#there's so much potential commentary on how she sees herself in her own show!

[tunemyart]

also: I cannot believe that they went through so many bad titles (that they even announced!) before finally settling on Agatha All Along

isn't marvel known for its exhausting self-references? this one is really, really good! so good I assumed it was always the title once I had the context and heard the song from Wandavision? What could possibly be more perfect than to title the spinoff after the actual title that Agatha gave her own fake sitcom whilst revealing herself as the villain? One that EVEN HAS ITS OWN CATCHY THEME SONG??

[randomfandomworks]

Velvet Relationship HCs

Velvet x GN!Reader Synopsis: Headcanons dealing with how I imagine Velvet in a relationship Word Count: 0.8K Warnings: Potential OOC Pronouns Used: (You / Your)

✭ Velvet is pretty defensive of herself and the things she worked towards

✭ So it’s pretty impressive that you could break through to her

✭ You and Veneer are probably the only two people she fully trusts

✭ And because of that she will never let you go

✭ You're stuck with her

✭ Because Velvet rarely trusts people she’s very protective of those she does trust

✭ You especially

✭ So while she’s proud of her relationship with you

✭ She’s afraid to put it in the public eye

✭ I mean she’s always wanted to be famous

✭ But she never thought of how that title may affect her relationship

✭ Luckily enough you see the reasoning behind her wishes (she’s rather convincing when it comes to something she wants)

✭ However after your relationship progresses a bit more she starts to relax and share bits of it with her fans

✭ Lipstick stains, blurry photos, planned appearances, and staged kisses keep the paparazzi and news at bay

✭ One time her makeup crew was running a bit behind

✭ So she asked the only person she could trust for help

✭ Which is how you ended up styling her show makeup

✭ With a few bits of commentary from her to cover up how flustered she was getting 

✭ And as a finishing touch to the effect you had already given her you would look at her reflection, speaking softly to her

“You’re so pretty Vel.”

✭ Velvet still thinks that’s the only time she’s ever actually blushed at a compliment

✭ She likes to lay on your chest when your alone

✭ When she does she can hear your heartbeat which relaxes her more than she thinks it should

✭ You get to hear her and Veneers music before anyone else

✭ Velvet genuinely loves you so much

✭ She just doesn’t know how to express it

✭ At least she didn’t at first

✭ In fact during the start of your relationship she was more closed off to any kind of affection

✭ However when you made it clear you weren’t going anywhere she started to open up to the idea

✭ Now whenever you two are alone she’ll be all over you

✭ She can get very clingy (particularly after a long day or show)

✭ She loves to wrap herself around you

✭ Even occasionally play with your hair

✭ Not big on PDA however, as I’ve explained, she doesn’t enjoy sharing you with the public

✭ Occasionally when you both exit an event there will be a sea of paparazzi

✭ And as I’ve said Velvet tends to get protective over you

✭ As a result, in this situation she immediately reaches for your hand

✭ Pulling you close to her until you both have been safely escorted away

✭ This protectiveness may also be a factor in her preferring to be the big spoon

✭ She likes to hold you rather than be held

✭ Though on a few occasions she has preferred to switch those roles

✭ Definitely has you backstage for all of her and Veneers performances, or at least close to

✭ Buys you anything you could want or need

✭ Her favorite thing to buy you is matching accessories

✭ Just little gifts to show she cares

✭ Has probably written at least one love song for you (But she would never admit to it)

✭ Absolutely loves receiving praise or words of affirmation from you

✭ Isn’t exactly a great communicator on her own

✭ However if you take the time to sit her down and talk to her about whatever may be bothering you, she will listen!

✭ She’s grateful that your willing to openly talk with her

✭ And in return she will try to get a bit better at it herself

✭ She will always take your side

✭ No one else’s opinions matter (besides hers of course)

✭ Always defends you in your arguments

✭ Unless of course you're arguing with her

✭ Velvet can be very strong in her opinions

✭ And if your arguing it can get very heated

✭ She also refuses to be the one to apologize

✭ Except for this one time where she got  carried away and you would not talk or contact her until she apologized

✭ It took a bit but eventually she realized that she missed you

✭ Something she had never felt before (at least romantically)

✭ So she contacted you, a few weeks after you argued you got a call

“I’m sorry. Really. Can you please just talk to me again I…I miss you.”

✭ Velvet prefers quiet dates with you

✭ She goes to enough loud, public events

✭ So with you she just wants to sit and read, or write a new song, even watch a movie

✭ You’re the quiet in her life

✭ You make Velvet a better version of herself

✭ You can see the kind of person she is behind the fame

✭ And help her to grow on it and be happier

✭ Being with you makes her more happy than she ever believed she could be

[iris-sistibly]

The Targ Talk: House of the Dragon S2

Episode 5 commentary

Alicent finally realizing that the men she sided with doesn't give a shit about her. The fact that even Crispy and Larys agreed that Aemond should be Prince Regent was a huge slap on her face. Now that she knew that she is no longer of use to the council, realized why Rhaenyra rejected the orange bitch, and how much of a vengeful motherfucker her own son is, I am interested to know as to what Alicent would do next. If she wanted to correct her mistakes, she'd turn her back against the greens and bend the knee to Rhaenyra. But that would mean that she's gonna betray her own sons, and she'll possibly end up dead before she even gets out of the castle gates. OR she could stay loyal, keep her mouth shut and let Viserys' children kill each other while she isolates herself in her own chambers, carrying that guilt of how much she fucked up until she passes. Let's see what she does next.

Rhaenyra's council is full of misogynistic cunts and the only ones who respect and support her are the women. Rhaenys fought to the death to make sure Rhae sits on that damn throne, something she never got to do because she was born a woman. My badass Baela on the other hand defended the queen and reminded Corlys that Rhaenys' fate was her own choosing, and no one should be blamed in her untimely demise. Honestly, she and Jace would have been the best king and queen.

I have always loved Jace in both the book and the show, still young but has already showed his potential in becoming a great leader. This makes me dread his fate even more.

Targaryens are known for their inbreeding, but it is uncommon for a parent and child to have a relationship that is beyond...well...a parent and child. I am one of those who felt uncomfortable watching it, but when I saw this, the first thing that came into my mind was Daemon has mommy issues. But then I remembered that he was very young when Alyssa died so that's highly unlikely. I did however found an explanation for that vision, someone wrote that the sex scene between Daemon and his mother was actually about Daemon's superiority complex. He likes being the dominant one, it arouses him (hence the sex scene). Looking back at the previous episodes, no one has really regarded him as the stronger or the better brother and that vision was feeding his ego basically, and I couldn't agree more.

I NEED LONGER HELAENA SCENES.

[planet-crait]

Okay so I lied I uh can’t find episode 6. Of anyone has help for that I would appreciate it. Anyways episode 7 does not have the intro and once again I am devastated.

It should be illegal to be that perked up on a Monday. Mondays are evil I have decided. Wait Hazel made a new friend? Dang it curse missing episode 6. Oh Jasmine uh she struggles to sing oh no. At least she’s proud to sing.

Oh Hazel. Fame is uh not what it’s cracked up to be. Is this technically cheating in a contest? Wait didn’t Timmy wish to be popular not involve Father Time? And Hazel being confused about the 15 minutes being literal is strange since that wasn’t her wish it was to be famous.

But also what’s the cost? If he offered a deal…what’s the cost? Fairy’s don’t usually have a cost or even a deal aspect it’s just wish then granted. Also we can clearly see their is hardly any sand in the top while their is quiet a bit on the bottom.

And I’m pretty sure later the watch looks the same despite have some 22 hours left so it’s a very odd choice to do this.

Also side note uh I had to break out a calculator to do that math and Hazel did it in her head? It I’m afraid of her power.

Wait is that squirrel supposed to be Timmy? Was he a squirrel at one point?

Wasn’t this guy a movie star before? Are they just reusing the not Timmy model or does he have two jobs and is working the grind? Not important at all I wouldn’t be surprised if they had to reuse models for stuff given the right budget but also it could be a commentary on the massive wage gaps for movie stars.

Hazel wears hand me downs. I appreciate that as someone with an older sister I always had those. Interesting she wears her older brothers clothes or is it just his shirt because she likes it and wants to feel close to him or she has to? Not important at all but interesting character thing depending on which it is.

Huh why did Cosmo become the interviewing girls mug?

I was wondering when the principle would appear again. Funny it’s this episode. I do like the show showing the haters side of fame even if it’s more over the top to get the point across. The more in the spotlight you are the more jerks come out of the woodworks. The kids all booing her is kind of hilarious though.

Wait they have a separate school for “famous” kids? What state is Dimedelphia in? Cuz Hollywood could potentially be in another state? I’m not sure how legal that is. But I’m also not sure if the legality of forcing all students to repeat a year if one student fails so I suppose that’s on track. I get they need to raise the stakes and give Hazel motive to undo the wish but it’s just. Well weirdly done for me.

Father Time has a boss? Wait Nick of time? Is she his boss? That doesn’t make much sense but who is the boss? I thought the point was Father Time was the ultimate timekeeper? How does New York minutes move faster than regular? I’m so confused about this.

Most head of her time? And mean. Not sure where that one came from lolz.

To help tighten up the script a little and to more organically bring in Father Time I would have had Hazel right off the bat with for her fifteen minutes of fame instead of Cosmo and Wanda changing it on their own. They’ve dealt with Father Time before and should know he’d get involved so having Hazel right off the bat wish for the fifteen minutes herself would fix that issue. Again I appreciate taking a different spin on Timmy’s wishes but for me I think the minor changes would help a lot to make it flow better.

Still not a deal breaker though just something to help out. I also really still don’t get the New York Minute thing. Is it a commentary on the fast pace of New York? Cuz other places are like that too LA coming to mind. Unless I’m missing something which isn’t entirely out of the question. The song was fun though. Onto episode 7!

[kitkatopinions]

So a couple of things stand out to me with this little gem from the commentary for V9.

They viewed Neo as she is as irredeemable. I one hundred percent disagree with the idea that there's a certain level of villainy that makes it impossible for someone to ever come back from, and if I did believe that, it would be like 'genocidal colonizers who want to take over the world' and not like 'formerly abused disabled woman who spent the better part of her on screen time working for someone doing much worse things than her who then developed a grief-driven misguided grudge and has done technically less worse things than most of the RWBY villains even including V9.' But this does make me feel a bit better in that the RWBY writers are less likely to redeem Salem and Cinder, who are two people that even though I think they can be redeemed, they probably should stay evil.

