#it’s infantilising to her to be reduced to her relationships even if that is the kind of thing that increases engagement with her brand

[clarabowmp3]

The thing I’m most annoyed about swifties is that they make everything about her relationship or the man she is with and I am just over here trying to engage with her music and her work because she is more than just the boyfriend. But… Taylor herself this era has been shoving her relationship down our throats so how can we really blame swifties for thinking that’s all she is? Why does she do this? Money? To prove how very happy she is? I don’t like it, I wish the boyfriend was not front and center. Fans caring this much about a celebs personal life is not normal and I dont think Taylor likes it but also encourages it?

Mhm very true, I totally get what you mean. Just a heads up that I’m going to be a little parasocial for a hot second lol, I don’t know for sure what her thoughts or feelings are but in my opinion:

I think she likes having/wants to have a public relationship, which is fine. Just like how it wasn’t an issue when she wanted to be private with joe (again, that’s what SHE wanted, as in Miss Americana, even if the kimye thing contributed to this), it’s not inherently an issue for her to be public with Travis. But yea I agree it’s all a little much, Travis is almost inextricably linked to taylor swift the brand especially with the whole ‘passing her a bracelet with his phone number at one of her biggest most commercially successful tours’ (like the point I’m making here is how flashy it all is). I’m not a big fan either, but idk how much of it is just personal preference(I’d sooner die than have a boyfriend acting like that cuz what the actual fuck) or how much of it is just part of the problematic commodification of love esp in the taylor swift context

It’s a little odd considering her previous stance on how she wishes fans would stop speculating about which songs were about which ex etc (which I think she still feels; it feels like some of the songs on ttpd might have been intentionally muddy to throw ppl off, not that I think it helped) but I think a part of her just likes having the entire world root for her and her relationship, esp given her tribulations/insecurities about how suitable she is as a partner/how “lovable” she is, for lack of a better word. There’s nothing wrong with wanting others to support u/ ur choices, but it’s unhealthy how she’s turning to masses and masses of complete strangers for this kind of validation. Then again, getting as famous as she did at such a young age does things to you.

And like you said, maybe she’s doing all this to show the world/joe/matty how she so happy, on top of the world she is, how she’s basically winning at life. It’s a little spiteful of a mindset, but those were pretty bad back-to-back breakups, so I think it’s understandable even if not entirely justified. Maybe in a few years, once the grief of her relationship with joe falling apart becomes more bearable(again, parasocial alert woops 🚨), maybe she’ll cool off on the public displays/frequent pap walks, but I still think she naturally enjoys having a semi-public relationship like this. I alr think things are starting to stabilise (I could be wrong tho).

But yea it’s unfortunate that all this discourse comes with at the expense of meaningful discussion of her art. Folkmore era I’m so sorry I took you for granted but that was one of the best eras (lol) of swiftie tumblr :))

[colleybri]

The Andor finale connects Kerri (Cassian’s long lost sister), Bix and Maarva

I’ve only just noticed the visual parallels in episodes 1 and 12 between young Kassa with his sister Kerri and adult Cassian rescuing Bix.

Cassian and Bix head for Zorby’s ship yard where Brasso and the others are waiting to escape the Ferrix riot

Adria Arjona apparently asked Gilroy if her character could be made like a child as a result of her trauma (not just the torture but the huge impact of Timm’s betrayal). “I really wanted to turn her into this child… you meet her as this woman that is so empowered and has everything under control, who takes care of Cassian. And then towards the end she cannot even look after herself.” (https://www.starwars.com/news/adria-arjona-andor-interview)

Young Kassa hugs his little sister to comfort her from the noise of the exploding ship as it goes down. She leans against him and looks up for reassurance to the big brother who is really her entire remaining world.

Later he will run off to have an adventure with the big kids and never comes back, despite his promise to her at the end of the episode. (It’s in Kenari, but it’s hard to imagine it being anything other than his trademark “I’m coming back!”)

“No ! They’ll get angry!” Poor Bix. Cassian is horrified to see her reduced to a helpless child. He owes her so much.

In the finale, Bix is so infantilised by her experience that she has to be gently coaxed into being rescued at all as she’s so afraid of the Imperials. But she eventually puts her trust in Cassian and the roles of the sibling-like aspect of their long and close relationship are reversed at last - where previously she was a big sister to him he now protects and supports her as they make their way through the explosions and chaos - much in the way he did with Kerri all those years ago.

What a heartbreaking smile… “Maarva was here” 🥹

Kerri, Bix… and in between, Maarva. Just before he gets the hug and comforting words from Brasso, Cassian lets all his pent-up agony out:

“I wanted her to leave with me… I came to get her… I couldn’t get back… but the last time I saw her, we argued… I told her I was coming back!”

This ‘fear of being someone who leaves people behind’ as Tony Gilroy puts it is the single most profound character trait of Cassian Andor and it carries right through into Rogue One (or more accurately, Gilroy takes the quality from the film and makes it part of the origin story). Guilt and regret about Kerri lies behind so much of Season 1 Cassian’s arc and undoubtedly has a hand in his radicalisation. “Everyone has their own rebellion” - and this particular part of it is personal. We saw it in the Aldhani and Narkina 5 arcs too, as Cassian’s circle of people he cares about expands. The coming together of this theme in the finale is another part of why it’s so emotionally hard-hitting. “We can’t just leave her there,” he says of Bix - and Brasso incredulously says “Are you going to take on a full garrison?”

He doesn’t answer but the look says it all. For Cassian, not “trying” is no longer an option.

It’s a hugely admirable heroic quality. But I do fear it might come back to bite him in some way. Yet as Gilroy understands so well: bravery and vulnerability often go hand in hand.

[blubushie]

Are there some things you dislike about fans' interpretation of the other mercs?

Yeah uh. This is long so it's under the cut. Whole TF2 fandom boutta be like 2Fort on my arse.

I hate how people make Medic "evil". He's fun and goofy and likes doing experiments and he'll betray the people paying him for the sake of his long-time coworkers who he's mates with. He's not evil, he's not manipulative, outsmarting the LITERAL DEVIL doesn't make you a bad person. There is literally nothing in canon to point to Medic being evil except MAYBE stealing a bloke's spine (coulda been dark humour for all we know) and turning a criminal into a sentient pumpkin, which is something that Engie HELPED HIM DO but no one goes around calling him evil. Medic is chaotic good or chaotic neutral, he is not evil.

The amount of people who are downright racist about Demo, or the amount of people who reduce his addiction to the butt of a joke. There's a lot of shit that I notice. They act like Demo isn't fiercely loyal—look at his relationship to his mum). They act like he's lazy because he's an alcoholic—HE HAS 3 JOBS AND WANTS MORE, HE WASN'T LAZY IN THE COMICS HE WAS DEPRESSED BECAUSE HE LOST ALL HIS MATES. On the other end of the coin, you have people insisting that Demo's alcoholism isn't as bad as it actually is, as if substance abuse is a fucking moral failing and they can't have their blorbo be a bad person by just letting him be the alcoholic he's shown to be in canon.

