff before. it’s all gross.

On a slightly unrelated note (trying to end this with some positivity), I hadn’t even heard about a fifth generation of MLP until I read this, and just wanted to let you know that I really hope you have a really good time with it! Hopefully the male character isn’t... well, you know.

[starry-sky-stuff]

Since I kept seeing all this stuff about the Wallflowers series by Lisa Kleypas and how those books defined the genre, I decided to give them a read. Now that I've read all four I'm going to rank them:

1) It Happened One Autumn (Book 2) - Lord Westcliffe is the classic stuffy, overly proper British aristocrat and Lillian Bowman is an American heiress who gives absolutely no shit for proper decorum. Naturally, the two start off on the wrong foot. They were both introduced in the first book (Westcliffe is best friends with Simon Hunt), and I was immediately behind their relationship. I love when couples start off with an antagonistic relationship. The reason that this book is at the top is how much I enjoyed the relationship. I found their chemistry and attraction believable, and more importantly they promoted positive character growth in each other. Westcliffe was more affected by Lillian than vice versa, but male leads often tend to have more character growth in historical romance novels thought it's always instigated by the female lead. By the end, I really bought into their relationship and could genuinely believe they're in love and would be happily married (it sounds like a low bar but unfortunately romance novels rarely make me believe that). Westcliffe's also my favourite male lead in the series. He may not be the most charismatic, that would be Sebastian, but he's just a genuinely good, upstanding guy. He's also very emotionally reserved, but totally overcome by his attraction to and love for Lillian, which I love. Lillian's also so much fun, very brash and no-nonsense but not without her own flaws. The relationship between them is very much one of equals and its clear that they respect each other but also aren't afraid to call the other on their bullshit.

2) Devil in Winter (Book 3) - Sebastian St Vincent was the villain of Book 2. And not a minor villain either, he literally kidnapped Lillian, who was also his best friend's fiancee, because he needed to marry an heiress to save himself from financial ruin. Evie needs to escape her abusive family, who are trying to force her into a marriage, and so she proposes a marriage of convenience to Sebastian. I went into to this novel thinking I would despise him because he did an objectively awful thing (and to give the author credit she doesn't deny that it was awful and Lillian does not forgive him for it). I also didn't expect to enjoy Evie as much as I did, she was a bit bland in the previous two books, overshadowed by the stronger personalities. But both of their characters really shone through. Evie had such positive character growth, learning to stand her ground and growing in confidence. Sebastian is the classic charming rake, an archetype which is a personal favourite of mine and I can definitely see how much he influenced the male leads that followed. Evie and Sebastian had great chemistry and wonderful banter, which is a must for me. Sebastian being madly in love with Evie but totally in denial about it was hilarious. Boy literally took a bullet for her and even as he's bleeding out he still claims it doesn't mean anything. The 3 month celibacy promise Evie extracts from him, however, is an under-utilised plot, imo, considering Evie throws it out the window in less than a month. But, I suppose he did get shot for her and he is fully dedicated to proving he's capable of being faithful to her.

3) Secrets of a Summer Night (Book 1) - Annabelle is very beautiful but has no dowry and her gentry family is on the verge of financial ruin. Simon Hunt is a self-made man, the son of a butcher who's risen to become incredibly wealthy. Basically, Simon's wanted Annabelle for years but she has no interest in him at first, especially after he makes it clear he wants her as his mistress, although she can't deny that she finds him super hot. Obviously, he changes his mind and after they get caught in a compromising position they marry. Annabelle's probably the weakest of the female leads for me. She does have an arc of addressing her prejudices. She starts off determined to marry a titled man and she later realises that she only really wanted that life because it was what she'd been told to want. The arc was good, I just think it could've been executed a bit better. Simon was very charming and I loved his dry humour. Also emotionally constipated and very overcome by the extent of his love for his wife. All of these books have a bit of an anti-aristocratic bent to them, but this one's perhaps the most obvious and I do enjoy that class commentary. Simon is barely tolerated by the aristocracy, and a far few of the aristocratic men reject Annabelle as a bride but are chomping at the bits to take advantage of her family's financial circumstances to make her their mistress.

