#honestly I need to find some more history shows by non white dudes at some point

[st-just]

I need a good podcast to listen to (informative or entertaining audio, not really looking for a story at the moment). Do you have any recommendations?

Oh do I!

But honestly, it depends on what you’re interested in?

So, like, historical lectures (in increasing order of my impression of obscurity)-

Mike Duncan’s Revolutions. Decent chance you’ve already heard of/listened to it, he’s one of the more commonly interviewed semi-intellectual pop historians at the moment (..that might come off as derogatory. Not intended. Just in terms of where he gets interviewed). A series on the great political revolutions of modernity, starting with England, though America, France, Haiti, Spanish America (told as an extended biography of Simon Bolivar), the July Revolution in France, 1848, the Paris Commune, Mexico, and Russia (currently ongoing, to be the last). The first two aren’t...bad, but no great either. Haiti is amazing and a topic that’s basically never covered in mainstream historical surveys. Honestly a better historical survey of the long 19th century in Europe and Latin America period than you’re likely to have gotten in school. The first dozen episodes of the Russia series are also a generally decent explanation of the development of marxist and anarchist thought in the 19th century.

Partick Wyman’s Fall of Rome and Tides of History. Fall of Rome is what you would expect from the name, though rather than trying to do any sort of general survey after the introduction he focuses episodes on specific regions or themes rather than just a slice of time, generally. Tides of History is the same for the period from 1250-1550 (I think? might be a century off there), which he considers Europe to have developed the necessary conditions for the creation of the modern world. More recently, still under the Tides of History title, he’s moved on to early humanity, with the most recent episode being on predynastic Egypt. Found of, like, hypothetical case studies/explaining events and situations by describing what the biography of someone unexceptional living through it would have looked like. Spices things up with interviews with other academics and book club discussions with his producer on occasion

Sharyn Eastaugh’s History of the Crusades and Reconquista. On the opposite end, these very much are chronological narrative histories of the periods and subjects (including the Albigensian and Baltic crusades). If you’re the sort of person whose eyes glaze over at lots of names and places or zones out after fifteen minutes spent on one battle, you’ll bounce off of this, but she does an excellent job of getting into/trying to describe the personalities involved, and digs up plenty of interesting anecdotes to spice things up. First part of HotC excellent to listen to as you read Foucault’s Pendulum.

(Okay, I’m too lazy to write out descriptions of all of them, but History of Japan, Egypt and Byzantium, Age of Napoleon and Fall of Civilizations are all also good)

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Still history, but more conversational

Robert Evans’ Behind The Bastards. Which, again, decent chance you’ve heard of. Biographies of the worst people in history interspersed with comedic banter with a rotating cast of guests. Early episodes are more comedic and obvious, stuff about Hitler’s attempts at painting or Saddam Huessein’s poetry and such. After that focuses on digging into terrible people and horrifying things that you probably wouldn’t have heard of, though! (also gets significantly more openly political).

Isaac Meyer and Demetria Spinrad’s Criminal Records. A true crime podcast but instead of serial killers its about digging up really weird of interesting crimes or court cases - ‘the oldest court case in ancient mesopotamia for which any record still exists’ is probably my favorite example. The hosts are a couple with a solid rhythm to their banter, and in between episodes on like the Stonewall riots or Jack Johnson or William Calley, they really do dig up some wonderfully obscure and bizarre bits of history.

Anthony Kaldellis’ Byzantium and Friends, an interview series with various experts in the study of byzantine/eastern roman history and related fields. Far more than any of the others listed, this is academics talking to academics for a presumed audience of academics, so neither a great introduction if you don’t know the field at all nor very snappy or highly produced or polished and often more than a bit dry. Still, really interesting and extremely current in terms of the state of the field.

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Pale Reflections is the unofficial-official Pale read-along podcast, analyzing a week’s updates at a time as they release. Useful substitute for having any friends irl you can actually talk to about new updates! Also good for pointing out the obvious things you missed and letting you feel smart for noticing things the hosts didn’t.

Pale in Comparison is a recently started Pact live read podcast where one of the hosts has read Pact and the other hasn’t but has read Pale, trying to figure out what Blake’s in for and understand the setting with that accurate-but-incomplete grounding. Doing an excellent job so far of making me want to reread Pact!

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Beyond that mostly scripted fiction which you don’t want, various politics/current events/opinion shows whose value basically depends on if there’s an ideological niche you wanted to fill in your news diet, and a couple Canadian investigative journalism shows which are probably a bit parochial. So hopefully one of those appeals!

[cross-d-a]

if you're doing those characters then please give me more amazing takes on princess mute 🥺💕

OMG IM SO LATE ANSWERING THIS BUT HERE I FINALLY AM

Also omgg thank you SOSOSO much for asking me about Princess Mute?? THE LOVE OF MY LIFE??? You know me so well, vish!! I love and adore you so much!! Thank you for giving me the chance to blabber on about the woman I love!! ⁽⁽٩(๑˃̶͈̀ ᗨ ˂̶͈́)۶⁾⁾

ALSO! I’m gonna do my best to like- not spoil all my plans for whispers, haha

The rest is under the cut bc I just have a lot of FEELINGS~ about our resident zombie girl 

❤⃛ヾ(๑❛ ▿ ◠๑ )

How I feel about this character

OH BOY OK I JUST??? LOVE HER??? A LOT???? I wasn’t expecting to get quite so immediately and intensely attached to her?? But from the second I heard about her in the legend I was just gone. Completely done for. I’m generally a sucker for mythology, and there’s just SO MUCH that’s fascinating about the tale behind the Princess Mute and the South Sea King? 

Even though Princess Mute is so central to the myth, the South Sea King is deemed as the most important? I mean- duh it is his tomb, but Princess Mute is the catalyst? None of this would have happened without her? She’s main character material and yet she isn’t the main character of her own story?? She has practically no agency? It’s so? Fucking? Fascinating?? And there is so fucking much left unanswered? The myth says she turns into a goddamn monster?? Is this- figuratively? Or literally? Is she a monster for breaking gender norms and committing the ultimate taboo by killing the Emperor??? Like- holy FUCK? Like- LOOK at this pic from Ershu’s Expensive Powerpoint:

and a close-up for good measure:

(note the HORNS/HELMET?? the LIGHTNING STRIKE!!! 👀👀👀 how she’s dressed as a SOLDIER?? that SPEAR??? also she’s depicted as much bigger than the emperor!! which, of course, means she’s more important!!!!)

and, HELLO!! She’s called the PRINCESS MUTE. She is only known/named in association to someone else. Her name has been erased from history. It isn’t important to anyone. Which is so fucking ironic. She’s Princess Mute. Her voice has been stripped from her, just like her agency. This tale is the Mute Emperor’s and not her own. Her suffering means nothing to anyone. Her life means nothing other than for the Emperor to desire and the South Sea King to mourn over (and WOW!! ISN’T THIS JUST!! SO perfectly encapsulating Nanpai Sanshu’s female characters and their relevance to the story/male characters)

(so what is her goddamn name???? I mean, I know what I’ve named her, but sorry dudes. Again. I don’t wanna spoil too much :) )

also, WHY is the South Sea King covering her eyes when she’s sent off to sea in the origami boat?

What actually happens to her after this? The body we see of the South Sea King has long white hair so I assume he died pretty old? So why does she look so goddamn young? 

And- the million dollar question here (WHICH I HAVE A LOT OF HEADCANONS FOR BUT I DON’T WANNA SPOIL WHISPERS): What happened to her after she killed the Emperor????

ALSO!! WHY IS SHE HOLDING A DINGLAN RULER WHEN SANSHU FINDS HER IN THAT FIRST EXPEDITION?? (internet says it’s a “special ruler used for making shrines, carving wood statues and making tablets of gods. Later used in measurement of architectural scale; measuring instrument for the netherworld, wishes best for tomb owner) did she design her own father’s tomb?? is there more to her becoming a leather figurine than filial loyalty/sacrifice?? 

Why does she have a tattoo?? I go a bit into this in my fic, but from my understanding it was unusual for people (women especially!) to have tattoos during this time! (this is just from my research! if I am wrong please correct me!) 

For anyone who hasn’t read whispers, there were a a few tribes (minorities!) during this time who tattooed themselves (and to this day, they continue this tradition :) ). The Li were often attacked by invaders who assaulted the women and sold them as slaves. The women ended up tattooing their faces and bodies to make them less appealing, and it ended up becoming a tradition. When a girl came of age she’d get tattooed. Then we’ve got the Dai, who (from what I understand!) got tattoos of animals with characteristics they wished to embody, such as to show their virility and strength! So they’d tattoo tigers and dragons, etc.

So why does Princess Mute have one? Who gave it to her? WHAT ACTUALLY IS IT!!!!!! (eternal frustration that we never see a clear shot of the whole thing!!) It kinda looks like a heavily stylized fish? With some waves. But I am unsure! But it would make sense, considering the ongoing theme of snakes and fish throughout dmbj.

Also, her scars seem very strange. Like- if someone skinned her (YIKES!) then- her scars don’t really seem like they’re a result of skinning (double yikes!!). You’d think that for a woman who was the daughter of the King, they’d take more care to preserve her face?? So why does it seem like someone has done their utter best to ruin it? Did the Emperor do it himself? Did her father? Or did someone else do it?? Did she do it herself????

Also, I just wanna cut the bullshit with the creepy hand clam thing. A hand clam isn’t gonna wrap their fingers around Wu Xie’s hand to stop him from blowing himself up. Like. I get that it’s the censorship. I get it. But- you can’t tell me it wasn’t actually the Princess Mute who saved him. I just?? This moment is so powerful? It literally knocked the breath from my chest.

Princess Mute’s story is just so fascinating and tragic and I am just a mess over how she isn’t in control of her own story? She never is. Except for when she kills the Emperor. (AND when she saves Wu Xie) And I think that’s fucking telling. 

Of course, it felt like they had more of a storyline planned for her which never happened, but I’ll get more into that later.

Basically, I just have SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!

It’s like- I dunno. Seeing a gorgeous woman flip an obnoxious man over her shoulder and slam him to the ground without breaking a sweat and watching her walk away with stars in your eyes. You barely know anything about her but you’re already half in love and you just want to know more.

I’m super Gay for her, if you couldn’t already tell.

Honestly, she just perfectly represents all the female characters and their treatment in dmbj with all the extra PIZAZZ of the mysterious supernatural/mythological elements. She just makes me go feral and I adore her with my entire heart.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

NUMBER ONE I SHIP HER WITH MY CUTE AND PERFECT GF XIAO BAI!!!!!!!!

They are my two favourite (okay and my wife Su Nan!) female characters in dmbj. I think their stories parallel each other pretty beautifully? They’re both women in a powerful position, though with limited agency. They both defy gender norms and accomplish things (I’m counting killing the Emperor as Accomplishing Something) in a very male-dominated world. And- okay. I know the Princess Mute is technically dead. But she also?? is someone still doing stuff?? and pushing along the storyline?? as a zombie?? So I’m just gonna say that both of them aren’t truly killed off for the Man Pain like all the other female dmbj characters (except for Xiu Xiu, and I guess Chuchu but ChuChu’s situation is kinda....Iffy. At best.)

Also both of them are linked pretty heavily with Wu Xie? They both have an interesting relationship with him. And Princess Mute leads Wu Xie to Xiao Bai!!!

And okay this is spoiling a bit of whispers, BUT!!! Warehouse 11 was built atop the South Sea King’s temple. Isn’t that fucking important??? I stand by my headcanon that Xiao Bai is a Warehouse kid (descended from the Founders) and so she grew up there. And like- ignoring censorship bc I can AND because Reboot leaves a lot of supernatural stuff up in the air anyway- wouldn’t growing up atop an insanely powerful temple do something to you? Wouldn’t it affect you in some way?? There’s just!!! SO much potential between Princess Mute and Xiao Bai!! Plus!! I think it’d be great for Xiao Bai to form a relationship with another woman. She needs some female solidarity in her life.

And- well. I just ship Princess Mute with all the dmbj women, really. Princess Mute has two hands, why can she use them both?? I’ve got a couple Princess Mute modern au’s going and in one of them she just- sweeps A’Ning and Su Nan off their feet :)

I really can’t ship Princess Mute with any male characters, I think. There’s just- so much underlying trauma surrounding her agency and how she’s been used by the men in her life. Also, I like wlw & mlm solidarity. Let Princess Mute and Wu Xie wallow over their Stupid Crushes. Or Princess Mute & Xiao Ge. I’m not picky.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Purely bc of my own au, I am very much invested in Princess Mute & Li Cu (& spirit snake). As I mentioned before, there’s a running theme of loss of agency in their own lives and suffering the consequences of others’ actions. Plus, there’s a lot of supernatural happenings surrounding the both of them. Why wouldn’t they find a connection?

And, obviously, I adore Princess Mute & Wu Xie. Princess Mute saved Wu Xie and then Wu Xie was promptly obsessed (can’t say I blame him). They had such an interesting relationship in Reboot that was just- so fucking tragically dropped. 

My unpopular opinion about this character

SHE SHOULD BE MORE POPULAR!!!!!!!!!! She is so goddamn fascinating and gorgeous and I just!! Want!! Everyone to adore her as much as I do!!!!!!!! At least I feel a bit accomplished for swinging some readers over to her side in whispers!! That’s something!!! 

I’ve got like- a million au ideas with her. I’m going to be the creator of the content I wish to read!!!!!

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I WISH SHE COULD HAVE GOTTEN A SATISFACTORILY COMPLETED STORYLINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She just gets completely dropped after she leads Wu Xie to Warehouse 11. So once more, she is a plot device and not. And actual. Person. Her importance is tied irrevocably to the male leads. Her agency is not her own. Wu Xie cares so much about her, and okay, he’s trying to figure out a mystery and we all know how he gets when he’s trying to puzzle out a mystery-- but you can’t tell me he just- stops caring after he encounters Warehouse 11??? What happens to her after that?? Does she rot away in a box in Wushanju?? Does Ershu take her back?? I’m just?? WHAT????

I want to know her side of the story and not what everyone else has said. I want her to actually properly communicate with Wu Xie. I want her saving the day again and I want her being fucking badass and I want her and Xiao Ge being soft together and I want her and Xiao Bai to bond fall in love and I want everyone to just- fall in love with her? And care about her? And I want to to find herself caring about these fucking idiots too???? Can you imagine her and Liu Sang bonding over shitty fathers and lack of agency and Trauma?? Can you imagine Princess Mute getting her life back and the freckles returning to her slowly darkening skin and her being silly with Hei-ye bc he keeps shoving increasingly ridiculous sunglasses at her. And can you imagine her trying on jeans for the first time and picking out a cute bomber jacket and shoving a baseball cap on her head and dipping her feet back in the sea and befriending shibie bc she’s just?? that?? cool?? while Iron Triangle is off on the side fretting like she isn’t befriending some very dangerous creatures but it’s okay bc she’s a dangerous creature too and she understands fear and desire and hunger. 

I want her returning to Thunder City. I want her getting closure. I want her story to get closure. Period.

And I know it didn’t happen bc censorship and Nanpai Sanshu and just- a host of Other Things. But I want it, and she deserves it.

--

AAAHH VISH!!!! Thank you so much for letting me yell about Princess Mute!! Sorry I couldn’t go more in depth with headcanons but!! Like I said, I don’t want to completely spoil you for whispers, so I’ll keep those close to my chest for now 

٩(*ゝڡゝ๑)۶♥

[nad-zeta]

🌚Um.. a matchup for Ikesen, please? I'm usually confident, hardworking, and diligent. I'm considered the "star of the class" and a real genius and nerd, but I enjoy having fun as well! I love to draw manga, watch anime, play Otome and RPG games, listen to music, play the guitar, and sing! I'm a sensitive bean and I cry a lot if I do something wrong. I have a habit of blaming myself although I'm trying to stop that habit. I'm empathetic and I always try to make others happy by helping them. 1/2

🌚My confidence lies in what I do best. I love to speak in front, such as doing speech and public speaking, because I love to talk and inspire. I try my best to be helpful to others, but sometimes I try too much to please everyone. I'm a bit chubby and I'm a bit insecure but I try to be confident in my looks but I can't help it, food is life, hehe. My eyes are a unique brown especially when the sunlight shines through, my hair is also brown. I'm quite short, about 153-155 cm. Thank you! 2/2

Hi hi, love! 🌻Thank you so so much for the request!😆❤ Sorry for taking sooooo long! 😱I hope you enjoy it and i hope you have the best day! ❤🌻

So I match you with............. Sasuke

When you first arrive in the past and save Nobunaga from death by fire, you were hella confused. You have no idea what had happened to you, and honestly you low key thought it was some kind of prank. You laughed when nobunga told you, just who he was and what year it was. You looked around the tree line for the hidden cameras, but there was non. Honestly, things only started to feel real once you arrived at the castle and Nobunaga named you as princess.

From day one, you worked hard to earn the oda forces trust and respect. You were incredibly diligent, and soon all suspicion of you being a spy was dropped. You honestly brought new life into the castle, as your hard work inspired some of the lazier maids to pull up their socks, they couldn’t dare let the new princess outshine them. You went up and beyond what was expected of you, and the small details of your work certainly didn’t go unnoticed. Especially your addition of flowers in every room of the castle, which you would handpick every few days, it just seemed to brighten up the place and give it livelier energy.