As an intersex man: do not get me fucking started on the amount of intersex+NB headcanons I've seen of Pyro. People need to realise that like the rest of the human population, most intersex people are cis, that gender is not equivalent to sex, and that EVERY intersex character being non-binary promotes a harmful stereotype. Actually I'll be honest—I side-eye EVERY intersex Pyro headcanon what's made by a perisex person. Most the time they give off massive virtue signal vibes and I really don't like how the second you can't clearly determine someone's gender people immediately go "ah, intersex" like we're all visually androgynous. I also don't like how the person MOST OTHERED ON THE TEAM is always given the intersex headcanon. It doesn't make me feel represented, it makes me feel like everyone already seems me as an other and that's all I'll ever be.

People who act like the pronoun police and insist Pyro's pronouns are they/them. Canonically Pyro is always and consistently referred to as he/him except when he's being dehumanised by his own team and called it. It's cool if you headcanon Pyro as using they/them, just remember it ISN'T CANON and you shouldn't be getting on people's arse about non-canon pronouns. What are you a cop?

On a similar vein, the amount of people who infantilise Pyro. Pyro was literally the CEO OF A COMPANY who was responsible for RECORD PROFITS OF THAT COMPANY. Pyro is an adult. People assume that because Pyro hallucinates or enjoys "childish" things that it means Pyro's a child. Please be fucking normal about mental illness, my god.

People who make Scout transfem for the sole purpose of shipping Scout with Pauling, worse even if they outright make it so that Scout transitioned SPECIFICALLY to hook up with Pauling. You realise that you're enforcing TERF "all transfems are predatory and transition just to get chicks/transfem lesbians are just straight men" rhetoric right? Please tell me you're aware. People who make Scout transfem for reasons beside this (ie you just like transfem Scout) and still hook her up with Pauling for fun, I love you and this post is not about you. <3

People who ignore Medic's likely bisexuality in favour of writing him as a strictly gay male. Bi erasure is fucking real lads. If you have the view that Demo was talking out his arse and didn't actually shag Medic's wife cuz he's not even married, cool ok. I'm talking about the people who insist Medic's wife was his beard.

People who act like the ship police with Pauling's sexuality when her being a lesbian was something mentioned in one tweet on Twitter by Jay, not approved by Valve, and never referenced in the source material (outside of MAYBE how she stared at Zhanna while she was fighting robots, but that facial expression could also be interpreted as impressed or "so horrified she can't look away". Especially when she outright agreed to go on a second date with Scout in Expiration Date. If you headcanon her as a lesbian, cool! Just don't enforce it on other people and give them flak for shipping her with non-women characters. This applies to people aggressively enforcing Medic's sexuality as well. What are you a cop?

How the character people trans the most is the white skinny twink, white skinny otter, or white wolf. Why not Demo? Trans people of colour exist too. I can count the trans Demo headcanons I've seen on one hand. Why not Heavy? Why not Heavy? You know fat trans people exist too right?

My family is southern and half the time people don't know what the fuck goes on down south. Tell me you've never been to a cookout without telling me you've never been to a cookout. They either write him as too northern/coasty and only enforce the "stereotype" southern aspects of him, or they write him as racist/homophobic/transphobic/etc because he's southern. Luckily the latter gets a LOT of pushback on Tumblr so I haven't seen it much, but it's more prevalent on Twitter and fanfic sites.

People conveniently ignoring how Heavy's father was killed and his family was imprisoned by the USSR so they can call him a communist. Lol what. I get that you hate capitalism but you realise there's more options than just capitalism vs communism vs socialism right? That you can hate/dislike communism without also being a capitalist? Heavy would not support communism after what the USSR did to his family in the name of communism because his father was a counter-revolutionary. Also people ignoring WHY Heavy's father was killed, and how his father having different politics got his whole family, including innocent children chucked to a GULAG IN SIBERIA where they were starved and constantly abused by the guards, and how even after their escape the government continued to hunt them with the intent of killing them. He would not be a communist. He probably sees a hammer and sickle in his fucken nightmares.

Spy being evil and an arsehole. You know his schtick is the suave gentleman right? He's cool but he also has to be cringefail. And arsehole is a far cry from a gentleman.

People making Soldier a bigot. Har har I know it's funny to joke about the bloke obsessed with America being a bigot, but do you honestly think he cares enough? He's xenophobic at worst. Everyone is assumed to be American and his best mate is a black Scottish cyclops. Half the time I'm convinced you people want Soldier to be a bigot so you can write bigoted shit and not cop shit cuz it's coming out of his mouth.

Carrying on from prev, the amount of people I've seen use the time setting as an excuse to be bigoted towards the characters. This is ESPECIALLY prevalent where it seems like every story-focussed fic of Demo has a scene where someone is being racist to him and he Heroically Sticks Up For Himself or someone else sticks up for him to show How Much They Don't Care About Being Seen With A Black Man (usually it's Soldier, sometimes it's Sniper). You realise everyone knows racism is bad, right? That that's really not necessary? It wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't in EVERY FIC but it's like the author always needs to proudly claim themselves Not Racist while writing REALLY RACIST SHIT directed at the ONE CONFIRMABLE MAN OF COLOUR on the team just so they can yell "RACISM BAD but here's me jumping at the opportunity to call a man of colour a racial slur".

Well, reckon that about covers her...

[hersweetrevenge]

joanne baron as joan cunningham, halloween ends (2023) [X], [X]

i'm so obsessed with this interpretation of joan ??

the way joanne baron talks about joan is so interesting, because she honestly gives her wayyy more slack than most other people have done when talking about her. she talks about her very sympathetically, which kind of reminded me how rohan said that having empathy for your character is how you understand them.

does joan deserve sympathy in a wider context? i don't think so. she does abuse corey and she does treat ronald, and everyone around her, terribly. but does it make sense that some of her actions resonate differently in her own mind, than they do on those around her? absolutely.

i've talked about it too much i think, but it's not that joan doesn't love corey, it's that she loves him too much. it's that he isn't really a person to her, he's a thing that she can take care of and will never leave and will always love her back.

this description of joan's behaviour feels so strangely measured, "I go to my son's room after reprimanding him and give him his favourite dessert." it's all so off the mark to what actually happens, it's almost funny. but is that how joan would have seen the events? to a degree, yeah, i think so. corey is in his mid-twenties, he's not a child who can be told off and sent to their room, and we already know he hates joan's cooking, but joan has arrested his development so badly in her bid to maintain the "perfect" relationship they have that she's never going to treat him like anything other than a little boy. her infantilisation of him reduces the care she might of been able to give him to plain abuse.

the way joan and corey's interaction is described as tender feels so out of place too, but it has truth in it. joan doesn't control corey through rage and violence alone. of course not, the slap/kiss proves as much. there's a certain amount of love there that corey always waits for. there are things he loves about joan because she's not always awful. he's easier to manipulate to joan's liking if he's playing for a prize -- navigate the anger and receive praise.

and i think the most interesting comment is this: "I saw her as a victim too, of her son's ruined life". tbh i find it really difficult to agree with this take, not only because it seems like corey being traumatised to the point of total stagnation seems like it would greatly benefit joan's need to keep him close. we're told explicitly (in the novel at least) that after the accident corey doesn't do anything or go anywhere, which seems perfect for an overbearing and controlling mother.

but then again, joan seems to have a complex about persecution -- was her life ruined because corey's was? no, but she loves to bewail the injustice of it all. she loves to be corey's defender, maybe even to the extent of (apparently) being his only defender, as she so often tells him "I'm the only person who cares about you."