4) Scandal in Spring (Book 4) - Daisy Bowman, Lillian's younger sister, has been unable to find a titled husband so her father demands she marry his protege, Matthew Swift who, it turns out, has been in love with her for years. Least problematic but also the most boring. The chemistry between the leads was lacking and I couldn't figure out a reason why they worked. I was not at all convinced that they were in love by the end. The pacing was also off. The complication came really late and was resolved very easily, and that really undercut any tension. I was expecting Daisy to be at least annoyed that Matthew proposed without confessing his secret, but she literally had no problem with it. Matthew is the blandest of the male leads, and there isn't any real reason for why Daisy starts off hating him, unlike with Westcliffe and Lillian who we saw have genuine antagonistic interactions. Also, I can't figure out why Matthew was so in love with Daisy when she barely interacted with him and actively avoided him. I just can't buy into love like that when it's partly based on a fantasy version of a person.

All of these books were quite enjoyable, although perhaps a bit dated considering they were written in the mid 2000s. The writing was really good and Kleypas created very distinctive heroes and heroines with largely distinctive plots (she does reuse the couple encountering a life-threatening situation that one saves the other from). The friendship between the four heroines was strong, well-executed, and incorporated very well into the series. I can definitely see how this series was a seminal series for the romance genre, considering how many series centred on a group of female friends followed.

I also really liked how Kleypas veered on the showing side instead of the telling side when it came to the characters emotional states, particularly regarding their past traumas. Often, romance novels feel the need to lay out the characters trauma and pinpoint its affect on their actions, such that I feel like I'm reading a psychological profile written by their therapist. Kleypas trusts her audience to make the connection. For example, Westcliffe had emotionally abusive parents who punished him for showing emotions, and he's emotionally reserved and struggles to express his emotions and just deal with them in general. The connection is never explicitly made between the two but it's obvious that his actions are affected by his past trauma.

[ladybirdwithoutdots]

do you really need to bring shipper wars in the Austen fandom too?

Full offense but people who deny Emma is in love with Mr Knightley and hate on him because they ship her with Harriet, and pretend she should’ve ended up with her, are bullshit.  I’m tired of these posts (including the Harriet stans whom I saw bashing even in some emma/knightley posts when fans of the latter are the first to make cute posts about Harriet too), and honestly, you all just make me feel very negative about Harriet and unable to truly appreciate her scenes with Emma.

Maybe I just don’t care about being a bitch but here’s what an Emma fan who is just tired of the anti Emma/Knightley crap honestly thinks about your nonsense:

Hating on the last Emma adaptation because Emma is in love with Mr Knightley and marries him in the end is as disingenuos and idiotic as hating a Pride and Prejudice adaptation because Darcy and Elizabeth are in love. Le duh!  You can ship him with Bingley and her with Charlotte (or Wickham, if that’s your mood I’m not judging shipping choices here) but if you watch a movie based on an Austen’s book you know what you are getting yourself into, especially when her canon romances tend to be very important plot elements for the protagonists and their character growth. 

I get it’s 2021 and hating all het romance makes some people feel woke and edgy, and I totally get alternative readings and things like that, but out of ALL Austen ships and all her female heroines, Emma is the one female character who doesn’t even need, neither want,  to get married and truly only does that in the end because she is in love.  Emma is the LEAST Austen heroine whose romance you should even question because she honestly only married the guy because of love and no other reason.   Furthermore, unlike most of romances from that time, the guy Emma marries isn’t just some random guy she has met two seconds ago, it actually is her best friend, someone she knows since years and the one person who knows her best and loves her in spite of her flaws. Austen was very forward for her time with their romance, especially given the fact her male love interest actually decides to live with Emma and her father in the end instead of doing what every married man had the right to do at the time (take his wife to his own home where she’d have little to no power). Knightley and Emma are the (original) best friends to lovers relationship. He’s the best friend Emma had loved from the beginning without realizing it. It’s one of the main points of her story and the great irony of the novel that she thinks love isn’t for her, and she had never been in love, but she already is in love with him without realizing it because of their friendship. I’m sorry bro but that had never been Harriet, and it seems hypocritical tbh for some of you to want to give Harriet the story that Mr Knightley has with Emma, all the while hating on him and the romance. Even with the last movie, you have people take quotes de Wilde said about Knightley and Emma (e.g., the one about the movie making you think about ‘the best friend you maybe should have kissed’) out of context to manipulate others into thinking she was talking about Harriet instead (and queer baiting, which would be homophobic)

