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prettypixels22 · 5 months

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Headcanons for spending Christmas with call of duty characters

(feat. simon "ghost" riley, john "soap" mactavish, kyle "gaz" garrick, john price,

kate laswell, farah karim, alex keller, phillip graves)

a/n: for context, in each section you’re referenced to have kids with each character and, although not explicitly stated, the reader is implied to be a homebody but these headcanons are kept gender neutral. if you continue to read, i hope you enjoy.

Simon “Ghost” Riley

Christmas is the best time for him to show how much he appreciates you and the kids

He’s not a bad parent, he’s always been very good with the kids

He provides for you all and takes care of them the best he can but he knows he can be emotionally distant at times

He can handle most situations involving his kids but when they get upset or argue with each other, he struggles and has to rely on you to help them

It’s not that he doesn’t want to emotionally connect with them, he just isn’t sure how and he’s not used to talking about his feelings

So gift giving is a good way for him to express that he does care and love you all

He likes both receiving and gifting things that are homemade or sentimental, he enjoys those kinds of gifts because they are specific to your little family and that makes it so special to him

Skulls become like a trademark to your family and tiny skull symbols are hidden in most gifts, wether it be a carving on a wooden item, an engraving on a piece of jewelry, an embroidery on fabric or even woven into those little bracelets kids like to make

Speaking of skulls, your kids definitely have skull designed sky masks that they used to stay warm when they play in the snow

The kids sit on the same sled and have Ghost pull them around, it’s so heart warming seeing your partner and children play while wearing the same masks like they’re a little family of ghosts

When your children go to bed, you talk to Simon about something they’ve been telling you recently, “The kids want a dog.”

You bring it up during one of those intimate times when he’s not wearing his mask and you feel like you can read his mind

Instead of the blank stare you usually see when all of his features, save for his eyes, are covered, you can see the slight changes in his expression

His eyebrows twitch and his jaw clenches, you can’t tell he doesn’t think it’s a good idea

“We can name him Riley,” you joke, “He can be our guard dog and protect us when you’re not around.”

Although you weren’t being serious, he actually started warming up to the idea

It wouldn’t be a puppy though, he’d take you to look at retired military dogs

There was one you two took a particular liking to, a german shepherd, he was a nice dog and in need of a good home but he also had the proper training to be able to protect you and the kids if need be

The kids loved him, of course, and he was very gentle with them, wagging his tail while they hugged and pet him

You ended up falling asleep to a Christmas movie, your family cuddled up together on the couch with your new dog

John “Soap” MacTavish

Johnny loves Christmas and eagerly waits for it to come around every year

There’s always a mountain of gifts around the Christmas tree

Half of the presents he bought, he purchased all the way back in January

He just gets so giddy seeing you and the kids enjoy his gifts that he immediately wants buy more after Christmas is over

Then when it finally gets close to December, you two have your kids’ Christmas lists to deal with

You two have to start wrapping them, at least, a week in advance because there’s no way you’re getting them all done in one night

Especially when you have to wait for the kids, who are pumped full of sugar from eating too many Christmas cookies, to go to sleep

So they get double the gifts and on top of that they get even more when you visit the MacTavish family (which is huge by the way)

Speaking of, when you do visit his family, you get to sit inside by the fireplace and drink hot cocoa with his parents and sisters and watch from the window while Soap takes your kids outside to play with their cousins and uncles in the snow

You get a front row seat to the comical scene of Johnny being hit with a snowball and dramatically collapsing to the grown, a swarm of children climbing over him and playfully attacking

He will play outside with his kids for hours, having snowball fights, building snowmen, sledding

He’d love to take them snowboarding one day, if only the military would grant him enough leave time to take them to a ski resort

While your kids play with their nieces and nephews, Soap will definitely try to sneak you away for some “alone time”

If you object to this and tell him him that you two need to go back and watch your kids, he’ll pull you into an empty room, large hands cradling your face as he tries to bargain with you, “Just lemme give you a quick kiss, bonnie. Hmm?”

But it’s never just a “quick kiss” and you don’t know how you keep falling for that

He’s so sweet when he’s affectionate, he’ll slow dance with you by the fireplace or run you a nice relaxing bath with rose petals, it’s a romantic and intimate way of showing you how much he loves you

Kyle “Gaz” Garrick

Since joining task force 141, he’s had to spend more time away from you and the kids then he’s used to

He misses you all a lot when he’s away but it makes each Christmas that much more special because he has to cherish every second he spends with you and your children

You two usually plan for Christmas together but since he’s been away you do most of the planning and he helps as much as he can when he finally returns home

If you’re cooking something and he knows what ingredient you’ll need next, he’ll grab it for you and set it on the counter before you even have the chance to ask

He also keeps the kids distracted so you can focus on dinner by building gingerbread houses with them, which were a lot harder than he was anticipating and by the time they got the house to stand, there were globs of frosting everywhere with gumdrops and mints scattered across the kitchen table

He cleans it all up though along with any mess you might’ve made while cooking dinner, he cleans the dishes and pans that you’ve used so you don’t have to worry about it later and wipes down the counter

You’re more excited than usual to invite your in-laws to Christmas Dinner

You’ve grown super close to them since Gaz joined Task Force 141, they were your rock during his absence

If you ever needed help with the kids or were just lonely, they would welcome you into their home with open arms

You’d sit with them and talk about how you missed Gaz or how good of a father and partner he was

They’d reminisce about raising him and the childhood they worked so hard to provide for him, going through a photo album of baby Kyle and explaining the backstory behind each picture

Throughout the dinner Gaz sees how close you’ve gotten with his family and it’s not just you, his kids have also grown accustomed to seeing their grandparents regularly

That Christmas is so hard for him because he just wants to be able to be with you and kids again

He knew what he was getting into when he joined 141 and he still believes in the cause but seeing his family get along and be happy makes it a challenge for him not to go back to the SAS

“You know I love you, right?” He’ll ask after dinner. He start saying it a lot more often because if something does happen to him, he doesn’t want their to be a doubt in your mind about how much he loves you and the kids

As the end of his leave time approaches, he kisses you nonstop and holds you and the kids tight, knowing he’ll have to say goodbye soon

John Price

Every year there’s at least one gift that relates to the military

It all started when your son wrote that he wanted nerf guns on his Christmas list one year

That Christmas you and your husband watched your son and daughter go to war with one another, running around the house and hiding under tables, trying to shoot each other with foam bullets

Price thought it was hilarious and the kids clearly enjoyed it, so he started gifting them foam weapons and toy sets with fake knives, grenades and binoculars

He enjoys watching his kids play with each other and was particularly amused one day when your son was army crawling around in the grass trying to sneak up on his sister

That next Christmas he got your son a ghillie suit which he became absolutely infatuated with

You’d call the kids in for dinner and your son would walk in looking like a mountain of grass

That one gift was what started the tradition of gifting actual military gear

While your daughter just likes getting things she and her brother can play together with, your son becomes interested in actual military equipment

His Christmas lists will start to include things like a tact helmet or vest

One time, he got them both night vision goggles which sucked for you because when he had to leave the kids wanted to stay up all night and play in the dark

(Side note: His kids have definitely picked up on words that relate to the military and war but they don’t fully know what the words mean so they’ll say things like “homework is propaganda”)

Something oddly specific that Price is thankful for is the fact that the older his kids get, the longer they want to sleep in

He loves watching the kids get excited from seeing the present under the tree and all but he enjoys the few hours he has in the morning where he can just hold you close

You two already don’t get to have a lot of time together because of your husband’s line of work and having two children didn’t help since most of your attention revolves around them

He cherishes the mornings where everything’s calm and quite and you’re curled up in his arms without a care in the world

Kate Laswell

She’s very efficient went it comes to buying the kids Christmas presents

When your kids write their Christmas lists, you two split the responsibility, she buys half and you buy the rest

It minimizes the time you have to spend buying gifts and you two usually get it done early so there’s no last minute present hunting, it makes the process quick and painless

During the week of Christmas, you two would take your kids to a café so they could have sweet treats for breakfast and a nice hot chocolate with a small candy cane to stir the piping liquid

After that you’d walk down the street, checking out different gift and pop-up shops so the kids could get Christmas souvenirs

Kate loves taking pictures of you all during the holidays and would definitely take your kids to get their pictures taken with a mall Santa

All of the photos would go in a photo album she has of all the happy memories and milestones you’ve all had over the years

The night before she has to leave for work again, you two sit on the porch and watch the snow fall

Your ears pick up on the sound of a quite ‘flck’ and you turn to see your wife lighting a cigarette, “Kate.”

A small chuckle escapes her lips, she knows how much you hate when she smokes, “It’s Christmas. Humor me, just this once.”

You don’t want your last night together to be a fight so you don’t push the issue but you don’t hide your disapproval either, “Those things are bad for you.”

She takes your hand in hers, intertwining your fingers, “Believe me, I’ve been through worse.”

You know she has and it’s why you worry each time she’s away, you brush your fingers against her knuckles, “Do you have to go?”

“Unfortunately,” she exhales the smoke from her cigarette, giving your hand a gentle squeeze, “But I’ll be back before you know it. I promise.”

