#like the order absolutely still sucks imo but she's fine

[hassianlovebot]

like on one hand i understand why people don't like subira at first, but i'm also getting tired of seeing people shit on her without actually getting to know her. and i know how that sounds, but she's literally fine. like yes death to cops but the in game order lady isn't the evil witch come to kill zeki and reth that everyone thinks she is. and they would know that,, if they did her quests,, or at least spoiled themselves and looked at the wiki,,,

it's getting embarrassing honestly

[bobbile-blog]

Not sure if anyone’s said this yet but now that we have Laterano events plural I’m fascinated by their (imo) very deliberate choice of protagonists, and there are almost a couple of layers of narrative going on there. I struggle a little figuring out how to get this into words but specifically I think they’re chosen to be people who can carry a narrative without contradicting the orthodox morals of the church. There’s a LOT of vaguely anti-authoritarian rambling below the cut so please kindly bear with me and my English major brain.

I can’t really start there though. One of the reasons this is so brain hurty is how deeply it’s woven into the storyline, so to start, I have to verbalize how Laterano and Arknights writing more generally is different from other, similar settings. Because like, I hear the words “morally negative church in a grimdark setting” and my brain immediately shuts off. Come on, that’s so far beyond low-hanging fruit, if you’ve seen any grimdark setting ever you know exactly what that looks like. And sure, it was fine the first two or three times you saw it, depending on your tolerance for that kinda thing, but it gets boring quick and even when it was new it was kinda uninteresting story-wise. “Religion is always fake because it inspires hope which means everyone who takes meaning from it is either a corrupt grifter or naive and misled” isn’t just edgy nonsense, it’s also basically useless as an actual critique. It tells you absolutely nothing except how to tune out a particular kind of story, and a story that tries to get you to hear less is doing its job wrong.

So, Arknights does something different. Instead of denying the premise of the church entirely, it actually takes it at its word. Laterano is, in almost every definition of the word, a paradise. It is basically unmatched in terms of actual quality of life, with its only competitors being the Durin cities and maybe Aegir, and is worlds apart from now much the rest of Terra sucks. More than that, though, the paradise is specifically tailored to the worldview of a religion with a strong central authority - when I say it takes it at its word, I mean the authoritarian bits too. Laterano is a city that lives in perfect order and peace because everyone follows the law perfectly and they all understand each other and never fight. Empathy is really important for this, as it allows for a believable amount of superhuman societal order. Laterano has very little crime, political drama, or quarrels in general. It’s the promises of a strict higher authority actually taken at face value: everyone follows the rules and that means they have effectively unfettered freedom, because they don’t want to break the rules and therefore they can do anything they want.

Laterano is specifically written to be a believable paradise in a setting that has none, so that when the story then turns around and criticizes that setting, it has significantly more weight. Even when the promises of paradise are taken at face value, there are still issues that cannot be addressed because the system is inherently flawed even in the imaginary scenario where it works. Even worse, the problems that poke holes in the imaginary perfect scenario are the same problems that they face in the real world, like “how do you deal with the interpretation of scriptures” and “hey there’s this racism thing I keep hearing about should we be worried about that or what”. Because of the way this imaginary perfect system works, we then look back on our real world in a new light and understand it a little better. It’s good critique.

Okay so how did we get here and what does this have to do with the protagonists? Well, this starts with Fiametta in Guide Ahead, because she’s a really weird protagonist. This is a cold take at this point but despite being the character on the front of the box, she has very little to actually do with the central conflict of the event. Most of the conflict is handled by Ezell first and Andoain second, and Fiametta mostly putters around putting holes in people until the finale where Andoain receives the answer he’s been looking for, he turns to explain it to the world, and he runs into the only person in the whole of Laterano who does not care about his motivations or his revelation. Her role, in other words, is to replace the climax of Andoain’s story with her own, and in doing so she makes it much harder to actually get a resolution and a meaning out of the story (this should not be taken as a criticism of her character, let me cook). Guide Ahead’s ending is hazy, with only small piecemeal resolutions to its conflicts, and for the longest time that was just the way the event was written and it stood on its own.

But now, Hortus de Escapismo is out and the monkey brain see patterns. Specifically, with the choice of protagonists. Because Executor is definitely different from Fiametta as a protagonist, but there’s one particularly important connection between the two, and that’s that as I mentioned in the beginning, they allow for stories don’t contradict orthodox morality. Fiametta we went over, as she’s uninterested in any of Andoain’s morality and just wants him dead. Executor, though, is purely focused on his mission and views the world through that lens. He only wants to achieve his objective, and while helping the needy is in line with the stated objectives of the church and he does do so when able, it’s secondary to his assigned task. He does change as he gets further into the story, and we’re not gonna ignore that, but we’ll be back to it later. What I mean is more that he is designed as a person who is able to lead a story that doesn’t contradict with the morals of Laterano. He sees the injustice and suffering around him, but that’s not his job, so he doesn’t need to solve it to have a complete story with a happy ending.

This is where it really gets complicated, so I apologize if I don’t explain this very well. I see this as us dealing with multiple layers of fiction: the events of the story, the perspective of the church, and our perspective as readers. Back to the first point - authoritarian institutions almost always use stories to sell people on their brand of order. Simple stories, simple enough that even calling them myths seems like overselling it a little, your “Saint George slays a dragon” kinda thing. This is the point of the second layer, the perspective of the church. I don’t really have an in-world justification for this layer - maybe you could make the argument that it has to do with Law’s perspective on things, but I don’t totally buy that - I think it’s more in a weird narrative transition space for people who don’t read very carefully. Regardless, Fiametta and Executor’s shared indifference to the questionable circumstances surrounding them is designed to let them tell a story to prop up the existing order. Their protagonist status and their missions are specifically constructed to allow them to ignore the suffering around them, and as such ignore the larger questions that might poke holes in the larger order. They’re both playing out the story of Saint George, where they go and find a bad guy and kill them and that’s all there is to it. The story is designed and told specifically for that “that’s all there is to it”.

But, as we said earlier, this is a good critique, and as such it intentionally undercuts this story with the third layer: what we actually see as readers. We are shown the suffering and the injustice, and then get to see our protagonists ignoring that to pursue their goals. This is what gives Guide Ahead’s ending its unique texture, which sets it apart from every other event with a vaguely unresolved ending. We have seen the actual issues with Laterano, and also watched our protagonist explicitly ignore them in favor of her own story. It’s unsatisfying in a way that only really makes sense to me if we as the readers have an understanding of intentional authorship. Whether it be Yvangelista XI or Law or The Actual Real Life Pope, there are issues here that we want to see a resolution to but people are choosing not to address them. Again, it’s good critique. Not only does it push the reader to unpack and understand the actual real-world technique, but it also helps blunt it. You have just seen a plot and protagonist ring uncharacteristically hollow. You then look around to see why that is, and you realize there are many things that should have been resolved that weren’t. The next time you see a story resolve with that same hollow-ness, you know where to look. Surprise! Harry Potter was propaganda the whole time. It’s okay, it was never good, you were just twelve.

I guess the last thing is where we go from here, because Executor’s story breaks this mold somewhat. In Hortus de Escapismo, he has to deal with a mission that isn’t actually bounded by his normal rules, and because of that he actually does have leeway to help the people around him. He starts as someone who is totally mission-focused, but by the end of the event he’s done a total 180 and is blocking Oren’s attack, which makes the mission harder but helps the non-mission-critical civilians of the monastery. He breaks from the rigid thinking of “kill the bad guy and that’s all there is do it”, and gives his attention to the people he isn’t supposed to see. I think this is an indication of the direction we’re going to be headed in the future with Laterano events. The events aren’t going to get better - they’re going to keep being just as morally murky and complicated as in the past - but the characters are going to get better at handling it, and when they do, they’re going to actually start to change things for the better.

Goddamn that was a lot of writing for 1 AM. I still have a. Lot of thoughts on this event with stuff like empathy and Lemuen and Federico being an autistic icon(my beloved) but I’m going to leave things there, I think, because if I write for any longer my phone is going to crash when I try to post this. Anyway if you actually made it to the end thanks for listening to me rambling and I hope that made sense. Cheers.

[sailorgundam308]

Maybe I should shut my mouth already, but this is my little space to vent and digress with stuff I need to keep bottled up elsewhere.

BG3 brought me back to fandom spaces after more than a decade and, while I know this could be just a generation gap thing, there are stuff I keep reading about or that sms throws at me randomly that is pretty annoying and even disheartening. Lots of younger/new people are engaging with the Forgotten Realms lore for the first time and it’s awesome. But I forgot how impassioned and intolerant fierce parts of fandoms can be.

It rubs me the wrong way how people in general tend to simplify things in order to either justify themselves or feel secure in regards to the world - which is a terrifyingly complex, irrational and nuanced thing we have absolutely no control over. Over the years I’ve surrounded myself with people that are fine with not knowing everything, not understanding all that’s going on, and who are okay with admitting there are things we’ll never grasp, points of view we’ll never have the authority to speak from. But the internet isn’t my bubble.

In regards to BG3 fandom - but I’d risk this is valid for a lot of places in and outside fandoms - there’s a lot of simplifying, flattening and denial of other experiences. The diehard straight folks at BG3 Reddit freak out because characters are pan, BG3 steam incels freak out because the women are “ugly”, BG3 tumblr users freak out (ironically) also because characters are pan, but in reverse. It’s a bit too much, especially when a lot of the fuel for divide is our own headcanons (which, let’s remind ourselves, can’t be wrong or right cause they exist for our personal entertainment and fantasy). Not to mention the game canon itself purposefully leaves a lot to be inputted by the player so we can head-customize our experiences. It’s the magic of rpg.

Still, there are these heated discussions that I can’t help but see stemming from simplification and labeling of things. This is shit that imo should not be happening still. I’ve mentioned here before how I dislike that people bat an eye on a character and, for example, decide what sexual orientation they should have. Generalizing, Shadowheart is straight because she is pretty and petite. Karlach is a lesbian because she is muscular and curses. Astarion is gay because he is slender and flamboyant - and so on. Mind you, they could very well be - but that is not the point. The point is passing judgement onto people based off appearance or demeanor alone.

Outside BG3 this reads as our daily encounters with ideas like: fat people are lazy, immigrants are uneducated (or less educated), hot girls are dumb, being slender is a desirable feminine trait, being muscular is a desirable masculine trait, poc are poor(er). Do some of these prove to be true on a case by case basis? Yes. Do some of these prove to be false on a case by case basis? Also yes. The fact is that some of these ideas are entrenched into the way people view the world. And that includes me and you. Even if you and I personally don’t do this, it doesn’t change the fact that a vast majority of people still do - and many of them unknowingly.

So when a niche community divides itself further to pass judgement onto fictional aspects of a game that is intentionally left so open to interpretation, to the point it creates feuds, it’s quite disheartening. It’s can’t be helped, perhaps, but it just plain sucks.

What specifically prompted me to write this, despite it being a ongoing feeling for a while, was the discussion around Halsin’s status of survivor/his backstory. And, again, there is a bias there that some people might not even realize. Astarion is the ideal victim in this regard, because he is the portrayal of fragility and attractiveness mixed in the right measure so his trauma can elicit sympathy and a sense of protection in many of us. Whereas Halsin isn’t necessarily the face of a traumatic experience for many. Not only physically (buff guy gets attacked?), but these two relate their experiences to us players differently, and act differently towards their trauma. It made me think again of the flattening of characters. This one can be a victim because “look at his face”. But this one? Not so much. It comes across as dismissing the “non-ideal” impersonation of that type of trauma.

Risking some oversharing, it’s the type of attitude that is putting me off from and isolating me within certain fan spaces - because my personal experiences are not quintessential “enough” for some, and my interpretations aren’t either. I’m in the lgbtqia spectrum but I’m not quite the “right kind of queer” (or, as some put it, fake queer, which is hilarious if nothing else). At least, my interpretation and depiction of queerness and gender within my favorite characters is not the one that is welcome in the spaces I tried to reach out to.

Far from me from claiming the epitome of trauma, but I’ve had my fair share. And I assume a lot of people have, too. So a little empathy or sympathy goes a long way, in reminding us our views (on headcanons) do not mean others’ are invalid.

How nice would it be that, instead of blurting out our first impressions because they are ‘easy’, we’d take a minute to just check if we’re saying what we’re saying out of an over simplistic view of things? Or, better yet, sometimes we don’t need to get out of our way to invalidate someone else’s experience. It’s mostly headcanon after all. Unless an idiot is going ‘round shouting nazi, racist, xenophobic, homophobic or misogynistic shit, there’s usually a way to turn around and leave them be (otherwise, fuck em up please and thank you.)

[hiveswap]

Cool!!! Don't be intimidated by the lenght, i get verbose but it's not a lot of info. I love him a lot because he's absolutely devastating to read about, I'm pretty sure I got gray hairs in the process. He's dense, self sacrificial, doesn't think he belongs anywhere, and unable to sit still for 10 seconds.

Do you like the Guardians of the Galaxy? Because Richard does... He's constantly on and off with Gamora and has been obviously in love with Starlord's gay ass too for the same amount of time. (In better runs they're not at all like the mcu versions if you're worried about that.)

His backstory is that he was randomly given the powers of a dying Nova (space UN solider) via lightning when he was 17 and it's been downhill for him ever since. The Nova Corps have been oneshotted like 4 times by now, they're not that big of a deal honestly. He's also got a little brother and their dad sucks and is half the reason he won't accept help from anyone.

Guide(s) below

The first Nova comic run was in 1973. In that Rich was a teenage superhero, He was also a member of the New Warriors for a couple decades which were basically marvel's first teen team. (Can't help a lot here, haven't read a lot of these)

I personally started reading at the Annihilation crossover event from 2006 because I wanted to get into the modern (ough long story) Guardians of The Galaxy team, whose plotline was first set up there. Rich is basically the protagonist of Annihilation, nearly dies a lot. (He should be 22 years old here i think? They mention how long he's had his powers)

He got his own series again in Nova 2007, which carried on alongside the cosmic side of marvel. you have to read other comics too to fully get wtf is going on sometimes, like gotg 2008, (my beloved!!) a tiny bit of xmen, ect. This carries on for three more arcs (annihilation:conquest, war of kings, realm of kingd) and then ends in 2010 with the Thanos Imperative event.