TBH you were a big fan of history, so you knew the history of these historical figures pretty well. You low key had to catch yourself sometimes, especially before you completely nerd out in front of them. Especially when talking to Ieyasu, you had been a big fan of him since learning about him in history class, in fact, you were secretly fangirling over all the warlords. 

It got a bit lonely at times, you missed your friends and being able to chat about your favourite animes and mangas. You loved your new warlord friends, but it still felt like they just weren’t on the same wavelength as you. Your hobbies and interests were just so different, and you found it difficult to relate to them sometimes.

After Hideyoshi stop suspecting you of being an assassin, he became like your second mother, and today was a prime example of that. He had handed you a bag full of golden coins and shooed you to the markets to relax and take a load off. You wandered around aimlessly until something caught your attention. A nerdy looking guy wearing a white science coat, you got a bit closer and when you overheard his conversation with his friend you were positive, HE WAS ALSO FROM THE FUTURE. You were so excited to have finally met someone, not from this time that you instantly tapped him on the shoulder. You thought of a phrase that you could ask him, which would quickly confirm whether or not he was from your time. “Excuse me, dude could you please spill the tea on where you’re from.” You knew If he was truly from the future, he wouldn’t question your lingo or your addressing him as dude. Sasuke stared at you shook, just when you began to question whether he really was from the future, he gave a slither of a smile and said, “Exe.Sasuke stopped working, need to reboot,” all while doing some strange robot dance. The two of you laughed, leaving a very confused Yuki looking at the two of you. 

Sasuke took yours and Yuki’s hands and dragged both of you to the nearest teahouse where he explained that he had been looking for you for four years. “WHAT YOU’RE FROM THE FUTURE.” Yuki was in a state of shock, he always suspected Sasuke had a secret with the weird way he talked but never in a million years did he think this was possible. Meanwhile, you were over the moon as not only was Sasuke from the future, but he was also a fellow nerd 

Since that day, the three of you would hang out together every day. You finally found a friend that could understand all your nerdy jokes and references. Often the two of you would go to the teahouse together when Yuki was busy with work. You and Sasuke would legit chat for hours and hours about your favourite animes, otome games and mangas. When Yuki would finally join the two of you after work, it was standard procedure for you guys to tease the poor boy until he was as red as a beet. Sasuke loved that he had finally found a fellow intellectual and nerd as sometimes it was difficult to bounce ideas off his BFF, as let’s face it Yuki didn’t understand half the words that would come out of Sasuke’s mouth.

It had definitely become a tradition for the three of you to play boards at least once a week. Both you and Sasuke loved playing RPG games in the future, so the two of you banded together to create the closest version to that in this Sengoku period. You honestly loved these weekly game nights with the boys. It gave you a sense of nostalgia, and you couldn’t help but smile at the great time you were having with your new friends. These game nights were always filled with witty banter, plenty of junk food and a ton of laughs.

At some point, Kenshin and Shingen had come to visit their vassal only to walk into the room with, Yuki flipping the table in frustration, while you and Sasuke gripped your sides in laugher at his sore loser behaviour. Since then the god of war and Tiger of Kai would occasionally join your game nights, which you always enjoyed. The more people to tease and beat, the better. 

Soon it came time for them all to go back home and prepare for the war that was brewing between the two forces. You couldn’t help but cry when Sasuke and Yuki had come to say their goodbyes. You, after all, were a sensitive little bean and you were definitely going to miss nerding out and joking around. You sat alone in your room when suddenly out of thin air Kenshin jumped down from your roof, you were sister shook. Kenshin had been watching you and Sasuke for some time now during your game nights. He knew at this point that his ninja had fallen in love with you and honestly despite looks, Kenshin had a soft spot for those who he held dear. He asked if you would like to live in his castle with the wacky bunch, even going as far as offering you a job to sweeten the deal. You loved the oda forces, and they were definitely like family to you, but honestly, you had too long ago fallen for the nerdy ninja boy. Plus over time you had really come to love Kenshin and the gang. You definitely didn’t hesitate to accept Kenshin’s offer. You quickly packed up all your belongings and wrote a long letter to each of the Oda forces expressing how much you loved and was going to miss them. 

You made your way to Kasugayama with Kenshin to arrive on the evening of Sasuke’s birthday. Kenshin smiled as he walked into the banquet hall with you trailing behind him, “Sasuke I have a birthday gift for you.” Sasuke looked up and locked eyes with you, he was ecstatic. You simply smiled and walked over to your long time friend and handed him a birthday gift that you had managed to make for him on your journey to Kasugayama. 

You had hand-drawn him a manga, not only that but on the last page of this homemade manga was a confession of love. When Sasuke realized that you had felt the same way he did, he used his hand towel to very dramatically dab away his fake tears, before capturing you in his arms and showering your face in small kisses. You couldn’t help but break into the biggest blush as everyone at the banquet cheered and whistle. Honestly, they had never seen Sasuke ever show any kind of emotion, but now with you in his arms, he was wearing the biggest smile and radiating pure happiness.

Sasuke loved everything about you. He loved that you could sing and play instruments. He could listen to your beautiful voice for hours and hours, he especially enjoyed it when the two of you would make up stupid songs about the most random of topics and sing them while trolling the people of Kasugayama. It was always a good time to irritate them like younger siblings would. 

As a fellow intellectual, you relay enjoyed helping Sasuke with his research, tracking wormholes and discovering new theories of time and space. You loved bouncing ideas and theories off each other. Together the two of you managed to make and design the coolest ninja weapons, which was mostly for your entertainment. As the two of you would play ninja ninja out in the garden, throwing smoke bombs and blunt ninja stars at each other.

For a brief time, you and Sasuke even went back to the future so that Sasuke could present his research findings. He honestly was such a nervous little bean, so he really appreciated the fact that you were right there by his side the entire time, giving him all the help and support. He also loved that you helped him with his presenting skill and listened to his presentation over and over until it was perfect. Of course, after the presentation was over, the two of you went back to the past the second the next wormhole opened, as that was where all your friends and loved ones were. 

Upon your return, Kenshin threw the two of you a big banquet to welcome you home, where Sasuke sang your praise for helping and supporting him. Kenshin was so impressed by your skills in the field of public speaking and presenting that he actually appointed you an official job as Uesugi force negotiator and mediator. A job which enables you to inspire people to work together towards a more peaceful world, free of conflict.  

Sasuke knew that you had some insecurities around your body, which he didn’t understand at all as, in his eyes, you were the most beautiful woman alive. A fact, which he would remind you of every day by wrapping his arms around your waist and gently whispering just how much he adored you, before meeting your lips in a sweet kiss. 

Sasuke loved to spend as much time as humanly possible with you, joking around and chatting for hours and hours about all your common interests. If the two of you cuties aren’t trolling Yuki, you are snuggled together just enjoying each other presence. Usually, Sasuke would hold you in his arms as he rests his head on your shoulder while you play the guitar and sing the most beautiful songs to him. 

This romantic ninja boy will most definitely also take you up onto the rooftop and cuddle with you while telling you everything he knows about the stars and universe above you. You can’t help but smile and kiss his cheek thanking the universe for sending you your better half

Other potential matches..........Mitsunari! 

I hope you enjoyed this love and I hope you have a super good day! 🔥❤🌻😊

[haifengg]

The Dutch Room - Chapter 4

Find all chapters here!

“Did you solve your problem yet?” Johnny asked and fell into the armchair.

His boss sat on the other side of the office, hunched over a remarkable stack of paperwork. “Problem?” He asked without looking up.

“The … uh … thing that came up a few weeks ago.” Johnny said carefully, not sure if he really forgot about the incident.

“Oh, so you’re not talking about yourself.” One could hear Jaehyun’s smile even if it wasn’t visible. Especially if one’s name was Johnny.

“Why would I refer to myself as a problem?”

“Because you always show up when I'm busy and steal my time.”

“By doing what?”

“By talking to me and not working like everyone else.” He said and finally looked up from his paperwork, smiling.

Johnny sighed. “You suck real bad. Did you know that?”

“I’ve been told, yeah. Honestly tho, what problem are you talking about? There are so many lately.”

Jaehyun leaned back in his chair, crossed his fingers behind his head and put his feet up, looking at his oldest friend.

“The one that dropped dead on your floor.” Johnny scoffed and yawned. Once again it was one of those days they were working late, which basically described every other day in their field of work.

Every single one of them had spent at least a few nights in their office, which is why they all kept travel kits at their desks somewhere.

“Oh.” Jaehyun said and his relatively good mood faded within seconds. “That one.”

“I assume it is as always more serious than you’re telling us right?”

“I don’t need to tell you how serious it is. Everyone working here is qualified enough to know that for themselves. And if they don’t I should consider replacing them. But yes, it is gravely serious. It could ruin the entire project.”

“And I assume you found a solution?” Jaehyun nodded and took down his hands, resting them on his core.

“I did. And I will schedule a meeting as soon as it is set in stone.”

“As always. I’m here now so why don’t you walk me through it?” Johnny offered casually while playing around with the end of his tie.

“I’m really busy …”

Johnny snorted. “Dude, I don’t care. I haven’t talked to you in ages about work let alone anything non-work related. And if business talk is the only talk I get these days I will take whatever you got.”

“Fine. The solution we came up with involves Taeil.”

Johnny suddenly sat up straight in the armchair and looked at his friend in a very confused way.

“Taeil? I thought you decided against using the hostesses.”

“True. We won’t use BARbara. But Taeil is the one who came up with the back-up plan.”

Jaehyun paused to lean forward, leafing through his calendar looking for a specific event.

“On the uh … 4th he’s meeting with the owner of a few high class restaurants. Something japanese. To be honest I neither met the guy yet nor have I heard about his restaurants but Taeil apparently knows him for quite some time and I trust him. After they meet up and where he introduces him to the idea, we will schedule another meeting in which we discuss the specifics.”

“I thought you don’t want to involve more people than necessary? Why are you suddenly considering working with someone you don’t know? This seems chancy.”

“Because”, he began and groaned. “the original plan was the most irresponsible imbecile I’ve met in my career so far and whoever Taeil is talking to in two weeks can’t be worse. I don’t know if you noticed but we don’t have that much time left. And I told all of you before that we’re only doing it if we find a way to clean the money.”

“You did tell us that. Several times. But we always reassured you that we would do it even if you don’t know how to launder the money beforehand. Because we trust you.”

Jaehyun sighed and rested his head in the palms of his hands. “You shouldn’t tho.”

The other shrugged and got up. “We know. But we do against your better judgement.”

“You’re going home?” Jaehyun looked at him in surprise.

“What? No.” He chuckled. “I’m working late, boss. As always.”

***

“Someone home?” Johnny stuck the head through the door as he opened it carefully.

“Come on in!” Song shouted from the back of the studio, her voice weirdly muffled.

So he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, looking around for her but couldn’t find her.

The studio didn’t change much since the last time he visited. The dishes were clean and put up to dry, right next to it was a small stash of toiletries.

Everything looked fine and even more in order than Haechan’s cubicle so why did Jaehyun want him to come up here and check on her? And besides, why didn’t he just do it himself?

He shuffled across the room to take a closer look at the easel and the prints that were spread out on the huge wobbly table alongside with a variety of … ingredients and colors. The canvas was smudged with a mix of brown and green tones.

By this point of progress Johnny wasn’t able to see any resemblance or how the hell this would turn into what was on the prints.

“Oh. It’f you.”

Hearing her voice behind him he turned around to see Song in sweatpants and some threadborne sweatshirt. Just now he realized how late it must have been once again, since Song was brushing her teeth and didn’t bother to take out the toothbrush while talking to him.

“If I knew y’all would take the ‘come by anytime’ fo literally I wouldn’t have faid it.”

“Did someone else come by?”

She nodded and walked over to spit out toothpaste and put away the toothbrush. “Yeah. Haechan came to see me the day before yesterday. And Doyoung yesterday.”

“What did he want?” Johnny asked a little bit too hastily which made her turn around.

“Who?”

“Doyoung.”

The conversation forming between them was clipped and terse but not at all in an uncomfortable way.

“He brought the prints.” She said pointing at the table. “It’s a really good quality and very clean. You can literally see every little detail on it. Did you have a look?”

“Yeah, I did just now. Why was Haechan here?”

Since they were still standing around all dressed up and with nowhere to go, Song just walked over to the sofa and dropped down on it, grabbing a pillow to hold in her arms.

“Nothing too important. He just wanted to know how I am doing. Speaking for what reasons people are showing up here all the time: Why did you come?”

He pulled up the stool she was using to sit on while painting and sat across from her, one arm resting on the table and shrugged.

“Same reason. Just wanted to say ‘hi’.”

“Well, you did that. Something else?”

Johnny chuckled more to himself than to Song. Why wasn’t he able to figure her out? Since she was employed he caught himself wondering what the hell she was doing here and how she ended up being their coworker.

“Have you ever sat one foot on our floor?” He asked trying to change the topic but Song was quick.

She thought for a moment leaning her head to one side, then shaking it. “Why would I? Everyone is coming upstairs anyways. I don’t really have to leave this place.”

“Touche.”

Silence settled between them during which Song scanned the man carefully and Johnny tried to not curse himself for coming here. Nice gestures never were a thing at this company so why did he thought it would be a good idea to start being nice?

Right. He though. It was about what Doyoung said and how right he turned out to be. The girl … woman sitting across from him didn’t really fit in with all of them. And even though he corrected his thoughts from girl to woman he couldn’t deny that there certainly was something fairly young about her. She definitely looked her age and she probably had both whit and sass but … something didn’t add up.

“Do you want to drink? Something?” Song suddenly asked and got up.

Johnny jumped to his feet as well and gladly said: “Yes, please!”

***

Song chucked the last sip of wine and lowered her glass. Johnny reached for it to replenish her drink for the fourth time but she quickly covered with both hands.

“No no no, I’m good.” She laughed.

They both sat in front of the sofa, legs crossed and leaning against it. He had no idea of how long they had been sitting together like this but two hours probably already had passed since he got here.

“Are you sure?” He asked sliding the bottle of white wine back into the cooler.

“Yes. Absolutely. This is actually way more than I usually have. If you have questions you only want honest answers to: Ask them now.” She stated jokingly and waved away her sobriety.

Johnny laughed. “Okay, let me think.”

When he wasn’t saying anything for a few seconds she turned her head to look at him and found him actually thinking about what he wanted to ask her.

Song curiously and patiently waited for him to ask:

“What do you think of Panoma?”

Their eyes met and she could see how serious his question was. He really wanted her honest opinion about the company and/or the people working here.

“Well”, Song began but hesitated. “about the people or more about the entire thing?”

“Whatever you want.”

She sighed. “To be honest: I don’t think this is for me.”

Johnny’s eyes widened at an answer he didn’t expect at all. “What does that mean?”

“See, I feel like you all know each other so well. Yeah, sure I am the new one and y’all don’t know me and we don’t have a history but I am not sure if we will get along well eventually. And this is just the case for getting along well. Not exceptionally well or being a great team. Whatever that involves.”

He put down his wine glass ready to give her his unshared attention. This seemed to have bothered her for a while. “What exactly makes you think that?”

“This might sound weird but … to me you all seem like criminals.”

“You aren’t exactly whitecollar either. I chose your file out of 20 others because I like to think of you as someone who screws people over twice. First time by forging art and replacing it and the second time when you keep the original to yourself.”

“But compared to you that’s nothing.” She said, using one the one hand that wasn’t still holding the empty glass to empathize the arguments. “You are professional criminals. Working in a company devoted to launder money and steal shit. This is organized crime. What I do … every art-school graduate could do it. It all comes down to very basic things.”

Johnny sighed. “What makes you think you don’t fit in?”

She sat on her knees, putting aside the glass she was holding up until this moment and looked him directly into the eyes.

“I don’t know? Jaehyun is super scary and June is so … flawless? Doyoung seems a bit odd and I don’t know what to think of you but you are professionals. You work in an office, wear ties and suits, do paperwork, crunch numbers, have desks with files on them.”

“Is that how you define professionalism? That we appear to be harmless office employees but aren’t?”

Song nodded quietly.

“Under the pretext of commonplace?”

“Yes.”

There she was again. The girl Song that seemed so innocent and harmless as if she couldn’t hurt nobody and has no criminal record. As if they were two different personalities sharing one shell.

Johnny chuckled and suddenly the dramatic tension that had built up in the studio imploded and disappeared.

“I don’t mean to offend you personally but that’s very naive of you to think. Romanticizing our field of work is what writers do. And I have to ask you to neither put June nor Jaehyun on a pedestal because those two ain’t perfect. Also they’re not the cold and calculating professionals you think they are. “

He saw her face and immediately backtracked. “Don’t get me wrong: Both are evil masterminds and exceptionally at their jobs. But they have their flaws.” He leaned back. “Did you hear about Lucas?”

“Who’s that?”

“He used to work here before we hired you.”

“Why past tense?”

