I’ve been seeing a lot of discussion about Clarisse’s casting in the PJO show that basically boils down to “anyone can be ugly if they have a mean personality.” And like yes, that’s true, but "ugly" people also exist (by ugly, I mean not conventionally attractive). let ugly people be ugly (so long as their ugliness is not a reflection of wider prejudice - ie, if only the evil characters are fat, that’s bad).

This bothers me especially because there is no representation for tall, broad, fat, “ugly” preteen and teenage girls, at least not any that isn’t centered around them becoming beautiful. I don’t think ugliness is a bad word on its own. making a character who rejects femininity and is described as ugly both pretty and feminine isn’t making some kind of statement about how pretty people can be mean too, especially because Clarisse is ultimately redeemed.

For her character to be ugly and mean at the start of the story and end still "ugly" (by conventional standards of femininity) and nice means that her character growth is about her personality - and that her looks were never a reflection of her morality.

It's true that you can be pretty while rejecting femininity, but the way Clarisse is styled in the show (in my opinion) is too feminine. Her appearance is too put together, too subtly feminine, for how she's described in the books. This is no shade to Dior! I actually think she does a great job as Clarisse and I look forward to seeing more of her. But tv and movies have a long history of casting attractive women only to call their characters unattractive, thus reinforcing harmful stereotypes about what is and isn’t beautiful, instead of casting actually *average* looking women.

THAT is the representation my middle school self is aching for. I want a middle schooler who’s taller than all her friends, who’s got a belly, who looks awkward in dresses because of her build, who’s wider than her male friends, who's going through puberty faster than her friends, who has acne and doesn’t wear makeup and doesn’t understand what femininity is and dresses like a Tom boy. These traits aren't ugly. They're normal. They're just not aesthetically attractive, so they are invariably erased from media.

Where is my preteen girl in basketball shorts because the shorts available to girls are too revealing for someone of her size? Where is my teenager who has been told, explicitly or otherwise, that she doesn't conform to beauty standards, so she refuses to wear dresses or skirts? Where is the girl who knows she's "ugly" and doesn't care? Where is the one who never cared until someone told her, and suddenly she wishes to be skinny and slender and not broad-shoulder and not tall and to look like her mom instead of being told she looks like her dad?

I'm all for diversity in casting because people are diverse. But body type - and not just visually appealing or acceptable body types - is part of diversity to. Annabeth’s appearance has virtually no impact on her character, and Leah carries her perfectly. For Clarisse and others like Piper, their appearance is INCREDIBLY relevant to their characters.

Let “ugly” girls be ugly. Combatting fatphobia - which also includes normal sized women and broad shoulders, because the fashion industry has labelled all non-models as fat - in media is not just about showing non-skinny people as attractive. It’s about showing non-skinny people as EXISTING. and being valid for that alone, outside of their moral or aesthetic value.

I can only think of one actress who’s roughly my build. I can think of zero times I watched media aimed for kids and saw a kid my size. Diversity is not just an aesthetic designed to be palatable. Casting characters with ugly personalities as beautiful people when the character in question will go through a redemption isn't the slay some people think because it's still reinforcing the idea that looks have moral value. I rarely see characters without aesthetic attractiveness nowadays, not ones who are on the hero's side; when it comes to children, when I say attractiveness I mean the way a child in a clothing ad looks cute and cheerful, not romantic/sexual attractiveness. For children especially, body positivity is far less important than body neutrality - the idea that their bodies don't have morality or attractive value attached.

What's most important to me is that "ugly" and unfeminine preteen and teenage girls see themselves represented neutrally, in a way I can't recall ever seeing myself.

I don't mean to hate on Dior. I really do think she's excellent as Clarisse. This is just my perspective, as an "ugly," tall, broad-shouldered, chubby former middle school girl who would've loved to see someone who looked like me.

That middle child feel when you’re the one who successfully gets you and your siblings out of trouble only to immediately get jumped by them afterwards

Please tell me I'm not the only one who genuinely feels visceral terror that they're going to kill Crosshair

Wyll taking Halsin to the Wilden Oak after observing how much he was struggling to adapt to the City, thinking it would cheer him up *and* be special enough that maybe he can work up the nerve to ask him something important. Telling him about how he used to daydream about the stories it could tell him, and how it brought him comfort - how it may bring him comfort as well. And maybe he thinks he's talking too much, too fast, but it all pours out of him with heart-aching sincerity.