On one hand, we really do need more stories that put an emphasis on female friendships too and on other relationships that aren’t just the romance. On the other hand, it’s completely useless for writers to try to give us that  (e.g. de Wilde in the last Emma) if everytime two characters care about each other and share screentime together, people claim that relationship (and all scenes that make perfect sense with a normal platonic relationship) must be romance and romance only. It’s almost as if some of you never had a friend and therefore believe that everytime a character cares about another character they must be romantically in love with them. It also makes me believe, more than anything, that romance is the only kind of love that exists or is important for many of you. And if that is the truth, why even bother with fictional friendships then? Why even complain when writers don’t give us that if we are unable to appreciate those relationships as something of equal importance with romance?

I really can’t take people serioustly when they overinflate Harriet and her relationship with Emma all the while they minimize Emma/Knightley’s mutual feelings.  I read people who apparently find it harder to erase Harriet’s baseless crushes on every guy who gives her attention, than erase the actual love story and feelings of the protagonist! Tbh, even if you wanted a gay adaptation of Emma (and not one that is that just for the sake of), it would make much more sense to simply turn Mr Knightley into a female character, therefore still respecting the canon couple and Emma’s character arc, than ship her with Harriet. The latter is a weak alternative and frankly baseless for me because the only things she and Emma have in common is the fact they are both girls and they have an ‘e’ in their name. Full stop. Intellectually, Harriet is no match for Emma and their ranks in society are so apart that their relationship could never ever be equal (and it never was). I don’t want to be harsh but tbh I was never convinced they are actually friends in the novel, and the last movie made it even worse for they emphasized Harriet’s blindness about Emma’s feelings, and how one sided that dynamic is for it’s just Emma who makes an effort to be a friend in the end. Let’s be real here, Harriet doesn’t even know Emma and never really acts as a friend to her, unless your definition of friendship is ‘someone who worships you, and pretends you are the best and right even when you aren’t, as long as they perceive you as a savior who can help them'.  That’s not what being a friend means to me. It speaks volumes to me that the one and only time movie-Harriet actually notices that Emma is a human being with flaws and feelings too is when she gets angry because Emma wants the same guy she wants. I don’t know if Austen’s ‘naive and completely clueless Harriet’ is worse or better than de Wilde’s version but the latter really emphasizes one of the biggest issues of Emma/Harriet even more, to me. As a book Emma fan, before an adaptations fan, I read all kinds of comments about this novel and character but honestly, I never read any real convincing argument why Harriet and Emma should be a couple instead of her and Knightley. Most of what I read boils down to people taking things out of context and/or claims that Harriet is ‘better’ for Emma just because she’s a woman and she agrees with her all the time, while Mr Knightley is the bad guy because he’s older than her (he’s only 37, btw) and criticizes her ( as if Emma doesn’t need someone to criticize her, and her character growth isn’t dependent on precisely that). I get some people wouldn’t like to have someone who is criticizing them but worshiping someone is =/= being their friend or appreciating their real qualities. I also read people point up how much Emma praises Harriet in the book as proof that she’s in love with her, but the same ignore the many instances, especially after Harriet tells her that she loves Mr Knightley, that truly show Emma’s real colors and how much she still considers Harriet her, and especially Mr Knightley’s, inferior to the extent she regrets their friendship and thinks Harriet is ‘uppity’ for thinking Mr Knightley would ruin his reputation to marry someone like her. When I read those arguments it seems, if anything, that people want to have the cake and eat it by saying that Austen’s own story doesn’t matter (and she doesn’t understand her characters’ real feelings) when it comes to the things those people don’t like (eg the fact Knightley is the one Emma is in love with and all the explicit hints about that ), all the while still selectively using some of her writing to support their alternative version of the story. Now with the last movie adaptation, it’s even worse for me. It’s telling that the two scenes people romanticize as pro Emma/Harriet are two phrases/moments that actually emphasize the bad side of their relationship, and why their friendship isn’t good for either of them. The first is the scene when Emma says she ‘wants to keep Harriet for herself’: not only there is nothing romantic about that ( that line is in the book too as well as Knightley’s ‘your infatuation is blinding you’. You are reading a book written in 1800 with modern goggles though, and that alone doesn’t really work) but that phrase should actually make you cringe for it emphasizes how selfish and manipulative Emma is by treating Harriet like her new pet project just because she’s lonely. She doesn’t care about the girl’s feelings for Robert Martin, and what is truly the best for her due to her rank (and how dangerous it actually is for Harriet to not marry and find someone who can offer her protection), even if it’s what she tells herself, she only cares about her own desire to have a new female friend because she lost Mrs Weston and she feels lonely and bored. It’s also true, though, that she is still lying to Mr Knightley too because she does actually want to match Harriet with Mr Elton, that which is obvious in the other scenes, but even that is an expression of Emma’s selfishness and not really a hint of her caring, let alone loving, Harriet as a human at this point. If you read the book, it’s particularly obvious given the fact that Emma isn’t blind about Harriet’s feelings for Robert Martin for she knows that her behavior is bad and the girl actually cares about the guy, but she manipulates her into thinking Mr Elton is better because it’s her choice and she prefers him (until he proposes to her, of course. Then she thinks Mr Elton is trash for being so arrogant to believe someone of his rank could marry her) The second phrase people romanticize is only in the last movie and it’s that annoying ‘I refused Robert Martin because of you’ phrase by Harriet later in the movie. I hate that because, once again, that phrase has nothing ‘romantic’ about it unless you obviously ignore the context and what is actually happening there. Harriet is being passive aggressive with Emma there, gaslighting her and blaming her for the loss of her first suitor BECAUSE HARRIET WANTS MR KNIGHTLEY for herself. Harriet is angry with Emma there because she realizes she loves Mr Knightley TOO and Emma has more chances than her. The most likely sentiment behind that flippant phrase for me is something along the lines of Harriet impulsively telling Emma to move aside and let her have Mr Knightley because she made her lose Robert Martin already. She is trying to make Emma feel guilty, subconsciously or deliberately, but this surely is how Emma herself perceives Harriet’s words too for the poor girl really thinks it makes her a bad person to accept Knightley’s proposal in spite of loving him back. Harriet made her believe she was stealing her man and yet, AND YET, had Harriet been a real friend, to begin with, she should’ve realized Emma’s feelings for him way before she deluded herself into thinking the guy wanted her. But Harriet never cares about Emma’s feelings and even their reconciliation in the end is all, still, about what Emma needs to do for her. Not a word from Harriet about being happy for her friend too. Nothing.

