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Happy Birthday Blake! 🐈‍⬛

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Baru spoilers —

Naturally, the moment where Baru (losing blood and fleeing certain death on a glider) half-consciously demands to be taken back to “go again” because she passed out during the flight and is mad she missed it— is unfortunately the moment where I knew I had no choice but to love her forever.

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I have this problem where I — a person who has 100% it twice — just want to play Hades again every time I click on any video related to Hades on youtube.

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Daaaamnnn, son.

The Baru books are like if an Econ major, History minor decided to become a fantasy author, and I mean that as a compliment.

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The Baru books are like if an Econ major, History minor decided to become a fantasy author, and I mean that as a compliment.

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LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Semifinals Poll 1

Please be civil in the notes. We will block people if we feel it is necessary. A character being canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included. This is not a competition of who is better representation.

Check out the other poll in the semifinals here.

Yang Xiao Long-RWBY

Qualifications:

She is canonically wlw (has been for years but specifically kissed and got together with her now girlfriend in the latest season) and uses a prosthetic arm and has been shown to struggle with PTSD due to the traumatic nature of losing it during the show.

Canonically had her right arm chopped off, uses a prosthetic. Has PTSD. Is canonically in a WLW relationship.

She has a canon girlfriend and canonically has a prosthetic arm and PTSD

She's canonically sapphic (part of a recently canonised wlw slowburn relationship) and is an amputee (due to events from the 3rd season finale) who wears a robotic prosthetic. She also suffers from PTSD which is explored in the show

Propaganda:

I will keep on submitting Yang to relevant brackets until I die. RWBY has plenty of strengths and weaknesses with writing, especially Yang's recovery arc, but instead of forcing her to push past her trauma and enter the battlefield immediately, we see her struggle with it, take time to process, and not be pushed into repression and when she chooses to wear her prosthetic, chooses to train to ready herself, and chooses to seek out her family and save lives, she isn't perfectly healed, as no one is. The show depicts her having flashbacks due to sudden loud noise, shaking hand the first few times she has to fight for her safety instead of training with her dad, and snapping at friends when they bring up Blake, the person she lost her arm trying to save (who, near immediately after ran away due to feeling she was endangering those she loved, furthering Yang's already present abandonment issues.) It isn't done perfectly but the intentions and general message sent are extremely positive and honest. She struggles less as the show progresses, and there are opportunities to consider herself less for being disabled or "become whole again" but she explicitly refutes these ideas and says that's she's better because of her failures and losses, and isn't any less whole. Her becoming disabled is also extremely tied to her being LGBT, because, as previously mentioned, she lost her arm protecting her then friend and partner, now girlfriend, directly after the villain who cut her arm off told her love interest that he would "destroy everything [she] love[s]. (Camera pans to Yang, he looks at her.) Starting with her." LIKE. He attacked her BECAUSE Blake cared for her so much and Yang ran to her defense blindly BECAUSE she loved Blake so much. When they reunite, they struggle with communication because Yang feels Blake is seeing her as weak, and through several things, mostly a climatic battle against the man who severed Yang's arm, they affirm each other as equals. I can go on but this is already too long. YANG SWEEP!!!!!

Yang lost her arm while protecting her best friend and future girlfriend from said girlfriend's abusive ex. Had a whole arc about learning to live with that loss and dealing with PTSD. Is totally devoted to and in love with Blake Belladonna and is just the sweetest but most badass character in the show.

She's one of the main characters, and just finished a 10 year slow burn romance. Plus, she has both physical and mental disabilities, but is never treated as lesser or incomplete.

Yang Xiao Long was one of the first examples of a sapphic character I ever saw in animated media with her character journey in the show being an iconic part of my teenage years and current young adulthood. The loss of her arm after a traumatic event in the show's 3rd volume was one of the big shockers of the show that nobody saw coming. Since then the show has done an amazing job in exploring both the mental and physical effects of her losing a limb, gaining a prosthetic arm and the recovery journey. Her character also has a major arc regarding handling her PTSD from both this and her past most notably in the 5th and 6th volume. Her character also has a slow-burn romance with her teammate and fellow main character Blake Belladonna which is one of my fave romances ever (it has everything: canon soulmates, friends to lovers, sunshine x grump,battle couple etc..) that has recently became CANON BABIEE!!! There are MULTIPLE characters in RWBY with various disabilities that are handled well in the narrative but i would say Yangs definitely the top FAVE!

Eda Clawthorne-The Owl House

Qualifications:

She has a magical chronic disorder which has flare-ups, is mitigated by taking medication (potions), and has similar side effects to many real disorders such as fatigue, greying hair, and physical impairment (drains magic, a natural ability of *most witches). Unlike in other stories however, her condition is NOT ever completely cured. It does evolve and become more manageable over the course of the story, but she still experiences symptoms from it. Eda also loses one of her arms later in the story. She does get a replacement hook, but it is never shown whether she has a functional prosthetic or not. Most likely, she only has one fully functioning arm after this. As for being queer, she is in a relationship with a nonbinary person and is all but confirmed bisexual (has a secret box with the bi flag on it seriously why else would she have this). Also the owl house has a Lot of queer characters in it and I mean. just look at her. I would be surprised if she wasn't queer somehow.