However, them saying they did want to give Neo a bit of sympathy (which is not the same thing as redemption) because of her past... Cool, actually. Yes, it's frustrating that other characters didn't get that sympathy despite having gone through similar or worse things than Neo went through, like Adam, but I'm not gonna want a formerly abused disabled woman to not get an ounce of sympathy just because a different character didn't get it in the past. But also, this does make me think Cinder, Salem, and potentially Mercury will get similar sympathies (I say 'potentially' Mercury because there's quite a chance that the writers are only willing to extend sympathy towards the women characters based on misogyny as they seem to be sometimes pushing a narrative that the women characters are unable to have made their own choices, but also Hazel is an example of them letting men have unfair sympathies they don't deserve and getting treated with a ton of sympathy like they're not responsible for their own actions too.)

It's worth noting that they were swayed by fandom opinion. "There's this really weird line of everybody likes her as a character," they say, as if they don't like or understand exactly why fans would like a character they invented, which is a weird thing writers do sometimes. And they go on to imply it was one of the reasons they had for not wanting to write Neo to have too bad of an end.

The way they talk about Neo committing suicide like it's a good thing... They are actively talking about how Neo 'has a chance' to ''pick a different person to be.' I mean, it was bad enough with the Paper Pleasers, but at least they actually were from the Ever After where (badly done or not) the implication was that it was slightly different than for humans, but Neo? She was a real person from Remnant! She killed herself, and they're like 'dum dum dum it's a sympathetic end for her because killing herself is a good choice actually that 'gives her a chance to be something better.' Like ??? That is point blank period glorifying suicide.

It's remarkable to me that the writers as well as fans think that the ending they gave Neo is even sort of a good thing for Neo that says that they're favoring her character, whether people think that's unjustified or good. The writers might've written Ruby to act a bit sympathetic (which I see as a step in the right direction for her being a caring protagonist, unlike when she cut off Tyrian's tale,) but Neo still didn't get any sort of good ending and in fact when you compare it to Hazel, it feels even worse. She spent the last several seasons playing lacky to someone who didn't respect her while she was grieving the only person who had ever treated her well, she then lost all will to live and reason for existence after Ruby was supposedly dead, then had her autonomy ripped away from her in one of the most meant-to-be-disturbing moments in the show, and a different being talked with her mouth and used her like a puppet, and then she committed suicide. How is that a good sympathetic ending just because Ruby had a two second moment of being like 'hope she does decide to commit suicide for good and become a different person who isn't so messed up?' Hazel got to die a heroic death after 'teaching Oz a lesson' and he was responsible for tons of deaths in Mistral and he beat Oscar on screen!

Idk, I just feel like the entire narrative surrounding Neo's death feels like a big middle finger, even if MKEK intended to try to appease her fans. I thought volume 9 was going to be Neo's time to finally shine in the spotlight, but they brushed her aside to make the Cat a twist villain (like they needed a twist villain,) and then wrote the worst possible end for Neo they could have, and I feel like a crazy person because I feel like the only person who's bothered by it.

[shin-meddlesome-hero]

G-Witch Episode 13 Commentary

I liked how the show answered the question of Suletta’s mental state after Plant Quetta. On the outside, she looks like she wasn’t affected by that at all, even her friends comment on it, but immediately after that scene its revealed that she doesn’t feel quite well with what happened and she has to ask her mother for reassurance because her mother’s words are what’s keeping her convictions from being shattered. She isn’t able to really think about what she did and all its repercussions because that would psychologically destroy her, so at the moment, it’s her conviction that she must do whatever needs to be done in order to protect Miorine and her friends what keeps her from having a major crisis.

On the other hand, she seems to have a desire for atoning. First, she saves Nika from getting squished at the risk of having the same fate herself (karma sure works fast in this universe!) and then she defies Norea and Sophie to a duel in an attempt of showing them that Gundams aren’t killing machines. Depending on where this show is on the scale of cynicism vs idealism the outcome of this can vary. In my opinion, there’s no way that Suletta can convince them even if she wins the duel. She doesn’t know much of the true nature of the conflict between Earthians and Spacians so it’s useless and naive to apply the rules from Asticassia in that scenario. Therefore, it’s very possible that Suletta wins only to see Nika getting killed anyway immediately after. Now, that would destroy whatever innocence she has left and make her change, probably towards a darker path.

Despite that, there’s a possibility that Nika could be saved. Her goal is to achieve an understanding between Earthians and Spacians so if she just gets killed off it would be like the show is telling us that it’s impossible for Earthians and Spacians to understand each other. (Also it would prove that Gundams are just for destruction and it seems that the show is actually looking for an alternative to that). The anime isn’t super idealistic but it isn’t grimdark either so, if Nika gets saved it must be on a way that’s convincing and satisfying (Suletta winning the duel, simply won’t work) or, if she dies, it’ll have to happen on a meaningful way that isn’t completely hopeless, like in an heroic sacrifice or something like that. Whatever outcome this arc has, it has the potential of being very interesting if it gets executed well.

More scattered thoughts:

*The moment Suletta tells Nika her “run gain one, move forward gain two” catchphrase I was pretty sure that Suletta had unknowingly doomed Nika since we know that Propera’s magical phrase isn’t necessarily that good. And in a way she did, Nika probably got the courage to confront Norea and Sophie from Suletta, so if she gets killed, there’s another layer of dramatic irony in there.

*I keep wondering if the newtype thing exists in this universe. If it does it would be really convenient to explain certain things like, how was Suletta able to find Nika and rescue her just in time? We know that from a narrative point of view, it’s because that was what served the story best, but it’ll be funny to just explain these things with “newtype powers” and call it a day, XD.

*I thought that I was going to hate Elan 5 but after this episode he seems like a funny little guy. It would be cool if it turns out that he has his own ploy against Elan Prime and House Peil.

*We didn’t see Bob, our good friend Bob on this episode, but the opening seems to indicate that there’ll be a tragic hero arc in store for him. I’m looking ahead for that.

*It’s so amusing to see Prospera being all “don’t worry, dear, you didn’t get out of hand at all 🥰” towards Suletta, then turning around and telling Miorine: “she did get too far, didn’t she? 😬”. Such a manipulative woman! At least Mio is smart enough to know that there’s something wrong going on between Suletta and her mother. On the other hand, she may fall for the Quiet Zero scheme and that doesn’t look good at all.

*Holy fuck! That ending!! I’m really tempted to ramble about it on another post. As for now, I can say that Suletta really looks like a Witch from Mercury here, something I previously thought wouldn’t happen. I was so wrong!

Anyway, that’s all for today. Looking forward for the rest of this cour and for more incoherent screaming about it.

[mediaevalmusereads]

A True Account: Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written By Herself. By Katherine Howe. Henry Holt, 2023.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Genre: historical fiction

Series: N/A

Summary: In Boston, as the Golden Age of Piracy comes to a bloody close, Hannah Masury – bound out to service at a waterfront inn since childhood – is ready to take her life into her own hands. When a man is hanged for piracy in the town square and whispers of a treasure in the Caribbean spread, Hannah is forced to flee for her life, disguising herself as a cabin boy in the pitiless crew of the notorious pirate Edward "Ned" Low. To earn the freedom to choose a path for herself, Hannah must hunt down the treasure and change the tides.

Meanwhile, professor Marian Beresford pieces Hannah’s story together in 1930, seeing her own lack of freedom reflected back at her as she watches Hannah's transformation. At the center of Hannah Masury’s account, however, lies a centuries-old mystery that Marian is determined to solve, just as Hannah may have been determined to take it to her grave.

Content Warnings: violence, reference to disordered eating, blood, gore

Overview: This book was on a "most anticipated" list for 2023 historical fiction. I love a good pirate story, so I figured I'd go ahead and grab a copy. There were some things that I found fun about this book, but I ultimately felt I couldn't give it a higher rating because A.) the 1930s storyline didn't feel purposeful, and B.) there wasn't much about Hannah's story that made it feel fresh. Still, if you're looking for a swashbuckling treasure hunt, you may like this book; personally, I just wanted something a little meatier.

Writing: Howe's prose is fairly literary and full of evocative description. I wouldn't call it lyrical or purple, but it does have some lovely atmospheric passages and apt metaphors. The prose also flows fairly well and appropriately balances showing and telling. Occasionally, I felt like there was some overuse of questions to further the suspense, but that's probably personal preference - I'm not a fan of the technique.

My main complaint, however, is that I didn't feel like Howe incorporated her themes well, and a lot of her potential commentary or messaging got lost. If this book was supposed to be about (queer) women living life on their own terms, it really didn't feel like Howe gave her characters much drive to do that. Hannah was bound by secrecy in order to protect herself, and Marian felt like she was constantly seeking approval from her father. If the book was supposed to be about something else, well... I think Howe could have worked in her themes a little better, and doing so would have created a stronger link between Hannah and Marian.

Plot: The plot of this book follows two timelines: 1.) In the 18th century, tavern maid Hannah Masury disguises herself as a boy and sets sail with notorious pirate Ned Lowe after getting caught up in a murder; 2.) In the 1930s, Professor Marian Beresford combs through Hannah's account for clues as to the location of a pirate treasure in the Caribbean.

Hannah's adventure was fun, hitting all the beats one would expect from a pirate story. There wasn't much about it that set it apart from other pirate tales I've read, but even so, I had a good time reading it. I do wish that the treasure hunt had been a little more symbolic or was a means to a different end; looking for treasure in itself because it is treasure is a little dull unless you're playing around with themes such as greed and ambition, but Hannah's story didn't feel like it was doing that.

Characters: Hannah, our 18th century protagonist, is fun to follow and fairly easy to root for, but I think I would have liked her better if she had shown more agency. I was very sympathetic to her plight and hoped she would do well aboard the pirate ship, but I was also a little frustrated because Hannah didn't seem to have any particular desires or skills. As a result, I didn't feel like she was making her own way in the world, just reacting to it. She didn't seem to have a strong desire for freedom, and her attitude towards sea life was rather neutral. I couldn't tell if she wanted to help find the treasure because she had a strong desire to live independently or if she went along with the hunt because she was pulled along on the adventure.

Marian's narrative was altogether different. While I had a lot of fun with Hannah, Marian's story felt slow and without purpose. I couldn't determine why it mattered so much that Hannah's account was real or made up (as a lit PhD, I see value in studying fiction from the past), and I had a hard time believing that a checked out professor would agree to take an undergraduate on a treasure hunt. I also didn't hold much affection for Marian herself, so that might have influenced my attitude as well.

Above all, I found the ending something of an anti-climax. When we learn about Marian's student and her motivations, I couldn't help but feel it was a little contrived. It also reflected badly on Marian and made me think even less of her as a supposed academic and historian.

