#only writing black characters when they’re divorced from their blackness is racist

[sxnshxnxxnddxxsxxs-fics]

let’s talk about dean thomas

to be clear fuck jkr for racism, antisemitism, transphobia, holocaust denial, misogyny and the rest of her sins of which there are many

let me be so for real right now

dean thomas is one of the mandem

no ifs ands or buts

he is one of the mandem

and the fact that he is never portrayed as such in fandom is proof of why poc characters need to be attached to their poc identities and also of the fact that can only handle blackness in a way that’s palatable to white people.

and to be clear him being one of the mandem doesn’t mean that he can’t have his other personality traits. it doesn’t mean he can’t be into art or be queer or whatever caricature you have of what being one of the mandem is. but being mandem does massively inform all of his life experiences and those traits that you like to use to make him a palatable soft boy would actually manifest very differently.

but for those curious some things that indicate that dean is one of the mandem:

first of all he’s a (most likely) second gen caribbean immigrant who at some point has a single mother - none of this inherently predisposes him to being one of the mandem but if you know anything about the sociopolitical climate of the uk in the 80s and 90s (and beyond) he’s already mandem by association

secondly he’s a west ham supporter. now if you know anything about uk boys (especially school aged ones) and their football teams this tells you a lot. first of all the main reasons for the team you support are either: they’re a successful club doing well in the premier league, you’re a fan of a particular player and support the entire team by association, or it’s your local team. and judging by how west ham was doing in the 80s and 90s that is deans local team.

which brings me onto my next point dean thomas is from east. he’s from like fucking newham. he’s from ends and he reps his ends especially when he first gets to hogwarts and puts up his west ham poster and always talks about his team. he’s always repping because he’s grown up around the mandem and knows to rep his ends.

when writing poc characters they have to be established in their poc identities because if not they lack core components of their identity and they don’t read as fully fleshed characters. you know which is the same thing that the author of this fucking series did. dean in the canon is a caricature of what it is to be a young black boy in the uk but separating him from his blackness isn’t any better.

[ursie]

I know there is racism within the Dick/Kory relationship as well, but why is Dick/Babs racist towards Dick?

Ok so I’m on mobile so I don’t have like panels ect. But in summary (also this is not against the characters ect) : you cannot remove Babs being a white woman and Dick being a moc especially when their characterization was adapted and changed for the ship.

.(mostly modern) Babs was infantized and often removed of any wrongdoing her and her character can do-this is a bad thing. She’s not an innocent naive white woman constantly wronged by Dick (this is important to her being compared to Kory). She’s not always in the right. She used to be quite mean and cold and that’s ok!! Sometimes women aren’t saints. But recently her character is falling more and more into the girl next door archetype. The writing almost entirely takes away any accountability from Babs. It’s important to stress that in the instances Dick wronged her were ooc and done hand in hand with him being written as a moc-him “cheating”/being a player was not his characterization until that happened-his race cannot be removed from the relationship. Many of his faults are directly ties to the writers bigotry. Todays Babs (who all will argue is ooc and weak compared to bop Babs and I’m not denying that but she is part of the issue of the ship-she exists because of it) is perfect and her perfection hinges on Kory and Dicks failures (both of which have racial undertones). She’s competent when Dicks incompetent (which aside from being like. Objectively bad writing he has a decade of hero work on her-undeniably has misogynistic and ableist tones as well). She’s virtuous where Dick and Korys not, she’s waiting and pining whilst Dick is portrayed as “dabbling” with an “exotic” purely sexual fling but will ultimately return to her (which is bad for multiple reasons). Modern Babs in the ship dynamic hinges on being a white woman in a love triangle with two poc-there is no fault in her in the relationship or character and any and all flaws are because of Dick or Kory-who either wronged her or failed her time and time again. Now there’s no denying how misogyny plays into this, or ableism (but it must be stressed that Dick is a Disabled man as well so her being a disabled woman does not remove any accountability here). At the end of the day she’s a white woman propped up against characters of color (in multiple dynamics from Dick and Kory, to Cass as bg, ect). Now I will say that DC seems to be considering making her Black as she’s being played by a Black woman in the dccu and has been voiced by one for years-her being a woc would remove a lot of the harmful dynamics at play.

Dick in his time being retconned as a moc (which coincides with the ship ect) cannot be removed from its current writing : once he was competent and “virtuous” (very much in love with one and only one person at a time. Not “slutty” *yes I know slutty isn’t a bad thing) now he is quite frankly portrayed as a dumbass incapable of thinking forward five minutes, incapable of settling on one woman, and constantly wronging Babs/being undeserving of her-it needs to be stressed here that his status as a survivor and how dc treated his s/a cannot be divorced from the ship either. Dick does not need a baby sitter. Babs competence and “goodness” should not come at the expense of retconned flaws. Dick is not w/o fault in their relationship and I would never say that-there have been many moments of minor to major ableist “microaggressions” in their dating during bop/now however given the way Babs treats Dick (a brown, lower class, Disabled man as well) I would say they’re about even in terms of biased writing. Dicks competence and character being frankly insulted for white characters is not new-while the case is strongest in Taylor’s current run in regards to Babs and Tim, it pops up often with Bruce and Jason (who yes is atm a canonically white man). His sexualization and the retroactive hypersexualization of his relationship with Kory vs the retroactive well. Canon of his relationship with Babs well. You quite obviously cannot remove race there. (This is not a commentary on the writing of Kory/their relationship which is obv a whole other essay that frankly I’m not the best person for). Where their relationship is “clean and wholesome” Dick and Korys isn’t when quite frankly if I were to compare their iconic runs (bop vs ntt) frankly Dick and Kory come out on top in terms of frankly. Everything. Modern DickBabs represents a lot of regression for the characters from their competence, to their age (Babs used to be much older), to their morals, but what it does the most is portray what is fundamentally a able bodied white woman who is magically better and more virtuous, and most often victimized by her less competent, less moral, harmful, peers that textually are stated to not deserve her. There’s kinda an awkward racial undertone to the whole ship and their writing rn like. You kinda can’t remove it the writing wouldn’t be the same if Dick was white or Babs was a woc-and again that’s barely touching it in the context of how it’s used and portrayed to (wrongly) insult and demean Kory and their relationship (and quite frankly Dicks relationships with multiple other woc like Shawn, Helena, or Beatrice)

This is just like off the top of my head and not written perfectly if anyone has anything to add or clarify ect feel free to in the comments or on the post idc. This is ok to reblog as long as you are normal about it (hate Taylor and that run) and understand I literally love all the characters involved

In summary of the summary

[chinchillinator]

I posted 13,298 times in 2022

106 posts created (1%)

13,192 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

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I tagged 1,854 of my posts in 2022

#battle buddies - 216 posts

#goncharov - 103 posts

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#is that your sword or are you just happy to see me? - 32 posts

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Longest Tag: 138 characters

#so now he and joe have to share the babiest bed and he realizes this and has to escape immediately so he doesnt take it back bc thats rude

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

It’s not just fiction. It’s not curating your fandom space. It’s not scrolling past things you don’t want to read. Nothing we do exists in a vacuum, and that includes fandom engagement.

That old adage about writers telling the readers more about themselves than their characters really has been speaking to me of late. It’s true, I’ve been reminded that it’s true many times in rereading my own work and in looking back at what I’ve written recently. I cannot craft a story that is devoid of myself. Simply because every word I write is colored by my own world views. I think it’s very strange if any writer were to claim to be the exception to this.

Based on who I’ve had the joy of interacting with online because of my writing, I know that most of the people reading my work and engaging with it share at least some of my views. Seeing as what I’ve written is impossible to divorce from those views, they must come through in what people read. So if someone enjoys what I’ve written, it must be because they agree with my stance on certain things and have a similar perspective regarding certain things. I know this is definitely true of the things I’ve read, as well. Which is to say, if I do find something in a piece of work that feels at odds with my views and perspective, I will click out and move on. As I imagine many others will if they’re in a similar situation. This leaves me with a community of fellow readers that share my views and perspectives and are happy to have those ideas reinforced and reiterated in what they read. It’s a lovely place to be as both a writer and a reader.

Where this created community becomes insidious is when the views and perspectives being reinforced and reiterated are deeply racist, antisemitic, homophobic, misogynistic, or discriminatory in any other way. When there is a group of people reading works that are written by others to include these discriminatory tropes. When there is a writer allowing their discriminatory views to color their writing and when their views are harmful to the perception of real life minorities. This echo chamber that’s been created is only perpetuating deeply problematic stereotypes that are both symptoms of and root causes of real life discrimination.

It’s not just fiction. It’s ideas and views and perspectives you’re carrying throughout your day to day life. And it’s not a question of whether or not you’ll act on those things, because you already are. You’re reading and supporting things that echo those harmful views. You’re writing things that perpetuate those harmful views. You’re putting into the world further discriminatory imagery that may catch the attention of someone new and pull them into this community. Where discriminatory tropes and stereotypes are suddenly on display openly, repeated again and again until they no longer seem harmful or wrong. Until they just seem normal.

You’re not creating something in a vacuum. You’re normalizing ideas that cause real, true harm to minority groups. Ideas that have led to our rights being taken from us, our bodies being attacked, and our lives being ended. Because those of us who don’t share these ideas are already avoiding your work. We’re already curating our online spaces to see as little of it as possible. We are not the ones being constantly shown these views and accepting them as the norm.

This is not the norm. This cannot be the norm. This is why conversations about discrimination in fandoms, and in all fictional works, need to be held by those open to creating a true dialogue that can initiate change. You are allowing yourself to see racist stereotypes as “okay” because “it’s fiction.” You are allowing yourself to excuse someone who is putting out blatantly discriminatory messaging. You are allowing this to become your status quo.

The next time you see a brown person stopped at the airport security checkpoint, ask yourself if you would accept that as “okay” were you to see it written into a novel. If the answer is no, consider why you’re accepting this.

35 notes - Posted October 23, 2022

#4

Reliable sources say: the actual translation is “Not even the devil would take Primo.”

44 notes - Posted June 19, 2022

#3

Rating: Explicit

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: M/M

Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)

Relationship: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova

Characters: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova

Additional Tags: Explicit Sexual Content, Switching, Laughter During Sex, 5+1 Things, Blink And You Miss It D/S Dynamics and CNC, Canon Compliant, but like what time during canon? who’s to say, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, (thats actually the thesis of the fic not the butt stuff)

Summary:

Nicky loves his family, he really does. But the blessed indulgences he gets to share with Joe when there’s no one else around to interrupt or bear witness, he misses those things as much as he misses his family when he’s been without them for too long. Nicky has spent several long hours deciding exactly how he would like to be taken apart when they’re finally alone. How he would like to take Joe apart.

—

Or, 5 times Nicky and Joe wanted to do butt stuff but couldn’t +1 time they finally did

Awww baby’s first pwp.

54 notes - Posted January 23, 2022

#2

Okay so I know we’ve all been looping the Goncharov theme but like major shout out to @caramiaaddio for also transcribing it because now I can like show what I’ve been rambling at my friends about for so long. Y’all haven’t had to hear me obsess over this so it’s not annoying to you yet. Maybe.

Because what I love about this theme is that it encapsulates both Goncharovs. Hear me out. Obviously this is what plays during the palace dance scene and since that’s framed so fully on Gonch himself because, duh, main character, you can say that the whole theme itself centers on Gonch. But! I actually think that the opening to the waltz is Katya’s leitmotif.

Putting it under the cut in case you’re my friends who’ve already heard me talk about this too many times.

This is what I’m talking about:

Those four bars show up with Katya more than with Gonch, like think about it. I mean, it’s literally played in a major key when she meets Sofia. Which, like, SUBTLE. But anyway, variations of it play in the background of her and Gonch eating together and with the themes surrounding her feelings of being trapped by societal norms and the expectations of a good wife, it feels like these scenes have a lot more to do with her arc. It’s also buried in the scoring that’s backing the entire boat scene AND plays out when Gonch hears about her “death”. So it makes sense that this would be her leitmotif!

MEANWHILE, what do we hear a lot during the most intense scenes of Gonch himself? This:

See the full post

116 notes - Posted November 21, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

has this been done yet

202 notes - Posted September 8, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzel’s Return Part 2

Continuing on from part 1 - 

https://rachelbethhines.tumblr.com/post/635068926214258688/tangled-salt-marathon-rapunzels-return-part-1

Summary: When Rapunzel tries to defeat the Saporians by herself she gets captured; but once Varian realizes that the Separatists plan on using one of his potions' destructive properties to destroy Corona, he and Rapunzel work together to stop it.

Let’s Talk About What a Let Down the Sapiorans Are

Throughout seasons one and two the Sapiorans were built up to be this intriguing race of people with a complex past and real problems that are sadly relatable to this day. They had a history, goal, motives, and special abilities like magic.  

Yet all we got was a really bad hipster parody. 

Heck, the crew can’t even keep it’s stereotypes right because they mostly slide into hippy territory instead. Hipsters, Yuppies, and Hippies are three distinctive counter culture movements for three different generations with completely different social concerns and fads. 

Basically Chris tried to “stick it to the kids” again and just wound up insulting his parents' generation instead because he’s that oblivious of other human beings.

And that’s not even taking into account that previously the Sapiorans were living on the run as nomads in caravans not dissimilar to common Romani stereotypes, so the show is once again making negative racial connotations due to thoughtlessness.

Why Do You Have a Secret Underground Room Hidden Behind Your Workshop Xavier?

Like that not a thing normal people happen to have lying around there workspace. We still are given zero explanation for why Xavier has all this plot convenient knowledge and rare unordinary plot useful stuff. 

Given his previous connection to Saporia and Zhan Tiri wouldn’t it not have made more sense to reveal that he is an actual plot important character in season three rather than keep him as just the exposition fairy? 

So Was This Before or After the Saporian Take Over? Cause Either Answer Makes This a Dumb Plan.

Why would the guards, especially Cap, just give up? Did they even bother fighting and then lost to Varian’s weapons or were they told to stand down by a brainwashed Frederic? If they knew something was wrong then why not stay and help? What makes them think they even could find Rapunzel given how no one knew where she was heading and her letters were infrequent? What difference would they think finding Rapunzel would do? 

Basically, just like with the “former cellmate” line, we needed to actually set up and establish this conflict rather than relying solely on exposition dumps. Because what we get here doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It goes against established character and leaves a lot of unanswered plot holes. 

More Promotion of Authoritarianism From the Show

Remember that these are the same people who formed a lynch mob to hunt down a fourteen year old all because the king told them to. The same king who had been lying to them for years and placed their lives and homes in danger for months. The same king who persecuted the poor and orphans for years. Him suddenly sending townsfolk to the mines isn’t anything new, so what are these people’s breaking points? Anyone else would have revolted by now.  

But noooo, they need Rapunzel to do it for them. Cause Rapunzel is royalty and they can’t do anything without royal permission because they’re sheep. Sheep that’s been subjugated for years and conditioned to be afraid of their “beloved ruler”. 

I understand from a meta point of view why you would want your main character to take charge but...

Like this isn’t inspiring.

It’s disturbing. 

Why are we promoting blind loyalty to a person who’s not earned it just because they were born special? In a freakin’ kids show no less! 

Oh and still no one bothers to call out King Frederic’s abuses here, FYI. 

Take Note That Quirineon is Activated By Heat

This will be important later on in the review. 

He’s Already Built Grenades For You. Wouldn’t Those Be Better Because They’re Easier to Control?

He’s already built explosive chemicals for you. You just used them in part one of the episode. And it came in an easy to use form rather than an unstable, and untested, mess that could literally blow up in your faces since no one, not even Varian himself, knows how to control it yet. 

You Don’t Hammer Out a Cast Iron Pan

It’s literally in the word. To make a cast iron pan you pour the metal into a casted mold. You don't hammer it out like you would with a sword or something. And you can’t even go with the “rule of cool” here cause Rapunzel surrounded by molten metal and fire would have been far more impressive looking.  

Yes I’m being picky cause I’m stalling. I don’t care. This is just yet another instance of the crew not paying attention to details like they should. 

Behold The Final Time Eugene Will Ever Call Out Rapunzel’s BS

This is the last time Eugene will hold an honest discussion with Rapunzel like an equal to her. By the end of this episode he will have transitioned into full on doormat mode. 

Also burying negative feelings and not addressing issues is who Rapunzel is. She’s been pulling this shit since day one. It’s what causes 90% of the conflicts in the show. Have you not noticed Eugene?  

So This Episode Has Contradictory “Lessons” 

The episode presents this idea that Rapunzel needs to open up to others and trust again after Cassandra’s betrayal. The problem is that the episode doesn’t follow through on that. It makes a knee-jerk decision to go with a “responsibility” lesson that wasn’t built up to instead at the last minute. 

More on this later.    

Varian Doesn’t Actually Interact With the Saporians at Any Point.

The only person Varian interacts with is Andrew. We have no concept of how he fits in with the rest of the group and what his dynamics are with them. What do they think of Varian? What does Varian think of them? The consequence to this is to further divorce Varian from narrative, even though this is supposed to be his redemption episode. 

As I said in the last part, you can easily write Varian out of this episode and nothing really changes plot wise. That’s bad writing. 

Also I was robbed of Khary Payton and Jeremy Jordan exchanging lines. I was this close to having audio material for my BH6 crossover, dang it! 

Behold The One Time the Black Lady Gets a Line!

I think her name is Juniper? 

You can tell it’s her because of the shadow on the wall.

Anyways they casted this part and only bothered to give the character a single line? What a waste! 

But this just goes back to the series' poor representation. The only WOC in the show are presented as “shifty” and untrustworthy, even when they are ultimately “good guys”. The majority of them are straight up villains tho, and even as antagonists they’re not afforded any real screen time. 

And the only other outright black women on the show is the inventor lady who was given zero respect and the ghost of a barbarian. 

Once again, I don’t think the crew are intentionally racist. I think they’re just sloppy. They wanted to be more inclusive but they failed to actually give voice to minorities behind the scenes and so failed in representing them well. This is a problem with the industry as a whole, not just this one show, and must be talked about as such if we wish to change things for the better. 

None of this “Stuff” Holds Any Real Meaning

We get several callbacks to season one through Cassandra’s personal things that she left behind, but none of this stuff holds any real personal meaning. It’s just there. They wind up triggering these big emotional reactions from both Rapunzel and Cassandra but the audience is just left confused because what they’re crying over are things that have little significance to these characters. Even this line from season one is just dripping with sarcasm and not some pleasant past memory that either Cass or Raps holds dear to their hearts. 

Way To Go, Dumbass

It’s not that she went alone, or that she broke down when it finally hit her that Cass left, that I’m making fun off. The episode already addresses those two points. 

No, what ticks me off is that Rapunzel has taken down killer robots, ghosts, and monsters before now with her magical hair but a handful of regular dudes can just bring her down? I don’t care how much alchemy they got. Depowering your main character for no stated reason just for narrative convenience is poor writing. 