I fully trust the Comic book herald cosmic guide to tell that era of the story. It's cohesive.

The reading order gets weird here lmao

Things fall apart fully after that, the guide website gets more confusing and splits off into different articles...

-You don't have to read Guardians of the Galaxy 2013, it's irrelevant to Nova and smells like the MCU, but like two or three issues of it explain basically what happened following the fade to black in Thanos Imperative. That's pretty important, idk their number right now but they should be titled Original Sin.

-You could read Guardians 3000! An alternate future fem!Nova appears but she's not as important to the plot as I had hoped. :/ She's got sexual tension with alternate future Starlord who is actually a different guy than he claims imo. (It also requires a bit of knowledge of pre-2000 gotg but you should be fine if you've read the 2008 one too)

-Nova 2017 brings Richard back! You could read 2016 first for a bit of context but it's not neccassary, it's fully about Sam Alexander. (legacy hero to Rich, like Miles Morales to Peter Parker.)

-Then there's the Black Order miniseries where he gets mind controlled, not an important one but it does interesting things to his character and at this point i'm just happy to see him

-He reunites with Peter Quill in Guardians 2018, it's kinda cute. You could read Infinity Wars after but it's. Eh. Guardians 2019 is a bit better, he's there in that one too. His brother is there in both as well.

-Annihilation: Scourge. Not lot I can say about it. Kinda gross

-Guardians 2020 is sometimes called the first true sequel to the one from 2008. Rich actually join the team in that one and deals with his issues!! Actually sees a professional too!! Pround of him!! It's followed by the Bane of Blastaar oneshot. Those 3 nerds are so married.

-The Guardians got a bad series in 2023 again, so the author of Guardians 2020 carried him over to X-Men Red. You get some context for that in Guardians 2020 but I do recommend reading up on Krakoa and Arakko anyway. You could try following the X-men guide (not from the very beginning, start at 2019 the earliest if you want to do this) on the comic book herald website but it's very quantity over quality so i've read some truly awful runs doing that.

Red is important for Rich and it's the last one he's been in to date. It's good but i haven't finished it because the full xmen guide overwhelmed me.

On a final note, take it slow and drop things fhat are irrelevant, bad, or boring. Don't burn yourself out like i did on xmen

I used this website to read comics also

If you wanna know anything about how to read comics abt the guy im happy to tell you

yes please!! he will be my next hyperfixation after i'm done with my current hyperfixation (if all goes to plan regarding my personal time) so that would be great!

[bonefall]

tpb spottedleaf,you'll always be famous to me. her personality was so good in tpb and now she's just forever remembered as "firestar's stalker med cat crush he was willing to leave his wife for" and it's so dumb. personally,im fully using and exploiting the fact that she seems to be starclan's primary messanger upon death,even encouraging cats to break the code in the case of leafpool,which is so interesitng

I knowwww, it sucks! There's no reason for it! She wasn't like that in TPB, if it was anything, it was a one-sided crush on Fireheart's behalf. She did not return those feelings until weird authorial statements and additional content much later

And it makes it worse, imo! Just let Spottedleaf be there to guide Fireheart. That's good. I LOVE the idea of Spottedleaf being a bit of a 'rogue' StarClan cat, one who will appear to cats and encourage them to do what they think is right.

Personally I like to approach it as her not even being explicitly sent BY StarClan. I just see her as the sort of person who would, and that's why she bonded so well with Firepaw. She recognizes a lot of her own traits in him, and encourages him to march to the beat of his own drum.

I'm gushing about her now but I also compare her to her brother Redtail. HE'S prim and proper, he's the drill sergeant, the one who does things by the book, does as StarClan commands. Gets told, "Redtail, go watch your sister to make sure she doesn't run off to tell Fireheart about that new prophecy" and he follows the order, only for her to go,

"Reddtaaill... I need you to help me with these flower chains."

"...you're trying to trick me. you're a horrible starclan cat."

"Whatt? How could you? That's so rude... You can still watch me and braid these, can't you? How could I possibly be tricking you when it's so simple?"

"....hmph. fine. you're right, I'm absolutely capable of that."

But, of course, Redtail is too meticulous to just braid subconsciously. So he makes the first one and it's not great, and the perfectionist in him comes out. He's still watching her, but now he's glancing at her from the corner of his eye... aaaand this flower chain is worse. So he pays better attention to it, and this one looks excellent.

"Looks excellent! See, I'm still here!" She assures him, making sure he has a big pile of sparkling daisies next to him.

And fellas. He doesn't even notice when she vanishes 15 minutes later.

[makeste]

have you noticed in the latest chapter the light is gone from Izuku's eyes? The same way it was gone from Katsuki's between his rescue and Deku vs Kacchan 2 fight. Izuku is hurting inside and im sitting here wondering how long will it be til he hits breaking point

so I’m late in answering these two asks (got them last week after 309 came out) because a certain someone had his birthday and so I was busy reading fanfic and hunting down gremlin faces, and then 310 came along and so I got distracted with that, and also I just suck at answering asks. but anyways, yes. yes to all of this, and thank you both for pointing this out. like, let’s talk about this. because this is how Deku’s eyes look normally,

and this is him in the latest chapter.

first of all, this is really well-played imo, because it’s all about consistency. it’s a very subtle change (or at least I thought it was lol), and the reason it’s so effective is because Horikoshi is so consistent in drawing the “normal” bright-eyed Deku look that you can’t help but notice the change when he suddenly stops. even if you can’t necessarily put your finger on exactly what’s off at first, I think most people definitely got that feeling of something being wrong. and that’s very deliberate.

so why is this important? well because a lot of people’s big fear right now is that the story is tacitly endorsing Deku’s recent choices and painting them as right/correct. namely, people are worried that this whole thing with Deku striking off on his own (because let’s be real, that’s exactly what he’s done; it doesn’t matter that All Might and the Hawksquad are accompanying him, because he’s clearly keeping his distance from them and is ready to give them the slip the moment things get bad) is going to be framed as The Right Decision Which Is Best For Everyone. and for a lot of people, that comes as a betrayal, because up until this point the series has espoused teamwork and trust as core virtues, and what Deku is doing right now is basically the opposite of that.

and this is why little details like the Despondent Eyes of Angst and Despair (or D.E.A.D. eyes for short) are so important -- because they signal to us that this is not the case. they are a very clear visual indicator that in spite of him appearing to have his shit together, Deku is very much not okay right now. like, let me just repeat that one more time: Deku is not fine. Deku is very much not fine here at all. Despondent Eyes of Angst and Despair are not just a little thing to be ignored. D.E.A.D. eyes are a dead giveaway that a character is Going Through It and is not in the right state of mind right now and needs help. but before I start spamming this post with images, let me add a read more cut.

okay, so! case in point,

Nana’s eyes normally:

vs. Nana’s eyes when she’s talking about potentially killing her grandson in order to defeat AFO:

Iida’s eyes normally:

vs. Iida’s eyes when he’s plotting premeditated murder to avenge his brother:

and again, Deku’s eyes normally:

vs. Deku’s eyes in chapters 306 through 310:

Deku’s eyes were still clear all the way up through chapter 305 when he was talking to the Vestiges about wanting to save Tomura. in fact, they were clear af when he was giving his speeches about that, because that light in his eyes always shines brightest when he’s speaking and acting with true conviction. it’s one of the ways the art shows us how determined he is. when Deku talks about saving people no matter what, he’s speaking straight from the heart about one of the core principles of his character, and the look in his eyes reflects that.

now contrast that against the look in his eyes when he talks about not wanting anyone else to get hurt:

once you see it, you can’t not see it. it’s Horikoshi’s way of showing that even though it may sound like the Same Old Deku on the surface, it absolutely is not the Deku we’ve come to know and love. something is deeply wrong. even though these might appear to be the same old convictions he’s always had -- protect everyone at all costs -- he’s gone from acting out of belief and principle to acting out of fear. he’s afraid of someone else getting hurt because of him. he’s so afraid that he’s pushing people away left and right to stop it from happening again. and that fear is holding him back, because as long as he’s holding himself apart from everyone else and trying to do it all solo, he’s making the same mistake that All Might once did. no one can bear all of that weight on their shoulders alone. AFO isn’t someone who can be defeated by any one person alone. the only way he’s ever going to be defeated is if the characters hold true to the one ideal that’s at the very core of the series: one for all. the combined strength of many, working together to overcome the selfish, arrogant, limited strength of one.

basically, this right here is why I haven’t been concerned about the story suddenly veering off the rails with this latest development. like, this isn’t Our Lord And Savior Deku being put on a pedestal and worshipped while all the other characters are shoved aside. this is Literally-Still-Just-A-Child Deku having an angst spiral while the distracted adults around him try their best to keep an eye on him but kind of suck at it because there’s too much other stuff going on that they’re also trying to deal with. All Might could be the one to help him in theory, but in practice he’s too accommodating and doesn’t really know how to say ‘no’ to this kid he loves like his own son, and right now he’s basically letting Deku walk all over him. as for the Vestiges, they’re great for helping Deku in battle, but well, how do I put this lol. basically I’m not fully sold on trusting Deku’s mental health to a bunch of angst-ridden martyrs who all died willingly in order to further the cause of taking AFO down. not really the best life coaches, there.

but you know who I do trust to finally get through to Deku and get him to see reason and start having faith in others again?

these guys.

so yeah. tl;dr, Deku isn’t okay right now and we’re not meant to think he is. and unless I’m way off base, this is going to be a very temporary arrangement. I don’t think Deku can continue as he is right now indefinitely. saving others has been his whole thing since the very start of the manga, but like everything else, eventually it has to come full circle. and I think that very soon, it’s finally going to be his turn to be saved. luckily for him, he’s got some good (and determined) friends. and as they say, giving help that’s not asked for is part of what makes a true hero.

[ichayalovesyou]

I need to say my piece about SNW and the Spock/T’Pring shitstorm

I’m going to just say outright, first things first

It’s fucking annoying (and at it’s worst Pan/biphobic and sexist) that people are saying it’s homophobic/queerbaiting for the Strange New Worlds to explore the relationship between Spock and T’Pring.

Like, did I miss something or was that not a HUGE part of Spock’s life that we never got to see?? Like “Oh I’ve been unwillingly engaged to this woman since we were seven years old.” Isn’t an interesting character dynamic. It also really doesn’t have to be romantic, I mean, it’s probably gonna be to some degree but that’s not the point. They’re clearly at least no longer interested in each other by Amok Time. I think that counts for something.

I know that Spock being queer on some level is incredibly important to a lot of people, (including me!) and god knows we need more mlm representation in media but also like-

We HAVE K/S! Spirk is basically canon! Spock and T’Pring being betrothed and that being a significant element in his life. AND Spock still having a very obvious, deep established relationship with Kirk in TOS and subsequent films can and do exist in the same universe! Amok Time happened they went their separate ways. Exploring the T’Pring subplot does not magically negate almost three decades of extremely queer subtext! All Our Yesterdays doesn’t undo The Search for Spock!

What is wrong with Spock being bi/pan??? Absolutely nothing! It would honestly make sense given what happens in All Our Yesterdays, The Enterprise Incident and The Cloudkeepers, or AOS Spuhura while Spock and Kirk are still clearly interested in each other. Spock is still obviously in love with Jim and his relationship with Kirk always outlasts any interest in women Spock has had, but the fandom collectively ignores it in favor of interpreting Spock as gay. Which is fine! As long as you don’t get rancid about it!

If you can ignore those episodes and elements of the AOS movies in order to continue holding fast to the idea Spock’s gay you can ignore whatever romantic things they might do with Spock and T’Pring in SNW. Just like how you can headcanon him as aromantic asexual or transmasculine or whatever else you want. It’s fiction! Go nuts! Be free! Canon is a template the imagination is freedom. But don’t assume the worst from people who wrote canon.

Also this really feels like the (imo shitty and unnuanced) “T’Pring is the bad guy” hot take wearing a different hat. It’s the whole super unfair “let’s immediately vilify the woman in this story” shit all over again. T’Pring is just as trapped as Spock is in Amok Time, by traditions, and by the fact they don’t love each other (whether anymore is a preface to that remains to be seen). Spock is condemned to kill or be killed by cultural constraints, T’Pring is forced to choose who lives or dies by cultural constraints. She didn’t want to (essentially) murder Spock or Stonn, so she chose a stranger. This becomes even more obvious if you read deleted elements of the original Amok Time script!

T’Pring is gonna be in three episodes, I really doubt that’s going to be exclusively composed of romantic moments between her and Spock (if there are any). I expect character depth for both her and Spock. I think it’s super unfair to complain about something we haven’t seen play out. Even if that subplot sucks ass, it doesn’t rule out Spock being queer or negate/sabotage Spirk in any way! It doesn’t erase Spock’s journey being very allegorical for being queer either. Just because he’s not the same kind of queer you headcanon him to be, it doesn’t erase that element of his identity, canon or fanon!

If Spock being at least mildly interested in women occasionally ruins Spock as a character and a show that isn’t even out yet for you. Maybe you should reevaluate why you liked him in the first place.

[unrestedjade]

Baseless Ferengi headcanons no one asked for and that get increasingly queer-navel-gazing and self indulgent because the horrible space goblins have consumed my brain:

- Mobile ears, because if hearing is so well developed and important to them they should be able to aim those big stupid radar dishes. Also because then they can emote with them and that's cute. THE AESTHETIC IS PARAMOUNT.

- Since they canonically sharpen their teeth with chew sticks and sharpeners, their teeth must grow continuously. So I submit: subcultures that let certain teeth grow out as a fashion/political statement. Ferengi punks and anarchists with 5" tusks. Ferengi with all their teeth filed flat (mom and dad HATE it).

- Corollary to the above, most of their teeth are crooked. At the least, they don't share our fetish for straight teeth. What if their teeth are deciduous, and there's no point in trying to force them into perfect alignment, since they'll just fall out and get replaced? So like, sharks but their teeth can also grow longer with no limit. WHAT HAST EVOLUTION WROUGHT ON FERENGINAR :V

- Parents nagging their kids to sharpen their teeth "or they'll grow up into your brain and you'll die :)"

- Personal space? Don't know her.