Marian, our 1930s protagonist, is a little hard to like because she seems disconnected and sometimes callous. While I could get invested in an arc where she starts out disconnected and becomes more engaged, Marian didn't really seem to "come alive" with academic enthusiasm once she read Hannah's account. Oh, she wanted to find the treasure, but I didn't believe that she cared one way or the other about it as it related to her work. Marian also didn't use the treasure hunt as an opportunity to escape from the oppressive aspects of academia, and even if academia was supposed to be oppressive, we aren't shown how (other than maybe it being boring). Thus, Marian's reasoning for wanting to pursue the treasure was unclear; at times, she seemed to have a mild curiosity, and at others, she seemed to want to boost her reputation. She does say that she wants to prove herself to her father, but I wasn't sure what she was trying to prove since she didn't seem to care about her historical work or her teaching. Not even her queer subplot feels high stakes because she doesn't really seem to care about her job (and thus, losing it by being outed wouldn't be the worst thing in the world), nor did I get the sense that her queerness was what caused the rift with her father. Marian also feels somewhat hypocritical in that she criticizes her student, Kay, for divulging information about their treasure hunt to the press, but Marian herself blabs about all kinds of details when confronted with 2 reporters.

Supporting characters were perfectly fine, though my opinion of them varies. I very much liked Seneca, the quartermaster, whose backstory hints at being an escaped slave and who takes Hannah under his wing. Seneca's motivations are mysterious, but it's evident that he's a good man, even if he's a pirate. I disnt quite buy his relationship with Hannah towards the end of the story, but its such a small part that I dont think i can complain too much.

Ned Low, on the other hand, didn't strike a very imposing figure. He was capricious and violent, but rather than make him stand out, such changeability only made it hard to get a handle on him. As a result, I felt like he was something of a non-entity, just a vehicle for senseless violence. The same was true of Will Fly; while his hanging supposedly has a bug impact on Hannah, it didn't have much of an impact on me, the reader, so I wasn't convinced that he was important.

TL;DR: A True Account is a rather middling pirate story with a fun yet surface-level adventure at the heart. Despite one POV character being unlikable and the 1930s plot being rather empty, the swashbuckling story was enjoyable enough, and it may appeal to lovers of pirate tales.

The 1930s supporting characters were also somewhat varied. Kay, Marian's student, was initially likeable for her enthusiasm and her desire for adventure. Over time, however, she became ridiculous. She grated on me when she blabbed to the press, and her motivations for seeking adventure felt a little far-fetched (surely there are better ways and why would the Press care so much about a random student anyway?).

Marian's father also didn't feel like much of a person. He's a famous explorer, but there wasn't much about his characterization that made me sympathize with Marian's desire to earn his approval. I wasn't dazzled by his exploits or by his knowledge of pirate history, and there weren't any anecdotes that hinted at an emotional rift between father and daughter. He just kind of seemed to be there, and he was only important because he was funding the expedition.

[semper-legens]

106. The Foundling, by Stacey Halls

Owned: No, library Page count: 370 My summary: Bess Bright left her illegitimate daughter at a foundling hospital, which promises to take in and raise unwanted babies. She leaves a token of half a whalebone heart with the baby, swearing she will one day return. Six years later, she’s finally saved up enough money to take her child back...only to find that she already had, one day after she dropped her off. But who was the woman that gave her name and took her child? And will Bess ever be reunited with her baby? My rating: 3/5 My commentary:

Stacey Halls is the kind of author whose books should be exactly my kind of thing. This one as much as the last one I read, The Familiars - it’s set in Georgian London! I love this time period! And it’s about women’s lives! But in reality, like The Familiars, I just wasn’t that connected to it. I wound up having a better time with the book than I did The Familiars, possibly because this novel is not based on a true story and as such there were far fewer inaccurate or (to my mind) misinterpreted events. But still. It was not all that it should be, and that’s so frustrating.

The story is told between two POV characters. One is Bess, the child’s natural mother who is trying to find her and bring her home. The other is Alexandra, the child’s adoptive mother who wants to keep her as close and safe as possible. I will admit, both of them were interesting enough in their way. Bess was a very earnest, very wholesome protagonist, and Alexandra’s mental health issues and trauma seen through the lens of the Georgian attitude to health is engaging enough. Alexandra is ambiguously autistic, and traumatised by her parents having been killed in front of her when she was a child. So she keeps Charlotte (the child) close, and doesn’t let her go outside most of the time. Healthy? Hell no, but that’s the best way she can keep control of her situation. I’ll give Halls this, she managed to write this character without imposing too much of a 21st century attitude over her. People obviously think she’s ‘mad’, but she’s wealthy enough and independent enough that she manages to get away with it. Bess, meanwhile, is just ignored by society at large. She’s an unmarried working woman, they’re a dime a dozen. I also have to give Halls kudos for showing some of the diversity of Georgian London - Bess’ best friend is a free black woman, and she and her family are a natural part of London’s scene. She lives in an area highly populated by Jewish people, black people, immigrants of all stripes. It’s not something you always see in historical fiction, so it’s nice to see here!

My biggest problem with the narrative here is that everything seems to happen when the plot needs it to happen. We get all this setup with Bess being mystified as to who took her child out of the foundling hospital, and then a few scenes later she’s bumping into her at a chapel, entirely coincidentally. Alexandra is supposedly this paranoid agoraphobic wreck, but she lets Bess into her house anyway on a vague justification, and later doesn’t fire her despite wanting to deeply. As soon as Alexandra is introduced as Charlotte’s father’s widow, most of the mystery is gone. Obviously, she was the one who took Charlotte back. How she knew Bess’ name and what token was left for her isn’t so much of a mystery, and is neatly explained in a kind of handwavey way at the end. The story then becomes a push and pull between Bess’ poverty but deep affection for Charlotte, versus Alexandra’s wealth and luxury but more hands-off and protective approach to motherhood. Which isn’t quite as interesting, mostly because Charlotte herself isn’t much of a character. She just kind of reacts to things, and her opinion doesn’t really matter much to the story, which I thought was kind of a letdown. Both Bess and Alexandra had the potential to be much more interesting than this narrative made them, with Bess’ poverty and working-class lifestyle and Alexandra’s trauma at a time when that wasn’t a recognised condition. All of that is just...background to the fight over Charlotte, never really developed so much. I get it, I get what Halls was going for. But I’m not sure she managed to pull it off, sad to say.

Next up, a young girl finds herself far, far away from home.

[rajanilefreak]

phone usage and bad parenting rant

So I guess my mom wants to start a war of pettiness with me again over my phone and how much time I spend on it.

And in most cases with other people I am likelier to give the parent in the situation all the validity. I do spend a LOT of time in my phone reading fanfiction or watching youtube videos. BUT my mom is a whole different beast in this category.

So here we have this grown ass woman that managed to give me an allergy to any sort of news channel or program of any sort because that was the only fucking thing she put on during meals since I was a literal child and because she didn't bother to cultivate an interest on the news in me. I literally spent meal time bored out of my mind because it's not like she's going to bother explaining the most complicated topics or even just regular conversation because she is too focused on what's going on in the news to interact with her own child. Adding to that the fact that my family was always very delayed when it came to getting new technology make for a me that is very fascinated with android because they are like a phone and a computer put together.

This, of course, results in a young adult that has the tendency of zoning out during meals, which seem to be the only time mother dearest has for actual family bonding aside from some weekends (only some because me be busy too), latching onto my phone for my reading which, of course, she doesn't like.

But thing is... she had a lot of opportunities to foster some interaction with me. it's not like it's the first time she complained about my phone habits and I stated right back to her that it didn't matter because she wouldn't be talking to be anyway and then spent a few days not touching the phone during meals just to prove a point (which she either failed to notice, or only bothered correcting course for like one or two meals before going back to ignoring me and only occasionally releasing some commentary that didn't even really need my reply at all). And not just during meals either. I've went as far a sitting right there next to her on the couch for the perfect opening for her to talk to me. heck, I've even went as far as actually starting the conversations to see if she finally woke up and smelled the roses. But always, ALWAYS, she just kept on watching the tv show or movie she was watching or doing her sudoku puzzles or what else she might have on hand and all conversation I started would just fizzle out with only me making an effort.

Adding to that, the few times she does want to talk it always has to be about things she cares about. She definitely doesn't care to make an effort in understanding my interests (she's definitely one of those people that sees their teens watching anime and asks if they aren't getting too old to watch cartoons but then refuses to take the time and see what they like about them, let alone any other interest they might get).

She is also stupidly competitive when it comes to the kitchen. There was a time I was considering investing in getting myself a café. So, of course, i wanted to practice a bit my baking. And I'm fairly good as a baker, not extraordinary, but fairly good for as little experience I have. the problem with testing my potential future products is that we'd have to eat them because we don't have a lot of friends (for multiple reasons), let alone anyone close enough to deliver the goodies to while still fresh, so we'd have to eat most of them ourselves, especially since money was tight.

And despite knowing that I needed to practice baking if I wanted to open a caffé (which was originally an idea she pitched at me herself), she decided it was the perfect time for her to start baking sweets too. So, not only did I have less time in the kitchen because she was there, I also had to be more mindful of what was purchased because, as I said, money was tight.

Not only that, but also my mom absolutely loves to fat shame her daugthers. And I mean, she was already fat shaming us before we actually became overweight over stuff we ate. And with her also baking stuff that we would have to eat (which she always pushed the lion share to me because she's "old and has to be mindful of her health and doesn't want to get fat"), of course I ended up gaining weight. So I had to stop baking or I would become the size of a house on top of dealing with her bullshit.

And it's not like we could both work together on baking the same thing because she only cared about baking what she wanted and even if I magically convinced to bake the things I wanted to practice she is very much the type to be as unhelpfull as possible. very 'it's her way or not at all' type of person. just imagine those backseat drivers and you get the point. And it's not just in baking. It's in everything.

So, not even in the things we do have in common can we actually communicate in a healthy manner.

With all of this said would you rather be on your phone doing something you like and that relaxes you or would you rather either being ignored the whole time (literally replacing you with a wall would have the same effect for the few dialog options she has), shamed for being overweight but then having the excess food shoved your way anyway because this lady's health is more important than yours and she absolutely insists we can't waste food, or have her rant at you over some perceived failing you had?

Honestly, i much prefer the fanfics or watching a youtuber rant. As least the first is relaxing and the second far more entertaining.

So yeah, i agree that my phone usage is excessive at time and I got some very habits out of it, but when the only other option is... THAT! Well. I think I'm actually healthier that I would have been otherwise.

[missnight0wl]

https://at.tumblr.com/missnight0wl/just-for-fun-how-about-a-character-tier-of-r-and/j1pij9liimue Alright! How about this but with Circle of Khanna members?? Ben Copper Merula Snyde

Andre Egwu Badeea Ali Barnaby Lee Charlie Weasley Diego Caplan Ismelda Murk Jae Kim Liz Tuttle Nymphadora Tonks † Penny Haywood Talbott Winger Tulip K

Beatrice Haywood Bill Weasley Cedric Diggory Chiara Lobosca Fred Weasley George Weasley Corey Hayden Victor Ketsueki

So, this one was definitely more difficult. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like the differences between them are not that big. Also, you didn’t specify it, but once again, I made two lists. And I changed the tiers a little bit because… Well, let’s be real: nobody is at the “Rakepick” level, for example.