“He … quit. That aside: Lucas and June had an affair that was going on for quite a while if I remember correctly.”

Song gasped and choked. All Johnny did was laughing at her gasping which made things worse.

“Does everyone know?” She asked after catching her breath and being pat on the back by Johnny.

“I’m not sure but I assume at least Haechan does know. Nothing really goes past him. If you want to know things in the future I suggest you ask him.”

He returned to the semi serious attitude he had about himself for the entire evening as he said: “But my point is: Even though I don’t know if there were feelings involved or what exactly their arrangement was, it is what it is. An affair between two coworkers. And if that’s not the epitome of non-professionalism - I don’t know what is.“

Navigation

[mobius-prime]

159. Sonic Super Special #15

Welcome to the final Sonic Super Special ever! Here's my opinion on it. Past Super Specials have ranged from okay to amazing, depending on the writer and the subject matter, and their long length has usually, if you ask me, worked in their favor, as it meant more time and space to tell a compelling story. This is not true of this one. Unfortunately, the last super special of the comic is utterly awful, with two stories that do absolutely nothing to grip my attention, one of which ends in a status quo with a net gain of absolutely nothing, and the other of which is cringeworthy and isn't even very clear on when, where or how it takes place. Let's just get this over with, shall we?

Naugus Games

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Many Hands Colors: Josh and Aimeee Ray

This first story is far, far longer than it has any right to be - it really feels like they were trying to find ways to pad it out it to take up the full 48 pages of the special. Furthermore, you might notice some oddities about the credits above. First of all, Aimee's name is misspelled with three E's for both stories for some reason, indicating some lazy copy-and-pasting as well as a lack of care from the editors. Even more frustratingly, no one is actually credited directly for the pencils (or inks), with the art instead just being credited to "many hands." Remember how I said the comic was getting annoyingly bad about properly crediting people? Now, in case you're confused, there's not just some artist out there literally named Many Hands; instead, that's the comic's way of sidestepping actually bothering to credit any individuals for their work. It just means "eh, a lot of people worked on this I guess, but we don't care enough to actually tell you who." Unfortunately, unlike a few issues ago where the art style was immediately recognizable as Steven Butler's, the art style for this story is foreign to me, suggesting they got some people who weren't their usual artists to work on this one, so I can't even take an educated guess here. All I know is that both the art style in general and the quality of the inks are very poor, and as we'll see, the art gets unforgivably lazy at times. Perhaps best of all, this story was later retconned into a much more interesting and concise version of itself at a later date, with better storytelling and artwork to boot. The only reason, then, that I'm covering it at all, is honestly as a demonstration of just how lazy the comic could get at times, as well as due to the fact that this is the first appearance of "Many Hands," who later pencilled one other issue for the comic that was of equally poor quality.

So this story takes place at an unspecified time in the recent past. It seems to be sometime after Eggman's return, judging by some of the lines of dialogue within the story, but the actual timeframe is pretty vague. Sonic has returned to the Southern Tundra to pay his respects to Eddy, recalling how Eddy sacrificed himself when he, Tails, and Nate all fought Naugus here some time ago. He's brought a single rose to lay on the site of the wreckage, but the ground isn't quite stable…

And here we have the first instance of a truly terrible art decision. Sonic falls into a pitch black cave system, but instead of representing this with maybe one page max of blackness or darker lighting, we're treated to nearly four pages straight of nothing but this:

He blindly stumbles around for a while, informing us of this fact through dialogue bubbles because everyone knows that telling is better than showing in fiction, right? He finally hits a wall and sees a glow through a crack in it, so he tunnels his way into the next room only to find it full of glowing rings - apparently, either he, Tails and Naugus somehow didn't use up all the rings when they fought, or these one have just auto-generated themselves somehow down here. Sonic recalls memories of the previous battle when Nate sealed Naugus away with a wish from a ring, and then decides to try to use one to get out of the cave system.

Wonderful! Apparently, a "wish" as defined by the magic of the rings just means that you think of someone's name while touching a ring, and so with a flash, Naugus is back from his imprisonment in the zone that Nate sealed him into! But how is this possible?

That explanation makes… basically no sense, dude. Naugus was definitely sealed away in another zone, he didn't just get turned into a pile of telepathic rings. But whatever. He and Sonic start battling it out, and somehow make it outside, where Naugus conjures up a snowstorm that consistently stays centered on Sonic no matter where he runs. Time for the second awful art choice of the issue - now instead of four pages of pure blackness, we get six whole pages of this:

I think the best thing about this is that the blizzard backgrounds are clearly not even hand drawn like the rest of the comic is - there's only two types of snowflakes up there, and they're consistently just copied and pasted in that same repetitive swirl pattern on every single page. I get that drawing for a big story in a super special like this can be long and tedious work, but this is why you don't try to find a way to artificially elongate a story like this which could easily be told in the span of a normal issue length. It just ends up making the audience feel like their time is being wasted. Anyway, the blizzard finally ends when Sonic pulls out a ring from his jacket and wishes for Naugus to be sealed away in his previous zone once more, and thus, Naugus is out of our hair again, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Man, if it's this easy to defeat people in this universe, why hasn't anyone tried this on Eggman yet?

Sonic then leaves back for home, thinking one last time of Eddy, who is shown looking down on him from the heavens above. And thank god that story is over.

Sonic Spin City

Writer/Pencils: Michael Gallagher Colors: Josh and Aimeee Ray

Michael Gallagher, over the course of the comics, has gone from one of the series' main writers to basically a guest writer who's brought on every once in a while for special occasions. In this case, he even makes his return as a penciller! Unfortunately, his goofy writing style has begun to clash with the much more serious plots of these later issues, and this story is no exception. It's entirely unclear about whether we're supposed to take this story as actual canon, as a story from an alternate zone, or as just a silly joke story that doesn’t mean anything - and while I tend to try to avoid looking at non-canon materials in this review series (I've already skipped a few stories and issues for exactly this reason), the ambiguity of this one forces me to cover it. In addition, I don't even know why Josh and "Aimeee" were credited as colorists for this story, considering the entire thing is black and white with no color to be found.

Much like the first story of StH#52, this story has the flair of an old detective serial. Sonic is wandering the streets on a rainy night when two swatbots ambush him. Of course, two swatbots are no match.

What does a swatbot need matches for? Eh, whatever. Sonic races over to Rusty's, a hangout for abandoned badniks, and orders himself a "chili dog float," which in addition to sounding absolutely disgusting doesn't even seem like something a bar for robots would serve in the first place. As he takes his seat, the lights go out, and… this abomination emerges onto the stage.

Yes. The badniks are going wild for a swatbot with tits dancing seductively on a stage for them. What is she gonna do, plug them into a wall outlet? They even start screaming out for "the stretch," and appear to get even hornier as she massively elongates her legs for them. I mean, just, what? I swear, Michael, if we get one more weird borderline-sex thing like this from you in this comic, my eyes are gonna pop out of my head like Natsuki. A bot grabs the dancer's ankle, and she's thrown off balance and crashes down, with the head popping off to reveal that underneath, it's Bunnie in disguise.

You know, after her claim all those issues back that she's a "sax cymbal," I'm not even gonna contest the idea that she'd do a sexy dance during infiltration for a mission. Hell, I get the impression she'd do one anyway just for fun back in Knothole if she got the chance. You might also notice her arm is the arm from her old design, and that coupled with Sonic's own design seems to indicate that if this took place at all in actual canon, it was before Eggman's return, though I'm immensely skeptical that this is supposed to be canon at all. Sonic and Bunnie take out the rest of Rusty's customer base, and then evacuate before the last swatbot activates its self-destruct chip, blowing the place sky high. Congratulations, nothing important was accomplished in this issue and nobody cares!

It's kinda sad that the final Sonic Super Special turned out to be so low-quality, honestly. However, this marks a bit of a turning point in the comic. For the first time in its entire run, from now on, there are no more special issues, no sister series, no miniseries, nothing. From the next issue, all the way to almost the 200th, with one exception in the form of a Free Comic Book Day issue, there are absolutely no interruptions from issue to issue. While this may not seem too notable at first, since we've just been reading everything in mostly-chronological order anyway, keep in mind that as far as the comic is concerned we're still in the year 2000, with a mere seven years having passed from the beginning of the comic all the way to now over the course of 159 issues. Over the course of the next 106 issues, we're going to blaze through nine years of comic history, meaning that the story is going to flow a lot faster, with more plot points being covered in a shorter amount of time. While this does make the order of issues a lot easier to follow, since there's no questions about which issue fits in where or anything, I am sad to see all the special issues go, as I quite enjoyed how they served to break up the flow of the comic as a whole with special stories and side content. Though we're still in the middle of our current plot era, we're entering into a new era of the comic as a whole, where we've got a straight shot through the next hundred issues. So I say - let's do it to it!

[velveetacrackncheese]

Hey, Rad... Alex... Alexlememe? I know that's the name you used to go by and I know you've kinda disconnected yourself from Viv's fanbase after ZP ended, and I remember your memes and such but I kinda just wanted to get your take on the Hazbin drama since you reblogged the headcanon blog's post on the subject. More or less regarding the issue of her being uncharitable to fans and non-fans alike, plus that one callout post on twitter?

So this is weird. I wasn’t expecting to get asks on the subject since like you said, I’ve generally been disconnected from the fanbase aside from the few reblogs here and there retaining to Hazbin and its more recent developments. But yeah I guess I could give my take on this since I mean.. old fans still follow me. Idk why, but they do!So, really. In regards to that callout post (which is now deleted) I really, really don’t care that much. For one thing, Initially I did because I really hated to see someone be slandered so viciously with inaccurate and uncharitable attacks, but I kinda just stopped because even when I linked the addresses from both Viv, and the Ken dude regarding all the drama mentioned, it was either ignored and resulting in me being called a “pedo sympathizer” or “It wasn’t even an apologyyyyy weh” and like, whatever. I stopped giving a shit.

Terms of the traced animation thing... Lol, ok. I mean homages do exist, and her animation thingy was based on a meme so whatevs.

Anyways,I knew from the very start that the whole “tracing” and “stealing designs” stuff was nonsense since there was an entire like, tumblr drama arc on the issue, and albeit Viv’s post is gone, there’s evidence of legal contracts regarding Jiji and that whole nonsense that was years ago. In regards to her drawing pictures of Blaire White and Shoe… Eh. I mean, yeah, fuck em, but she’s made it clear that she doesn’t support those views anymore, and she wasn’t even really aware of the other things they’d done at that point, and I see no real reason not to believe her because what does lying about that gain her? Yeah her comment on the “blackface” thing if you wanna call it that was dumb as shit, but considering 2016 was a rough year for her in terms of trying to find where she fell in the political sphere, I can relate because I was in the same boat. A lot of sjw cringe comps, shaming feminists, and purposely misgendering transpeople… Not a good time for me either! Course I’ve changed. I went from being a reactionary alt-centrist to an anarchist so. Whether that’s an improvement is up to you.

As for the whole pedo/zoo shit, I really don’t see it. I mean like, look, obviously porn art portraying people fucking feral animals is disgusting right. Not saying it isn’t problematic or anything, but to be fair, she did draw this shit like 8 years ago. I’ve seen worse from even more well-established artists and I don’t see people trying to cancel them? Also, the art was suggestive for one thing and not necessarily 100% porn. I mean it’s still creepy and gross, and I’d understand scolding them if they continued to do so but a lot worse, but I haven’t seen anything like that from Viv past those 2 drawings. As for the pedo shit… The relationship between a 17 year old and a 19 year old is… hardly creepy and reminiscent of pedo shit. So yeah no fuck that. Now with the drawing of Mirage and Kestrel and the tag that said something jokingly like “Mirage and her pedo tendencies” or whatever… Yeah idk, I can’t defend that lmfao. Again, Viv said she disapproves of those drawings and doesn’t care to think about them, but that one piece of artwork definitely had some baggage to it that made me feel uncomfortable after reading the tags.Only issue I took in terms of her addressing that, is that she was very adamant about it being an inside joke… Which if that’s true, you must’ve had some fucked up friends like damn.

I would also like to state that cub art is legitimately disgusting and I am of the belief that it can cause harm depending on the context since I assume the consumption of cub art can reinforce the urge for pedophiles to act on their desires instead of finding healthy coping mechanisms for it through therapy. There have been stories from younger users on the internet that older people have tried to groom them and have the notion of pedos preying on them be normalized by sending them art depicting kids in sexual acts with adults. Of course in isolation cub art isn’t as harmful as the actual act of raping a child, and I would argue that people have their priorities kind of messed up since the illustration being acknowledged should be part of combating pedophiles preying on children. However, people, typically twitter wokescolds tend to focus on the art solely and I don’t know why. There’s a lot of MAPS trying to find their way into LGBT spaces and it’s fucking gross.

Now with Hazbin itself… It’s meh. Initially I watched it with rose-tinted glasses and loved it. After watching it for like… the 3rd, 4th, 5th time? It’s alright. I don’t hate it, but it’s far from perfect. Now ofc I know it’s a pilot but a very lengthy pilot I’ll say. My biggest gripe with the pilot is that the editing is really fucking weird. Like the editing where Angel tells Alastor “I can suck yah dick!” and the scene that followed was really off. It seemed like too many cuts were made in that instance and seemed very cluttered. It also feels that way during Charlie singing “Inside Every Demon is a Rainbow” and how many little animated bits were like almost wiped off the screen by how fast it came by, and ntm there was just so much happening all at once on screen as well. I had to pause at points just to process everything that was happening. The palette is also very, very, verrrry red. There’s so much red going on and like… I get it, it’s in hell. But lemme rest my eyes on something else besides red, please. The palette they use needs to be better diversified, and the same goes for the characters too. Every character seems to have red on them. Whenever Baxter shows up later he’s gonna look really out of place. Some of the jokes were ok, and others seemed non-clever. I didn’t think Angel’s joke about sucking Al’s dick was funny. I did like the joke with Pentious and Angel though. “SON??” Some of it could’ve been written better too.

Regarding the drama with the show itself… Personally I don’t get it. Like, I don’t feel as if Angel is homophobic as a character since his queerness isn’t at the face of the jokes he makes? He just happens to be sex worker which… sex workers are fine? Support sex workers y’all, seriously. There’s also nothing intrinsically wrong with being sexually active either? As long as it’s within reason and you’re being trustworthy.The issue lies in the fact that people viewed the things I just mentioned as negative, and associate it with gay people as said negatively portrayed thing to push the sentiment of “Gay man do sex a lot therefore the gays bad” or that sort of thing. Also there’s a bit where it shows there’s more emotional depth to him and I’m hoping they’ll expand on that later. Honestly though, the criticisms in regards to that have been pretty uncharitable. Same with the criticisms for Vaggie. Apparently Vaggie is racist because… she’s loud and angry? Again, this is a case where people assume those traits are negative, and because it’s assumed to be negative, the negatively portrayed thing pushes the sentiment of “Being a loud fiery woman made, and latina women are that, therefore latina women bad” or some shit.  There are stereotypes that are bad no matter what the context is like sambo-esque caricatures of black people. Then there are tropes that are applied to certain demographics that have the capability to be written well into characters without it being offensive or disrespectful. Vaggie is literally angry because she’s protective of her gf. Like. C’mon.

So, I think that settles what I think about that? It honestly seems like superficial shit to me tbh, and I’m saying this as an sjw-y beta cuck anarchist.

The only REAL gripe I have, is with what the mod from @zpheadcanons posted. Because I know this is probably true as much as it hurts me to say it. Faust def has a history of being pretty petty and bully-like to people she deems undesirable, and Viv harbors it by not criticizing it, and if anyone else within their friend group does it then you’re scolded vehemently and treated like garbage. Her attitude also stretches to harboring an audience full of white knights that I personally don’t approve of.

There’s also this

Faust has hurt distant people I personally know and… yeah. Maybe I’m biased but I can’t vibe with that. Sorry. If you don’t make an effort to criticize abusive behavior within your own friend circles then that makes you just as bad, because then you’re just a bystander to things you could have prevented.

This isn’t to say Viv herself hasn’t dealt with bad faith actors, or people who had the intention to hurt her, or very uncharitable criticism. Particularly from the badwebcomics forums which is honestly 4chan like in how they operate. It’s vicious as hell, and a lot of their criticisms boil down to insults and personal attacks, which serve to be nonconstructive. That’s not to say Viv has been kind to even the more charitable criticism though. I know because when I happened to send an ask to the zoophobia criticism blog (where did it go???) regarding something relatively minor and superficial, she blocked me from her blog. I’m still blocked lmfao. I’m not blocked on twitter though! (not yet anyways). Faust has me blocked there though, and I have no idea why. She’s had me blocked for years even though I haven’t spoken out against her till recently. So, there’s that.

As for her apology itself, I feel like it was fine. I think it could’ve been worded better? The take I disagree with in terms of that is like… If I made a mistake in the past, and I make it clear that I don’t care for what I did, I don’t feel as if me explaining why I felt compelled to do certain things negate me from still not caring for my past actions? That’s just me providing context. That’s a really weird take, but I guess that could be viewed as an excuse idk. Personally I think people are holding the bar super high to a state of irrationality.