Okay I need a cut because there's too many now. WHOLE SOCIETY OF GAY HOMOPHOBIC UNCLES AND AUNTS GO I HAVE A PROBLEM

- I can't remember who on here put forth the idea of them having retractable claws but Yes. :3

- Pushing back against the worst canon episode a bit but: relative ear size being the only obvious sexually dimorphic trait, and even that having enough of a gray area that the only way to be 100% sure you're talking to a male or female Ferengi is if you do a blood test. Unless they're intersex! *shrug emoji*

- This is why they're so fanatical about gender conformity and their Victorian "separate spheres" attitude to men and women's roles. Capitalist patriarchy is fragile! And as artificial to Ferengi as it ever was to Humans! (self-indulgenceeeee about gender shiiiiit)

- You know how with domesticated rabbits, the rabbit getting groomed and paid attention to is the boss? Yeah. Go ahead and paint your bestie's nails, just don't be surprised if she cops a little bit of an attitude with you from then on.

- Their fight/flight/freeze/fawn instincts skew heavily toward the last three, and what a lot of other species read as annoying sucking up is the Ferengi in question feeling anxious and unsafe. Especially if they don't feel integrated into the group. Even being at the bottom of the pecking order is better than not being in the flock at all.

- If they DO opt for fight, it's ugly and typically their last resort. Bites or scratches will get infected without intervention-- microbes that their immune system can handle could cause big trouble for aliens. You might wanna check for full or partial teeth that break off and get lodged in the wound, too.

- Too many of these are tooth related but I don't care. :B More teeth stuff: you know what else has teeth that grow constantly? Puffer fish. Likewise, Ferengi can chew up mollusk shells as easy as potato chips, and they need the minerals for their teeth. (Imagine grandpa Sisko offering Nog a crayfish for the first time and watching as he just...pops the whole damn thing in his mouth and crunches away...)

- Their staple foods seem to be grubs and other arthropods, high in protein and fat. I've unilaterally decided their cuisine also involves a lot of edible fungi, ferns, plant shoots and seeds. Gotta get those vitamins. Overall flavor profile leaning toward umami, vegetal, and fresh herbs, and pretty mild (or "delicate" if you wanna be snooty about it, which a Ferengi probably would let's be real).

- Not much sugary food. I'm basing this solely on Quark's aversion to root beer as "cloying". Which could definitely just be his personal preference, but most of the people I hear hating on root beer cite the actual sassafras/sarsaparilla flavor (saying it tastes like medicine) not the sweetness. Nog might be the weirdo outlier for being able to enjoy it.

- Their home planet isn't bright and sunny, so their eyes are better at discerning shades of gray in low light conditions, with relatively weak color vision. Which could explain why they dress Like That.

- Conversely, human music has a reputation for stinking on ice because a lot of it is juuuuust lightly dissonant or out of tune because we can't pick up flaws that small. Ferengi can, and it drives them up the *wall*.

- Music? So many different kinds. Traditionally, maybe lots of percussion and winds, and water as a common component of many instruments to alter pitch or tone. Polyphony out the ass. Some of the modern stuff is an impenetrable wall of sound if you're not a species with a lot of brain real estate devoted to processing sounds. Pick out one melody to follow at a time.

- Yes, back to teeth again I'm sorry. It's a sickness. At some point in their history, pre-chewing food was just something you did for your baby or great grandma as a matter of necessity. Possibly your baby gets an important boost to their immune system and gut biome from your spit. At some point takes on a more formal intimacy aspect and gradually drifted from something all adults and older kids do to something only women do. Your husband and older kids have perfectly functional teeth, but you love them, right? =_= (Think old memes about husbands being useless in the kitchen if little wifey isn't there to cook, but even more ridiculous. Ishka was right about everything but especially this. Thank you for making your family chew their own food, Ishka. Not all heroes wear capes. Or anything!)

- How did they get started on the whole men: clothed vs women: unclothed nonsense? My equally stupid idea: men just get cold easier. Those huge ears dissipate a ton of body heat. Cue Ferengi cliches like "jeez, we could be standing on the surface of the sun and my husband would put on another layer." At some point, again, this got codified and pushed to ridiculous extremes in the name of controlling women and keeping everyone in their assigned box, to the point that women just have to shiver if they really are too cold and men have to pass out from heat stroke if the alternative is going shirtless, because That Would Be Inappropriate.

- Marriages default to five years, but they're also the only avenue for women to have their own household or any stability. Plus their religion places no emphasis on purity save for pure adherence to the free market and the RoA. So, curveball to the rest of their patriarchal bullshit: female virginity isn't a concern in the least. Bring it up and they'll rightly side-eye you.

- Family law is absolutely bonkers and lawyers that specialize in it make BANK. I feel like custody would default to the father usually but oh wait, the maternal grandfather has a legal stake in this, too, and your next father-in-law is asking HOW many kids are you dragging into my daughter's house, etc etc. Growing up with a full sibling is way rarer than growing up with half or stepsiblings, since it usually takes both men and women two or three tries to find someone they vibe with. (Not love, unless you're super cringe.)

- A misogynistic society is a homophobic society. Imo those flavors of shittiness just come in pairs. Homosexual behaviors are fine within certain parameters (aka "always have sex with the boss") but not on your own terms. To add spice, bisexuality is their most common mode (because I'm bi and these are my hcs for my fics I'm not writing, so there), but capitalism demands fresh grist for the mill so you better get het-married and pop out some kids you lowly peons. You have a choice so make the proper one. :)

- Corollary to the above, that doesn't keep all kinds of illicit "we're just friends with quid-pro-quo benefits for realsies" affairs of every stripe and every gender from going on everywhere. Many Ferengi have a lightbulb moment somewhere in early adulthood when they figure out their dad's business partner or the "auntie" who visited their mom every month had a little more going on.

- Plus there's way more gender non-conformity and varying degrees of trans-ing than the powers that be have a handle on. Pel isn't unique, even if most would have to somehow make it out into space to be able to thrive.

Damn a lot of these are just my personal bugbears plus THE GILDED AGE BUT WITH HAIRLESS SPACE RODENTS ain't they

- Women can't earn profit, okay. But lending or "lending" things to each other isn't commerce, riiiiiiight? To be assigned female is to master navigating a vast, dizzying barter/gift economy. Smart boys and men leverage this, too, and there are splinter sects that view this as the purest expression of the Great Material Continuum.

- Of course plenty of women make profit anyway, and just do their bast to dodge the FCA. The tough thing about insisting on using latinum as currency is that cash can be so hard to track, you know?

- Because of the RoA, guys are discouraged from doing favors or giving gifts without setting clear expectation of getting some return on investment. This can twist into an expression of friendship (and of course women do it too), and the ledger will keep cycling between debit and credit among friends for decades. A common mistake aliens make is to tell them recompense isn't needed without explaining why, or return their favor or present with something that zeroes out the debt. The Ferengi will assume you want to break off the friendship. (I cribbed this from dim memories of an African studies course I took in 2007 and whose textbook I know I still have but I can't frigging find it...)

- Flirting, they do a lot of it for a lot of reasons. Roddenberry made it clear that they're just straight up pretty horny, but there's no reason it can't pull double duty for building alliances with other people, smoothing over feuds or disagreements, or cementing friendships. Ferengi who are ace and/or sex-repulsed are possibly viewed similar to the way we'd view someone who's "not a hugger/not big on touching" and if they flirt just don't get offended if it doesn't go any further; aro Ferengi don't garner much comment aside from an occasional "wow how badass, never falling in love with anyone."

- where to even start on making sense of the Blessed Exchequer??? Like seriously, what is this literal prosperity gospel insanity, I need to force myself to re-read Rand and like, some Milton Friedman for this shit. Help.

- fuck I'm probably going to actually do that, RIP me...

[phoebehalliwell]

i don't know if i'm the only one but i've often wondered exactly how hard it was to convince julian mcmahon to stick around for season five. they took his character, a feared powerful half demon and made him into the butt of the joke and the whole joke was basically ha ha look at this lovestruck fool obsessing and suicidal because he's got nothing to live with but can't die. ain't that funny? like how the fuck did the writers sell that to julian is my question

i find the entirety of season five just so goddamn insulting to cole's character. hell the fact that he got possessed by the source and this was treated as him turning evil instead of a shitty situation that got out of hand. like it wasn't bad enough he was villified for something that he wasn't even in control of half the time they couldn't even just vanquish the dude, they dragged it on and ridiculed him. i hate it here

lol. i mean. yeah. i really. like. it's like. like okay we all know cole was a fan favorite right and he & phoebe were really meant to like. be the sex appeal to the show no one else was really filling that role they were charmed's Sexy Couple tm. so like. in a sense i get the notion ab wanting to keep him around. because everyone loves him! he's bad boy! he adds this dangerous edge love balancing on a knife's point stuff like that. so like. that being said. u wanna keep him around. i just like Do Not Get how you opt to keep him around Like That. tbh. as w all things. i am blaming brad kern. i think it all really started to tank s4 (well, with mortal cole, but like) with source cole. that was bad, but i know it was part of the push to have like long form season drama character driven plots conflict between the sisters themselves it just like. sucked ass and balls imo. like i mean the fact they had to do the source as a possession just so they could get demon cole and lover cole,,, i mean it speaks to how stupid it was. the fact that u wanted cole to be a villain So Bad but the only way to do it was like. possession? sign that u should not do that like. like. like. i don't know how we're supposed to feel ab that.

and then. the vanquish. not sticking. i think like. i think they probably had the vague idea that cole having a mortal soul would not be able to be vanquished properly right? like. demons get destroyed into nothingness, but the human part of him lives, so i think they probably knew that was what they were going to do, that's what they sold to jmm and like. we sowed those seeds in the s4 finale w his ghost whispers and materialization. so i think like. they knew they wanted to Not Kill Him because he was such a fan favorite. maybe there was an intention to do a will they won't they variant of phole? and then. of course. there was the whole idea of paige cole, which, as the rumor goes, was meant to kick of in the s5 pilot, but both julian and rose shut it down. but i feel like. assuming that's true (which i 100% do assume that's true absolutely and i'm not endorsing it i don't think it would have been good or well written or whatever but like. 👀. you know?) but yeah. assuming that's true, i feel like that piece really speaks to what their designs for cole were: man meat. he was meant to be their male sex appeal and they weren't going to be picky about the narrative itself as long as he was still kicking.

but like honestly? i mean i shouldn't have to say this it's a given: it's not enough to just put your sexy man in front of a camera and call it a day like imo even a man who is not sexy can be made appealing through the power of the narrative. like, to level with you, i never really ever shipped phole nor found cole attractive at all like ever, but i can see like the fucking support beams you know i can see the infrastructure on which this whole thing can you know take on a life of its own in the earlier seasons because they very consciously put it there!! people shipped it for a reason n not just because they were two people standing next to each other on a tv screen i mean hello almost sinking a dagger in her heart but can't do it sends her away back to her sisters because he can't act out on his evil plan!! that's something!!!! that's so very something and they gave us Nothing they gave us nothing in the later seasons. and still expected it to fly. like. tbh julian was probably just like unwittingly duped like dragged along for the ride s5 which is likely why he was vanquished halfway through because i'd imagine roughly three episode in he went okay! um. what's this? guys? what's this? and then they said cole<3 you know he like knew he had to get the hell outta dodge.

anyways. if i were to resuscitate phole in s5. which like. to level w u. i wouldn’t. because they would need a lot of one-on-one screentime and we already spent so much of s4 splitting up the sisterhood in the name of phole i wouldn’t really want to continue with that per se But. if i were. this ask is getting long it’s under a cut 

something something demon of the week something something realms the point is cole is there when he very much shouldn’t be and like. he and phoebe get knocked into a different plane. so their bodies are fine and at the manor, but their minds are elsewhere and they need to solve whatever it is in order to get back. and we’ll say there’s a fuckin deadline because the girls need the power of three and right now they are sealed off from accessing it. and you know phoebe’s pretty fuckin pissed with cole because you know. he dragged her down to hell and she almost gave birth to the antichrist. actually source’s heir might be fun to keep around in this au idk. the point is phoebe’s pissed at cole and cole’s pissed at phoebe because phoebe’s pissed at him but he literally didn’t have control over himself in that era and he’s not getting the space he needs to justify himself because phoebe keeps stepping over him. but they gotta work together to get out of here. and were kinda doing enemies to lover 2.0 but like now they have History. of course we’ve gotta do a moment where cole has idk done something normal and phoebe’s so riled up that she does something rash and almost dies cole saves her like catches her bridal style or something faces inches apart breathing heavy and there’s a moment. like a we’re back in early s4 moment. which phoebe immediately breaks from and like walls going flying up but just for a moment there we see it it’s obvious: she’s still in love with cole. which then segues into an argument because like. cole wasn’t sure. right? he wasn’t sure if phoebe now just genuinely hated him. but now he knows right he knows better now so why are you acting like this? why are you taking every opportunity to shut me down to shut me out? why are you acting like you hate me when you know that’s not true right that whole thing to phoebe who gets the Classic because i do hate you. i hate you for what you did to me for what you did to my family and i hate you because i loved you so much and you destroyed me and i hate you because no matter how hard i try that love is still there and i know that for a second if i stop hating you i’m going to love you just like before and you can destroy me again and i hate myself because i’d let you because i love you. you know? big speech. big reveal. i have No Idea what piper and paige are up to right now. the point is. after this big confession we get the lull the cards are on the table what the fuck do we do now which is when cole Finally gets to opportunity to say he was actually possessed by the source and manipulated by the seer and the only thing that kept him holding on was his love for her and after she became queen of hell after he saw what the source had done to her he knew it had to end he doesn’t hold it against her for vanquishing him right this is where we exonerate all wrongs we’re just saying anything bad that has happened ever? scrub it. it’s the source’s fault. cole has no resentment against phoebe. he loves her a healthy, normal, non-possessive amount, so much so He Loves Her So Much he let her kill him and like honestly would probably do it again. idk and then they make out or something. and then they’re out of whatever plane they were in by the end of the episode. And Then we get a buddy cop episode with paige and cole where they bond and also sort through everything that happened there. slowly but surely. and then we do a real phole wedding a super small affair in the manor lowkey bc i hated their wedding episode it blowed we give them a good one. wallah <3

[mermaidsirennikita]

I do feel like romance can include proto feminist or feminist themes well, but I wouldn’t say that TVWLM or any Bridgerton books do so in any way. TVWLM isn’t really feminist and it doesn’t have to be). I don’t really think Anthony loving who she is and doing anything to make happy symbolises toppling the patriarchy. Nor is it really meaningful as most HR tends to end up like that. I think that’s giving too much credit to the book.