By the way, working on this made me realise that we have 22 members of the Circle of Khanna. TWENTY-TWO. That’s way too many members.

But anyway…

“How powerful the Circle of Khanna is?”

“Does R "care" about them?”

The commentary under the cut.

How powerful the Circle of Khanna is?

I'll start with the last tier. I disqualified all of the younger members not only because I don't like them being in the Circle of Khanna, but also because it felt a bit unfair to compare them with the rest. Now, back to the top...

Bill. I guess that's pretty obvious. Rakepick did indeed mentor him, he accompanied us to the Cursed Vaults. We also know he's powerful from the books.

Ben. Ben was called by Flitwick one of his best students in Y1 already. Overall, I believe that Ben is really powerful. And on top of that, I actually have a theory that Rakepick did mentor him secretly because I can totally see her being impressed by his potential.

Tonks. The fact that Rakepick didn't mentor Tonks personally is one of the biggest wasted potentials of this damn game.

Talbott. I was actually considering putting him one tier above, but I wish we could see more of how Talbott handles combat. Other than that, he's definitely quite powerful. He became an Animagus when he was very young, Flitwick called him one of his best students as well.

Diego. Well, Diego is called one of the best duellists of Hogwarts, isn't he? I think he deserves this tier. I just wish we could see how he is in some different areas.

Merula. ALRIGHT. I know that Rakepick actually did mentor her! Then why she's not one tier above, you ask? Because I still believe that Rakepick wouldn't mentor her if it wasn't for R. I insist that the main (if not only) reason why Rakepick showed any interest in Merula is so Merula wouldn't run into R's arms right away.

Barnaby. JC turned him into a one-dimensional idiot, but he was introduced as one of the strongest students of MC's year. I like to think that he'd be a tough opponent.

Ismelda. I don't know, I always saw Ismelda as quite powerful. Like, that spell she used on Barnaby in Y3? I even suspected once that that's why Merula agreed to accept her in her group.

Charlie. I admit I judge mostly based on what we know from the books. I mean, if he becomes a Drogonologist right after school, he has to be good in general.

Chiara. She's apparently a pretty powerful Healer, but I also remember how she was defending students during the Ever-Bashing Boomerangs incident in Y5. She'd be good in the field too, I suppose.

Jae. I mean, he was openly complimented by Rakepick herself in Y5. I believe he has pretty great potential but probably needs practice.

Badeea. Well, she does invent her own spells. Even if they're simple so far, that's impressive.

Penny. I didn't really know what to do with her, to be honest. Like, she's super good with Potions, but... does it make you powerful in general? I don't think she's really inventing or improving potions (except that one time at the beginning of Y5 when Beatrice went missing). And we don't talk much about her combat skills... But in the end, I suppose she can be called "decently powerful".

Tulip. I had a bit of a problem with her as well. I mean, the thing is that we just don't really have a lot of information. However, Tulip is wicked smart, so... there she is.

The whole "Eh?" tier is basically: "Hard to say". Liz was admittedly complimented by Diego and MC for her duelling skills in her SQ, but that's kind of it. I imagine that Victor might've got some power-up after becoming a vampire, but... do we know that? Andre is amazing on a broom, but does it make you powerful? And Corey... Corey is probably the weakest, but it's still more of an impression than observation.

Does R "care" about them?

Merula. Pretty obvious, right?

Ben. I don’t think we’ll ever learn what exactly R was doing with Ben in the previous years, but I imagine he was useful to them somehow - even if he doesn’t remember it (and JC doesn’t remember it either).

Also, I just had an amazing idea: what if all the way back in Y2 when Ben went missing, R actually conditioned him to be obedient to them? The twist is that it has to be activated. So, imagine that Peregrine says a single word, and Ben suddenly turns into a killing machine or something?

Corey. To be fair, I think that Merula kidnapping Corey from all people was mostly a coincidence, but hey. They ended up being pretty useful. I don’t suspect R is using Corey beyond that, but I guess Corey deserves this place on the list nonetheless.

Beatrice. So, I’m still not entirely convinced that Beatrice got trapped by pure coincidence. Beatrice made the Portrait Curse way more personal for MC. On top of that, choosing our friend’s sibling created a potential for inner conflict in MC’s group (and that could be beneficial for R).

I put Penny and Barnaby in a separate tier because I still believe that they could’ve been great moles for R. Penny was really desperate when Beatrice was trapped, and if I recall correctly, she even said at one point that she’d work with anyone to help her sister. I can totally see R using it easily. Barnaby is a character who’s insanely loyal to MC. He literally jumped in front of us to save our life. Again, R could easily use it to blackmail him.

The “They might be useful” tier is basically for the remaining dating options. Personally, I doubt that JC will use it in the main story, but I decided to include it either way. I added Tonks as she’d probably be the best replacement for the players who are not exclusive with any character.

Finally, we have everyone else. To be clear, I’m not saying that R wouldn’t use them to hurt/manipulate MC. I just assume they’re not particularly special to R. Although I guess maybe the Weasley family might be a bit more special, since MC is pretty close to them? Also, I want to point out that I believe both that Tulip and Victor were supposed to have bigger roles in the story, and so maybe they’d be placed higher, but I’m judging based on the current state of the game.

[iris-sistibly]

The Targ Talk: House of the Dragon S2

Episode 7 commentary

Contains major spoilers from the book but y'all probably already know this.

I absolutely love the scene where Seasmoke and Syrax was like conversing. Seasmoke be like, "Look what I found..a new dragon rider!" Then Syrax would be like, "Good for you, he's cute." Also the detail where Seasmoke was like bowing to Rhaenyra while showing her his new rider is really good.

There's something about the scene of Alicent in Kingswood that's hauntingly beautiful. I like that they made the audience think as to whether or not Alicent was there to end herself, or was she just there to clear her thoughts or think of what she's going to do next. The reason why Alicent was written to be some sort of a puppet to her dad was because it will explain why her mental health deteriorated towards the end. Still not much of a fan of how they've written Alicent in the show and I don't know if I'm ever gonna see that side of her that came from the book.

I like Oscar Tully. He knew his vassals would not take him seriously because he is a boy. "Insulting" Daemon, punishing Willem Blackwood and making Daemon "ride along" by killing the latter in exchange of House Tully's loyalty [and army] had benefited the both of them. Daemon gets his army, and Oscar earns the respect of the Riverlords as the new lord paramount.

I REALLY HOPE THAT THIS WOULD BE THE LAST EPISODE OF THE HAUNTING OF HARRENHAL. I know the final episode got leaked on the internet, and I actually saw a scene about Helaena confronting Aemond. Ngl, I love that scene but bitch it ruined the excitement for me. So whoever leaked the episode, fuck you.

Rhaena never had any other dragon aside from Morning, but if she for real is going to claim Sheepstealer then...there wouldn't be Nettles anymore?

I know a lot of people are kinda upset with Jace right now, but I get his point. Yes, it was his idea to find dragonriders for the other dragons but he never really thought that a lowborn with a Targaryen blood (and a bastard of Corlys that no one knows about as of the moment) would be chosen by a dragon, and it's not really Addam's fault. The thing is, if bastards could be dragonriders then they certainly would think that they could claim the throne as well. If Rhaenyra passes, then another war might start (actually, it was pure chaos after Aegon II's death but we'll get to that later on). It's also bad enough that he and his brothers have been the talk of the town since they were born. Despite having the potential of being a good king, he would always be questioned, opposed, and like Jace said he will always have to fight for his position. It would have been easier had he been born looking like his mother, but his dad's genes are Strong unfortunately, and having a dragon is the only thing that proves of his Targaryen heritage--the reason why people respect him. So having bastards for dragonriders is not only a huge slap on his face, but it could also lead to another dance of the dragons.

If Rhaenyra wants to secure Jace's claim to the throne, the only way is to legitimize him. I don't know if it's already a thing in this timeline, but it's the only way to protect him. It's already an unspoken truth anyway. Problem is that, she's just gonna end up like Aegon II whom no one takes seriously. Even if she does her best to be a good mother and queen, people will not look past the fact that she had kids with another man that wasn't her (first) husband. And Daemon being Daemon? Oh, we are sure as hell that he would want his own son to rule in the future hence, another potential war.

Actually, we shouldn't be thinking too much about Jace's ascension to the throne because it will never happen. And Daemon didn't have to fight for his son's claim since he was already gone by the time Aegon III succeeded his uncle (and married Jaehaera).

But let's just pretend that we don't know that for the sake of discussion...unless you haven't read Fire & Blood.

Going back, if Rhaenyra wants peace and stability in her court and amongst her people, then she'd have to name Aegon the Younger her heir since her two youngest sons have always had stronger claim to the throne since birth, but this will destroy Rhaenyra and Jace's relationship.

Aside from his recovery, I wonder if Aegon is also conspiring with Larys already to eliminate Aemond? Or is he letting Larys do everything? But if you think about it, without Aemond and Vhagar the greens will be at a huge disadvantage. Tessarion and Dreamfyre wouldn't suffice unless Aegon pretends to bend the knee and devices a scheme to kill Rhaenyra and her family later on, but that would take so much time, and Aegon doesn't have the patience for that...So Ulf and Hugh betraying Rhaenyra it is then to get Vermithor and Silverwing to their side.

Dragonkeepers doing a mass resignation after Rhaenyra recruited dragonseeds because basically, dragons are sacred blah, blah, blah. These people were born/direct descendants of the Targaryens, therefore magic is in their blood. We all know now that dragons and riders form a bond by either:

Hatching the dragon

The rider successfully claiming the dragon

The dragon chooses its rider

The others who were deemed unworthy ended up being Vermithor's snack. The process of choosing a rider for Vermithor was indeed horrible, but it's only a matter of time before Aemond defeats Rhaenyra so she has to act quickly. But in doing so, she has to make sacrifices. On the other hand it's common knowledge that dragons shouldn't be fucked with, but the reason why the dragonseeds answered the call was because they thought that by claiming a dragon, their lives will change for the better. They were abandoned as children, lived a horrible life, and with the current situation, anyone would jump at any opportunity no matter how risky just to get out of that situation.

Though I wonder what show Rhaenyra would do to make sure none of the dragonriders would betray her, surely there will come a time when they would ask for a reward for their contribution to the war, and it's going to be more than just money.

Emma D'Arcy speaking in High Valyrian is just 🤌🤌🤌🤌 the scene where Rhaenyra was calming Vermithor, and as if they were having some sort of conversation through the mind, and when she opened her eyes, there was power--gods I kept on replaying it. Even the dragon knows who the real queen is. Such a badass scene!

The final cut where Aemond found out that Rhaenyra have 3 more dragonriders now was actually quite funny. The latter looking at her little brother as if saying, "Come at me now motherfucker," is such a big sister thing. But I felt like the dragons were only calling out to meemaw Vhagar as if they were just having some sort of mini reunion 🥺🥺.