Because If He Didn’t He Would Have DIED, Rapunzel!!!

He literally would have freakin died had he not done something! He was left inside a jail cell to rot away! Before that he was threatened with hangman’s noose! Before that violence from an angry crowd! Before that he was left alone to starve and/or die from exposure! There was no way out for him except to fight! 

And here you are inside the very prison that you kept him in and you still don't have the fucking self awareness to put two and two together! 

This Right Here the Assassination of Rapunzel’s Character and the Killing Blow to the Series

Yeah, and what about after the storm? Hun, bitch!?

We’ve spent two damn seasons watching Rapunzel stepping on people and making excuses for herself and the one time when she should realize her actions are wrong and finally own up to her behavior and she still does not fucking change.

This is supposed to be a coming of age story! That means the main character is supposed to grow and learn shit! But when it matters most, Rapunzel only digs in her heels and refuses to change! 

Why should I care about this character anymore if she’s just going to keep on being selfish no matter what? Why should I bother watching the show if it fails to deliver on its premise? How is this in any way shape or form an appropriate message for children!? 

If you’re watching the series for the first time, then it’ll take awhile to register just how awful this scene is and how it really is the beginning of the end, because they did have time to turn things around after this. But they didn’t, and here we are. 

This Isn’t a Real Apology

It’s not a real apology if all you do is make excuses for yourself. Rapunzel doesn’t address what she actually did wrong here and it has nothing to do with her stupid promise. 

She neglected and enabled the abuse of a child for a year and three months, and she’s not even sorry for it! 

You Were Never a “Friend” Rapunzel

Friends, actually do shit together. They enjoy each other’s company. They care when the other is hurt or in trouble. 

Rapunzel only came to see Varian when she needed him for something. Even now, after this confrontation, that’s all she’ll ever do. She does not actually care about Varian, because the creators will not let her care. 

And Here Comes the Death of Varian’s Characterization

In order to make this stupid, forced, “redemption” work the writers had to do a complete 180 with Varian’s character and his motivations. Instead of freeing his father, seeking revenge, or just, you know, surviving, he now suddenly cares about “being friends” and “being accepted by people”, only he has no reason to want any of that! 

Rapunzel is a shit friend. Heck all the mains are crap friends to him. They ruined his life and the townspeople tried to kill him. Why would he want anything to do with any of these a-holes!? 

Varian doesn’t get assassinated in the same sense as Rapunzel and Cassandra do. He doesn’t suddenly become a hateable dumb douchebag or anything, but he nevertheless has his character retroactively sabotaged by the writing.  

Uh, Were You Not There When Your Dad Rounded Up a Lynch Mob Against Him, Raps?

I believe you were. Also Varian literally told you to your face that he had to go into hiding cause the townspeople were willing to attack him just because those rumors that you failed to stop and pretended not to know anything about. 

Just because the characters shout something repeatedly does not make it true. The audience isn’t dumb. They can remember what happened only two seasons ago. 

Where Was the Inciting Incident For This Change of Heart?

Why should he even want their forgiveness? Why has he given up on freeing his father? Why is he having second doubts about overthrowing the kingdom that persecuted him? 

If you’re going to drastically change a character’s motivations, goals, and moral alignment then you need to present an in story reason for that change. We don’t get that. There’s no inciting incident on screen for us to see the shift in his character development. 

The audience is left to only infer, and that’s poor writing. The audience shouldn’t have to do the work of the writers for them.  Characters’ motivations and goals  should not be guess work. 

The only thing we can glean from this is that he had a change of heart while in prison and that’s a horrifying thing for the show to suggest. That’s basically justifying Frederic’s abuse. It also recontextualizes Varian’s arc into one of submission to his abusers and not one of learning to do the right thing simply because it’s right. 

Once Again, Were You Not There For Season One Rapunzel?

They had a year and three damn months of chances. These people actively tried to do him harm just for simply seeking help. He has no reason to trust them nor you. 

Why Are We Shoulding All of the Blame Onto the Abused Child?

Yes, he did do all of those things, technically, but they’re being presented here without context.

The Queen enabled his abuser who was threatening his life and destroyed his home. He kidnapped her as a last restore when all other methods to get out of his desperate situation failed. 

The princess he threatened neglected him for three months and repeatedly refused to help him, even throwing him out into a deadly snow storm. Despite him being her responsibility, thereby making her neglect a flat out abuse of power.  

He would have died a slow and painful death in prison had he not helped to overthrow the kingdom that persecuted him. 

I’m not going to pretend that what Varian did was right or that he shouldn’t feel sorry for what he did, but this is a highly skewed version of events that are being recounted here just to create bias in the viewers. It’s manipulative writing intended to gaslight the audience. 

Also, why does he even want a second chance!?   

Doesn’t This Undermine The Saporian’s Goals?

The Saporians wanted to reclaim their ancestral homeland so that they would no longer be a displaced people. How does blowing up that homeland help them? 

Season three just throws all logic out the window. There’s barely a single villain who doesn’t undermine their own goals at some point with their stupid actions. 

So Why Varian and Andrew Not Some Other Team Up?

Out of all of the various recurring baddies in the show Varian and Andrew have the least in common. I’m not saying that they couldn’t work together, but doing so required more set up than this. Because as is, this is a very contrived teamup. 

They have diametrically opposed goals and moral alignments. Varian doesn’t bring anything to the table that the Saporaions couldn’t have supplied themselves. Meanwhile the Saporians have failed to offer Varian anything that he could want. 

At best it’s a marriage of convenience for them to both break out of prison together, but even that is contrived because we don't know why neither of them were sent away on the prison barge with the rest of the season one villians.  

Better combinations would have been 

Varian & Lady Caine

Andrew & Lady Caine 

Varian & Cass

Andrew & Cass 

Varian & Zhan Tiri

Andrew & Zhan Tiri

Varian & Hector

The Baron & Varian

Andrew & Staylan 

King Trevor & Varian 

Like there were tons of options here that the writers just ignored, even though any of them would have made more sense than the one they went with.  

The Andrew and Varian Dynamic Can Be Seen as an Allegory for Grooming; Unfortunately the Writers Didn’t Consider That Implication.

Yeah... That’s pretty much what Andrew has done here. He’s groomed this desperate and lonely teen to become a child soldier for him. And one only can only pray that’s all he tried to groom him to do since they were trapped inside a confined and enclosed space together for several months. 

Listen, I don’t mind children’s shows touching upon darker subjects. Often fantasy is a good way for people to process complex themes and uncomfortable real world situations through the safety of fiction. It can even be helpful for those who have had the misfortune to experience certain traumas. 

I’m not complaining that TTS is too dark. 

I’m complaining about it being shit. 

All of the crap Varian goes through is just thrown in there for shock value. It’s not here to commentate on the real world nor provide a complex story. The situations are brought only to then be outright ignored. This isn’t thoughtful nor deep. It’s not meaningful nor heartfelt. It’s just hollow drama done in bad taste. 

You’re Not In a Position to Judge Rapunzel 

You got captured first because you decided to throw yourself a pity party. 

Would He Though?

I’m pretty sure Quirin is very well aware of how shitty Frederic is. If anything I would think he’d be pissed that his son, that he tried so hard to protect, was mistreated in such a hordenous way. 

This isn’t some satisfying ending to Varian’s arc. It’s a heartbreaking revelation that he’s been beaten down by his abusers.  

Varian’s Arc Isn’t Actually About Validation, and Rapunzel Giving It Here Doesn’t Really Change Anything 

I spoke about this before on its own, but Tangled the Series places far too much stock in validation. Yes, it’s an aspect of his character arc, but it’s not the end all and be all of his motivation. It’s not the force that drives him to do what he does. 

His primary goal is survival, both for himself and for his father. His secondary goal is gaining his father’s approval, but that’s not because he’s seeking generic praise, it’s because his father is emotionally distant. The “validation” is a mask for the real issues which are to fix his relationship with his dad and avoid the guilt of having possibly killed him in an accident. 

Rapunzel has fuck all to do with that. 

He doesn’t need to hear approval from her. He needs her to get her shit together and help him! 

Rapunzel’s and Varian’s Situations Are Nothing Alike and Rapunzel Doesn’t Know Jackshit

Rapunzel you were dumped by your bestie because you’re a shitty friend. 

Varian was neglected and abused by those who were supposed to take care of him. 

Unless you’re drawing parallels to how Frederic and Gothel treated you, and even then neither of them denied you basic fucking needs! 

This should be an “Oh Shit! I’ve become just like Mother Gothel” moment for Rapunzel, not an “Oh yay! Someone to share in my personal misery” moment. 

Man, Rapunzel suuuuuucks! 

Also This Still Isn’t An Actual Apology

Once again, Rapunzel is not admitting what she did wrong here. She’s not actually acknowledging Varian’s pain, nor what she needs to do to make admins with him. 

What she’s doing is making things all about herself again. She’s talking about her feelings. About what she is facing. Rapunzel is an incredibly selfish and egotistical person and the show is trying to present this as a positive thing by rewarding her for such behavior. 

Varian’s Redemption Should Have Nothing to Do with “Friendship”

Varian has no reason to want to become friends again with the woman who ruined his life and abused him. 

But more than that, redemption shouldn’t be dependent upon Rapunzel’s friendship, nor even her ‘forgiveness”. Varian should be able to do the right thing just because it’s the right thing, Rapunzel be damned. 

This cheepens not only his character development but also Rapunzel’s development as well. Rapunzel is not allowed to grow as a person and accept that not everyone wants to be her friend, and that people may have valid reasons to hate her even, and that doesn’t make them evil. 

It also rushes through Varian’s arc undermining what the audience had to get through to get to this point.  

OK, Let’s Talk About The Goatee

I wouldn’t have minded the beard had it just not looked like a fucking barcode. There’s production art where it looks fine. But just wiping it away ties back to what I was talking about in part one. It’s denying Varian the chance to grow up. This is supposed to be his coming of age story as well but the crew won't let him do that because “rule of funny” apparently overrides what the characters actually need in order to develop.  

Once again, the show isn’t a sitcom. You can have comedic moments but the comedy doesn’t need to outright undermine the drama. 

Once Again, Shouldn’t Eugene Be the First Person to Jump to Varian’s Defence?

You mean the orphan on the streets who stole stuff and fought to survive when the adults failed to take care of him? Is that what you’re talking about Eugene? Cause if I remember correctly that was you not just three years ago. 

You Mean Rapunzel Needs Him To Make Her Feel Better About Herself

Spoiler alert, but Varian doesn’t actually do anything after this point in the episode. His entire “redemption” is just about making Rapunzel feel better about herself after Cass has rejected her. He’s literally become the rebound. 

How Come Varian Suddenly Became Shorter Just for This Shot?

I know the meta reason is to reflect that scene back in Queen for a Day when Rapunzel promised him that she'd help him before everything went tits up. Where he was also drawn shorter in that episode to make him seem more verunable, but here he’s just suddenly shorter for only two shots and then suddenly back to his usual height. 

Crap like this is why I insist that Varian didn’t actually get any taller in season three. The show just has always been inconsistent with his height and most of the “evidence” for his growth are cherry picked instances where the show drew him smaller than usual for reasons, like here.   

So Where Did They Get That Much of the Explosives and How Did They Get Them So Fast?

Only Varian knows how to manufacture that stuff. Why would he make that much of it if he was still in the experimental phase with it? He’s even surprised that they have so much, so where did they get it? If they made it then, how did they make it so fast? 

So This Plan Goes Nowhere

Spoiler alert: Varian doesn’t actually get to do any of that. In fact he’s kind of pointless for the rest of the episode. 

Why Would the King and Queen Care About a City That They Can’t Remember?

Like this revenge doesn’t make sense. It’s just a contrived way to get Eugene and Lance out of the way.

If the Quirineon Explodes From Being Exposed to Heat Then What Good Does Just Dropping It Do?

Yeah, remember? The stuff explodes when heated. Simply dropping it shouldn’t do anything other than make a mess on the ground maybe. 

All That Build Up and Varian Still Doesn’t Get to Do Anything Useful

Up till this point, Varian was shown to be the most competent threat in the show. Yet here they have him be a screw up twice in a row just for comedy antics and to glorify Rapunzel again. 

If you got to nerf other characters just to make your main look good then you’ve failed to establish your main character as being capable in their own right. 

Remember That This Boy Was Trapped in a Jail Cell With This Guy for a Year!

No, I’ll never be over this.

Andrew is the most directly violent and scummy out of all of the villians in the show. 

If he’s willing to do this now, if he was willing to do this to his ex-girlfriend, then what the heck was he willing to do when he and Varian were trapped alone together? 

So Andrew Just Willingly Sacrifices His Own People Here....Even Though His Goal Was to Give His People a New Home....

People need to use this gif more often when concerning this show and the villains’ ass-backwards plans.

And yes they survive because of Varian alchemy. But that was on accident. Andrew had no way of knowing that would happen. He’s willing to destroy his own people just to blow up his ancestral homeland and for what!? What does he gain from this action?  

The Mind Wipe Kills Frederic’s and Arianna’s Characters; Littraly

Frederic and Arianna are effectively dead at this point. Anything that made them, well them, has been wiped away. Their personalities, hopes, dreams, their on going stories and development, just gone. And we never get them back, even when their memories supposedly return. 

Varian’s Not Even Allowed to Get the Idea On How to Save Corona...In His Own Redemption Episode No Less

This is his episode! We’ve spent two years building up to this point and you can’t even let him help? He’s denied the chance to make up for his own mistakes! Just so Rapunzel can play hero and be a very shallow representation of what a bunch of men think a “strong” woman should be! 

It’s fucking insulting. That’s what it is. 

Making a female character the center of the universe to the point where other people are just props for her is not empowering! 

No It’s Not!!

Uh you wouldn’t even be here had you just fucking helped Varian to being with you dumb bitch! This is very much you and your father’s mess! 

Even now, while pretending to be responsible, Rapunzel can’t actually be responsible and own up to what she did! 

She’s fucking 20 and the 16 year old shows more maturity than her! 

Also Your Hair Can Protect Two People at Once Rapunzel; Remember?

There’s no excuse for leaving Varian out of the action. We’ve been shown multiple times now that Rapunzel’s magic hair can protect her and other people at the same time. 

Having Rapunzel Save the Day By Herself Undermines Everything the Episode Was Trying to Establish

What happened to needing to “trust again” and letting other people help you? Having Rapunzel save the day alone just tosses out the lesson that the show was trying to build up to. 

The show tries to frame this as Rapunzel learning “responsibility” but that also does not work. For one it was never established that she needed to learn that within the episode itself and secondly, she doesn’t actually do anything different from what she usually does. 

Being an action hero isn’t the same thing as being responsible. Being responsible is being considerate of others, doing the borning shit or mundane crap that you hate, and being mature enough to recognize your own failings and admitting when you were wrong. 

So in the end Rapunzel is neither responsible nor more open to others. 

And There’s the Death of Eugene’s Character

Lance, who has maybe exchanged all of three sentences with Raps, is more distrught than the guy that supposedly wants to marry her. This isn’t heartwarming, nor it is growth. It’s just lobotomizing a character right in front of our eyes. 

In this very episode he was worried about Raps going to face the Saporians by herself and was, guess what, fucking right to do so. But he doesn’t give two shits if she gets blown up!? 

Ooookaaaay.....

This is the completion of turning Eugene into a doormat. From now own he shan’t be allowed to have any thoughts or feelings of his own that disagrees with Rapunzel. 

The Eugene we knew is now dead. 

But Of Course the Show Rewards Everyone for Behaving In the Dumbest Way Possible Anyways

Don’t expect any of these grossly out of character moments and oxygen deprived logic to be addressed nor fixed within the show. The series will keep on shoving unearned endings into our facing while insisting that this is positive development. 

How Did Y’all Get Here Before Varian?

Yes, he was left on a roof, but he can climb and y’all were outside of the city. 

Yeah... A Year and Half Fucking Later!

Ok, a year and three months, but that’s still not any better. Worse, all this implies is that Rapunzel would not have ever concerned herself with trying to free Quirin had Varian not broken out of prison. She would have literally left them both for dead and we’re supposed to find her suddenly doing the bare fucking minimum heartwarming and inspiring?

Where Was the Inciting Incident to Use the Decay Incantation for This? 

How did Rapunzel come up with this plan? When did she come up with it? 

When the hurt incantation was first found no one mentioned how it could be used to save Quirin. No one even gave Quirin a thought. Since then the incarnation hasn’t been brought back up, ever. This is a pretty big leap in logic for Rapunzel to suddenly think of this. 

All it highlights how Varian was originally meant to be there to translate the scrolls and incantations in order to establish all this but of course it got cut so now it just comes the fuck out of nowhere. 

Not Letting Varian Have Anything to Do With Saving His Father Is Even Worse Than Not Letting Him Save the Day

This has been his motivation since the beginning. It’s been the driving plot for a season, and now that the time has finally come what does get to do? 

Hold a dang bucket. 

Part of coming up with satisfying endings is following through on what you’ve established. The audience needs closure. Simply freeing Quirin isn’t enough, we need the carthartis of Varian specifically fulfilling his goal. 

I don’t know how to break this to you Chris, but this isn’t Rapunzel’s story. Not this segment of it anyways. It’s Varian’s and it just so happens to connect to Rapunzel’s. She shouldn’t have been center stage for this. 

The Series Blows It’s Load Too Early with the Incantations

This is the last time we’ll hear any of the incantations sung on screen, cause someone in budgeting didn’t know what was important to throw the money at and what was not. 

It’s not bad here, but if we could only hear one incantation only once this season it needed to be in the finale with the final heal incantation. 

Varian Was Right All Along

Also, all this does is justify Varian’s actions in season one. Rapunzel was indeed the only one who could free his dad according to this. For a series that desperately wants to shove all of the blame onto an abused child’s shoulders they sure go out their way to prove him right. 

So How Is the Hurt Incantation Suppose to Work?

There were so many fan theories after this scene because Varian and Quirin don’t respond to the hurt incantation the same way previous characters had. 

No one is gasping for breath, Varian can touch Raps without burning his hands, and Rapunzel can control the direction of her power. ect. 

Turns out there was nothing there, the writers just didn’t know what the fuck they were doing and made the hurt incantation very inconsistent just like all of the magic in this show. 

BULLSHIT!!!

You literally turn into a villain because she gave up on you!!!!

She also didn’t give two shits about you throughout the entirety of season two. 

Why are we just pretending like season one didn’t exist!? 

Why!?

The Note!!!

No It Fucking Didn’t!

Does That Look Like “I’m Proud of You Son” To You?

Chris went on to confirm that, yes, the note did hold more information that then got cut. Pretty much confirming all that we suspected. That Varian was cut from season two and his story hastily shoved back into season three at the last minute. 

Below is the link to the tumblr post he made.

https://cnotes.tumblr.com/post/190534585146/apparently-one-of-the-writers-said-a-while-back

What’s worse is that his defense is such bullshit. The below exchange pretty much sums it all up.