Farah Karim

Similar to Ghost, she’s a good parent but sometimes struggles to connect with them emotionally

Your kids would absolutely adore her though

I mean, she’s the most badass role model any kid could have

They always make sure she’s involved in activities, even if she’s too busy to actual partake

She’ll be talking to one of her soldiers on the phone when, all of a sudden, her kids run up to her to hand her Christmas treats and hot cocoa that they made with you

She tends to think of her brother a lot during the holidays, gifting her kids things that she and Hadir enjoyed as children

She doesn’t ever want them to go through what she went through with her brother, first losing her parent and the Hadir turning on her

She teaches them to respect each other and will immediately shut down any fights they have

She appreciates that you light three candles each Christmas for her brother and parents, it’s a subtle acknowledgment of the family she’s lost without crossing any boundaries or opening up old wounds

Although a big portion of her time is preoccupied by the work she’s does to protect her homeland as well as you and your children, she always makes sure that on the holidays there will be a few days where her focus is solely on you and the kids

The kids eat this up and immediately put her to work, they love having her undivided attention and all the Christmas activities she wasn’t able to do before they have her do now

They’ve already make Christmas cookies with you so they’ll make gingerbread houses with her

I also think that because her soldiers are like family, they’d hold a small ceremony where each each soldier brings their loved ones and they pass around little homemade gifts that they made with their family

On the night of Christmas, you and Farah sit in front of the three candles you had lit, in a few minutes it’ll be twelve am and Christmas will officially be over

”Do you want to have the honor of blowing them out?” you ask

She gives you a soft smile, “I’ll let them burn a little longer.”

She wonders if her parents and brother can see her, if they’re glad to see her living a happy life with you and the kids

You move closer, wrapping an arm around her, “I’m sure they’d be proud of you, Farah. So proud.”

Alex Keller

I feel like he’d be such a good girl dad

On Christmas Eve morning, he’d be laying on his stomach in the living room with his daughters sitting on either side of him

Christmas movies would be playing in the background, his youngest letting him pick the colors for his hundredth friendship bracelet while his oldest crochets a snowman with a red and green scarf

His daughters are very crafty so they’d enjoy decorating the house and Christmas tree

After Thanksgiving when all of the Christmas stuff is on display, you’d take the girls shopping for lights, ornaments, tinsels, etc.

Alex will lift your youngest daughter so she can string up decorations while your oldest tells her if something needs to be moved to the right or left so everything’s perfectly even

They also like frosting Christmas cookies but instead of just slapping random colors on the cookie, they pick colors that look pretty together and try to be as neat as possible which contradicts their fathers hot mess of an icing job

You wouldn’t be surprised if they decided that they wanted to pick up cookie frosting as a hobby

There are things that Alex was able to do before, like run around with the kids in the snow, that he can’t do now because of his prosthetic leg

The girls don’t mind though, they actually go out of their way to make sure he’s comfortable, even treating him like he’s made out of glass at times despite the fact that he’s still actively fights in Urzikstan

But it’s sweet how much they care about their father and his well-being

While you’re cleaning up after dinner, Alex will wrap his arms around you from behind, his mustache tickling your skin as he presses soft kisses to your neck

He thanks you for dinner and tells you how good the food was

In turn, you tell him how much you and the girls miss him while he’s away, you jokingly add on, “I was hoping your leg would be enough to make you retire.”

He laughs at that and promising you that it won’t be long now, soon he’ll finally return to you and the kids for good

Phillip Graves

Considering he and Shadow Company work for whoever has the most money, you know he can afford anything on his kids Christmas list

He’ll send you a large sum of money while he’s away so you won’t have any trouble buying presents and the gifts he get you are usually quite expensive

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, you two message each other nonstop

You talk about what you got the kids, what you’ll be making for Christmas dinner, when he’s coming home, things like that

He’ll send you flirty text like “you know what I want for Christmas?” with a winky face or “Wear something pretty when I come home.”

The kids are always excited when their father comes home, they tell him what they wrote down on their Christmas list and which gifts they’re really hoping they get

He tells them that they better be good if they want all those presents, knowing damn well that you’ve already bought every single thing on those lists

I feel like he’d prefer a real tree over a fake tree for no other reason besides the fact that it looks better so each year he takes the kids to look at Christmas trees and, of course, the kids along with their father always want the biggest most badass looking tree

He’ll bring a tote bin up from the basement that’s full of last year’s Christmas decorations and you’ll all decorate the tree as a family

You cringe each time you watch pine needles fall as you wrap the tree in lights and tinsel, you know it’ll be a pain to clean up when Christmas is over but you let it happen every year anyway because you see how happy it makes your husband and children

When Graves puts the kids down for bed, you know exactly what he’s gonna do next

He exits the kids bedroom, closing the door behind him, and he’s on you in seconds

His lips capture yours in a heated kiss as he walks you towards your shared bedroom

“We need to wrap the kids’ presents-,” you try to remind him but he cuts you off with a kiss and tells you, “We can do that later, baby.”

photo creds (pinterest): goldeagleactual - ghost, soap/price, farah/alex | SimpsxCod - gaz | cavantine - kate | julikuli666 - graves

#cod x reader #modern warfare x reader #simon riley x reader #john mactavish x reader #kyle garrick x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #john soap mactavish x reader #kyle gaz garrick x reader #ghost x reader #soap x reader #gaz x reader #john price x reader #kate laswell x reader #farah karim x reader #alex keller x reader #phillip graves x reader

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celluloidbroomcloset · 6 months

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People in other fandom are criticising the 1st gentlebeard kiss again, and I think we need to discuss how this is the result of oversexualation in queer media

I’m assuming that other fandom refers to the Canyon? I’ve mostly either blocked or been blocked by them, it seems, which is perfectly fine by me. They don’t want to see me and I don’t want to see them.

I’ve written, as have others, about how there’s a clear progression to those kisses, from the very tentative sweetness of the first and the absolute confidence of the last. In that beach scene, Ed can barely get out what he wants to say, and Stede doesn't immediately clock what it means (because he's dealing with that initial emotion of "I make...you...happy?"). I’m not sure what was wanted with the first kiss? Like, full-on snog? How would that make sense to either of those characters at that point? It might even have looked like assault, since Stede is obviously surprised and not quite expecting it. The fact that it is gentle and unsure is part of their relationship - they’re figuring out who they are to each other, and Ed especially is being so careful about how he does it.

In terms of oversexualization generally...I'm not a queer media scholar or critic, though I've done work with queer theory and I know a lot of Hollywood history. So much of mainstream queer media was initially about subtext and suffering - characters that were typed as queer without being made explicitly so (because they literally couldn't), stories that treated queerness as a mental illness or that ended in death and destruction. So there's been a natural pushback against all that, often outside the mainstream and then more into the mainstream now. I think there was also a desire to shock the straight world, hence things like John Waters's films, Rocky Horror, etc. (not knocking these - I fuckin' love 'em), which are also in conversation with pornography.

With Our Flag Means Death and a handful of other shows and films (Good Omens, A League of Their Own, Heartstopper, etc.) there's been major movement forward, in part because there are more queer writers/artists/creators getting a say in mainstream texts. But there's still that fear of assimilation - because mainstream. So there's a cadre that will demand that if it's queer, it's gotta be explicit. It's gotta shock the straights. Which leads, eventually, to a sanding away of complicated emotions and nuance and not allowing characters or plots to progress in an organic way. There has to be space for sexualization if it's natural to the story, but it can't be forced.

I would absolutely have been upset if all we ever got was that beach kiss, and all we ever saw was Ed and Stede barely kissing each other. That wouldn't have made sense to the story that was being told. I even remember messaging my friend after "Curse of the Seafaring Life" that I was glad they "finally got a proper kiss." And looking back, even then, I was pretty much thinking that that's all we were gonna get, because I've been so conditioned to just expect crumbs in mainstream media. (Also, like, I remember very well how Ellen lost her sitcom when she came out, how people had an absolute fit about Will & Grace featuring a nonromantic same-sex kiss, and how all the interviews around Brokeback Mountain were along the lines of "how terribly uncomfortable was it to kiss a dude?!" So the idea of two straight actors maybe possibly not being grossed out by kissing each other is relatively new, in terms of media history.)

I think some of this is a desire for all queer media to be all things. That if any show doesn’t do ALL THE THINGS, then it is bad and problematic. And that’s just not the nature of art. It would be awful if they tried to do all the things. It wouldn’t work. But that's also a result of having so little explicitly queer stuff, especially from mainstream shows/films, that when something like OFMD or Good Omens comes along, it gets picked apart and people are upset that it didn't do all the things. The more queer stories there are, the less we'll have to depend on single works and the less infighting there will be.

Well, there, I wrote way too much. This is all very complicated and I'm not trying to pretend that it's easy to distill down or that I'm 100% right here. I'd be happy to hear other opinions or caveats (that are not "no, I love Izzy, therefore you're wrong").