[spicyicymeloncat]

You replied to my post saying Nya never choice to become the water ninja I 100 percent agree that was traumatic plus that makes Wu I really bad person so wanna talk about it together

Yeah Nya was kinda forced into it. I don’t really blame Wu (sorry if you were hoping to trash him, you’re valid I just don’t hate wu that much tbh) because it’s not like he held Nya at gun point or anything (also Misako had as much part in it) and I’m sure Nya would have found out eventually but yeah it isn’t ideal. A lot of Nya’s plot is really interesting on how it explores her struggle to be independent and have control in her life. A lot of people say that she’s badly written because misogyny but in my humble opinion, I think that there’s a lot of unexpectedly decent feminist (intentional or not) commentary in her story.

Now I’m gonna use this as an excuse to ramble about Nya lol. I feel like I very much stray from your original point but ehh sorry abt that lol

Tl:dr - Nya has a lot of identity and self worth storylines as well a deterministic mindset and it’s cool to observe these themes that are present in literally all of the show

She’s a young girl who gets adopted into a highly male dominated family (she’s the only girl) and quickly adopts the mindset that she has to be better because of the need to prove herself in the face of sexism. By this I mean, she’s always getting singled out because she’s not a ninja (see: Wu asking her to stay home and watch Lloyd whilst the ninja do missions). I don’t think this literally means she didn’t feel part of the group because they were boys, it was because they were ninja but that could be a metaphor.

This leads her to make samurai X and we see that she is an incredibly talented and accomplished person. I used to wonder why she kept samurai X a secret, but I think it’s because by being samurai X, she could control her own actions and other people’s expectations of her. She could be a hero without people worrying about her safety, or her capability. Also this kinda makes sense as to why she was so competitive with the ninja

We also get reference to her need to be independent when it comes to Jay, who in s1 Snake Bit we establish that he overcompensates way too much, putting her on a pedestal and whilst it’s not like he expects much from her, he does have a perceived image of her that isn’t accurate or appreciated by her. She just wants him to be himself, so she can be herself as well. In season 3 we start off establishing how their relationship is flawed which then sets up their (admittedly awful) love triangle arc. Jay is still pretty clingy and Nya still needs her space. There’s no cool socio-political interpretation that makes Nya’s crush on Cole make sense. I mean maybe we can make it a metaphor for how ai and advance technology is kinda soulless and love compatibility is an overly romanticised endeavour and actual relationships don’t work like that. And Nya’s indecisiveness fits into the idea that she’s again forced to make decisions based on other people’s expectations?? And she still has very little control as she becomes a trophy wife essentially, like the prize to Jay and Cole’s contest. Kinda? Anyways…

And then we have s5 where the episode when she wore the green gi could be a nod to the fact that she was very much in the same shoes as the green ninja, an under-prepared hero with the power to save the world. Whilst yeah it isn’t great she was kinda rushed into the responsibility of the world, there’s also another moral to her arc, which is the subject of her true potential, her own impossible standards on herself and how she gives up easily.

Diverging into headcanon area but I like to think that both of Kai and Nya’s true potential are linked to the loss of their parents. Kai valued being the green ninja over everything else because he equates being a ninja to being able to protect his family ever since Nya was kidnapped and he had to become a ninja to save her. And so that translated to being obsessed with being a saviour and the best because if he wasn’t then he had to give up and the last thing he had to give up on was the idea that his parents were coming home. (Dunno if that made sense since I rushed that point but this isn’t abt Kai lol). Nya on the other hand gives up incredibly easily (or at least as soon as it gets hard). She felt she couldn’t be a hero alongside the ninja so she never even told them about samurai X. Instead of fully cutting off from Jay, she remains inactive in their relationship, slowing growing distant from him. Going back to my point abt s1, she seems to hold herself to a certain standard, which I feel like is a valid observation of gender in our society today. Don’t mind me getting a little political but women are held to very strict standards. There were many things women can’t do and no one ever agrees on what, women can’t be too boisterous, or rowdy, and they also can’t be too uptight or safe because then they’re boring. I think even feminist ideology contributes to this to an extent, in our own version of toxic masculinity, the idea that a woman has to be a strong independent woman because otherwise she’s giving in to the patriarchy. Specifically I mean when girls say “I’m not like other girls” and swear off make up, and feel like they have to be un-girly. It’s not that being girly or un-girly is an issue, it’s that people feel like they have to be a certain way because the other way is wrong. And Nya holds unnecessary standards to herself, and it’s only when she allows herself to be messy, unregulated, when she’s not competing to be better than the ninja or better than herself, she’s able to achieve her true potential. And whilst Wu is kinda annoying, I can believe that he’s just trying to prepare her for what’s to come, that sometimes there are no right choices (heyy I’m quoting Seabound).

AND THEN we get season 6. A beautiful Nya season. Yeah I said it, I think s6 is not only a good season, but a good season specifically for Nya. Because that first ep where she was getting judged by the media because she’s the girl ninja, is incredibly real in comparison to real life. Ninjago is a world which happens to have to same gendered standards and sexism that our world does and I don’t think it’s portrayed awfully. So Nya faces heavy critique from the public because flat out sexism, and Jay has the knowledge that she and him are literally fated to date(d). Nya explains to him at the lighthouse that she’s not dating him because it feels like she doesn’t have control of her life, she was always just an add on to someone else’s story like Kai or Jay and she’s even been forced to be the water ninja with powers she didn’t earn, only inherited. But at the end of the lighthouse ep she sacrifices herself again for the world. And importantly she puts her faith into someone else. She’s spent a lot of her screen time trying to battle it out to be independent and separate and self sufficient and self orientated, that she didn’t let anyone in. Yeah she is strong and independent but that doesn’t mean she’s not allowed to rely on ANYONE. It’s important to let others carry the burden sometimes.

Her last words in the finale of Skybound is really telling. She tells Jay that he should use his final wish at the cost of losing her, that she “never wanted to be part of the boy’s club anyways”. She’s accepted she needs to sacrifice herself, and that she still thinks she’s not really a part of the “boy’s club”. She then states that the “greatest love stories always end in tragedy” which shows how pre existing expectations (yeah I feel like I’ve said that too much) have shaped her deterministic mindset, that she isn’t fated to get her happy ending. And I choose to interpret the final wish as Jay being like “no you do get a happy ending I’m going to bend the laws of time and space because you deserve a break”. Also the title “Skybound” is also symbolic because it doesn’t just reference Jay and his powers, or Nadakhan’s floating djinnjago, but how Jay and Nya were technically bound because of Jay’s future thing and also how Nya was bound and restricted herself. Seabound also has similar symbolism but I’ll get to that.

Okay okay s7 is great because we get Nya and Kai’s parents. Tbh s7’s writing is a little weak imo, just cuz the hands of time were really under developed like they only wanted to take over Ninjago so that Krux could prevent the invention of the Borg watch??? But I think it’s nice to note that Kai and Nya’s respective attachment to their powers as seen in s11, might be because it’s one of their only connections to their parents. Their powers are not only symbolic of their connection to Ray and Maya but are also the reason they were able to save them at the end by making the dragon. I’ll go into more detail about Maya and Nya when I talk about Seabound.

Nya is also forced to kinda put her own misgivings and be a brave face for Lloyd in s9. Her brother, her boyfriend and two of her bestest friends were thought dead and she had to be strong for Lloyd. And it’s pretty amazing and she deserves the world! She’s someone who’s gone through so much loss in her life time but she just makes do and moves on. When she had no parents she and Kai looked after themselves on their own, when she couldn’t be a ninja she made herself a mech, when the ninja split up and then went missing on Chen’s island she was rebuilding the bounty and then infiltrated said island. She’s very cool is all I’m saying.

Also a moment of appreciation for how Nya and Jay’s relationship is incredibly different in s10 onwards in comparison to s1-3. Now their dynamic is that Jay doesn’t try as hard to be impressive for her, and she’s allowed to be a big strong gf who somehow keeps catching him from falling or getting injured. We get to see Nya reciprocating and CHOOSING to be Jay’s partner rather than it being Jay who initiates all the time. It’s much healthier and it’s a reflection of how they have both individually and jointly grown as people.

Something I’d say about Nya’s writing is that maybe her arcs are a little too consistent. She is constantly CONSTANTLY having to prove herself. In s11 she has to learn to control the ice in the never realm, in s13 she has to defeat the queen of the munce and assert her dominance as leader of the munce, and in Seabound she has to defend her right as the water elemental. #giveNyaABreak2022 for real. Like we know she’s badass but my god enemies are always underestimating her. Bringing back the feminist commentary but this is again, in line with the narrative that people always underestimate women or even women underestimate themselves. That’s all I got to say on this point.

Seabound is such a good season (I’m halfway through rewatching it - I stopped because I got sad at the merlopian king’s death). We get to see Nya’s independence conflict resurface as she struggles with an overbearing mother who has a specific way of doing things. It’s worth noting that Maya acts like the very traditional stereotype of what a woman should be. She’s calm, collected, motherly, wants to do housework and baby other people, a stickler for rules and manners etc. Note: there is nothing wrong with just happening to fulfil a stereotype, stereotypes are only bad when people expect that groups of people have to fulfil the stereotype purely because they belong to a certain group. Maya is allowed to like cleaning or whatever, it’s only sexist writing if we said that only women like cleaning or she only does it because woman (and she’s like the only woman who acts particularly this way, the other female characters aren’t part of the same mold so imo this is fine). However the fact that Maya does fulfil the homely wife/mother archetype adds to Nya’s own feminist narrative. Nya has basically spent her life trying to defy the expectation that she needs to calm or nice as well put together as her mother and in the season we quickly see that Nya is also trying to defy being like her mother. Nya is her own person who’s gone through different struggles than her mother and Nya doesn’t need to be like her. But it turns out that they share a crucial similarity in that they’ve both faced some really hard decisions. Maya had to abandon her family to save them and at the end of Seabound, so does Nya. In Seabound, the very powers that stripped Nya of her role as samurai are now forcing her to give up her form and her life to save the world. The whole “that’s just how the cookie crumbles” mindset is pretty consistent with Nya is s6. And the title Seabound is very appropriate because of how she’s literally bound to her powers and had to give up her life for them. And..

Spoilers for Crystalized

…we get to see the other ninja defy the impossible to get her back. In crystalized, Nya realised she wants to be herself (again that on going theme of her identity) and wants to be with her family, so much that she’d give her powers and status as the water ninja (which used to be her greatest fear). Her powers as the water ninja represented her need to be better, it represents her journey to become a powerful warrior, but maybe she’ll learn that she was always powerful and strong even without her powers and that she’s allowed to choose herself especially since she has a family of ninja who will break the law for her. I think I’m rambling now but I think you get the point.