Halsin listening thoughtfully to Wyll's fanciful dreams of dragons and the Weave, and chuckling fondly at how eager he is; how whimsical he makes everything sound. Bubbling over with how happy it makes him to hear Wyll so beautifully matching the splendor of this tree with such fanciful tales, admiring it for what it is.

Wyll's face heating up, thinking he must be laughing at his stories, and ah, hells, he's gone and fumbled this, of course an Archdruid would think fairytales of trees to be foolish and childish. Mumbling it must sound silly to him.

Halsin frowning then, brought out of his affectionate thoughts. "Oh, no, not at all. I think it's wonderful. Here, let me show you something."

Halsin bringing Wyll's hand up to the bark of the tree and pressing it beneath his own to the ridges and grooves, encouraging him to listen closely again as he had as a boy. Telling him that trees speak to those who care to hear them, even if they cannot understand them. Wyll closing his eyes, flustered at how close they are, but - after a moment of quiet - hearing the barest tendrils of something touching the edges of his mind. Nothing he is able to understand, but he swears he feels it; more than he ever has before.

Halsin himself listening and catching the discernable memories the oak is able to give him amidst the transfer - the tiniest glimpses of generations and magic long past. Perhaps even a dragon cutting its lightning path through the sky, eons ago. He passes anything translatable gently off to Wyll, who listens, enraptured.

The Wilden reveals other things - other terrible things. Other sad things and tragic things, no where near the fairytales that Wyll spins. Halsin does not pass these memories on, but judging by the frown on Wyll's face, he senses it.

But there is something else - something closer to the heart - it calls Wyll "tree friend" - flashes of Wyll as a young boy, collecting its leaves from the ground. Of an older Wyll curled in on himself in the tangle of its roots, heartbroken; an even older Wyll turning his face to the dappled sun and smiling, little golden bands sparkling in his hair.

Halsin taking Wyll by the hand and bringing him deeper into the forest, scouting a good spot to plant the tiny wishing acorn Wyll had pressed bashfully into his palm with stories of his mother. Burying the seed deep into the ground so its roots may grow anew, just as glorious as its parent - waiting to bring joy to another a century down the line. Just as their lives have taken root within one another, tangled and new, but full of life.

something something glammike thing where annoying ghost hunters come to the pizzaplex and ask questions about william and the MCI and the hauntings and some influencers rent the place from time to time for that sweet sweet fazclout and this really peeves glamfreddy because Michael knows firsthand that this isn't something you really want to poke about (maybe for the fun of it, and CC's personal suggestion, Glamfreddy makes a snide comment about biting the ghost hunters lol)(they probably know what it means lmao)

I adore how Tatsuya Endo writes his characters, especially the women. They can be warm, soft, cute, cool, tough, scary... all, if not most, of his ladies in Spy x Family are equally wonderful in their own way, both in character design and personality.

i want to write a billion different stories about aromantic and asexual characters because i simply do not have enough time in one story to accomplish all that i want to discuss!!

like, having the majority of my oc’s be aspec in some way isn’t enough, i need more!!

the way Mr. Russell promised his daughter he would never force her to marry and that he would allow her to choose her own husband because he wants her happiness in the beginning of this season only for his wife to sell their daughter off like a horse for the duke to visit her opera house???

my conspiracy theory is that part of daemon’s strained relationship with baela in f&b (not sure to what extent they’re going to go down that route in the show, especially as they seem to be somewhat butchering baela + rhaena) is due to gender envy.

hate going for christian weddings sometimes because i always see the prettiest women with the ugliest men, the sermon is always some shit about wives being slaves (but not like bad slavery, mutual slavery except the husband is a benevolent master which makes it okay) and making babies for their husband, the music is always lame, the mc is always weird and obnoxious, and older women keep fucking asking me when it's gonna be my turn and never take no for an answer.