Listen, I really appreciate de Wilde’s attempt to make the Harriet/Emma dynamic better than it is in either the novel or other adaptations, even if it personally doesn’t convince me it’s friendship. But I get it. Like I said at the beginning, it’s important that movies display different kinds of love too beside romance and if you can’t do that with characters like Emma who are the protagonist then when you can even do that? I think it was valid for her and Catton to want to emphasize the fact that Emma, at her core, is truly young and lonely and she doesn’t have friends in the truest sense of the word (Mr Knightley is one, of course, but their point is more about her having a female companion too whom Emma could do more ‘girl’ things she can’t do with her husband or father) but, honestly, I maintain no adaptation ever truly got their relationship right. No one.  Overrating them and pretending that they are best friends forever when there is no substance for that is as incorrect as an interpretation of Austen’s writing as it is treating Harriet as a silly girl Emma barely tolerates. I appreciate the movie shows Emma’s conflict about Harriet when Knightley proposes to her because most of adaptations don’t do that: in the book she really, for a moment, feels so bad for Harriet and feels simultanously happy Mr Knightley loves her but also bad for taking the guy Harriet wants. She is no hero who wants to give up about him to let Harriet have the guy instead, though, but it isn’t like she doesn’t care either. She does and it’s a source of anguish for Emma and part of her character growth that she actually cares and feels empathy for Harriet.

However, if you want Emma to have a real female friend that’s not Harriet and that’s not really the story Austen wrote and the role she gave to Harriet. Like many academics pointed up, like many of Emma’s ‘mirrors’ in the story, Harriet is put there by Austen to emphasize Emma’s immaturity at the beginning and the fact she deliberately doesn’t choose her equals as friends and picks Harriet, instead, as her new pet project because her inferiority makes her easier to manipulate and, like Mr Knightley very eloquently points up, she makes Emma feel superior and more accomplished than she is. Emma doesn’t want to be friends with Jane, for example, because not only she could be more her equal but she actually does see her as superior in the aspects that make Emma the most vulnerable and insecure.