#ofmd s2 #ofmd #queer theory #queerness #stede bonnet #edward teach #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #our flag means death #i will however block any straggling canyon folks #i am even upset that i know what canyon means now #bad faith arguments are not cool #i've been through the twitter trenches and i ain't doing that again #long post #it's an oldie but for early queer theory #do read the celluloid closet #not everything in there is 100% correct imo #but it's deeply important

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bestworstcase · 1 month

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most baffling response to the child soldiers post is definitely “they’re not really child soldiers, though, and it’s like how for physically demanding pastimes like ballet you need to start training young so thirteen is actually pretty old, and the students aren’t actually meant to be fighting in real combat anyway”

the huntsmen academies admit seventeen-year-olds—or younger teens with their guardian’s permission. all of the adults, including ozpin, refer to huntsmen students as “children.” (curiously, salem is the only character who ever gets flak in the fandom for calling the nineteen-year-olds children. i wonder why that is 🤔)

from the mouths of the children themselves:

WEISS: Well, Ruby’s still just a kid. BLAKE: She’s only two years younger. We’re all kids. YANG: Well. Not anymore. I mean, look where we are—in the middle of a war zone and armed to the teeth!

the narrative makes it very emphatically clear that these “warriors” are children. they are consistently referred to as children, and the only one who ever objects to being called a child is yang, on the grounds that children don’t fight in wars.

secondly: “when ozpin's predecessor founded the schools, he built them around the relics to act as a fortress. not only would they be easier to defend, but they would constantly be surrounded by trained warriors.” not only are the huntsmen students expected to face real combat (mountain glenn is explicitly considered a war zone), they are the first line of defense for the relics inside the schools. the point of putting the relics in the academies is so that the students will defend them should salem attack. which is exactly what happens at beacon, because the system works as designed.

thirdly: children die at these schools. gretchen rainart died on a training mission. younger students—the ones attending combat schools, which begin at thirteen if not younger—also sometimes die on training missions involving real grimm:

She had some idea why. The research she had done on her teacher had turned up a story Aurelia would probably much rather forget. A student of hers had died on a training mission at Patch Combat School, lost in a scuffle with Ursa Grimm. The school didn’t hold her responsible—she had managed to protect her fifteen other students, and it was all part of the risk. But there was plenty of blame to go around. The child’s parents vowed to have her pay for the death of the girl, and Aurelia’s official statement was, “I blame myself. She should still be with us. She was always so capable, perhaps I put too much faith in her to take care of herself while I got the others to safety.” The girl had been the same age as Trivia, only fifteen.

the huntsmen academies are more intensive, but new students are expected to show up already capable of mowing through hordes of grimm on day one, because the combat schools also send students into the field with minimal supervision (one teacher, sixteen students 14-15 years old, involved in a “scuffle” with grimm). and that teacher leaving one student behind to cover the retreat of the other fifteen and herself isn’t considered to be negligence—she isn’t held to be at fault for this student’s death—because being killed by grimm is “all part of the risk” of attending a combat school.

which again, enroll students 13-16 years old, if not younger.

so yeah, they’re child soldiers. in the real world we define child soldiers as anyone under the age of eighteen recruited for participation in military activities; in rwby it was a deliberate narrative choice for the huntsmen academies to begin at seventeen, for the characters to consistently refer to the students as “children,” and for one of the major villain’s motivations be that his seventeen-year-old sister enrolled at beacon academy and died on a training mission. the text is very clear about the situation.

#interesting how they’re children for condemning salem but ‘college students’ for defending ozpin. isn’t it #team oz does that rhetorical trick too! they’re children except when it sounds better to say warriors instead :)

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katyagrayce · 2 months

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If I had the time, and the resources, I would write an entire PhD about how Taylor Swift’s relationship with her fans has been variably represented through her songs, and how that representation has in turn shaped that relationship. And I have neither of those two things, but I do have the next-best options – a free evening and a Tumblr account. So here we go. As far as I can remember, there are only six songs where Taylor directly addresses her fans: Long Live, mirrorball, Dear Reader, and now But Daddy I Love Him, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? and I Can Do It With a Broken Heart. I could be missing a few, because the woman does have a 20-year career. But even so, I think it’s telling that those are the six songs that come to mind: one huge feel-good ballad released when she first made it really big; then nothing for 10 years; then two quiet songs buried in their respective albums; and then, out of the blue, three loud, unforgettable bops released at the same time. From that alone, it’s pretty clear that Taylor has something that she wants to tell her fans – whether consciously or not, something about her relationship with them is increasingly weighing on her mind. And it doesn’t take much to figure out that said relationship is changing.

In Long Live, the fans are addressed mostly as a ‘we’ – a part of a collective that also includes Taylor, her band and her team, all of them with equal status and common goals. ‘Long live the mountains we moved / I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.’ Later, those dragons are further described, are established as factions of the general public whom the fans stand separate from, in opposition to – ‘The cynics were outraged / Saying “this is absurd”.’ Basically, Taylor’s fans are shown to be fighting for her like an army ‘on the history book page’, which is not an uncommon metaphor in pop culture. But this is where things get interesting. Because, although Taylor creates that image of the army, she doesn’t structure it in the traditional way. Her fans are not footsoldiers defending her throne – they too are ‘the kings and the queens’, the ‘heroes’, hearing their names read out and holding up trophies. And because of that – because they stand equal with Taylor – they don’t look up to her even in victory, and she doesn’t claim to be anything more than a member of their bedraggled mob. Even at her pinnacle, she’s simply part of ‘a band of thieves in ripped-up jeans [who] got to rule the world.’

There’s only one point in Long Live where this total equality fractures – where the ‘we’ splits into a ‘me’ and a ‘you.’ And it’s in the bridge, where, for just a moment, Taylor steps outside of the present – she imagines herself and her fans growing up in the future. ‘Promise me this / That you’ll stand by me forever / But if, God forbid, fate should step in / And force us into a goodbye / If you have children someday / When they point to the pictures / Please tell them my name.’ This is usually the part of the song where you see audiences crying, and it’s easy to understand why – because even when Taylor separates herself from the fans, even when she doesn’t explicitly share her title of ‘queen’ with them, she still portrays them as the ones with the power. She asks them to stand by her, then to remember her. Scratch that, she pleads for them to do it. She’s expressing that she needs her fans, deeply. They’re not looking to her for guidance – it’s the other way around.

Fast forward 12 years, to Dear Reader, and you wonder how the hell did we get here?

Dear Reader is the exact opposite of Long Live. The fans are never part of a ‘we’ – in fact, they don’t play an active role in the song at all. All that they are is an omnipresent but silent entity, the titular ‘readers’, who hover offscreen as Taylor sings verse after verse of advice, then spends the chorus telling them not to follow it. This is Taylor as the long-crowned queen in the history book – the ex-thief, the grown-up revolutionary, who realised at some point that no matter how equally you fought alongside your people, no matter how young and inexperienced you all were, at some point they will need a ruler and then they will all look to you. Inch by inch, you will find yourself climbing up onto the throne, and you will be alone up there. The words you speak will fall down on the subjects sitting by your feet, and their power will be absolute, even when you didn’t mean them that way – even when they don’t have any conscious meaning, are just ‘desperate prayers of a cursed man / spilling out to you for free.’ And in the end – just like before – all you can do to rebalance the power is plead. ‘Darling, darling, please / You wouldn’t take my word for it / If you knew who was talking.’

And of course, this plea is interesting in itself, because it’s also the exact opposite of the plea in Long Live. In Long Live, Taylor is asking her fans to immortalise her in the future, to pass on her memory – the underlying assumption is that they can do this because they were there with her, they know her. But here, Taylor says that her fans wouldn’t listen ‘if they knew who was talking’, which implies – well, they don’t know. They don’t know the person behind the words. Despite all the mountains they moved – all the magic they made. Despite all the games they played together, the secret sessions, the Easter eggs, the friendship bracelets. Despite the songs spilled out like confessions. Despite it, or because of it. They don’t know her. They don’t know Taylor Swift.

In Dear Reader, this concept is portrayed as tragic. There is a lot of sadness in that image of Taylor alone above the crowd, a perceived ‘guiding light’ that is actually so lonely and broken in the way it shines – which is a good segue back to an earlier song on our list, mirrorball. The metaphor there was very similar to in Dear Reader, but the plea Taylor made was more in tune with Long Live – she begged for her fans to keep standing by her, keep listening to her. ‘When they called off the circus, burnt the disco down / When they sent home the horses and the rodeo clowns / I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything / To keep you looking at me.’ Basically, in mirrorball, she begs her fans to stay with her despite the new gap growing between them; in Dear Reader, she begs them to take a step back, to acknowledge that the situation is becoming toxic. And then, we get to the songs of The Tortured Poets Department. And Taylor isn’t begging anymore. If anything, she is screaming.

TTPD was marketed as Taylor’s saddest album, but to me, it’s more obviously her angriest. Rage is not a new concept in her songs, but it’s previously always been directed at very specific people – Kanye West in Look What You Made Me Do, the online haters in You Need to Calm Down, Jake Gyllenhaal in We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and I Bet You Think About Me and All Too Well (10 Minute Version). Alternatively, it’s been couched in fiction, like how the story of Rebekah Harkness couches mad woman. But in TTPD, there is no couching – the very marketing leans into how personal each song is for Taylor – and nobody is safe. For the first time, Taylor’s fans are not represented as a separate entity protecting her against the rest of the world – they themselves are a part of that roiling mass whom she needs protection from. That message becomes very pointed in the third line of But Daddy I Love Him, ‘I just learnt these people only raise you / To cage you.’ That line flags the entire song as directed not towards strangers, but towards the people who have surrounded Taylor since she was 16, who have shaped her career, who claim to care about her – the army of Long Live, the audience of mirrorball, the listeners of Dear Reader. Those people are the ‘Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best / Clutching their pearls, sighing “what a mess.”’ And that makes sense when you remember that it was Taylor’s fans who were most critical of her relationship with Matty Healy, and even with Travis Kelce. But it doesn’t make the song any less uncomfortable to listen to. For the first time, the ‘you’ Taylor is yelling at is actually you, and maybe that’s why she’s so unguarded and vicious in her choice of words – ‘I’ll tell you something right now / I’d rather burn my whole life down / Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning.’ It also brings a new dimension to the lyrics ‘Time, doesn’t it give some perspective? / And no, you can’t come to the wedding’. Because of course, when things are going well in Taylor’s relationships, it’s her fans who want to share in that – her fans who want to hear updates from her, like her social media posts, listen out for wedding bells. And with those lyrics, Taylor’s taking that away from them. No, you don’t get to be there for the good parts. You haven’t earnt it. You didn’t respect me when I needed it. You don’t know me that well.