your sokka is SO sokka and i say this as someone who holds him so dear ur writing of him is amazing. tbh im sooo fussy with his portrayal but its pretty nailed. like so many fics (esp zukka and zuko centric and ESPECIALLY ones where hakoda like adopts zuko) he's constantly pushed to the side in favour of zukos issues and zukos problems when in reality sokka is very hurt himself and has suffered a lot. man i GET taob sokka i really do bc people seem to think he was a lil mean but nobody seems to realise when you're in sokkas position it would've read like everyone was against you. all the swt men, including his dad who snapped at him, and even katara and aang and suki tell him to give zuko a chance and the fact that they were trusting someone who had hurt all of them so much- because yes WE know zuko wouldn't have killed them, but the gaang didn't. not when they were being chased and terrorised, and when sokka had his trust betrayed in the prison, he had absolutely every right to hate zuko, esp when it felt like everyone who he thought would understand his feelings, including his own dad who had been hiding his relationship with zuko from him, seems against him. his conversation with hakoda was probably my favourite scene in taob just bc he was allowed to feel like that without being treated by the narrative as someone just being mean to poor little zuko. he gets to be a sourpuss and angry and jealous at zuko for feeling like hed been replaced by his own dad. all of the water tribe men get this treatment like they're not written as bad people for being wary or disliking zuko initially (even chena despite being enemy no.1 at the start). his convo with hakoda was so important bc it stressed the detail that yes zuko has suffered and deserves to be cared for but SOKKA is his son, his actual child who is so hard on himself for things out of his control and who has hurt so much and deserves just as much as zuko does. sokka is just a baby my boy. he's not the main character but he's just as complex and intricate as zuko, not just in taob but also for the times we have seen him in tams there's been keen detail to his emotion and how he's feeling pointed out

me rn

da hye really went from "i will leave you" to "i will leave for you" just to make her third 180 and finally decide to stay instead of running

MRA shit exists for the same reason that feminism exists. The heterosexual couple are not happy with their arrangement yet enforce it on others as some kind of sacred truth. They are masochists who want to see their pain projected at every corner. It may seem that feminism is the more "righteous" one but the truth is neither movement serves the sovereign individual and given that the prerequisite of believing in MRA/feminism is believing in the existence of "males" - whether its males needing release from "toxic expectations", or females needing release from males who are "oppressing" them, these movements cannot be valuable to those who believe there is only ONE sex - females and mutated females. Every part of male biology is a mutated part of female biology. There is nothing offensive in stating this, this is the best-kept occult secret in history and it needs to be stated. In both the MRA scenario and the feminist scenario, the pain is self-afflicted and continues via the original sin/sexual reproduction. Females choose to depend on males and birth them and males choose to wear their mask of constant toughness and live a lie. Both parties could choose to be free but both love pain because they are as soulless as could be and recruit their children into their soul-crushing world order, hence why the cycle never breaks. Everybody loves pain and no one cares to know or do any better.

RUBY FRANKE AND JODI HILDEBRANDT SENTENCED TO 4 TO 60 YEARS IN PRISON LETS GOOOOO

My thoughts on ZADR:

I’m completely neutral on it. I don’t hate it, I don’t mind seeing it, but I also don’t actively ship it (although this is mostly because I like the idea of Zim being aroace and not because I dislike the ship itself). And here’s why.

DISCLAIMER! VERY BIG DISCLAIMER!

I am not a proshiper. If you ship pedophilic or incestuous shit, you will get no defence here. Get lost and don’t come back. I’ve seen enough shit in other fandoms already.

I’m saying this because ZADR is believed by many to be a proship, which is why many people dislike it. When in reality, ZADR isn’t a proship and I explain why in this post.

I just wanted to say this to reiterate that I am not a proshiper, nor do I condone proshiping. I’m constantly paranoid about people getting the wrong idea or misinterpreting me and really want to avoid that. I’m not looking for drama or a fight. That being said, if you ship pedophilic stuff, incestuous stuff, beastiality or any of that horrible stuff, get the fuck off my blog. You aren’t welcome here.

DISCLAIMER OVER!

Now onto why ZADR (and other ships involving irkens) isn’t a proship or anything really worth throwing a fit over.

Dib is canonically 12 years old. That’s a fact. But the thing is, while Dib has a canonical age, Zim doesn’t, and never will. Zim’s age is up to viewer interpretation.

