Anytime I see those “God that rep from two years ago was so bad” posts, I think about Gravity Falls.
I think about the fact that Alex Hirsch wanted the cupid character (who appeared in ONE episode) to have the MLM/WLW symbols on his necklace, but Disney shot it down because it was seen as inappropriate for a kid’s show.
I think about the sheriff characters, who’s “relationship” was used as a running gag to laugh at. Who’s kiss in the last scene at the end of the series damn near made people go INSANE. These were two characters who were no one’s favorites and who served as comedy relief, but it was still seen as a huge win for rep because it happened at all.
I think about the fact that Gravity Falls, a show where dead animals speak in tongues as blood drips from their eyes, couldn’t have anywhere near the amount of rep that the creators wanted to add because it “wasn’t for kids”
And now we have men getting married to their husbands and women getting married to their wives on screen. We have boys with boyfriends and girls with girlfriends and characters that are purposely gnc or androgynous. We have characters with pride pins or flags in their rooms. We have cartoons like Blues Clues that have been around for AGES making entire videos dedicated to pride for kids.
Just… things get better. Representation gets better because people fight to make it happen. We can’t act like they were “basically nothing” because without them we would HAVE nothing.
not to be insane but in a realistic tomarry/harrymort fic with good characterization it’s very difficult for them to not change one another.
a good fic acknowledges that harry only survives their canon interactions (and overall, his many different in-story challenges) from being tricky and clever. like it or not, harry is much weaker in magic, strength, mind, and political influence than voldemort.
so when he’s getting out of the third task, he doesn’t win, he cheats. when he’s getting out of malfoy manor, he doesn’t win, he calls dobby and gets out though a minor oversight. he doesn’t defeat umbridge in a dual, he instead helps run a covert defense club and repeatedly goes under her nose to do what he wants!! he doesn’t save sirius in book 3 because he fought peter and won, he used a time turner (albeit with help), broke ministry rules without anyone else knowing (bar hermione and dumbledore) and saved him.
that’s so slytherin!!!
it is my belief that Voldemort thus inadvertently pushes Harry to be more cunning. Harry is at his most slytherin during his daring but clever escapes from Voldemort and the indirect issues caused by Voldemort.
though it has less text evidence, i would also go so far to throw out that because of how pissed off Harry makes voldemort, it’s the same in reverse. Harry pushes Voldemort to be more reckless and daring in his effort to capture/kill him, as if a gryffindor.
i guess there’s a lot of poetry there. the more polarized they get from one another, the more alike they become. as they clash, they transform themselves into the other.
idk
when fantasy books describe the cloth of Quant Farmpeople’s clothing as “homespun” or “rough homespun”
“homespun” as opposed to what??? EVERYTHING WAS SPUN AT HOME
they didn’t have fucking spinning factories, your pseudo-medieval farmwife is lucky if she has a fucking spinning wheel, otherwise she’s spinning every single thread her family wears on a drop spindle NO ONE ELSE WAS DOING THE SPINNING unless you go out of your way to establish a certain baseline of industrialization in your fake medieval fantasy land.
and “rough”??? lol just because it’s farm clothes? bitch cloth was valuable as fuck because of the labor involved ain’t no self-respecting woman gonna waste fiber and ALL THAT FUCKING TIME spinning shitty yarn to weave into shitty cloth she’s gonna make GOOD QUALITY SHIT for her family, and considering that women were doing fiber prep/spinning/weaving for like 80% of their waking time up until very recently in world history, literally every woman has the skills necessary to produce some TERRIFYINGLY GOOD QUALITY THREADS
come to think of it i’ve never read a fantasy novel that talks about textile production at all??? like it’s even worse than the “where are all the farms” problem like where are people getting the cloth if no one’s doing the spinning and weaving??? kmart???
This is probably the best edit I’ve seen of tribune stampede
Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”
I know the Star Wars extended universe treats “spice” like it’s this big scary drug, but I kind of like to imagine that it’s basically just space weed, and the only reason Han got in trouble with the Imperials over Jabba’s cargo is that he was evading import tariffs.
Sometimes I’m looking for something online - often “how to” articles - and I want to filter for - like - a website that was clearly built in 2010 at the latest, which may or may not have been updated since then, but contains a vast wealth of information on one topic, painstakingly organized by an unknown legend in the field with decades’ worth of experience. I don’t want a listicle with a nice stolen picture in a slideshow format written by a content aggregator that God forgot. I want hand-drawn diagrams by some genius professor who doesn’t understand SEO at all, but understands making stir-fries or raising stick insects better than anyone else on this earth. I don’t know what search settings to put into Google to get this.
them: you don’t watch game of thrones?? really? how come?
me:
for no reason whatsoever here’s a reminder that if you consider yourself a leftist/punk/abolitionist/anarchist/radical in any sort of way and get called into jury duty, you are to become the most square person on earth during the jury questionnaire!!!
don’t be that guy who says fuck the police in the jury questionnaire! that just gets you sent home! if you want to generate change, interact with the case and use your jury vote for good! ESPECIALLY if it’s a high profile case!