And that leads, of course, to the ultimate song about Taylor’s fans not knowing her – I Can Do It With a Broken Heart. Arguably, the song doesn’t quite belong on this list, because Taylor never directly addresses her fans either as a ‘you’ or as a ‘we’. But that’s telling in itself, because it’s a song where the fans play an active role in the narrative, and yet where they only appear as a foreign, menacing entity – the crowd that sees Taylor’s ‘broken pieces shattered’ and responds by ‘chanting “more.”’ There’s been a lot of debate online about whether this song will ever be performed live, and personally, I think that it’ll be just too uncomfortable an experience. Because this song is mirrorball without the plea in it. This song is so self-reflexive, its light burns your eyes. Every single syllable of this song is designed to say what you see is not who I am, and you don’t know me, and what you think is love is killing me. And how can a crowd cheer during a performance when that’s what their cheering means? I love you, you’re falling apart for me. I love you, it’s ruining your life.

Of course, the song was written about a very specific time in Taylor’s life, and I think that’s worth emphasising for every song on this list – they all capture a specific moment, immortalise a specific emotion like fixing a bug in amber, whereas in the real world, emotions come and go. The fact that Taylor felt like this about her fans at one stage doesn’t mean she always feels Iike this about them. The fact that she was hurt and furious doesn’t mean she can’t also be grateful and warm. But what angry songs do is disrupt the assumption that everything’s okay, form a crack in the glass, introduce doubt behind every smile. You only need to see through someone once to never take them at face value again. And when that experience is immortalised in a song, it’s even harder to forget it. What angry songs do is become self-fulfilling prophecies, echoing in the fans’ heads every time they see Taylor until, eventually, some distrust is inevitable. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing – to be more aware of how the mirrorball turns, the illusion of light, the real person underneath. But it’s a change. It’s a change, and even by singing about it, Taylor is ironically making it happen.

Which brings us, finally, to possibly the angriest song Taylor’s ever written – the last song I’m going to be talking about, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? At first glance, this song isn’t necessarily directed at Taylor’s fans. It reuses a lot of imagery from my tears ricochet and mad woman, and it’s easy to write it off as also being about Big Machine Records or her detractors in the general public. But some of the lyrics in the bridge are very, very telling. The most obvious is ‘Put narcotics into all of my songs / And that’s why you’re still singing along.’ Then there are all the veiled references to obsessive people trying to get closer than they should be, closer than any stranger is allowed – ‘So all you kids can sneak into my house with all the cobwebs,’ ‘I’ll sue you if you step on my lawn.’ Elsewhere in the song, we also see the circus imagery of mirrorball turned threatening – ‘I was tame, I was gentle till the circus life made me mean’ – and the opening lines of But Daddy I Love Him come back, ‘You caged me and then you called me crazy / I am what I am because you trained me.’ This song has all the evolving messages about Taylor’s fans rolled into one – you don’t know me, you don’t own me, you’re ruining my life, you have no right to criticise. And then, for the first time, she says it in black-and-white – ‘You hurt me.’ No metaphors. No frills. It’s only three words, but it says volumes – You hurt me. You were meant to be on my side. We were meant to be fighting together. But, somehow, we’ve been split apart. You broke the promise I asked of you when I was 19 years old. You turned on me. And it hurts.