Zim’s age, despite what many people believe, isn’t set in stone.

Zim’s age was never mentioned in canon. In fact, not a single irken has ever had their age revealed.

The wiki seems to have pulled the “Zim is 160 in human years and 16 in irken years” fact out of its ass because I can’t find a source for it anywhere, plus the wiki has a tendency to make stuff up and present it as fact with no evidence. So it isn’t a reliable source of information in any way.

Jhonen has stated Zim’s age three different times (that I know of), and he’s changed his answer every time, calling Zim a child, an adult and a teenager. So he obviously doesn’t have a clue of what Zim’s age is and most likely never really meant to give Zim a canonical age in the first place when he created the show. So not even the creator of the show himself is a reliable source of information when it comes to Zim’s age.

Although Zim’s age is never explicitly mentioned, we get some possible small hints in canon. HOWEVER, these hints all contradict each other and can go either way in proving that Zim is a child or an adult.

Zim could be an adult because he has a high ranking military job that seems impossible for a child to achieve (an invader, at least before his first banishment) plus he worked as a scientist before, so he’s held multiple adult jobs. He also seems to be the same height as other (presumably) adult irkens. He also has a long history involving his scientist job, his joining of the military and his entire work up the military hierarchy to become an invader, plus his banishment to Foodcourtia, which probably all happened over a long course of time. He’s also allowed to pilot a ship and other various vehicles, which, assuming that irkens follow the same sort of rules for ships as we do for cars, shouldn’t be given to children. It’s also revealed in The Trial that irkens can live for several centuries.

But on the other hand, Zim could very easily be a child or a teenager because the empire may use child soldiers, which does have some possible evidence like Smeets graduating at the age of 10, irken military equipment seeming similar to video games and the fact that the irken empire is a power hungry dictatorship. It would also explain why Zim chose to infiltrate Earth by posing as a human child attending a human school, along with the immaturity and pettiness that Zim shows throughout the series. Not to mention the fact that Zim is directly implied to be particularly young by irken standards, with the Tallest mentioning in The Trial that Zim is supposed to have a trial in several centuries, but they chose to force it to happen now, implying that Zim hasn’t hit the age where a trial usually happens, which is presumably adulthood or later. Zim being a child or a teenager also explains why the Tallest are so immature, as they are the same age as Zim, so if he’s not an adult but is instead a child/teenager, the Tallest are as well.

So the evidence goes both ways. Zim’s age is entirely up to viewer interpretation. If you believe that Zim is an adult, he’s an adult. If you believe that he’s a child, he’s a child. If you believe that he’s a teenager, he’s a teenager. Zim’s age is a literal question mark, and unless new, official content is released that explicitly confirms Zim’s age, that’s not going to change. As mentioned before, Jhonen Vazquez, despite being the creator of the show, isn’t a reliable source because he’s contradicted himself at least three times now and doesn’t seem to have given Zim (or any irken for that matter) a canonical age in the first place.

And going by those rules when you look at ZADR, you quickly realize that the entire dynamic of ZADR and every other ship involving irkens in any way also depends entirely on viewer interpretation. If you interpret Zim as being a child that’s a similar age to Dib, he’s a child that’s a similar age to Dib. If you interpret Zim as being an adult, he’s an adult. Zim’s age is a blank space that you can fill out however you want.

ZADR is only a pedophilic proship between a child and an adult if you believe that it is a ship between a child and an adult and/or you actively make it that way when making the content, because Zim’s age is whatever you say it is. A random number generator could be used to decide Zim’s age and it would be equally canon as everyone else’s opinions regarding Zim’s age, including the words of Jhonen himself.

So long story short, ZADR isn’t a problematic ship unless you make it a problematic ship or it is explicitly mentioned to be a problematic ship in whatever work of fiction you’re seeing it in. So just don’t make a big deal of it and ignore it if you don’t like it.

literally every single one of my ocs (who are dudes, or masc-leaning) are the most doofy-aaaa boyfriend ever. like without fail i don't think i can even write a guy who, regardless of composition and personality, will turn into the most stuttering man-loser the second he's confronted with the sheer beauty/levelheadedness/competency of his boyfriend/wife/girlfriend/whatever