This Doesn’t Actually Resolve Anything and Is Therefore Unsatisfying to Watch

Part of the reason why this conclusion doesn’t work is because it doesn’t actually address any of the problems that they have in their relationship. Quirin never owns up to what he did wrong. There’s no discussion of what Varian was up to while he was entrapped, no conversation about what secrets Quirin hid from his son, and zero admission of wrongdoing on either side.   

Also Varian has done nothing significant to earn those particular words. Saying I love makes sense, but in context saying “I’m proud of you” does not. It doesn’t even work on a meta level cause the episode prevented Varioan from accomplishing anything. 

It’s empty. 

There Could Have Been More Screen Time to Fix This If Not for Season Two Mucking About

https://discord.com/channels/427940661589704715/569296212218347522/777635115978457098

Above is the link to the original storyboards. It doesn’t fix everything but there’s a lot more satisfying emotional beats including adding Ruddiger back in who is suspiciously absent for the entire episode for no stated reason. 

This version was cut due to time. Which, like with the Crossing the Line song, didn’t need to be had they been more effective with their usage of time in season two. 

They also could have had a better conclusion to Varian’s arc in general had he not been cut from season two altogether. 

So What Does Freeing Quirin Add to the Series?

I’m serious. What does freeing Quirin at this point and time do for the story?

It doesn’t add any character development, Quirin just wanders around aimlessly in the background until the finale and even then his part in that is a pointless dead end. Varian doesn’t gain his emotional closure, just empty, hollow “praise”. Nor is he allowed to accomplish any of his established goals. No new lore or history is exposed. No mystery uncovered. 

There’s no reason why this couldn’t have been done later in the season. Provide more tension and keep up the consequences of the characters actions. Give the mains something to do and work on until Cass and Zhan Tiri show up again.  

The only reason why this is here is to wrap Varian’s story up as soon as possible so he won’t “steal Cassandra’s spotlight”. That’s it. He’s rewarded for conforming to Rapunzel’s will and all the fans should shut up and be grateful, at least according to Chris.

I Like This Song But It Wasn’t Needed

It doesn’t add anything to the story. It’s just a generic celebration song. Which would be fine if it wasn’t for the fact that we have a limited number of songs, even less than in previous seasons, and the story isn’t over yet. This is the wrong place to put a victory song at. 

Especially when we could have had a song that furthered Varian’s redemption instead.  Yeah, that was cut too. 

So Is Varian the New “Lance” This Season?

He’s right there! This is his dang focus episode! 

Why hire Broadway singers and not let them sing!? Why waste talent and money like that? 

Also These Lyrics!

Did Glenn Slater just not read the scripts before writing the songs? That’s all season three ever does! Give the mains what they want without earning it. Even in this very episode!

So Is This Rapunzel’s 20th Birthday or Not?

Ok I have gotten into many a heated debate about how long season three is supposed to be. And that’s because what the crew says doesn’t match what the series shows us. 

By all accounts this should be Rapunzel’s birthday. According to season two she’s been gone for one year, and there’s the lanterns that they fly specifically on her birthday. 

But no one verbally says it’s her birthday and I’ve heard conflicting accounts from different members of the crew. Some stating that it is her 20th birthday and some disagreeing that it is. 

Well I’ll take what evidence that the show actually presents to its audience on screen over what the cast and crew says after the fact any day of the week, so I’ll be gathering up this evidence and proving by the end that season three is two years not one. 

But the fact that I must comb through series to prove this, the fact that we can even have this debate, and the fact that the crew have to state basic info after the series is over is just proof of the bad writing. 

Fun Fact: Cupcakes Weren’t Invented Until the 20th Century

Yeah, that’s the fault of the OG film, and yeah it doesn’t really mean much, but still it’s one more thing to add to the pile of stuff that doesn’t fit. 

Plus I’m just a hardcore nerd for historical cooking and I like to share my knowledge.  

Yeah But How Can He Trust All of You Again?

You’re the ones who let him down first; repeatedly. And you only started to make things up to him once he became useful to you. What assurance does he have that you won’t mistreat him again next time he’s in trouble or is no longer of any use to y’all? 

Yes, Let NOT Show What the Main Character Is Actually Going Through

Yup, this is “Rapunzel’s show” but we’re not going to let Rapunzel have any focus on her feelings or give any insight into her thought process about what is the main conflict of the series now.

Conclusion

Ducktales was robbed! 

I can’t believe this shit won an Emmy for “best writing.” It utterly fails on every possible level. It fails to be a continuation of the ongoing story and it fails to be a stand alone episode. Even the very structure of the story is fundamentally flawed. The only reason why it’s not the worst episode of the entire series because the finale and the penultimate episodes exist. 

Anyways...I finally made it through. It literally took my entire weekend but I’m finally caught up. Next week I’ll be going back to the usual one episode a week schedule. 

[masterthespianduchovny]

I have seen far too much discourse coming from white people along the lines of ‘you need to reflect on your unconscious racial bias if you think Sam/Rebecca is a massively problematic pairing’ and honestly, fuck that. An extremely wealthy club owner in her late 40s and a young black club employee in his early 20s is never going to be a healthy dynamic. Even if it was the most non-toxic relationship ever depicted on camera, the professional and personal strain on them if it became public would be enough to poison it. Sam is an adult, yeah, and a kind and thoughtful one who can make choices. But it’s not ‘infantilising’ to suggest that those choices aren’t divorced from context, that he is the one with less power in the situation, and that he deserves to experience a healthier and far less stressful love than it’s likely to be between him and Rebecca.

I’m disappointed the show has gone this way primarily because it feels like such an enormous, misogynistic cliché for a female character to make a monumentally stupid decision in her personal life that fucks up the professional. How many times have we seen that before?

Tbh, I do think that white people are primarily driving this racism narrative.

Not to say that no black person is supporting this pairing, but as a black woman, in my experience many black women would struggle with this ship, if not, actively loathe it. Again, it's possible that a black woman does ship this, however, I think it's a minority and for reasons you mentioned.

Some people keep scoffing at the age gap criticism, but when you add race into it, this becomes even more problematic. An older, white rich woman who is a club owner with a young, black boyfriend/lover who works for her?

More black people would be more concerned about that dynamic and not accusing fans of being racist for valid concerns about age gaps and power imbalances.

And someone could argue this is mild/subtle racism, but considering the shit that has gone on in the Star Wars fandom, sleepy hollow, twisted, etc (there are huge ones I can't think of), I'm struggling to see the racism here. Even if Sam was white, most of the core criticisms still remain the same. Sam is STILL significantly younger and STILL works for her.

And, as I mentioned in another post, the Ozark community was appalled at an age gap relationship between an 18 year old and a 50+ year old woman where both characters are white. Where is the racism there?

They also tried to argue ageism, but another pairing I mentioned was a man in his late 30s and a woman in her late 50s/early 60s in the show Succession is actually hugely popular. The anti shipping faction only makes up a minority in this case.

Hell, in Mission Impossible (the last one that came out. lol), people were shipping Angela Bassett and Henry Cavil who have, I think, a 20 plus age difference.

Racism and ageism are popular in may fandoms, unfortunately, but that isn't always the case as mentioned in my many examples.

These Sam/Rebeca shippers/defenders are the ones divorcing context from why this pairing is so problematic. They refuse to see it. Even when they acknowledge it, they downplay the ramifications if they got together--whether or not anyone found out. Why would they want this from Sam, a character they're allegedly trying to protect from fandom racism? Meanwhile, if things go as they want, Sam will be experiencing in universe racism. Who's winning here? Surely not Sam.

I'm not going to make any judgments about the storyline because I'm hoping they're the smart writers I insist they are. lol. Whatever happens, write me again so we can discuss it. :)

[fluorescencefuture]

Homestuck^2: How I’d write the Omega Kids (and the Candy timeline villains)

I haven't reread Homestuck nor the epilogues in a while so correct me if I'm wrong with anything here. This was all in one go, too, so I probably missed something here or there. I'm also not a native English speaker so pardon some grammar errors.

In General

I’d give them a five-letter name scheme. Names of a group being the same length was a big deal in original HS (human first names had four letters, troll names had six, Ancestors had eight-letter titles, Cherubs had eight letters too, etc.), so it’s odd seeing this new group have names of varying length

I’d also give them all shirt symbols. It’s odd that something so iconic to Homestuck isn’t present in the new kids, either.

I'll write for both the canon post-canon with evil Jane and for my own version with different villains. Evil Jane happens because a highblood troll who hears of the old ways of Alternia attempts to kill her and take her crown, as she's technically the heiress. Jane wins, but she starts to see trolls and Alternian culture in a different light from then on. At first she was only trying to prevent the worst parts of Alternian culture from coming back, but over time grew to despise trolls, and ended up trying to force human culture onto Alternians.

The other Candy villains are a dangerous terrorist rebel group that wants to overthrow the creators and destroy them. They say the creators made the people, abandoned the people for years, then suddenly came back and decided they control the people. The group is made of humans, trolls, carapacians, and even consorts. The mysterious shadowed leader claims to be doing this for the people, but really, all they want is to have control for themselves, and they don't care if any innocents get in the way.

Harry Anderson

Has nothing to fix, he’s perfect as is

Okay but seriously, the guy is the kid with the least questionable things around him. He has no baggage from sharing the same name as an established character (ICP Harry Anderson doesn’t count), and he didn’t come from infidelity.

He also has actual color to his personality. He likes musicals and sewing. He has a good relationship with his dad. Like many kids with divorced parents, he wishes his parents were together again. What do the others have? Vrissy is just a slightly less aggressive Vriska. Tavros is just OG Tavros and Jake combined. Yiffy’s thing is being a dog girl named Yiffany Longstocking. The others could be fleshed out eventually, but with the slow pace and meandering plot we have right now, I doubt it.

If Jane's the villain, things would mostly go the same way. If Jane isn't the villain, it goes two ways: he decides to join Vrissy's guerilla anti-anti-creator group and fight because he wants to protect his parents, or he's just very anti-conflict and avoids the fight because he doesn't think he's up to it. He's frequently threatened but doesn't tell his parents about the threats. Eventually, he gets convinced to join and fight.

Vrissy

So Vrissy’s in relationships with guys who are technically her cousins. At first I was like “well, they’re not biologically related nor were they raised as family so it’s not weird”. But then Tavros called Kanaya “Aunt Kanaya” and now I’m thinking “oh god, that’s really weird”.

Now she’s just a troll girl from school. She's just close to Kanaya and Rose, but isn’t their kid. She isn’t related to anyone. Anyone except Vriska, who she was named after. Vrissy’s new nickname is just Vriss.

Alternatively, her name is something completely different. Honestly, it just seemed like a way to shoehorn in a Vriska for the story. Only for actual Vriska to come back anyway.

Uhh, Eshtha (from Jyeshtha, a Hindu nakshatra Scorpius is associated with)? Oriona (from Orion, the myth where Scorpius is mostly attributed to)? Naiaka (from Manaiakalani, as Hawaiians saw Scorpius as the demigod Maui’s fishhook)? Oh wait, I’ll have to make nicknames for those names too. Uh, Eshty, Riona, and Naiah.

Maybe have her have a personality that’s rather opposite to Vriska’s than have her as Vriska 2. She's more a perky goth, more cheerful and sweet. More "I knew you could do it!" than "So you can do something after all." A beast in battle, of course. She doesn't like to use her mind control powers, because she finds them disturbing.

If Vriska had to come back, the conflict would come from their conflicting personalities. Vriska would pretty much act the same way she did to (Vriska), but this time, Vriss doesn't take any of it and stands her ground.

Whether the villain is Jane or not, she's the one who decides to fight back, and she gets her friends and others to join her. The creators have been nothing but good to her, and she cares about them a lot, especially Rose and Kanaya. Not to mention they're also her friends' parents.

Tavros

Yeah, we’re gonna have to rename that kid. It never made sense to me why Jake and Jane named their kid after some guy they don’t know that well. I don’t remember everything from the Epilogues, but I’ll assume the reason was Gamzee or something. Also weird that Jane, who’s supposed to be racist to trolls, would just...let her kid be named after one.

Something old-ish would work. Flynn? Silas? Avery? Clyde? Niles? Louie?

He's moirails with this Vriss instead of kismeses. The Vrissy/Tavros kismesis also felt like re-hashing the kismesis that Vriska and OG Tavros kinda had.

If we went post-canon villain Jane, he'd be reluctant to join the rebellion and is more of a pacifist who would rather try to talk his mom out of it.

Alternatively, Jane and Jake are separated (but not divorced) and he lives with Jake. Because Jane was never terrible to him and Jake doesn't tell him how bad she's gotten, he disagrees with her but still tries to justify and rationalize that Jane's really doing it from a place of good intentions.

If the villain isn't Jane, then Jane and Jake have been hiding him away, and his friends can only see him when they visit him at his swanky home. You might say he's...housetrapped. He joins because his friends are in it, and doesn't quite grasp how serious things are until the rebels try to kill Jane (the rebels try to kill Jane first because you always kill the healer first).

He's in contact with a mysterious guide who's kinda spacy and a little terrifying at times. His friends think the guide might just be some creepy predator. It's revealed to be Candy Gamzee, out of the fridge and legitimately harmless, but untraceable and doing mysterious things behind the black. Again.

Come to think of it, Dirk's missing too...

Yiffany Longstocking

Yiffy is now the ectokid of Dave and Jade. She looks more like a DaveJade kid than JadeRose, really. Dave and Jade are also either happily married or coming close to an amicable divorce. Yeah, the toxic shit Jade did and the erasure of Dave's bisexuality also don't exist here. Jade, Dave, Karkat, and Terezi are backing Vrissy's anti-anti-creator group.

Her new name is something unisex. Riley? Logan? Robin? Sloan? Salem?

She spends a lot of time outside doing sports and doesn't talk much. She's not very close to the other three kids, but she's surprisingly pretty close to her Aunt Rose.

While Jade and Dave are out on a mission for Karkat (this is the mission Candy Dave dies), she gets kidnapped by the opposing force (Jane/the terrorists). She gets a shock collar forced on her, then is hidden away in a Boarding School for Inconvenient Girls, enrolled under the name "Yiffany Longstocking". Jade comes home to find that her family's been taken from her. Again.

Yiffy almost escapes, but she gets knocked out and taken back to base, where they lock her in a cage and treat her like a dog. She's still defiant to the end.

If Jane's the villain, Jake is inspired by Yiffy's defiance, grows some balls, exposes Yiffy's treatment to the press, and sets her free. She beats up the guards trying to stop her. Jake gets surrounded by more guards. In response, he pulls out his pistols and a one-liner, and bam, cliffhanger.

If it's the terrorist group, Terezi picks up on Yiffy's scent when they're in a base, and she's saved by the other three kids, where she immediately turns around and beats the crap out of the guards. They become proper friends from there.

The reunion panel still happens and this time it's her reuniting with her loving mother and aunt instead of...y'know.

BONUS: Sadstuck

Harry gets his own “im not a hero” speech after trying and “failing” to be the hero that John was

Vriss is eventually forced to use her mind control powers. It’s either a “Katara using bloodbending" situation, or she forces her friends to leave her behind when they want to stick by her.

Tavros finally witnesses his mother’s true nature when Jake defeats all the guards, but is stabbed from behind by Jane and killed. In the other version, it seems Jane is finally safe and able to come home to her son. Then she’s killed right in front of him.

After the big hug with Jade and Rose, Yiffy pulls away. She smiles, looks around behind them, and asks “Where’s Dad?”

So, please tell me what you think!

[heatherclowndler]

An Open Letter To the Six Fandom

I'm gonna be real with you guys: I’m getting really tired of the moral superiority of some people in the Six fandom. Six is a barely historically accurate concert-musical where the queens fight about their trauma for an hour, but it’s about white women, so I guess that means that its #girlpower is so much more respectable than Hamilton being representation to POC.

If you think I'm not talking about you, I am, @historemix / @ghostheather . I’m fucking sick of your bullshit. How come every time you get called out for being a hypocritical bully, you have a little meltdown, say you'll be better, and then go back to the same bullshit as before?

Before I actually get into the reasons that you’re a hypocrite and a bully, I want to thank everyone that sent me the screenshots and testimonials used in this post. It’s good to know that multiple people are as fed up and disturbed by this behavior as I am, and it wouldn’t have been possible without you.

Anyways, back to the matter at hand. First and foremost, your obsession with being on a fucking high horse is embarrassing. Your self-congratulatory posts about the Six fandom being so much better than the Hamilton fandom is fucking laughable coming from you, and here's why.

Before you get on about the Hamilton fandom being toxic, and the major reason why you can't fuck with the musical, remember that much of the fandom are people of color: most of whom are also minors. And they’re often the first to be driven out of it– not by harmless headcanons and fanfics or kids being "cringy”, but racist, toxic ass adults, colorism, whitewashing and constant harassment. Black fans, minors especially, would be the first to tell you this, since there’s been multiple incidents on Tumblr and Twitter where Black fans have been harassed, called slurs, etc. just for liking the musical, and that isn’t even getting into the amount of shit that’s been sent to the Black cast members for being a part of it. But clearly you haven't been fucking bothered to read the posts of how Black people in this fandom and in the cast have been treated, because maybe if you did, you’d be quiet and think before you start spouting shit, instead of constantly putting Hamilton’s name in your mouth to say shit that you think will give you woke points with the funnymen crowd.

Do you really think that the same bloggers that make fun of Hamilton would see any difference between those fans and you, the adult stanning a musical where Real Life Catherine of Aragon, a character played by a black woman, owned slaves, and was the person that introduced slavery into England is portrayed as a strong, feminist Queen? Or how Catherine Parr, a woman who was complicit in child molesation and later got upset with said child for being a victim of sexual abuse, is portrayed as the ultimate feminist and hero of the musical? Or is it okay for you to talk about how these child-molesting slaveowners were oh so admirable and honorable because you "respect the history,” whatever the fuck that means.

Yes.. I'm sure white women from the 1500s would be so pleased about the fact that their history is being told by women that they thought were inferior to them based on the color of their skin.

Also sidenote, you may want to reconsider your definition of what is a respectable Six fan when you're writing a literal AU for your favorite dead queens. Sis, just say that you want to write Six fanfiction. There’s no shame in it– especially because the people that write Six fanfiction are more respectable than you are.

But speaking of history, you need to take off your clown mask and realize how ridiculous the notion that “respectable Six fans” are ones that have a genuine respect for Tudor history, because despite the fact that you say this, Six completely disregards the actual Tudor history.