[niconeekokneecaps]

the anti wolfstar video I agree with

Transcript:

“One of the things I absolutely hate about the Harry Potter fandom is that so often the fans will call you homophobic for not shipping wolfstar. And hi, I’m someone who absolutely fucking hates the ship of wolfstar and for me, this is, uh, one of the things that’s like meeting the people who ship to wolfstar is what made me hate it. I think it’s so often that it both infantilises and fetishises gay relationships and it’s so poorly reduced the characters to, “oh, Sirius Black is just so gay for Remus Lupin and “Remus Lupin is just so gay for Sirius Black” even thought there’s not really any text that would actually shows that they would be a good couple but you’re allowed to headcanon whatever the fuck you want. Because of how poorly I see the fandom depict those two, it kinda just ruined the characters for me and I can’t even see Sirius in a good light. I also think that it tends to erase a large part of Remus Lupin’s story where he falls in love with Tonks. And honestly, that’s kind of why I believe that a lot of the time, the fandom tends to be quite misogynistic because it so often villainises Tonks. They do often depict her as manipulative and as if she ‘stole’ Remus away from Sirius. And maybe just because me, personally, I really relate to both Remus and Tonks, but it’s just not okay with me. It kind of ruined my favourite characters for me.”

and the alternative ships that aren’t wolfstar (some of them are crack ships or one’s that could have potential):

- Remadora (Remus x Tonks) (of course)

- Prongsfoot/Starbucks (James x Sirius)

- Blackinnon (Sirius x Marlene)

- Sirius x either Prewett twin (quite the rare pairs)

- Remus x either of the Prewett twins (once again, quite the rare pairs)

- Moonflower (Remus x Lily) (originally a crack but it’s grown on me a little bit)

- Moonchaser (Remus x James)

[scrawnytreedemon]

i have no other characters that come to mind so here's the obvious one because of course it is gdfhjkgjhh sephiroth?

LOOK WE LOVE OBVIOUS AROUND HERE, especially when obvious is Such A Clusterfuck. My only worry would be rehashing stuff I and fandom as a whole have hashed already and have it be redundant, buthgjhgjhgk I managed to find something new with PK, I'm sure I could do it here.

There is a notable split in how Sephiroth perceives and interacts with the world pre and post Nibelheim— An understatement, to say the least—However one thread I think that remains is that Sephiroth is probably very possessive when it comes to who he loves.

Growing up, I think it's painfully clear to most people that Sephiroth had little to no agency: he was company property, and repeatedly put under the jurisdiction of a father who routinely abused and dehumanised him under the guise of 'work'. As a public figure, there is no doubt that his privacy was violated and his body continued to be policed, even as he grew into adulthood.

I say all of this, because when you are put in a situation where you have been so disempowered and denied anything of your own, that when you do finally get it, you hold.

From the outside, I'd say that pre-Nibelheim Sephiroth's understanding of family is the understanding alot of familial abuse survivors walk away with: that family isn't who you were born into, but who you choose. And yet, funny still how he meets Genesis and Angeal through their mutual tenure as child supersoldiers; that not even this is really free from Shinra's hand. Even still, good things can come from shitty situations— Even if you might not process them as such.

That notion is shattered when the pair desert, without so much as a 'goodbye'. Sephiroth is left to pick up the pieces, and he withers. It's commented on in-game by none other than Angeal, if memory serves.

Sephiroth's found family is swept from under him, and he is left with nothing but the faint, childish hope of a biological mother; someone that would really have loved him, would have protected him, nurtured him unconditionally.

And he gets that.

In exchange for Everything.

There are a number of ways to analyse Sephiroth's relationship with Jenova— The most intuitive being to treat Jenova as an autonomous figure with influence over Sephiroth, in a very human manner.

I personally don't jive with this interpretation for a number of reasons: it often underplays Sephiroth's agency, and Jenova is made into a Wicked Mother archetype, which I feel diminishes the fact that this is a cosmic planetary parasite, eons old, with no gender or loyalty to human emotions— It mimics them only so much as a hunter mimics the sounds or scents of its prey. I feel it does Jenova a disservice to put a clamp on that and reduce them to something almost... petty(?) when their role is far more equivalent to Sephiroth's God. This is my opinion, not the holy grail. I bring it up, though, because it colours how I go about all of this.

When Sephiroth dies, plunging into the Lifestream with the dessicated remains of Jenova's half-dead head, they fuse. Sephiroth becomes Jenova and Jenova becomes Sephiroth; there is no separating the two. Sephiroth has not only met his mother, connected with her, but become her.

Sephiroth is Their own mother.

And as a Mother, great and powerful, older than the meagre rock of this infant Planet, it is Their job to set things right; to make amends; to cast Judgement.

Sephiroth routinely treats the rest of the cast as dimwitted children, either to be used or ignored— Dealt with, maybe, if they step out of line. And yet, there's a glee in revenge; in tormenting this one, shell-shocked man who dared to stab Them with Their own Masamune in the back, right before They were to set out on such glorious purpose.

They go out of their way to fuck with, demean, and infantilise Cloud on a level just... so fucking visceral, words fail to describe it.

Their more-than hatred has consumed Them so much, that it's the only thing They can remember when They are killed for the second time.

And from the shattered pieces of others' memories, They create three vessels: Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo; all of them doomed to be but shadows of a shadow, denied existence of their own.

It's in Advent Children that Cloud's familial connection to Sephiroth is made explicit. The Remnants all call him 'big brother', a title also reserved for Sephiroth. They are of the same nature, the same blood, and Cloud cannot deny that, he cannot deny that Sephiroth's cells live on in his body and that they are his as much as Theirs— Barring the speculated fusion between Sephiroth and Jenova, how do you get more intimate than that?

This leadup is hella long, but I think you get the gist: Sephiroth has been denied intimacy and has lost it time and time again, so when he finally gets something, he clutches it so hard and builds his literal sense of self around it.

From here on out, I'll be theorising.

I feel like even pre-Nibelheim Sephiroth, in the event he were to find himself with children, would get extremely protective to the point of possession. They're his, and he's not letting anyone near them. I could see that being the thing he finally needs to snap out of that Shinra-induced malaise, and run. He wouldn't let them do to them what was done to him— Wouldn't let him do to them what he did to him.

What I think would follow in the aftermath of this, is that the family are forced to keep a low profile. Sephiroth is a firm but gentle parent, compassionate even if untrained. He's devout as devout gets; it feels like some hole in him as been filled. It's a thing alot of parents get, especially if they felt like they were just lifelessly drifting by before. Sephiroth is purpose-driven— Needs it, breathes it, lives life from task to task to grand overarching plan. His kids become his everything.

