How Your Disabled Character's Allies React To Their Disability Can Make Or Break The Representation In

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brieuc talks comics

The Fall of X, or the legacy of Krakoa

Hellfire Gala 2023, Phil Noto Krakoa has been a fascinating thing to watch play out. I got into comics proper shortly after the new mutant n

We will kill the most diverse X-Men team this era has ever seen, but don’t worry, self-described genetic absolutist White Queen will avenge their deaths. The character whose first scene in this project was announcing her intention to act as the capitalist colonial arm of the mutant nation is never criticised or analysed properly for this, and in fact is rewarded with being the revolutionary leader, organising what needs to be done in the fight against the terrorist Orchis. We will show any critics of Krakoa to be nothing more than racist Nazi scum who die horrifying and darkly comedic deaths, to canonise our great and beautiful paradise ethnostate as the dream we all shared, that was ripped apart from us by jealous fools. Both powerful enough to pull off that feat, but not powerful enough to stop Kitty-now-Kate Pryde from going through a goddamn door. Simultaneously strong enough to defeat mutantkind at their strongest and proudest, and weak enough that they grovel for forgiveness the moment they’re defeated. These depictions are not unique to superhero comics–but ethnostates are. Using these tricks when you’re writing an era that’s opening moment sets up the direct comparison to Israel is, bluntly, disgusting, and shameful. It is disgusting if it is intentional, and it is still disgusting if it is accidental. The promise of an interesting story with a harrowing fallout is gone, and all that remains are the lies of fascists put in the mouths of characters whose revenge we are supposed to root for.

Wrote an essay discussing my feelings on the fallout and legacy of Krakoa. I also have a substack ver if wordpress doesn't work for everyone.

the concept of fatphobia isn't "skinny people have never ever been shamed or insecure about their bodies ever" but rather "society literally doesn't want fat people to exist at any cost to the point healthcare systems are willing to let fat people die rather than address any other possible medical issue, in addition to facing insults and disgust at every turn socially". online the fact u can't make a body positive or even neutral post without somebody going "but what about us naturally skinny and petite people" is so fucked man

being in your early 20s is crazy bc there’s people who are literally married and people who’ve never even dated and people who are trapped in their childhood bedrooms waiting to get out and people who are trying to live out romanticized dream lives and people who are completely on their own and people with multi tiered support systems and we’re all supposedly peers and none of us think we’re doing it right at all

be pro-aging but wear sun screen. sun protection is not beauty industry propaganda it will save you. wear it. or else.

Read your post about the black-and-white nature of the show and I see your point, however, I personally would really like to see how they handled the idea of redemption for characters like Adam and Val. Or at the very least, how Charlie engaged with them in a way that encouraged better behaviors. I think the biggest hurdle to any redemption is that not everyone wants it, you have to convince them or let them get there on their own... but (and I think this is personal based on your own morals/culture) I strongly believe anyone is capable of it. Luckily this is taking place in the afterlife, so people have truly unlimited time to self reflect and get to a point of wanting change.

That being said, I think characters with much graver crimes (Adam and Val) make for a far more interesting story within this topic. Due to the nature of what they've done, they require you to really dive into who they are as people, what their past is (what is informing their decision-making), and, importantly, what "improvement" means for them. I think you can still do this with the current cast too (Angel and Sir Pentious) but we never see it, which is frustrating.

How am I supposed to buy into Sir Pentious' redemption when we have no idea what he did in life to end up in Hell? Angel was a mobster... and yet all he has to do to "redeem" himself is stop taking drugs? What about his victims?

I think redemption should be complex, have many ups and downs, and needs to focus on not just the individual (how they got there) but their victims too (especially their victims, actually). And if the goal isn't redemption, it can still be "improvement" with a focus on getting a person to truly reconcile with the impact of their actions and how they can make better choices in the future.

All that said, it is clear to me (sadly) this show does not want to focus on these topics and dissect them in an interesting way. It teases them, which gets a person like me excited (I love the thought exercise because I do absolutely believe there is good in everyone, that is just my own deeply held belief), but then we get such a lukewarm portrayal of it that barely scratches the surface. Would have really enjoyed seeing the show double down on "yes, everyone can be a target for redemption" and then actually explore the impact of that and how Charlie's little summer camp exercises aren't going to cut it.

It's pretty sad how shallow Hazbin's themes feel when there is so much interesting potential to explore from it. But the show never bothers exploring that potential and chooses the most shallow, surface-level execution of it. Charlie trying to redeem Val and Adam could actually be interesting....but Viv doesn't want to give them any more personality or depth beyond them just being one-dimensional assholes so, ya.

Hazbin's themes feel hollow for many reasons I previously talked about but this is the biggest one; the show barely actually explores them, it only touches the surface and nothing else. In a show all about redemption, it's super funny that most of it isn't even dedicated to redeeming sinners at all.

It's just a shame because Hazbin's message is interesting and sweet, but it never bothers deconstructing that message or exploring what redemption truly means. It only explores the surface-level stuff which makes it feel incredibly hollow.

I think, from my opinion at least, what differentiates Earthspark from other Transformers shows (more specifically recent installations is) that it took risks and even though its messages may not have been conveyed across to its fullest potential, the intention and direction are still fairly evident and less harmful in comparison to other Transformers media

Earthspark manages to balance darker themes fairly well, whilst not forgetting its primary audience are children. There are both subtle and blatant dark themes throughout the show, there is a lot of exploration regarding one's identity which is more notable (but not exclusive) to the Terran Nightshade

It makes an honest attempt to be inclusive and while it may feel a bit stunted and awkward at times, it achieved its purpose despite what may be awkward handling— I find it odd how beloved Knockout is, despite the fact that he is an offensive gay stereotype (and not really handled well as a character in general) but the scene of Nightshade, an explicit non-binary character, saving Sam in ‘Home’ is apparently too awkward and regarded viewed as good but not enough in terms of representation?