It’s great the movie gave more space to Emma’s relationship with Harriet, and I get that if you want to put the spotlight on female friendship too it’s either Harriet or Mrs Weston but also, let’s not pretend the movie wasn’t focused very much on her romance with Mr Knightley too, perhaps more than other adaptations did. People commend this adaptation for showing his feelings for her more and it’s true, but I will also argue that this movie does emphasize her feelings for him more than adaptations usually do for you really see Emma’s feelings and jealousy towards him before she even realizes her feelings. It’s obvious since their first scene when she’s waiting for him and runs to her piano because she wants to get noticed by him. Her breath constantly hitches when he’s close to her or because of her feelings for him, and she definitely reacts to dancing with him. She may not know her feelings from the start, she might be in her own ‘work in progress’ to figure everything out, but the movie makes it obvious to me that she loves him. If there is any adaptation where you want to be disingenuos about their chemistry and deny their romance, this really isn’t the one tbh. Look, if you want to headcanon Emma as bisexual you’ll find me agreeing with you, but pro LGBT readings and actual representation doesn’t mean, for me, shipping two characters together just because they are the same gender and the writers make them care about each other a bit, or give them screentime. Like I said at the beginning, if I wanted a gay adaptation of Emma I’d rather make Mr Knightley a woman than ship Emma with Harriet or Mrs Weston or Jane. Because regardless their genders, it’s the Knightley character the one Emma loves and wants to be with, and it’s this character who truly represents her best friend and the person who knows her best. It’s Knightley the only one who cares about her well being so much that when she is being the worst version of herself and no one cares, he is the one willing to tell her even if he hates doing that and he feels he’s destroying every chance he has to make her love him back. It’s the Knightley character who ultimately inspires her to be a better person and loves her in spite of her flaws.

[olivieblake]

KSIGJICNRJCNEHCBD HELLO HELLO WELCOME TO THE HELL THAT IS KNOWING ZUTARA IS EVERYTHING AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AS SUCH !!!! wow i love that you are as angry as i was (and am every rewatch? yikes) this is amazing i knew you're my favorite but yeah wow man this really. confirms it whew high five

yeah it’s pretty wild how I knew this was what happened and was already bracing for it and yet STILL got completely misled by the narrative??? MEN I tell you MEN. I’m also going to use this ask as a method to reply to some of the other commentary if you don’t mind since this seems like a good place for communal frustration (here is my original post for anyone scrolling around lost)

@meg-hemmings: I agree with all of ur thoughts and I would TOTALLY read anything you wrote for Zutara … your writing is among my absolute favorite ever and I think you would write the Zutara dynamic so beautifully!

@one-man-propaganda-machine: I am - begging - you to write it yourself.

I... am not going to make promises, but I may have to. I want something very specific and that never bodes well for me. I doubt it would be more than a one-shot, but there are multiple scenes that could have occurred between episodes that would flesh out what was there (and of course I’d cut the final 15 seconds of the show, much like another epilogue I loathe and ignore)

@deifiliaa: omg atla discourse in 2021; olivie, i’d love to see what your character tier list looks like now that you’ve finished the series 👀

I’m going to put azula at the top. not because she’s a good person obviously but she’s FULL. OF. HITS. every time she’s on the screen the narrative gets immediately more interesting. she’s savvy and self-assured and I love it. her ending depressed me although I like that it was kind of about the loss of her two best friends? if that had been more of a focus I think I would have enjoyed it more but yeah, losing mai and ty lee could have been rightfully devastating. who among us is not totally obliterated by friend breakups. I also really loved uncle iroh; if anything that’s why I wasn’t invested in zuko’s storyline until close to the end, because watching him disappoint his uncle was very difficult (I get it, he’s a teenager, he’s growing and evolving and whatnot, but also I am closer to being his uncle than to being him so like, yeah). I also hope the peter pan revenge guy (JET that’s his name, sorry pregnancy kills my brain cells) did hook up with both katara and zuko. I love that journey for all three of them. I wanted more time with mai than we got, so there wasn’t quite enough there to love... but I was very down with ty lee interfering on her behalf. what a pivotal moment