I mean TVWLM still runs into the same problems all the other Bridgerton books do- the type of debutante the Bridgerton girls are is ok and the rest are superficial. Even Kate has aspects of not like other girls - but no more so than the other heroines. During a lot of the book, Anthony uses his position as a man and a lord to intimidate Kate. And making the power dynamics completely switch in the end doesn’t necessarily make the books feminist. Flipping the power structure doesn’t in any way challenge the ideas of a power structure at all. I think it’s giving too much credit for a book that doesn’t do any of the work, it doesn’t really try to be subversive or incorporate any feminist themes.

Also that’s just my opinion feel free to disagree with me!! I hope I haven’t misinterpreted what you meant.

I mean, I don't think that it's giving too much credit to the book--it's emblematic of the genre, imo. These books are written by women, for women, and they're giving women things that make them happy because they're difficult to achieve in real life. Women want to have it all--and in historical romance, you have it all by marrying well, having power over your husband which gives you power in society, and having love. This takes the place of the contemporary "having it all", as it's the closest thing a historical heroine has to being financially secure without having to give up love (and family, if you so wish). It's no mistake that romance has had some of its strongest shifts at moments in history that are socially critical for women--against the women's lib movement in the past, and now in response to the rise of reactionary anti-feminist politicians and movements.

Additionally, this can be linked to the concept of "loving submission"--the alpha male lovingly submits to the woman, giving her his power. Being gifted power through the exertion of emotion is this sort of symbolically feminine win, more "intellectual" than the means through which men gain power (through violence). And when I refer to this of course, I'm being purposefully general and sweeping for the purpose of talking about metaphor and symbolism--obviously, in real life men have gained power through non-violent means and women have gained power through violent means.

I'm not saying that Julia Quinn necessarily set out to give a feminist slant to her books, but she's writing in the conventions of a genre that is heavily influenced by feminism. It may not always be influenced in a straightforward way--but it's difficult to deny, especially now that so many authors within the genre do outright align with feminism publicly.

I think you're focusing on individual aspects of the book, rather than the archetypal structures at play--which I get. I don't think that Anthony intimidating Kate would necessarily make the book anti-feminist, though. That's kind of the point I was making--he has to be that, and he has to reform, in order for the structure to be feminist. If the alpha is not a misogynist, then him being emotionally laid low by the woman at the end (as Anthony is) doesn't matter. I think a book that does this superbly is Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas--Derek Craven is an alpha financially, physically, and intellectually. But in the end of the book, he is completely incapable of functioning without his heroine. He has emotionally caved to her. That is really the feminist act that most alpha-led romances (and therefore most historical romances in general) pull off. That's what I would argue TVWLM is doing, whether or not Julia made that conscious decision while writing. In the end, she is the key to all--because she is strong enough to make her breakthrough regarding her trauma first, she is the more "perfect" model for Anthony's emotional journey. He has to aspire to be on her level. And in the end, he would be absolutely nothing without her, while Kate could very much exist without Anthony.

That in itself is why I think so many women love a grovel, love the broken hero in the end--because you often do get the sense with these books (the well-done ones, at least) that the woman could be fine without her hero, at least emotionally. It would suck for her, but she can exist as our heroine (the true protagonist of the book) herself. Anthony couldn't have his breakthroughs, and couldn't function, without Kate.

Anyway, I really do recommend listening to the Alpha Heroes episode on Fated Mates, they explain it waaaaay better than I do lol. :). But I totally get your disagreement, these are definitely valid questions and the genre is QUITE imperfect lol. I would argue, however, that a lot of Bridgerton books don't work for me precisely because I'm missing out on these aspects that I think TVWLM and When He Was Wicked actually hit.

[bigskydreaming]

Making this its own thread so as not to take over @northoftheroad​‘s - but about that scene with the memories from Nightwing Rebirth annual #1....tbh, I wasn’t terribly sad when that didn’t come back into play because I kinda hated this scene, lol. And it sucks because like, it COULD have had an entirely different vibe, but as usual, it comes down to execution, and like.....agency. I know, my favorite word, but like.

The problem I had with this scene (and my caution regarding the way Taylor’s talked up Babs’ importance to his run of Nightwing), is there’s this line between bringing other characters into Dick’s own title to lend a supporting hand or even for their own specific area of expertise....and Dick like, becoming the guest star in his own title. And for me, personally, that line tends to be most apparent when Dick stops feeling like he’s in the driver’s seat of his own stories and instead is just riding shotgun while other people make decisions that have far more to do with his life than their own.

This COULD have been a great scene, IF the decision for the memories needing to be kept and the malware studied had come from Dick himself.....much like, y’know, the memories did. If upon Dick deciding that there was a reason they still needed to exist outside and independent of him, be a safeguard or used for some purpose, Babs made the same vow of keeping them safe, like, that would have been great! That’s an expression of concern, of RESPECT for the importance, the significance of what Babs is holding in her hand there, rather than just a scientific curiosity, a puzzle to be studied.

But instead, the way it was kinda framed as just Babs knows best when the actual topic of weight wasn’t the technical specs or the scientific how/why of what was being studied, but rather SHOULD it be studied versus just destroyed....that was the problem for me, because that was absolutely, one hundred percent not Babs’ decision to make. They were Dick’s memories. He was the one left exposed by their continued existence in that form. It wasn’t just the sensitive information those memories contained, the intel on hundreds of others of Dick’s family and friends and teammates, their identities and weaknesses and all kinds of other stuff pertaining to people beyond just Dick himself, many of whom Babs has very little connection to herself, in comparison to Dick’s connection with them....and their trust in Dick having that information about them, which is not unilaterally blanket trust in others having that information by extension or proxy.....it was also just. Sensitive stuff, sensitive to Dick himself, stuff he was no doubt sensitive about. And this was just brushed off and moved past without a second glance, because the writer considered Dick’s concerns about HIS memories of secondary importance to what Babs could do with them or learn about the technology/from them.

And again, it would have been entirely different if that decision had come FROM Dick. If the scene, the issue in question had been framed around him making the executive decision on what to do about these memories, and Babs lending her aid in whatever HE decided should be done with them, including study them or keep them safe as a back-up of some kind.....there’s zero problem!

But the fact that Dick is written objecting, and then those objections brushed off as inconsequential by the writing on the exact same page like, makes it all the worse, because it demonstrates that the writer was aware, LOGISTICALLY, of various reasons why the memories shouldn’t be kept that way......but that reasoning was kept divorced from all examinations of Dick’s perspective of the situation, his own vulnerability, from any kind of other angle beyond just logistics. Like emotional. Proprietary. Even uncertainty, like ‘I don’t know how I feel about this, can we take a beat for me to get my head back on straight after everything that’s just happened to me and revisit this after I’ve had a chance to think about it,’ that would have been fine.

Anything but just.....raising the issue of ‘maybe this isn’t a good idea’ and moving past it two panels later with full speed ahead, without any further exploration from Dick’s own POV why he might not be cool with this or with his objections treated as like, a PERSONAL issue rather than simply a LOGISTICAL one.

Because that ultimately is the heart of the issue. Dick was effectively overruled as though his objection was logistical only, rationale based, and Babs’ opinion ended up carrying the more weight because her rationale was better reasoned and the logistical issues addressed by her declaration of keeping it safe.

Problem is, it was never just a matter of logistics, and this is where the writing failed the story, and the characters, by not recognizing that Dick’s objection should NOT be capable of being overruled by someone else’s logic or rationale, because there’s very little that’s MORE personal than a person’s own memories, and treating it as anything other than a personal issue that only one person had the ultimate right to make the judgment call of what to do with those memories moving forward, is taking eyes off what’s actually being talked about.

Tbh, I do consider it fairly surprising - even if I’m not sad about it - that Percy’s work here wasn’t referenced more in the Ric Grayson conclusion, because I think a ton of how that was approached was directly based on the foundation of a lot of Percy’s own takes here. This same problem reared its head again later in that same issue when the writing again had Dick raising valid concerns when he brought up the matter of his memories again, and wanted to know where they were being stored.....and again, Percy’s answer to that was to have Babs overrule Dick’s feeling this was ‘need to know’ information for him by saying you don’t need to know that.

Again, its frustrating because the writing then continued to demonstrate an awareness of the flaws in Babs’ argument here, with Dick continuing to present possibilities like “what if you’re the next target of today’s villain and thus can’t keep those memories safe any more than I could in the first place, like let’s take a second to acknowledge that you’re as much of a target as Batgirl that I am as Nightwing, and just as vulnerable to being captured and mind-probed”....its just, the writing then proceeds to effectively change the subject immediately AFTER Dick poses these questions but BEFORE any answer is actually given, almost as if to get his objections on record and logged, before like....moving on with the story as though those hugely pertinent questions were ultimately irrelevant. LOL. No. They weren’t. Its just the writer chose to frame them that way in order to keep the focus on everything as purely logistical and Dick’s logistical sense here being not even lacking, but BIASED......but with zero acknowledgment anywhere in the story that like, he had a right to that bias, that bias was real yes, but also reasonable, because those memories were HIS, lol, and every issue he had with them, about them, about what was done with them, was one hundred percent valid and should never have been subject to someone else’s veto power.

And there’s no point to having a character speak up for himself, raise issues based on his own personal feelings and rationale on things pertaining to HIM.....if you’re still going to treat everyone around him as having veto power over what he says or does or thinks on these matters. Either without any acknowledgment of that being what these other characters or doing, or basing their ‘right’ to do so on some flimsy rationale of him being too biased or emotional or subjective on the subject, as though all these other characters don’t have their own biases and emotional perspectives, and he’s no less entitled to his than they are, and he’s far MORE entitled to what decisions are made about HIM and things that are HIS, than they are.

(Also, sidebar, but I also trace a lot of the problems I have with Babs and other characters’ declarations of knowing more about Dick/knowing him better than he knows himself, like, directly to this annual and the whole scene in the Batcave-on-wheels. I believe Castelluci, the most recent Batgirl writer, has flat out said that she isn’t that familiar with Nightwing’s character, and so I think a lot of the objections I have with how she approached Dick’s character ultimately stem from the likelihood that Castelluci’s take on him was informed mostly by like, this very annual and other recent writings, with no attempt at a more diversified reading of his character before writing him.)

Anyway, point is, I kinda hated that scene, because I have a huge beef with scenes that have Dick speak up about stuff that’s about HIM first and foremost.....when the writers then proceed to steamroll right over everything he says as though its irrelevant. Like lol no. HIS VOICE SHOULD GET TO BE THE LOUDEST IN THE ROOM WHEN THE TOPIC OF CONVERSATION IS HIS OWN LIFE OR THINGS DIRECTLY STEMMING FROM IT/AFFECTING IT.

This is a hugely recurrent thread in a lot of different issues with his character, with them all ultimately just spilling out of a weird refusal to keep him in the driver’s seat of his own life.

And again, it could have gone down ENTIRELY different. Every single decision and ramification from that scene could have existed just the same, without any significant plot alteration, but with 100% less problems, if the writing had just framed all those decisions and ramifications as springing from Dick’s OWN decisions, logic, wishes, rather than in OPPOSITION to them. The only thing that needed to be different, IMO, was just....keeping him and his choices, his own rationales, and his RIGHT to them, as being MOST in focus in that particular story and sequence of events.

And also again, just for the record, this has nothing to do with it being Babs in that scene and everything to do with just....the issue itself. Which is a problem for me with any and all other characters whose choices are similarly prioritized over Dick’s own decision-making process, even when the decisions are about him and his life, far more so than their own. This isn’t Babs-specific, it just tends to come up a lot with her due to the mere fact of like....how often Babs is the one in Dick’s stories or title, compared to other characters like Jason or Tim who cross over relatively less....but still usually create or raise the same problem when they do.

[travllingbunny]

The 100: 7x01 From the Ashes

Disclaimer: This post is about the episode of the show The 100, From the Ashes, the season 7 premiere, and only about it.  In this post, I will NOT be discussing any original scripts, unused takes, bloopers, behind the scene photos or videos, scribbled notes exchanged between the writers, or any  tweets, Instagram posts, SMS or e-mails by any of the cast or crew members,  considering the fact that none of those things constitute the  show’s canon, which consists of the actual episodes.

I will also not be discussing anything about the future episodes posted by any ‘spoiler accounts’, and, in fact, I am unaware of most of these things, since I’m trying not to read any spoilers. Please do not tell me any spoilers for future episodes or ask me about them.

I really enjoyed this episode, in spite of the unfortunate lack of Bellamy (which I was already expecting since what happens to him here was already spoiled by the trailer. Of course, I’m looking forward to see Bellamy again, and, before that, to everyone finding out about disappearance and it becoming the focus of the season. But until then, the show has quite a few other storylines to deal with, from setting up and delving more into the Anomaly mystery, to dealing with the fall-out of season 6 in Sanctum, and both of these were handled well, for the most part.

This episode in particular had really good characterizations all around - for Murphy, Echo, Indra, Madi, Raven, Emori, Gaia, even Jackson - and, of course, Clarke, who had an arc that took her tendency to try to repress her feelings to an extreme, until they exploded in a most memorable way. It will cause her trouble, no doubt, but it was great to watch, and something I had been wishing for for quite some time. 

There is just one character whose storyline I’m still not sure how I feel about, because I’m not sure what the show is doing with him. 

After the last season’s cliffhanger, there was some concern in the fandom that Bellamy would regress to being all about protecting his sister, after their relationship had been redefined with “You’re my sister, but you’re not my responsibility”. Some of that was really exaggerated: there’s absolutely nothing odd or surprising about Bellamy crying over his sister disappearing in his arms. Of course he loves her and wants her safe. But I was concerned they may regress his development if they make him forget about everyone and everything else in his life in order to impulsively jump after her into the Anomaly. However, that did not happen - Bellamy didn’t decide to go on his own, rather than tell others and make a plan. He was taken.

