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@theboogierat 's pancakeshipping I made since she likes it alot :3

they should make steroids but mclennon STILL GOT IT!!

I want whatever you're on

blaire is peak and why rusty can't write truly evil women

If you've found this post, I don't need to introduce Leasebound to you.

Instead, we're going to talk about the fandom.

Leasebound's fandom has a sort of Lemony-Snicket-esque schism, with Rusty's intended audience and (hilariously) the exact opposite. I've seen both sides of the Leasebound audience, and I've noticed something interesting.

...nobody hates Blaire.

Okay, that's a HELL of a sentence to make, and very exaggerated. I've seen 'Blaire unenjoyers' and other people treating Blaire like the Eric Cartman of Leasebound, it's an eye-catching statement that makes people read more of the text post.

But I wouldn't call it wrong, I'd give it a 'hyperbolic.'

Even on the side of Rusty's intended audience, Blaire isn't loathed. I've seen many enjoyers of Blaire who either talk about how much they went her to talk gender to them, so to say. On the flipside, the worst interpretation of Blaire is a misogynist who pushes her activism on other people, which is more or less her canon intent.

But if Blaire was as bad as Rusty Hearts portrayed her, I don't think we'd see so much art of Blaire. In fact, I put down a poll, and Blaire pretty much took the #1 spot for the 'character with the most fanart' almost instantly, beating out characters such as Jaden (who took silver), Riley, and Violet. And it pretty much sticks!

I've seen a lot of Blaire fanart from the Leasebound tag on both sides! I've seen a lot of Blaire discussion and discourse on both sides, either about the possibility of a redemption arc, a rewrite, thirsting over her, etc.

So...we can pretty much say Blaire is a bad strawman.

Strawmen are supposed to be one-note characters the main cast is supposed to be more interesting than and can fight with no pushback. Blaire is massively popular across the board in the Leasebound fandom, has discussions about her that are multi-layered, and has wonderful fanart from people that really like her.

Done. That's all.

But we're not done. We need to keep talking.

Rusty Leasebound is very good at some things. Her chapter focusing on Shez had emotional, gut-wrenching art, and there is a definite appealing quality to the way she draws things.

Some things, atleast.

But Rusty is not a great writer. There's tons of other essays and an entire discord server that can point all the flaws in her story out enough to write an epic worthy of the Mahabharata. Leasebound has largely forgotten what it is to be a mouthpiece for her political opinions, its characters are one-note and one-dimensional, she focuses on the wrong things at the wrong time, and many more that will make my fingers cry as I type this. But I want to focus of Rusty's tendencies to tell, not show.

Blaire is not evil. She's not even Maleficent or Ursula or Cruella evil. And she's no Makima either. Blaire is just a woman passionate about her beliefs, and makes the mistake of pushing them on other people. That's not evil, that's a flaw. Women cannot be perfect all the time.

But we're meant to believe she is evil. In this panel of the Actor!AU, we are TOLD by Rusty that Blaire is meant to be evil.

Blaire isn't evil! Come back to me when she puts a living creature in a blender, or something!

While the statement is understandable, you're using it in the wrong way! Because there is no reason for the casual Leasebound reader to ever believe Blaire is evil, the way you portray her!

(Yes, casual Leasebound readers exist. Quinty's one.)

And there's multiple occasions of this 'tell, don't show' narrative Rusty keeps pushing.

For example: Meriam.

Meriam is told to be the protective, strong mother, but I'm not sure that's entirely the case.

Meriam has serious flaws in her parenting that is never acknowledged. Shez was made to basically worry for her siblings at a young age, which sounds horrible for a young girl.

(side note: criticism of the comic has often lead to more interesting, and realistic plotlines for leasebound to include.)

She's obviously traumatised, and it shows in her parenting. When she shuns out Rissa and her boyfriend; that's not good! If Rissa wants her family by her side, she won't get it because she's marrying a man. Meriam always keeps Shez on the pedestal like she's Luisa from Encanto.

Nobody asks how's Shez. Someone help Shez.

And there's so much more!

We get snippets of Riley, a MAIN CHARACTER'S backstory from one-off panels and dialouges, but we heard the majority of it from Rusty in the comment section, Rusty confirming fan speculation, the cast page, non-canon panels, etc. Nothing in the main story!

And that just makes Riley...really boring. The most interesting part of Riley is Blaire right now, and that's REALLY bad, considering we're supposed to dislike Blaire.

Here are some more examples of Rusty telling, not showing:

Muddles:

Riley:

Various statuses of offscreen characters:

Blaire and many others of Rusty's characters have fallen into one of her biggest writing flaws' clutches, but it's interesting as to how fan perception and works have essentially made one of the most three-dimensional characters of the comic, aside from Jaden. And that's one of the main problems with Leasebound.

I want to end this with an open letter. I don't know if she'll read it, but if you do:

Listen to criticism, and find out what's wrong with your comic. Tune in to different parts of the fandom, even when you don't agree with them. At the heart of the war, we all share one thing: reading your comic. Don't take that for granted; many amazing, better written comics would love to have the attention you have. Your art is good. I enjoy reading Leasebound when it's about the characters, not how we're supposed to percieve them. You have something; harness it before it goes away! And at the rate Leasebound is going- it might go away really fast.