Take the example of Boleyn. Anne Boleyn – a woman who was judicially murdered on false charges including incest with her brother, witchcraft, and adultery in part because she couldn’t give birth to a son and wouldn’t be a submissive wife to her husband – is reduced to a three minute comic relief song that makes light of her murder and states that yes, she actually was guilty of adultery, but she only flirted with those guys to make Henry jealous! Writing an entire song about a woman whose name has been dragged through the mud for nearly 500 years after she was murdered on false charges and then saying that she actually did do the thing that caused her to be executed is just peak #Feminism, am I right? And so is making light of her unjust execution by calling the song “Don’t Lose Your Head” and continuously making joking references to her being beheaded, I guess. Never mind the fact that Boleyn was reportedly near-suicidal and “ready to be done with life” by the time she was executed. Never mind the fact that the six fingers rumor – something that’s also repeated in the musical and presented as a fact – was started by Catholics attempting to quell people’s sympathies over Boleyn’s execution by attempting to make it seem like she actually was a witch and therefore deserved to die. None of that matters because Six is about feminism and it does the Queens justice, right?

And let’s not even get started on Catherine of Aragon. You know, the person who you've reblogged posts about that claim she was “a remarkable woman”, and that you’re apparently so sad about the fact that she died that you’ve made memorial posts about her knowing good and well that she was a garbage person who owned human beings? The same Catherine of Aragon that was reduced in the musical to only being angry that her husband cheated on her and wanted to divorce her, as well as bickering with Boleyn? The same Catherine of Aragon that also was reduced to constantly talking in the musical about how she was forced to move to a country where she didn’t know anyone? On that note, isn’t it funny how that works? Especially since she and her garbage family owned slaves, forced them to convert to Christianity and change their names to Spanish ones, and then forced them to come to England with Catherine when she moved there to marry Arthur Tudor!

All of the queens are dumbed down for the sake of the musical and it isn't until the very, VERY end of the musical that they all realize that fighting over who got the worse abuse from their husband is fucking stupid. And, even then, it’s still incredibly fucking problematic and gross because the Queen that makes them realize that the fight is stupid, and ultimately the Queen that’s praised for being the most feminist in the musical and by its creators, is the Queen that literally held her stepdaughter down while her husband molested her. If you’re really so damn upset about how much Hamilton and its creator glorify the Founders that it ruined your ability to enjoy the musical when that musical at least still acknowledges the fact that Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison owned slaves (and its creator acknowledging that none of the Founders were good people), why aren’t you upset about how Six portrays Catherine Parr and Catherine of Aragon as feminists when they were a child molester and a slave owner, respectively, and it's never acknowledged in the musical? Why isn’t your enjoyment of Six ruined by the fact that the Six creators praise Child Molester Parr and Slaveowner of Aragon for being strong feminists, or the Six Instagram calling Ferdinand and Isabella (you know, the people that committed genocide against Black people in Spain, had others tortured and executed for their race&religious beliefs, and literally caused Columbus’s colonization of the Americas [and by extension, the Transatlantic Slave Trade] to begin) a “power couple”?

The entire premise of Six is flawed, arguably even more so than Hamilton’s, because at least Hamilton actually did what it sets out to do throughout the entire musical, and not just the last five minutes. But even so, the basic plot idea remains– fictionalized (heavy emphasis on the fictionalized, Heather!) versions of real people fighting to tell their story. So, if the creators of Six cast aside historical accuracy for the sake of creating a diverse and modern take on the Queens’s lives and you eat it up as much as you do, why should we give a shit when Hamilton does the same thing? Since you love Six so much, you clearly fucking don't, because otherwise you’d be shitting on Six just as much as you like to shit on Hamilton. It really just goes to show how much of a hypocrite and a pick-me ass bitch you are, because the fact that you love Six makes it really obvious that you only care about hating Hamilton so much because it’s a stance that you think will give you more street cred with the Tumblr and Twitter crowds.

^^ The absolute hypocrisy of you reblogging this when you regularly make posts and reblog posts of you and other people doing the same thing with Hamilton and its fandom. Embarrassing.

I'm saying this as someone who enjoys Six’s songs and also has common sense and brain cells– they're fictionalized versions of real people, and those real people were shitty. And that’s okay. But you need to stop embarrassing yourself and acting like you’re morally superior to people that enjoy Hamilton when your core arguments for enjoying Six literally could also be said for Hamilton, and your core arguments for hating Hamilton could be said (and would definitely apply better) to Six. I see you all the time making the argument about how important it is for Six fans to see an all-woman cast, do you think Hamilton fans of color can't make the argument that they feel it's important to see a cast with over 95% POC? How for those teens, it brought them into giving musicals a try in the first place (this is just one of many examples)? How Hamilton's overwhelming success brought jobs to so many actors of color, including helping some of them (most prominently, Daveed Diggs) make a stable enough income to give them a place to live and rest their head? When it paved the way for musicals like Six to gain popularity, too? Cognitive dissonance isn't a good fucking look on you, luv.

And don’t even try the "creator is problematic argument", bitch. You're all over Mean Girls, where the creator (Tina Fey) is shitty for a multitude of reasons, blackface and saying the n word included. Not to mention the Heathers musical, where the creators turn JD into a sympathetic villain and apologise for him when the director and writer of the original movie made it clear that JD wasn’t a character that people are supposed to sympathize with. It's a fucking joke that you go "I can't get behind a musical with a bad creator!" when you base your whole blog around a musical whose creator that's transphobic and antiblack, as well as a musical whose creators apologise for an attempted school shooter and use their musical to make him sympathetic. We know LMM is a piece of trash, but that doesn't give you the right to steamroll over fans (again, most of whom are minors of color) who just want to mind their business and enjoy a fucking show, like a pick-me ass theater kid you are.

And while we're talking about your hypocrisy, let's talk about your incessant harassment of a teenage Six fan for fucking months. You’ve instigated wave after wave of bullying towards a fan who was only 15 at the time when it started, for various reasons. I don’t give a fuck if you were just trying to “spread awareness” about their actions, or get them to change their ways, or whatever. You’re a grown ass fucking adult. If you see a minor in fandom – especially one that’s 3+ years younger than you – doing cringy/problematic stuff, let other minors be the ones to say something about it. Your harassment and creepy behavior around minors isn’t justified by the fact that you think that you’re doing something good.

This is just one of the many examples of you vaguing/posting about the teenage Six fan under the guise of trying to “spread awareness” about their reaction. This one is just fucking rude, especially because they’re a minor with ADHD/ADD that projects traits that they have onto fictional characters and vice versa. I’d expect you to know a lot about projecting onto characters and picking up traits from them, since you channel Heather Chandler and Regina George’s bitchiness and their consistent harassment of teenagers that they consider to be lesser than them into your internet persona and identity, am I right?

The potential end result doesn’t justify the means; but clearly you think it does since you never say shit about this teenager getting harassed until you get called out for your complicity in it, say that you never sent them any asks, promise you’ll do better about the way you interact with minors in fandom, repeat.

Not to mention the complete hypocrisy of this statement in the tags of one of the below posts– especially considering that you were the one that made it open season on this girl in the first place with your consistent vaguing about her and making joke posts about her with your friends when she was only fifteen. And on top of that, denying that you ever harassed Lizzie, claiming that your only crime was vague posting her – when you and your shitty friends posted memes about stuff that she had been doing and making it really clear in your vagues that it was about Lizzie. Just because you didn’t name her directly doesn’t mean that it wasn’t harassment, asshole.

Oh, and here you are, months earlier, admitting that you did cause her to get harassed and acknowledging that you named her? Interesting.

The fact that you say that you have to take responsibility for it, but you never fucking do? [Narrator Voice] Heather would not take responsibility for that.

And let’s not forget how after almost driving the girl to the point of suicide and after getting called out multiple times for it, you promised to be a better person, before running to Twitter and continuing to vague about her. And in addition to that, you making memes and joke posts about Jay, the black teenager who was also bullied almost to the point of suicide for minding his own fucking business and making some fucking fanart and quirky headcanons, is fucking nasty. To further stick your nose up at him and go “not my fandom” at him for drawing Trans!Jefferson art when your Tumblr icon is Anne Boleyn with a lesbian flag behind it and your Twitter icon is the same thing with Katherine Howard... the joke writes itself. Do I have to repeat my point?

Not to mention the fact that you fucking lied in your apology on your viral post about him, because you said that you only became aware of the fact that he was a Black teenager that was harassed after the post whent viral.. when someone told you months before (in the replies to the above post) that he was a Black teenager that was harassed relentlessly for his fanart and asked you to leave Hamilton fans of color alone. But clearly you still stand by your point about Hamilton fans. Who’s surprised?

And then after receiving a 22-anon thread where anon presumably called you out on your hypocrisy of this, you still went to Twitter and started bitching about the fact that you were called out despite saying that you were deeply ashamed and that you would do better. Yet another example of Heather the Hypocrite, am I right or am I right?

You really switch up from “I feel incredibly ashamed and I want to reassess where to go forward from here” on Tumblr to “I hate Tumblr purity culture” when you’re on the safety of your Twitter account like clockwork. And it’s awfully bold of you to mention Tumblr purity culture like you didn’t cause waves of harassment to be sent to a 15/16 year old girl to the point where she felt paranoid that someone was going to come to her house and attack her, and later make memes/joke posts about a Black minor who was harassed to the point where he tried to commit suicide and later had to get rid of his online presence altogether for his own safety.

Also, you posted the IP address of the anon who called you out, and tagged them as “asshole” on the website that you use to track IP addresses. But you genuinely felt ashamed, right? You wanted to change and reassess yourself, right? (The anon’s IP address has been blocked out by me to protect their privacy, because the person who sent in this screenshot didn’t black it out, either.)

And even then, aside from all that, your actions have caused multiple minors in the Six fandom to feel uncomfortable. Below are testimonials about your behavior, and how it’s made minors in the Six fandom feel. One of these is also a reply on a post that called out your behavior. (URLs and icons on both Tumblr and Discord are blacked out to protect their privacy.)

Take in what these testimonials are saying. The fact that your behavior with harassing minors has grown so much that people are afraid to post in the Six tags and express their love for the musical because they don’t want to get harassed by you and your group of friends is concerning.

You, a grown adult, have made minors scared to be themselves and do things their way. You’ve created a culture of fear in a fandom where over 80% of its active fans are minors. You should have been leading by example, showing Six fans how the message of uplifting women should be implemented, but instead? You caused a floodgate of harassment to be sent to a then-15 year old girl that got so bad that she was suicidal and paranoid that people would come to her house, and it ended with even more minors afraid to post in the fandom’s tag because they’re afraid that you and your shitty friends will come for them, too. Shit, I was a follower for a while! I had only unfollowed due to your moral high horse, but it wasn't long before I was made aware about your history of bullshit.

You shouldn’t just be ashamed of yourself– you should be mortified with yourself. And your little friend group should be, too: not only because of their part in all of this, participating in harassing and making fun of that poor girl with you, but because of the fact that they keep enabling you to do this harmful shit by not properly shutting you down or calling you out. But it's not like you care anyways, because you’ve made fun of people voicing their concerns about your behavior and calling you out for making the fandom an unsafe space.

"But I said I'm sorry-" Yeah, we know. We saw a series of half-assed “I'm sorry” posts, paired with you not taking real responsibility for any of the harm you’ve caused. And clearly you didn't actually mean anything you said, because you kept doing it again. And again, and again, and again.

By the way, Heather, the implication that you would be indicted for murder if Lizzie committed suicide despite never speaking to her isn’t just an implication: it’s a literal fact that people can be prosecuted for manslaughter/murder without ever laying a finger on the suicide victim. This includes cyberbullying.

It means nothing to admit you're a hypocrite and do nothing to improve, especially because you’ve said this same exact “apology” multiple times, almost word from word. You're a grown fucking adult that vicariously lives out her dream of being a highschool bully through Tumblr by harassing teenage girls on the internet, and it gives me secondhand embarrassment. Grow the fuck up already, Heather. You’re 20 years old.

You're always harping about how the Six fandom is becoming toxic and embarrassing without considering the fact that you’re one of the toxic ass adults that make children embarrassed and ashamed to be a part of their fandoms. Whenever they do something even slightly cringy, and not even genuinely problematic like some of the other shit in the Six fandom, you’re quick to be like “This isn’t respectable,” “The Six fandom is going to be the next Hamilton fandom,” or whatever the fuck else you say. Teenage girls calling Boleyn a gremlin and making headcanons about the queens siblings/children is not the end of the world, and the fact that you act like it is when you’ve actively created a culture of fear in a fandom that’s mostly made up of teenage girls is embarrassing and disgusting.

I don’t care about whatever apology or sob story you’re going to say after you see this post, because in the end, it’ll just be an empty promise as long as you stay on here. At best, you’ll say that you’re going to do better and leave Tumblr for what, a month? Only to bitch on your Twitter account for the entire month, then come back to Tumblr and do the same exact thing that I’m calling you out for.

You need to stay away from minors in fandom. As a matter of fact — stay out of fandoms that are mostly made up of minors as a whole. You’ve proven time and time again that you don’t care about the safety or feelings of minors, nor do you care about actually “improving” or reassessing yourself every time you get called out. The fact that you’ve been called out for the same things via being indirected on a Tumblr post (linked here), being sent multiple anons by different people (shown above), and being sent a 22-anon thread by one single person calling you out (stated by you above), and you still haven’t changed? Is all of the proof that I need that you won’t change.

That’s all I have to say to you.

People in the Six fandom, I’m heavily urging you not to continue giving this person a platform. I can’t force you to do anything, but you all deserve the right to know what’s been going on. Aside from her hypocrisy about Six, it’s historical figures, and its fandom as a whole, she’s been involved in harassing a minor to the point where she felt paranoid and wanted to leave the fandom on separate occasions, made jokes about another minor in a different fandom that was harassed to the point of attempting suicide on multiple occasions (then lying and claiming that she was never told he was a Black minor who was harassed after she was called out due to a post she made about him going viral when someone told her months before that he was all of those things in the notes of another post she made about him), and other minors have posted/stated that they feel her behavior went too fair, and that because of it they feel unsafe posting stuff in the fandom.

She’s been called out on her behavior on multiple different occasions, and each time she said that she would reassess her behavior and discuss how her actions were toxic. People have given her multiple chances, and each time, she’s gone back to the same toxic behavior and done the very things that she claimed she would stop doing. It’s getting ridiculous at this point, and her actions have gotten to the point where it seems like the only course of action is to call her out publicly.

Like Heather herself said, and I will now brilliantly quote because karma is a bitch: “If you keep making the same “mistake” MULTIPLE TIMES, people aren’t gonna be happy about it.” She isn’t exempt from criticism, especially when this stuff has happened multiple times and she hasn’t done anything to change her behavior. Listen to what she said, and hold her accountable.

Again, I can’t force you to do anything, but I hope that everyone in the Six fandom keeps what was said in this post in mind the next time they consider interacting with her or her content. Take care.

[idk-my-aesthetic]

Ok. Ima say smthn really controversial. But Pls hear me out

The way MCU Spider-Man is written completely, disastrously misrepresented Peter Parker’s Spider-Man, to the point where it’s damaging to the character’s legacy

Also like the writing choices also have some lowkey racist and antisemetic undertones, which are hopefully accidental, but we’ll get to that 

NOW WAIT. Before you send the hate mail please hear me out! Bc tbh I like a lot about the spider man movies!!! All the actors are like perfect choices and almost all of the scenes work really really well on their own

But there’s a HUGE problem with the portrayal of the character as a whole. Because the writers completely threw away the heart of Peter Parker’s spiderman in the name of ripping off Miles Morales’s spiderman.

We all know the “with great power comes great responsibility” line, right? Well there’s a bit more to it than just that

Peter Parker as a character is meant to embody the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olum. Translated literally tikkun olum means “repair/heal the world”. It’s a major concept in Judaism, and basically teaches that it’s everyone’s responsibility to do as much good as they are able to. Not just by being kind when the chance presents itself, but by actively seeking out things to help with. (Hey, doing the right thing bc u have the power to? Sounds familiar!!) it’s supposed to be his whole motivation, and what he represents as a cultural icon

But in the MCU movies he’s completely rewritten for his motivation to instead be to live up to Tony Stark’s legacy. A character arc that is one of the many, many things straight up stolen by the MCU writers from Miles Morales’s spiderman.

And like.... it just doesn’t work the same way guys. Not only because that’s not what Peter Parker’s spiderman is about at all, but also because there’s a lot of different connotations bc of the different characters/how it’s portrayed specifically in the movies, bc it completely erases the Jewish themes and history behind an inherently Jewish character, and bc it’s basically stealing a story meant specifically for black characters and giving it to a white one instead. (Not just miles btw- Riri Williams- the person who is actually supposed to continue the iron man legacy- is a black woman literally replaced by a white boy. That’s.... really not great)

Which is a huge issue, and greatly damages the legacy of the character. spiderman is a cultural icon. He’s just as recognizable as characters like bugs bunny or micky mouse. But unlike characters like micky mouse or bugs bunny, spiderman as a symbol is a lot more divorced from his source material. Basically anyone you ask has probably seen a loony tunes cartoon, but the amount of people who’ve read a spiderman comic or seen one of the cartoons is much much smaller in comparison

Which isn’t really an issue on its own. Ppl know what spiderman stands for in an abstract way from pop-culture, even if they’ve never necessarily seen it first hand. But there’s a big difference in being told a character stands for something and seeing/feeling it in a peice if media

But when a massively popular movie franchise completely fucking misinterprets that character and establishes itself as the definitive version? Well shit! Now everyone is told he’s a hero because it’s the right thing to do, but instead what they see is a hero fanboy. And that’s really damaging when the most popular version of a character completely undercuts it’s legacy

*for clarification, the issue is not that he is in awe of tony or looks up to him. The issue is that his primary motivation is to be cool and impressive like tony- slash like straight up impress him in the first place, instead of his motivation being doing the right thing. Peter Parker was never a hero to be cool. He was a hero bc it was the right thing to do. He was serious about it, even if he joked around he knew how dangerous it was. He was confident in his own moral code, was a leader who actively searched out things to fix. and the idea that he’d look to someone else for directions? Or let himself be limited by someone else? Is insulting.

Oof. That ended up a lot more aggressive than I intended. I don’t wanna make people feel bad for enjoying MCU spiderman. Like I really, really get it guys. The relationship between him and tony stark is really cute, and Tom Holland plays the best teenage Peter Parker in film history. You’re allowed to like it!! I’m actually really happy that y’all have found smthn you can truly enjoy

I’d just like to bring some attention to how this portrayal of the character isn’t the most faithful to the heart of the character. Which is ultimately much more important than anything else about a character, even things like their name or how they look. The heart is the most important part of them

I don’t think these movies are going to completely destroy the legacy of spiderman, or that they’re actively malicious. But I do think the way they misinterpret the character is damaging, at least in the long stretch of time until a new version takes it’s place.

I just don’t want these movies to give people an incorrect idea of what Spider-Man stands for. And I don’t want these traits that belong to other characters to be attributed to the wrong person. Like, y’all know they basically had to cut out Miles’s best freind Ganke from spiderverse bc he was too much like Ned? Even though Ned is literally based on Ganke, who’s role in spiderverse was cut down so much he literally doesn’t talk

ANYWAY. Y’all can like what you like and I’m legitimately glad u found smthn that makes u happy. I’m not gonna go get mad at ppl for writing a fic where Tony adopts Peter or enjoying the MCU movies. That would be a total dick move. But if u could please just.... share this if u don’t completely h8 me, and try to remember Peter’s true motivation is that he just wants to help ppl bc it’s the right thing to do. It would really mean a lot to me, and help preserve the inherently Jewish themes of the character’s and author’s legacy.