TTPD is an incredibly, incredibly angry album. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? is an incredibly, incredibly angry song. But they are also both incredibly, incredibly sad. Taylor sings ‘Who’s afraid of little old me? / You should be’, when, 15 years earlier, she was singing ‘I’m not afraid / We will be remembered.’ And yes, a song is just a moment in time, but a series of songs – that’s a story. It’s a life. You can play through Taylor Swift’s discography, and you’ll hear the story of a 16-year-old girl whose trust was slowly destroyed. Sure, that might be the story of most 16-year-old girls. But most of them don’t go through it in the public eye. Most of them don’t have to balance being honest against perpetuating the cycle. And most of them listen to sad songs to get them through, instead of being the one putting those sad songs out into the world. ‘You don’t get to tell me about sad,’ Taylor sings, because of course she does. We don’t have to tell her about sad. For our generation, she is one of the people who defined what it means.

~~~

(Disclaimer: This essay is not intended to deal with the actual content of any criticism Taylor received from her fans, or the question of whether that criticism was justified. I’m leaving that discourse to other people. My aim was just to explore how Taylor’s writing about her fans has changed over time, and what that tells us about their relationship and her career as a whole).

#music #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #long live #mirrorball #dear reader #but daddy i love him #i can do it with a broken heart #who’s afraid of little old me?#fandom essay #original post #sorry for the long post #but i’m really really proud of it tbh

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absolutebl · 2 years

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I loved your beautiful ode to A Beautiful Man. (Even as someone pretty new to BL and unfamiliar with Yaoi I felt the power of that show.)

In it you wrote in passing, "Semantic Error is about perfection and ignoring all ugliness." If you have further thoughts on that I'm curious to hear them.

Thanks!

Semantic Error vs Utsukushii Kare how two BL’s tell us A LOT about Korean vs Japanese approaches to cinema

"Semantic Error is about perfection and ignoring all ugliness." (from this post)

Ah I was referring to the KBL inclination to create a perfect bubble in which being queer is not just irrelevant and unspoken, but ironically untouchable.

As characters, JaeYoung and SangWoo can only exist within this bubble.

It renders their perfection unmoored and somewhat etherial feeling to viewers. As if they are the gods on pedestals that Hira is trying to turn Kiyoi into. There is no attempt to address the impossible nature of their existence. JaeYoung and SangWoo aren’t meant to be REAL in any way, they are meant to be fantastical - almost like mythical caricatures.

I say this not as criticism, Semantic Error is one of my favorite BLs of all time. But it is almost too perfect, as if we are watching the fae perform for us - ageless and immortal. It has no real grounding, no tether at all to reality. It is the ultimate escapism.

This is fine, I watch BL for the escapism. It’s why it got a 10/10 from me. But it’s also why it’s never whipped me into a verbal frenzy. It’s exactly as perfect as I always expected Korean BL to get to. It is the pinnacle of the mountain they have been climbing - but they never faltered on that path to perfection. They were always gonna make it. It’s what Hallyu does. They did it with music (Kpop). They did it with horror (Parasite, Squid Games). They’re doing it with romance.

But Semantic Error’s innately KBL nature renders it, in a strange way, almost the polar opposite to something like My Beautiful Man, for all they share some really stunning visual similarities in filming techniques, manga framing and staging, uses of color and light, etc...

The very perfect beauty of Semantic Error (both in visuals, execution, production, script, story arc, tropes and archetypes) is like the BL on the pedestal that A Beautiful Man is challenging within itself.

Ironically of course, My Beautiful Man, is about the harsh honest ugliness of really loving someone, Semantic Error not only has no thought to address this, by it’s very nature it could never do so, since it sits on that pedestal with nothing to tip it off (yet) and nothing to pull it down to ground (yet) because KBL is still (mostly) at the pedestal state of it’s BL journey.

Korea is focused on producing perfect BL. Which I might argue they did with Semantic Error. But as nothing more than a perfect BL. Classic. Typical. The opposite of challenging. Easy. Easily enthralling and riveting.

Utsukushii Kare is work. Work to watch. Work to tolerate. Work to understand. But it’s work I enjoy.

Japan has always farted around with that kind of thing. Japan doesn't have anything to prove. But Japan has also always been one to use film to examine itself, it’s that uncompromising point of view thing I talk about and the reason people get frustrated with Japanese cinema. It’s not about anyone but Japan.

Korea is a the opposite, it’s producing its pop culture these days explicitly with an expansion agenda. It’s all about how perfectly can they hit it so they can GET us. Like, capture us. Make us watch. Make us happy. Dazzle us with their brilliance and beauty. Lure us into the fae realm, under the green hill where time passes differently.

Often I think Japan wants us to be uncomfortable. Ironically, that’s why I have such faith and confidence in them.

But that’s also how they can surprise so beautifully. (Old Fashion Cupcake. Minato’s Laundromat. Gah.) They stay BL without shying away from difficult content, sometimes I think they stay BL so they can directly tackle it.

Korea is doing everything they can to keep themselves safe and idealized, or to keep up the appearance of that. It comes off as disingenuous at worse, unfixed and fantastical at best. Semantic Error was all this, but correct, almost mathematical. I admire the precision art of it and the targeted intent.

They are both master manipulators and I like watching manipulators at work.

But with Korea there’s always a part of me that’s like, “I see you doing it. I see what you did there. Very good.” I’m noticing how good they are.

And with Japan, occasionally, I forget to notice. I’m still surprised. Even knowing what they are capable of. Even living in the shadow of 15 years of BLs. They can still surprise.

(source)

#korean film industry #hallyu #hallyu wave #japanese fil industry #Kdrama #Jdrama #Japanese BL #Korean BL #live action yaoi #adapted from a manga #adapted from a manwha #film critique #Semantic Error #Old Fashion Cupcake #Minato’s Laundromat #Utsukushii Kare #My Beautiful Man #rakutan viki #gagaoolala

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reviewinghiccup · 1 year

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RIDERS OF BERK | HTTYD SERIES | HICCUP X ASTRID

Blog Post Series : HICCUP X ASTRID

Title : Animal House

Ep/Season : Episode 3, Season 1 (Riders of Berk)

Premise:

The animals on Berk, the sheep, yak & chickens have yet to accustom themselves to the new occupants… dragons. As such, they’re not producing enough produce in retaliation to the fact. Hiccup is charged w the arduous job to synergise the situation before a horrible storms arrives. Yet a second plot-line catches my eye instead…

Romantic Development :

While it isn’t explicitly out there, and when push comes to shove, we know Hiccup & Astrid like each other. Though they are pretty low-key / inexpressive about their feelings it’s clear somethings brewing beneath the surface. Hiccup will become chief & there is no better chieftess to choose from their tribe and age-group than Astrid. Though neither of them were ever forced to choose each other by virtue of the facts.

Apart from some fraction-of-a-second glances, mostly by Hiccup, their relationship doesn’t fully bloom until much later on, but episodes like these just show you what these two were made of and why their destinies were perfect to begin with.

The episode opens w the two of them racing down a snow peaked mountain. Both equally competitive and playful. This is a side you don’t often see of Astrid. She’s mostly serious, strong and defensive. She’s obviously relaxed around Hiccup, which is why she smiles more, feels free to be herself and even dares to plays loose w the rules when they’re alone.

An accident causes an avalanche to hurl at them. Though they could’ve easily flown away, Toothless’s tail gets stuck and so, Hiccup is stuck. [Side note: I really appreciate how the technology of Toothless’s tail & Hiccup’s inventions develop as their characters do. And you even watch Hiccup tinker around and build a rep w his creations. It’s nice to watch hard work pay off, which you won’t get to see unfold just by watching the films].

Astrid swoop down to try and save them, but they fall into a ravine and while snow pours in to bury them, they seem to have entered a cavity and are quite untouched. Astrid calls out for Hiccup, who immediately holds her. This is where I melt. Though small, considered “unmanly” and even a runt in Viking culture, Hiccup is more man than many romantic leads written. It isn’t the size of his person that makes him big, but the size of his heart.

He immediately takes Astrid into his arms when she’s cold and afraid, though he must equally be. And this tender affection and compassion he has towards people, particularly her, draws her towards him more than any “pseudo-macho” facade could. He always puts the needs of others before his own.

They soon discover that it is because of their dragons that they’re safe, understanding now the ingrained loyalty instilled within the two-way dragon-Viking companionship.

This kinda proves that the timeline of this series kindles quickly after the 1st movie, because it is clear they’re not completely familiar w their dragons yet.

Excited, they convey their new discovery to their friends.

Astrid & Hiccup both love dragons. They have a passion for their pets and an unmistakable love for the beast. The only thing they aren’t sure about yet, are their feelings for each other. And are awkward about them if ever brought up.

My favourite part about the episode and why it is one of my early favourites is because this is the first time you see both Hiccup and Astrid play pivotal roles in dealing w Berk’s affairs. We know they’ll grow into the roles one day, but this is sorta where it all starts.

While it is Hiccups charge to get the animals to work together, Astrid, unlike the other teens is more proactive in helping him. She even tries to allay his concerns, and from hereon you will see that her support and presence brings a lot of encouragement and strength to Hiccup as the series progresses.

She is also always seen by his side, which is a sign of support for him and a sign of safety for her. We know she is a fearless warrior, but what I love about her is that she has a feminine side that only Hiccup gets to see. She trusts him.

This episode was lovely. Not only because of Hicstrid, but also because of how Stoic handles Hiccup’s first failure. He doesn’t berate him about it. He lets it slide knowing that his son tried his best. He encourages him. He is still there for him.

It was also great to see Toothless solve the issue by saving the sheep and then taking the initiative to nudge the sheep towards the warm circle causing all the other animals to do likewise. This display Toothless’s intelligence which is what differentiates him from many other dragons.

HTTYD is essentially a movie about Hiccup and Toothless, and a great deal about their friendship and shared characteristics. Toothless is clearly suited to being a leader like Hiccup is.

The circle of warmth they created to protect their humans was an initiative Toothless started and just like Hiccup and Astrid, every decision they make is for the betterment of others.

I’m pretty impressed w how the creators of HTTYD managed to play w the nuances of each of these strong character traits and make them as refined as they are. Beneath this franchise is a whole lot of good character building and character mirroring which is fantastic for fans like me who love dissecting these little details.

Hicstrid is an unmatched couple in the DreamWorks Universe for me.

#httyd #toothless the dragon #hiccup haddock #vikings #astrid hofferson #hiccup x astrid #hiccstrid

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ogradyfilm · 1 month

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Recently Viewed: Evil Does Not Exist

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

What I admire most about director Ryusuke Hamaguchi is the clarity of his themes. Although his films tend to be narratively dense and structurally complex, it’s also entirely possible to express what they’re actually about in a single word. Drive My Car, for example, thoroughly explores the concept of communication—language, compromise, and unspoken regrets. His latest work, on the other hand—the hauntingly beautiful Evil Does Not Exist—is explicitly a meditation on the subject of balance.