*sigh* So yeah there’s that. I miss the old days where honestly I could be ignorant about this, but at the same time I look at my old obsessive posts and I kinda just… cringe. I was such an irrational stan I almost hate myself for it. Fuck XD

Edit: I’d also like to point out that I’m not saying Viv or Faust are totally awful or totally good people, and I know they’re capable of being better. It’s a matter of whether or not they wanna be better.

[spiftynifty]

Hey there! I’m the same anon that sent that confusion ask to jojo. I saw your reply and Read your post about LGBT in kids shows and how (at the time) it seemed probable for a m|m canon. I wanted to ask what your thoughts are now? I personally think it seems most likely that Keith will end in a het. Relationship (despite it seeming a little rushed and lm and jds saying they wouldn’t) Keith ending with no one when such a strong relationship with shiro was built up just doesn’t seem likely either..

To be honest, I was worried about Kacxa at first too. Many, many other hetero romances have started with less than that and seeing underdeveloped relationships just happen because “he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious” is something we are extremely accustomed to. Heck the show kind of plays right into this with Hunk/Shay.

But Keith is different, he is a far more developed and story-focused character than Hunk is, and thus if he’s to be given a romantic partner then it needs to match that flow and level of development. One of the “rules” that we often get in media is that “romance is a higher level on the relationship chart than friendship”. And at this point, and even after 13 more episodes, there’s just no context this show could offer me where I could honestly believe that Keith could regard Acxa with a similar level of affection to how he regards Shiro, let alone higher. This was the biggest reason I stopped worrying; to be blunt, Kacxa doesn’t make sense on a narrative or character level. Keith aside, Acxa deserves to have a story told that doesn’t involve her following dudes around.

Also, revisiting the show I’m quite convinced that Keith is canonically in love with Shiro, that his feelings for him were intended to be read as so many of us do. There’s a reason so many people in and outside the fandom have written about their relationship with optimism and curiosity about where the show is taking it. It’s there, even for those who have never been looking for it. I know a lot of straight guys who have picked up on it despite never realizing Korrasami was a thing. 

But we definitely do a lot of speculating here in the Sheith fandom and I’ve seen some pretty elaborate meta for scenes that didn’t particularly resonate as shippy for me. So stepping back, shipping goggles off, speaking as a viewer and as someone who works in animation, there are really… 3.5 sequences that give me pause, that are so heavily coded and so… interestingly storyboarded and animated that I find it increasingly impossible to believe the showrunners and directors never intended for their relationship to be read romantically. They are:

Because there is something inherently romantic about the slow zoom on their smiles before the slow drift of them towards each other, the castle forgotten

Because this is blatantly highlighting how beautiful Shiro is and Keith staring at him in awe before he closes his eyes for the last time, resigned to their joint fate

Because I have run all the permutations and scenarios in my mind and there is literally no reason for Keith to stop mid lean, with his eye direction shifting lower than Shiro’s eyeline. It would have been faster and way less work to show him just hugging him without the pause.

And then this is the 0.5:

Because while the canon tempers this moment with “you’re my brother”, I am beyond convinced that that line was added because the scene was too romantically coded without it. And if you don’t believe me, check out this edit someone made of what the scene sounds like without the brother line. It’s incredible. 

But will we SEE canon Sheith? that’s… a little more complicated. 

My post ages ago about LGBT in cartoons was pretty optimistic but where I failed was considering the differences in studios. Some companies are a lot more chill about LGBT content in their shows. But they also aren’t the Big Two: Disney and Dreamworks, whose records of LGBT characters are utterly abysmal. Here are the two they had prior to July 2018: LeFou from live action Beauty and the Beast, and Gobber from HTTYD2 in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it line that was ad-libbed by the actor and left in. Arguments could also be made for the Sheriffs in Gravity Falls (that had to be Dumbledore’d after the fact by the show creator who alluded to there being a fight over it).

NOT great, especially when you consider Disney is not just Disney: none, NONE of the 19 Marvel movies feature an LGBT character, nor do ANY of the Star Wars movies. It’s utterly inexcusable. Shareholders in these companies make things more complicated because they help dictate the direction a company will take and if a large portion of their major shareholders are say, more conservative, we’re going to notice that there is one area on the diversity checklist that is repeatedly getting passed over. The bigger the company, the more complicated the relationship is with shareholders. That’s why it’s difficult to compare Korra’s achievement, through Nickelodeon, to the potential of an LGBT relationship on Dreamworks. We should absolutely hold them to the same standards regardless of company size but we can’t expect to get an endgame LGBT relationship just because Korra did, or because of the giant 20-gayteen celebration going on for two wlw ships at Cartoon Network.

But we also got THIS on Voltron.  

And it’s a start. I think it outlines pretty clearly where the limits are for Dreamworks at this time, especially since many casual viewers seemed to miss the romantic implications of Zethrid/Ezor, and a more alarming number somehow walked away from Adam/Shiro’s fight completely unaware they were a couple. Which honestly, was certainly Dreamworks’ goal. Keep it vague enough to fool the shareholders, but implicative enough to pat themselves on the back for their achievement. Even though it only exists because JDS and LM fought tooth and nail for it. But at the end of the day, we still have Shiro, Shiro our canonically gay rep, and that’s so huge. I don’t think people realize how huge that is, and I wish his coming out party hadn’t been so marred by toxic antis and even non-antis who decided to take a really big moment in cartoon history and make it all about themselves and their own pain over the “more” that they didn’t get. 

It’s incredible that we are getting LGBT in cartoons finally, properly. 2018 celebrated three massive historical achievement in kid’s animation: A strong, muscular, leader hero was revealed to be gay and have had a boyfriends, and two wlw couples kissed–one of them got married, onscreen. 

This is HUGE. Prior to 2018 the biggest LGBT cartoon moment we had was Korra and Asami four years ago. 

It was like for four years everyone fought and fought and fought and 2018 was the breaking point and we got this glorious explosion of LGBT romance as a result. Audience reception to these couples has been immensely supportive, which is something the companies are definitely noting if it’s translating into dollar signs. It’s something that makes me much more optimistic for the future of cartoons in years to come. 

But I’m just going to come out and say it: the road to mlm is just a little bit harder. There are a ton of reasons for this but I’d say the biggest two boil down to: classic, gendered homophobia (the white conservative straight dudes with money supporting the studios have an easier time with the idea of two women making out, cuz that’s “hot” than two men, cuz that’s “weird”), and also because it is easier for people to accept that two overly-touchy women are “just good friends” than it is for them to accept that two male characters doing the same thing are. Guys Don’t Get Affectionate With Each Other, after all, because that’s not the Masculine Way. Or something. Tons of people watched the end of Korra and assumed they were just friends. Replace those characters with Shiro and Keith and it raises eyebrows. 

So where does that leave Shiro and Keith? It’s really hard to say and at this point it’s anyone’s guess. I truly believe Sheith was intentionally coded as romantic, but getting the green light is another matter entirely. In addition to the DW shareholders, JDS/LM have to deal with the Voltron ones and since that would include conservative-minded folk along with some Japanese shareholders and Japan has complicated rules about LGBT content… it’s a hot mess. Realistically speaking if you were hoping to see Shiro and Keith kiss onscreen, it’s time to come to terms with the fact that there is a 0.0002% likelihood of it happening. I think the best outcome we can expect at this point is that they both end up single, with bonus points if they’re still alive and on the same planet by the series’ end. I firmly believe that this IS something the showrunners are and have fought for and will continue to fight for until the last retakes are done and the show has been approved and shipped off to Netflix for distribution. 

My tinhat theory is that there is one, single scene/shot, that is blatantly canon, that JDS/LM and KR animated on the sly, and have at the ready that they are totally prepared to replace another more platonic scene with– should DW give the go ahead. But I doubt that go-ahead will ever come. At the end of the day the shareholders are the rulemakers and unless they’re convinced it’s worth the financial gain, Sheith is forever bound to be the “will they won’t they” friends we have seen for the last 7 seasons. And I don’t think that potential financial gain of the kids’ animation world’s first mlm couple is big enough to convince them. But god do I ever hope I’m wrong. 

[dominicvail]

thjslove replied to your post

“do you think this could be end in one of them getting killed and...”

omg what CM receipts? ��

@thjslove cm is one of the most convoluted behind the scenes messes i have ever witnessed and i am just Astounded till this day like, i’ll bullet point for you because i Genuinely will be here writing this for 3 hours if i do details;

think of all the female cast members that have ever been on cm?? yeah?? a lot! well, the only ones who left in non suspicious circumstances? Lola Glaudini (elle) and Jennifer Love Hewitt (kate). Literally. The only ones. 

one time (between seasons 8 and 9) they almost cancelled the show because aj cook and kirsten vangsness decided they didn’t like that their male costars were making $70,000 more PER EPISODE than they were (this was back when they did 24 eps a season so like... i’m not gonna do the math but that is A Lot Of Money). (they renewed it last day of renewals, it was the same year cote de pablo walked from ncis because of the same reason, legit the only reason they got anywhere was b/c they said ‘we both get raises or we both walk’. 

btw while this was happening, minus Moore, the rest of the male cast was holding up negotiations so they got perks on top of being paid over 50% more than the women. 

this sequence is the kicker

u know season six, the jj and prentiss absences??? 

it was because they both got fired, listed as ‘creative decisions’ (that’s important later), which basically seemed to amount to ‘we want both less women and for her to be younger than both of you’. 

they fired aj cook flat out as her contract had expired that year, in the middle of a 2 parter, and didn’t even want to let her do an exit???? they legit had to fight for the right to have her to film an exit episode (they negotiatied 3 episodes, one for finishing the 2 parter, one exit, and one for when prentiss exited). 

brewster’s contract had Not expired (also important later), they just only decided she should be in 8 episodes. 

it’s important to the sequence of events that i mention outside influences, b/c the cm fans were PISSED. There was a straight up public outcry, i have Never seen a response like it in my many years of obsessive TV watching. People were Very fond of Prentiss and JJ and were Not impressed they were being booted as unnecessary to the narrative, those pesky creative decisions!!! the petitions and public support towards them were pretty incredible actually. 

by that point there wasn’t much that could be done about Cook, but seeing the response CBS kept making Brewster film Way more than those 8 episodes she got slotted for actively dragging her along, Still fired but p much unable to find other work realistically??? b/c they kept calling her back in???

public support was still Overwhelmingly on the actresses side. 

To the point that CBS started ardently claiming the actresses were fired for Monetary reasons. Yeah, they straight up lied, and still lie about it today. I have seen cbs affiliate websites print said lie bluntly in their articles (i no longer read cbs affiliate anything). 

I listed the pay scandal first for perspective on the money lie. At that point i think the men on the cast were wearing about $110,000 an episode, and it got out Cook was earning about £50,000 an ep, and we never heard about Brewster’s salary But when i say she made a Big Deal over finally getting paid as much as the men in the past couple of years i mean it, so we can assume she was also being paid a lot less. My point being, if they needed to save money, it would have been more profitable for them to fire One man on the show than two women. They pay gap was that much. 

so they lied, still lie, about why they fired them and it wasn’t even a good lie. 

ANYWAY

i know the show’s writing isn’t really applicable but Prentiss and Seaver  were never meant to be main characters on the show together, where they dragged out prentiss’ exit, they overlapped and Rachel Nichols had very little to do. 

Anyway, by the time the late eps of the season were airing (and i assume they looked at how many viewers cut loose when brewster left) cbs straight up rang up aj cook and asked her to sign back on (why she was in the last ep despite only being hired for 3 eps that season). She said she hated them but she had a young kid at the time and regular work that was local was helpful (plus, u know, i bet it was a great ego boost).

the season finishes airing, it goes on hiatus with the cast listed 4 season 7 as the men, garcia, jj and seaver. 

u know how i mentioned paget had a contract for s6 still but they cut her episodes down??? Well, CBS used the fact that they wouldn’t let her work on the show anymore despite being signed on as evidence that she was breaching contract if she didn’t go back as a regular for season 7. They threatened to sue her for breach of contract. The only reason prentiss was in s7 was because they used what they did against her that she had no power over to threaten her. So, u know, super nice. 

meanwhile, they fire rachel nichols, don’t bother to actually tell her they’d done it!!! and she found out on fucking twitter (and rachel is such a nice person, and she was absolutely vilified and abused by every idiot on the internet too thick to realise none of the above was her fault jeez). 

so s7 happens w/ the same cast as before, but brewster will Only work to contract and refuses to sign on again for s8. Understandable, tbh. 

they hire jeanne tripplehorn, fandom is disgusting as usual, like, absolutely vile, not surprised just disappointed. 

at the end of season 9 (they have 2 year contracts so like.. it was the end of her contract), despite everything in the  storyline process indicating otherwise and how much of a farce for her character what went down was... Blake left???? No more Jeanne???

Not one peep from bts over what happened.

if that sounds suspicious to you, it is, one of the crew members let slip they’d all been gagged and were not allowed to talk about it. So cbs learnt it’s lessons in as such that they learnt to hide their shitty actions rather than not do anything shitty.

p sure there was another pay scandal in here somewhere too??? 

in terms of The Gay(tm), Reid was like, conceptualised as bi from the get go but that thing in season one with Lila happened so the execs said he could not possibly be bisexual. Yeah. Yeah u read that right. Most ppl laugh at that one and say uhm do you not know what bi is??? but honestly it was just an excuse they knew full well what they were doing imo

why? they did it again! the writers, producers and Brewster all agreed on a scene where an episode opens w/ prentiss waking up in bed with another woman, guess who nixed it!!!! cbs. They also put a gag order on That little fact too! Kirsten Vangsness, bless her, did a podcast a few years ago on afterellen (before it got fuckawful and was with it’s original owners) and, i’d say ‘let slip’ but she knowingly dropped that truth bomb knowing full well she shouldn’t have. I love her. 

lately they’ve made brewster do “interviews” with some of those cbs affiliates where they try and get points??? for saying prentiss was gonna be gay??? like they’re not the ones removing the rep from the show??? and expecting a pat on the back for... refusing to have any kind of gay rep in a show that is by this point conspicuously straight (not that LA isn’t, but it’s not nearly as bad as cm). 

the whole mess with Gibson is... Wild b/c as much as i Loathe the dude he supposedly attacked cbs would not just fire their white guy show lead for no reason and i didn’t see any above the level sites claim any funny business there, but he got fired and cbs rang up Brewster and asked her to be the show lead which, honestly, after being fired for being old and irrelevant must have been AMAZING.

she also takes the time to point out to anybody who asks about her and aj being fired for money reasons that no, it was not about money at all. She basically calls her bosses out for being liars in public interviews frequently and it’s Amazing. 

i’m sure there’s more crap but i’m not recalling it rn

honestly cm bts drama is Wild and this doesn’t even get into the Patinkin drama (which while drama, is not actually anything to do with cbs). 

Interestingly enough, it’s super hard to find out all this stuff unless u were in the fandom the whole time because they’ve bloody lied So Much it’s all everyone even believes anymore. It’s disgusting. 

Still can’t believe  ncis:la’s female cast has done this well for so long???? These are just CM’s reciepts, they have a history of doing this stuff over and over on multiple shows, i know of it as far back as when trek tng was airing in the 80′s and can name more in between. 

[needsmoresarcasm]

Favorite Books of 2018

I read a lot of books in 2018. Here are my favorites (not counting books I re-read), in basically no order. (But actually kind of an order.)

22. Going Rogue, Drew Hayes

Going Rogue is the third book in Drew Hayes’s Spells, Swords, and Stealth series. The series is told in two parts: it follows a group of people playing a Dungeons & Dragons-style role-playing game and a group of non-playable characters in the world of said game. The thrust of the story is on the group of NPCs, which unfolds as a typical fantasy adventure. It’s got a straightforward quest narrative, an adventuring party (turned found family), and impossible odds. As the stories progress, the players begin to sense that the game has its own agency and the characters begin to sense that there may be someone controlling their world. But mostly it’s a fun, self-aware take on a typical fantasy adventure that toys with fantasy tropes. 

21. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I steeled myself for dense literary fiction when I cracked open Americanah, the story of Ifemelu, a Nigerian girl who moves to America and wrestles with race and identity. But that was all for naught because Americanah was one of the easiest reads of the year. The writing is breezy, and the story is funny and brisk. It dissects race and culture in America both by showing (Ifemelu’s struggles to define herself in a new country) and telling (Ifemelu’s hilarious blog posts). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie seems to have perfected the art of delivering dense observations in delightful, consumer-friendly prose. Old white dude authors should probably take note.

20. What If It’s Us, Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera

If I’m going to read a romance, I want it to be light, fluffy, gay, and conflict-free. And that’s exactly what What If It’s Us delivers. The book begins with a meet cute: while mailing a box of his ex-boyfriend’s stuff, Ben bumps into Arthur at the post office. Arthur and Ben are both appropriately awkward and endearing, bumbling and pawing their way through a relationship as only teenagers can. Every character is essentially kind and caring. There are no villains or bullies, no one gets ostracized or beaten, no one dies. The tension mostly stems from the fact that Arthur is only in the city for the summer, which only barely counts as a conflict. And while the universe of the story may be unrealistically polished, their relationship is refreshingly imperfect. Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli are telling a story of young love, not necessarily true love.