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 4x02-- The Gang Tries to Serve a Subpoena

Under the cut.

This isn’t the first episode of season 4, but since it’s the first episode that doesn’t take place in an AU… it’s basically the first episode. 

Reddick, Boseman, and Lockhart has been rebranded as “RBL: A division of STR Laurie”. Remember when Will tried to rebrand Lockhart/Gardner as “LG”? At least RBL isn’t a well-known appliance brand. But I think this might be the same “sleek” font as the LG rebrand.

The acquisition of the firm has led to a remodel. I enjoy how every season RBL looks a little bit less like the LG set.

This remodel makes the offices look like a spaceship/villain’s lair/cyberpunk nightclub. There is a giant spiky cocoon thing (nope, I don’t have better words to describe that) coming out of the ceiling in the conference room and a new spiral staircase near the name partners’ offices. It looks ridiculous and intimidating (and it is supposed to). 

There are also dogs roaming around off lash.

And neon lights and a giant fucking GARGOYLE outside of Adrian’s office. It’s so huge it looks like it was taken from the Harold Washington Library. (This may be the most authentically Chicago thing in this episode.)

Much like the last episode, the first thing we see after the teaser is Diane arriving at work and being greeted by Marissa. And, also much like the last episode, Diane is disoriented.

As it turns out, there’s been a bit of a time jump since the end of the last episode-- Diane’s been traveling/resting (doctor’s orders), so this is her first day back to work in 9 months. “What happened here?” Diane asks. Does it make sense a name partner would be so out of the loop on major renovations? Nah. We are not meant to spend much time wondering why Diane/Adrian/Liz would agree to an acquisition or how the talks played out. This is the premise for season 4 and we’re just supposed to accept it. I’m usually wary of this kind of re-premising, but this doesn’t bug me too much. We saw last season the firm had no identity (bc when the firm had an identity in season 1 it was ALL BC OF BARBARA KOLSTAD) and we saw them lose their top clients. Diane’s been on leave so she probably wasn’t that involved in conversations, Adrian probably welcomes acquisition because it’s more money, and Liz… has always only been idealistic to a point.

My point is: our heroes aren’t actually, and have never been, heroes. Sure, they’re the underdogs dealing with a big corporation… but also, they sold to the big corporation.

Marissa says the cocoon spike thing is a sunset. K.

Jay’s never been up to STR Laurie’s floor. The dogs running around, however, have been upstairs. Monday and Wednesday are pet days, but the pets always come through the RBL floor instead of the STR Laurie floor. 

The name partners can bring dogs. (How many name partners are there if there are this many dogs and STR Laurie is at most 4 people and RBL is 3 and none of the RBL partners brought in dogs?)

JUSTICE FOR JUSTICE! (Poor Justice is probably not still around 11 years later but I had to say it.)

In the partners’ meeting, even the food everyone’s eating looks more upscale. Adrian officially welcomes Diane back. One of the non-name partners is not so happy to have her back. Or, rather, he’s not so happy the name partners got a ton of money in the deal and the non-name partners got screwed. Fair point.

I guess neither Lucca nor Rosalyn got the partnership.

Adrian expositions that they were acquired because they couldn’t survive after losing ChumHum, and STR Laurie is the 7th largest firm in the world. Got it. 

Diane’s check from the acquisition of the firm is so huge it stuns her. You would think she would have known these details. But we’re here now and this show works better if you look at the themes instead of wanting all of the character motivations to always make sense. I’d probably be chewing this plot out if it happened on TGW-- why would x make y decision!? Why didn’t we get to see it!?-- but with TGF I have an easier time accepting radical changes in tone. 

And TGF did need a change in tone. You can’t get that much mileage out of episodes about 45 (whose name might not even be mentioned this ep? I will try to look out for that as I watch) and clearly no one on the writing staff is interested in small, character driven intraoffice power struggles as the primary plots. If the writers have something to say about massive corporations, I’d rather sacrifice a few scenes of character development for a season that has a POV than sit through a season as uninspired as s7 of TGW.

(Perhaps this is why I’ve always liked TGW season 6 more than others-- it’s messy, but it’s INTERESTING. I like the Kings’ work best when it has energy and say what you will about season 6, but it’s not lacking for energy.) 

There is a dog peeing on Adrian’s office door and he is NOT happy about it (no one would be, but he is ESPECIALLY fed up). One gets the sense he’s not just appalled that it’s happening but tired of the dogs altogether. 

Diane is summoned to go upstairs to meet with the overlords. According to Adrian, Mr. Laurie isn’t bad, but Mr. Firth might be. 

Upstairs, there is a very long, very white hallway. It looks like it’s out of a sci-fi movie. 

I see TGF has finally leaned in to their tradition of casting British actors by just… having STR Laurie be a British firm. 

The set decoration of Mr. Firth’s office looks like it belongs on Evil. It’s over the top, has a piece of art that looks like horns (much like the therapist monster thingy… just watch Evil okay) and light fixtures that are clearly crosses. 

Mr. Firth asks Diane what she wants to do and she says she wants to get back to work. “What work?” he asks. Diane wants to get back to her clients and Mr. Firth tells a story about a poor man who wanted to give everything, even the moon, to a thief. Neither Diane nor I understand. Mr. Firth says this story is about how he’s giving Diane her “moon” by having her head up their pro-bono cases because she shines when she has a goliath to face. True, but what does this have to do with the story!? I legit thought that story was going to be about how Diane gives too much of herself and should learn to accept high pay checks while doing no work and getting out of STR Laurie’s way. Maybe I missed something?

Anyway, Diane is getting the pro bono department with 22 lawyers and 40 cases. This is to keep her happy and to make STR Laurie look good. Feels too good to be true. Diane gets investigator time and partner billable hours, and she’s told this is fine-- make the firm a good citizen no matter how much it costs. WTF is going on here? Is this a trick?

Diane walks downstairs, happy, as Lucca heads up the stairs. Maybe she’s not a partner, but she’s important enough to be summoned upstairs. 

Mr. Firth explains to Lucca that he is “the sorting hat of lawyers.” Lucca explains she’s never read Harry Potter because she doesn’t “like wizard shit.” Impressively brave to say that to your new overlord, Lucca. I have missed you and your give no fucks attitude. 

“Yes, fuck wizard shit,” Mr. Firth responds, somewhat stiltedly. 

Mr. Firth wants Lucca to work on a divorce case for one of their top clients as the client has a personality clash with their head of family law. Their head of family law is, of course, David Lee. Welcome back, I guess. At least David Lee happening to end up at this firm that acquired RBL makes a ton more sense than all the ways they found to keep David Lee relevant to TGW in its last two seasons. 

David Lee hasn’t changed a bit.

Diane’s first client is XIOMARA VILLANUEVA!!!!!! 

But in this universe, she’s a restaurant owner whose restaurant is about to be torn down because of eminent domain. Diane tries one of her usual tricks- asking Xo (I’m sure she has a name on this show and once they say it again I will stop calling her Xo) to bring her food truck outside of the courthouse so everyone can smell how great her food is and be more sympathetic to her case. 

“You’re not the lawyer I expected,” Xo tells Diane. Diane responds, “I’ve changed.” Diane, I am pretty sure that’s not what she meant, but ok!

Lucca and David Lee’s first meeting with Bianca Skye, the high profile client, is a bit awkward, but Bianca instantly takes a liking to Lucca. (“I didn’t know this firm had any black lawyers,” Bianca notes. “Oh, they hide us,” Lucca jokes. But it’s not really a joke when all the black lawyers are the RBL staff and they’re on a different floor…)

David Lee has Bianca tell Lucca her whole case-- which is fairly straightforward-- with way too much detail. Before Lucca asks David if he’s just trying to run up billable hours, it’s clear he’s dragging this out on purpose.

“Oh good, the Angry Black Woman has made an appearance,” awful human being David Lee says after Lucca calls him out. 

David Lee plays rank on her and tells her to watch and learn. Yes, making a racist comment and then being condescending without explaining your strategy is DEFINITELY the way to get the lawyer characterized by her complete lack of interest in being a cog in a machine on your side. 

Adrian, Liz, and Barry are all helping Diane do a mock trial before her first day back in court. It’s fun. 

Adrian is SO over the dogs. His face when a pack of them run past is priceless. 

Diane’s mock trial strategy goes well; the evidence is on her side. And Julius, as luck would have it, is the judge on this case. (Why this is in federal court I don’t know.)

Julius is very happy to be a judge. 

Canning is back. Feels weird to have him here without Alicia. But, honestly, I was prepared for worse. As we’ll see as this scene progresses, Canning is the PERFECT person to have as opposing counsel. If there’s a new rule to exploit, he’d be the first to know about it. If there’s a slimy strategy to use while playing innocent, that’s his schtick. If there’s a corporation doing bad things, he’s your guy. 

Canning tries to explain his condition to Julius. I guess Julius must have been in the New York office when Canning was at LG in late season 5. Diane laughs, knowing that Julius can’t be tricked by Canning. 

Canning probably also knows it won’t work, because he’s already prepared to ask Julius to recuse himself. I feel like this is entirely reasonable. Diane isn’t just an acquaintance… they were partners at the same firm for over a decade.

Diane is TOTALLY the type of white lady to overdo the pronunciation of “chorizo”. 

The delicious smelling food seems like it’s going to work, but we quickly learn that what used to constitute tricky is now just child’s play. The CEO of Rare Orchard, who has been subpoenaed, has decided not to show up. He doesn’t have an excuse. He isn’t delaying. He’s just not going to show up. Like, remember when we thought it was egregious that the CEO Canning was defending in 4x11 kept putting off depositions and Alicia calling the judge was an effective strategy? HA! (Anyone know if this case is based on something or if it’s the writers taking some creative liberties for the sake of plot? My fear is that aspects of it are real because I can’t see the writers being this interested in a plot point they invented.)

Canning says he thinks the CEO doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of the subpoena. Julius reminds Canning that he is a federal judge and his subpoena is legitimate. Canning is all, “yes, I know that’s your position” as though laws are opinions. AAAAAAAAA.

This show loves this kind of thing, just totally taking the basic assumptions away and letting chaos reign. 

This CEO sent Julius a memo telling him to “go fuck yourself.” Eeek.

Diane doesn’t even get to do much lawyering.

Then there is a random cut (which I hate) to a scene of a massive set falling apart during a battle scene. Why the fuck is this here? And what is this from? If I ff to the credits will it tell me? Nope. Dammit. Someone help me out here. 

Credits! Things are exploding again, yay! Aside from the images on the TV, these credits look really similar to S3. I think they may have increased the saturation on the color of the liquids exploding but I could be making things up.

Julius’s outrage at the situation continues after the credits. 

David Lee tries to get Lucca to agree to just be comforting to the client. Lucca is like, no, because I was brought on for a reason I am going to do my job. 

DLee calls this “PC shit” and says something else racist. Bianca answers the door and asks to do the depo prep on the run. What this means is that they’re all getting on her private jet and going to St. Lucia. 

David Lee is TERRIFIED of the private jet. I would be too since I hate small planes (and all planes, but particularly small ones), but I am still enjoying watching him squirm. Lucca is too. 

Lucca DELIGHTS in reminding David they’re in a small metal tube with nothing holding them up. It’s fantastic. 

Bianca offers David Lee a CBD cocktail, because of course she does. This episode is doing a good job of reminding me of why David Lee and Canning were both once really effective characters, so if the writers can use them this way moving forward, I’ll be happy.

Bianca googled Lucca and demands to see pictures of her very cute baby. She then takes Lucca’s phone and starts up Tinder. This is a strange dynamic because it’s friendly but also sudden and also Bianca is paying Lucca for this time. But both of them could use friends, so I’m just going to be cautiously optimistic a real friendship could grow out of this. 

David Lee chugging a CBD cocktail is most definitely something I needed in my life. Thank you writers! 

Our characters are wealthy but everyone they deal with in this episode is ultrawealthy. Like, disgustingly wealthy. Bianca seems nice but holy shit no one needs to fly to St. Lucia for lunch. 

Court stuff happens. This episode is more interesting than just “court stuff happens” but the point is pretty simple-- Julius gets increasingly outraged at the breakdown of the system he believes in, and things keep getting more and more bizarre. 

Julius turns to the corrupt judge Adrian is sleeping with (I think the writers need to tell me what I am supposed to think of her because… I just don’t understand who she’s supposed to be, unless “corrupt judge who creeps me out yet for some reason Adrian is still into” is the point OR unless I am supposed to see her corruption as somehow excusable... ) for advice. She calls their job “shadow play” and says the system is all fake. That would explain why she’s open to bribery, then. She agrees to help Julius get the CEO into court, but I think she’s just helping to illustrate how futile this will be if he tries to resist again.

David Lee also doesn’t like the food on the island. It’s so funny. 

Lucca’s dress is really cute.

Bianca says Lucca must think she’s crazy for flying just to get guava for lunch. Lucca says, “No, it’s just a very different lifestyle from mine.” That’s an understatement. Bianca’s life changed in the last few years, and she’s worried it’s all going to go away (so, it’s implied, she’s living it up now). It seems she has some sort of skincare/cosmetics empire. 

Bianca is worried that in the next recession (oh look at that timely comment), her products will be the first thing people cut back on. Curious to know if this is happening. 

Bianca’s other concern is that she has no friends now because she’s rich. Everyone wants something. “You’re so full of shit,” Lucca says, refusing to pity Bianca. This makes Bianca like her more. 

Bianca talks about a service to matchmake friends. She found it weird, but she doesn’t find “this” (befriending Lucca, even though she is probably paying Lucca WAY more than the friend matchmaker fee) weird. Lucca is always entering into friendships so formally! Okay it’s just two scenes (this one and the one where she and Alicia become friends) but still.

Lucca reminds Bianca she’s also her lawyer.

Bianca asks if DLee is drawing out the case. She’s not stupid. Lucca says David isn’t drawing it out, but I think they both know the answer.

(Question based on what happens later in the ep- if David actually has reasoning, then why in the world would he not tell Bianca OR Lucca about it? And why do they need to have overly long meetings to draw things out? Can’t they just schedule them with large gaps? Idk the whole thing is weird and if David isn’t going to share his strategy that’s on him.)

The CEO finally shows up in court and Julius thinks he’s won. He hasn’t. He says he’s asserting privilege he can’t reveal because it is privileged. The CEO acts like Julius is in the wrong, which pisses Julius off. The CEO gets held in custody and Julius says that the restaurant can’t be bulldozed until the CEO complies. 

Then Julius gets the mysterious MEMO 618. Dun dun dun. 

I know there must be more but I feel like we know what Memo 618 is? Like, no we don’t know who sent it or exactly what it means, but we know the effect of what it does. What is the mystery? Who sent it? 

At night, Julius takes the mystery memo to Judge Hazelwood. She plays dumb because-- as we find out later-- Adrian is within earshot. Adrian’s jacket is apparently very recognizable because Julius spots it. I believe it; Adrian has a distinctive style. 

Adrian talks about taking their relationship public. So Judge Hazelwood bribing people didn’t end the relationship? 

Adrian also asks about Memo 618. He knows she knows what it is. She distracts him by getting on top of him.

Depositions for Bianca’s divorce get contentious but she has the upperhand. Lucca suggests that Bianca settle now and get the ex out of her life-- “balance money with psychological wellness.” Sounds reasonable to me!

At work, Judge Hazelwood is more forthcoming. And Julius did recognize the jacket. Judge Hazelwood tells Julius to let the CEO out and stop asking about the memo. Julius wants to get her on tape, but instead she tells him to get in an Uber and go to an address. She also warns that the court has a program if you break your phone. Sounds like a threat…

Julius finds the Uber easily and then goes on a long journey to the countryside. The driver, it turns out, is a former federal judge who didn’t comply with a mystery memo and he warns Julius to just do what they say or he’ll end up an Uber driver barely able to support his family. (THINK OF YOUR SIX CHILDREN, JULIUS.) 

Lucca wearing heels at her standing desk is… just silly, why would she do this? She wouldn’t take off one heel to stretch her foot; she would have a pair of flats to wear in her office. (This episode is written and directed by men, just fyi.) (Do women actually do this? I hate heels so I would never even consider it, but I feel like everyone hates heels??? Even the people who wear them all the time???) 

David is all mad at Lucca for encouraging Bianca to settle because it has tax implications. Two things: One, if there’s this obvious reason to delay, I feel like Lucca would have figured it out. Two, LUCCA IS ON DAVID’S SIDE. And if he’s allowed to say this out loud now, he could have said it earlier. So… no pity for David Lee. This is why you cooperate with your colleagues instead of antagonizing them. 

Liz-- who has been quite underused in this episode-- is also fed up with the dogs. She and Adrian storm upstairs to say, in Adrian’s words, “they can’t use this floor as a toilet for their motherfucking dogs.” 

They bust through the doors to the long hallway (which in real life would DEFINITELY have a key card reader on it) and push past the receptionist. 

Mr. Firth is holding a very cute dog named Avenger. Mr. Firth also refers to Liz as “Elizabeth”. 

Liz asks that the dogs stop “shitting” on their floor. After all, this was supposed to be a partnership, not an acquisition (does anyone believe that? I think Liz is just using their BS corporate talk against them). Mr. Firth says he will find a way to deal with the dogs. Adrian takes the opportunity to mention that the equity partners need their money. “How do we want to satisfy this?” Mr. Firth asks. “Give them money,” Liz says. Mr. Firth agrees to meet about this next week. He also gives Liz and Adrian access to the executive elevator. He’s just trying to appease them so they’ll be more on his side.

Liz and Adrian both recognize that was too easy, but decide to take the win. I feel like this problem is going to come back…

Julius apologizes and releases the CEO. He recuses himself but says that in the meantime the restaurant will stand. 

Diane knows something’s off and confronts Julius. She’s furious but Julius asks her to leave. I wonder what Diane would’ve done in Julius’s situation. It’s very easy to become complicit…

The restaurant is torn down anyway, making Diane even angrier. She tells Julius it’s on him and he reminds her that he is a judge.

And this is how systems are perpetuated.

That’s the end of the episode, save for the message about the two week break before episode 3 from the cast and crew. I appreciate that they included this, and that they included the whole crew rather than just the Kings and the cast. 

I don’t even recognize most of the crew! I recognize the cast (duh), Dan Lawson (the costume designer), the makeup artist (I think I’ve seen her in various instagram posts), Brooke Kennedy, and the Kings. 

Jonathan Coulton is in the video too (he’s totally a part of the TGF family at this point-- and is one of few people to be on TGW, BrainDead, TGF, AND Evil) to lead everyone in an adorable (but somewhat out of sync) singalong. Awwww. 