The mysterious people from the Anomaly seem to be able to control the Anomaly, and have some sort of a cloaking device, presumably connected to their suits and helmets, that makes them invisible to others. They also have some sort of a screen inside their helmets, with facial recognition of targets and commands. It’s all a bit creepy - these seem to be humans, but they are receiving orders the way a robot would. (It’s all very Terminator-like!) Maybe because they also have lost their memories while going through the Anomaly? Where did they get the info about who Bellamy, Gabriel and Echo are - was it from Octavia’s memories? 

Memories and memory loss are obviously going to play a huge role this season. People who come from the Anomaly to Sanctum seem to lose their memories, except when the Anomaly is still there. Does this happen only on Sanctum, or at the other side(s) as well? How does the fact that the Anomaly sucks in radio signals fit into that? Hope had to use a message she put into her own arm to remind herself to “TRUST BELLAMY”. (Interstellar is mentioned a lot as an inspiration for this season, but this reminds me of another Nolan film, Memento.)

We also see Clarke spout knowledge about how the big mansion was built (by Russell for Simone, to remind her of her house on Earth), which she would know due to still having some of Josephine’s memories. And I’m sure that the fact Madi still has the memories of past Commanders will play a big role - specifically, the fact she has Becca’s memories, which could be the way to tie the present day story to the prequel/story about what happened during and right after the apocalypse. (She also probably knows about Sheidheda more than anyone else alive, which may play into the Sanctum story.) 

It’s too early to judge Hope as a character, but the mystery surrounding her is certainly super interesting. Why do the mysterious people from the Anomaly have orders to kill her on sight (as opposed to capturing, which they were supposed to do with Bellamy, Echo and Gabriel)? Is it because of who she is, or what she is - is it about her actions, does she know too much, or is her existence itself that’s the problem? 

I loved the Octavia cameo in Hope’s hallucination, with the confirmation that she was an “aunt” figure to her, a part of a found family with Diyoza and Hope. The Anomaly makes you see your biggest desire or biggest fear - and Hope’s biggest desire seems to be to be reunited with her family 

Echo’s hallucination, on the other hand, is obviously about her biggest fear - so it makes perfect sense that it’s Roan who appears to her, as he exiled her from Azgeda. Of course biggest fear would be losing her kru and her king/queen and being left alone and adrift. I’m as surprised as anyone that I found Echo's scene to be maybe the best in the episode. But she did have some really good character moments in seasons 6, and this is IMO her best character moment so far, picking up from her red sun hallucination in 6x02, and flashback from 6x11. which revealed that even her identity as “Echo” is fake. It seems the show is finally doing the character development it neglected to give her in season 5, and addressing all the obvious issues with Echo’s development and her relationship with Bellamy. I think this confirms that it was indeed Echo talking to herself while hallucinating Emori in 6x02, since her hallucination of Roan tells her the same thing, that she is still just a killer following another master’s orders. We finally see Echo feeling guilt over the things she did in the past, including her betrayal of Bellamy in season 3. When she imagines him calling her out on betraying “the man she now claims to love”, is it just about her thinking the others would doubt her love, or is she herself questioning whether her feelings for Bellamy are really romantic love, or just loyalty to her current leader? Their relationship, especially in S6, often came off more as the latter.

 (It was also really cool to see Zach McGowan again) 

The timeline of 7x01 seems to have confused some fans, but I think it’s pretty obvious that, at the beginning of the Sanctum story, no more than a day (probably less than that) has passed since 6x13 - going by the facts that 1) the Anomaly storyline picked up minutes after the end of 6x13, and the Sanctum story was presumably happening at the same time, and 2) Indra had to explain the situation in Sanctum to everyone. The only thing that seems to go against that is that Russell is said to “not have slept” since what happened on the ship, which makes it seem like it’s been longer. Or maybe Russell was just being extra dramatic. “Oh, I have no slept for a whole day!” He certainly spent a lot of this (his last) episode feeling sorry for himself. At least he seemed to have finally realized he wasn’t the superior good guy in all of it (”Tell them I’m treated better than I deserve” - yes, indeed.)

Indra was great, even though poor Adina was forced to be an exposition machine for a part of the episode. 

A common complaint I’ve seen among fans is that it’s weird that Clarke and others in Sanctum aren’t worried about Bellamy and co. I don’t understand this complaint, as it’s clear that very little time has passed and that Bellamy, Octavia, Echo and Gabriel must have told everyone they were leaving and why (though I don’t know how many details they told them about the Anomaly Stone). People have been gone for a whole day in season 6 when they just went to the Offering Grove (Echo in 6x06) or the radioactive shield (Raven, Emori and Echo in 6x05), which are within the confines of Sanctum and much nearer than the camp by the Anomaly. What are they supposed to do but wait for a couple of days for them to come back? It’s not like they can call them, when radios and other means of communication usually don’t work on Alpha because of the Anomaly sucking the signals.

In fact, their absence was mentioned in the picnic scene, when Raven toasted to “absent friends” and we got a reaction shot of Clarke (I know, Clarke, I'd be annoyed too if I was you, but Bellamy had to be all "I'm gonna go now and explore the Anomaly Stone while Sanctum is in chaos and you're in mourning for your mom" because the plot needed him to..., before Niylah toasted to the “departed ones” (which would include Kane and Abby) and we got a close-up reaction shot of Clarke trying to keep it all inside, as she did every time in this episode someone mentioned Abby. 

The idyllic picnic by the mansion - everyone’s attempt to get some rest and nice time after everything they had been through - was such a contrast to the “powder keg” of Sanctum and the end of this episode. But it also felt fake - just as fake as the deception and lies that Murphy and Emori are Daniel and Kaylee Prime, or that Madi still has the Flame in her head - to keep the devout and Wonkru under control, respectively - and just as fake as Clarke’s attempts to convince everyone she’s “fine”. As usual, the song playing in the background (”Darkness” by Pinegrove) was very fitting:

Suddenly I find I've got darkness on my mind It's a question mark that keeps me looking And it's never satisfied And it's never what I thought Saying I'm happy when I'm not No, I got darkness on my mind Leaning out the frame When it's particulate and gray I'm perpendicular to my whole being When I lean a certain way Saying I'm happy when I'm not Finding roaches in the pot Oh, I got darkness on my mind Some people spend their whole lives looking For someone who could understand While meanwhile a lilac blooming Sometimes on the driest land And I know it's been a long time coming I'm angry and I know that's weak And I'm longing out that open window For whatever it is I seek [musical breakdown] Some people spend their whole lives looking For someone who could understand And while meanwhile a lilac blooming Sometimes on the driest land And I know it's been a long time coming I'm angry and I know that's weak So I'm trying not to be so bitter I'm just looking at it honestly Well, I know it's been a long time coming I'm angry and I know that's weak And I'm longing out that open window For whatever it is I seek Some people spend their whole lives looking For someone who could understand While meanwhile a lilac blooming Sometimes on the driest land, yeah 

I like that there was anger, blame and conflict between our kru and that everyone didn’t just forget what happened last season (and for once, Clarke is not the one getting the blame!) It would've made no sense if no one was blaming Murphy, and it makes sense it would be Jackson, who was so close to Abby and who’s not particularly close to Murphy. It also makes sense there was disagreement about the method of keeping peace in Sanctum, and that not everyone would be happy with Memori cosplaying the Primes. 

Murphy himself had a really good characterization in this episode - we saw his grief and his feelings of guilt. While he tried to defend himself when blamed that he didn’t know what Russell would do, when left alone, he blamed himself for various actions that led to it, which is something Murphy from a couple of seasons ago wouldn’t do.

It’s great to see Raven looking more like her old, pre-season 6 self, and even better to see that her self-righteousness has gone. She’s more like the old Raven but without the snarky b1tchiness. I’m glad that she got called out by Murphy on her “Miss Morality” role from last season (which never really made sense, pre-time jump Raven was never a moral compass of the group, she was smart, pragmatic and could be as ruthless as anyone).

Another major theme of the Sanctum plot were the new beginnings.  Clarke pointing out season 3 feels like another world seems almost like the show going meta and pointing out to the audience how much Clarke and all these people have lived through and been since.What is Sanctum now after the Primes have been defeated, with Children of Gabriel coming back home and clashing with the Devout - brainwashed and loyal followers of the Primes, with the rest of the Sanctumites in between? How are Wonkru and the 36 Eligius prisoners going to start again on a new planet moon? (36?! Wow, so they really suffered heavy losses in that gorge, too, when there are so few left?) Can Grounders be without a Commander? Gaia without her religion? Can Madi be a normal kid, without the Flame - or is that even possible while she has to pretend to still be Heda? The title From the ashes seems to refer to that - and maybe the end of the episode means that you have to burn down the old beliefs and old idols to build something new? 

Mothers and daughters were another theme.  I liked that Madi mentioned her biological parents (well, mother) on-screen for the first time, since the fandom tends to forget about them and ignore them too often. Madi was unsuccessful in her attempt to make Clarke share her feelings with her - maybe because this conversation showed a big difference in how they see each other? Clarke thinks of Madi as her child, but Clarke has never had a child before, while Madi had parents and suffered their loss; Clarke assumed Madi was talking about her and what happened in S6, but Madi always calls Clarke “Clarke” rather than “Mom”, and tried to connect to her on the equal level, as another daughter who’s lost a mother. Maybe it’s exactly because Clarke sees Madi only as her child that she feels she must be “strong” for her all the time and not show grief. 

There was an unexpected parallel between Indra and Clarke in how Indra also tried to suppress outward expressions of grief when her partner - Gaia’s father died, which clearly wasn’t healthy and caused a rift between mother and daughter. (I’m not sure about when that happened, i.e. when Gaia first decided to become a Flamekeeper. I guess it must have been before the timeline of seasons 1-3. So Gaia’s dad is probably not the man that Indra recognized in 2x15 as one of the Reapers? I’m still angry that we never got any resolution to that storyline and that the Reapers were forgotten after season 2.)

 The one thing I’m not sure about is Jordan’s characterization and arc. I’m not sure what the show is doing with his exactly, and I’m afraid that they’ll try to leave it ambiguous just how much he is or isn’t brainwashed. 6x13 made it very clear that he has been “adjusted”, which Russell confirmed here, and Jordan’s “adjustor”, who was creeping behind him in the season 6 finale, was very present and active in this episode, and clearly still had a big influence on him. At the same time, we learn that Jordan does not believe in the divinity of the Primes - instead of that, his hallucinations made him see something connected to the mystery of the Anomaly, which Russell describes as something “greater” (almost like he has finally found God, of sorts, after all, which he talked about 236 years before when he first landed on Alpha)? The good news is that it means Jordan will have a role in the Anomaly story, rather than being the advocate for the Devout. What I’m afraid of is that the show will gloss over the fact that Jordan was brainwashed - whether or not he came to believe that Primes were gods, he certainly did a 180 from despising Primes as murderers, being outraged by their actions and knowing very well that Priya was not Delilah but someone who took over her body; to (just a few days later, after “adjustment”) spouting Prime propaganda about the “peaceful” society they had before the Bad People from Earth came (that’s the peace they had when they regularly murdered their people to steal their bodies, left babies to die, and made them go crazy and kill each other from time to time) and having some kind of attachment to Priya herself and her mind drive.

At least, I hope that Russell unceremoniously smashing the mind drive means we’re done with that storyline. I loved it, it was my favorite storyline of the show, but it’s time for it to be over. It makes no sense that anyone is still letting Russell keep his mind drive, for starters. When will they realize they need to destroy these things?

- Clarke’s way of dealing with grief over her mom’s death was certainly unhealthy - repressing her feelings even more than usual, trying to be calm, composed, logical, to do the things needed to keep peace. In her last scene in 6x13, Clarke was open about her grief with Bellamy, looking to him for comfort, finding comfort in his arms and his words. But now he’s absent, there’s no one else she can be that open and vulnerable with. (The only other person Clarke looked for comfort to was Abby.) It’s nice to see that she and Raven have mended their friendship with Raven, she is starting to develop a new one with Gaia over their mutual care for Madi, she has mutual respect with Indra, she’s known others - like Murphy or Miller = for years, since the Delinquent days... and they all want to help her, but she’s not opening up to anyone, not even Madi. She thinks she must be “strong” for all of them, and her Head and Heart are unbalanced - she’s repressing the latter, until she finally explodes. 

I love the scene of Clarke finally losing it and beating up Russell (I had already seen it in the trailer, and it was my favorite moment) and then crying while holding Abby's clothes. I don’t know about anyone else, but I love seeing an angry, emotional Clarke, letting it all out, especially when it's anger at people she has every right to be furious at. We haven’t seen that from her since early season 3 (when she yelled and spat in Lexa’s face over her betrayal). It had bothered me for a few seasons that Clarke - who used to be vibrant and could be impulsive, angry, hold grudges, yell at people in seasons 1-2, had become so repressed and muted due to her constant self-blame. I’ve had enough watching Clarke look sad while other people keep yelling at her and blaming her. (The only other instance of Clarke being furious was her hurt and rage at Bellamy and the slap in 5x09, but that was more of a silent, “internally screaming” rage/hurt, which turned into Clarke being emotionally frozen for the next couple of episodes, until learning he was alive. When Clarke is keeping everything inside and not yelling, that’s when she’s in the worst emotional state.)

It is, however, so sad that she still blames herself, too, for her mother’s death, whispering “I’m sorry”, the same way she whispered after seeing her father floated.

My only problem with the scene of that stupid palace burning down is that  "mistakes" is a serious real understatement for what Russell has done. I know, I know, this will cause a lot of trouble in Sanctum and Clarke will probably have to go back on some of these decisions to keep peace. But there’s really nothing morally wrong with deciding to execute Russell - not only does he deserve it, but he’s arguably even an exception from the general objection to death penalty, since he’s lived several times the normal human lifespan, by stealing other people’s bodies. And the palace burning down is a symbolic way to send the message that the old power structures are gone - which Clarke pointed out when she said there will be no kings or queens anymore.

Sheiheda taking over Russell’s, or rather his latest host’s body, wasn’t surprising, as that was the most popular theory. But it was cool to see Sheidheda’s creepy mindspace again and Sean Maguire as the original Russell. The bodysnatcher got bodysnatched. That’s something like poetic justice.