19. The Collapsing Empire / The Consuming Fire, John Scalzi

John Scalzi built an astoundingly engrossing world in The Collapsing Empire. The human race has colonized far flung planets with the help of the Flow system, naturally occurring pathways between various planets across the universe that allows otherwise impossible interstellar travel. The Collapsing Empire follows the sharp, sarcastic Cardenia Wu, the newly crowned empress, and sweet, in-over-his-head Marce Claremont, a Flow physicist in far-flung End who has discovered something off with the Flow. It’s got a roiling pace, packed with space battles, political jockeying, and a whole host of delightful characters. It’s one of those audiobooks (narrated by Wil Wheaton) that was so compulsively listenable that I ended up taking long, meandering walks just to hear what happened next.

18. The Shell Collector, Anthony Doerr

Anthony Doerr’s writing is incredible. His sentences all feel divined from the ether. And the short story is the perfect vehicle for that writing, lasting just long enough to build an atmospheric world. Most of the stories are tinged with a little magical realism, used mostly to underscore the unique, grounded humanity of his characters. The collection dives into the histories of people who are in various degrees removed from society and intertwined with nature. But the ultimate thesis, refreshingly, is not about the corruption of society, but rather the inherent value of people.

17. Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin 

I don’t know that I have anything new or interesting to say about James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. A story about desire, and maybe love, between David and Giovanni, every word of that book is filled with intense, crushing emotion desperately crashing onto the pages. It’s about love and sexuality, told in an intimate-verging-on-claustrophobic manner. It’s powerful and interminably depressing and beautiful and devastating. But it’s not devastating because it’s gay, it’s just both devastating and gay.

16. Goodbye, Vitamin, Rachel Khong

Goodbye, Vitamin opens with the main character, Ruth, going through a breakup and dealing with early signs of her father’s Alzheimer’s disease. And somehow, Goodbye, Vitamin is also fun, funny, and heart-warming. The book is sunny and endearing, even as Ruth herself struggles with caring for her father and finding her own identity. Most things described as quirky may be better described as annoying, but there truly is no better word for this book’s sensibility than quirky. The specificity of the descriptions and the cleverness of the wordplay make for a delightful, sometimes deeply poignant, read.

15. Less, Andrew Sean Greer

In many ways, Less shares beats with the incredibly overdone, deeply uninteresting novel about a middle-aged white guy who goes through a midlife crisis and suffers the pain of his own brilliance. Indeed, Less follows Arthur Less as he hits fifty, gets invited to his ex’s wedding, and then travels around the world to avoid confronting any of his problems. But Less is decidedly different: it’s gay. Which means it’s funnier, sharper, and drastically more self-aware. Arthur Less - and Andrew Sean Greer - recognizes the absurdity of his disproportionate reaction to relatively minor problems. He has no delusions of grandeur. He’s not on a journey to unlock his inner genius, just a journey to maybe buy a new jacket and have a fling or two. It’s delightful and funny and warm even as it pretends not to be.

14. More Happy Than Not, Adam Silvera

The devastation of More Happy Than Not cuts in sharp pains and deep gashes. The tragic turns - and in a book about a teenage kid who considers a science fiction equivalent of gay conversion therapy there are many - come as punches to the face, not as lingering aches. And yet, the book doesn’t feel punishing to read. Adam Silvera derives no pleasure from Aaron’s, the aforementioned teen, suffering and carefully builds the foundation of Aaron’s character on his triumphs and joys. Aaron’s life is vibrant and bristling with possibility, streaked, but not consumed, by pain. More Happy Than Not is meticulously plotted and paced, with a few moments of genuine surprise. As always, Adam Silvera writes about tragedy in an entirely uncynical way, with a deep well of generosity for his characters.  

13. Witchmark, C.L. Polk

In many ways, Witchmark feels like the book I spent this entire year trying to find. Witchmark takes place in a pseudo-historical early 20th century England-style setting, in the throes of some capital-W War. Most of the book is styled as a mystery: Miles, a former army doctor, and Tristan, a mysterious outsider, track down clues and chase leads to find a murderer. And, of course, maybe they fall in love along the way. And, oh yeah, Miles is a witch. Oh and also, maybe there’s some royal family drama happening as well. And maybe also some government conspiracies. And also maybe a much larger mystery that involves all of the above. There’s magic and romance and mystery and intrigue and action, and every part of it is completely satisfying. Especially if you’re the type of person who would like to read a scene in which said army doctor needs help undressing because he broke his wrist, and luckily there’s (literally magically) handsome mystery man there to help him!!! (Listen, I never said this was particularly profound literature.) But like, five stars.

12. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore / Sourdough, Robin Sloan

If you want a cozy, feel-good novel that has just the slightest dash of magic, then pick up a Robin Sloan book. Both Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough read as relaxing balms to help soothe aches brought on by the disaster fire of reality. In both books, a young twenty-something attempting to figure out their life discovers a niche world (book collecting and bread baking) and gets swept up in a fantastical mystery. They’re breezy, warm, and brimming with genuine affection and curiosity for the subjects at their centers. Sloan’s writing is incredibly sensory; you can taste the bread and smell the books. They have that Great British Bake Off quality to them: impossibly compelling despite low stakes and uniform pleasantness.

11. Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng

Celeste Ng’s second novel is a careful study of privilege of all sorts, and an especially incisive look into whiteness. Little Fires Everywhere takes place in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a progressive slice of white suburbia. At the book’s center are the Richardsons, a well-off white family who are the types of people that may tell you that they don’t see race--in part because everyone they see is also white.  Things get shaken up when Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl arrive in town, marked as strange by their relative lack of wealth, and marked as even stranger by their lack of shame about it.  Each sentence is beautifully written, and each paragraph immaculately constructed. But honestly, the book is best summed up as: this is some white people nonsense.

10. The Lymond Chronicles (#1-6), Dorothy Dunnett

The Lymond Chronicles books are both the most high brow and most low brow books I read this year. They are densely written and plotted, with an inexhaustible supply of names for characters and teeming with minute details that almost all portend some future event or revelation. But they’re also chock-full of soap opera-style twists and tropes, aimed to quench your id’s every desire. All this makes for books that demand a lot, but then pay off with hilarious jokes, action sequences that convey more physicality and movement than most movies, and ridiculous third act reveals that are so incredibly satisfying. And like, on a selfish level,  it’s also real satisfying to read about people falling in love with and then aggressively berating Francis Crawford for three thousand pages. (He deserves it.)

9. My Life as a Goddess, Guy Branum

I read, or rather listen to, tons of memoirs - by comedians, actors, politicians, and writers. And Guy Branum’s My Life as a Goddess is easily my favorite of the year. Branum incisively writes about growing up as a gay kid in truly the-middle-of-nowhere California, touching on issues of masculinity, sexuality, class, body image, and education. Unsurprisingly, My Life as a Goddess is hilarious, chock-full of jokes and witty observations. More surprisingly, My Life as a Goddess is also deeply emotional, especially as Branum writes about his relationship as his father. Even more surprisingly, My Life as a Goddess is weirdly informative about a very specific slice of Canadian history. I cannot recommend the audiobook of this enough, as Guy Branum’s narration is smart, funny, and winning.

8. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

Does anyone really want to read a Pulitzer Prize winning literary fiction novel written by some white dude about World War II half from the point of view of a goddamn Nazi? No. No one wants to read that. Except, maybe I do. Because that’s exactly what All the Light We Cannot See is, and man is it a true revelation. The sheer humanity that Doerr imparts in his story creates a profoundly moving story, about goodness and cruelty and the indiscriminate destruction of war. The events of the story are uniformly bleak, as expected in a World War II novel, and yet the book’s tone feels decidedly hopeful, hungry to extract optimism from human persistence. It’s a stunningly written book that lays bare the complexities of people and the horrors of war.

7. Bad Blood, John Carreyrou

Bad Blood was truly the most unbelievable story I read this year. Wizards? Aliens? Time travel? All relatively believable compared to the intense, densely plotted, thrilling tale that unravels in Bad Blood, made all the more incredible by its truth. Bad Blood tells the story of Theranos, a Silicon Valley startup that claimed to be revolutionizing blood testing, and its founder Elizabeth Holmes, once described on magazine covers as “the next Steve Jobs.” John Carreyrou, the author, was the journalist who first broke the story of Theranos’s rampant fraud, and he stitches together a coherent, mesmerizing narrative from first-hand accounts of Theranos employees. Elizabeth Holmes is a fascinating antagonist, an ambitious, callous, maybe sociopath. The story is exciting and frustrating and will make you have even less faith in rich, powerful white people. But because this is non-fiction, the entire time you know that Elizabeth Holmes is  eventually going to end up being charged with numerous federal crimes. A truly satisfying ending.

6. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

Allie Brosh didn’t invent the internet, but she at least has as much claim to modern internet culture as any other individual. Hyperbole and a Half is a collection of her best blog posts, with some additional, equally hilarious, stories thrown in. I hadn’t revisited her blog in years, and so it was striking just how little her style has aged. In a time where internet memes have life spans measured in hours, Hyperbole and a Half feels fresh nearly a decade later. The influence of her style and perspective on the internet is far-reaching. From the hilarious (her distinctively drawn self-rendering triumphantly declaring “CLEAN ALL THE THINGS” while holding a broom) to the insightful (her two-part essay on the amorphous gray muck of depression), her stories all feel as though they could be the origin story for any piece of internet ephemera. Hyperbole and a Half is at times farcical, at times poignant, and always raucously funny.

5. Shades of Magic (#1-3), V.E. Schwab

The Shades of Magic series (A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, and A Conjuring of Light) is the perfect fantasy adventure: the characters are imminently rootable, the world is seeped in magic, and the plot is intoxicating. The books are set in London, or Londons, rather. There are four parallel Londons, which have embraced, rejected, or surrendered to magic to varying degrees. Our protagonist, Kell, is one of the few with the ability to travel between the different Londons. And, well, hijinks ensue. Dark, sprawling, brutal, violent, life-consuming hijinks.

The Shades of Magic series is unburdened by its worldbuilding; V.E. Schwab could probably teach a semester’s worth of history lessons on her world, but does not feel the need show that off in the books themselves. They’re books to be devoured, not dissected. But it’s the characters that make the series so engrossing. Everyone is an archetype-a street-worn thief, a charming prince-but so well-drawn and understood that every character moment sparkles. And the central relationship of the book, between Kell and his brother Rhy, felt as though it was perhaps extracted directly from my brain. Kell is stoic, burdened by responsibility but determined to protect. Rhy, the aforementioned charming prince, injects Kell’s life with mischief and levity, and they’re so fundamentally dedicated to each other that it hurts. If a bunch of well-meaning idiots trying to save the world with magic is your thing, A Darker Shade of Magic may be the series for you.

4. Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng

If you thought a quiet, contained rumination on race, gender, nationality, and culture couldn’t also be a compelling, tense page-turner, let me introduce you to Everything I Never Told You. Everything I Never Told You is nothing short of literary alchemy. It begins with the death of Lydia, the model daughter of the Lee family--and, really, the model daughter of 1970s America. The book unravels the mystery of Lydia’s death, told through the vignettes from the lives of the Lee family members.

Celeste Ng is a master at using a paragraph to describe years of a character’s history and decades of American society all at once. Her characters are specific and sharply drawn, rooted deeply in their time and environment. Lydia, with a Chinese father and a white mother,  is mixed race (a term not added to the U.S. Census until 2000)--“one of only two Orientals” at her school.  The other, her brother Nathan, has learned to live in Lydia’s shadow in their parents’ mind’s eye.  Marilyn, Lydia’s mother, had her own ambitions sidelined by family. With a deft, heartfelt touch, Everything I Never Told You viscerally conveys their regrets for the words left unsaid and lives left unlived.

3. History Is All You Left Me, Adam Silvera

As this list makes clear, I loved a lot of Adam Silvera this year, and History Is All You Left Me stands out as my favorite. In dual timelines, History Is All You Left Me tells the story of Griffin after and up to the accident in which his ex-boyfriend Theo dies unexpectedly. And so, yes, the book is soaked in grief and loss. And, yes, it’s devastating and aching. But it’s also incredibly kind and empathetic. The characters are teenagers and make the choices of teenagers. Their actions are messy and rash and stupid, and Silvera leans into that, landing more than one self-inflicted heart-wrenching blow. But Silvera is also unfailingly patient with teenagers and understands their resilience; he lets his characters make mistakes and has faith that they will survive. And so the book is heavy, but optimistic. A refreshing reprieve from the gratuitous suffering and bleakness that tortures so much LGBT-themed fiction.  History Is All You Left Me is the most affecting book I read all year, and it still lingers in my bones. But the impression it has left is of life, not loss.

2. An American Sickness, Elisabeth Rosenthal

I bristle when someone describes a book as “important.” It always seems patronizing and self-serving, and my natural contrarian kicks in. I get it, you want to tell everyone how well-read or socially conscious you are because you read an “important” book. So it is with eyes wide open, and more than a twinge of self-loathing, that I say An American Sickness is an important book. It feels like essential reading, certainly for anyone trying to affect American healthcare policy, and at the very least useful for anyone who ever has to deal with the American healthcare system. It will make you angry and frustrated, but hopefully it will also arm you with information.

An American Sickness is broken up into two distinct parts: the first half lays out the issues with the current healthcare system, including how it came to be, and the second half presents solutions. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal writes accessibly about potentially dry, dense subject matter. The book’s purpose is not to exhaustively detail the history of healthcare, but to better equip the average person to navigate the system. Dr. Rosenthal provides anecdotes to anchor the matter in tangible issues and gives just enough context to sketch the motivations of the various actors - doctors, hospitals, insurers, pharma companies, etc. She presents solutions from two perspectives: (1) changing healthcare policy as a whole, and (2) navigating the system as an individual. In a methodical, step-by-step manner, the book explains concrete things a regular person can look out for, questions they can ask, and actions they can take to avoid--or challenge--exorbitant medical bills. There’s literally an appendix with fill-in-the-blank form letters to use to request billing information and challenge bills. You don’t have to read this book, but I want you to.

1. Chemistry, Weike Wang

Sometimes a book is so intimately catered to you it’s as if the author waded through your subconscious, fished out the tangled threads of your thoughts, and then wove them into a tapestry that displayed every single one of your hopes, dreams, and aspirations. For me, that book is Chemistry. Chemistry follows an unnamed Asian American protagonist who is discontented with her current situation: her long-term boyfriend, her Chemistry PhD program, and her relationship with her parents. And the novel unfolds as she comes to terms with that discontentment.

The economy of Weike Wang’s writing is spellbinding. She uses words so efficiently and so cleverly to craft sentences that seem fundamental. On seemingly every page, there was a new observation that felt so obviously true that I was surprised I had never read those exact words before. The book is filled with jokes, driven by the protagonist’s wry sarcasm and gentle disdain for things and people generally. The whole thing is somehow both simple and complex, an easily digestible read with a deceptively complex flavor. There are no splashy revelations or sudden tragedies, only hard-earned emotional truths and the realities of getting by. Chemistry nails the general spirit of just attempting to function as a normal human person in 2018.

[dramaqueeenamby]

Family Counseling (3)

Family Counseling (3) - Drabble

MASTERLIST

A/N: I’m honestly so humbled by all the love you guys have been showing this random ass idea of mine! Like, dudes! You guys are awesome! Thank you so much! This particular drabble concludes this ‘day’ so the next will include a slight time jump.

Also, I’m a Marvel nerd so my T’Challa is a hybrid of movie T and comic T who, tbh, is kinda an asshole. As the story progresses, you’ll see more of his douche ways and how he’s matured. 

As promised, tagging the following awesome people who requested! Hopefully, I’m doing this correctly. I’ve been away from Tumblr for a while now so I’m still trying to get reacquainted. If you’d like me to tag you in future updates, let me know! 

@janellemonaenae | @ruminationsofaraven | @dreamer7black 

Words: 2290

“What about that kid you were telling me about?” She suddenly remembered, taking another spoonful of chocolate ice cream. “The one Stark mentors?”

Shuri rolled her eyes. “He’s too young.”

“Aren’t you two like the same age?”

“Chronologically, yes,” Shuri spoke as if it was obvious. “But mentally? He’s not on my level. Although he does get my humor….”

“So, friendzone?”

“Absolutely.”

“Gotcha.” She smiled. “Well, what about that prince?”

The princess groaned. “He’s insufferable and a male chauvinist. Do you know what he said when I told him about my being over the outreach center?” She shook her head. “That’s cute.”

She frowned and shook her head. “He is an idiot, Shuri.”

The younger girl suddenly smiled sadly. “Baba used to say that I’d probably end up having to genetically create my own beau when the time came.”

“Well, you do have a history….”

“I do not!”

“Shuri….”

“I just have high standards.” She shrugged. “And refuse to settle like you did.” The princess noticed the curious look on her sister-in-law’s face and decided to elaborate. “It’s nothing personal, but I can’t see myself being like you. You put up with so much shit from my brother, and yes, it paid off in the end, but at what cost? Years of heartache and being someone’s second choice? No, thank you.” She said nothing, letting the younger girl express her feelings because that’s what this was all about and second, Shuri had a point.