Tbh I’m gonna miss her as a ninja and I’ll be happy if she ends up reclaiming her water powers at some point, but rn, a return to samurai x does feel like a logical next step. (I mean maybe I’m just too liberal, I’ll be happy whatever happens to her because at least she’s still kicking right?) Anyways I love Nya and more people should appreciate her! Also more people should appreciate that her story definitely tackles some very real experiences in terms of sexism, I don’t think it did a bad job at that either!

And don’t mind how meandering this post is I wrote it over 3 days lol haha.

[kylorenisadorkable]

How TROS Failed Rey

These are just my opinions and from my personal perspective, if these things worked for you in the movie then cool, but this is why it was never going to work for me.

A Feminine Power Fantasy

Growing up in the 90s there wasn't a ton of media that had female lead characters. I grew up with strong female characters but they were often relegated to being the token girl of the group (see the Smurfette principle), the story was never centered around them and we never got to experience things from their point of view or really get to know their story. It felt like I was being asked to relate to male characters but boys were never asked or expected to relate to female characters.

Just as young boys see themselves as Luke, leading the adventure I also wanted to see myself as the main character. I wanted to have my own adventures.

When I first saw TFA, I went in knowing nothing about the movie. I had seen the OT and the Prequels as a kid and I had thought they were ok but I wasn't a huge Star Wars fan and in hindsight I really think this was due to the lack of female representation, Leia and Padme are great but I never really felt like I really got to know them as people. Not to mention that these characters are 2 women out of a cast that's predominantly male, it just seemed like the message LF was sending was that Star Wars is for boys, yeah girls can watch it if they want to but this isn't a series that is meant for you. So as you could guess I wasn't really expecting much from these new Star Wars movies, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I fell in love with Rey's character during those first 3 minutes of her introduction. During this brilliant example of “show don't tell,” story telling they were really able to convey so much about Rey's character and personality, I really began to care for her and felt like I understood her, as I could relate to her loneliness and isolation in my own way. And I was excited to see a story from a major fantasy/adventure franchise told from a feminine perspective. It felt like I was finally getting the representation I wanted to see.

So what happened? How did we go from Luke's line “And I will not be the Last Jedi” which is essentially him “passing the torch” to Rey, the next generation, to “One day I will earn your brother's saber?” 

As if the saber didn't already choose her in the Force Awakens? Why did they decide that all of a sudden Rey was unworthy? Didn't Yoda say “that library held nothing that the girl Rey didn't already posses?” which yes was a clever way of saying that Rey already took the jedi texts with her but was also implying that she already had everything she needed within herself to be a jedi (courage, humility, compassion etc...). Why did they take a step backwards in the last movie in the franchise? Insisting that Rey needed to train, that she suddenly wasn't good enough?

I can't say for sure what happened to lead up to this point. Was it just that the creative team gave in to the pressuring of a loud minority of alt-right youtubers and bots. Were they relying on Reddit and Twitter for public opinion rather than doing actual marketing research?  While I think that this was definitely a big factor I think there was just a general misunderstanding of the characters on Terrio's and JJ's part to begin with.

What Does Rey Want/Need?

To know where they went wrong, we have to ask ourselves who is Rey? All characters have a story goal, or the thing they want. By the end of the story the character will either get what they want after some struggles of course or learn that the thing that they want isn't what they need. So what does Rey want?  To understand what she wants we have to first understand her wound or past experience that caused emotional pain and interferes with the character's life. Rey's wound stems from her  abandonment. Along with the wound, comes the concept of the false lie. What is a lie that the character believes about themselves that we as the audience knows is untrue? Rey's lie is first, that her family is going to come back for her. 

The other lie she tells herself is the belief that she is worthless because she was abandoned, as she tells everyone she meets “I'm no one“ or “I'm just a scavenger.”

When Daisy Ridley was asked in an interview why Rey says she's “No One.” Ridley says it's because our relationships to people define so much of who we are and without relationships then who are we?  This makes sense considering that our parents are major influences in our development and in how we think about ourselves through much of our lives.

Rey seeks out parental figures, thinking that through them she'll figure out where she belongs. “Whoever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But there's someone who still could. The Belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.” 

Rey initially believes that Maz is referring to Luke and when she later sets off to find him. She believe that he is going to be able to give her answers, and provide her with the belonging that she longs for, but Luke ultimately ends up disappointing her but finds comfort in her relationship with Ben.

This goes back to the idea that what Rey thinks she wants, Isn't necessarily what she needs. As JJ stated in the directors commentary of The Force Awakens, “So there was a very powerful idea that what she desperately wanted was belonging, which she’ll get, but just not how she expects.”

JJ and Terrio try to fullfill Rey's need through “found family” the family she finds with her friends and the resistance, but I think there is more to Rey's desire of wanting family that can't be satisfied by this alone. Finn, Poe, Leia are definitely a part of her journey in finding belonging but they're not the final piece to the puzzle. Otherwise she would have felt completely fulfilled by the end of The Last Jedi when she is on the Falcon surrounded by her friends.

I think part of Rey's desire for family, is also the desire to be understood, to be “seen.”  Rey even tells Finn in TROS that “People keep telling me they know me. No one does.” We hear Ben's response in the trailer “But I do...” (which was cut from the movie)

Ben has always been shown to be the person who truly “sees” Rey. He sees even the aspects of herself that she doesn't like to acknowledge. Recognizing that her holding on to her parents is affecting her negatively and that if she really wants to “find herself” she needs to let go.

Which is why when Ben says “You have no place in this story. You're nothing. But not to me.” What is really being expressed is “I don't care about where you come from and I see you for who you are.”  

This is why I believe that Ben was always suppose to be the final piece to the belonging Rey is searching for. As their narratives are intertwined. They both satisfy each others needs as characters, Rey's need to be seen for who she is and Ben's need for reconciliation and healing within his family.

Rey Palpatine

Rian Johnson said that when he began working on The Last Jedi, he wrote out all the character's names and next to them wrote what would be the hardest thing for that character to face. For Rey, this was that she needs to stand on her own two feet and define who she is for herself but JJ and Terrio seemed to have misunderstood this as Terrio states that,

“We also thought that Rey’s arc cannot be finished after Episode VIII. You can leave Episode VIII and say, “Well, now, Rey is content. She’s discovered her parents aren’t Skywalkers, or whatever, and that’s fine.” But so much of her personal story was about where she came from, what kept her on Jakku all those years and the trauma that shaped her. We see quite strongly in Episode VII that something mysterious and troubling happened to her. Although she did get some answers in Episode VIII, we didn’t feel that that story was over. We felt that there were still more questions in Rey’s head about where she came from and where she was going. So, that was the other big idea that we had to address in this film. Rian’s answer to, “What’s the worst news that Rey could receive?” was that she comes from junk traders, and that’s true. She does come from junk traders; we didn’t contradict that.”

Rey's conflict wasn't that she came from junk traders. Rey didn't care about “legacy.” Her conflict stemmed from her abandonment. Rey thinks she's “a nobody” not because of her parent's occupation or lineage but because she feels that she must be worthless because why else would her parents give her up? Rey learning that her parents sold her off for drinking money, that they didn't want her, was already a difficult and traumatic truth to overcome. Star Wars is a coming of age story, in the OT Luke grows from being a boy longing for adventure to discovering what it truly means to be a Jedi (following your principles and having a compassionate heart). Rey's journey is about letting go of childhood trauma and discovering her own independence.

It's also strange seeing as JJ had previously stated during The Force Awakens press tour that “I really feel that the assumption that any character needs to have inherited a certain number of midi-chlorians or needs to be part of a bloodline. It's not that I don't believe that as part of the canon, I'm just saying that at 11 years old that wasn't where my heart was. And so I respect and adhere to the canon but I also say that the Force has always seemed to me to be more inclusive and stronger than that.”

And there was still conflict for her to overcome. The one person who she felt truly understood her is now the supreme leader of the first order, will the resistance discover their connection? Will they see her as a traitor? All of this had the potential for great external and internal character conflict, but for some reason they didn't see this as conflict enough to sustain a whole movie?

Instead they gave Luke's character arc in the OT of having a dark side relative to Rey. “Discovering that you actually descended from your adoptive family’s greatest enemy, the same enemy who corrupted Anakin Skywalker and is responsible for the destruction of the Skywalker family in the first place, felt most devastating to us.” This doesn't make any sense to me as it feel like they just gave Rey Luke's internal conflict of being afraid of his dark side, I don't think this was ever a problem for Rey. In fact, in The Last Jedi  she leapt into the dark side cave to face her darkness (her abandonment). Luke even says “You went straight to the dark and you didn't even try to stop yourself.” 

The dark side cave in The Last Jedi was symbolic of Rey coming to terms with her darkness (the parts of herself she wants to hide).  It relates back to Jungian psychology (which much of Star Wars is based on) that people can only become whole through understanding both the light and shadow aspects of their personality. So it doesn't make sense for Rey to be afraid of who she is in the final movie when she just finished a journey where she learned to accept who she was?

Rey Skywalker

Terrio says that the decision to have Rey take on the name “Skywalker” was a way to show that “you can choose your ancestry.” Which is not true and also a strange thing to say considering the trilogy started with this:

But even if this was just awkward phrasing and what Terrio meant to say was that she considers the Skywalkers her family. Does this make sense considering that she didn't have a great relationship with Luke to begin with?

 I've seen it argued that she took the name as a way of honoring Leia but Leia never took the name or considered herself a Skywalker. Also this is another step backwards for Rey's character as The Last Jedi was trying to assert that Rey does not need to keep looking for parental figures to define herself.

So why  must she be a Palpatine, a Skywalker and “all the jedi” anyways? I think this was done for two reasons, the first was because by killing Ben they were going to kill the last of the Skywalker family and they wanted to keep the name tied to the franchise, in case they need the characters for future projects down the line, so they just pushed it onto Rey. The second reason is that I think they were trying to appease the misogynists' who spent the last 4 years calling Rey a “Mary Sue” so they explained her power away through powerful male lineage. It just feels so weird to me, like the creators are saying that we should like Rey not because of who she is as a character but because of who she is in relation to all these other characters we know you like (Luke, Leia, all the jedi that use her as a vessel etc...)

Daisy Ridley has even expressed her frustration with the Rey's lineage debate multiple times, “I love that Rey is such a great character, they’re like: ‘No, no, she has to be… she has to be-’She’s her own person! Let her be her guys, let her live.

Yet even at the end of the final film poor Rey can't seem to catch a break as she's once again asked for her last name. She once again has to justify herself for just existing. Why are surnames suddenly so important in Star Wars now anyways? Shouldn't the correct answer be “just Rey,” now that she's come to accept who she is and where she's come from and shouldn't that be good enough? What happened to the message of anyone can be a hero? That you don't have to come from or align yourself with a powerful family legacy. That we all have the power to make a difference?