of the core characters I think I was quickest to love sokka; the episode where he apologizes to suki and asks her to train him cemented it for me. I think it’s a big deal to show boys apologizing on-screen and owning their misconceptions. I like katara a lot—she’s what a lot of people do with fanon hermione. toph is also great, and part of me feels there is a strong basis for a ship with aang that balances their opposing energy, though I also like the idea of them being platonic besties. aang is... twelve. pretty much every time he was on the screen mr blake (a teacher) was like “man, aang is such a seventh grader,” so it was nice how convincing that was for his emotional journey, but at the same time it was hard to forget he was in seventh grade. appa and momo are STARS. I am sure I have mentioned this before but mr blake really loves animals and he was devastated by appa’s kidnapping; he hugged our dog for about ten minutes after aang found appa. after he decided I was zuko, he speculated that he is closest to aang but he’s not happy about it lol. “ugh, aang and I are such boring pacifists” was I believe his take on the subject

@libbynico, who for some reason I can’t tag: so true! katara was literally something like a mother/older sister figure to aang the entire time, but whatever

yeah, I think it really sucks that katara, as the emotionally nurturing character, felt shoved into the role of love interest. it’s everything wrong with the distribution of emotional labor in male-female relationships but sure, WHATEVER, apparently nobody thought to ask me in 2008

@touslesnoms: I liked “such selfish prayers” by andromeda3116 if you ever decide to read zutara after the series; the worst prisoner by emletish is super funny too

thanks for the recs! I will take them. I do want something very specific so I will be accepting recs until I find it lol. or until I lose composure and write it (yeah this is me WITH my composure, no wonder mr blake thinks I’m zuko, “I’m never happy” indeed)

@gaeleria: THANK YOU!!! Ugh omg that “I’m confused” kiss scene made me actively hate the ending. I knew ahead of time they were endgame, so I tried to make myself accept it early on. Like, I really didn’t like the pairing, but I wasn’t going to be emotionally invested in the romance and it was just going to be like, whatevs. AND THEN THEY WROTE THAT SCENE??! 1000% no. What was even the point of that scene? If they had written it to make Aang have some introspection and realize it’s not all about him, Katara’s feelings matter too, or even apologize, or anything… but no, there was literally no point to that scene. No character growth, it was never mentioned again. Ugh.

this is in answer to both you and beloved @zabbini: yeah this was a fuck-up for sure lol. I think it may come down to editing for time; the series is very irregularly paced, what with the majority of the action taking place in the final three episodes of a 16 episode season. or maybe it’s just because MEN CAN’T BE TRUSTED TO WRITE ROMANCE but either way yeah this was a real misstep and just truly, truly reeked of a particular (white) male attitude about how women think and what they owe. had a bad day, dudes? buy a gun, kiss your forever girl, do whatever you want and it’s fine! (I’m exaggerating but barely)

in terms of what’s so angering for me: a character like katara who previously had tons of agency was robbed of it when it came to her romantic arc, which is just really upsetting. and to be fair, I was equally upset when zuko instantly agreed to the agni kai with azula because it was like okay well katara’s extremely valuable, as you know, but now you want her to just sit on the sidelines...? (more of a story flaw than a relationship flaw, but my chest sunk a little at the idea that katara was going to sit by and watch as an accessory to zuko’s story when she’s a crucial weapon in their collective fight. what a waste, right?) 

it’s also especially hard to buy into the aang thing when zuko’s method of problem-solving on katara’s behalf is there for comparison. he asks her what she needs in order to find closure and then from there, does everything necessary to get it without having to be asked twice. versus aang, who is a twelve-year-old pair of rogue lips who never wins any of his fights without the aid of phenomenal cosmic powers...? ugh I’m getting off track but in the end there’s just a complete lack of understanding what female audiences want, though again, I don’t think they were really considering that at all. which I guess is... fair, it’s not the point of the show, but then why make the ending romantic at all? to show that their brand of hero gets everything he wants, I guess

in conclusion in 2008 I’m not sure the industry was capable of doing better, which sucks but isn’t surprising. still, it does fit the components of “stuff I write fics for,” which is I enjoyed most of it but find myself enraged by slivers I compulsively need to fix—WHICH IS STILL NOT A PROMISE but ugh I can already feel myself giving in 

[writing-with-olive]

A few tropes to avoid: LGBT addition

Note that this is not a complete list, but rather some tropes that I tend to see a lot that are tiring if not downright offensive and hurtful. This turned out to be a very long post, so most of it ended up below the cut. Press J to skip.