[fluorescentpipedream]

Elias Sharpe got an update on his picture. Every time I try to make something with him, his ex-husband has a pretty nasty quip. Elias is a serial cheater with both men and women though he prefers men and has a bad reputation to trying to sleep with people who work for him at his restaurant, Mon Ami, in Las Vegas (if they want to, he doesn’t force himself on people but he can be very persuasive when he wants something). Formerly married to Nikolai Wolfe, the two ran a restaurant on the Strip together before separating, Nikolai chose to close it down rather than continue to try to work with his ex and was given the chance to open his Spisa in Livia Prim’s Bellagio soon after. Elias is distraught about his divorce, he’s not completely cold-hearted, no matter what Nikolai seems to think of him though his rationale was he had wanted his husband to join in with the other man rather than leave their marriage entirely. 

Natasha “Tosh” Moreau - absolute best friends with Frankie for pretty much their entire lives, Tosh currently lives in NYC and works as a “holds no bars/takes no shit’ journalist for SimmsINC, a female ran and operated journal. She has hired straight out of Yale where she had gotten attention for a cover piece she did on Christian Marcone, which was published by the Chicago Tribune (via Marcone’s request. Apparently he later wrote her a letter of recommendation, because of how unafraid of his intimidation tactics she was). Tosh has two fathers, both of which have always supported her and told her to face the world head-on because it’s not going to give her anything unless she’s willing to work for it. One of her favorite things to tell people is that just because she’s beautiful, doesn’t mean she’s not brilliant too. A huge supporter of her friend’s talent, Tosh often duals as an influencer on Instagram, posting positivity for mental illness, health and occasionally spamming her feed with pictures of Frankie’s culinary masterpieces, hinting that one day she’ll be recognized for her abilities with buttercream. Tosh is also a younger cousin of Dr. Adam Moreau, cutting her teeth on a write up for his New Horizons Counseling in San Francisco. She also did a piece for Simms more recently about Bill Connorey, talking about his book and his ideas on not waiting around for his disease to kill him. 

Learned something about William Darcy - he starts working for Section One and Justice Malone after being “captured” by Rian and CJ following Jonathan North’s break out of his holding cell outside of New York. Only seeing North as a crazed direwolf in the city, Darcy had been attempting to kill the beast when he was brought down by the Section officers. He was brought in and examined, considering he is a Hunter, and it was originally thought he could work as a double agent for them in their fight against his master. However, since Darcy is exiled from them, the best he could do for them was fill in some blanks about the kinds of experiments Cirian performed and may return to later, all of which have either been omitted from written histories or added in as though they were something else (re: the black plague was actually the zombie plague). Darcy agrees to work with Justice Malone and the rest, serving as an agent outside their walls, though mostly he goes to look into situations when the team is unavailable or works as a consulting agent on stranger cases. 

The next three are sitting in my head but I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to make them or if they’re just going to be up there. 

The first one came into my head before I made Adan, he’s tattooed, pierced and a little wild. He currently lives down in Camden, London, and says he and Tessa have a run in before she meets her actual boyfriend, he doesn’t do anything with her since he’s much older than she is but makes sure she gets into a waiting car in the morning after finding her downtown. Not sure if there’s anything to that or not. Also, he has a girlfriend, I think she’s a bartender or tattoo artist....I’m not sure, and it doesn’t really matter if I don’t actually turn him into a character. 

2nd one is a modern take on The Witcher series (books/show) wherein Geralt gains custody of a young girl between 13 or 15 after the death of his estranged friend from about 20 years ago. They hadn’t seen one another since their wedding, both of them got busy with their own lives and they fell apart. The daughter was left to him because most of the family had died on the plane crash (she was on it too but was the lone survivor with a head injury and a few broken bones). Geralt is an avid sportsman, hunting/fishing/etc with a reputation for being a recluse, choosing to live more away from people than with them, which will have to change once he takes over guardianship. He doesn’t have any kids of his own but has two exes of both sexes, one he sees a bit more than the other, take your pick which that would be. 

The last one came into my head after watching BlacKkKlansman on the plane and hasn’t left. He’s a little racist, lives in Georgia and the best he’ll give me is his name is Felix. I keep telling him he’s going to have to give me a bit more than that, though I do know he’s not related to the Knox family and might be a North. But...yeah. I got nothing so he’s not getting anything either. 

[tiergan-vashir]

as someone who genuinely doesn't understand, why is it specifically that liking futa/gay stuff is so bad? some people are assholes about it sure, but there're plenty of people who aren't. what makes it so specifically much worse than liking straight stuff? especially given that futa/trap are 99% of the time not being used for/as actual trans people.

H’okay. I’m going to naively assume you actually want to know why, but I’m also going to shove all of this shit under a cut, because it’s going to be very, very long I’m pretty sure people are likely tired of seeing this by now and it might even be triggering for some folks.

The TL;DR of it all is that:

Fetishizationdoesn’t exist in a bubble - it propagates harmful stereotypes and ideas that hurt living people. So even though you’re probably using those words and phrases to describe your ERP video game smut character and not a living, breathing trans or intersex person - by helping keep those words commonplace and in use by others, you’re helping spread stereotypes and ideas that harm real, live people.

Even if you - yourself - are not using the word to describe actual trans folks, you’re normalizing it’s usage and some other dumb fuck you may have been interacting with WILL use it to describe an actual trans person.

All people want is Respect. Respect for their bodies. Respect for their life experiences and struggles. Respect as fellow humans. If you can’t give them that over some shit you really really want to use for your ERP cat girl smut in your japanese vidya games, then you’re honestly just a dick. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Massive trigger warning for me talking candidly about all of the above.

Fujoshi and the “gay stuff”

A quick disclaimer.  I’m not a gay man.  I’m a pansexual nonbinary person.  I don’t feel super comfortable speaking as any kind of authority figure at all on a topic that veers so closely to gay male experiences.  I’m going to speak on what I’ve heard, directly, from actual gay men I’ve spoken to and what I’ve seen with my own two eyes.  However, other gay men might have different opinions than what I’ve written here and if it differs from my words,  those words have more weight, because … ya know, this is their lives.  They’re the authority on their own life experiences.There’s next thing I want to get out of the way is that not “gay stuff” that’s bad.   There’s nothing wrong about being gay.

People explicitly mention fujoshi, because they’re essentially yaoi-super-fans.  Yaoi in particular gets a bad rap, because while I’m sure some exist that depict healthier, more realistic relationships - a whole lot of them simply reduce gay men down to sexual objects for the pleasure of straight women (it’s written by and for straight women after all) and often comes packaged with A LOT of harmful ideas on gay relationships that don’t actually have anything to do with what real gay relationships are like.

It would be one thing if every single woman in the universe looked at Yaoi and had the immediate understanding that “the shit I’m seeing in my japanese anime mangos about two slender effeminate men categorizing themselves by uke and seme while doing the horizontal mambo with pretty questionable consent practices and having hands WAY too large to be human is pretty divorced from the reality of what actual gay male relationships are like. I should not bother any actual living gay man with this stuff and I should respect them as people.”

But again - fetishization doesn’t exist in a bubble.  While some consumers of yaoi have enough awareness not to be gross about it, there are WAY too many others who get very accustomed to seeing gay men and their bodies purely as objects for sexual gratification - not people to be respected.  Some of them even still consider gay men and gay relationships “sinful and forbidden” - and their yaoi characters as their “sinful gay babies!” that are only acceptable within the confines of spank-bank material.

This is where people get pissed.

To rip from a previous post of mine:

I have heard stories from gay male RPers about how fujoshi RPers were super down to RP yaoi shit with them …right up until they found out WHOOPS, wow you are an actual gay man and not a fellow straight woman? No. Sorry. I can’t RP with you. Your lifestyle is sinful and wrong.

Or they see two gay men kissing and cuddling and start talking about those two living, breathing men as though they are some yaoi-comic stereotype with an uke and seme instead of… just regular, actual human beings with complex romantic and sexual lives of their own.

In 2017, a really beautiful animation came out about a young school boy struggling with his budding crush for another boy.  

The joy of seeing really adorable animation showing a rare depiction of young, innocent gay love was temporarily tarnished by the fact that in the beginning there was a flood of comments was about “omg YAOI. IT’S SO GREAT SEEING YAOI.” “ANY OTHER YAOI FANS HERE?” (the comments section has since cleaned up a lot, thankfully, but it definitely happened).  

Any decent human being would’ve seen the animation for what it was - a really sweet animation depicting young love that LGBT folks could actually relate to.  Fujoshi on the other hand had become so accustomed to seeing any romance between two boys or men as material for their sexual fetish, that they couldn’t even turn it off when looking at an animation about one underage minor having a crush on another, two little school boys in a romantic, non-sexual context.  

In those folks’ eyes - those two boys were not seen as sweet characters representing budding gay love that lots of LGBT folks could relate to - they immediately became objects for sexual consumption.

This is not to say that anyone who is writing a character that doesn’t align with their own gender/sexuality is an immediate shitlord.  

I’m a pansexual nonbinary person writing a pansexual cis male dude in a very LGBT FC.  I don’t really write or draw Tiergan in too many sexual or romantic contexts to start with, just because of the way his character is. 

When I did do so however, I noticed I was fine drawing or writing heterosexual romances with my character, but when it came to anything remotely approaching Tiergan being intimate with men - I was intensely anxious about making any of my gay/bi male FC-mates uncomfortable.  My FC-mates are awesome people and their feelings are important to me. I wanted to honour those feelings and their life experiences.

I ended up just talking to folks to see how they felt, what I should do, how I should treat everything.  Of course gay/bi men are all different, because we’re all human and may have different perspectives or feelings on the matter so someone else may feel differently, but what I was told by everyone in all my discussions was that it boiled down to Respect. Treating gay/bi/pan men, their relationships, and their life experiences with the respect they are due and not simply as tools for getting off.

Fujoshi are often not respectful of gay men beyond their use as sexual objects - so why should anyone give them respect in return?

“Trap” and “Futa”

I’m going to go on a limb and assume you’re here because you read this post here.  Where I mentioned the Trans Panic Defense and how actual trans women find the word “trap” triggering because they get beaten to death IRL by cis straight men for “trapping” them.

If that really wasn’t enough, please look at this video by ContraPoints, which gets into more detail about why the word “Trap” is so hurtful from the words of an actual trans woman.

If you actually humored me and watched that video instead of blindly digging in your heels about how bad you want to keep using a word, it should be incredibly clear by now that the word “trap” is really hurtful to trans women and reminds them of the fact that they literally get killed by people just for walking down the street and making some cis dude’s dick tingle in his pants.

To put things in a different context, this is an extreme example, but there was a time the N-word was used regularly.   But now, you likely never do, because you know it’s offensive and hurtful to black people.  What’s the big deal though - right? It’s just a word.

But much like “trap” reminds trans women of the possibility that cis straight men might beat them to death in a fit of “trans panic” and the long history of trans women being viciously murdered even today for “trapping” men with their “trickery”.  The N-word reminds the black community of a long, vicious, painful, hateful legacy of racism, slavery, and oppression. That’s why civilized adults don’t use that word, even as an insult.

If we want a way less extreme example than the N-word, we have words like “Negro” and “Oriental” which are dated and offensive terms for Black and Asian communities respectively in the United States, because in the US it reminds those communities of painful, racist histories.

“Trap” reminds trans people of really bad fucking times. It reminds them that they can be murdered. Just stop using it.

Futa/Futanari, as mentioned in my previous post, literally means “hermaphrodite” which both intersex and trans folk find offensive to be referred to as because it doesn’t actually describe them.  So regardless of whether you’re using the word to describe a trans female character or an intersex person - it’s still offensive to either group, because that’s not what they are.

I’m assuming when you say you don’t use it on actual trans/intersex people, you mean you’re just using Trap/Futa to describe your character falling into a very specific anime hentai bucket.  However, every time you use the word “trap” or “futa”, even if you’re not talking to an actual trans woman - you’re normalizing the idea that it’s totally okay to keep using this word.  And even if YOU are careful not to blurt it out in front of an actual trans person, and use it only in reference to your pretendy-times triple-dicked cat girl character, you can’t count on all your buddies to do the same. Or your buddies’ buddies, or your buddies’ buddies’ buddies - etc.

If you ACTUALLY CARE about the feelings and comfort of trans/intersex folks, then you’ll not use the word “trap” or “futa” anymore, so that it stops being commonly, casually used.  All folks want is respect. Give that to them.

If after all of this, you still at the very least don’t see why using the word “trap” is no bueno despite the history of literal death behind it, I don’t know what to tell you other than that you’re placing greater importance on a singular word to describe your fap material before human beings, and that kinda makes you a dick.

What makes it worse than Straight Stuff?

Let’s do a quick exercise.

You have 10 seconds to think of one commonly used, popular term with the same ubiquity as trap, futa, or yaoi that encapsulates a harmful, fetishistic sexual stereotype specifically about cis straight white relationships.  You can even use Google if you want.

I specify white, because things like “yellow fever” have explicitly to do with race and thus don’t count.

If you can’t think of jack shit, it’s because “cis straight” is considered “normal” by our society - and anything that deviates from that is considered “exotic” or “different” and gets fetishized.  

If you’re a straight person, you likely have NEVER had to deal with someone fetishizing and objectifying you simply for your straightness, because it’s “normal”.  What is there to fetishize? They might objectify you for other reasons, like your gender, your race if you’re PoC, your weight (aka fat fetish), etc.  But being objectified through your straightness - if it happens at all - is so minuscule in comparison to what LGBT folks have to go through on the daily that it is insanely unbalanced.  It’s worse than “straight stuff” because LGBT folks have to go through it WAY, WAY more often than straight people do.

[killthebxy]

          i decided a bit of writing about this topic would be a good idea, considering it’s one i talk more and more often about in this blog. so... why am i so openly opposed to the idea of Jon sitting the Iron Throne? as a starting point, for this to be viable, the show went for the theory that Jon is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark --- fair enough. it is not my favorite theory for Jon’s parentage, but it doesn’t bug me and i can live with it. especially because it has some advantages, such as making it possible that Jon becomes the one who rides Rhaegal, which is always super interesting to explore in my writing and my headcanons. the actual problem, as turns out to be the case with pretty much everything D&D do, is not the content but the way in which it is presented.

          first, and from my perspective, it’s cliché writing that clearly aims for a happy ending --- Jon Snow is our lord and savior and never did anything wrong in his life, therefore deserves to be king and rule for 76 years and live happily ever after. i’m speaking for myself here, but i’m sure 99.8% of the ASOIAF rp community will agree when i say that this series (the books, at least) are NOT meant to have a happy ending. bittersweet, at most. because that’s the world GRRM has built and, hey, it’s real life. it is very unrealistic to expect that this story can have a simplistic ending, where the good guys win and the bad guys lose and everything is linear and easy. so what did D&D do? they clearly wanted Jon to become the main protagonist, because Kit Harington is hot and has nice hair and the audience loves him, so they needed a motive to make him the heir to the throne --- so let’s just find a way to make him a Targaryen because Targaryens are the royal people! let’s go for the easiest way possible and say that he’s Rhaegar’s son even though there was barely any foreshadowing for this before (friendly reminder that GRRM is quality trash for symbolism and foreshadowing) and let’s do it because we can and for the heck of it! who cares if it’s commercial writing and cliché people love this!!!!! lol who cares for realistic characters and storylines anyway we have CGI dragons!!!!

          which immediately raises a question: what about Aegon Targaryen? and by Aegon Targaryen i mean Egg, Young Griff, the son of Rhaegar and Elia and younger brother to Rhaenys --- the only Aegon Targaryen i will ever acknowledge in this blog. for argument’s sake, i’ll assume that in the books Young Griff is not an impostor and Jon Connington is actually doing the realm a service --- which means this is the actual heir to the Iron Throne, if we also go by a logic that a rebellion is a non-valid way to claim a throne and that Robert was indeed a usurper. even if Jon is Rhaegar’s son, Egg is older than Jon --- therefore, HE comes first in the line for succession. and here let me be fair --- this isn’t solely a GOT problem, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for a show to ever capture the depth of the books it is based on. the ASOIAF series has hundreds of characters, i do not completely fault the show for not including all of them and i can understand this. what i cannot understand is thinking that Aegon is the only Targaryen name that ever existed and therefore LET’S NAME EVERYONE AEGON!!!!!!!! seriously. even if the guy does not exist in the show (or, well, never survived the sack of King’s Landing) --- why would you do this. literally you could just use Google and search “popular kingly Targaryen names”. can you be any lazier than this.

          anyway. on the other hand, and even assuming Egg does not exist anymore in the show --- then what about Dany’s claim? true, in this scenario, Jon’s claim would come first --- because he’s older, and because he’s a man. much as it IS sexist and misogynist and unfair, this is the way Westeros works save for Dorne. thing is... the only way for this to make sense would be if Jon is Rhaegar’s legitimate son AND THIS IS THE “DETAIL” THAT MAKES ME SEETHE AND SPIT SALT EVERYWHERE. let me address this step by step... i already wrote a meta about Jon’s bastard nature (CLICK) and the impact it has. being a bastard is the central pillar in Jon’s identity and his psychological functioning, and you do not erase 20+ years (in show canon) of living with this mindset in a day or two. you do not. it’s not realistic, it’s not humanly possible. Jon has internalized that stigma, he sees himself the way almost everyone in Westeros sees bastard children, and he feels the constant need to compensate for it --- to prove that he’s not of bad blood and not a cunning, treacherous, ambitious person who’d do anything to have a real name and real power. you don’t just push a button in your brain and suddenly none of this matters anymore.

          which comes laced with another huge problem, to say it very mildly: the annulment of Rhaegar’s and Elia’s marriage. i am honestly not even going to detail how much of a complete disrespect this is, to Elia Martell in particular and to Dorne in general --- my lovely friends who write Dornish muses can do this much more brilliantly than me. but. can i just state how much of a dick move this is? how racist and xenophobic? let’s just grab this poor woman who was already humiliated, raped, harassed, butchered by Gregor Clegane and shit on her even more by saying almighty beautiful noble Prince Rhaegar didn’t care for her to the point of getting a divorce for the sake of marrying another woman. because according to robot-Bran HE LOVED HER AND SHE LOVED HIM!!!!!! ROBERT’S REBELLION WAS BUILT ON A LIE!!!!!!!!! WHO CARES IF AERYS II LITERALLY ROASTED BRANDON AND RICKARD STARK ALIVE!!!!!!! IT WAS ALL FOR EPIC ROMANTIC LOVE!!!!!!!!! ...like. what do you even say to this. i, as someone who loves Jon Snow with every cell of my entire being, am ASHAMED that Elia Martell was portrayed as no more than meat for slaughter and a plot device so that my muse could become a legitimate heir to an ugly iron chair. not to mention --- what does this whole thing mean in the end? that a bastard is not fit to be king, therefore he must first be legitimated by any excuses possible no matter how low and vile. BASICALLY D&D CONFIRM EVERY SINGLE STEREOTYPE ABOUT BASTARDS. THEY’RE ONLY GOOD AND PROPER IF THEY HAVE ACTUAL PURE BLOOD. CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW STUPID THIS WHOLE THING IS, I FEEL MY SOUL LEAVING MY BODY EVERY TIME I EVEN THINK ABOUT THIS.

