#need my target audience Hearteyes

[um-lorii]

first post lets make it count (i guess)

[lemonsharks]

Yeah, i was waiting for the uber to go to the vet, so i wasn't exactly at my best. Apologies that you got sideswiped by my cat worries.

I watched the show first and I do prefer it, but I wish I'd had the books as a young teen. I think if I'd had the books when I was in the target audience age range, or even read them first, that I'd have a different set of visuals. Instead:

When I watched the show and saw that Ruby had average-shaped arms and wasn't squeezed into constrictive, flattening shapeware, that alone was a a striking directorial and costuming choice for me.

(I grew up on media where the female leads were put on dangerous diets and could lose their jobs for going over a size 0-2. People who looked like me were villains and comic relief.)

So even though Ruby has a completely different build than me, just seeing that they didn't make her stomach disappear when they shot her in profile, and that they put her in boxier clothing that suits her activities, even though it's not coat hanger chic? I have never felt so seen. She got to look terrible in a hospital gown.

I think Stroud does a great job of writing a teen girl with some body dysmorphophobia--and I think book Lucy does see herself as both larger and less attractive than she actually is. (Looking back on 25 year old photos of myself, the difference between what I saw then (a walrus) and what I see now (a teen who needed a proper bra fitting) is uncanny.)

So I don't have as much of an issue with other characters going all hearteyes over her (although I prefer when the love interest is really into the features Lucy herself is insecure about). I love it when the love interest is most enthusiastic about her Lucyness, rather than any given physical features. But I also don't mind so much when writers and artists lean into Ruby's features, and she does have a delicate, pixyish face despite canonically wielding a two by four against the Golden Fucking Blade and winning.

___

No shade on people who are just shaped like stars of the 90s & 00s. May you always find cute clothes in your size on the clearance rack, amen.

why do fics constantly refer to Lucy as small when canon says she's 5"6 and stacked???