I just have to post this because it’s such a beautiful shot!

Rating: 8/10

[tetedurfarm]

Do you have any advice for getting into keeping rabbits? I was looking into getting a couple for meat production and possibly starting to learn to tan pelts but I don’t want to get confused over all the conflicting info on the internet about wire flooring and such things.

ugh, it’s so frustrating, isn’t it?  with pretty much every other animal you can just google “how to raise x” and get tons of good advice, but the rabbit results are dominated by HRS forums that will crucify you for even mentioning breeding, much less meat production. 

so here’s some points i’ve learned from experience to help you out:

1. wire flooring is not evil.  in fact it’s great.  it’s clean, it’s sanitary, there’s airflow if you use it in a hutch, and if you do it right you won’t have foot problems (unless you’re raising rex or giant breeds, but even then there’s easy fixes like my lattice mats.)

here’s what you’re looking for:  1″x0.5″ grid 16g - 14g wire.  if you order your cages from a manufacturer like Bass Equipment (my preferred cagemaker,) or Klubertanz, this will come standard.  if you make your own cages or buy from a feed store, it’s a bit more hit and miss.  

make sure the half-inch wires are on top when you build your cages, so the weight is distributed properly:

see how the smaller gaps are “on top”?

vs this side.  (shoutout to me having like twenty cages all in pieces in my living room to get these nice reference pics ;p)

i also recommend you get your floors galvanized after weld; they’ll last a long longer that way!

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2. babysaver wire is called that for a reason.  babysaver is when there’s a 1x0.5 grid near the bottom of a cage.  it’s there to keep kits from falling out of the cage, and helps prevent predators from easily pulling kits out.

this is a cage with babysaver.  it does what it’s meant to.  i use these for my doe cages, and even if a kit gets dragged out of the nest, as long as i find it in time, it’ll survive because it didn’t roll out and get snatched by something off the ground.

vs one without:

i use these for bucks and my growout pens for older kits.  they are cheaper than babysaver cages, but it’s worth the money to keep your babies safe.

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3. invest in a good pair of j-clip pliers.  even if you buy prefab cages, often times they’re cheaply made and you’ll need to fill in gaps so they don’t fall apart so easily.  it’s also good to keep them around just because, because after a while the clips can get rusty and fall off, and you’ll need to replace them occasionally.

good on left, not so good on right.  the ones on the left cost my about fifteen bucks from my favourite hilariously-named rabbit supply site:  Rabbitnipples.com.  the ones on the right were like $8 at my local feed store.  so a significant markup, but VERY worth it.  the good pliers are more comfortable to hold in your hand, and make much nicer/more secure crimps than the cheap ones.  i often have to crimp clips twice or more with cheap pliers, because of the way they’re shaped:

the good pliers have a solid mouth that make a clean loop with no pointy outy bits.  and they can double as removers if you mess one up!

this is topical because i lost my good pliers and had to order new ones, and in the meantime i built four cages and my palms are so sore/bruised from the cheap pliers.  don’t be like me.

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4. vets kinda aren’t worth it.  one of the things you’ll see on HRS sites is that vets are ABSOLUTELY necessary.  i don’t hate vets, but they chronically have no idea how to treat rabbits, often making them worse or causing them to die because they administered a med that’s safe for cats but not rabbits.  they also often subscribe to HRS rhetoric that pellets are evil and rabbits should only eat hay and greens, which is…wrong (i’ll get to that in a minute.)  if you can find a good vet it may be worth it for one or two rabbits, but once you get into the double-digits, it’s just not worth it.  exotics vets are expensive, and i can’t afford $50 just for a consult for thirty rabbits.  learn how to treat everyday ailments like sore feet, wounds, abscesses, eye infections, stasis/bloating, and birthing issues on your own.  i suggest joining up with a meat rabbit forum (i like rabbittalk.net,) and going through their articles on rabbit medicine and herbology.  if i can’t fix it myself, that rabbit is soup.  and if a rabbit chronically has health issues, don’t use it as a breeder.  bad immune systems/teeth/feet/etc are hereditary.

–

5. things will die.  get used to it.  with livestock comes deadstock.  if you can’t handle animals dying, including newborn babies, or having to euthanize animals (including newborn babies,) don’t get livestock.  if you can’t look your food in the eye and thank it for its sacrifices, then don’t get livestock.  this is not a place for bleeding hearts.

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6. don’t breed a new doe by herself.  rabbits are running on hormones only for their first litters, and sometimes they mess it up.  having an experienced doe kindle alongside her that you can foster to gives the new doe’s kits the best chance of survival in case she doesn’t get it quite right.  this ties in with the last point, though - you’re gonna have dead babies.  sometimes you have to make the babies dead yourself, because mama screwed up and the foster already has eight of her own.  not everyone has a n’rithaa who can nurse nineteen and not break a sweat, and the kindest thing to do is pick the strongest and cull the weaker ones so mama doesn’t have so many to feed.

–

7. feed them pellets until you know what you’re doing.  pellets are formulated to be perfect nutrition for rabbits.  they are the healthiest option imo, and definitely the easiest.  it can take a few tries to find a feed that works for you, but they’re generally not too expensive and if your animals keep weight and make babies, then they’re fine.  trying to feed fodder only is expensive, time-consuming, and often ends up with animals not getting enough vitamins that cause bone issues, bloating, and tooth problems.  i am 100% convinced this is at least half of the reason why you see a lot of house rabbits that go into stasis a lot and have bad teeth.  (The other half is they’re always poorly bred byb rabbits, but that’s another conversation.)  fodder can be done well, but unless you really have the time/resources to grow appropriate plants or have a lot of pasture to graze on (and no worms/cocci or other bad things in your soil,) pellets and hay are perfect.  especially if you show.

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8. if you wanna get into tanning, just get a synth tan, and don’t expect fur rabbits to be an ideal meat producer.  fur doesn’t prime until the animal is about six months old, and typically you’ll be slaughtering them for meat around 12 or 16 weeks.  so if you want to produce fur, either stop caring about the quality of your hides, or get ready to spend more in feed while you grow them to prime.  i know it’s popular to use rabbits as a dual-purpose animal, but you need to set expectations lol.  so far i’ve found rabbits that are half rex produce really nice furs before “prime” age, but they still take longer to grow out than my meat-specific rabbits.  dual purpose really just means “not that great at one or both purposes.”

also just don’t even bother with brain/egg tanning and get you a synth tan like Rittel’s or Trubond.  “natural” tans have too much of a learning curve, require smoking to make them waterproof, and the results are subpar.  synth tans are cheap, easy, usually safe to put down a train if you’re on city water/toss outside if you’re on septic, and will produce a waterproof skin that’ll last forever.  

also alum isn’t a tan.  if you get it wet it’ll start rotting again.  if you wanna make clothes or rugs, use a real tan.  please.  i beg of you.

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9. auto-water systems are godly but don’t waste your money on expensive ones.  if you don’t know this, i’m disabled, and i like to make things easy on myself so i’m not having to fill 39458639458 bottles a day.  it sucks.  auto-water systems are SUPER convenient because you only have to refill the reservoir every few days and keep an eye on the nipples to make sure they aren’t clogged.

the problem is:  they leak.  all the time.  forever.  when i first got started i used cheap water nipples from amazon and was annoyed at how often they’d start leaking, or were leaking right out of the package.  so i switched to the more expensive Edstrom system that you can order online from places like rabbitnipples.com, bunnyrabbit.com, the bean farm, and bass equipment.  problem is, those leaked just as bad, and the edstrom water nipples cost FIVE DOLLARS EACH.  when half the nipples leak directly out of the box, i’ve just wasted $20+.  at least the ones from amazon are like $20 for a bag of 100.  if they’re all gonna leak anyway, at least i won’t go broke having to replace them all.

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i can’t think of anything else off top my head so i’mma cap it here.  i’ve been doing this for five years and learned many many things the hard way so hopefully you won’t have to!

[hyena-frog]

Hey I’m sure you’ve been asked before but what’s your opinion on the audiobooks of Red Rising? Personally I think Tim Gerard Reynolds’ narration as Darrow is what elevated the series to being my absolute favorite. As for the other narrators in IG and DA, Ephrim’s narrator really grew on me and I’m so sad Ephrim is gone. I’m glad Lyria got recast in Dark Age. I skip her chapters when I re-listen to IG. I think Lysander’s first narrator was much better. His new voice sounds 40 but he’s only 20

Sorry it took me so long to answer this! Fun fact, but you actually sent this around the same time I decided to re-read Iron Gold (via the audiobook) to help flesh out a theory post I’m drafting. So I didn’t want to answer until I’d gotten a taste of each narrator. That’s some A+ psychic premonition on your part.

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to finish the IG audiobook because of Real Life but I’ve at least heard all of the narrators, so even if I’m still not very far in, I’ll give my opinions on them.

So, confession time, Dark Age is the first Red Rising audiobook I have ever listened to, even though I've heard good things about the RR audiobooks in general. Audiobooks aren’t really my thing. But I was taking too long to read that monster of a book, so I figured listening and reading at the same time would help me finish it faster. And boy, did it!

Now, Iron Gold is the second audiobook I’m listening to... I’m going about this all backwards, it seems. So, I’m going to give my opinions on the narrators in the order I experienced them.

Dark Age —

Tim Gerard Reynolds:

The GOAT. I’ve only heard good things about his narration, including from Pierce Brown himself at both signings I’ve been to. Now that I’ve experienced it for myself, I have to agree! I’m definitely going to need to listen to the original trilogy audiobooks at some point to get more of this guy.

He made you feel every ounce of exhaustion Dark Age Darrow felt, especially in Part I, and during the finale. His rare moments of levity (Sevro’s Palace) were delivered impeccably. His character voices were enjoyable; his Rhonna was great and his Atalantia gave me the creeps. Any moment Darrow thought of Virginia made me feel the full gamut of emotions. Anytime he summoned his righteous anger and went into Reaper mode, Reynolds sucked you in with the drama of it all.

Darrow’s always been my favorite but hearing Reynold’s interpretation of Darrow’s inner narrative really elevated why he’s a fantastic character. This guy is great.

John Curless:

Honestly? If Reynolds weren’t in the picture, he’d be my #1. Calling him my second favorite narrator doesn’t do him justice. His Ephraim injected much needed comedy into this narrative. Curless balanced Ephraim’s other nuances very well too. His deep psychological issues, his continued grief over Trigg, his budding love for the kids. It was beautifully executed.

One chapter that still haunts me is when Pax forces him off the Z cold turkey. Curless nailed Ephraim going into withdrawal. He was frightening and it was great. I also loved his reunion with Volga, even if his Volga voice was jarring to me after hearing Moira Quirk’s interpretation for most of the book. On that note, his generic Obsidian accent (Scandinavian-ish) never became too annoying and he differentiated the main players pretty well (namely Ozgard and Sefi). I really liked his Sefi voice. Quiet and whispery, very Sefi.

Don’t talk to me about Ephraim’s fate, I’m still in pain. 😭 I actually liked IG Ephraim a lot, not as a person but I thought his story was interesting. But his DA development was incredible. He really grew on me, and the fact he won’t be back, meaning Curless’ amazing narration won’t be back, is devastating.

James Langdon:

I didn’t mind his Lysander too much. I mean, I hate Lysander, but I thought he did a decent job portraying him. Maybe it’s just because he was my first Lysander voice. Although, I do agree he sounds too old for the role, but then again, Reynolds sounds too old for Red Rising Darrow (16) so? -shrug-

My main complaint with this guy is that sometimes, during the height of the action, he sounds as detached as a BBC newscaster. Which is fine, when Lysander uses the Mind’s Eye, but even when he’s full on panicking, this guy sounds so levelheaded.

His character voices are... ok. The growly voice he puts on for Ajax, and little bit for Cicero, is a bit weird. His Atalantia is sensual and creepy af and I loved his Atlas voice. One chapter that stands out to me is Kalindora’s confession toward the end. Langdon blew me out of the water with that one. Kalindora was never my favorite, but he made me really feel for her in that scene.

Moira Quirk:

I love her. I think she’s great. She has a very strong voice that pulls you along the story with ease. I think Lyria has the best DA story line and Quirk’s narration only made it better. She embodied Lyria’s temperament wonderfully; the anger, the kindness, and the stubborn resolve to keep living after initially giving up.

I keep harping on about character voices but they’re important, alright? Quirk’s character voices are some of the best. Her Victra is high and mighty and I felt Lyria’s annoyance along with her. But she also did Victra’s vulnerable moments wonderfully. I LOVE Quirk’s Volga. She’s so cute! Her accent reminds me of Sypha Belnades from the Netflix Castlevania series, which is not at all correct regionally, but it’s so adorable that it is officially The Volga Voice in my mind.

Not much else to say on this one, except, I hope the next book keeps this Lyria or I will be so sad.

Rendah Heywood:

Hail Sovereign! Another amazing narrator. At first I wasn’t sure what to think because I didn’t have any headcanon for what Virginia’s voice sounds like, but Heywood’s narration quickly convinced me this is The Virginia Voice. Very classy, very calm, could kill you but chooses not to, so don’t push her, understood?

She really gets across Virgnia’s main frustration of being smarter than everyone and being right like 99.9% of the time but rarely being listened to, VERY well, without making her seem unnecessarily whiny or something. It’s just a fact that she’s smarter than everyone else and the worlds would be better place if you took her advice.

Virgnia’s always been a bit of a mystery but Heywood really makes her into a Real Person, you know? Her fun interactions with Holiday and Theodora, her devastation after the Senate upheaval, her drive to escape from her captors... Expertly portrayed.

Her character voices are pretty good. I thought her Sevro was hilarious. I’m already missing her voice in IG (since I’m reading these backwards). I’m really looking forward to her return in the next book... Virginia will still be a POV character in the next one, right Pierce? Right??

Iron Gold —

Tim Gerard Reynolds:

I’m repeating this guy only to say: Reynolds is making sure I feel every molecule of exhaustion in Darrow’s body and I’m not very far in. I’ve already read IG, and I’m just coming off DA, so I know it won’t let up but still... have mercy on me.

John Curless:

Repeating again to say, goddamn, does this guy nail Ephraim’s development between books really well. IG Ephraim is no fun at all. Barely cracked a joke yet and is still very much wallowing in grief... Curless’ narration really makes IG Ephraim bearable, tbh.