EarthSpark has Black Filipino protagonists! There is casual representation with Mo's hair bonnet and the Filipino cuisine they eat; Alex speaks tagalog at times (although I think I do recall someone on here pointing out that the dialect he used isn't accurate to his geographic hometown in the Philippines?) and there is a whole episode where he teaches Bumblebee his culture as they hunt for the WakWak! I love when Transformers and humans teach each other about their culture, it both humanizes the Transformers reiterating that they are not emotionless robots AND it gives minorities a platform to be represented in a popular franchise

Despite the fact that the Malto children seem to be almost forcibly matured by the narrative and struggling to cope with the fear and anxiety of having their family torn apart, something that BIPOC people are at a higher likelihood of experience in the real world, it doesn't forget that at the end of the day they're all children. I quite enjoy Mo as a character and her emotional maturity, she offers her older brother wisdom and emotional comfort constantly; and when her safety is at risk her younger Terran siblings ensure that they take on a protector role due to the ultimate difference that poses threat to that of a human child and a Transformer child— because the Terrans are CHILDREN!

PTSD and trauma are touched on in EarthSpark, Hashtag's autonomy is violated by Dr Meridian and uses her body to cause harm towards her siblings and damage her environment; he used her body to prove his point that Transformers are dangerous and cannot integrate with society and Hashtag suffers from flashbacks of the experience. Despite the fact that the situation between the two is not expanded on, it is clear that Megatron has hurt Starscream in the past— Hashtag (even though she has no reason to believe Starscream because Megatron IS her mom's friend and kind towards her, "therefore he can't possible have done that") immediately believes Starscream when she confronts the latter's poor treatment towards others. She opens up about her own traumatic experience with Dr Meridian and while the situation may not be the same, she was trying to establish a common ground in the fact that they're both victims

Grimlock from his time at the bot brawls and also from having been mind-controlled by Dr Meridian blatantly suffers PTSD and is triggered several times throughout the respective episode and ineffectively copes by pushing it down. It is a dangerous thing for a Transformer to be mind-controlled, let alone a fire-breathing dinobot; fortunately Jawbreaker realising that he pushed Grimlock too far steps in and manages to calm the panicked dinobot down, assuring him that he is more than just a rampaging dinobot and there is more to Grimlock than meets the eye

EarthSpark gives us a lot in terms of themes and season one was incredibly ambitious, frankly I don't think many of the other previous Transformers shows could've handled it better than EarthSpark. I don't think that EarthSpark is without fault, on the contrary I have a few grievances with it but my issue is that people (perhaps without even realising it) are showing clear bias when they critique EarthSpark. Honestly, I do think that if the protagonists were a white family that people wouldn't mind that they're so central to the story— to be honest, that aggravates me a lot because the point of EarthSpark is that the humans have a central part in the story, it's literally about Earth born Transformers who are created a pair of siblings and adopted into their family. Criticising it centering around family and the respective human family members goes against the entire point of the show...

One of the more common critiques I have seen and I do agree to an extent, is EarthSpark's pacing. However, I absolutely think that its pacing though rushed still manages to deliver a great story that went out of its way to include difficult topics to portray— as opposed to Transformers: Prime and Transformers: Cyberverse. There is no amount of analysis and meta posts that I could read that would convince me that the pacing of those two shows were better than EarthSpark thus far, OR effectively and satisfactorily wrapped up the themes, character arcs and plotlines

It just seems that EarthSpark is taking a lot more criticism at a way earlier stage compared to other previous Transformers shows and that makes me sad because people are treating it as though its shortcomings are genuinely harmful but dismiss the previous harmful depictions in the Transformers franchise... I admire the risks and narrative choices that EarthSpark has undertaken so far and I hope it only improves from here on out, to give it that opportunity the show must continue and be given a chance to fulfil its vision

Woah, woah, woah, I agree with many of the things you bring up here, but if you're going to send me a ginormous essay, could you post it on your own blog, please? Plenty of your points are well thought-out and could stand to be there own posts, and I know I've answered long asks before, but this is way too long for me to respond to everything easily. Two or three of these points would be enough for one ask, so that's all I'm going to comment on:

-The criticism about Alex Malto defining a word wrong is definitely something that should be brought up, and I'm glad people have. I think the issue isn't necessarily the language he speaks, but that he defines "lolo" as a Tagalog word when he'd probably say it's a Bisaya word since he grew up in Bohol? I do wonder if there could be something more to his history that may explain this, especially since given his background he's probably had to switch to Tagalog and English a lot, or if there's something about his family we don't know yet. I don't have the knowledge or background to speak on this though. Also, part of me is a little glad discussing the language politics is even on the table at all for this franchise after like... how TFA handled South Asian representation, which it sounds like you were thinking as well lol

-I'm not sure if you're quoting somebody, but Hashtag (and the rest of the Maltos) ABSOLUTELY had reason to believe Megatron was abusive! Did they not go to that war memorial and hear him talking about how he's done horrible things? Don't the Malto parents often mention how he's been trying to change—the kids all know he's done harm! And Starscream even pointed out how hypocritical it is to think Megatron wouldn't leave people behind when he's locking up his former followers—even kids could get that point! Plus, the show is almost certainly trying to make the point that people who say they've been hurt should be believed and the first impulse shouldn't be to try to convince them it's not true. That's a good message for kids!

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Found family that’s made up of celebrity/mayor equivalents and everyone’s always busy (Click for better resolution)