The issue with that arises is there is such a thing as holding a child so tight your crush their bones. What contact the children have with other people is inconsistent, and they end up sheltered; literally, in this case. This could be further compounded depending on how much Sephiroth decides to tell them; whether he thinks the knowledge is vital, or if they'd be better off unknowing. Innocent.

Free, perhaps.

Sephiroth is opaque. Sephiroth is kind, and Sephiroth is good, but Sephiroth is opaque. Sephiroth doesn't tell them why they can't play with the other kids down the road with undyed hair. Sephiroth loves and Sephiroth hurts and Sephiroth struggles to reconcile with the harsh truth of both of those. Sephiroth is opaque.

He doesn't know if they're even alotted the morrow.

Post-AC, and really, post-OG, metawise, is where I'm more familiar— If you're a viewer of my written work, then I'm sure much of this will ring a bell.

I'm gonna be real, here, and I've said this in the notes at the bottom of a fic before, but I think now's when I can elaborate, I've never gotten why people would place Cloud as the Remnants' mother in parent-child dynamics.

Sephiroth made them out of the fabric of their own being, I don't think you can get any more maternal than that. And! If you're like me, and fond of the fusion theory, then Sephiroth is the Mother Kadaj reaches out for time and time again, unaware that She is the big brother he so hates. It's a cruel, cruel fucking irony where Kadaj doesn't realise that the brother he's competing for his Mother's love is what made him; is his Mother.

It's intimate in a way I feel is so neglected.

I feel like even in a 'nice' scenario (á la "Mother by Memory" and "Love is a Blanket (And it Weighs Heavily)"), where Sephiroth takes their three gremlins and kisses them all affectionately on the head and professes how deeply they love them with every bit of their being, the fact remains that Sephiroth has an issue with possession and control. They will brush aside discomfort and even violate boundaries if they deem it 'fit'. LiaB ends on the note of Kadaj feeling creeping dread in his mother's arms, as they tell him he shall be reborn, from the beginning, as the blanket is drawn and the lamp switched off. This, I think, is the crux of Sephiroth's character— Especially post-Nibelheim —Where they will do anything to have control and then justify that control with whatever they can muster.

Sometimes it's that the world is sick and They are to cast it down, other times it's to assure their child that all will be well, and that to start anew is to start freed.

There's a large, and complicated, convoluted, confused role that Cloud plays in all of this. There are many moments where Sephiroth sees him as a tool, an enemy, a worthy rival, a brother, an almost-lover and an almost-child: and many where he's most at the same time. With how the dynamic has grown more, and more, and more obsessive over the years on Sephiroth's end... it almost feels like he's struggling to choose.

Struggling what to think of Cloud.

What would be closest.

Most divine.

All of it culminating in that bit in the Remake where he truly, earnestly, genuinely offers Cloud an opportunity for what he sees as the only way out.

That he'll preserve him.

Keep him safe no matter what.

That's the closest thing Sephiroth has had to love in a very, very, very long time.

...

I think, for Sephiroth, family is keeping; keeping by blood, and if there's no blood, then Sephiroth will give it. Sephiroth will hold the cup of communion to your lips, and force you to swallow down at least half, because fucking hell, half is better than nothing at all.

This is the closest thing he has to love.

[sxpphicazula]

something I’ve noticed about the atla fandom is how willing people are to strip the meaning from toph’s character entirely. while her distorted and exaggerated androgyny plays a part in this—I often see her reduced to a caricature of a “strong, butch woman,” which I recently reblogged a post about—but I think people are glossing over how her disability factors into these prejudices. we are already reduced to subhuman, even alien in the eyes of society, and many people refuse to go to the lengths required to understand toph’s character. she’s powerful, but her bending is equivalent to a mobility aid, therefore her relationship with it is far more complicated and nuanced than the relationships of other characters with their bending. there was a time when her own parents overprotected her to the point of crushing her, which leads me onto a question.

when writing toph beifong, do you infantilise her? stereotype her? reduce her to a strong, well-adjusted disabled person whose disability simply does not matter or affect them? as a severely deaf person who lipreads, I’ve been asked thousands of times how it affects me by people (some well-meaning, some not) with both curiosity and disgust in their voice. to what extent am I like them, and to what extent am I an alien from a world they refuse to learn about?

this is one of the reasons I constantly find myself hyper-adjusting to the world around me. if I’m sitting out of view of my teacher’s face, I will resign myself to the inevitability that I’m going to miss content, straining my eyes and aid for hours which results in migraines instead of asking if I can move—which, while outwardly an easy solution, has never done anything except incite irritation and cause my teachers to see me as helpless and subhuman. which I’m not, obviously!

so you have to understand that while toph seems “well-adjusted” and “high-functioning,” the effort she puts in to appear that way defines her daily life. after being controlled by her parents for so long, of course she would hate to be caught needing help. (this is exemplified in the western air temple when zuko burns her feet). many disabled people, as well as myself, have anxiety disorders connected to this fear of needing any kind of help or awareness.

I’m not asking you to create insightful metas and headcanons relating to toph’s character, but I am asking you to check yourselves and do real research when writing about her—especially in modern AUs. our society is so, so incredibly ableist right down to its bones and this affects disabled people every day of our lives. (and maybe reblog this, if you can?)

I didn’t mean for this post to get so long, so I’ll end it here: please, do not strip toph’s character of nuance and meaning by falling back on harmful stereotypes that have been used to dehumanise us for centuries. do not belittle disabled people in fandom spaces. do not take away toph’s importance.

[higheldertala]

spyfall pt2 salt commentary

can someone please tell me if this episode makes sense to anyone cos i do not get it at all

don’t know why this episode doesn’t have an unique title like usual two parters, especially as this episode has definitely a lot less of the spy theme (again obvious that this was originally a single episode).

the fact that the writing is on the plane floor is a gamble that they’d see it

ADA!!! 🥰🥰🥰🥰 i love ada.

why do the kasaavin take ada again?

im sorry but the master’s tardis console is so ugly, baby you deserve so much better.

another Gender Joke™️! very funny ch*bnall, i laughed very hard i promise(!)

‘thats what the doctor would do’ see yaz has had her what would the doctor do moment here, why it’s made a point of in war of the sontarans confuses me.

the master’s 1834 outfit is very sexy, it’s a shame the directing doesn’t give many full shots of it.

lol the master’s top hat disappeared in between shots, where does it goes?

one thing i definitely don’t like is how little this doctor cares about the master and how out of character this is. i feel like sacha is giving a lot more to this but honestly don’t feel much coming from jodie, the doctor seems to only look at the master with disgust/ contempt, which is not their relationship at all.

obviously this goes without saying that this completely ignores missy’s arc and the doctor and master’s dynamic in s10 which is a real shame. i don’t know if ch*bnall has given his opinion on this but i guess he obviously didn’t like it idk.

yesss!! ada shooting the master is so badass i love her, finally a character who isn’t all passive. she is much more interesting as a character in 10 minutes than the fam are in 2 seasons.

also i hate the doctor’s moral high horse here. like she doesn’t say anything when the master kills 3 people unprompted but tells ada off for shooting the master in the arm when he was holding them all hostage, rescuing the doctor in the process, like can we please get a bit of perspective here.

i don’t understand why the silver lady is brought to 1834?

the fam being on the run is a blantant rip off of sound of the drums. honestly ch*bnall should use citations when he copies other people’s work.

also that generic ass ‘wanted’ poster is so funny

‘what if the doctor doesn’t come back?’ god some of these line deliveries are so deadpan. how i suppose to believe that they are a ‘fam’ when even the actors don’t even believe it.

it’s really funny that the fam’s reaction to the doctor and the master is like ‘bit awkward innit?’

why is the doctor so secretive towards the fam? is this ever explained why?

it’s really funny that graham is trying to reassure the others that the doctor is okay, because honestly they don’t actually seem to give a shit about her or whether she’s actually alive or not.