Julian Elfer:

Hmmm. I don’t know if I’d agree he’s better than James Langdon. They’re both ok to me. Elfer is certainly more age appropriate. However, he’s a bit monotone and his reading cadence is a little annoying to me. He sounds like someone reading his own writing at a book club more than a professional narrator. I don’t mean that as an insult! He’s pleasant enough to listen to but he’s not on the same level as the others imo.

Idk. I’m still not very far into the IG audiobook, so it’s not fair to compare him to Langdon without the full picture. Maybe he gets better. However so far both Lysander narrators are. OK. That said, I don’t think Elfer is atrocious enough to warrant a re-cast? I heard people complained about him and Lyria’s IG narrator and that’s why they were changed... but Elfer isn’t terrible so I’m confused on that one.

Aedin Moloney:

Oh dear. I hate to be so blunt but... I hate her narration. A lot. Coming off of Quirk’s incredible Lyria, Moloney’s performance is... jarring, to say the least. She doesn’t give Lyria the same spunk that Quirk does. Moloney’s Lyria is too out of character for me. Lyria’s life is a shitshow and her weirdly whimsical voice is way too out of place. And during the more frenetic scenes, she’s way over the top.

I guess the problem with this narrator is she gives Lyria Too Much. Lyria is a very practical, very down-to-earth person, not prone to expressing a lot of deep emotion. Quirk balanced this very well, making her inner narrative just emotional enough without contradicting her outer expression. Meanwhile, I can barely follow along with what Moloney was saying when Tiran got shot because she was So Distressed and Hysterical. Good thing I had the book open.

Again, I’m not very far in, so maybe she gets better... idk. Take my opinions on Elfer and Moloney with a grain of salt because I haven’t finished IG yet.

Thank you for the ask! I’d love to hear opinions from anyone else on the second trilogy narrators (because I think we all agree Reynolds is great).

[wellship]

Hello hi I just wanted to say I am absolutely here for Leah and Haley being girlfriends... hippie artist and pretty fashion girl??? Match made in heaven. Thank you. My crops are watered.

LISTEN…….. You have hereby given me permission to wall-of-text about why I love this ship so much lmao…

I already started off loving Haley because she’s IMO the best bachelorette in the game. I love not only how she grows as a character (compared to some of the others who can feel stagnant, even though I love them all too) but how her “growth” doesn’t mean that she sacrifices her personality completely.She was the first villager I ever romanced playing SDV because I was curious to see how she would be written and I was so, so pleasantly surprised. It’s so easy and common for characters like Haley to either stay as a shallow caricature of a “mean, girly girl” forever as a punching-bag for the writers’ projections, OR for her to do a complete 180 as if being girly, or interested in fashion, or not academic are bad traits to be “fixed” in order for the character to become likeable - especially since this was essentially a first-person dating sim, which often plays into the fantasy where a mean girl is turned into a totally pacified wifey-type by the (usually male) PC. I was fully expecting and bracing for Haley to go from being a caricature of a “mall brat” Mean Girl to being a caricature of an “I’m not like other girls” Cool Girl (or worse, “I’m so glad I Grew Up and realised all I need in my life is my hubby!”, but I wasn’t quite getting that vibe from SDV).

But that didn’t happen. Major props to CA for creating a character who DID grow and learn to appreciate things outside of her little bubble without feeling the need to abandon/criticise the things she used to like. She learns that shopping/makeup/boys (wink) etc. aren’t the only important things in her life, and she expands her horizons, but those things are still important to her. As someone who’s also interested in fashion and makeup it was refreshing to see those hobbies still portrayed in a positive light as opposed to something she had to “move past”.

So. Anyway. That’s why I love Haley so much and why I particularly like a narrative of her discovering she’s a wlw (thank you Stardew Valley for watering MY crops by giving everyone canon bi~ reads) as it ties in with her growing and maturing as a person.

And so when I looked at the roster of girls in Stardew Valley I felt like Leah was the best one to complement her character in a relationship:

Haley’s biggest obstacle in her life right now is that she’s very sheltered and, as a result, a little spoiled. Her parents are globe-trotting and her older sister has been left to look after her. The age gap between the sisters doesn’t seem to be that big and Emily isn’t very confrontational at the best of times, so I think she just took the path of least resistance, which was to do everything herself rather than argue with Haley who still sees her as a peer and not an authority figure.Leah, conversely, has had to become extremely independent and self-sufficient, very recently. Her narrative plot line about leaving an (if not abusive, then at least implied to be toxic/unhealthy) relationship and a position where she was “comfortable” but unhappy is very fresh and it’s exactly where Haley needs to be. Leah is in a prime position to, basically, give Haley a kick up the rear and tell her to get her act together, but without it coming off as too sanctimonious or parental since Leah is still going through it and learning herself. Two young adults navigating their way through adulthood and pulling each other along rather than one grabbing the other by the hand and “fixing” them.

The flipside of this is that Leah is in her position through choice, which she was privileged to be able to make. She CHOSE to leave behind a life in the big city and a stable career to pursue the aesthetic of living in a little country cabin and making art all day. Haley wants the opposite, but can’t make it happen. Haley would KILL to be able to pack up her life and move to the city to pursue her dreams - Fashion? Photography? Fashion photography? - but she can’t. She’s sheltered because she has everything provided for her in Pelican Town, but that doesn’t translate to having the same opportunities for forward momentum as Leah. Her parents aren’t implied to be very supportive of her dreams, so they’re not going to fund a move for her, and we constantly see that there are limited employment opportunities in Pelican Town unless she wants to work for minimum wage at Joja. So she’s kind of stuck. Narratively, we’re supposed to see Leah’s desire to move from the city to the country as a positive story arc (because it mirrors the player’s) while we’re supposed to see Haley’s desire to move from the country to the city as somehow being shallow or consumerist, and I think Leah herself would fall into the trap of thinking that way, which would be eye-opening for her.When you look at it, their narratives mirror each other. It’s easy to say that Haley is spoiled and out of touch with the “real world”, but Leah is also out of touch with reality in that not everyone can do what she did. I like Leah a lot and I’m not saying her life or her decisions were easy - and she definitely does seem to be genuinely “roughing it” and struggling for money when we meet her in-game - but she still got there by choice and she still does have a safety net of sorts, since it’s implied she could probably get re-hired in whatever lucrative field she worked in before moving. Haley doesn’t have that - her “safety net” of her parents’ house and her sister only works to support her as long as she stays put.I can see this being a really delicious and rewarding narrative point between them as they started to get to know each other, because I think they would probably HATE each other at first, lol. Leah would think Haley was childish and represented everything she disliked about “fake” city living while Haley would think Leah was pretentious and ungrateful.

Also I definitely love that hippie girl/mall girl contrast BUT please consider - Haley is also an artist and I think they’d both “get” each other on that level. Nobody in town considers Haley an artist. Leah is a “real” artist, a fine artist and a sculptor. Elliott is a “real” artist by way of being an author. Emily is a “real” artist for her sewing and… y’know… general aura. Those are defining aspects of their character. But to the other people in town, and even to the player, art is not one of Haley’s notable features. Her photography is just a throwaway idea. She’s the shallow, frilly, pink, bubblegum-scented boy-crazy “girly girl” who just also happens to take photos sometimes.But photography is serious TO HALEY. It’s pretty much the only thing she does around town other than wandering aimlessly. She has some pretty impressive equipment and she even builds a dark room for herself, either implicitly converting it from a walk-in wardrobe (which demonstrates how she sees her own priorities, regardless of how others see her) OR she builds it from scratch, which is even more dedicated. I think Leah is the best person in town to recognise that Haley is also an artist who’s dedicated to her craft and probably the only person to really encourage her to pursue it, to tell her that it’s worthwhile and not just some silly hobby. Leah would be able to see a lot of her own internal struggles over art in Haley, about whether it was “good enough”.

Conversely if there’s one thing Haley has which Leah lacks, it’s confidence. Leah is full of self-doubt about her art, her life choices, etc. whereas Haley’s main issue is apathy; once she finds something she’s actually passionate about, she’s very self-assured. I think once they broke the ice and started to become friends, if Leah expressed even a smidgen of self-doubt Haley would shut it down with very over-the-top but sincere pep talks.

I also just think their personalities contrast well, lol. Haley is extremely blunt but she’s not really trying to be rude, it’s just that the things she say often come from a sheltered perspective (i.e. “appearance is important to me” -> “[my concept of] appearance is important to everyone” -> “I should tell people if they’re doing Appearance wrong”). Leah on the other hand is very casual and polite but also hard to offend. She’s mostly content to let the odd comment roll off her back, but as we’ve seen with Kel, she’s also not afraid to tell people off when they’re being inconsiderate, which is what Haley needs - someone who won’t ditch her for putting her foot in her mouth, like most would/do, but also someone who won’t just enable her to stay sheltered.

Also in the context of this being a wlw ship/narrative, I think Haley would need a partner who was comfortable in their own sexuality since Haley (and her thematic counterpart Alex) are both extremely stuck in compulsive heterosexuality and sort of need a partner who… isn’t? Or else they’d just get sucked into a “will-they-won’t-they” vortex for a million years where neither of them know how to make the first move. Leah is the only bachelor(ette) who by default has any canonical LGBTQ relationship before the farmer, and that energy just translates well for Haley, IMO. I think if Haley found out Leah was a wlw then it would force Haley to reconsider her assumptions about her own sexuality.

Leah would go absolutely googoo gaga over Haley IMO and it’s just fun to picture her at the start of their interactions being like “god dammit she annoys me so much but DAMB .. .. .. girl pretty”

I doubt anyone read all of this but I HAD FUN and I’m really really glad to see such a positive response to that art!! I would love it if more people started shipping and making content for them 👀

[hillnerd]

Hello hillnerd! I've read more than one of your interesting analysis, so I was wondering, if/when you'll have the time could you explain why/how Ron's character was mistreated by the movies? We all know what a terrible portrait of Ginny they've done, but I've always felt like they did a worst job with Harry than with Ron. Thank you very much, and if you've already spoken more deeply about, don't you worry about it ^^

Aw thanks so much! I’m glad you find my extra long rants interesting! ;)

So! Ron Weasley is my favorite character in the HP series. I found myself continually getting more and more disappointed with his portrayal as the movie series progressed, and have had lots to say on it over the years, but don’t believe I’ve ever had one semi-cohesive long post about it. Here we go, kids!

I have explored this when I went into classism and how it plays into Ron, and the Weasleys, portrayal in the films. This, I feel, is key to understanding how perverse the changes ended up being in the films. To me it’s not just about the character of Ron not being portrayed accurately, but rather an all-around disdain for poverty/working class people.

I won’t repeat what I said in my other essay- but please do read it to get a fuller picture of my issues with Ron’s portrayal. To sum it up, classist tropes of poor people being stupid, lazy, unloyal, and fearful is what Steve Kloves reduced the Weasleys to. 

I also am not a huge fan of the movies, so have not given many of them a lot of rewatches- nor will I for this- so it might get hard for me to remember all issues, and I’m sure I’ll miss a lot of them.

HOW RON WEASLEY WAS RUINED IN THE MOVIES:

When people watch the films they come away from them having some understanding of who the characters are in the books. Harry might come across as more serious in the movies- but his bravery, his dedication, his self-sacrifice, and even at times his sarcasm- are still there. Hermione and her whip-smart intelligence are not just present- they are upped to the point of ridiculous at times- they also went on to make her even more empathetic, friendly and kind than she was in the books (she’s more of a prickly little thing- but they portray her as this sensitive empathic character who never puts a step wrong in the movies… ) and made her more physically capable than in the books too. (punching malfoy, able to physically lift Harry into the air when being swung around on the whomping willow, dueling capabilities etc)

Then there is Ron. Most people come away thinking Ron is a coward, or stupid- at best they find him amusing. The movies seemed to go out of their way to wipe away all of Ron’s positive attributes and replace them with problematic behaviors that were completely antithetical to who Ron was, and even change scenes so that he did the exact opposite actions as well. They robbed him of almost every act of intelligence, kindness, wit, heart and bravery from the books. I’m fine with changes from the book as far as scenes- but I am not ok with them completely altering his character to make him selfish, unkind, cowardly, stupid etc. The movies didn’t just ruin Ron Weasley in them- they created a legacy of suck. I mean, that’s why  there are video essays titled ‘is Ron useless’ on youtube where they have to do a breakdown of the character, in the newest HP phone game Ron isn’t featured like Harry and Hermione and is worth less points, in the play he’s portrayed as a dingus who can’t point a wand in the right direction… People fundamentally don’t know Ron, and that’s due to the movies (and their influence - even on how people interpret his character when they read the books, imo.)

Let’s get into it though!

This started with the first film:

the one film that was truest to who Ron was in the books.

The Devil’s Snare

Let’s compare the scenes:

Now, they had to cut one of Hermione’s feats in order to streamline the journey to the stone. The riddle with the potions would be a lot harder to make interesting in film, so having her shining moment be the Devil’s Snare makes absolute sense. 

As it was her one moment of glory, it also made sense for her to get to stay calm. I can’t begrudge that change.

What I DO have issue is, Kloves decided to sacrifice Ron’s character in order to bolster Hermione. He made Ron become completely irrational and panicky, while cool calm Harry and Hermione looked on with amusement and derision. 

He could have easily had both the boys unable to keep from wiggling- or had Hermione just crawl off in time like in the book- but no. 

This was the beginning of a pattern we continue to see throughout the movies.

They kept feeding the notion that in order to make Harry and Hermione looks cool’/brave- they needed to have Ron cowering beside them- when that is the exact opposite of who he is as a character. 

We also have another moment earlier in the book/film that undercuts Ron in order to bolster Harry.

_________________________________________________

Their first quidditch lesson:

BOOK

MOVIE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ix0BhYSZBg

Ron’s been flying a broom since he was a kid. Yet he’s struggling to get the broom to go up while most of the class succeeds, and then it strikes him in the face? Really? Neville is already about to have an accident with the broom and made a lot more sense for this piece of physical comedy- but they did it to Ron… 

In this film it’s not that big of a deal- after all he has loads of great moments- but it goes to show that Kloves doesn’t understand Ron’s role in the series for Harry- beyond being his best friend, he’s also a knowledgeable guide to the wizarding world. They almost completely remove this from Ron, and give almost all exposition to Hermione or Hagrid. Ron’s essential function is removed. This is just a tiny example. It gets worse as the films continue.

