the bones of the earth are strong like mine

gradually, kamille becomes more composed, more accepting of the way that things have to be, and a role model for other young people. and he's not the only character that goes through a gradual yet profound change. a personal favorite of mine, reccoa londe, is in love with kamille's superior (perhaps the most prominent gundam character of all time, char aznable). and not only does he not reciprocate, he is largely ignorant to anything she's going through. the show depicts numerous instances of her risk-seeking behaviors, and when things get really bad, no one on her side of the war expects it or understands—particularly the male characters. she switches sides specifically because of this, because she wants men to treat her like a woman, to acknowledge that wartime affects her differently because she is a woman. she's not saying she's less capable—she's just saying she's not the same. kamille yells at her when they cross paths in space.

and this is really zeta gundam's thing. it is overflowing with troubled female characters, who are consistently misunderstood and/or underestimated by the male characters. and kamille pulls this all together with his unrelenting empathy towards all women and girls, his difficulties seeing their struggles through their eyes rather than his, and his inability to give up on them even when it could lead to physical harm for him—and his allies. he is a beautiful person, and many of the girls are harmful people, and yet he is ignorant. i cannot overstate how obsessed the show is with this and i cannot overstate how validating it is for me.

house of the dragon does a lot of amazing things, but i think the two things it does best are a. explicitly depict the female experience and b. have incredibly complex and sympathetic male characters, who the narrative at times critiques for how they deal with the women in their lives. major spoilers incoming.

this show intentionally has so many birthing scenes—to show the mortality risk, to show that women are expected to immediately bounce back into politics after giving birth, and to show how different men approach the risks. this show depicts the complex relationships between women who share many of the same hardships—some of whom respond to it differently, some of whom are given different opportunities, and one of whom isn’t privileged like the others and is in my opinion the best female character in the show: mysaria. she’s a former prostitute, and her arc is about giving up on even trying to make money in a different way that men will respect more—they will never respect her any more. she says “i might as well have remained a whore” and it carries so much weight in the context of her life and in the context of every woman in this show’s aspirations.

the first man i want to speak about is daemon. he is fundamentally a man who loves his brother, the king, and loves his heritage and the traditions that come with it. he marries his niece, the future queen, because of this. he is also a man who cannot be controlled. he is ambitious and cruel in his attempts to help his family rule, sometimes to their great detriment. even his wife isn’t sure if he’s doing it for her or for his own claim to the throne. but he IS doing it for her. he was married twice before. the first woman wasn’t of his blood, and he killed her. when he realized that the second woman, more of his blood, wouldn’t survive the birth of their next child, he allowed her to die at the hands of her dragon as she willed. for daemon, it’s not about women, it’s about heritage.

but i also want to speak about criston cole—for him, it IS about women. when daemon initially pursues his niece, rhaenyra, she reciprocates only for him to end their hookup early. rhaenyra loves daemon, more than she will be able to express for many years to come. she is jarred, and she has a friend standing guard outside her room when she returns home—ser criston, who she picked out to promote, giving him the highest rank anyone of his family has ever had. she initiates sex and he is never the same. when he proposes they run away together, she says she has to marry for politics, but that she would love to still be with him and has no interest in her future husband. and the idea of being her whore is so damn hurtful that he ends up beating her future husband's boyfriend to death, in the middle of a crowded dance floor, then later preparing to quietly kill himself outside. alicent, rhaenyra's childhood best friend and now her stepmother, stops criston. his tendency towards righteous loyalty is used on alicent, now, and when the king dies, he begins hooking up with her. he's a terrible knight and he knows it. he's a man who hears what he wants to. one of my favorite quotes of all time is his: "or perhaps all men are corrupt, and true honor is a mist that melts in the morning."

A second tier list on another big topic! I have mostly left behind participating in fandoms, but I will always be a shipper and I will always think romance is one of the most fascinating things to write about.

There are some clear types of relationships in my top tier: Sasuke x Karin from Naruto and Rico x Dizzy from Starship Troopers both feature an aggressive but loyal woman whose man needs her, but doesn’t pursue her. This dynamic is great because it’s all about the woman. It’s her love and abilities that are making this work, and it calls attention to the very real phenomenon of a man not giving a shit even in the presence of someone who is making sacrifices for him. And I mean, he doesn’t have to. But the story is about her willingness to do it, and his decision to respect her skills and keep her company while still not giving her anything of himself.