The story revolves around a quaint, quiet rural community in a mountainous region of Japan. When a talent agency based out of Tokyo proposes a plan to develop a local deer trail into a luxurious camping resort, the residents vehemently oppose the notion; while the increased tourism might bolster the town’s economy, it would undoubtedly upset the delicate equilibrium of the ecosystem. The location of the site’s septic tank is particularly contentious; because its estimated volume is too insufficient to adequately accommodate the maximum number of guests, excess waste would inevitably pollute the groundwater—and, consequently, the nearby river. As the wise, affable village chief patiently explains to the project's hopelessly naïve public relations managers: “Water always flows downhill. What you do upstream will end up affecting those living downstream.”

This central conflict permeates every aspect of the production. The sound design is especially exquisite, contrasting the harmonious symphony of the undisturbed natural world—the rustle of dry leaves, the flutter and chirp of songbirds, the babble of a trickling brook—with the dissonant cacophony of mankind’s gradual encroachment—the mechanical roar of a chainsaw, the echoing thwack of an axe splitting logs, the thundering crack of distant hunting rifles. The cinematography is similarly characterized by juxtaposed extremes. Hamaguchi favors long, uninterrupted takes observed from only one camera angle; he’ll pan slightly to adjust the frame, but otherwise refuses to artificially impose rhythm via editing. This deliberate pacing makes the jarringly abrupt transitions between scenes more impactful; cutting from a static image to a rough, jittery handheld shot immediately shatters the previously still, serene atmosphere, disorienting the audience and irrevocably altering their perception of the setting.

A friendly warning to less adventurous viewers: do not seek out this movie expecting a happy ending, or even a concrete conclusion; as the end credits roll, major plot threads are intentionally left unresolved, and several significant questions remain unanswered. A conventional tragedy would, at the very least, provide some semblance of closure—a coda suggesting that the preceding suffering ultimately served a greater purpose. Evil Does Not Exist, however, offers no such “comfort” or “satisfaction”—just the hollow dread of an uncertain future.

#Evil Does Not Exist #Ryusuke Hamaguchi #Japanese film #Japanese cinema #Janus Films #Film Forum #film #writing #movie review

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citrus-cactus · 10 months

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For the character ask game - Haru (appmon) 1, 2, 11, 12, 23!

HAAAAAAAARU! THANK YOUUUUU~! <3

The character ask game is here!

1. My first impression of them

Honestly my first impression (from seeing promo images and such posted on this very website!) was something like “Whoa. Clashing colors much?!” So I guess you could say it was not the best 😂

Obviously I got over that, but I did learn recently that trying to apply his color scheme to any other character is still quite a shock! ROTFL Click for proof if you dare!

The rest is cut! For! Spoilers!!!

2. When I think I truly started to like them (or dislike them, if you've sent me a character I don't like)

The first time I watched Appmon, I felt like basically the whole first half of the series was a bit of a crapshoot, quality-wise (not in terms of the animation or anything, but how I felt about it). Like, if you tried to graph my enjoyment of each episode right after I watched it, it would look like a jagged mountain range. The first episode was ok, the second episode was “eh,” the third and fourth episodes was pretty good, the fifth was back to “eh,” etc. I don’t know, pacing and tone and kind of unsympathetic character introductions and it just being “different” were all things that were working against it at that point in my mind, and made me wonder what the writers were really trying to do (honestly, what REALLY sold me on watching Appmon at all was @firstagent’s pitch at a con, which explicitly plugged Offmon and Yuujin’s dynamic!).

(I should say here that despite those rough beginnings, Appmon is probably my favorite Digimon series now, so yeah I take time to warm up to things sometimes but the right combination of factors makes me fall and fall HARD)

All that said, I know exactly when I really start to like Haru, and it was during the third episode (the dungeon one with Roleplaymon). He’s just so excited and happy throughout, while also being a complete nerd, and instead of a big Appmon fight at the end (well, being unable to have one due to an evolution whoopsie), he just talks to Roleplaymon… and it works. That felt kind of revolutionary, and it was the episode that I started to not only understand his character, but (maybe) gain a bigger picture view of the series and what the show was going for. This episode just crystallized a lot of things for me.

Me after episode 3: Haru is kind. Oh, and also he’s my son now, I want to see him grow up strong, I WILL keep watching FOR HIM actually (best decision ever!!) 💖

11. What’s the first thing you think about when thinking about the character?

Joke answer: “Do I need to be working on the blog queue right now, or can I procrastinate a few more days?” 🤔

Real answer: No thoughts anymore, just feelings (rotfl). After watching every episode in order to look at every single shot of Haru and find the very best frames, I can still say definitively that he’s so cute and I love him and all Harus are good Harus 🥺🥺🥺

12. Sexuality hc!

Bisexual! And uh… one specific android-sexual? You cannot deny his crush on Ai, and Haru/Yuujin is so good. They’re one of my OTPs, they’re soulmates (by some definition of the word “soul”), they were made for (and made by) each other, they’re actually making eyes at each other from across the room in my head right now 🤫

23. Future headcanon

Oh, he’s definitely going to be an AI researcher, that much I believe! One who is very literature- and ethics-minded, and thinks a lot about what what “existence” means, and is hyper-aware of beings’ rights and the need to advocate for both humans AND AI, in a world where both appmon and general artificial intelligences actually exist. These beliefs are the cornerstone of his work, regardless of what he actually does with AI. Would he follow in his Grandpa’s footsteps in being an academic designing his own? Maybe borrow a page from Koushiro Izumi’s book and start a company? Or go the Susan Calvin route and become an AI psychologist? Any! All! Idk 🤣

Honestly, so much else about specific future headcanons depends on how you interpret the very last moments of the series (literal or symbolic), and for me it could go either way. I really like interpreting it as literal, if only because it’s such a great hook into the nebulous Appmon Season 2 that exists in my head. Yuujin’s back, but how? Cue mystery and more Appmon shenanigans.

Regardless, I’m most interested in the future where Yuujin comes back in some form at some point during Haru’s lifetime, and no matter how, when, or why that happens it’s going to be a joyous occasion, but also a bit of a rough transition. Yuujin may have changed. Haru may have changed. There would be a LOT anxiety about “is this ok?” and “how do you feel?” and “what does it MEAN that this is how you feel?” and “what does ANY of this mean for us as individuals, and us together?” because it’s all very complicated when you bring the android that was programmed to be your best friend and your ideal version of a person back to life. Is there even a happy ending out there for them? Again, for me it could go either way.

So yeah, a bit rambly, because to me there is no one answer I could ever 100% decide on. They’re all possible. And that’s kind of the great thing about the vagueness of the ending! I will say I like drawing them in happy-ending mode best though, even though I would probably write their future in a way that involves more drama, because it’s way more interesting, and nothing in life is ever that easy (I’m rooting for them though!).

Again, thanks so much for the ask!!

#asks #julbilines #appmon #appli monsters #appmon spoilers #haru shinkai #green-haired cutie pie #<- my original tag for him hehehe #the cactus runs a sideblog

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fandomshatepeopleofcolor · 1 year

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Racism in Elfquest

Hi!

This is a critique of the way the comic book depicts poc by @pigeonfancier. I will add my words for context and my own commentary. My text is in bold.

Context: Elfquest is a long-running indie comic book written and drawn by Wendy and Richard Pini. The first issue was published in 1975 and issues have been published until 2018.

It is a fantasy story about a community of elves and other fictional species like trolls and pixies who struggle to survive and coexist on a primitive earth-like planet with two moons known as Abode, alongside humans. There are multiple tribes of elves who vary in appearance and lifestyle, having adapted to different environments-the wolfriders are white elves who ride wolves and live in a forest, the gliders are tall, very pale elves who ride birds and live in a mountain and the sun villagers are dark-skinned elves who live in a desert.

Elfquest as a series handles humans poorly in the context of race and culture. In humans, darker skin and complexions are codified as signs of aggression, malice and foolishness. Lighter complexions are associated with the helpful humans of Abode, the ones who are more peaceful, more tolerant, less religious, and more “civilized” than their peers.

From the very get-go of Elfquest, dark skin and "savage behaviour" is explicitly linked. The ethereal, pale, gentle and naive elves are put in stark contrast to a human that does not even look particularly like a human.

This theme starts right at the beginning of the series, but it'll continue all the way throughout it.

Even when it doesn't particularly make sense. Nonna (a human woman) from the Original Quest is of the Hoan-G’Tay-Sho (a tribe of stone-age era humans). Her skintone is shown to be a match to Cutter's, if not also Skywise's. However, when compared to her husband fellow villagers, she's very pointedly pale.

This is in sharp contrast to how the Hoan-G'tay-Sho are depicted otherwise. In the Original Quest, it's noted that they are the same complexion as Suntop (the child of a wolfrider and sun villager), who is notably darker in most scenes than the majority of the Wolfriders.

When we see the descendants of the Hoan-G'tay-Sho later on in the series, off in the Forevergreen, their skintone is hard to quantify. The art throughout this arc is not very consistent, and characters switch appearances regularly. However, the costumes are largely consistent, and I feel comfortable saying that the influences they're drawing from are not European - the Forevergreen arc runs at the same time as Shards, which is set in the 1300's, but...

There isn't much difference between that and the tribal societies we'd seen previously, because the Pini's write their non-white humans largely only in one way. Regardless of the geographic distance between societies, almost all groups of non-white humans in the series share the same traits of being aggressive, superstitious, easily misled, and xenophobic.

The old lady covered in bones is the Bone Woman, an early antagonist. She is a shaman who uses the tribal chief's superstition to turn him against the elves.

I personally feel that she draws on primitive witch-doctor stereotypes. Her appearance is meant to evoke disgust-an elf remarks that "even trolls aren't that ugly" after seeing her-and she comes across as an one-dimensional stereotype of indigenous religious leaders.

She appeared in an issue published in 1984, but the problem of stereotyping continues during the comic's entire run.

In the first comic, the opening scene is of a group of dark-skinned humans dancing around a tied up white elf, about to sacrifice him:

the human cultures in Elfquest are also, almost unerringly, largely sexist.

In the story Mender's Game, the comic shows the asian-adjacent society as actively torturing their women for dishonouring them: https://href.li/?https://elfquest.com/read/index.php?s=MEN4&p=7 CW on this link for severe abuse.

What I think stands out about this is that the culture in question is based on mongolian and central asian steppe nomads who while still patriarchal, traditionally gave lots of freedom to women they weren't afforded in many contemporary societies. They could hunt, ride and influence the men on important decisions in the Mongolian culture.

While it's true that many cultures including ones of color were patriarchal, I feel that EQ lacks nuance when it comes to depicting gender roles in human cultures. Not all cultures were awful to women and in quite a few of them women had many rights and held quite a lot of power but we never see them depicted, the aforementioned mongolian steppe nomads and the iroquois are some examples.

the girl drawing the bow is Shuna, a girl adopted by the elves who comes from a culture analoguous to medieval Europe. In this storyline, she enters a culture based on pre-colonial north America, is believed to be a "spirit-woman" and gets married to a hunter named Nunkah, who becomes abusive towards her.