‘you know what she would ask now? what do we have at our disposable?’ see yaz is questioning what would the doctor do in this situation again. see she doesn’t actually need it written on her hand to ask herself these questions!

also it’s funny that yaz phrases this as what would the doctor ask. like im pretty sure yaz, a c*p, would also be able to ask these questions on her own. but then that would give her actual agency and would act like an actual character and ch*bnall can’t allow that.

like i don’t know what to call it, infantilisation? general lack of agency? but ch*bnall’s incessant need for the companions to only follow the doctor and be completely lost and unable to save the day without her is so annoying. like obviously it’s done worse in revolution of the daleks but yeah i hate how pointless ch*bnall made the role of companions to basically be reduced to background furniture who only exist to spout exposition and follow the doctor round like cheerleaders. like its the most shallow interpretation of the companion role ever to exist in the show (honestly i could rant on for hours about what ch*bnall did to the companion role and i’ll never forgive him for that).

‘ada are you okay?’ oh my god the doctor can ask this question to people! why does she literally never ask her companions this??

honestly why are there so many lense flares? the directing in this era is the worst.

so why do the kasaavin need to infiltrate multiple point of time? i don’t understand what they are gaining in the past that they couldn’t just get in the present day.

no idea what this stuff about barton and his mum is about? did ch*bnall ever elaborate on this?

i get the feeling that the master says something to noor but this has been cut/ edited out? this would explain ada’s line about hearing the master’s voice from under the floorboards.

also why wouldnt they check under the floorboards afterwards?

i don’t really see how ada tagging along would cause them to land in the wrong time (and specifically this time period/ location), again it’s just another excuse to do location hopping.

so the master tracks the doctor down to 1834/ 1943 through the kasaavin, is that right? honestly i don’t know how else he would be doing this.

‘two pacifists and a 19th century descendant of byron’ im sorry but its really rude to just refer to ada as daughter of byron when she accomplished many great things of her own accord.

it’s beyond words that ch*bnall sees nothing wrong with putting a poc in that uniform. i hate it him for it more than words can say. i’ll literally never forgive him for what he does in this episode.

‘ryan don’t tell them the plan!’ again! if ch*bnall is so aware of his shitty dialogue then why doesn’t he stop??

the fam don’t contribute anything this episode, they just have a run around? basically same as in survivors of the flux

why is the silver lady left in the warehouse on its own where it’s vulnerable. what if one of the fam just decided to smash it or something. honestly the silver lady thing isnt set up very well, it’s just a generic mcguffin thing.

okay talking out loud here, so when kasaavin ‘attack’ people it’s kills them, except they can’t kill the doctor and yaz because of their artron energy and also they don’t kill ada because they’ve been studying her for years. so were they meant to attack the doctor and yaz (like the master implies) or did they intentionally transported them to their dimension? (and if so why? to be studied?) like the teleporting thing has to international because they transport ada who doesn’t have artron energy. i am a bit confused on these kasaavin powers. it doesn’t help that kasaavin don’t really show up in this part until the end. i honestly feel like we don’t learn any more about them except they want to change humans into hard drives for… some reason??? nah i don’t understand this plan.

this plot falls apart in the second part and honestly i can’t make sense of it. maybe im being dumb but if anyone wants to fill me in that would be greatly appreciated.

like i think the hardest part is trying to follow all three antagonists plans, the master’s, the kasaavin’s and barton’s.

wasn’t the idea of gallifrey in a bubble universe is that it shouldn’t be easy to get in and out? obviously this was m*ffat’s idea and im not sure how clara and doctor get out of gallifrey in hell bent and m*ffat doesn’t explain how the master got out either. yknow what im already confused, let’s not bring m*ffat concepts into this. my point being is what’s the point of the bubble universe if the time lords can just come and go as they please?

the annoying thing is that there probably is a lot of potential to do stuff with gallifrey and the time lords but none of the nuwho writers have ever been able to do much with it and yet still they keep messing around with it. like destroying gallifrey again was literally so pointless because ch*bnall does nothing with it, when rtd destroyed gallifrey at least there was a character arc for doctor, here the doctor barely reacts it (onscreen at least). and also the whole flip flopping of destroying gallifrey, bringing it back, destroying gallifrey again is so childish and just looks like the showrunners fighting like children over their toys. like destroying gallifrey again is just shitting on m*ffat’s work which in turn was originally shitting on rtd’s work and just uuuuhhhhhhh!!! the audience is so tired of this!! it’s pathetic. why did ch*bnall destroy gallifrey again? for what purpose did this serve? honestly im putting gallifrey on a high shelf until these male writers learn how to behave.

i won’t insult anyone’s intelligence by going over why the that eiffel tower scene is awful and bad and honestly i skipped this because no one needs to see that scene more than once.

all i will say is ‘never be cruel, never be cowardly’…

the master’s tardis exterior not changing is so stupid and contrived!! the master may be arrogant but he isn’t stupid. my eyes cannot roll any further to the back of my head.

and honestly the doctor leaving/ stranding the master is so fucking stupid and out of character. the doctor would be smart enough to know not to leave the master on earth knowing the potential untold damage they can do. the master was stranded on earth (kinda) for 18 months and end up enslaving the planet. who knows what the master can do in 77 years. ahhhhh god i hate this so much. why? why would you do this? you are literally endangering the planet so much doctor

also wait why didn’t the master just use the kasaavin to get back to 2020? they can time travel right? that’s how the doctor is moving through time rightttt? why can’t the master do the same?

nah serious question do the kasaavin have time travel abilities?

so what does barton get out of this plan? i don’t feel like this is clearly established.

i don’t understand, why did the kasaavin target significant figures surrounding computers through time? were they needed to influence them or something? why did they need to go back in time to do this? couldn’t they just use barton in the present day? nah even when the doctor is explaining it straight to the audience im lost. i don’t understand the time travel part of this plan at all.

the master’s sexy purple outfit is so iconic and it’s an actual crime you can’t see it because of the awful ‘only close ups allowed’ directing.

the resolution of this story being ‘i just went back in time and undid what you did’ is the laziest example of time travelling. it’s cheating. as soon as ch*bnall wrote this someone should have taken the pen from him and told him sci-fi isn’t for you mate.