Another type includes Valerian x Laureline, John Carter x Dejah Thoris, and Jerid x Lila from Zeta Gundam. These are space opera couples who work better together, and where the woman convinces and motivates the man to be better, and truer to himself. (This is my shit 🤭)

Some other sci-fi favorites of mine include Isaac x Claire from The Orville (who I’ve written about in this post: https://www.tumblr.com/jediorderdefender/804479881124741120/as-a-shojo-manga-fan-and-a-rom-com-fan-the-best), Syril x Dedra from Andor (who are an evil, socially awkward, kinky, and alone-in-the-world pair that are given the weight of representing the minds of fascists), and Ender x Novinha from Speaker for the Dead (he hears about what she goes through when she’s young, and he loves her before he even arrives to help her—when he reaches her she’s no longer receptive to help, but he does so expertly anyway). These three ships are so special in part because the unique qualities of the individuals directly add to how good the romance is. Isaac being an artificial life form, Syril being a loyal failure and Dedra being obsessed with order, Ender being cruel in a kind way and kind in a cruel way and Novinha being a stubborn, outcasted woman who’s protective over a dead man she couldn’t marry—these traits are WHY their partner loves them and they affect the dynamic between the two, in a way that’s strangely enjoyable for them.

I have some Star Wars comics pairs in my first tier and some in my second tier: Cade Skywalker and his two main love interests respectively are in the top tier, because the way he approaches love and/or sex is so unbelievably messy—but written in a way that never makes anyone’s emotions seem unjustified. Tholme x T’ra Saa (my beloveds <3) are also top tier because they are THE BEST example in all of Star Wars of a Jedi romance—they explicitly discuss their differing lifespans, and they approach that and their romantic bond in an open, measured, and understanding way. In the second tier is Quinlan Vos x Khaleen Hentz, who are similar to Sasuke x Karin and Rico x Dizzy, only Quinlan knows a good thing when he sees it. And Kit Fisto x Aayla Secura is another great romantic bond between Jedi, and an interesting exploration of how two different species who both have lekku might connect, they’re just less relevant to Jedi lore than Tholme and T’ra Saa.

My favorite shojo manga dynamics, in my top tier, are Ayumi Shimura x Misaki Takaya from Hatsu*Haru and Ayane Yano x Kazuichi Arai from Kimi ni Todoke. Ayumi Shimura is a bit of a deep cut, but she is actually the best shojo manga character of all time. She is a curious girl who likes knowing the reasons for things, with a bright and bubbly demeanor, and with both a lack of understanding for other people and a more overarching understanding of humanity than others have. (She is literally me.) She is the strongest character in the manga and the most untraditional shojo girl I've ever seen. She doesn't even know if she's capable of love. In the end, she falls for a popular but quiet man who has only ever been interested in his step-sister, who loves her for the things that other people find hard to deal with. It's a gradual fall. In the end, she realizes that love isn't something she is able to make sense of or quantify. She simply feels love for him that she cannot deny.

Ayane Yano and her teacher, nicknamed Pin, do not end up together, for the exact reason that he is her teacher and too old for her. But her falling for him is a major part of her story and it impacts other interesting aspects of her personality and plot. She is a girl who is seen by her classmates as more mature than she is. They know she has boyfriends, but they don't know that she doesn't love them—she's just letting life happen to her. Pin is the first person to understand that she's a child, too. They bicker constantly. She doesn't have to pretend to be anything for him. Ultimately, Pin is the first person to fight for her, to tell her that she doesn't have to settle in life—when it comes to her academics and future goals especially. She loves him without telling anyone, but it becomes obvious. Through loving him, she learns to speak up for herself, and that her connections to other people and being able to be proud of herself are the most important things to her.