Gay/Lesbian

[id: two flags. The one on the top is the lesbian pride flag. The one on the bottom is the gay pride flag /end id]

Anything hypersexualizing

It’s just... not good representation. No one likes to be hypersexualized. Ever. 

The one gay/lesbian in the heterosexual friend group

This tends to come across as tokenism. Not real representation. Also, people tend to be friends with people they connect with. This is why a lot of LGBT people form groups. It’s actually far more likely in the real world for there to be a gay friend group with one straight person.

The homosexual dies first

Yay there’s a gay/lesbian person! Representation! oh... they died five minutes in? That sucks. 

Look, if there’s a lot of death happening in your story, it’s fine if a gay person dies, but please stop making the first death a gay person. And if you decide to kill of a gay person, make sure it’s not the only one.

The gay that refuses to admit he’s gay but he’s super feminine so he has to be

Femininity does not equal being gay. I’m not entirely sure where this trope (and general misconception) came from, but it’s tiring to see it getting beaten into the ground

Femininity is fine as a trait, but it should not be the tell that a character’s gay. Finding other dudes attractive or being attracted to other dudes should be the main tell.

(Bi/pan, Trans, Nonbinary, Genderflux/genderfluid, Ace/aro all below the cut)

Bi/Pan

[id: two pride flags. The one on the top is the pansexual pride flag. The one on the bottom is the bisexual pride flag /end id]

Anything hypersexualizing

See above. I’m tired of it. It’s not good representation.

The bi/pan character is a cheater

Bi/pan people aren’t any more likely to cheat than anyone else. The fact that the general pool of people bi/pan people are attracted to is larger doesn’t really change that. Please don’t make your bi/pan character a cheater.

The “no this character is with a [guy/girl] now so that means they’re [straight/gay] not bi”

This is bi erasure. Bi/pan people are still bi/pan when they’re dating a dude. Bi/pan people are still bi/pan when they’re dating a girl. Bi/pan people are still bi/pan when they’re dating a nonbinary person. Period.

The “this character can’t be bi/pan - they’ve only slept with one gender/they’re a virgin”

Being bi/pan is about being attracted to people of two or more genders/being attracted to people regardless of gender. It doesn’t matter who they’ve slept with. If they’re bi/pan, they find more than one gender attractive.

Trans

[id: the trans pride flag /end id]

“Hi I’m John, but I used to be Jane.”

In no world is this realistic. Trans people are not going to introduce themselves to anyone by using their deadname (their name given at birth that no longer applies to them). There are lots of other ways to show a character is trans.

Trans dudes have to be hypermasculine, and trans girls have to be hyperfeminine

This is just untrue... being a more affeminate trans dude doesn’t make him any less of a man. Being a more masculine trans woman doesn’t mean she’s any less of a woman. Not conforming to the most stereotyped version of their gender does not mean they’re not a valid person

“He - she - did the thing” when referring to a trans woman and vice versa for a trans man in prose.

I specify in prose because if someone has just come out, and characters are tripping up over pronouns but trying to learn and correct themselves, then that’s usually fine (though make sure to research what’s acceptable around this and what isn’t).

The whole calling attention to someone’s pronouns by misgendering someone and then flamboyantly correcting yourself when they’re trans thing can actually be kind of transphobic. When you’re writing prose, you don’t have any excuse so don’t do this.

The trans guy finding a bunch of ace bandages (or something similar) and using them to bind his chest

Yes, this is realistic. Yes, a lot of people do this, but it is an extremely unsafe way to bind. If your character binds, do your research. If they bind unsafely then SHOW THE NEGATIVE RESULTS of binding unsafely (difficulty breathing, cracked ribs, spinal problems, etc) they can be pretty severe. A lot of people don’t know how to bind and take cues from what they see in the media. Don’t perpetuate false information.