the way the doctor forgets about the fam being in a life threatening situation 💀

so fun that barton never gets resolved. also does the fam being on the run ever get resolved? you think that would have some sort of effect, especially for yaz.

ah yes the bit where the doctor take two women’s memories without consent and with absolutely zero repercussions for these actions. clearly ch*bnall missed the bit where this was established not to be an ethical thing.

and also the doctor removing ada/ noor’s memories when this has literally never happened to any other historical figure is so weird. ‘oh but we need to keep the timeline in check’ it’s literally fucking fiction it doesn’t matter! it’s not real ch*bnall! shakespeare never actually fought witches, agatha christie never actually encountered a murder mystery with a giant wasp, doctor who is fiction ch*bnall! it’s so unnecessary and makes the doctor out to be just cruel

what happened to master’s tardis? like where does the doctor leave it? this is literally never addressed.

a pet peeve of mine is definitely when they show flashbacks of something that happened in the same episode. your audience isn’t that dumb i assure you

i don’t understand how ‘the time lords lied to us’ is suppose to be some sort of revelation. like yeah they’ve been shady bitches from the start, this isn’t new or a surprise for their MO.

i don’t understand why the doctor is now so secretive towards the companions compared to in the past. this is never given a motivation or reasoning.

i love how the fam asked the doctor who she was and she just gave a wikipedia entry of herself.

concluding thoughts: honestly i get very lost watching this episode, like i said part two takes a massive detour from the plot and i don’t fully see the point of it? trying to keep track of three antagonists in a ch*bnall story seems excessive, as he can’t pull this off well (the timeless children and flux both suffer from multiple antagonists also). this also doesn’t help when the majority of the time they are kept separate. how the master, barton and the kasaavin came together isn’t very clear, i guess it just happened off screen and it doesn’t matter. also i don’t understand what barton’s motivations were/ what he gets out of this plan. he is just Evil Tech Guy™️. i guess i understand the kasaavin a little bit more but they do just become generic we want to take over the world baddies. them being from a different dimension is their most interesting point yet this hardly explored any further. the master does not do a lot in this part except chase the doctor through time, anything they do for main plot all happens offscreen which is dissatisfying as it makes it harder to see how much the master contributes to the plan. the companions also do nothing this part and don’t affect the plot in any way, honestly seemed like a waste of screen time to keep cutting to them. our pseudo companions ada and noor do contribute more to the plot which is nice. i really like ada, who seems like an actual character with agency and actually does things, but in end feels like she and noor are punished by having their memories taken away without their consent which has been established multiple times in dw to be a bad thing, here the doctor gets away with numerous unethical actions and is never punished nor called out on this behaviour. i really like sacha as the master i think he gives a great performance, he definitely deserves a lot more (russell please im begging you). the climax/ resolution for this story is awful, literally the laziest way of writing time travel there is (im pretty sure the curse of fatal death makes a joke about this use of time travel! and that was a parody! although i have never actually watched curse of fatal death and im very happy continuing my existence without seeing it).

[thehandmaidstalehulu]

It has been analysed as a dystopia, sci-fi, a political allegory, a cautionary tale and a feminist text, but The Handmaid’s Tale tends to get overlooked as horror, despite being the most terrifying show any of us have seen in years. This is horror in the purest sense of the word – psychological and bodily, full of a tension so sustained that you need a quiet sit-down afterwards to recover. It is relentlessly awful.

Right from the start it’s clear that this show is not messing around. Poor “batshit Janine” talks back at the Red Centre and is promptly dragged off, only to return with stained gauze over the hole where her eye once was. We see handmaids with missing hands and scarred faces being shunned in public and fetishised in private. We share Ofglen’s terror when she wakes to a bandaged crotch and a promise that her “deviant” sexual urges won’t bother her again. Any injuries our heroine Offred/June suffers – such as the whipping on the soles of her feet after her escape attempt – are shown in harrowing, closeup detail.

Such ubiquitous body horror is perhaps unavoidable in a show about a fictional republic where the women are reduced to no more than their bodies – and, in truth, just one particular function. So long as they can still conceive a child, it is irrelevant whether the rest of them is working. The Handmaid’s Tale is all about losing control of your own body, and the lengths you’ll go to to reclaim it. The sex scenes, by contrast, are free and sensuous, rare examples of June actually engaging with and enjoying her own body.

When I say “sex scenes”, I mean the consensual sex between June and her husband, Luke, and between June and Nick. For rape is the show’s other main source of terror. It is not dwelt on and shot like a sexualised torture scene. Rather, it is depicted quietly and sensitively, with the focus not on the act itself so much as the women’s reactions to it. The clinical, awful Ceremony scenes home in on details like the chandelier above June’s head as she struggles to take herself out of the moment. The camera closes in on her face and rather than watching it as an observer, we experience it alongside her. On the one occasion a handmaid is seen fighting back during the Ceremony – when Janine can’t take any more – it is no more shocking than the scenes where June suffers through it in silence, to protect herself.

The same is true of all the show’s horrors. The viewer is not allowed to be an impartial observer – we are in June’s head throughout. Each episode resonates, as we watch in fear of what might unfold next. Will traumatised women be forced to take their anger out by stoning another (probably) innocent prisoner? What sickening fantasies might the Commander conjure up for his “affair” with Offred? (The moment where June – and we – thought he wanted to have a threesome with her and Moira were some of the most frightening seconds ever committed to screen.) Will the evermore unstable Serena Joy plunge June into another domestic terror?

Most horror relies on outlandish setups. You enjoy being scared, because you are safely at a remove from the fear the story turns on. You’re unlikely to encounter zombies or ghosts or cannibals in real life, so you can watch it, jump out of your skin then go to bed feeling a mere tingle of nerves.

And of course, the world of Gilead is once removed from our own. It is a near-future dystopia and it falls into the sci-fi genre – or the speculative fiction genre, if you’re being fancy about it. But it is no less a world that feels horribly close, too close even, to ours. In fact, everything that happens – bar the handmaids and their despicable Ceremony – is happening somewhere in the world right now. Bursts of well-known songs constantly shock us into remembering that this could be our world if we veer just slightly more in the wrong direction. The victim-blaming and casual misogyny are uncomfortably recognisable. Trainee handmaids being forced to blame Janine for the rape she suffered is not all that different to the media and judges defending young men who “made a mistake” when they raped someone. And the Commander’s attitude to women – infantilising and fetishising them at the same time – is not dissimilar to that of a certain ridiculously-haired world leader. Real-life terrors that we are able to feel distanced from because they’re “not happening here”, such as FGM, being forced to flee your own country, and being denied basic rights, are westernised in The Handmaid’s Tale, so we face them head on.

Quite where The Handmaid’s Tale can go next remains to be seen. It’s already been commissioned for season two and Margaret Atwood’s world is rich enough that you could dig around in it for years and constantly find fresh material. Imagine what the unseen “colonies” could inflict upon the psyches of viewers. And what does an interrogation by the Eyes actually look like? Season two could also explore the indoctrination Gilead subjects its children to, or delve deeper into the regime’s relationship with religion. The Handmaid’s Tale is at its most frightening when it is close to home, so wherever it does head next, let’s hope it’s not too far removed from our own world.