          ...in conclusion. these are the reasons why i absolutely loathe the idea of Jon as the heir to the Iron Throne. continuity errors and cliché/lazy writing that i can live with to a degree but, above everything else, the disrespect to Elia and the disrespect to Jon himself. and this is why, in this blog, i will never ever acknowledge Jon as a legitimate Targaryen. in this blog, he’s always bastard-born, no matter who his father or mother are. and this is also why the only verse where i’ll write Jon as heir to the throne and king is my mad king verse (CLICK) --- because it comes with consequences and at a heavy price, and even in this verse he’s bastard-born. in every other verse and thread and plot i write, he’s king regent/king consort because he married the rightful queen. and he’s a Snow. Jon Snow doesn’t need to have legitimate birth for me to love & adore him fiercely and for me to want to die a thousand deaths for him, and he certainly does not need to be heir to a chair. and, no matter what s08 brings, i’ll be here to rewrite it because D&D are gonna ruin this boy’s essence and nature over my cold dead body turned to a wight with black hands and blue eyes.

[knightofbalance-13]

http://nerdgasrnz.tumblr.com/post/168146804389/you-bigoted-geek-ass-homophobic-transphobic

Old post I know but-

Point still needs to be made.

You bigoted geek-ass homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist MOTHERFUCKERS still don’t understand what the problem is, do you?

Looks like you’re finally getting some self awareness.

Oh wait, you’re not talking about yourself? Huh.

This is not the “rwde community” looking to tear RWBY to shreds ever since Monty died or whatever bullshit excuses you keep coming up with everytime ppl critique this cartoon

My past two years say the exact opposite and what should I trust: my instincts or a liar?

This is the fact that REAL LGBT people watch this show; real NON-WHITE people watch this show; real WOMEN watch this show, and WOMEN are the literal lead characters of this show. But those parts of the audience wind up disappointed with the lack of care, consideration, or prioritization in this weak-ass writing, where only the art and animation salvage it.

Heh...

Then why are some of the most prominent fans of the community LGBT, Non-white and/or women? I mean, surely if this was handled so poorly they wouldn’t be so prominent. Unless of course, the issue isn’t with the show but a certain group of people with a similar thought process (that being “If it doesn’t pander to me, it’s bigotry!.’)

Diversity isn’t a fucking myth like you think just because you have less social aptitude than a fucking rock, or because you refuse to interact with anyone that isn’t the same as you.

Says the woman who rejects other LGBT/non white people for not thinking exactly like her.

Monty was GENTLY asked in a post-show interview if there’d be LGBT+ rep in RWBY, and he confirmed yes. That was 2014.

And he also fucked over his own show numerous times. He wasn’t exactly a good writer so him saying that would have probably resulted in a ham fisted, out of place moment of gay angst that would never be mentioned ever again.

What Miles Luna, Kerry Shawcross, and Gray Haddock have done, instead of giving us a named PROTAGONIST character to be the first instance of that rep, they made the first openly gay character a VILLAIN. (no, Matte Sky does not count bc the VOICE ACTOR named them, not the creators)

You mean the single sympathetic villain who would later get a redemption arc among the other straight villians who are portrayed as irredeemable and monstrous *cough* ADAM *cough*.

Oh no, how terrible. You get a complex and well written character instead of the edgelord. 

Nothing is groundbreaking about that trash. LGBT+ historians and fandoms have noted that in the media, villains were portrayed as gay, trans, or implied as such for YEARS. (it’s called “queercoding”)

And that’s called ‘bullshit’ because coding is only ever brought up in subjective ways.

Not only that: You were never promised something GROUND BREAKING. Show me where it was said that. 

Monty was GENTLY asked by fans at a convention when more brown characters would be in RWBY. He confirmed that Sun and Velvet have “cool” dark-skinned teammates. That was 2013. (after an animation panel at Supanova)

So no, this isn’t just “rabid tumblrinas” hounding the creators for the sake of being special snowflakes like you fucking think. These are real fucking people who love the soul of this show but don’t actually SEE THEMSELVES IN IT. And Monty, rest his soul, was so excited and earnest in wanting to be inclusive so this show could be shared and loved by more people.

Yeah and Miles and Kerry get death threats over this. That was proven in 2018. I could not care less.

And here’s the deal: If you cannot relate to a character because they do not share the same skin color as you, you do not DESERVE a character to relate to. Because creators are suppose to make compelling characters and skin color is NOT COMPELLING. Expecting me to find a character compelling because they are white is honestly INSULTING to me.

But the fact is that it’s not as inclusive as it could be. Even when he was alive, he made missteps too. And it’s not even like it’d be a big deal to fix. But hateful people go out of their way EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. to make it seem like it’d be such a lorebreaking addition to make a character brown, gay, or trans.

The fact that ‘it’s not as inclusive as it could have be’ is a flaw shows you do not actually care about the show. Because you care SO LITTLE about the show actually being good you try to prioritize something COMPLETELY DIVORCED from quality above all else.

And no one wanted them to just do it because it was not the right fucking time or place. Imagine a character in Berserk went off on a tangent about how gay they are. That’d be pretty cringy right? Now think of that same thing in MHA. Not even bad now is it? Because one is not built to support this and the other CAN support it.

Honestly, the way they handled Illa, from a purely writing standpoint, is the best way they could have gone about it. It’s used to emphasize her pain with Blake and quickly takes a backburner for Illa’s more personal and universal issues. They showed it was athing before moving onto more pressing matters.

It makes absolutely ZERO SENSE how a FANTASY REALM can be lacking so much variety in terms of its inhabitants. And Diversity is an AFTERTHOUGHT. Or a “lorebreaker” (remember the homophobic “how would you show gay characters? just have them make out during the chaos? That’d make no sense!” argument? Fun times!!!)

Damn near every single piece of fanart about Illa emphasizes her being gay, apparently that was an informed guess on their part. And honestly ticks me off since Illa is so much more than that.

How many times do we have to sift through the garbage comments on fanart (FAN ART!!!) of Blake being portrayed as black, as if that’s some huge leap from what she could have represented in the first place?

Representation doesn't matter here, it's the fact that these designs usually look like shit because the people making don’t care about good character design and use dark skin on a design that is built around light skin. It’s like if someone made a light skinned Emerald-it would look fucking awful.

How many times do ppl turn a blind eye to femslash fanart of team RWBY but suddenly complain when someone mentions the notion of one of the characters in team RWBY actually being canonically gay? Or bi? Or pan? Anything outside or in-between?

Never. I have literally never seen that happened. I’ve seen people be called homophobic for shipping straight ships before I say this.

Hateful people are like “u should be thankful” when they’re having a buffet of representation and we only get, not just breadcrumbs, but moldy ones that the ants are crawling on. Then, when we make our own stuff to satisfy us (again: FAN ART! FANFIC! HEADCANONS!!!) they’re suddenly so defensive and wanna police our shit???

A. Nobody has ever just eaten certain foods because of their color,

B. You actively REFUSE to accept any character that isn’t EXACTLY like you and proceed to try to hurt REAL PEOPLE over this. Mold crumbs with ants on them is more than you deserve, honestly STRAVATION is more than you deserve.

C. Making fanart and fanfics that are fundamentally WORSE than canon and calling it ‘fixed’ or ‘improved’ like these people always do is insulting. You are actively pissing people off.

Oh and D. I have seen people ATTACK OTHERS over them not following their headcanons.

RWBY’s first dark-skinned character was a villain. That’s not representation, that reinforces racist beliefs that black people are thugs and thieves that can’t be trusted and need to be put down.

Yes, a dark skinned character with understandable motives, symapethic beliefs and conflcits about her actions.

Meanwhile, the white guy Adam is portrayed as an edgelord monster who seeks genocide and talks like a Nazi.

RWBY’s first openly GAY character is a villain. That’s NOT representation. That reinforces homophobic beliefs that lesbians are predatory temptresses that seduce your daughters and sisters to lead them down a path of hellfire and brimstone.

Yes, the sympathetic lesbian who has shown more love and care and respect for Blake than her straight abusive boyfriend.

Adam pretty much exists to DISPROVE your shit on this front. All the bullshit you complain about in Illa ACTUALLY EXISTS in Adam except WORSE.

RWBY has been making transphobic jokes since volume 1 (Penny’s “*gasp* Is she a man?” reference to Blake) Those jokes reinforce the transphobic belief that trans people wear disguises to bait unassuming people so that they can harm them eventually.

A. Name me a single trans person who said that, let alone enough people for me to even consider that.

And B. Adam is cisgendered and a genocidial Nazi. Good luck beating that.

It’s not rocket science. Rooster Teeth’s animated show, “RWBY” has a problem not just with it’s writing, but with diversity. Pure and simple. And this show has had since 2014 to improve. But you’re still surprised that some of us are fucking mad.

And yet every single example you gave not only doesn’t work but would set a standard for STRAIGHT WHITE PEOPLE to complain about their representation. 

You and everyone in RWDE are mad because you WANT to be mad. It justifies the immoral bullshit you pull on a daily basis...

Huh, exactly like Adam.

Guess you guys ARE represented after all. And quite accurately.

[ladymoonveil]

  Saying that Billy Hargrove is a polarizing character is putting it mildly in this fandom.  I’ve always hated that the Duffers wanted him to exist purely for the reason of having a “human villain”.  Why does Billy need to fill that role when you already have an organization full of evil dudes experimenting on kids?  If they wanted someone more specific, there’s always Neil Hargrove.  He’s a piece of shit who beats his son on the regular, and actively destroyed Billy’s relationship with Max by turning her into his walking, talking punishment.  He’s an abuser who turned the abused into another abuser, and if that’s not the peak of human villainy I don’t know what is.

   It also really bothers me when people hate Billy because he “doesn’t deserve redemption” and “should die for what he did”.  Apparently, shipping Harringrove means people want Steve to be in a violent relationship with a racist, which cannot be further from the truth.  Literally 99% of Harringrove fics have Billy getting the help he needs, admitting his past mistakes, and becoming a better person in the progress.  

  Steve has been one of my favourites since season 1, back when most people still disliked him.  I wouldn’t put him in a relationship with a one-dimensional asshole and make him suffer just for the sake of shipping.  (Though this is the accusations that some people like to make.)

  The reason I wanted to write this post about Billy Hargrove is because he reminded me of a boy I used to know when I was in the second grade.  We were only classmates for about 2 months, since I moved to Canada right after, but his name is the only one that I remember from back then.  (The following story is deeply personal, and please note this trigger warning for child abuse.)

  This boy was what everyone would call a “problem student”; someone who couldn’t sit still in class and had terrible grades.  He was always in trouble with the teacher for being too loud and noisy.  When you live in an East Asian country like Taiwan where grades are super important, this is a big red flag and people generally wouldn’t want to be friends with this person.  When I think about it now, I’m pretty sure he had ADHD.  But this was back in 1999, and ADHD wasn’t exactly a widely understood mental disorder.

  Despite this boy being a “problem child”, he wasn’t a bully.  (My mom told me a story of a real bully from when she was young.  He was also terrible at school, but he was a star player on the baseball team.  He would walk up an aisle of the classroom and slap his classmates’ heads as he walked by.  My mom got smacked almost every day, but he got away with it because he was athletic.  Unfortunately for the boy in my class, he wasn’t outstanding in sports either.)  

  I remember distinctly that he was nice and excited whenever I talked with him.  He certainly didn’t go around hitting people, or else I wouldn’t have given him the time of day.  We didn’t hang out together at recess, but he would lend me his Tamagotchi for an entire week before asking for it back.  My mom told me that whenever she brought me to school, he would stop to speak with her, and he was always very polite.  I didn’t think much of our interactions at the time, as he was just another classmate to me.

  One day, he showed up at school with literally half his face covered in black and blue.  You know the type of bruises people get if they’re slapped or punched?  This wasn’t like that.  This was like someone took black paint and slopped it on one side of his face.  It was that opaque.   

  My mom and I were shocked when we saw him.  She went to ask him what happened, and he told her that his father hit him with a wet towel because he stole some money.  She asked him how much he stole, and it turns out he stole five dollars because he wanted to buy erasers.  My mom told him that he shouldn’t steal; that he should ask his dad next time and tell him he wants to buy school supplies.  The boy said he did ask, but his dad wouldn’t lend him the money which is why he stole it instead.

 I remember very clearly that he didn’t cry, or act like he was in any pain.  In fact, he was so nonchalant about it that one of the thoughts that went through my 7-year-old brain was, “Oh, maybe it’s not as bad as it looks?”  

  I’m old enough now to understand his dad probably beat him so much that he wasn’t even phased by it anymore.  You don’t get that kind of bruising from being hit once with a wet towel. (Hell, you don’t get that type of bruising from being hit five times with a wet towel. It’s amazing that he didn’t go deaf from the abuse.) It really bothers me that I wasn’t more bothered about it back then, but the image of his bruised face has stayed with me for eighteen years.

 My mom was so angry when she heard what happened to him.  She went to tell the teacher, who was also a counselling advisor for the school.  My mom’s first thought was that she is more qualified to speak with students, and maybe she will be able to do something about it.  But when my mom told her what happened, my teacher said, “His grandparents told me he’s always causing trouble at home, and that he never learns no matter how many times they teach him.”  

  What she really meant was that his family all thought it was apt punishment and that he deserved it for his behaviour.  She wasn’t going to do anything about the abuse.  (Now, I don’t know if my teacher had already tried to help him and wasn’t able to, but my mom told me she came out of that conversation feeling very disappointed and upset at the outcome.  She never forgot his name either.)  

  Days passed and his bruises faded.  One day, the boy left in the middle of the class, and someone asked where he went.  The teacher said his mom came to visit him, so she let him take the day off to spend with her.  I didn’t realize his parents were divorced until this moment.  At the end of the school day, I was standing outside the classroom.  I saw him with a woman I had never seen before, and he was holding onto her and sobbing. He didn’t want his mom to go.  

  I remember thinking to myself, “Why doesn’t he just stay with his mom?  He really seems to like her more.”  (My mom has told me since that the system in Taiwan favours the father when it comes to child custody, similar to how the system in Canada favours the mother.  It could also be a case that she wasn’t able to support him financially, but I don’t know for sure.  All I know is that I’ve never seen him cry until that moment. He didn’t even shed a tear at school after his dad had beaten him black and blue.)  

 Fast forward a month or so and I was going to leave; I was immigrating to Canada with my family.  When I was saying goodbye to all my friends, he gave me a farewell present. It was this little book that had a bit of water damage.  I could tell it was something of his, and that he has spent time reading it.  I’ve gone through the book a few times, and from what I remember I enjoyed reading the short mystery stories and riddles in it.  When I told him I was leaving, he cried harder than most of the friends that I actually hung out with.  

  Over the last 18 years, I’ve thought about him from time to time.  But it wasn’t until two days ago that I really pondered why I haven’t forgotten his name, and why it seems like most of the things I remember from those two months of second grade in Taiwan involved that boy.  

  At the time, I was in the shower thinking about how I should write Billy’s character, since I wanted to tackle his childhood days in my story.  One thing led to another and suddenly, I was thinking about the book that my classmate had given me. To my absolute dismay, I couldn’t remember where I put it.  

  It was around 2:00 AM, and I had work the next day but I found myself going through my desk drawers and my bookshelves because I really needed to find this book.  I tried to remember where last saw it, and I had this creeping sense of dread that maybe I left it back in Taiwan, which means I may never see it again.  This made me think about why I didn’t bring it with me when I moved, and if I did, why can’t I remember where I put it?  

The answer? It just didn’t matter that much to me.  

  For the first time in my life, I sat down and really processed my experience with this boy that I barely knew.  It broke my fucking heart, and I’m still highly emotional about it even as I type this out.  I realized that this boy probably didn’t have things. His dad beat him for stealing five dollars to buy erasers and yet he lent me his toy for a week.  He couldn’t go and buy the most basic of school supplies but he gave me his book.  And I don’t even remember where I left it.  

  Unlike some people in my class, I was friendly to him.  But even though we talked, I don’t remember thinking of him as a friend.  I was the vice class president and he was someone who was always getting in trouble, and that put an invisible barrier between us.  (You don’t hang out with the problem child, the stigma was always there. Even though I knew in my heart that he wasn’t a bad kid.)   Thinking about the way he cried when I said goodbye, I realized that to him, I was his friend.  

 I’ve honestly been bawling my eyes out over the past few days at this revelation.  I wish I had talked to him more.  I wish that I was genuinely his friend.  I wish that I hung out with him at school because he was abused at home and I can’t recall if he had any friends of his own.  

  I wish I knew what I know now so I could try to help him.  

 It hits me the hardest when I think about where he might be now.  Did he manage to get away from his dad and his grandparents, who stood by and enabled the abuse?  Did he grow up to be a delinquent or a gangster and follow in his dad’s violent footsteps?  Did he get to stay with his mom when he was older?  Is he still the kind boy who shared what little he had with a girl that only spoke to him sometimes?  

  I tried to look him up on Facebook, but I can’t recall his face enough to recognize him, even if I did find the right person.  (There are multiple people with the same name, and none of their profiles listed the elementary school I went to.  I’m not really surprised, e-mails barely existed back then, let alone Facebook.)  I’m not sure what I would say to him, or if he even remembers me.  How should I react, if he had in fact turned into a horrible person?  But regardless, I want to thank him for the book, and for thinking of me as his friend.

  Sometimes my thoughts would go very dark and I’d wonder if maybe he had died from one of his dad’s beatings.  I try not to think about that, I want him to be alive and happy.  I hope he’s living a normal life now, surrounded by people who care about him.

  I guess I realized that this boy I knew could have easily grown up to be a Billy Hargrove, and it’s a fucking travesty because he was stuck in a situation where nobody helped him.  I think back to the scene where Billy’s dad slapped him around, while his stepmom stood by and watched.  Let’s just say I view his character in a different light after my own emotional journey. We don’t know what he’s been through growing up; who he was before his dad twisted him into the volatile teen that he is today.  This is why I will never agree with people who don’t think he deserves a chance at redemption.

 I told my best friend about this yesterday, and she cried with me.  I thought that maybe her tears were for his plight, but then she told me something that floored me.  She said that I shouldn’t beat myself up over this because I was seven years old, and seven-year-olds don’t think about things the way a twenty-six-year-old would. She told me that she believed I was a kind friend to him even if I felt like I wasn’t genuine, because that’s who I was for her when we were young.  