Most women in her position would have been done with him when she woke up the following morning after he took her virginity and found him gone.

He had returned back to the states.

He didn’t even tell her bye.

She’d put up with a lot from T’Challa before he finally made up his mind as to what he wanted or, more importantly, who he wanted.

“Life is too short.” Shuri continued in a softer voice. “I see that now.”

“Do you still have nightmares?”

Shuri winced at the word but nodded slowly. “Not as often, but yes.”

She reached out to caress the top of her head. “Same subject?”

Again, Shuri nods. “Sometimes I just wish that I could forget, ya know? It would make it easier. Go back to the way things were.”

“A lie always has a way of revealing itself, Shuri.” She reminds softly, allowing the young girl to rest her head on the older woman’s shoulder. “No matter what.”

“How do you do it? How do you not hate him?” The scientist shook her head. “I mean, you love my family just as much as I do, and he’s hurt you just as much as the rest of us. He is a monster. A heartless, soulless monster.”

She chuckled quietly. “Hate is a strong emotion Shuri….” Her powers were connected directly to her emotions so if those got out of control, then so did her abilities, and that would only end in disaster as she had never truly tested the extent of what she could do, but had a feeling it wouldn’t end well. “Plus, I’ve spent some years being trained on how to see the good in people no matter what.”

“You honestly believe that he has good in him?”

“I do.” She answered without hesitation. “Now can I ask you something?” Shuri nodded. “If you truly believe that there is no good left in him, why do you think your brother saved his life?”

And for that, Shuri had no response.

+++++++++

She was chatting with a few members of the Dora Milaje when he stormed into the room, still in his suit, the only part of him visible being his face.

The warriors stood to acknowledge his presence, but he did not even return their salute.

She knew then that he was livid.

“Leave us.”

Immediately, they scattered. The hadn’t even shut the door all the way when he started to rip into her.

“What in the hell were you thinking?”

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “It is nice to see you too, my love.”

“Do not-“ He shut his eyes and forced himself to calm down. “I am in no mood for games. You had no right-“

“Excuse me?” She interrupted, standing up from the bed and moving closer to him. “King, you are, but my master you are not. And more importantly, you do not get to tell me how to do my job.”

“This has nothing to do with work, and you know it.” He snapped, and she realized then as the vein in his forehead protruded that he truly was more irate than he was letting on. “This is about you not only endangering your life but the life of our child! Not to mention everyone else that you two came into contact with!”

“Do you honestly believe that I would ever do anything to put anyone in danger?” She scoffed in incredulity. “I had everything under control, T’Challa. Do I look hurt to you? Were you briefed on any incidents during your absence? No! Why? Because I am more than capable of handling what it is that I do, and I thought that you knew that.”

“You are missing the point. He is dangerous, y/n!”

“So am I! So are you! Hell, we all are!”

“Do not even try to put him in the same category as us. He is a killer, y/n, and no amount of therapy or rehabilitation or whatever this is that you are trying to do will change that!”

“So what would you have me do? Abandon him just as King T’Chaka abandoned his father? Abandoned him?”

She knew that she was hitting below the belt, but she didn’t agree with T’Challa. Not at all, and she’d never been one to stay quiet in the face of a disagreement.

She turned to walk away when he shouted at her.

“I saved his life!”

She whipped her head around to match his tone, “And what is a life of misery, T’Challa?!” She shook her head. “You said it yourself. He was willing to die rather than spend the rest of his days rotting in a prison cell, but I suppose you think that locking him in a room with 24-hour surveillance is somehow better, right?”

“What would you have me do then, y/n?” T’Challa sighed, starting to sound defeated.

“I do not need you to do anything except trust me, but it seems as if you can’t even do that.”

T’Challa shook his head, “Why do you defend him so?”

She opened her mouth and then closed it. Should she? No. Hell, why not. “Because…I see myself in him.” Neither husband nor wife said anything for a good minute, but both maintained eye contact. She waited for him to speak, but instead, he turned around and headed for the door. “T’Challa.” He kept his back toward her but ceased his movement. “He knows about the baby.”

She watched his shoulders rise and expected for round two to commence, but instead he ripped open the door and slammed it behind him.

She stood there for a while before the sound of heavy rain penetrated her ears and she looked out the window to see that it was storming. One look in the mirror across their large bedroom and she realized her eyes were white and her cheeks were stained with tears.

“Damn,” she wiped at her face and shut her eyes, willing herself to calm down. It wasn’t working. She then decided to go with option two. Stripping off her clothes, she headed for the bathroom and stepped into the shower, telepathically turning the knob.

As the water rained down on her, soaking her from head to toe, she tried to calm her growing nerves. This was why she hated fighting with T’Challa because while it didn’t happen often, when it did, it was hard.

She felt bad about sharing the news of their pregnancy without talking to him about it first, but that was the only thing she regretted. She needed him to understand her point of view and sure, maybe she could have done more to hear him out, but he wasn’t being reasonable.

As she started to cleanse her body, her eyes fell on her stomach. She thought about her baby, their baby. The fight, the stress, it couldn’t be healthy. She was only two months along but being a mutant, she wasn’t sure how her pregnancy could or would differ from that of a non-mutant. And she refused to do anything to make the next seven months anymore difficult than they were already setting out to be.

She spent the next thirty minutes washing her hair and body before exiting the bathroom with towels wrapped around her head and body. Upon entry into her bedroom, she was shocked to find her husband sitting on the edge of the bed, clad in only boxers.

It was evident that he’d also showered and cleaned himself up, just in another room. When their eyes met, she immediately looked away, hating how the sight of his muscular physique sent a jolt of heat through her own body.

After all, she was just angry with him, then she was crying, now she was…turned on?

Damn hormones.

She turned to grab clothes out her dresser when he called out to her.

She froze. “What?”

He released a heavy sigh. “Come here.”

She started to give a smart reply, but her body betrayed her as her legs carried her over to him and she was suddenly standing directly in front of him.

“Yes?” She spoke with evident irritation.

He reached up and gingerly caressed the top of her left cheek. “I need to ask you something.”

She turned her eyes to the corner of the room. “Okay…”

“You said that you see yourself in him-“

“And I meant it-“

“Explain that to me.”

She finally looked at him and furrowed her eyebrows. “What? T, I do-”

“Please.”

She paused but realized that he was serious. “We both witnessed the murder of a parent, granted the circumstances were a little different, but the trauma was still substantial. Both were thrown into the system and fell victim to the horrors of that and…” As she trailed off, his other hand went under her towel, lightly caressing the back of her thigh in a comforting motion.

“Rejection.” He supplied. She said nothing. “Because of me.”

“What?” She met his eye and shook her head. “No. T’Challa, I had always felt rejected, long before I even met you. Those issues stemmed from my father not being around. They just weren’t exactly helped because of what was happening with you, but….why are you asking me this?“

“Because I need to know that I have not made the same mistakes as my father did for the seed of rejection leads to a path of destruction and discord.” His words made sense to a certain degree, but she failed to see their application to their argument earlier and her confusion must have shone through because he proceeded to explain. “This is not just about Erik. You were right. I was wrong. I cannot allow myself to let his past to define him, although I wish you had asked me before you had told him about the baby.” A beat. “It is about us as. When you said you saw yourself in him, all I could see was how my father’s actions resulted in a line of death and darkness. He made Erik into what he is today, and I could never forgive myself if I did the same to you.”

All she could do was stare at him. This was why she could never leave the man if she wanted to. Every time she thought he’d finally done it, finally crossed the line, he managed to redeem himself, prove himself worthy of everything she had to offer.

This was the side of him that she absolutely loved. The side that he didn’t show to too many people, the side that she was sure would always have possession of her soul.

“Your father was not a perfect man; however, he was a good king and a great father.” She settled onto his lap and turned sideways so that his arms could wrap around her waist. “But you…you, my love, your reign will set precedence for generations to come because you rule not with this,” she points to his head, “but with this,” and then his heart. “And that is also why you are going to make an amazing baba.” She brought her lips to his temple.

“What about husband?” He spoke innocently, but his hands started to lightly tug on the bottom of the towel wrapped around her body.

She smiled against his skin and shifted so that she was straddling him. “I don’t know.” She pulled the towel off her hair and threw it to the ground, her afro 75% dry and purposely took her time undoing the top of her body towel. “We can certainly work on it though, right?”

He quickly grew frustrated with her teasing and snatched the towel, flipping her and pushing her back on the bed, attacking her body with a burning hunger.

“Wait,” she panted as his mouth moved from her lips to her breast, taking a few extra seconds on her stomach, before she clenched her legs shut to deny him access. She giggled when he looked up with obvious irritation. “Can we tell the medical team about the-“

“I don’t care.” He cut her off, his voice low with need, as his hands forced her legs apart, pulling her body down the mattress so that they rested comfortably on his shoulders.

“Basta-ahh.”

Suddenly, she didn’t care either.

[freebooter4ever]

I've never seen it but now I want to watch The Magnificent Seven. But I have to study. Rip me.

I heartily reccommend it my dear anon! I was super hesitant going in and reading reviews that were like “the minority characters were flat and tokenized” . and I mean like you read the summary and goody is a ex confederate marksman and theres only one native american role so thats like ugh why but the key here is that this is a western directed by a black man with a black male lead playing the role of that mysterious righteous sexy cowboy archetype usually reserved for white dudes in the 60s. I also read complaints that the lack of racism wasnt “historically accurate”, but damn it if white cowboy movies got to rewrite history and tell noble self sacrificing but ultimately Hopeful and Good and Happy stories  about the brutal american wild west, so can this one. My one complaint is that there is a heck of a lot of religion in this movie, but its done in a spiritual way and the native religious traditions are treated with equal reverrance/romantic cheesyness, and mostly it only adds to how Noble the overall movie feels, so I kinda liked it. Racism warnings and stuff under the cut because I know theres gotta be other people who are hesitant watching things

I also take issue with the claim that the main characters dont experience racism. Because they do, except in this story every instance of that racism is not only shown as bad and gross but also is overcome. I dont want to give spoilers, but the first badass moment Sam’s Suave Cowboy gets is the bartender refusing to serve him while the rest of the all white clientele watch. bar tender gets what he deserves and Sam proves his skill and superiority with ease in smooth cowboy style. It is badass and I got all fangirly. There is also a moment at the end where Sam’s motivation is finally revealed, and it is intense, but again Sam proves that he is a force to be reckoned with and ultimately, is the better person for overcoming the racism and getting his revenge (this is the one moment where sam almost loses control). Also, most of the white dude characters serve as foils for sam’s character, like Sam forgiving and befriending Goody, who clearly deeply regrets his role in the civil war, is used to show how much pain Sam has gone through and how he now is the one with the upper hand - its sams choice to forgive if the man EARNS Sams forgiveness and goody works really hard to do that. Or how Chris Pratt’s characters goofy bumbling drunkenness is shown in stark contrast to Sam’s steady, wise dignified old cowboy persona - that is straight out of western tropes, I have seen bits and pieces of enough of my step dads shitty old john wayne movies to know. And Sam is Always the leader, like there is never any question. And yeah, maybe this is what people mean when they say it doesnt feel historically accurate because our society cant imagine a black man being a leader immediately after slavery, excet for the fact that Sam proves his leadership abilities again, and again, and again, and there are logical reasons for all these six men to accept him as their leader. And even if that wasnt the case, again, wild west movies rewrite history, the director should be able to just give us a black leader without question lol.

The other minority characters fall into some tropes, which leaves a little to be desired, but not in a totally horrible way. Billy nearly crosses the line into model minority, stern silent Asian fighter stereotype but like he has so many badass scenes, its hard to be bothered by that too much. Also the movie makes it clear that Goody uses his white privilege to diffuse situations between racist assholes and Billy. The Mexican character is…well almost as flat as the white trapper character. He was charismatic and had a debonair sense of honor and definitely gave back as good as he got but theres not much for the actor to work with. I dont even remember the poor dude’s name. Same with the Comanche character, who is again used mostly as a foil for Sam, to show Sam’s sympathy for Native Americans and Sam’s ability to act as peacekeeper/leader even across cultures. It would have been great to see more of the native characters, and have them be less magical but honestly the representstion is leaps and bounds better than say that norman reedus flick “Sky” which was just plain embarrassing. This comanche character clearly has his own agenda and motivation, and he is given quite a few “woah!” fight moments. If anyone can find a good critique of the movie by a socially aware critic, I’d love to read it!

Oh, also the female roles were non existant but this falls under the LOTR type sexism where like…women arent really there much or relevant to the plot at all so you dont need to put blinkers on to watch it lol. Theres a throwaway female character and shes super beautiful and gets her crowning moment at the end but mostly shes just there to look pretty. They put her in the most impractical revealing outfits like lady if you are traveling across country on a horse under the hot desert sun dont wear a dress that exposes your shoulders and the tops of your breasts to sunburn lol. Kinda funny that they werent historically accurate with that but they did decide all the people doing the fighting had to be male becsuse men did war back then and women just hid under floorboards. Except the female lead becsuse shes Special.  lol. At least no one is gross or sexist to her, that was refreshing.

BASICALLY haha for someone like me who hates the politics of westerns but loves the aesthetics and the desert vistas and the adventure feel and the damn catchy music, this one feels like a breath of fresh air and i’d watch it ten times in a row like i did with the 3:10 to yuma remake when it came out haha.

[rkfstudio]

Top Ten Comic Characters of All Time (according to me)

Introduction/disclaimer:

This list is mine and is based on my personal and subjective criteria. My choices are based on what I have read in comics as opposed to other media. For instance, one of my favorite superheroes, Squirrel Girl, is not on this list because I have read next to none of her comics and my love of the character is based almost exclusively on her concept and her appearances in other media.

Also, some people might want to fault me and my list for a lack of “inclusiveness” or “representation” or whatever. Full disclosure: I’m a straight white dude and I tend to relate most to the straight white dude characters that have historically dominated the comics world. Thus, I’m more likely to be drawn to stories about those characters. I do not apologize for my tastes. If they radically differ from yours, feel free to make your own list and tell me why you like the characters you like. That would be awesome.

Finally, there are half a dozen characters outside this Top Ten that could jump into it at any moment. This list represents my Top Ten at the time I wrote this and is subject to change.

Still with me? Cool! Here we go!

 10. Wolverine

               Most people would put Logan aka James Howlett aka the Wolverine much higher on their lists, and I completely understand why. He is “the best he is at what he does” ™ and is one of the most complex and interesting characters in comics. He also, until his death a couple of years ago, was perhaps the most overexposed character in all of comics. He’s a down to earth guy who mostly just wants to be left alone, but neither the comic world nor the comic industry is willing to give him a break. With a cool and dark backstory and super cool powers, he’s one of the legitimate badasses in the Marvel universe.

9. Blue Beetle/Jaime Reyes

               “What is this blasphemy?! Jaime Reyes ranked higher than Mr. Snikt?!” Yes. This is my list and I say Jaime gets a higher spot.

Hear me out on this. Beetle gets this spot on my list mainly due to his introductory arc during DC’s “One Year Later” event and his recent “Rebirth” run. Both runs are well written with great character interaction and dialogue. Jaime’s just a regular high school kid who also happens to be a superhero. Not the most original concept (*cough* Spider-Man! *cough*) but he pulls it off in what feels like a fresh way. It also doesn’t hurt that he was a show stealer in his recurring role in the “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” cartoon a few years ago. But his comics just shine to me.

8. Batman

               More controversy! Batman is only at number 8! I realize most people place him much higher because he’s one of the more relatable members of DC’s top-flight heroes in that he’s just a man in a world of gods. For me, he suffers from the same kind of overexposure that Wolverine has had over the years. I also don’t tend to find him as interesting as the characters he deals with, whether his allies or his rogues' gallery. He’s a darker, more brooding Iron Man (I realize Batman came first, but I think the comparison is still valid). I find him at his best when he’s forced to play with others, especially Superman, because the tension between the “solitary crimefighter” and the “super team” dynamics can be so fun. Recommended reading includes the Justice miniseries by Alex Ross and Co. and the Justice League: Lightning Saga story arc.

7. Captain Marvel/Shazam!

               For the five of you that are still reading, this entry might be the last straw. Bear with me. Batman is the dark, brooding hero of the night. Captain Marvel (or Shazam for those willing to give up the ghost of Fawcett Comics) is the polar opposite of that: he is bright, colorful, and full of whimsy. Whimsy and wonder are both things that are in short supply in this post-Watchmen comics world, and that’s a shame. It’s that harkening back to the core of how comics began that is a large part of his appeal to me. Interestingly enough, it’s a couple of his more recent stories that have made me love him as a character. Jeff Smith, of Bone fame, wrote an origin miniseries for Captain Marvel called Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil and it’s wonderful. Also recommended is his part in the previously mentioned Justice series.

6. Captain America

               This is a more conventional pick. Cap makes this list for similar reasons to the previous Captain on this list: he represents the values and sentiments of a bygone age. In particular, his refusal to compromise his beliefs regardless of the personal cost is a breath of fresh air and too seldom seen anymore. Leader, soldier, champion of liberty, that’s Cap. Look up his run in the New Avengers series up through the Civil War arc to see exactly what I’m talking about.