[sulietsexual]

how was gunn sidelined for wesley? i mean i agree he wasnt treated right and fred shouldve stayed a thing, was it just because of that relationship?

It istied to Gunn and Fred’s relationship, yes. Not only was the relationship itselfdecimated, but Gunn as a character was partially destroyed over Seasons 4 and 5in order for Wes and Fred to happen and tofurther Wesley’s arc of man pain and trauma.

Over thecourse of Season 3, Gunn and Fred are shown to be extremely compatible, formingthe closest friendship Fred has within the group, going to breakfast together,playing video games and generally being adorable. Gunn’s intelligence is neverquestioned and he is never portrayed as not being good enough or smart enoughfor Fred. They love one another in equal measure, grow together and worktogether, and Gunn always treats Fredas an equal, not as someone to protect or shield. He never infantilises her andshe never talks down to or condescends him. They just work beautifully.

ThenSeason 4 arrives, and suddenly the show starts to tell us that Fred and Gunnaren’t compatible, pushing the Wes-and-Fred angle and suddenly having Freddevelop an attraction to Wes which literally came out of nowhere. The firststep towards the decimation of Fred/Gunn andGunn as a character starts with Supersymmetry, where suddenly Gunn – who hasalways treated Fred as equal – is suddenly trying to sideline her and Wes – whoconstantly infantilises Fred – is inher corner. It is completely out ofcharacter for both men, and is supposed tocome across as if Wes is “empowering” Fred, while Gunn is oppressing her, butin actuality, Wes is actively encouraging Fred to murder someone in cold blood,whereas Gunn is trying to talk Fred down, trying to help her see that revengeisn’t the best option.

Both Gunnas a character and the Fred/Gunnrelationship are further unraveled as the season progresses. Not only do theconstant references to Gunn being “just the muscle” start, but the series putslines such as “I need Wes” in Fred’s mouth (even though she’s talking about hisresearch skills and not him), othercharacters start to comment on Fred and Gunn’s incompatibility and Wes startsto shoulder in on Fred, acting entitled to her feelings despite doing nothing to earn them and the worst part is that the narrativesupports it.

This allculminates in an absolutely horrendous scene in which Gunn and Wesley getviolent with one another and Gunn accidentally hits Fred in the face. The sceneis clearly meant to condemn Gunn and his “violent ways”, and the charactersreact as if this is normal behaviour for Gunn, as if he the kind of man whowould actually hit his girlfriend. This adds Unfortunate Implications to the mix when youtake into account Gunn’s colour and portrayed “thug”upbringing, showing how the white man is more “civilized” and less violent(both of which are woefully wrong in Wesley’s case).

Season 5then completely ignores Fred and Gunn’s history and (as I’ve previously spokenabout) punishes Gunn for his lack of privilege and desire for education andintelligence (the latter of which he already had). Then he is blamed for Fred’sdeath and stabbed by Wesley (which the show againcondones) and his pain over Fred’s death is completelyignored, in favour of propping up Wesley’s pain.

So, tosum up, Charles Gunn started as a great, multi-faceted character and wasreduced to nothing more than the muscle and used to prop up a white man’s arc.

[mllemaenad]

Personally... I feel that WEaWH tries to remove itself from TME because it realizes that TME is fucking irredeemable garbage, and tries to make its WLW representation less appalling. So I'm entirely willing to overlook continuity errors for the sake of one relationship between women in the entire series that can go well.

I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that. I’m not going to argue with you on the merits of The Masked Empire, as you’re entitled to like or dislike any media you choose, but I don’t think Bioware is trying to distance itself from the novel. I also don’t think their motive is positive representation, or that they’re seriously suggesting a happy ending. However, even if they were I would call the choice to reunite Celene and Briala without any serious examination of the issues that drove them apart … disquieting.

1) On distancing themselves from the novel.

To begin with the obvious, several of the Dragon Age novels provide not only context for the quests in Inquisition, but also promotional material maintaining audience interest between games.

It’s hardly an accident that Asunder is a prequel to In Hushed Whispers/Champions of the Just, The Masked Empire is a prequel to Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts (as well as giving you a roundabout introduction to Solas) and Last Flight provides you with some context on why Weisshaupt is just no help at all during Here Lies the Abyss.

They do kind of want you to buy all their stuff. And if you started with Inquisition and liked what you saw, they want you to run back and buy all the earlier stuff for context. Video game tie-in novels aren’t generally considered high art, so they’d need serious reasons to want to reject the novel as part of their canon. Just in case, I checked The Masked Empire’s Amazon page, and it’s currently got 4.4 stars – so it doesn’t look like something they’d be particularly desperate to ignore. They’d rather you bought it and gave them money.

To move more to the specific, the game references the novel constantly. In addition to devoting a whole main quest to resolving its plot, it also includes cameos from Mihris, Michel and Imshael, which really serve no other purpose than to provide a bit of closure to the people who read the novel and wondered what became of them. This is actually more than it provides for, say, the characters of Asunder: Rhys and Evangeline appear only in a war table mission, Adrian doesn’t appear at all – and who knows where Shale has wandered off to.

It also references the murder of Briala’s parents directly:

Cole: She’s still behind the curtains in the reading room, watching the blood pool on the floor.

Briala pulled the red velvet curtain aside. Her hands shook as she did. There was a pool of red on the floor of the reading room, staining the rich Nevarran carpet. It had spread almost to the curtain.

At the other end of the pool were Briala’s parents.

– The Masked Empire

If they really wanted to distance themselves from The Masked Empire, they wouldn’t put that in there. If they wanted to say that that this didn’t happen, they’d have retconned the story – or at the very least not mentioned it.

In fact, the choice of words is particularly distressing. Cole senses pain. When he says Briala is ‘still behind the curtains’ he’s emphasising that the trauma and anguish are still very much with her, making a reconciliation, particularly a reconciliation that utterly fails to address a thing that they have confirmed happened, even stranger.

 I would say that one motive for their choice to reconcile the two characters is simplicity. I like parts of Inquisition, but honestly it’s over ambitious. They set up a series of continent-wide catastrophes, each one intensely political: the mage rebellion, the Orlesian civil war, the collapse of the Chantry.

Each one probably requires its own game for a satisfactory solution. I realise they were probably going for something similar to the galaxy-wide political collapse in Mass Effect 3, but the Dragon Age games are at a serious disadvantage because they lack continuity of characters.

Mass Effect 3 had its own problems, of course, but for example – I think most people have fun curing the genophage for the krogan. But what they remember is Mordin Solus and ‘There’s a reaper in my way, Wrex!’ When it worked it was able to build on characters who were present across the series.

Inquisition is faced with trying to find resolutions for groups of people that have no direct connection to each other, and whom the protagonist has never seen before (even if they player has). This is hardly the only time their attempt to fix everything in a single quest ends up making no sense.

2) On positive representation

I’m afraid I don’t think what we get in Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts is especially positive. I think it’s … kind of infantilising, really, and has a whiff of sexism about it. I mean – again, I’m not asking you to like The Masked Empire. But this:

“It would have been a locked suite in the palace for a few years, nothing more!” Celene kept her voice low, aware that Michel and Felassan had stopped planning and were looking their way. “It would have changed nothing for us.”