I put the other two main Kimi ni Todoke ships in the second tier, because this manga does the best job at showing complex, real-feeling, and sugar sweet characters falling in love and growing closer over longer periods of time, with every step along the way being incredibly important. I also put in Manabu Miyoshi x Ritsuko from a bonus chapter at the end of Strobe Edge by Io Sakisaka. Manabu is a side character in the manga, and I mean really a side character. But in this chapter we see that his endless positivity and energy isn't because he's one-dimensional—he's actually almost forcing himself to act and feel that way. He falls for an older girl who everyone thinks is mean, and he's the only one who knows that she's deeper than she gets credit for, too. She's exactly his type and he is very much not hers. But he wins her over, and when she gives him a goodbye kiss (their first kiss) because she's planning on going abroad, she whispers "Thank you for hanging in there" into his ear. He cries. No one ever knows but them.

More sci-fi now! Lux Bonteri x Ahsoka Tano is like a first love to me. The amount of times I've seen "A Friend in Need" and the Onderon arc should be studied. I think my soul would become whole again if they were ever together. Ahsoka having a crush on a Separatist senator's son, a dweeb, who makes her life harder and also respects her, is SO in-character. She likes to be challenged, she likes to take action, she likes being the one who is good at things. And he likes a strong woman he can admire! They're so cutesy. I'd want him, too, that's for sure. (They definitely fit the second type I mentioned.)

John Sheppard x Elizabeth Weir from Stargate Atlantis also get my heart fluttering. First off, they look amazing together. Second, they're both in positions of power (she helped put him in his). Third, her ex-fiancé didn't want the life she wants, wasn't up for doing this work. But John and her share many a quiet moment between missions and conflicts. There's such solidarity between them and they can truly share their time and goals.

Amos Burton x Clarissa Mao from The Expanse are so great because each of them are so great and their support of one another allows that to continue. Amos is the best character on the main crew; his journey is about realizing his inability to feel empathy, which is also a "flaw" that he uses to help those who are in the right. Clarissa's journey is about struggling to move forward after committing murder out of love for her evil father. They are two intense people who are both made better by working with others and having community.

For more on Sasukarin and other Naruto ships you can go to this post: https://www.tumblr.com/jediorderdefender/805913572209295360/theres-hardly-anything-i-know-more-about-than :)

I'll explain the Farnese ships from Berserk here. She is a rich woman who is introduced as having a man named Serpico in a servant-like role. It's clear they have a mutual devotion to one another, and that he accompanies her on her ventures to religiously persecute people for sexual pleasure, and probably all other ventures too. It is later revealed that she has pursued him before and been shot down, and that he is her half-brother, and that she does not know that. Her love for him and the often cruel way she grew up treating him cannot be separated from her character, but I don't think he's her best option. Guts, who she is inspired enough by to join him on his journey, along the way growing into a much kinder and more selfless woman, and who she's attracted to, is also not her best option—mostly because Guts and Casca are perfect for one another. Her having unrequited feelings for him while also caring for Casca is also a crucial part of her story, though. So, her endgame should be...

Roderick of Schtauffen, the Sailing Prince of Ys! Deservedly in my top tier. He is technically already her fiancé, but that’s just an arrangement her family made. What he is actively doing, though, is respecting her for her abnormalities, supporting the people she supports, and cheering her on as she progresses in her magical abilities. He is the man who will best be able to be present for all of the parts of her life and of her.

So yeah, as I think has become clear, I love when people get understood and accepted for their hardest-to-accept parts! And I love when people, even inadvertently, encourage one another to live more fulfilling lives. Young Justice is very much a show that’s about this—when it comes to romance, and when it comes to everything else. So its two main ships are of course second tier from the top. I also think Hector x Lenore from Castlevania are an example of this, though they are controversial. But maybe controversial dynamics and plots are part of the charm of media—part of the reason media benefits the world. While Lenore turns Hector down in the end, deathly afraid of starting a new life, their story is about him forgiving her for her transgressions and focusing on what he wanted: a quiet, writer’s life, with her protected and by his side (I’ll take that if she won’t, Hector).