TROS seems to be constantly asking Rey to prove herself. And weirdly enough it reminds me in a strange meta way of my own experience being a woman in the fandom and being constantly asked to prove that I'm a “True fan” (whatever the f@#% that means...) to prove that I'm worthy of consuming and participating in this content that male fans feel belongs solely to them.

In Conclusion

So what did our heroine gain in the end? Did she find family and belonging? No. So what does she have in the end? A yellow lightsaber (for merchandising purposes) and a surname of a dead family?  I guess she finally has an answer to give all the nosey nellies, obsessed with ones pedigree that have suddenly popped up all over the galaxy.

It's not a satisfying ending for her, as she's basically right back where she started. Alone, in a desolate desert, once again staring face to face at an old woman (an old woman which at the start of the Force Awakens symbolized her fear of growing old and wasting away her life on Jakku).

Terrio states that  this is not meant to indicate that Rey plans to stay here, “The very last thing Rey would do after all that is to go and live alone in a desert.”  but when that is the last shot you chose to end the movie on then what is the audience suppose to think? The bigger issue however, is that Rey's ending holds no significance to her or her journey. Terrio says that “In our thinking, Rey goes back to Tatooine as a pilgrimage in honor of her two Skywalker masters. Leia’s childhood home, Alderaan, no longer exists, but Luke’s childhood home, Tatooine, does. Rey brings the sabers there to honor the Skywalker twins by laying them to rest — together, finally — where it all began.” Tatooine, the Lars homestead and the twin suns, don't mean anything to Rey.  You know who did mean something to Rey? Who was the one person who understood her, who she had an intimate relationship with, who she explicitly states she wanted to be with? Ben. But he's gone too. But clearly a light saber and surname are more important. Again this all comes from a lack of caring for what Rey wants.

I just wish that the Sequel Trilogy had stayed Rey's trilogy, that she got to be a heroine in her own right not because she was a skywalker, or a palpatine or from some other powerful family. I will always love Rey but I will always hate what they did to her and I'm tired of people invalidating my feelings and telling me that it was a good ending or that it was empowering. I just want heroines to be taken as seriously and to have all the same privileges as male heroes. Let them stand on their own without connecting them back to every male hero in the franchise, let them be their own character, and finally just let them be human, let them fall in love and have relationships if they want to. Male heroes are never considered to be less of a hero for having a love interest, so why are female heroes? Basically what I got out of the Rise of Skywalker, was that it was created by a couple of guys that loved Luke and the OT and could care less about Rey and that's truly heart breaking.

[undercityrezident]

So I went into today’s episode with conflicting expectations of who would come out on top in the match: Iris or Cynthia.

On one hand, Cynthia is hands-down one of the most prolific pokemon trainer icons in not just the anime, but the franchise at large. She and her Garchomp are legendary both in and out of universe. On top of this, its implied she’s held this position for a good while now, so she’s presumably a veteran of competitions such as this one and many others. Had these been the only considerations, I would’ve put money on Cynthia to win this match.

But then we had her opponent, Iris, who has the idealized trope of the new and rising star at her back, not to mention a new champion title. She’s proven herself quite capable in her recent return appearance in the anime, and on top of that, from a meta-story perspective, she has an affiliation with the main character, Ash, thus granting her some extra potential as the underdog.

All of this added together left me genuinely wondering if we’d see Cynthia maintaining her well-earned reputation, or if we’d see an upset.

As for the battle, I actually love the sheer contrast of Iris’ energetic commentary and celebratory fits of joy whenever she downed one of Cynthia’s pokemon versus Cynthia’s own seemingly stoic and severe reprisals. The way the two of them conduct their battles is night and day, and it was quite enjoyable to watch in my opinion. Especially when it comes to Cynthia, we rarely get to see her enter her true “serious-mode” (on top of not getting to see her that much period, given her elite status in the world), and that in itself is a rare treat that I was happy to devour. Case and point: her just staring straight ahead before solemnly closing her eyes as her Milotic was tossed like a slinky behind her.

Let it not be said that Cynthia is without her flair. We saw a teaser of it from last week’s preview, but we got to see the real majesty of it in today’s battle when she pulled off her mid-battle lipstick dab, then revealed said cosmetic implement to be her goddamn keystone holder. Damn, what style...

In the end, it was Cynthia who prevailed, validating what was perhaps my initial gut feeling on who was going to win, but given the sentiments in the aftermath of the battle, I don’t think that Cynthia had an easy time pulling off that win, despite how smooth she and her pokemon made it look for the most part.

Damn if I didn’t get a little emotional myself with Iris’ and Ash’s little interaction after she left the battlefield. The tears and the way she admitted that she needed to do that after the fact show how much she’s grown and how much she’s matured as a person and a trainer. And we also got that telltale shot of Ash  (note the avoidance of his eyes in the shot) quietly leaving the stands to make his way down to the arena and meet Iris.

I’m sure negaishippers will be putting that scene on a shrine for ages to come...

Overall, this was a great episode with great contenders. For me, aside from that poignant, though short, scene at the end with Iris and Ash, I think just the notion of getting to fully see Cynthia in a real battle where the expectation wasn’t just for her to trounce someone was my favourite aspect of this episode.

[bazzybelle]

Magical Equality Within The World of Mages

I’ve been thinking a lot since I finished reading Any Way The Wind Blows, and there are SO many things that I still need to process. I took my time with reading it, I’ve listened to the audiobook and I plan on re-reading it several times, once I move into my new house and have THAT stress done and over with. I cannot wait to re-read it on my back porch with some iced tea and a notebook to annotate and comment on pretty much everything that gave me feelings.

But for now, there is one massive issue that I want to address, and it plays into the plot for all three books.

Warning for those who have not read Any Way The Wind Blows, this post contains spoilers, so proceed with caution. I am tagging this appropriately, but adding an extra warning just in case.

Huge thanks to @carryonsimoncarryonbaz for reading this over and making sure I didn't sound like a rambling mess.

The World of Mages is an incredibly toxic place! This is especially true for anyone who isn’t a magical powerhouse, or stupid rich.

I’m going to not focus on the obvious socio-economic bullshit, because I’m not familiar enough with the British class system to properly comment on it. But if anyone wants to add onto this with a whole meta like that, please do so!

Instead, I’m going to focus on magic use and how detrimental it can be to grow up in this world if you aren’t one of the few who are blessed with the RIGHT kind of magic (I say right kind of magic for a reason, and I’m going to come back to that). I want to focus my attention on three characters (two of whom were drawn into Smith-Richard’s fake promises, and one who was just fed up with it all): Martin Bunce, Daphne Grimm, and Agatha Wellbelove.

1) Martin Bunce: We first hear about Martin Bunce in Carry On. He’s Penny’s dad, a renowned scholar and is leading a team researching the effects of the Insidious Humdrum. He’s a highly respected individual, in his own right. Penny adores him, she only speaks his praises, and I get the feeling she gets along better with Martin, then she does with Mitali. When Penny needs help with Shep’s curse, she trusts her dad to help her after her mother flat out refuses.

While Martin is respected in the community, he isn’t a magical powerhouse. In fact, he isn’t very powerful at all. Baz makes a cheeky little comment about how he must have come from mundanity with a name like “Bunce”, and he doesn’t teach any magical classes at Watford, he focuses mainly on Linguistics.

Professor Bunce is one of the people taken in by Smith-Richard’s message, and I’m kind of glad he is. It shows that Smith-Richard’s message can reach anyone, even someone as scholarly and learned as Martin. Martin Bunce is intelligent, loving, devoted, and the apple of his family’s eye. But, when push comes to shove, all that does not matter because in the end, he isn’t as magically powerful as his wife and kids. How many times has Martin been compared to his wife? How many times has he been compared to his kids? What was it like going to Watford and having to hear about how you barely scraped by in the magical classes? His whole family is obsessed with magic, his daughter's best friend is the Most Powerful Mage. Martin is constantly surrounded by people making comments about power and magic and being strong enough as a magician.

That stuff stays with you... So when you see someone performing magic that can pull you to your full potential, of COURSE you grab onto it and hope that it’s a real thing.

Something interesting to note here; Towards the end of AWTWB, Martin casts a drinking spell, and Baz makes a comment about anyone who could cast that spell in quick succession doesn’t need a power-up. Now, was Martin truly not powerful, or did he just not have the right type of magic? Could he have been a better magician if he was able to find the right situations where his magic responded better? If he was allowed to learn in a way where his magic could have reached its full potential, without the use of a horrible curse?

I have a teaching background, and I’ve worked with a lot of kids in Inclusive Education. I’ve had to differentiate practically all of my lesson plans so that all the kids in my classroom would understand the lesson and be able to reach the goals outlined for them. Admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve taught, but I look at stuff like this in the World of Mages and my teaching ear perks up.

2) Agatha Wellbelove: Another person who comes to mind, especially with not having the right kind of magic is Agatha Wellbelove. Agatha does not see herself as a very strong magician. She tells Simon that magic for her is like holding a muscle. Pair that up with a mother who is OBSESSED with magic and power and who’s got the most power, and which magical matches will bring about powerful children, and you get someone who becomes resentful of the whole effing thing! I’m not even going to touch the whole “dating the Chosen One” thing because that’s a whole other can of worms.

When we first meet Agatha, she’s already fed up with magic, and wants nothing to do with it, and I can’t say I blame her. She spends all of Wayward Son running away from magic, and meandering through life, being still so unsure of herself and of her place in the world. She calls herself a poor excuse for a magician, yet she manages to save both herself and Penny from the NowNext by summoning fire! That’s a huge flipping deal! Not everyone can do that, yet Agatha is able to summon the power inside herself to do so! Imagine the wonderful magic she could have done if she was taught in a way that spoke to her.

In AWTWB, she is the ONLY person who is able to get through to the Goats. Her magic seems to be connected to nature (if I had to guess). The Dryad, all the way back in Carry On, tells Simon that she and the others find Agatha “peaceful”. That’s her magic. Agatha was able to come full circle by finding peace with the magic she has. She was able to find a place for it. What’s sad is that she felt the need to run away and not want to have it in her life anymore. Her magic is beautiful, yet not enough.

3) Daphne Grimm: So, this is the character that stood out to me the most. Daphne is the reason I even wanted to write this commentary. Those of you who know me, know that I adore this character. Partly because, I’m obsessed with the idea that Baz has people looking out for him and who care about him.

Anyway, Ms. Daphne Grimm is the apple of my eye essentially. I love her, I adore her, and she is treated SO UNFAIRLY by the World of Mages.

What do we know about Daphne? She is Baz’s stepmum, and has four kids with Malcolm. From the first book, there are snarky little comments about Daphne’s lack or power and magic. Baz himself makes a shitty comment about how Daphne’s “blood is as thin as gruel”, even though Daphne goes out of her way to make sure he’s got food sent to his room. She’s extra careful in making sure Baz feels safe in his own home. She suggests to Malcolm that Baz should see a therapist for everything he’s been through, making her the ONLY parent who not only acknowledges her child’s trauma, but tries to do something about it!