Nonbinary

[id: the nonbinary pride flag. /end id]

The nonbinary character has to be flatchested and vaguely masculine in order to be nonbinary

Nonbinary people are still nonbinary when they’re feminine. Nonbinary people are still nonbinary when they’re masculine. Please reflect this in your stories, as people take cues for how society works based off of the cumulation of the media they recieve.

Misgendering during an argument

This is actually really damaging to nonbinary people. What happens is that people see that it’s okay to misgender someone if they’re mad, when in reality, pronouns are a right, not a privilage to be stripped away whenever you get mad. If you were really mad at your country’s leader, you wouldn’t misgender them when you rant. You can hate them with all of your being and you probably still wouldn’t misgender them. Why is it any different with nonbinary people?

All the nonbinary people were AFAB (assigned female at birth)

It’s not inherantly wrong to have AFAB nonbinary folk in your story, but it is nice to see AMAB (assigned male at birth) nonbinary characters as well. There’s a lot less representation for them, so the more representation the better.

Being nonbinary is a phase - you’re actually binary trans or cisgender

Some people identify as nonbinary and do later find out that they identify more with a binary gender, but there’s also a lot of people who are just... nonbinary. It’s hugely dissapointing when a character that’s meant to be representation turns out to actually not be. Especially if they were the only nonbinary character.

Genderfluid/Genderflux

[id: two flags. the one on the top the genderfluid pride flag, and the one on the bottom is the genderflux pride flag /end id]

The one character in the background who’s genderfluid/genderflux in chapter three and then never seen ever again

Just include a genderfluid/genderflux character that’s actually relevant. It’s not that hard, and it’s really not that confusing. Their gender changes sometimes. They might switch their pronouns accordingly. 

The genderfluid character who’s short, vaguely masculine and has brightly died hair.

This one isn’t exactly offensive, per se, but it does feel like this is the only representation of a genderfluid character that I ever see, and that my friends ever see. Diversity is more than just having people who use different labels. It’s also about showing the different walks of life within those groups. There are a lot of genderfluid/flux people who don’t look like the stereotypical genderfluid/flux person, and they deserve representation just as much as everyone else.

The genderfluid character is the alien

This is a cop-out. It’s fine if you’ve got a race of genderfluid/flux aliens. Awesome, actually! Just add a genderfluid/genderflux human character too.

The genderfluid person who wakes up in the morning and “decides” if they’re going to be a boy or a girl today.

There are a couple things wrong with this. The first is that genderfluid people don’t just “decide” which gender they are. Their gender is more of it’s own entity. There’s not much of a choice with it. It just is.

From my own experience I can assure you that genderfluid people don’t just wake up in the morning with a random gender and then that’s their gender for the day. For me personally, my gender will change somewhere between once every three hours and once every three days, but it’s surprisingly rare that it’s overnight. It can even happen in the middle of conversations and stuff like that.

Genderfluid people don’t just switch between being a boy and being a girl. There’s a lot of space in between: nonbinary, maverique, agender, just to name a few.

Ace/Aro

[id: two pride flags. The one on top is an aromatic pride flag, and the bottom is an asexual pride flag. /end id]

The character’s horrible backstory turned them ace/aro

This is not to negate the fact that some people do identify as ace/aro after a traumatic event. That being said, most ace/aro people are just...ace or aro. There wasn’t any backstory. That’s just the way they are. Seeing that a lot more represented would be awesome.

The character’s got a mental illness because they’re ace/aro

Being ace/aro does not mean you have a mental illness. The idea that it does being spread through the media people consume is very harmful and it increases the stigma around being ace/aro, in a place where there really shouldn’t be. Yes you can have a mental illness and be ace/aro, but they’re not usually correlated.

The ace character can’t be ace because look they’ve got a partner!

Ace is short for asexual meaning you don’t feel any sexual attraction. That does not mean you can’t feel any romantic attraction. Therefore, your character can be hella ace and still have a partner that they’re romantically attracted to

If your character was aroace (a term that’s short for aromantic asexual), then they probably wouldn’t be interested in having a partner.

The character who’s aro/ace but then “finds the right person” right at the end

If they’re demisexual/demiromantic, then that’s different, but it does make it feel like the “flaw they were overcoming” was being ace/aro, and that’s both damaging to the community, and it’s also just dissapointing. There are a whole host of other flaws that your character could have that are much more worth the reader’s time.