a pet peeve I have in media is when the writer(s) try to write a strong female character and instead the just write a masculine woman. Of course woman can be masculine and strong (together and separately), but often I don’t feel like they write women who are masculine, they try to write a strong women and they can only conceive masculinity as strength. Also, I’m not sure if I’m phrasing this poorly, but it doesn’t always strike me that they write masculinity in the way a woman (or maybe a genderqueer person, though I haven’t had the pleasure of reading many original media featuring these characters prominently) might experience/express it.
one thing I appreciate about Xena as I’m rewatching it as an adult is that it feels like they’re women who have masculine traits/are masculine. Like, even beyond the fighting aspect, Xena often sits in stereotypically masculine way and takes charge/fulfills roles that are shown to be taken by men within the world they occupy. Additionally, I know that later, Gabrielle is joked to be “father” to Xena’s daughter, but I’m not that far yet, so I don’t know how far that’s taken.
idk, it just feels different to me. If anyone else has input/polite pushback I’d appreciate it/conversation! Or any other pieces of media that do this/explore women’s masculinity/gender expression/afab exploration of masculinity.
gotta be infuriating to be one of the people involved in the plotting/secrets of the Holy War in dgm.
you picked random guy one to be the Guy Who Dies (he even agreed!) and he’s just… so hard to kill. Everything that you’ve done to kill him has backfired and he’s harder to kill now.
your choice to use him as your memory vessel extended his life temporarily. that other guy’s attempt at killing for this decision failed miserably, now he has a weapon and is years younger. the weapon is no longer responding to commands and won’t kill him. yet another person tries to kill him, but because he’s a kid now, he feels bad and spares him. you feel bad when you try to kill him, even after he’s grown up a bit—he’s just so nice!
when he tries to die on his own, he’s super durable.
now you’re just waiting him out, but he’s making everything so difficult. you think you’re getting somewhere, and then he comes back, clinging to life and sanity by the skin of his teeth.
he’s dying at a rapid, unstoppable rate and he’s unkillable.
I know we all make fun of Cale for sabotaging his own slacker life, but honestly given his life experiences, it kind of makes sense.
Beyond the obvious fact that he’s a good person who’s going to help where help is needed, it was also his responsibility to do so for around a decade.
Like, I’m pretty sure one of the reasons he gives for why he needs to do all this is because conflict would inevitably reach his doorstep and cause issues for him. In the shelter before he joins team 1, he wasn’t actively involved in the fighting… then the fighting came to him, destroying the shelter with massive amounts of casualties.
And unless I’m misremembering the side chapter, he did try to take a day off as team leader krs (for cjs and lsh’s death anniversary)—and then the company called him in to deal with a crisis.
So his life experiences do kind of align with the “I have to fix everything before I can have a day off” mentality
I enjoy this so very much because I’ve already been making jokes that Allen is somehow his own father in such a convoluted way.
Like his adoptive father is Mana, whose brother is Nea. Nea is possessing Allen, thus inhabiting the same body and making it not only his, but also his uncles body; you might think this is where it ends. But Mana and Nea are two halves of the same individual. So Allen is possessed by half of his adoptive father’s soul. Thus he is his own father.
If I integrate this new, fresh theory, I can now joke that Allen is both his own biological and adoptive father.
If past!Allen and past!Lavi got orbed to make Allen, does that make them Allen's biological parents? Since Bookman is past!Lavi's father, does that make him Allen's grandfather?
can’t imagine how Allen’s conversation with the Bookman clan is going to go upon waking up. They’re pissed at him because they couldn’t find past!lavi’s body. Past!lavi didn’t leave a body because he basically absorbed it into past!allen’s.
Imagine having to explain that. How do possibly explain that.
Allen, on the verge of death again: I’m tired of this Crowned Clown
Crowned Clown: That’s too damn bad! You keep going!
with the knowledge that innocence is an parasitic entity that basically eats misery, I want someone to know that I think of Crowned Clown refusing to let Allen be killed/die or be separated as a kid throwing a tantrum because someone took away their candy.
like Apocryphos is desperately trying to get this piece of candy away because “it’s not good for you!” and Crowned Crown is kicking screaming crying about losing this food.
not doomed by the narrative, not saved by the narrative, but a secret third thing: employed by the narrative
big fan of characters whose first and greatest indicator of something being deeply wrong with them is how chill they are and how quickly they rebound
can we get an animatic for ogCale Henituse and Kim Rok Soo with 'No Longer You' from EPIC the musical pls
Like. really fitting for both of them, and a few others, but I have no idea how to make those.
Snippet:
"I see you on the brink of death. I see you draw your final breath."
"I see a man who gets to make it home alive, but it's no longer you."
shout out to past!Allen Walker for being some unfortunate rando who came into contact with the narrative and then almost instantly became doomed by it
god rest his soul. he’s not dead, he just needs a break and only god can get him out of that shituation.
please god, put him down (for a nap)