Also, Hydra Cap never happened. Just no.

5. Joker

               You know how the last two choices were upstanding, almost squeaky-clean citizens?

              Yeah, good times.

              For someone completely different, Number Five gives us the Joker. He is, bar none, the most fascinating supervillain ever, responsible for some of the most twisted moments in mainstream comics. Jason Todd? That was the Joker. Barbara Gordon? Yep, that was him, too. Harley Quinn? Mistah J says, “You’re welcome.” The Joker is sick, twisted, and downright evil, and he embraces it like no other. Sometimes, a villain isn’t misunderstood; sometimes a villain is just a villain. And the Joker does “villain” with a style all his own. Required reading includes the Justice series (can you tell I like this series? I do.), the Dark Knight Returns, and, of course, The Killing Joke.

4. Superman

               Honestly, I thought Supes would be higher on my list. He’s the first superhero and still, to me at least, one of the best. I realize most folks find him to be too powerful to be relatable, and there’s no small amount of validity to that point. But the best part of this character isn’t his ability to punch planets out of orbit or “leap tall buildings” or any of that. It’s his... well, his character. That middle-America farmer’s son upbringing, with its sense of right and wrong that has so seldom failed him, is what makes Superman more than just the Last Son of Krypton. To borrow from Kingdom Come, it’s the “man” more than the “super” that makes him special. It’s what makes him a symbol of virtue and excellence, a standard to which we can aspire. It’s Clark Kent, rather than Kal-El, that I want to be like. Some good reading includes the aforementioned Kingdom Come, The Superman/Batman Supergirl arc (this is actually a good Batman read, as well) and, you guessed it, Justice.

3. Hellboy

               Sadly, this is the only non-Big-Two character on my list. For now. I’m just starting to branch out so future lists might have more.

               Anyway, Hellboy makes the list because he isn’t what you’d expect him to be. The son of a major league demon and destined to bring about the apocalypse, he should be an earth-shattering villain. But he’s a hero because of his upbringing by a paranormal expert. Nurture triumphing over Nature. The monster as the hero. Also, he’s just a fun character and his stories are good stuff. Of particular note, mainly because this is what I’ve read, is the recent Hellboy and the BPRD 1950s series.

2. Rocket Raccoon

               If you’ve read this far, this pick really shouldn’t surprise you. Sometimes, we want heroes to inspire us to be better people.  Sometimes, we just want a raccoon with a big flarkkin’ gun. Rocket’s recent string of short series, both solo and with Groot, are just fun reading.

1. Hulk

               This was the one pick I didn’t need to think about; Hulk was at Number One from the start. The concept of a super smart guy who turns into a raging monster when he loses his cool resonates with me on an intensely personal level. While he has had quite a few strange turns in his comics history, the big guy really came into his own during the Planet Hulk series, where he was shot into space by his best “friends” to a planet full of enemies and dangers that only the Hulk could survive. His development from monster to gladiator to fugitive to king, and then to vengeful conqueror in the following World War Hulk, is one of my favorite arcs in all of comics. Whether big and kind of dumb or big and super smart or somewhere in between like in the stories I’ve mentioned, Hulk is my Number One comic character of all time. At least until the next time.

                So, that’s my list. But what’s a list like this without some honorable mentions?

Honorable Mentions:

12. Rorschach

               This is the obligatory Watchmen pick. While I don’t like the story, I appreciate the historical impact it’s had on the comics industry. Rorschach is the only character that I can call anything close to a “good guy” despite his extreme homicidal tendencies. His refusal to go along with the alien invasion story covering Ozymandias’s murder of millions of people “so billions might live”, his refusal to accept the lesser evil, shows an integrity that is perhaps outdated but no less laudable for being outdated.

13. Renee Montoya/the Question

               The first woman on this list and it’s neither Wonder Woman nor fan-favorite Kitty Pryde. Renee Montoya is, to me, a more interesting character than either, mostly because she’s very flawed. She’s rough around the edges; she drinks to excess; she has doubts about her abilities and her value as a detective. I gather most of this info from her run in DC’s 52 series, which is a great read on its own.

16. Lex Luthor

               This guy.

               This guy right here.

               He’s the stereotypical “evil businessman” and yet he is so much more. A legit genius who inevitably uses that genius to fight petty grudges rather than help humanity reach claims potential like he claims to care about. Kingdom Come, Justice, you know the drill.

19. Iron Man

               Some characters combine seriously cool abilities with personalities that are seriously hard to like. Iron Man is cool; Tony Stark is just an egomaniacal jerk. It’s also worth noting that Tony often has to use Iron Man (and the Avengers) to fix problems of his own making. He’s a great character, but he’s not a good one.

25. Deadpool

               Because Wade was going to kill me if I didn’t put him somewhere on this list.

               Seriously. He’s standing right next to me while I’m writing this.

              Help me.

30. Death of the Endless

               I’ve honestly only read one issue featuring Death, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, #8. But that one issue is probably my favorite single comic issue ever. It’s stark, poignant, and beautiful. My list had 29 characters and I immediately thought of her for Number Thirty, but I’m sure she’ll move higher if I ever read any more of her stories.

               Well, that’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed this strange trip through my comic book preferences. For real, to all who’ve gotten this far, I’d love to read your Top Ten. I find the reasons why different people like different characters fascinating.

              Till next time, cheers, y’all!

[sagesspagesblog]

Its a season of love (for some of us)

Are you comfortable with talking about your sexuality? Lucky for the Gen Z generation, coming out isn’t seen as controversial in America (for most people) as it was generations ago. According to advocate.com, only two thirds of Gen Z is straight, and because of growing acceptance for all people of the LGBTQ+ communities. So what do people think about being apart of these communities, and for straight people, what impact does the LGBTQ+ community has on them?

So let’s get into it! 

Q-What is your sexuality? 

For the most part, my survee’s were all Gen Z, and I like how this sort of mimics the real life counterparts.

Q- Are you comfortable with talking about your sexuality?

Q- If you are LGBTQ+, do you find it easier to come out to people closer to you or people who you don't know as well? Why?

“People you don’t know as well you won’t encounter again so you don’t have to deal with much different treatment, however, my friend group have always been open so i’ve had no issue.”

“I find it easiest to come out when prompted. But definitely easier with closer friends than with family for example.”

“People I trust because I have proof that they will hear me out.”

“I haven't "come out" to anyone for a while so honestly I'm not sure, I guess it depends on the situation. In general people closer to me can be harder to come out to because I care more about what they think; I really don't care what Joe Schmoe from history class thinks of me, so coming out to him is easy.”

“i generally get an idea of how open-minded the person is before telling them and i only do if it’s relevant to the conversation. their closeness to me doesn’t matter as much as you might think. for me it’s like my tattoos, it’s just a part of me. it doesn’t always need to be shared, doesn’t need to be understood, but when it’s relevant i like to open up sometimes.”

Q-If you are straight, do you often find yourself worried that a LGBTQ+ person/friend might find you attractive?

Q-Do you often find yourself associating religion with sexuality? (ex- the Bible does/does not say that being gay is a sin)

Q- As a straight person, would you ever consider dating a trans woman/male? Why or why not? 

“N/a, however i definitely would.” 

“No, it’s just a preference to be honest. I’d rather date a straight woman.”

“Depends on their personality not there sexuality.”

“No. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“No, I would want children and being a trans woman that wouldn’t happen. (I wouldn’t adopt/ have a surrogate)”

“Yea because if they really look like a guy then I would have no problem dating them.”

“of course! if their pronouns are he/him (or even they/them 🤷🏽‍♀️) of course i will!”

“I don’t think I would consider it.”

Q-As a LGBTQ+ person, do you feel like there is bad stereotypes about your sexuality? (ex- gay men being too "feminine")

Q-As a LGBTQ+ person, what do you think is the worst thing a straight person could do to you in an everyday sense (ex- a straight person making it very clear on a daily basis that they are straight)

“Shutting down my love for women or non-binary people”

“Describing a LGBTQ+ person as their sexuality and not their actually personality and self. Someone’s sexuality is not a personality trait!”

“Well see if a straight person is making it clear they are straight then they might be battling some demons or something and don’t know if they truly are and are trying to keep up this image that they are straight.”

“Normalize the LGBTQ community into everyday things.“

“Pushing down others just for them being who they are.” 

“just not being open-minded is tough to encounter sometimes.” 

Q-Do you think there should be laws allowing people to not provide services to LGBTQ+ people because of their religious affiliations?

(I really like this last one, and for my LGBTQ+ restaurant owners, just refuse a straight person, just once to see the reaction. Okay, don’t do that, but it be so funny). 

Q- Do you think trans people should be allowed to serve in the United States military? (all branches) 

Q- Do you think LGBTQ+ themed books should be allowed to be taught in schools?

Q-As an LGBTQ+ person, what do you think straight people can do to educate themselves on what it's like to be an LGBTQ+ person?

“literally just ask questions in a respectful manner and be polite when they hear the response.”

“i’m not LGBTQ+ but i seriously think straight people should look more into LGBTQ+ history.”

“What it’s like to be lgbtq+ person is the same as any other human there’s nothing special.”

“Probably during like human G&D classes , teachers can devote some time to educating their students on what it means to be LGBTQ”

“Just listen without bias and hear what others have to say instead of instantly judging.”

“Listen to LGBT voices and listen closely!”

As an LGBTQ+ person, what questions do you often get asked by straight people?

“What are your thoughts on saying the same gender, and what is the mental block you face that doesn’t make you attracted to them?”

“I’m straight but the question I most ask is how would you label your sexuality.”

“How/ when did you know....”

“Do you think your opinion will change? How do you know that you're gay?“

“You do think I’m attractive?”

“mostly about the way attraction works for me. i’m usually happy to answer any respectful questions.”

Q- What do you think we can do to make a bridge for both straight and LGBTQ+ people today? (ex- how to you think there can be less stigma when it comes to LGBTQ+ people?)

“Teach from a young age that all preferences are okay.” 

“We need to better represent them in culture to normalize them and make people realize that they're also just people and they shouldn't be treated any differently than straight people.”

“Normalizing it in education even when it comes to human growth and development courses in school, also having reading material that displays all kinds of relationships.”

“I’d say making the LGBTQ community allowed more freely in church because the main reason I see that people aren’t respected is because of religion claiming that community to be wrong.” 

“Look this is gonna sound mean and rude and I’m not trying to. But it would have to be that people in lgbtq need to stop acting special or better than someone straight. You create this divide when you do that. I mean if your like I’m gay then move on don’t (ex don’t bring it up constantly or make it your personality) there’s honestly nothing special about being gay, trans or even straight because at the end of the day we’re all just human.”

“Inclusive sex ed! We need to teach EVERYONE about LGBT people and we need to make it clear that it is not a choice or lifestyle. Representation in children's and regular media is also a must.”

“Honestly they needa branch out when it comes to tv shows showing lesbians with short hair and a jacked bod and gay guys as white shirt dudes that are more petite it just makes us look like we aren’t human and we are a whole different breed because we all don’t look like that it’s putting a certain look on us.”

“Education. Conversation.”

So as a final message, thank you for those who participated, and thank you for opening up and talking about being LGBTQ+ and straight today, my next survey will be about education, and I ask for everyone to share these surveys with all of your friends, the more the merrier! I love you all and thank you once again for reading or taking the survey! 

[iameverything]

A Conversation: Featurette

“Featurette are Toronto-based duo that was formed by singer Lexie Jay and drummer, Jon Fedorsen. Like their synth-heavy dream pop contemporaries Phantogram and Tove Lo, FEATURETTE are influenced by the emotionally charged, heavy hitting electro-pop sounds coming from Northern Europe and New Zealand.”

First off, you recently released your new music video 'White Rabbit' and its damn mesmerizing, from the colors, to the costume (the rabbit costume kind of looks similar to the rabbit that was in The Masked Singer) How has the reception been for the video so far? The reception has been spectacular! Literally the story behind this one was my friend Sharon and I were sitting on a couch and I asked her what could we do that would be one idea, easy to do, that would be super memorable and dark. After much spitballing we came up with grave digging - and the rest is history! People have seemed to really connect with our post apocalyptic/area 51universe we set up so I’m pretty stoked on that :) For a couple of dreamers with 4 hours to shoot, a minimal budget and a crew of 3, I’m honestly so proud of the video. It’s punchy and striking and hits all the high notes!

Are you guys subtly hinting at a Joey Fatone of NSYNC collaboration soon (He was the white rabbit in The Masked Singer)?!!!   OMG I’ve never even seen that!! I just looked it up how crazy!! We’re not, unfortunately haha! It was a dream all our own that I think landed in a very different space! Spoiler alert, the masked rabbit was Jon haha

What was the writing process like for 'White Rabbit'? What inspired it? One of the things that occupies the most space in my brain is the state of our planet right now. I’ve written political and environmental warrior songs before, but this has been by far the most impactful. Of course we masked it with some striking alien visuals to cast a wider net in the video, but really the concept was just about setting the scene for digging a grave for humanity. The lyrics for this one were just like writing poetry for me, it really flowed and came on quite fast - the song itself came together quickly, but then the production was obviously an absolute undertaking. It’s very involved. But what’s neat with that is the further we went down the *cough* rabbit hole *cough* the more inspired we became and the further we pushed the vocal recording. Some of those choirs we built for the background just stack up for days - the outro for example, totally inspired by production because we wanted to create extreme contrast to the electronic heavy-hitting production. The result was pretty striking, it’s something we’re really happy with.

The first time we met, it was an interview you did for JUNNNKTANK (RIP) 2 years ago, when you released the song '//Bang//'. It's been too long, how has it been going since then? RIP Indeed! So much has happened - it’s been fairly internal for us, we’ve been writing non-stop to finish up this album coming out in Jan, 2020!! To recap the year: We released Million Things and the cat-filled 90’s dance troop music vid to back that up in the spring, followed by some shows. Then came the single Don’t Know Me Without You followed by the GORGEOUS black and white music video, followed by a fall tour supporting that. Then came White Rabbit and the aforementioned music video for that which we paired with the sold out Mother Mother show at the end of our fall tour. What a blast!! Now we’re staring down the barrel of the release and I’m stoked!!!

2016 was the last time you guys released your debut album 'Crave' and I must say, as like any other fan, we are 'craving' more albums. When should we expect the next? How is that writing process going? Dude. It’s here - we are like WEEKS AWAY!!! January 2020, PREPARE YOURSELF!! Spoilers in my insta story RUN, DON’T WALK!! hahaha More teasers to come in the coming weeks!!

'//Bang//' being your last video you put out 2 years ago before 'Million Things', what was that like to go back into 'lets make a video' mindset after so long? And what was happening within the middle of that time fame between the two videos? I mean it was a *year and a half* before Million Things if you want to get technical (LOL)  but it was less ‘let’s make a video’ and more…  we’re back. In the middle we were writing the album we’ve been teasing all year - three singles this year, and we’ll give you one more along with the album in January - we’ve climbed a serious mountain! I’m also (pray for me) aiming to make another music video for January. Fun fact, I did the production design and wardrobe/makeup for all videos we put out in 2019 - really love making them so I hope you’ve enjoyed watching them!!

Considering we all change as humans over a course of two years, so four years being a bigger change, and you guys being artists, so having to adjust at a quicker rate to new music trends or ideas, how much of a change from style and writing can fans expect for the next album? The album coming is very like the singles we put out this year. We tried to show as much breadth as possible - Million Things being the ‘indie pop’ side, with lots of punch, upbeat, fun etc. and then we hit the ‘deep album track’ end of thing with DKMWY. That one was darker, moodier, heavily electronic but still in your face. More recently we showed White Rabbit which was like our ‘art track’ for the album. You can expect more in each category of those! We’ve got 9 songs, and we honestly cover so much ground, while trying to maintain our sound. I think the sonic place we’ve landed is very much still FEATURETTE, but louder. More confident, more to say, we found our voice. You know?

Whats the secret to keeping content fresh and not falling within the loop of same old or losing inspiration? Omg I’m not even worried about that at all - Jon and I write all the time. We have maybe 50 songs we’ve written that are either waiting in the wings, or just something we had to get out after a crazy session at 3am haha! I think when you write all the time you can find what you start to gravitate too, and then working to develop those ideas you can start to find things that work. And those even inspire new songs! We don’t see this as our job, so we never get tired of it, which helps keep it fresh for sure.

Speaking of new, you guys released another music video titled 'Dont Know Me Without You' and you mentioned in another interview it was darker than your last single 'Million Things', is there certain head space you guys have to be in to write those kind of songs perhaps seclusion? How has the reception been from Fans and even music execs to that single in particular with its dark undertone? It’s honestly the opposite! I have to be in the headspace to write Million Things because I’m *always* in the dark headspace haha! It’s not a bad thing I just naturally gravitate towards darker music and minor songs. I think you still need the upbeat side, but I think if you listen closely to the lyrics, you’ll find they are still super dark. The track might be upbeat and major, but the lyrics are some of the saddest I write to balance that out. We’re a dark electro-pop band, we like it moody and creepy. What’s super cool is now there are the Billie Eilish’s of the world blowing up, which opens up a window for all us ‘creatures of the night’ to crawl through!