Bisexual, and has a curse that affects her day to day life

Bi & lost arm and has a chronic illness metaphorically

Propaganda:

Has canonically dated both men and a non-binary person. Her curse affects her ability to use magic (and at one point outright stops it), which is very important in witch life. Said curse also causes her body parts to fall off sometimes. Many have said her curse is like a metaphor for depression but really it's more like a magic version of a physical disability (although I wouldn't be surprised if she actually also had depression).

Uuuuh she’s great and stuff idk I can’t propaganda well sorry

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my worry with viz is that they were the company that wanted crwby to make a hot springs episode all those years ago, with Kerry working for them instead of with them this time I really hope he has the power to say no to any viz executives who try to make rwby into something it's not

Is that right? I thought RWBY’s previous relationship with Viz was just for the mangas, so not sure Viz had any say or suggestion when it came to the animated series. I thought I read somewhere that RT (Burnie?) put a stop to WB Japan suggesting something like that for the show, which would make more sense coming from them.

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sorry to bring up old stuff but it really does suck that our most prominent unapologetic butch rep in mainstream media got her arc ignored by arcane's writers like that, and who knows when we'll ever get explicit butch rep like Vi again 😔 (as much as I will always hope crwby leans into butchifying yang more, I'm not really holding my breath, I've been burned too many times before)

Honestly Vi just existing visibly as a main character / centerpiece of promotion in a popular show is still a victory. I too am disappointed with many of the bizarre writing choices in season 2 (generally and particularly with Vi), but Arcane is still a mainstream success, so here’s hoping she punched that particular glass ceiling.

I too would be cautious with hopes for Yang — not only is there not butch rep in the writer’s room, but the brand belongs to Viz now. It’s also hard to tell how much of Yang’s presentation was the writers vs the animators, and the creative team is an unknown outside of Kerry at this point. Basically, the creative and decision-making process is a lot murkier now. Yang has a girlfriend and stomps like she’s got brass balls. We at least have that. :)

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The Volume 9 wall scroll has a new home, but the V3 poster and Bumbleby wall scroll are still up for grabs. Message me if you want one or both.

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RWBY fans,

I have a Volume 3 poster (from the Viz store) and the wall scroll posters for Bumbleby and Volume 9 (from the RT store blowout) that I bought on a whim, but do not have anywhere to put.

Happy to give them away free of charge (I’ll eat the cost for US shipping, but if international, TBD). I’d rather they have a happy home, so it’s no big.

DM me if interested.

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☕️ commission for @deadbeatbirdmom

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Happy Holidays !

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It feels so fucking weird that Rockstar of all studios somehow created one of the most subversive and well written female supporting characters in gaming's recent years.

Sadie's introduced, shall we say, exactly as you'd expect a woman to in these kinds of stories. She's a damsel in distress, horrifically victimized by a gang of violent thugs who the "heroic" Dutch gang demonstrate they are better men than by rescuing and comforting her then being motivated by her suffering into taking action to kill the guys who did this to her. And if that had been the last we'd ever seen of Sadie she would fit right in with so many women in the background of so many westerns.

Instead though, she sticks around for the whole story, learns the gun, eventually becomes one of the most reliably skilled (and unhealthily enthusiastic) killers in the gang and wreaks her own bloody path of vengeance against what's left of the O'Driscolls, mercilessly hunting them to the last man in a fashion so violent even the hardened lifelong criminals are a little taken aback.

Now that's already doing a lot to be subversive but I think the thing that most got me about her story is it avoids becoming straightforwardly a "good person becomes corrupted into a monster by trauma and violence" story. Sadie goes very, VERY dark sure and she even gets the Unforgiven/Shane ending where there's no going back from the killing for her. John Marston gets to go live a mostly peaceful domestic life on a ranch with his family (at least until RDR1 happens) but Sadie decides this is all she has left and becomes a bounty hunter

Despite all that though, Sadie Adler never really stops being a good person. At least good relative to RDR2 where everybody's a criminal and a murderer. She takes charge, saves the whole gang and holds them all together when things are at their worst and even when the chips are down and the gang turns on itself and begins to drown in its own blood she remains one of the real ones. She comes to be one of the last people Arthur can rely on in the world. She consistently protects the others and puts them before herself. She always helps without ever needing to be asked. She never leaves anybody behind.

Something that stands out to me is there's multiple times where she assertively protects the male protagonists. She orders Arthur to stay well behind while she goes in to save Abigail by herself because he's sick and she keeps trying to talk John into going home to be with his family because unlike her he has something to lose.

Basically Sadie Adler is great and I love her. She's so much more textured, nuanced and just plain awesome than we normally get especially in stories of this kind and her story is handled with an honestly shocking amount of sympathy that I have come to really not expect from Rockstar.

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Macrodata Refinement in Season 1 of SEVERANCE

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oh come the fuck on.

Thank GOD one of the deaths finally took. Like I’m impressed at whatever rolls these guys must have been getting in the actual campaign (I’m just assuming broad strokes of the show match the campaign but maybe there have been material deviations for the sake of story). But eventually one of the character deaths had to actually stick — narrative tension was getting too slack from a pure spectator’s view.