 I didn’t understand at first, and then she told me that she had really bad anger issues before we became friends.  She bounced from classmate to classmate, and she felt terrible because she wasn’t really close to anyone.  It made her isolated and angry, to the point that she punched a hole in her wall.  She said that after she met me in the sixth grade, she told herself that she has to get her anger under control, because she felt like she’ll scare me away, and she wanted me to be her friend.  I told her I never felt that from her, and she cried harder because that meant she succeeded.  Its profound how much you can mean to someone without even realizing it, and this is something that I don’t think I would have learned if not for the character of Billy Hargrove.  

  When I ship Harringrove, I’m not doing it to “fetishize gay men” or to “put Steve in an unhealthy relationship for the sake of having two attractive white guys getting it on”, as some people like to assume.  I see in Steve someone who is dealing with his own issues back at home, and is genuinely a nice guy who cares and likes to help people.  I see him as someone who can reach out to Billy and support him when he has nobody else on his side.  The Steve in my mind would be the person to give Billy the motivation to change for the better.  

  It won’t be easy for Steve, but helping Billy isn’t a burden that I place on this character.  It’s not some trial that I put him through for the drama of this ship.  I now know firsthand the regret you feel when you leave someone you could have helped behind, and the absolute relief when you do end up making a difference for a person you’ve grown to care about.  I love Steve, and he’s not going to feel this regret because he’ll do better than I did in my stories.  And it’s not just a one-way street, because after Billy gets the help he needs, he’s going to turn right back around and support Steve through his traumas as well.  Billy’s strong in a different way, and they could be so good for each other.

  This is the potential that Harringrove shippers see in their relationship. Before you go around judging or sending hateful messages, actually stop to take a look at why people like these two characters together.  You may be surprised by what you find.

[kittenfemme27]

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

I don’t know about you, reader, but it’s been actual years since I was able to properly sit down and finish a book. My last one was Lovecraft Country in 2018, and many, many years before that. Reading used to be a big passion of mine, I loved to get lost in the worlds. I loved the movie that played out in my head as I read, as if it was projecting itself into my mind more-so than i was actually reading the words themselves. For a kid who didn’t always grow up with the internet or video games available, Books from my local library were a great escape.

So, having found myself getting more and more into horror around 2019 in all forms of media I consumed, I was more than happy to bookmark a tweet from a horror artist I follow on Twitter who had a list of all the horror books he’d read that year. This would be my chance to get back into reading, finally!

Cue.. 2 years later, and I’ve finally started on that list. The top of that list, “The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires“, was something I found immediately intriguing from the title and cover alone. I’m now regretting that decision so much that I’m not sure I’ll bother with the rest of the list.

(CW: R*pe, Gore, Racism)

“The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires” is an awful book. The only compliment I feel I could accurately give it is that it’s not written incompetently enough, from a purely technical standpoint, as to be unreadable.

The story stars Patricia Campbell, a housewife in the 1980′s-1990′s that is more apology than character, and her rag-tag group of similarly middle-aged, middle-income southern white wine sipping housewives who do, and I cannot stress this enough, almost nothing but test each other’s and the readers patience for nigh on 310 out of 357 pages. They bicker, they fight, they treat Patricia as crazy when she repeatedly shows them evidence that children around them are dying, and most of all they refuse to do absolutely anything, leaning more into pure disbelief until the problem has literally violated one of them. The book club women don’t lead interesting lives, either. They’ve got husbands who are not in love with them, children who hate them, and friendships with each other that can be broken by what feels tantamount to bringing the wrong wine to a meeting. Throughout the story, Patricia is accosted by the resident Vampire-like creature, more akin to a human mosquito than any sort of real “Vampire”, that moves in after his aunt dies. A man named James Harris. He smoothly worms his way into everyone’s lives in the charismatic way a vampire does and convinces everyone that Patricia is more or less insane for ever suspecting him of being a vampire after she watches him feed on a child. This leads to her attempting suicide after being pushed into a corner by her doctor husband who seems to have been ripped straight from the 1950′s and thinks women should be Seen and not Heard. She gives up and more or less goes comatose as a character for roughly 3 years until finally she snaps to her senses after seeing a ghost of her dead mother in law who knew the Vampire when she was a small child, who leads her to one of the bodies he’s got stored in his attic, and convinces everyone else in her book club, who has routine abandoned her at this point, to help her kill James. They do, chopping his body to bits while it taunts them and then throwing the bits into a fire. Patricia divorces her husband at the end and somehow that makes her children lover her, happy-ever-after ending.

That’s the rough synopsis, but it doesn’t really do the grossness of this book any justice. That first child James kills, is a black 9 year old named Destiny who later kills herself as it’s revealed that the Vampire-like creature’s bites feel so good and so sexually pleasurable, that if you are deprived of them after becoming addicted you’re likely to just commit suicide. This is AFTER she’s taken away from her mother by child services because they assume the bite marks are syringe injection marks and that her mother must be a druggie. She’s not the first black child to die this way either. In-fact, by the time Patricia becomes wise to James’ ways, she’s the third. They’re all from a poor black neighborhood that is literally described as shady, dangerous, and being full of “Super Predators” called Six-Mile, which is the de-facto feeding ground of the Vampire for a good 75% of the book, as well as the home of the literally only surviving named black character, Ursula Greene, who herself is nothing more than a “wise old negro” trope along with being a maid to these rich white people who think of her as trash. This is probably the biggest overarching problem in the book. It tries, in the authors words, to explore the relationships between the white, rich women who brag about how their cul-de-sac is so safe and pure that nobody even locks their door, and the poor black characters from Six-Mile. The book thinks its clever, because Mrs. Green constantly points out that the white characters let the black children die callously so that their white children would live, to which they can only reply about how guilty that makes them feel and how they’re sorry. I’m not sure what the author hoped to accomplish by pointing out the institutional racism of the 90′s, but whatever he hoped to accomplish, it fail flat on its face in the most racist way it could.

I wish that was where gross things ended for this book, but its not. At one point, the Vampire-like creature rapes one of the book club members and she is more or less outright stated to be pregnant with a monster from that rape and it is also revealed that the rape gave her an “Auto-Immune Disease” that the characters husband immediately likens to AIDS and that is very quickly killing her. This information causes her to choose to have her body cremated so nothing can spring forth from her corpse when she dies. The implications this has are frankly appalling. The books decision on whether or not a woman who gets pregnant from rape is worthy of life is to resolutely and proudly say no and treat that as if its a feminist answer. That if you’re raped, it’s akin to something like AIDS and life simply isn’t worth living. it’s one of the grossest things I’ve read in a long time.

It’s not even the only shock value the book uses to make it’s events feel real and scary, others include Patricia’s son “Blue” being obsessed with Nazi’s, for genuinely seemingly no reason. He just brings them up to make you, and everyone in the story, uncomfortable. There are constant overwrought descriptions of gore or simply gross scenarios, such as an indepth description of Patricia’s ear-lobe being ripped off, or rats gnawing the flesh off on a old woman, or a cockroach crawling inside someones ear. There is also the repeated child murder or child suicide, which doesn’t really serve a purpose other than to shock the middle-aged mothers this book was meant for, with multiple sentences in which Patricia thinks about how much it would hurt if that were her children, inviting the reader to do the same with their own.

And we couldn’t forget that this book is just unrepentant in its horniness. It’s outright stated that being fed on is the most sexually pleasurable thing one can feel, which makes it all the more awkward when you consider that the Vampire’s first set of victims are children, later Patricia’s teenage daughter who she walks in on in the middle of being fed and who she has to stop from literally masturbating in that moment while attempting to punch the Vampire off of that same teenage daughter. But, of course, it doesn’t end there. It’s a book about almost entirely women written by a Cis Male Author, which means there are constant depiction of female bodies in the nude or in violence. It’s no “She boobed boobily”, thankfully, but it’s not much better than that. Describing pubic hair, breast shape, and even making it so that the Vampire-like creature drinks from a penis-esque proboscis that extends from it’s throat and right into the upper thigh of it’s victim, which is mentioned twice to be right next to the vagina. It even goes so far as to try and sexualize its own rape, aswell as having Patricia tell the rape victim how good it feels with this section between the two. Something I’m including here in its entirety because no amount of words I can write describes how gross this passage is, in context.

   “Grace already... told me,” Slick said, opening her eyes, pulling her mask away from her face to speak. “I made her... give me all the details.”

   “Me too,” Patricia said. “I was out from what he did to me.”

   “How did... it feel?” Slick asked.

   Patricia would never have said this to anyone but Slick. She leaned forward.

   “It felt so good,” she breathed, the immediately remembered what he’d done to Slick and felt selfish and insensitive.

   “Most sin does,” Slick said.

I think the thing that angers me the most about this book is that it’s tricked a lot of people who read it into thinking its a fun, feminist read. All of the main characters are overworked mothers who struggle with being that overworked, and then come out on top anyway because of their motherly intuition and love for their kids. It’s the kind of book that a single struggling mother would read and think “Yeah, I’d do that, that’d be me! I’d save the day!” and it makes them feel good about themselves, and about being a mother, and about how hard it is to make the kids lunches and clean the husbands dirty underwear and make sure the house is clean and dinner is on the table by 6 PM all while looking hashtag fabulous and like a girlboss. A quick trawl through any review site will show roughly the exact type of single mothers this book is written for giving it 5 stars and calling it hilarious and empowering. And y’know, I don’t have a problem inherently with prose written for that demographic. But this book gets away with a ton of racism, sexism, and outright disgusting content by hiding itself under that veneer and I think that’s just awful. It should be held to scrutiny for what it is, for how bad it is, and it clearly never was.

Don’t read this book. It sucks. It sucks so fucking much. I want my night I spent reading it back.

[nok-abadjuan]

Nokia Jade Crooks.

01 / BASICS

Full Name: Nokia Jade Crooks

Nickname(s): Nok, Kia, Kiki

Sex/Gender: Female

Birthday: September 27, 1998

Age: 18

Astrological sign: Aquarius

Occupation: Tattoo Artist

Spoken Languages: English

Sexual orientation: Bisexual

Birthplace: Tampa, Florida

Relationship status: In A Relationship

02/ PHYSICAL TRAITS

Race: White American, Black American

Ethnicity: Greek, Irish, African-American

Hair color/style: Black, curly naturally. Straightens it or wears it in curls or weaves.

Eye color: Dark Brown

Accent (if any): Southern Miami Accent, barely there

Height: 5″10

Weight: 150

Tattoos: Sleeve (flowers), wrist and hand (female)

Piercings: Ears, belly button

Unique attributes: High cheekbones, compared to Lauren London a lot

Defining gestures/movements: Pouts a lot

Posture: Regular

03 / PERSONALITY TRAITS

Pet peeves: Fake people, being lied to, being used, people who don’t cover their coughs or sneezes, people who don’t respect others opinions, weak ass niggas, copycats, passive aggressive people, people who can’t own up to anything, scaredy cats, when people tell you to do something as you're doing it, being betrayed

Hobbies/interests: Art, painting, drawing, walking around the mall, exploring places and things, hanging out, eating, watching youtube and going to the movies

Special skills/abilities: Very artistic but doesn’t really show it off, can do a split and back flip

Likes: Making friends, going out, laughing and being silly, cuddling, pumpkin spice lattes, baking desserts or pinning new ones from Pinterest, looking at herself in the mirror, looking at pretty women with nice bodies, going to sex store and buying sex toys to be goofy with and use, pranking, surprising people, reading conspiracy theories online, wikipedia is life, helping poor people

Dislikes: Being told what to do, being judged without being given a chance, sensing someone’s dislike for her or talking about her, people who talk about those less fortunate, being let down, fighting, arguing, not being given a chance, the dark, scary things like ghosts and monsters, scary movies,

Insecurities: Her weight, her shape, her hair, her past drug use and addictions, being easily controlled and persuaded to make others happy

Quirks/eccentricities: Dots her i’s with a heart, draws random doodles on any piece of paper in front of her, strongly dislikes the sound of chewing and hums a quiet song while eating, writes with left hand, but does everything else right-handed, loves to hug or touch on people

Strengths: Creative, love of learning, very wise and loving, really kind and sweet, cares about others, makes a great friend very loyal, forgives easily

Weaknesses: Gets in her feelings easily, very sensitive, gets her feelings hurt easily, easily irritated

Speaking style: Has kind of southern drawl, curses and says nasty things to be silly or funny, can be sometime ghetto in speech

Temperament: Bad temper, irritable, sensitive, emotional

04 / FAMILY & HOME

Family: Her father Gael and her mother Tammy do not get along. They hooked up the summer after senior year of high school when he broke up with his girlfriend and Tammy got pregnant. He went away for college with his girlfriend and eventually married her. He was barely in Nokia’s life and his wife now ex wife, forced him to stay out of Nokia’s life. She grew up with her white side of the family. Being the only dark one, she was picked on and set apart a lot. Her and her mother were kicked out her grandmother’s house and were homeless, lived in a woman’s shelter, then lived in a trailer with her mother’s boyfriend at 12, then they finally got their own 1 bedroom apartment. When she was 15/16 he took her mother to custody after his divorce and won custody over her because he had the money; being a surgeon. She moved to Miami to live with him and to live a better life, taking fun trips and having her own room.

How does (s)he feel about his/her family? She doesn’t like her maternal grandmother. She’s racist against blacks and thinks they’re dirty and did not forget to remind Nokia about herself and her father. She used to tell Tammy she was a slut for sleeping with a black man and having his baby. She called Nokia a porch monkey and little monkey. Called her a nigger whenever she was angry and drunk. Tammy and Nokia are close but they have their drifting moments. Nokia got her drug and alcohol habits from her mother. She used to buy her mother cigarettes and started stealing them to smoke with her friends. She started drinking alcohol because sometimes that was all there was in the house. They got high together a few times but Nokia got clean and her mother still struggles with her own addictions which she tries to hide but Nokia knows the truth. Nokia and Gael are now cooler than when she was younger and first moved in with him. She hated him because her grandmother filled her head with negative thoughts. She used to love when he came to see her or called her as a kid. She got older and realized he put his wife before her and hated him for it and the fact that she had to struggle growing up. They’re now in a better place because Nokia is learning how to forgive people and let things go.

How does his/her family feel about him/her? Her mother depends a lot on her. Since they kind of grew up together, being that she was young herself when she had her; they’re like sisters. Nokia’s father tries to do everything to keep her happy but shows his disappointment when she’s not happy with her. They both love her and she’s the only reason they’d ever come together but she never has asked them to, so they don’t see each other. They haven’t been in the same room in years.

Pets: None.

Where does (s)he live? Her father helped her get a small place but she’s breaking her lease because her boyfriend wants her to move in, so she’s living with him now in a really nice townhouse.

What is it like there? Enough rooms, beautiful from the outside, not much going on. Very calm atmosphere, quiet neighborhood.

Description of his/her home: Modern Townhouse.

Description of his/her bedroom: She sleeps in her boyfriend’s bedroom. Is moving in new furniture and they’re changing the decoration to be more neutral and sexy for the both of them.

05/ THIS OR THAT

Introvert or extrovert? Ambivert

Optimist or pessimist? Realist

Leader or follower? Depends on the situation

Confident or self-conscious? Self-Conscious

Cautious or careless? Careless

Religious or secular? Secular for the most part

Passionate or apathetic? Passionate

Book smarts or street smarts? Street Smarts

Compliments or insults? Compliments

Pajamas or lingerie? Pajamas

06 / FAVORITES

Favorite color: Black, Lavender, Lilac

Favorite clothing style/outfit: Tshirts, shorts, pants, sweatpants, dresses, heels, sneakers, flats. Has a girly but boyish style.

Favorite bands/songs/type of music: Yellowcard, Linkin Park, Paramore, Green Day, No Doubt, Gwen Stefani, Bob Marley, The Wailers, Peter Tosh, Shaggy, Destiny’s Child, Jodeci, TLC, Dru Hill, Xscape, B2K ,The Supremes, The Temptations, The Isley Brothers, Rihanna, Frank Ocean, Michael Jackson, Prince, Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae, Lauryn Hill, Chaka Khan, Ciara, Whitney Houston, Jazmin Sullivan

Favorite movies: Coming to America, Love Jones, Woo, Eve’s Bayou, Set it Off, The Grinch, Home Alone, This Christmas, The Preacher’s Wife, City of God, Cooley High, Juice, Losing Isaiah, Poetic Justice, The Wiz, Love & Basketball, The Last King of Scotland, The Princess and the Frog, Dreamgirls, Coming of age movies, cartoon movies, biopics etc.

Favorite TV shows: Atlanta, Insecure, Chappelle’s show, OITNB, Blackish, Power, The Proud Family, A Different World, The Boondocks, Girlfriends, One on One, In Living Color, Family Matters, Moesha, The Steve Harvey Show, Parkers, Talk shows, Court TV/Judge shows, crime shows, Half & Half, Survivor’s Remorse, Hey Arnold, Criminal Minds, RHOATL, Black Ink Crew, LHH, Fresh Prince

Favorite books: Monster, The Coldest Winter Ever, Kite Runner, Aesop Fables, The Wave, Desert Flower, Of Mice and Men, Number the Stars, Hunger Games, Life of Pi, The Giver, My Sister’s Keeper, The DUFF, The Lightning Thief, The Maze Runner, The Outsiders, Speak, Stargirl, The First Part Last, Tyrell, Good Girlz series, Kimani Tru books, Drama High series, Bluford High series

Favorite foods/drinks: Pasta, pizza with a lot of sauce, anything cheesy, fried chicken, buffalo wings with blue cheese, McDonald’s fries, slushies, homemade lemonade, gummy bears, skittles, zebra cakes, saltine crackers, apple juice, grape juice

Favorite sports/sports teams: None

Favorite actors/actresses: None

Favorite time of day: Night Time

Favorite weather/season: When it’s chilly outside or it rains and thunderstorms, warm breezy days

Favorite animal: None

07 / MISCELLANEOUS

Fears/Superstitions: Other people dogs scare her, scared of the dark, scary movies, ghosts, monsters, scary stories

Political views: None

Religion/philosophy of life: Believes in God but doesn’t go to church, wasn’t brought up in church, only knows basic biblical stories everyone else knows

Allergies: Spiders

Addictions: Used to have a drug and alcohol problem. Heavy drugs like cocaine, LSD, shrooms and weed

Best school subject: She was always good in math, gym class and art

Worst school subject: Hated science

School clubs/sports: None

How does (s)he get money? Tattoo Artist and her father gives her something like an allowance

How is (s)he with technology? Very good with technology and social media

08 / PAST & FUTURE

Fondest memory: Going to the kids choice awards with her dad when she was 12.

Dream vacation: Anywhere with water, beach, sand and beautiful tourists spots

Best thing that has ever happened to this character: Rose Kairi Knight

Worst thing that has ever happened to this character: Being addicted, trying to fit in, her upbringing, doing things for attention, being jumped and bullied, being physically abused, getting hit by a car

What does (s)he want to be when (s)he grows up? She never really had dreams or thought about that

Perfect date: Anywhere as long as the conversation is good and they can both laugh and make memories