In Shuna's storyline, her first husband and Bee's tribe is shown to be heavily sexist. Her behaviours outside of her designated role are not initially punished, but ultimately are in the end, with the implication that this is normal for her first husbands' culture. Throughout the story, Shuna notes things such as that "the chief invited me to sit beside him. Later, I would learn it was unheard-of to honor a woman so." and then later, "though patriarchal and restrictive to its women, the hill-hopper clan was not so inclined to look down on a female forest deity. I enjoyed many privileges denied my humbler sisters."

Also, Shuna continues to refer to the tribe as "primitives" throughout the story.

Shuna later meets another man from the tribe named Ikopek who eventually becomes her second husband.

This is Ikopek:

and this is Nunkah:

while Nunkah turns abusive and controlling:

Ikopek is gentle and kind. I think it's worthy to note that compared to Nunkah and the rest of his tribe, Ikopek is light-skinned with white-features and blond hair, even though it doesn't make sense for someone from a culture based on pre-colonial American societies to have those features.

And, of course, Nonna is tossed out from her husband's tribe for not fitting the appropriate gender roles. Sexism is prevalent in many places throughout Elfquest, in the white-coded societies as well as the rest, but it's noteworthy in that it's linked so explicitly to the non-white societies.. to the degree that even the Sun Villagers note that there are expected behaviours of maidens, ones that the wolfriders do not necessarily conform to.

The wolfriders help them change, though, over time - and to bring us back to the human aspect of this criticism, this is a trend unfortunately evident throughout the entire series. Little Patch (a boy abandoned by his parents from a tribal society as an infant but gets adopted by the wolfriders) is tossed aside by his kin, but returns as a blonde hair, blue-eyed adult to eventually lead them. Shuna leaves the white society of Junsland and joins into Ikopek's tribal network, educating and enlightening those that she speaks to. When the Gliders- and eventually, the Wolfriders - interact with humans, they're inevitably seen as an ideal.

pictured here is Aramak, the human chief of a tribe descended from the Hoan-G’Tay-Sho. He is a cruel tyrant who did not hesitate to maim and kill his subjects, considering them little more than offerings to be used. He reveres the elves, to the point of mutilating his ears to look like theirs.

This is just part of a larger, unfortunate aspect of how the Pini's treat a lot of their human societies as well. For those in tribes, which is to say the majority of the societies depicted, they simply aren't treated with much respect by the narrative or even by those within it.

I also think it should be mentioned that the trolls in Elfquest have been criticized as being antisemitic stereotypes; they have large, hooked noses and thick lips and are early on characterized as greedy and dishonest, but get more sympathetic portrayals later in the comic.

#submission

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piosplayhouse · 2 years

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god i just saw that “ymj has no children” post you mentioned a while back and it’s??? bad. it’s so bad 💀💀

nhs is the only nie that shows up and it’s bc “well we just don’t see a lot of the nie” even though they explicitly and intentionally visited qinghe (and nhs intentionally ran his sect’s reputation into the ground!!), but jc is the only jiang that shows up and “it’s bc there’s no kids in ymj bc jc is a classist serial killer uwu maybe if he didn’t torture people in public people wouldn’t fucking hate him (also ymj indiscriminately attacks ppl and they’re probably all egotistical thugs)” LIKE HELLO???? WHAT KIND OF JUMP IS THAT???

like. one of my biggest pet peeves is how ppl misuse “begging the question” to mean “raises the question.” but if i had to explain to someone what “begging the question” is, this is too perfect of an example, bc the ENTIRE THING is based on assumptions we don’t know to be true. ARE THERE no children at ymj? IS jc classist? IS he a serial killer? CAN we trust the credibility of rumors? is ANYTHING you just said actually true??

anyway i just remembered not being able to find the post at the time but WOW it’s just as bad as it sounded

(i was in the middle of writing a response to a different one of OP’s posts but now i’m wondering if i should even bother lol)

Yeah it's just like ?? Idk op's top posts seemed fairly reasonable so I guess this is just another "Jiang Cheng eats people's brains" scenario. I think the biggest issue I have with this kind of discourse in general is the notion that "Jiang Cheng is ruining the Jiang sect by being Jiang Cheng" which I feel is weird on a lot of levels that just indicate that you straight up didn't understand half of what was going on in mdzs.

1. The Jiang sect was already ruined. You read about it. It was burned down and everyone except the sect heirs and wwx were killed, what's not clicking. The main reason that Jiang sect doesn't have many junior disciples is most likely because idk , many of the vulnerable young denizens of ymj were killed and as hard as Jiang Cheng tries, he can't force everyone in lotus pier to repopulate like shinzo abe convincing people to get married with anime. This also connects to:

2. The way sects work in mdzs is explicitly hereditary. This is a HUGE point in the world-building-- sure jc could theoretically adopt a bunch of kids or something, but what's the precedent for that? Baoshan Sanren's mountain? Blood ties are everything in mdzs. And this leads into:

3. The implication that Jiang Cheng is ruining his own sect by not getting married and having kids. I don't think I need to elaborate much on this being ummm weird as hell in many ways and also wrong because guess who else doesn't have a wife or kids... Lan Xichen?

Unorganized notes:

- Idk where people are assuming that Yunmeng Jiang/Jiang Cheng are like. explicitly ultra classist? Please keep in mind that the entire WORLD of mdzs is classist, this is a huge point of critique in the book that you literally could not miss unless you didn't read it. Furthermore, honestly, the Jiang are PROGRESSIVE in this regard. First of all, Jiang Cheng explicitly respected Wei Wuxian on a deeply personal level that defied class standards. He wanted to make Wei Wuxian his right hand man!! By mdzs standards, this is huge!! If he was really so classist because of Yu Ziyuan, as the sect heir he wouldn't have sacrificed his own safety and golden core to lead the wen away from wwx, a mere servant! The Jiang sect structure was also explicitly casual in comparison to like, idk the Jin, the guys who are the literal epitome of classism-- descriptions of lotus pier note that the civilian children living nearby would play with lotus pier disciples, do you think the other sects would let their kids do that?

- LMFAO on your mention that nhs is out there purposefully running his sect into the ground someone make an edit of that meme where the soldiers protecting the sleeping kid with jc getting hit with "ruining his sect" "destroying his sects reputation" and nhs sleeping

Ok ummm I think that's everything I wanted to say if anyone has any corrections or things to add feel free to start a discussion in the notes !!! I haven't read mdzs in... 3 years now, so I wouldn't be surprised if I got evidence wrong ^^ also ofc be polite to everyone involved and don't go and harass the person we're talking about or you're peerless cucumber (/neg)

#long post #long posts #mdzs spoilers #cql spoilers #gdc spoilers #mdzs discourse #cql discourse #gdc discourse #jc discourse #jiang cheng discourse

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batboyblog · 8 months

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Sorry I know this is probably 100x worse for you as a jew but oh my god I find it so unbelievably maddening seeing people uncritically reblog shit on here about how it’s all ‘fake news’ to make the ‘freedom fighters’ look bad and say Jews are controlling the media and just totally ignore the MOUNTAINS of physical videos and photo evidence from Hammas terrorism like.. you can’t say there’s ‘no evidence’ when you refuse to fucking look at the evidence that’s there?? Also talking about how Israel is genociding and committing war crimes when Hammas is doing the SAME THING in their charter they EXPLICITLY say that they want the extermination of every Jew and people are STILL like ‘nooo they didn’t mean that :/ don’t be racist and assume things!’ Like it’s RIGHT THERE. LOOK!! Also talking about how Israel is committing war crimes lmfao.. like 1. Israel is warning them to move. Gave them TWO DAYS to move. That’s more warning then Hammas gave Israel when they sneak attacked them. 2. Talking about committing war crimes, kidnapping people and holding them hostage is also a fucking war crime! But I don’t see anyone holding THAT against Hammas. It feels very much like ‘Rules for thee and none for me’. Sorry for the rant again I know this is probably 1000x harder for you I’m not even Jewish but just seeing the explosion of antisemitism on my dash has been insane. I’ve blocked so many people on here for rebloging some truly horrendous shit about how all Israelis and ‘zionists’ should die. Which we all know they’re just using Israeli and Zionist as stand in words for jew. So sick to my stomach by it all, and I hope you’re in a place where you’re safe and loved.

Sadly in the age of social media, people and the younger they are the worse it is, are falling for misinformation on TikTok, X, on here, etc and traditional media has not covered itself in glory, particularly with the failure around the hospital which will never ever go away

as you mentioned with the whole Jews... I mean "Zionists" control the world/media conspiracy its a catch-22 if the media "isn't covering" something its because they're controlled by the Jews and that TikTok video thats really of Syrians from 10 years ago, is the real truth of whats going on! and if the media reports new facts as they come out (again the Hospital bombing thing) its because they bowed to the Zionist cover up, not that say Hamas are big liars...

it is hard with so much disinformation and people who clearly don't want to know whats going on and who want to turn the emotive language up to 100 so you spend all your energy and time playing wack a mole about it, idk what to do about it short term, other than to say if they're not willing to take it seriously enough to know what they're talking about don't waste your energy on it.

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 2 years

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Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) condemned what he described as “revenge politics” as many Republicans have resisted his efforts to speed up the approval process for energy projects.

“It’s like the revenge politics, basically revenge towards one person: me. And I’m thinking, ‘this is not about me,’ ” he told reporters on Tuesday.

“I’m hearing that the Republican leadership is upset and they’re saying ‘we’re not going to give a victory to Joe Manchin’ — Joe Manchin’s not looking for a victory,” he added. “We’ve got a good piece of legislation that’s extremely balanced and I think it’ll prove itself in time. The bottom line is, how much suffering and how much pain do you want to inflict on the American people for the time.”

Republicans, along with Manchin, have long complained that the approval process for energy and infrastructure projects — known as permitting — has been too lengthy and stalled important projects.

When he agreed to pass the Democrats’ climate and tax bill, Manchin struck a deal with Democratic leadership to also pass permitting reforms.

But, as he has tried to push a package of changes through, Manchin has met Republican obstacles, as some members feel slighted over the West Virginia Democrat’s passage of the climate bill.

Republicans have felt spurned after Manchin announced his support for the Democratic bill hours after a bipartisan chips and science bill passed the Senate. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had previously threatened that bill’s passage if Democrats pursued their bill.

The GOP has also complained that Manchin’s changes may not go far enough.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, a coalition of liberal Democrats has also come together to resist the effort, arguing that it will undercut the environmental inspections that often draw out the permitting process.

But Manchin said on Tuesday that “we do not bypass any of the environmental reviews,” which he said was the main difference between his package and a separate proposal from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).

The Senator also told reporters that the text of his proposal would be released on Wednesday, and that it would explicitly speed up the approval process for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a controversial proposed project that would carry natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia.

#us politics #twitter #tweet #2022 #sen. joe manchin #manu raju #nina turner #expand child tax credits #child tax credit #senate majority leader chuck schumer #sen. chuck schumer #corporate democrats #permitting reforms #permitting #Sen. Shelley Moore Capito #Mountain Valley Pipeline #progressive caucus #infrastructure bill