“Your hair still stinks of the smoke from the people you burned,” Briala said. “That is a change.”

The dead leaves crackled under Celene’s feet as she stepped forward. “How many wars can our empire survive in such a short time? I wanted my legacy to be the university, the beauty and culture that made us the envy of the world. Instead I may be known as the empress under whom Orlais fell. You have the luxury of mourning Halamshiral’s elves and holding my heart hostage. Sitting on my throne, I see every city in the empire. If I must burn one to save the rest, I will weep, but I will light the torch.”

Briala swallowed. “You’re not weeping, as far as I can tell. Nor are you sitting on your throne. She stepped away, her movements fast and jerky. “With your permission, Your Radiance, I shall go indulge myself in my luxury.”

– The Masked Empire

… is at least an argument between adults, with the details of what they believe laid out. Celene honestly believes that the empire and her legacy are worth 'a few thousand elven lives’: she believes that maintaining the strength of Orlais is worth thousands of lives in sacrifice, as is the vision she has for the country’s future. Briala is facing up to the fact that this is the bargain she’s made: stay with Celene and she might see an elven scholar graduate from the university – but she’ll likely also see elves burn every time there’s a crisis, because elves are the most expendable people in the empire.

Briala wavers throughout the novel, obviously, because there is genuine feeling between herself and Celene. But the discovery that this has all happened before, that this is not the first time Celene has shed elven blood to impress her rivals and gain power, and that her own parents were among the victims, brings her to a decision.

You don’t have to like it, but these women are serious about what they want and believe.

But in Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts we get stuff like this:

Sera: Elves-elves-elves, but it’s really a pissing match with an old lover. Don’t know the rest but that explains a lot.

It’s hardly coincidental that they chose Sera to say this. Sera the commoner, who despises the nobility. Sera the Red Jenny, with contacts in every corner of Thedas. True, Sera’s background has led her to reject a lot of elven culture, but her biggest objection is usually to ‘moping’ about the past. This:

Briala thought for a moment. “Celene and Gaspard saw an army, but that would be fighting their fight. With the paths, I could get food to alienages where elves would otherwise starve. They would let me move ahead of an oncoming army and warn the target, or move behind them and attack their supply lines.”

– The Masked Empire

… sounds more like the practical stuff she favours: she’s said getting revenge would be a preferable option, and this is getting food to the poor, terrorising the nobility and giving little people a shot at being part of something bigger. But now we can’t take it seriously, because Sera has reduced it to a lovers’ tiff.

That isn’t meant as a criticism of Sera, to be clear. They do this when they want a mouthpiece. This is the equivalent of having Cole approve of Cullen.

And as for it going well, this is their epilogue slide:

Where once war raged, there is now a shaky peace. Orlais is resurgent, the empress a patron of arts and culture.

Many attribute this recovery to her lady love, though others wonder how long their reunion will truly last.

– Epilogue (Inquisition)

I mean – maybe they’ll forget about this. They have been known to forget their epilogue slides. But it doesn’t read as though the intent was to write a strong and loving partnership. Rather it looks as though they are selling the relationship as tempestuous.

That’s one place where I am very uncomfortable. This is the revolt of an oppressed people, and the politics an empire. And there’s a sense that they’re saying ‘Oh, those women and their emotions! Today they love each other; tomorrow they’ll hate each other; the day after they’ll probably love each other again. You never know, with women.’

I appreciate that Bioware is fairly progressive, for a game company: the character choices, the romance options, the NPCs – they are trying to represent a variety of races, genders and sexualities. But it doesn’t mean they never fuck up. I mean, there’s a bit in Mark of the Assassin where Isabela tells Hawke that Gamlen has been sexually harassing her and two responses blame her (You find something inappropriate?/Break him. And wear pants.).

Given that they are already struggling to resolve a massive plotline in a ridiculous amount of time, I’m not surprised they fell back on this. It’s narrative shorthand, and that can be handy for desperate situations. But it’s still sexist shorthand, and I very much wish they hadn’t done it.

3) Removing The Masked Empire from the equation doesn’t solve the problem

I mean, it makes some of the bigger issues like Briala’s dead parents a little easier to miss, sure, but it doesn’t make the problems go away.

I appreciate that representation is important. I do. But romantic relationships between women are not the only representation issue at stake, here. There’s no single source for the elven people, of course, but it’s easy enough to see that Bioware has borrowed from the experiences of Jewish, Romani and aboriginal peoples living under empires and/or colonialism.

And have we ever established that it is shit to be an elf. The city elf origin story in Origins is an abduction/rape/murder combo. The Dalish clans in Origins and DA2 can be slaughtered. It’s terrifyingly easy to kill off clan Lavellan in war table missions, and even though this is the protagonist’s family the game doesn’t make a thing of it. There’s a whole side quest in DA2 about a serial killer who targets elves, and who keeps getting away with it because no one gives a shit. We are up to our eyeballs in codex entries on the treatment of elves.

And here we have Briala, the leader of a rebellion in Orlais – one of the nations best known for oppressing the fuck out of the elves and trying to destroy their culture.

Even without The Masked Empire this is:

a) providing only the most minimal description of the nature of her rebellion and what she hopes to achieve.

b)allowing her to be dismissed as primarily involved in a lovers’ tiff.

c) pairing her with a woman the game actually says massacred the Halamshiral elves.

d) using the massacre as evidence against her because she was sleeping with Celene, rather than as evidence against the woman who actually committed it.

That’s … all pretty shitty, even at the simplest level. The game doesn’t address any of this. It doesn’t even force the characters to discuss what happened before throwing them back together. It spends as much time tsking at Briala for destabilising Orlais as it does Celene and Gaspard. It loves the idea that they’re all as bad as each other – which allows the player to justify just about any ending.

And this is a thing they do repeatedly: they tsk at the mage rebellion as well. They seem to be very good at describing the sufferings of the elves, the mages, the casteless dwarves … but don’t approve of them actually doing anything about their oppression. At least not anything more forceful than writing a stern letter of complaint (for those lucky literate characters!) to the local lord or revered mother.

And so minimising the problems of Celene and Briala’s relationship, and waving a locket around (which, even out of context, does not seem like a forceful enough declaration of love to startle Briala) does … not strike me as very respectful of peoples who have suffered under empires, and who have had to fight tooth and nail for every sliver of justice.

It’s not that I want to exclude a healthy, positive romance between two women in order to have Awesome Revolutionary Briala. I just don’t understand why we couldn’t have both.

Couldn’t Briala show up with a new girlfriend? Do it properly: give her a codex entry and make her active and important in the quest. Show the two of them both being affectionate and working together for the cause. Make sure that at least some of the possible quest endings leave them alive, together and continuing to better the lot of the elves.

I can understand that you may not like The Masked Empire and may want to exclude it from your personal headcanon. That’s absolutely fine, obviously. But I do not believe that was Bioware’s intent in writing the the Briala-and-Celene reconciliation, and I still have serious issues with it.