Thank you for reading. I don't have anything else to say.

...

Hey, remember when a radfem accidentally reblogged a post by a non-radfem-

Talked very briefly about this in the Leasecord server, but the portrayal of Faith has always pegged me as sort of odd considering like...

・She is so sheltered from the idea of men that she doesn't even understand why a man/boy would be in a household

・She hasn't been written, at least not as of yet, to have any friends her own age, not from school or anywhere else, in fact the only interaction she's had at all with another kid is the kid she beat up. All of her friends are the grown adult members of Yonqiue, basically being raised by them

・She's somewhat pushy and clingy and it kind of seems like she doesn't understand boundaries in relations to other girls, especially Jaden, who she has a crush on. While it's completely normal for a young child to have a crush on an adult, it is a tad bit weird how much the other adults around her sort of encourage how clingy she is towards Jaden.

・It's honestly doubtful that she'd likely EVER make friends in a real world scenario, because the way she's being raised is just setting her up for other kids to think she's a bully. She's being raised by incredibly judgemental TERF women who have raised her on the idea that men and being effeminate are completely terrible and a failure of a woman, so she'd basically be the equivalent of a "I'm not like other girls" girl, only at a much earlier age, and much meaner. It's fine for her to be a tomboy/masculine, it's not fine that this'll probably be used as a catalyst for her to bully and harass other girls because that's what she thinks is justice. And even if she were to find some TERF friends who are like her, what are the chances that they'd even tolerate her considering they might just also hate her for being lesbian or black, or even just hate her for being a tomboy since, surprise surprise, being a TERF usually comes packaged with being bigoted and hateful towards... Literally anything else. In fact, Rusty and this comic are the one and only time I've seen TERFs actually advocate for women being more masculine or tomboyish considering every other TERF media I've seen will literally scream that a woman is a man in disguise if she's not walking around built like Jessica Rabbit.

Soooo... TL:DR

Yonique kind of runs like a cult, and I feel incredibly bad for Faith. Let's just hope she never gets unsupervised internet access like most of us did and finds websites like Amino, because I'm sure her grown adult TERF friends and Rusty would never even consider the idea that women can also be child predators.

Getting some real Caleb and Sophia vibes. Can't wait for the TERFs to rip me a new ass for this one.

wouldnt it be even more fucked up to bite into a piece of mac n cheese n u see its BLEEDING

don't shame it for it's time of the month

no spare change but can we be moots?

s-spare change?

(i have no idea what that is)

I'm sorry it took this long.

Many, many individual reports are coming in of how violent this night has been.

wouldnt it be fucked up if u bit into a piece of mac n cheese and it was full of ketchup

is this a threat

So I’ve seen some posts going around saying things like “boycotting doesn’t work, don’t bother boycotting Eurovision because they’ve already been paid. The only thing you can do to help is donate to organisations.” People are only saying this to absolve themselves of guilt. Don’t let them make you think that boycotting doesn’t work. It does.

Boycotting means that Eurovision will have a much harder time finding advertisements who want to partner with them, which means less funding overall. Boycotting means that they receive less money from televoting, ticket sales and merchandise. Boycotting means that their view count drops significantly and puts pressure on them to change their current practices. Boycotting means you won’t let Eurovision distract you while bombs are falling on Palestine. And most importantly: boycotting means sending a clear message that you will not stand for their support of Israel.

Eurovision is not staying apolitical. They have taken a political stance by letting Israel compete, just like they took a political stance when they banned Russia from competing. They are perfectly capable of banning countries for committing war crimes, so allowing Israel to compete shows that they are accepting and excusing Israel’s genocide. They are also sponsored by an Israeli company (MoroccanOil) so if you’re wondering how Eurovision could POSSIBLY side with Israel, there’s your answer: money.

Don’t give them any of yours. Don’t give them your viewership. Boycotting works, and if you’re feeling guilty for watching Eurovision, good. Feel bad. People are being killed, tortured, families torn apart and houses being bombed as we speak, so forgive me if I’m not sympathetic over you not being able to watch your fucking song contest. Not everything is about you. You’re going to have to feel uncomfortable sometimes when there’s a fucking genocide going on.

Lastly, not everyone is able to donate. Boycotting is a great way of helping if you’re not able to help financially. The Palestinian BDS National Committee and pro-Palestine organisations are encouraging people to boycott Eurovision, so even Palestinians themselves and Palestinian organisations are telling you that boycotting will help.

Eurovision is not worth it. You can find something else to do. Stream Hind’s Hall by Macklemore since all proceeds go to UNRWA. You can also help for free by starting your daily clicks on Arab.org.

And if you are able to donate, then great! Do that too:

And dear god, if you’re really not able to go without Eurovision then find a fucking way to pirate it. I am also begging people not to hate-watch Israeli’s entry because all that does is stop the boycott and make the viewerships spike again. The best thing you can do is fucking ignore them.

Wonder who that rat is....

POV: You made the mistake of being a TERF on tumblr

If anyone understands this joke, I applaud you.