She is a GOOD mom!

Ok, we know that Baz wears a ton of masks of indifference in Carry On, and he softens up tremendously in Wayward Son, calling her lovely while teaching him to drive a car.

We learn a lot about Daphne in Any Way The Wind Blows. Namely that Fiona has some pretty nasty opinions about her. (That comment about her kids not being legitimate, and that she’s as “thick headed as she is thin blooded”. Now, imagine you’re Daphne, and the widower of the Great Natasha Pitch asks to marry you. That’s already some MASSIVE shoes to fill. You accept, and you do the best you can, taking care of his son and being a positive presence in his life, meanwhile going to all these posh functions where EVERYONE talks about power and magic. Then to have the sister of your husband’s first wife make snarky comments about your level of power and magic.

That stuff sticks with you.

Daphne doesn’t want her kids going to Watford, the ONLY magical school in the UK (as far as we know). She wants her children to succeed and be known for everything they are capable of doing, instead of being ridiculed for all the ways they’ll come up short. According to Baz, the only reason Daphne graduated from Watford was because she was smart enough to pass every exam (yet, Fiona still makes snarky comments about her intelligence).

Daphne is well aware of how painful it can be to live in the World of Mages and not be a powerhouse magician. Like Martin, she takes matters into her own hands and seeks out a way to make herself more powerful.

It is heartbreaking to look at these three amazing, beloved characters, and think about the suffering they have had to endure by their peers. Both Daphne and Martin get frustrated when those around them question their choice to follow Smith-Richards, stating “you don’t know what it’s like”. Luckily for Daphne, Baz makes an effort to actually understand her, and doesn’t judge her. Even when Fiona mocks her, Baz defends his stepmum. When Daphne berates herself and compares herself to Natasha, Baz reflects on how Natasha would have killed him (something Daphne would NEVER do to any of her children).

We know that Watford did not allow magical creatures, or differently-abled magicians (I use this term for a reason) to study there until the Mage came around and allowed everyone into Watford. This was a great thing, because now, every magical child was given the opportunity to learn how to speak with magic.

However, it should not have stopped there. I spoke earlier on differentiation and on finding the right place for everyone’s magic. What if magicians like Martin, and Daphne, and Agatha are all powerful in their own right, and they just haven’t found their place where their magic fits? Instead of finding the right way to teach these magicians, they are left to struggle and ultimately resent their magic and the magic of the world around them.

Do I hear a social commentary on the state of standardized education? I can’t really comment on the British Educational System, nor the American one, as I am Canadian. What I can say, from my own experience in Canadian classrooms, is that for all the talk we do on making education inclusive, there is still a big push from higher ups for high grades and standardized testing. If any of my followers are British or American and care to share your two cents, feel free to do so. Let’s keep the conversation going!

I think this post might have gotten away from me. I think my point was to act as a defense for people like Daphne and Martin who found themselves fished into a scam all for the promise of feeling like they are enough in their world. I also wanted to defend people like Agatha, who did all she could to run away from all of it, only to find the place where she (and her magic) belonged.

I remember having this discussion on Discord, and one of the points that came up was that maybe The Greatest Threat to the World of Mages was this deeply ingrained prejudice over magicians with different sorts of magic. Magicians who need that extra bit of help to find their way.

We’ve seen in this series how these prejudices can threaten to split the World of Mages apart, and it looks like magicians like Penny, Baz, and Agatha are learning from these mistakes. Only time (and us fanfiction writers) will tell how they end up shaping their world for the future generations.

[sketching-shark]

I think we should start a protection squad (although they don’t need it because they can protect themselves) for Sun Wukong and Guanyin

“Begone monkie kid fandom trying to down grade these really interesting characters with interesting personality’s and backstory ( the both of them like seriously Guanyin backstory is so cool) to a villain wile trying to justify your angsty backstory (that are no where near as cool as monkey who fights gods and Person who has 1000 arms and heads to help people in need) for the actual villain”

So who wants to join

Me:*raises my hand*

Ps: sorry if I got Guanyin backstory wrong am not an expert on it.

Haha okay so some critiques on the jttw & associated media western fandom & fandom in general coming up, so please skip this upcoming text wall if you don't want to encounter my undoubtedly ~devastating~ words (i.e. don't like don't read as people love to say, & if I have to be inundated with images of my notp every time I go into the sun wukong tag then I imagine people can be chill with me expressing my opinions & giving people fair warning that I WILL be critiquing common fandom trends, but no need for you to see that if you don’t want to. Cool? Cool.)

-----

PFFFFFTTT oh man there are many times when I feel like signing up for such a protection squad...when it comes to the current western jttw & Sun Wukong fandom I do feel like I'm often swinging at a rapid pace between "well it's fandom & people are allowed to make the stories they want" & "I am once again begging my fellow monkie kid enthusiasts (& sometimes creators) to do more research into the og classic/show it more respect so you can avoid any potentially offensive/off-the-mark misunderstandings of the status & cultural context of the characters in their country of origin (I promise it's super interesting & I can provide you with links to free pdf copies of the entire Yu translation, i.e. the best one ever created, so feel free to ask!) & maybe also stop constantly stripping away all the nuance of Sun Wukong's character for the sake of either making him an entire asshole so your little meow meow can look completely innocent in comparison and/or making the monkey king's entire life & character revolve around said meow meow."

Like I get that fandom's supposed to be a kind of anything-goes environment, but one thing that honestly seems to be true of a lot of fandoms--and the western one for Sun Wukong & co. is certainly not immune from this--is that there often seems to be a kind of monoculturalization at work in what stories are created & what character interpretations are made popular. Across a multitude of fandoms, you frequently see basically nothing but the exact same tropes being made popular & even being insisted on for the canonical work (especially hasty redemption arcs & enemies to lovers these days), the exact same one-dimensional character types that characters from an original work keep getting shoved into, the exact same story beats, etc. And I get it to an extent, as fandom is generally a space where people just make art and fic for fun & without thinking too hard about it & without any pressure. 

This seems to, however, often unfortunately lead to the mentality that it’s your god-given right to do literally whatever you want with literally any cultural figure without even the slightest bit of thought put into their cultural, historical, and even religious context, even (and sometimes especially) when it comes to figures that are really important in a culture outside your own. For such figures--even if you first encounter them in a children’s cartoon--you should be a little more careful with what you do with them than you would with your usual Saturday morning line-up. It of course has to be acknowledged that there exists a whole pile of absolutely ridiculous & cursed pieces of media that are based on Journey to the West & that were produced in mainland China, but for your own education if nothing else I consider it good practice for those of us (myself certainly included) who aren’t part of the culture that produced JTTW to put more thought into how we might want to portray these characters so that at the very least (to pull some things I’ve seen from the jttw western fandom) we’re not turning a goddess of mercy into an evil figure for the sake of Angst(TM), or relegating other important literary figures into the positions of offensive stereotypes, or making broad claims about the source text & original characterizations of various figures that are blatantly untrue, or mocking heavenly deities because of what’s actually your misunderstanding of how immortality works according to Daoist beliefs. Yet while a lot of this is often due to people not even trying to understand the context these figures are coming from, I do want to acknowledge that the journey (lol reference) to understand even a fraction of the original cultural context can be a daunting one, especially since, as I’ve mentioned before, it can be really hard & even next to impossible to find good, accessible, & legitimate explanations in English of how, for example, the relationship between Sun Wukong and the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China & according to the Buddhist beliefs that define the original work. 

That is to say, I do think it’s an unfortunate, if unavoidable, part of any introduction of an original text into a culture foreign to its own for there to be sometimes a significant amount of misinterpretation, mistranslations, and false assumptions. There is, however, a big difference between learning from your honest mistakes, & doubling down on them while dismissing all criticism of your misinterpretation into that abstract category of “fandom drama.” The latter attitude is kind of shitty at best and horrifically entitled at worst. 

Plus, as I’ve discovered, there is a great deal of interest and joy to be drawn from keeping yourself open to learning aspects of these texts & figures that you weren’t aware of! I can say from my own experience that I’ve always really enjoyed & appreciated it when individuals on this site who come from a Chinese background--and who know much more about the cultural context of JTTW than me--have taken the time to explain its various aspects. It often leaves me feeling like woooooaaaahhhhhHHH!!!! as to how amazingly full of nuanced meaning JTTW is like dang no wonder it’s one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels. 

And I guess that right there is the heart of a lot of my own personal frustration and disappointment with the ways that fandoms often approach a literary work or other piece of media...like don’t get me wrong, a lot of the original works a fandom may grow around are just straight-up goofy & everyone’s aware of it & has fun with it, yet the trend of approaching what are often nuanced and multi-layered works in terms of how well they fit and/or can be shoved into pretty cliche ideas of Redemption Arc or Enemies to Lovers or Hero Actually Bad, Villain Actually Good etc...well, it just seems to cheapen and even erase even the possibility of understanding the wonderful complexity or even endearing simplicity that made these works so beloved in the first place. Again, I feel like I need to make it clear that I’m not saying fandom should be a space where people are constantly trying to one-up each other with their hot takes in literary analysis, but it would be nice and even beneficial to allow room for commentary that strives to approach these works in a multi-faceted way, analysis & interpretations that go against the popular fandom beliefs, & criticism of the work or even of fandom trends (yes it is in fact possible to legitimately love something but still be critical of its aspects) instead of immediately attacking people who try to engage in such as just being haters who don’t want anyone to have fun ever (X_X).   

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Anyway, I know I didn’t cover even half of the stuff you brought up in the first place anon, but I don’t want any interested parties to this post to suffer too long through my text wall lol. I was asked to try my hand at illustrating Guanyin, but as with you I’m nowhere near as informed as I should be about her, so I want to do more research on her history and religious importance before I attempt a portrait. I’ll try my best, and do plan to pair that illustration with my own outsider’s attempt to summarize her character. From what little I do know I am in full agreement that her backstory is so incredibly amazing...just the fact that she literally eschewed the bliss of Nirvana to help all beings reach it, and even split herself into pieces in the attempt to do so (with Buddha granting her eleven heads and a thousand arms as a result)...man, I can see why she’s such a beloved & respected deity. 

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 As for what western fandom commonly does with everyone’s favorite god-fighting primate...I can talk about this at length if there’s interest, but for this post I’ll just say that I guess one lesson from all of this is that for all the centuries that have passed since Journey to the West was first completed, literally no one drawing inspiration from the original tale in the west (lol) has come even slightly close to being able to equal or even capture half the extent of the nuance, complexity, religious, historical, and cultural aspects, and humor that define Wu Cheng'en's story of an overpowered monkey who defied even Buddha.

So thank the heavens we'll always have the original.