   ————————————————————————————————

THE TROLL

In the book he is very capable and is able to do Wingardium Leviosa to save Hermione WITHOUT her coaching him in the bathroom. But he can’t have his moment without Hermione teaching him in the movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxMy9T49fM

    ————————————————————————————————

Chamber of Secrets

This is it. The film where Ron is firmly established as a coward.

He is moaning, squeeking, shaking, crying, and all around acting a total miserable coward in scene after scene. Again this is the exact opposite of who Ron is as person. In the books he’s this fiery tempered guy who is ready to first fight/duel any ahole who crosses his path- but in the movies, he’s this:

FOLLOW THE SPIDERS

In the books he never is falling apart like that, even when facing the spiders- his biggest fear. (He is literally phobic of them, but this is now shown in the films.) Harry is stoic, to the point of ridiculously stoic, during these moments- while Ron practically crying. Now I’m fine with Ron being show afraid in this particular scene- my issue is how it’s played for comedy, how they add in moments of ‘now can we panic,’ and have Harry show about as much emotion as a door knob the whole scene.  

If this were the one scene where Ron acts like this, hey I’d let it pass.

Nope. It’s become his entire personality. He is in the same state CONSTANTLY in this film. Dignity? Ron does’t get to have a moment of that. He’s constantly making this face:

When in the car, when near his mum, when being yelled at by the howler, when being yelled at by moaning myrtle, when Harry is injured etc.

If his excessive fear weren’t the only big problem that’d be one thing- but no.

He is also striped of his purpose in being a guide to the wIzarding world.

—————————————-

MUDBLOOD AND SLUGS

When Hermione is called a Mudblood in the books she has no clue what that means. Ron is the one who, rather eloquently, explains it.

This is instead given to Hagrid and Hermione. While Ron pitifully barfs int he corner only able to add a feeble ‘it’s sickening’ for laughs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpj3krxJtNU

——————————————————————-

PRISONER OF AZKABAN

They continue to make Ron a coward, but also erode his friendship with Harry and Hermione, and make him ‘irresponsible’ on top of it.

INSUFFERABLE KNOW-IT-ALL

Ron gets detention from Snape for defending Hermione against him.

In the films he agrees with Snape’s bullying comment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjxZyljxrxE

——-

SCABBERS

Ron’s concern about Scabber’s health is made into a one-off sort of joke in the films, and for some reason a narrative of ‘Ron keeps losing Scabbers and is an irresponsible pet owner’ is established in the films. 

Molly has to chase him with Scabbers and shouts ‘DON’T LOSE HIM!’ and then later the cat/rat fight is reduced to a ‘Ron’s lost Scabbers’ instead of it being a clear case of ‘the rat is dead, most liekyl because of her cat.’

Again we see Ron being shown as inferior (dumb ron unable to keep up with pets), while Hermione is built up ad able to talk down to Ron. (Ronald has lost him again!) (Also, anyone else HATE that they did this with the Ronald bit with Hermione and Ron?) Even Hagrid condescends to Ron when he finds the rat (and Hagrid is shown as quite clueless, but apparently not as clueless as Ron now….)

——-

There’s a moment added to the films where Harry goes to return the crystal ball to Trelawney and asks if Ron wants to come with him— Ron, a bit rudely, says no. This was used as a way to get Harry alone with Trelawney for the professor to give her prophecy- but why did they have to do it at the expense of Ron?

—————

THE SHRIEKING SHACK

Ron on multiple occassions in the book goes out of his way to attempt to save Harry. ALL of these are cut.

Ron literally put himself between Harry and danger. Instead in the films he’s stupidly sitting beside the whomping willow,

 then he’s  just screaming, terrified, as he’s dragged away.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhi1bOuIj0E

Then Ron, with a severely broken leg, stands on it to confront a murderer while Hermione scaredly whispering.

Instead they give this line to HERMIONE, while Ron incoherently whimpers on the ground like a coward. 

They knew Hermione had a TON of ‘moments’ in this film already- why did they need to give one of Ron’s ONLY moments to her???????? She had just punched Malfoy (instead of slapped him), literally had the strength of a grown weight lifter to lift Harry by the shirt into the air as they fought the whomping willow and will go on to the have the time adventure… yet, here we are- She has this line as well.

Ron is robbed of every ounce of dignity and gumption and self-actualization he HAS.

————————

Then at the end of the time adventure they have Harry and Hermione laughing at Ron as he, again, incoherently babbles and makes this face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OavYqCjM45k

Oh ahahah! It’s DUMB OLD RON! XD

Everything valuable he brings to his friendship with Harry and Hermione is cut- and replaced with this garbage.

—————————————————————————————————-

GOBLET OF FIRE

Again all nuance for Ron’s character is lost- and he’s demonized while Harry and Hermione are lifted up. They also, throughout the movies, have done a pretty crap job of showing Ron’s place in the wizarding world when it comes to wealth and when it comes to how he’s treated and what he goes through. His lack of money is treated as a joke with his robes, and in general is not taken seriously beyond a a few Lucius is a bad guy scenes and the first movie.

HARRY AND RON’S FIGHT

In the books Ron and Harry’s fight leaves Harry devastated- and Ron’s behavior doesn’t come out of nowhere either. They establish that Harry and He had an agreement to go into the tourney  together if they could- but it looks like Harry did it without him. [the post by @owlpostagain does a brilliant analysis of it]

Ron does not come into their fight angry- in fact he’s trying (And failing) to be positive for Harry.

Ron brings NO ANGER to this exchange. HARRY DOES, though:

In the books Harry isn’t reasonable when he tries to explain this to Ron- he’s angry and insults Ron. Of course in the films, they make Harry ever so reasonable and Ron just a moody whiny asshole who is purely angry and spiteful in this exchange.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an7WWOY94Qs

The utter misery Harry experiences while he and Ron are on the outs is cut (I mean, at this point, why would he be miserable? Ron is a pretty awful friend in the films.) Best explored in a post I can’t find now- just go and reread how miserable Harry is. (eta: FOUND THE POST!!! Thanks @vivithefolle​!)

[This post] by @purpleklimt​  PERFECTLY sums up all the part in GOF where Harry is desperately missing Ron

He then goes on to attack Ron a SECOND time in the books

They leave out Harry’s part in this fight- and make it solely Ron’s fault in the films.

When they make up in the books Harry is SO relieved he won’t even let Ron apologize. He starts off cold- but immediately turns it around with relief.

But in the movie he’s angry and condescending to Ron (after having a SUPER out of character ‘everyone look at me, who wants me to open the egg!!!’ scene) and continues acting so AFTER they’ve ‘made up’? It’s not a happy reunion. And Ron is acting… really stupid :P For no reason

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s_dukNgLPg

————-

TRAINING

Ron goes on to help Harry train for the next task in the books, letting him practice hexes on him. Ron does nothing at all to help Harry in the films. Literally nothing.

———

YULE BRAWL

Again Ron is shown as angry- but they have to up the ante don’t they- where he literally makes Hermione have a breakdown in tears saying he’s ‘ruined everything’- when she had a great time at the ball in the books :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bynhxDUqqgU

Where as in the books they are having a fight of equals:

————-

They also add in a lot of scenes where Hermione is like, a rock for Harry emotionally (which she has never been in the books at all. The closest was in book 7 at the graveyard at xmas.)

————————————————————————————

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

This is the ONLY movie after the 1st one to show Ron’s true friendship for Harry.

It’s not a coincidence that it’s the only film NOT written by Kloves. Here he is defending Harry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktfsgXyRbuc

Ron is a bit of a non-entity in this movie in general, but he’s a good supportive friend, and even has his cleverness pointed out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_p6j28GC3A

I guess they had to when they cut out him being prefect :P

They do a minor bit of Hermione getting Ron’s lines when Harry meets up with them at Grimauld place:

Ron: We told Dumbledore we wanted to tell you what was going on. We did, mate. But he’s really busy now, we’ve only seen him twice since we came here and he didn’t have much time, he just made us swear not to tell you important stuff when we wrote, he said the owls might be intercepted.

Movie:

Harry: You couldn’t have put this in a letter, I suppose. I’ve gone all summer without a scrap of news.Ron: We wanted to tell you, mate. Really, we did. Only –Hermione: Only Dumbledore made us swear that we wouldn’t tell you anything.

But it’s not the worst infraction. It does cut into Ron and Harry’s bond though in order to bolster Harry and Hermione’s. :P

————————————————————-

HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

Steve Kloves is back- and he seems determined to undermine Harry and Ron’s friendship, bolster Harry and Hermione’s, and generally cut out anything but buffoonery from Ron’s stories.

He has Ron kissing Lavender for seemingly no reason, has Ron looking like a moron as he does quidditch (The helmet… ) and just in general doesn’t give Ron any dignity.

When Ron is poisoned- a VERY SERIOUS incident- Ron immediately goes from dying to sitting up to make a joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK3K8XmZX3Q

The MOST EGREGIOUS one, though, is THE ENDING OF THE MOVIE

First let’s look at what we find in the books

They are a TRIO- Ron and Hermione are equally supporting him- but as usual Ron has the most lines of verbal support in the book- because that’s his role as Harry’s BEST FRIEND.

In the film… I mean… LOOK AT IT! 

Ron is COMPLETELY SILENT. And seated about 20 feet away from them as the ‘grownups’ talk and Hermione pledges her ever loving support to Harry, while Ron, again, IS SILENT! FOR THREE MINUTES!

WTF

I JUST…. WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?!!!?!?

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DEATHLY HALLOWS

Ron is actually portrayed ok at times here- They are ALL OVER the place with Ron’s characterization though, and do LITTLE to show the sacrifices he’s making leading up to their journey (and don’t support that narrative much later either.)

At times a bumblerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiTgShhO-JM

But is finally allowed to hold his own when things get serious- but shows a weird sort of serial killer-esque darkness as he confronts the frozen deatheater.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk5I27gTOj0

Again they make him an idiot at the ministryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxgGMs3tezw

But Ron’s injury for once is treated seriously. :) (no sitting up to make a joke!)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvpgvg_0neQ

The locket scene they do NOT honor Ron’s character, and have him become incredibly cruel compared to how he was in the bookhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZi_9E3ULwI

Again they do what they’ve done with ALL the fights based around Ron  (note how they CUT all of Harry&Hermione’s fall-outs?) they make Ron completely randomly unreasonable- and bolster Harry’s perspective as just misunderstood and not at all out of control angry

Don’t get me wrong, Ron was horrid when he was essentially possessed by the locket- but he NEVER went to the low blows Ron of the films did.

They go on in the film to show that without Ron, Harry and Hermione are fine. They are dancing and having a good time without him. And why wouldn’t they? He’s never been the rock of support and common sense he was in the books.

In the books they are hopeless without Ron. Miserable without him. that’s why when he’s back it’s a BIG deal                      _________________________________________________

♪REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD♪  meh

When reunited, Harry and Ron don’t have a particularly close bond- They destroy theh horcrux- and Ron’s emotional reaction of sobbing after his worst fears are out is cut- because of course all Ron-humanity is cut- and then his bond with Harry where they embrace and Harry comforts him is also cut- because only Harry & Hermione are actually close in these movies….

Movie version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1XUfFnmflU

The clip cuts off but after

All that, and all they say is:

‘Just think, there are only three to go.’

Oh ok! No Ron explaining things, no Harry and Ron bonding- Ron’s not a good friend anyways, right?

Augh.

Where Ron comes in saving the day and bringing them tons of knowledge (the taboo, snatchers, potter watch) film Ron comes back bringing nothing (because Ron in the films NEVER is smart or bringing anything to the table. The TWO TIMES in the WHOLE FILM SERIES he does, it’s commented on like ‘wtf?!’ from Hermione….), and his presence doesn’t seem to particularly change anything for Harry and Hermione either. They were fine without him and Hermione is laughing and smiling LESS with Ron around, so is Harry.

Anyways! Then there is Hermione’s torture. Ron in the books is going mad with grief for her- He on MULTIPLE OCCASSIONS defends her and even says for them to take him instead. in the movies he reacts with a worried look and silence, then when he’s down in the basement seems less worried about Hermione than he was about anything in all those other movies he was freaking out in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twHLFlqZ8T8

Look at how sedate he is. Jesus.

In the books he’s shouting her name and desperate for her.

But in the movies… BLECH

At least they still let him save her. (I’m surprised they let that stay.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2zNRrOXbPY

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I only saw Deathly Hallows part 2 when it first came out- and haven’t seen it since because i really didn’t like it. The final fight sequence sucks so hard :P

But anyways- what I remember- Ron essentially does nothing and contributes nothing until he gets him and Hermione into the chamber of secrets and they randomly kiss.

ROOM OF REQUIREMENT

He is portrayed as plain old SILLY in the Room of Requirement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZiGbypAnFU

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MY FRIEND IS ABOUT TO GO DIE.

He gives a lame ‘what? Are you mad’ then as Harry goes off to die, Hermione gives Harry a big old hug- (neither character would let Harry do this- but Ron just STANDING there??? THE FUCK?) and Ron just stand there silently. Again, why is kloves so afraid of having these boys touch? Show affection????? (honestly I think all the times Ron shows anything like friendship in the films it’s usually silent moments that are improvised by Rupert.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg1LLVWZyg8

Like you’re telling me THIS BOY

Is gonna just stand there while Harry goes to die???

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And then hermione almost seems embarrassed to be interested in him

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19 YEARS LATER

Then in the final scene of the book, where Ron had tons of lines (the most besides Harry and Albus) he’s just this potbellied silent dude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEKA6rmVfW8

Like…. I can’t.

I HATE what the movies did to Ron. (don’t get me STARTED on Ginny.)

At every place they could they silenced him, took away his moments, made him a buffoon, made him a coward, made him a rotten friend, removed all his best traits- and left him to be mostly… THIS

He’s a selfish cowardly lump who is just around to keep the AUDIENCE entertained. Honestly you could cut Ron from the movie series and almost nothing would have to be changed- that’s how little they let him inform the narrative.