You recently were on tour and ended your tour in Kitchener with Mother Mother. How was that to open for such a cool band? How did your tour go overall? Tour was great - absolutely fantastic vibes every night, we can’t wait to get back out there next year. Playing to large audiences though like the Mother Mother show - we T H R I V E on that. The more energy in the room the harder we’ll give it back. Doesn’t matter if it’s to 8 people or 800! We actually were able to write with Ryan from Mother Mother in the summer, so it was so great to follow up with a show with them! Amazing energy.

Whats the next tour you guys have planned? We’re cooking something up for 2020 - stay tuned!!

It's really cool and inspiring to see how far you have come from, singles like '//Broken//' to 'White Rabbit', as someone who has seen Featurette flourish  from more than just a 'feature' to open up for a bigger act, to the act itself and the main event on a bigger stage, I'd like to think 2020, is the year bands like Mother Mother open up for you. How much growth have you guys been through since coming together as Featurette and have you guys ever had to overcome any doubt in the past of continuing as a band? I think any person who runs their own business or project of any kind will have doubts along the way. It’s human to doubt ourselves, but for me, it’s what I take from those moments and what I can do with those feelings that spurs me forward. How can I turn that moment into a song, because it’s so relatable right? Artists especially - it’s like the wild west! When you’re independent, you have no idea what we’re doing, or if you're doing it right or wrong. Every ’next level’ you get to you just find out how many more there are to go. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and honestly I think we’ve found our stride. When we put out Crave we were literal babies. Like the first thing we ever did was come out with an album we made all by ourselves, completely independently. That’s actually mind-blowing to me now! We could have shopped that around, built a team, but we were like: Here we are! And I love that about us. Now we’ve gone away, thought about what we want to put out in this world, and made something beautiful that I couldn’t be more proud of. I have no idea where it will take us, but I hope to have you pose the same question in a year or two and be able to give you the most insane answer about whatever ’next level’ we’re on by then. In short, we’re in it to win it, whatever that looks like for us.

Lastly, lets play rapid fire with five random questions give the answer that comes to mind first If you were not called Featurette what else would you want to be called? Futurette - because that’s what everyone thinks our band name is anyway :p… I should buy that domain… Favorite current song that isn't your own? Petit Biscuit - Wide Awake Worst question you dislike being asked? Are you guys a couple? Mind yo own beezwaxxx ! Little secret fact about you guys not many know? Alternate passions to music: Lex - Crazy Plant Lady Jon: Hockey-aholic Whats next? ALBUM TIME GUYS - JANUARY BAYBEEEE!

[its-a-queer-thing]

(Same anon about Svetlana) First off thank you for answering in such detail, you brought up things I had forgotten about, such as the random oral sex with Kev and V, which definitely was out of order and personally I think handled badly by the writers. I also completely agree with her lying being wrong which is why I only really loved her for the start of season 7. I think the writers missed a perfect opportunity to represent polyamorous relationships positively with the thrupple

Hi again! :D Thanks again for asking for my take on her, it’s always really interesting to list out the pros and cons and figure out why exactly I feel a certain way about a certain character, and Svetlana is one I had yet to do that with.

Should I get started on all of the opportunities for representation the Shameless writers wasted??

Fuck it, here I go… Warning, it’s long and likely controversial.

There are a lot of things I kinda defend the writers on, so I’ll start with those…

It’s probably controversial, but I do defend the way the Shameless writers handled the storylines of the men who are raped/sexually assaulted on this show and how their assaults never REALLY referenced or talked about. The reason I defend this is because men who are raped in real life are ignored and many men who ARE sexually assaulted either know it but aren’t comfortable talking about it because men are expected to be sex machines and so grateful for any and all attention, or don’t even recognize what happened to them as a sexual assault. Some men may not care as Frank seemed not to other than the statutory angle; but I guarantee most, even if they don’t label what happened to them as “rape” (like Mickey) are still affected as we saw with both Mickey (who PERFECTLY demonstrated rape trauma syndrome symptoms) and Matty (who blatantly called his assault what it was, and explained that biology does not equal consent). I see a lot of people talking about how Matt’s rape was never addressed, but it was. Debbie talked to Lip about it and Lip represents a big population of people who think men can’t be raped or should be grateful for the attention (and come to think of it, it’s ironic that Lip was the one to tell Debbie that ugly nonsense he said considering we watched him be sexually assaulted by Mandy… But clearly he doesn’t recognize it as a sexual assault either…). Was this on purpose? I personally think so, I think it was the writers’ way of saying “Didn’t like that? Well, that’s how people talk about this stuff or they don’t talk at all. So now talk about it and bring awareness so we can fix it.” Maybe that’s a little optimistic considering who the executive producer is… but it’s how I look at it, because these events are NOT ignored on social media or conversations about the show. So the viewer has the choice to take an opportunity to talk about it, or not, and luckily many people HAVE taken the opportunity to talk about it. So, if I’m right and the writers intended for these plotlines to get people to talk: it worked. And if not, it worked anyway.

Another thing I typically defend the writers for is how they show/talk about pedophilic relationships and the double standards of them. A lot of people are bothered that no one in the show seems to care that Ian was molested by multiple older men and that no one calls it what it is: Pedophilia. No one has a problem with Ian having sex with older men, but as soon as Debbie is mentioned in a hypothetical relationship with an older man, it’s out of the question. Now, I personally think they did that on purpose to show that there is NO difference and yet our society seems to think there is. Boys are expected to sexually explore early so for some reason a young boy with an older woman or in Ian’s case, a young boy with an older man, is typically not a problem by society’s standards. They did this with the number of times that Ian’s sexual history with other men was brought up (Ned, namely) and only casually referenced without ANY disgust at Ned (Jimmy more concerned about his dad being gay than that he was molesting a minor) or concern for Ian (Fiona casually throwing out that Ned was getting blown by a teenager but unconcerned by the fact that her minor brother was in a relationship with a grown ass man). So I think this was purposefully shown to reflect the ugly truth of how we view young boys’ sexual development vs. girls. I thought they did a good job at showing how much bullshit this double standard is (and that’s not to say that I’m mad we treat young girls as flowers per se, it’s more that I think we need to care as much about how our young men are looked at in their sexual development as we do the young women). They even went on to show Debbie trying to start a relationship with an older guy and as unfortunate as it is, I think they did it to show the realistic teenage girl in today’s American society. It was going on when I was Debbie’s age and I’m sure it’s only getting worse. They were able to represent how and why girls are growing up too fast and I think started a great conversation, especially with what she did to Matt and how confused she was about consent, then with her getting pregnant and starting a conversation both about girls/women who trap men by getting pregnant and then about guys that run/how easy it is for guys to run.

Something I am irritated by is the continued misconceptions of bisexuality. Now, maybe I need to follow my own advice from the above example where I defend the writers and remind myself that people do see bisexuals as cheaters with a fancy label, or non-commital, or confused, etc. etc. And maybe I COULD look at it like that, if they were to give us a positive example of a bisexual to counter the failure that was Caleb and if they hadn’t made Ian force himself to have sex with a woman even though he’s never doubted his sexuality (and to an extent, Mickey since some people keep mistakenly labeling him bi).

So now we get into where I have a BIG beef with the writers concerning representation:

The misrepresentation of the Trans community… Trevor… They can’t make that okay… They had the PERFECT opportunity to bring in a beautiful Trans character (luckily they got a Trans actor so there’s that going for them…) but completely ruined it by turning this character into an ASS. Trevor is just so unpalatable and unfortunately I’ve talked to several people who made outrageously transphobic comments (about Elliot, actually) and while I explained to them why their comments weren’t okay, they just immediately defended their words by saying that Trevor made them care even less about wanting to understand the Trans community and genderqueer people. I’ve luckily seen lots of people online taking the time out to correct any misinformation about Trans people and genderqueer people and luckily people were responding well from what I read, but the fact is Trevor left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths and the Shameless writers honestly can’t make that right without basically reintroducing Trevor (or another Trans character) as a completely new person. It’s really upsetting as an ally because I want people to understand the Trans community and more about gender identity and EVERYTHING related to the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, but if the media representation is going to look like Trevor?? We’re never going to get there.

The poly relationship. I have a few problems with it. First that it started because two people were on the brink of a divorce. They were opening up a really interesting dialogue about sexual miscommunications after big life changes (like having a baby) and the pressures of being new parents (and I even liked that they had Veronica not connecting to her children the way she was feeling pressured to because more moms need to understand that this happens sometimes and it’s OKAY!) But then, Kev and V cheat on each other, are sexually assaulted by Svetlana and then suddenly both have feelings for her?? And so compromise their confusion by starting a poly relationship with her?? The way the thrupple formed bothered me, basically. BUT once it was formed, I liked how they found their own flow and their own rhythm because that’s important to notice that poly relationships are just about finding what works for you and the people you love. I like that they showed the communication issues to show that poly relationships are ALL about communication. That’s something my friends in poly relationships stress whenever we talk about it that the reason they like poly relationships is because there is no room for secrets or hiding feelings if you want something like this to work. And that’s definitely where the thrupple went wrong (Well… that and Svet tricking them into losing the bar…) I just enjoyed that they made it look so natural ONCE they got it going, but like I said getting it going made it look pretty negative… and then the end result fucking tanked it.

My final beef is that most people of color on this show are negative. We have V and she is MOSTLY good though in later seasons we see some unsavoriness, but that’s okay because she can’t be perfect as a regular character. Liam is frequently addressed when people are confused that he is the son of two white people and it looks like they may start a discussion about token black people in diversity efforts with Liam in private school, which is a great conversation to start and I hope they handle it well. But Liam was really infantile up until basically season 7 and even then he didn’t REALLY act like a 6 year old. Let’s be real, he was WAY too quiet. Now whether that’s an age thing or race thing, I don’t know and probably can’t say because I’ve seen this happen on multiple shows where the writers don’t know how to integrate a child that started off as basically a flesh prop but who is now capable of speech. Kenyatta turned into an abusive asshole (and I called it from the first time I saw him. Really tall and buff black dude… I knew they were going to go that route right away, though I hoped with all my might it wouldn’t happen). Debbie’s foster mother in season 3 was a demon of a woman. One of Carl’s foster father’s was a bit of a prick or at the very least really uptight. Roberta (Monica’s girlfriend in season 1) was a bitch and wanted to steal Liam so she was basically a villain. Nick had potential, it looked like he was all about defying the odds and showing that he was more than his history in Juvie (he just wanted a simple life of farming, a bicycle, and to be away from people! And to top it off, he needed Carl to guard him in the bathroom because he was too afraid of taking a shower by himself! I mean, this kid was a teddy bear despite his appearance and I was ROOTING for this kid because of that) but then he ends up going to prison because he suddenly got homicidal over his bicycle. He was such a sweet character, and yes I suppose an example of a victim of the system, but I don’t know why, but Nick’s arc really bothered me. I feel they could have done more by having Nick show Carl (by positive example not negative) that the thug life is not all that and that Carl should be grateful he doesn’t HAVE to resort to the thug life. 

Whew. I am SO sorry this turned into what it did. When I get started… I get started and there is no stopping me! Hopefully everyone agrees, though obviously that is unlikely, so if anyone disagrees or wants me to clarify something please shoot a (respectful) Ask. I love discussions so long as they are respectful and informed.

Sorry again Anon for this monster of a response, but hopefully you enjoyed it! Lol.

Thanks for the love!

[parmesangirl]

on the new Iron Fist series

So after binge watching a ton of Marvel’s new Iron Fist series, I went onto tumblr, wondering what the fandom was up to now, what with all these new gifs and stuff to make. ‘Maybe I would find some fan art or something’ I thought innocently to myself,

BUT BOY WAS I WRONG

instead, I was greeted with SO MUCH DISCOURSE on how Iron Fist ‘needs a chinese-american actor’ or ‘has terrible dialogue and is slow’.

the best part is when I found out that some of y’all are trying to get this show boycotted like ‘????’

Now as a Chinese-speaking Asian female, living in Asia, with an Asian background and a good know-how of Chinese history, as well as a decent knowledge of comic books, (although I confess I got into the animated series first) I’m here to end the discussion before y’all get your full rage on and start fighting fans of the show like it’s Lord of the Flies up in here

So keep reading if you want to be educated or if you just want to fight me before you know what you’re even talking about

“THE SHOW INSULTS CHINESE CULTURE”

Uhhhh…no? I’ve seen a few episodes and I mean so far there isn’t really anything that screams ‘insult’ or even offensive in the slightest. Besides maybe the fact that they take the beliefs and twist them a little bit but honestly even that ain’t that bad as to what I’ve seen elsewhere.

I’ve read the boycott post and let me say that yea, they dressed him with an eye for Asian elements, but maybe that’s because it’s supposed to be resembling Asian clothing? I mean how is that offensive? Is it the part that it looks Asian? Or that you simply feel that white people that direct these shows should not be using Asian stuff for entertainment? Because I hate to break it to you but it’s still not offensive. Even the dragon tattoo is totally fine because it’s supposed to resemble Asian elements yea but also have y’all read the comics? Because he punched through a dragon and basically took it’s heart. So I mean a dragon tattoo kinda matches the theme.

I mean in the first episode they speak almost flawless Chinese for Pete’s sake! Hell, I was surprised that they even had it in them to have a non-Google translated line. Sure the accent was a little overdoing it cuz not even I have that thick a Chinese accent but I’ll excuse it since he was apparently learning and speaking 15 years. (I speak it maybe a few times a day for like the last 14 years or so only)

So no, the show doesn’t really insult Chinese culture, sure they might be ignorant, but you must understand that after generations of stereotypes and misconceptions that that can’t just go away with one show

“Danny Rand should be played by an Asian guy/be a Chinese-American”

I can’t even begin to tell you my frustration about this.

Y’all do know this show is based on the comics right?

You know, the one with the white guy.

I know Marvel is infamous for not including enough representation in their shows but seriously? This is like the Harry Potter thing all over again with Hermione being black, it’s not that we don’t want representation or anything, but it’s the fact that this hero that us comic fans have come to already love has been replaced. Or at least it feels like it. Like when a movie is made from a book and people go crazy because character XYZ suddenly has different traits or isn’t quite what was described as compared to the book.

Frankly, it sucks.

So even though yes, Marvel should have more Asians in their shows, don’t expect them to completely give the main character a makeover, even if the makeover was supposed to provide representation. And honestly? I don’t want them to change him because I really freaking love Iron Fist, just as he is.

“This show just villainizes Asians”

So you tell me that my race is being made villains because Marvel decided that most of their Asians on their shows are evil ninjas (aka the Hand) and at most there are like 3 sorta good Asians. Oh and I’m sorry, you want more Asian men that are good guys? You want a balance of Asian heroes?

Well I guess that would be kind of hard to fit into the story since, oh, I don’t know, everything happens in the USA?

If you want more Asian characters well then look no further because you do have them. Daisy Johnson from Agents of Shield? What about her extremely brave mom? Or maybe Colleen in Iron Fist? Everyone seems to be blatantly ignoring her badassery and only seeing the part where she’s a sorta love interest.

Facts are, there are Asian characters, you’re really just looking hard enough. I agree wholeheartedly when you say that more Asian men need to be in the Marvel universe that aren’t part of the bad guy team but you gotta say that they are still awesome.

Does anyone even remember the Japanese ninja yakuza guy from Daredevil? Dude got set on fire and STILL came back to kick ass. That’s a plus in my book because even though he’s considered bad, he’s been proven to be cunning, smart, and overall awesome.

“The show has terrible stunts/acting/dialogue/fight scenes”

From here on out it’s mostly just me trying to explain why the directors and writers of the show made decisions in the show to make it what it is, so let’s dive right into it.

STUNTS

Actually the stunts weren’t half-bad. If you’ve seen other shows or movies that are heavily reliant on stunts and action, and compare it to this show, they really aren’t that much different. Sure it might seem a little unbelievable sometimes like they’re breaking physics or something, but he already has a glowing fist. I think we’ve crossed the line of believable long ago.

ACTING

I have nothing to say about this except that go and take some acting or drama classes before coming and criticizing these awesome men and women who did indeed try their best

DIALOGUE

Now I get the dialogue might be a little weird at times and what not, but you must understand that this show was partially written with the Defenders series in mind. So almost everything that was said in the show is meant to lead to something more. Thus, you must take it as a bigger picture. Sorta like how everyone said that Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them wasn’t as good as they thought it would be, that movie was also meant to lead on to a bigger story so you might want to excuse the weird speech and cryptic lines at times.

FIGHT SCENES & ACTION

Okay seriously people, please read the comics. Danny Rand is supposed to be an accidental hero, one that doesn’t want to fight unless he really has zero choice in the matter. So yea, the fight scenes won’t be that interesting, but only because the character in question is more interested in ending the fight than anything.

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So there you have it, my whole slightly angry info-dump on Iron Fist and Marvel’s representation problem in general. If you want to correct me or scold me even then by all means message me or shoot me an ask. But just keep in mind that Marvel can’t make all your problems go away in one show, and please for the love of all that is good read the comics before coming to rant okay?