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mx-mongoose · 2 years

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I’m gonna go on a rant because i’m still so salty about a past hyperfixation that was at its peak almost three ago and of course this is about Camp Camp. I have no desire to rewatch this series ever. There’s a lot of problamatic elements in the show (As well as the fandom, like dear christ these are literal ten year olds, you freaks of nature) that make me iffy and I do not care about Max & David enough to care anymore (I swear to god, I love found family but dude the fandom oversaturated Dadvid where there was literally nothing else). So I have no reason to be salty this much about this but I feel like I need to get this out there.

THE SHOW DID NOT UTILIZE HARRISON ENOUGH. But not just that, they literally throw away any chance of this boy finding happiness or getting any positive development. But in that, THEY ALSO FUCKED OVER NERRIS IN THE PROCESS. (warning this post may not be conherant)

I’ll primarily talk about Quest to Sleepy Peak Peak, the Camp Corp arc and then the bullshit that is season 4.

Before Sleepy Peak Peak, the first appearance we got of Nerris and Harrison’s dynamic was in the first episode where Nerris was beating Harrison up with a foam sword and throwing dice at him. The other time was the time with the Camp Cool Kidz episode where they work together as security, seeming to get along until they fall into a trap and telling him he sucks.

In other episodes though they seem to be on friendlier terms.

Like in Mind Freakers, we see Nerris happily watch Harrison preform magic with no sense of rivalry or in Romeo and Juliet ll we see them sit next to each-other when watching Preston’s play (As well as Nerris happily watching him do magic). Which comes off as confusing since its only been seen that they hate each other (At least Nerris did at first glance)

Then here comes Quest To Sleepy Peak Peak.

This episode is the only one in the series in which it focuses on their dynamic (at least explicitly). The episode is about Nerris, Harrison, Nikki and Neil playing a game about stopping the “dark forces” within the mountain. Nerris and Harrison bicker the whole time until the very end where Harrison brings up the possibility that the dark forces were within them the entire time and Nerris goes along with it, and then they try to save the day by putting aside their differences. Reminder that this is an imaginary game. Harrison could’ve left at any time, Nerris could’ve just kicked him out and not include him if they really didn’t want him around. There’s also the fact where Harrison didn’t have to try and make up with Nerris through the game’s storyline. They don’t hate each-other at all, hell it could be argued they’re on friendly terms and they’re just playful rivals. (who sometimes take it to far)

And from that point foward (Plus even before) they’re seen together and interacting with each other ALL THE TIME. When they’re not together, its usually with episodes about one of their other dynamics besides each-other. (Harrison & Neil, Nerris & Ered, Harrison & QuarterMaster, Nerris & Nikki). I am not joking, there is a full seven minute compilation on youtube of them just being together and interacting (Some of them being the two playing together, talking and of course teasing each other) and in all of them they never came off as if they actively hated each other.

I feel like I should mention The Lake Lilac Summer Dance, where its hinted at Nerris and Harrison wanted to dance together but were to swept up in their rivalry to do anything or in the egg episode where they’re paired up as parents for their egg (Although it went very badly just from them being kids really) I’m not gonna touch on the Nerrison side of things, this post is primarily about their friendship alone. You can interpet them however you like, more power to you. But teaspoon of salt, NERRISON SHIPPERS DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DRAW OR WRITE NERRIS AND HARRISON. Half the Nerrison art i’v seen over the past few years has Nerris fucking whitewashed (Lighter skin, straight hair, etc). The fanfic writers write them as the most cisheteronormative couple ever, even though Nerris is canonically nonbinary. But then for both the writers and artists, they sexualize them so damn much its gross. Okay i’m done with that-

But then interactions became sour in the Camp Corp arc for unknown reasons. Like refusing to talk to each other, Nerris being shown to be annoyed with Harrison just talking. (It is agrued here and there that Harrison mentioning his parents is what annoyed Nerris because they don’t like his parents. Nerris knows what supportive and loving parents look like and Harrison’s parents are... not that. But I digress either way)

In the episode where the camp gets shut down, Nikki asks if they’re going to split up. Even though before they seemed to not want anything to do with the other (Even being enthusiastic about meeting magic kids like them, but also looking a bit betrayed as well that the other would rather be with “real” magic kids),

but when Nikki brings that possibility up they immediatly look to each other worried. These aren’t just random characters, the show (albeit rather silently mostly) has built their dynamic up until this point, so this is pivotal.

When Max went to pick up Harrison, Harrison mentions that “All we do is pull rabbits out of our hats. All. Day. Long.” like he was tired of the repititon and everyone being the same. Of course this applys to Harrison missing the camp as a whole, but this also might be directed towards Nerris specifically because of what the show has built up until now. He misses having that compititon with Nerris, proving who was “the true magic kid” and somewhat embracing each other’s differences. But now that everyone was the same and does the same thing, he’s bored without them.

After Harrison, it immediatly cuts to Nerris. Who looks bored of their mind, even though they were vocally excited about meeting other magic kids like them. But Nerris is alone and rolling dice on the ground. They were finally around people like them but Nerris is more unhappy then they were back at camp where Nerris was with a kid who didn’t even study the same magic as them but were constantly lumped together. But at least they were together.

It should be noted that Harrison’s Magic Camp uniform was blue and Nerris’s Magic Camp uniform was red... Just putting that out there.

It then cuts to Nerris boarding the bus after setting their camp on fire, they go up to Harrison. They share a bitter look at each other and then Harrison happily offers Nerris to sit next to him, then Nerris happily does. Then all throughout the episode, they’re inseperable. Ending on them having a water gun fight together with no bitterness towards the other. Its actually quite beautiful in a way, especially since it was all show not tell. They kept to their promise that they’ll put aside their differences for the greater good and that’s their friendship.

AND THEN SEASON 4 SHITS ALL OVER THE BEST THING TO COME OUT OF THIS DAMN SHOW.

APPARENTLY NERRIS JUST BULLIES HARRISON NOW AND HARRISON JUST SITS THERE LIKE A WET DOG WITH NONE OF HIS NORMAL COMEBACKS WHEN NERRIS IS TEASING OR ANTAGONIZING HIM. Like in Sleepy Peak Peak, Harrison doesn’t just stand there and let Nerris make fun of him, like he makes of them too???

Also apparently the whole camp hates Harrison now for no fucking reason even though they’re supposed to be a family and THAT’S WHAT THE CAMP CORP ARC WAS ALL ABOUT. Anyway, Nerris just lets the camp bully Harrison for no reason and drive him out on their hike, leading to Harrison hanging with Quartermaster and going on about how much he’s an outcast and how he has no friends whatsoever.

NO FRIENDS WHATSOEVER

A part of their dynamic that really shined was the fact they were both outcasts in camp and stuck together even with their differences and disagreements. BUT NOPE, FUCK THAT, EVEN THOUGH NERRIS CONFIRMS THAT EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE PASSIONATE IN MAGIC AND LARP IT GETS LONELY AND FEELS LIKE NO-ONE UNDERSTANDS THEM, THAT EXCHANGE WAS WITH NIKKI (more understandable) AND THE HITLER JOKE (less understandable). Like don’t get me wrong, it was pretty cute and I love getting more character to Nerris. BUT Y’KNOW WHERE THAT EXCHANGE SHOULD’VE BEEN IN?!

IN HARRISON’S FUCKING EPISODE ALL ABOUT HIM FEELING LIKE AN OUTCAST.

But since season 4 is to busy making Harrison miserable to flesh out his already existing friendships, they make Nerris this bully and it waters down that confession. Nerris admitting their lonelyness would’ve been super powerful if it was with Harrison since we’re already familiar with their dynamic and would’ve been character development for both of them since Camp Corp. But nope.

This was longer then I wanted it to be.

#Camp Camp #cc Nerris #cc Harrison #Character analysis #Relationship analysis #super long post #long post

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tuiyla · 2 years

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I know you must be fed up with these type of questions but this really confuses me.Why did Finn get away with everything but not Rachel? They was both creators favs right? Yet Rachel always got called out and humiliated ( despite getting her way) yet finn didn’t do you think it was because he was a guy? We all know the writers was sexist

Bold of you to assume I'll ever get tired of calling out the writers' sexism and particularly their treatment of golden boy Finn 😌

Here's the thing: the fans so often treat Finn and Rachel as if the narrative had them on the same level. It didn't. Rachel was the main character if we had to say and the original three pillars of Glee were Will, Finn and Rachel but there's markedly a difference between how Finchel's characters were treated. The fans see Rachel get all the solos and overall, despite some bumps in the road, get everything she ever wanted, and think that equals Finn's infuriating never called out, never dealing with consequences treatment. I personally think they're very different in this way.

Was Rachel also treated in a special way, sure. But Finn is on this pedestal both in and out of universe, the popular kid who graces these losers with his light. I’m only slightly exaggerating in that. And yet Rachel, the main representative of our underdogs, is the one the show thinks needs humbling. I mean, she kinda does, but Finn is never treated like the other popular kids are. They’re all ~problematic~, bullies and shallow and etc. And make no mistake, Quinn does not get the Finn treatment and nor does Santana or Puck or really anyone else. Puck being the key ch here as another guy, who is treated overall better by the narrative imo but Finn’s pedestal seems like a special one here.

What I’m getting at is that, imo, it was only a sexism thing as much as it was a character type thing. Were they genderswapped and the main leads were a loser guy and a popular girl, idk how different it would have been. And that’s not me dismissing the very real fact that Finn got away with murder because he was a guy as that aspect of his character is part of why he was the golden boy to begin with. Again, look at how the Cheerios were constantly villainized for similar things. But maybe sexism doesn’t explain all of it? And tbh I feel like comparing Rachel to Finn doesn’t really tell us just how much he was favoure dby the writers. Because Rachel was as well but in more obvious and, dare I say, understandable aspects. She gets the most songs because Lea Michele gets the most songs. But Rachel also had so many more learning moments. And lest we forget, the show explicitly states many times that Finn is an oh so much better person than she is. All that despite the receipts of Finn’s actions.

Wow, this is getting away from me. So I’ll just add this: on a character and in-universe level, it strikes me how differently they reacted to accountability. And look, do I have a Rachel bias here? Of course, I love her and famously dislike Finn more every day. But when Rachel messes up the narrative treats it as such and she's told she sucks. She acknowledges her flaws, apologizes most of the time and shows such humanity. Rachel is very flawed and her flaws are such that she often treats others less than ideally, but she has these come back to earth moments. And Finn never really has that accountability, to the detriment of his character.

So, TL;DR: is it because he was a guy? Not just that. There’s a mountain of difference between Rachel’s and the other girls’ treatment, too. But his status as the popular guy, the “nice” guy does play a role. At the end of the day it’s just that the writers envisioned Rachel as a flawed character who needed humbling and Finn as someone who just needed a space to show how great he was, imo. In that sense, Rachel wasn’t as much of a favourite but it worked out better for her anyway.

#okay i have more thoughts on this but i need to crack on with asks #so feel free to continue this topic lol I'm deffo not getting sick of trying to understand #just what it was that made the writers crawl so far up finn's ass #they were just approached so differently as chs #glee asks #finn asks #rachel asks #anon #anti finn hudson #rachel berry

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