The last thing I want to talk about in this post is House of the Dragon. In a future post I’ll go more into how amazingly realistic these characters are, but here I just want to say that this show does an amazing job at showing relationships between people that absolutely should not end up together, but that are incredibly important to the characters’ stories and personalities. It also does an amazing job showing couples for whom getting together and being together is complicated, but worth it in specific ways.

truly gatsby comes across as insane and unwell in a way that is in my opinion best conveyed through how loud, both sound-wise and visually, this movie is. the dripping wet suit! the way he pauses for a moment before kissing daisy for the first time, because he knows his whole life is being changed and his goals are being sacrificed. the way the movie says explicitly that his mind will no longer be free to roam like the mind of god—that line is put on screen as a shooting star flashes across the sky.

A protagonist should help to convey the themes of the story or help to convey an interesting aspect of what it means to be alive in the world. A protagonist should not be a cliché.

Naruto Uzumaki's type of character is a cliché, but he is a collection of traits not always seen together (he's Jesus, who also acts out for attention, and who's also really horny), and his emotions are challenged when they deserve to be. Guts is silent and traumatized, but his trauma is extremely relevant to the plot and to the world, and it's never used to make him seem cool (him fighting with his sword is cool; him sleeping with his sword is emotional). Kamille Bidan is angry, but he doesn't stop at punching people who piss him off, he also applies his anger towards begging every single woman he knows not to hurt themselves. These are animanga protagonists who deserve our attention. And Farnese is only a protagonist later on in the Berserk manga, and she shares that role, but as I've mentioned on here before: she is a horny female character who, instead of being there to be hot, is there to be deep-feeling, abnormal, and self-discovering. She's a character that women deserve.

In terms of English-language sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero protagonists, we under-appreciate characters like Ender Wiggin and Cade Skywalker. Both of their stories are about the truth. In Ender's case, he brings to everyone the truth of other people's emotions and of other species. He does hard things by choice after having been forced into them originally, but he's naturally soft and just wants someone to quietly care about. In Cade's case, the truth of his own faults is thrown at him throughout the story by other characters, and these characters are people that love him and want the best for him. Rhaenyra, from House of the Dragon, is loved by many people in her life and truly supported by almost none, and the show is so special to me because it's explicitly about this.

Quinlan Vos, who like Cade is a character from Star Wars Legends comics, is an example of a Jedi who breaks boundaries without seeing his ultimate purpose as contrary to being a Jedi. This is so important in Star Wars, as the impression most people get from the way that the Skywalker Saga is depicted is that the Jedi restrict people from doing the right thing or from taking care of themselves. Osha's story, as well as those of other Acolyte characters (Vernestra, Sol, and Torbin in particular) also deepen the depiction of the Order. They show a more grounded, less epic version of what it would be like for people with power to go too far, or to prioritize the wrong things.

As far as Young Justice goes, I could have included almost every season one team member, but I chose M'gann M'orzz because she and Artemis Crock are the most complex, and since M'gann is the least relatable to the average person of the two, that makes her thoughtful depiction and how important she is to the plot and the themes even more important to me. One of Young Justice's strengths is putting different kinds of characters together in interesting ways, and making less popular or new versions of pre-existing characters its core cast. They deliberately chose to use characters with lesser-focused-on backstories, motivations, and weaknesses, and so not only do the characters fit the show, the characters enhance everything the show is trying to do.

Some characters that I don't think highlight anything as niche about our real world and lives (or anything as niche within Star Wars lol), but who I think are basically perfect protagonists, include: Hellboy, Ahsoka Tano, Utena Tenjou, Shinji Ikari, Ser Duncan the Tall, and Rodimus Prime. Hellboy is an extremely fun character in a very vibe-y world, who also has a subtle depth and heart to him. He is such an effortless-feeling character who the story completely relies on. Ahsoka is the protagonist of the best canon Star Wars content, the Clone Wars show, and she brings the perspective of someone who wants to be good at being a Jedi, but also is able to have fun during wartime, but also grows up into a more mature and more interesting person as the Jedi Order and her master are growing more arrogant and more fearful. Utena and Shinji, from Revolutionary Girl Utena and Neon Genesis Evangelion respectively, can be discussed together in my opinion. Both of these anime are heartbreaking and surreal, and these characters work well as the person whose eyes we view the worlds through, partially because of their innocence. Dunk and Rodimus, too, are less knowing than people they lead. Most of the characters in this category have the quality of being a person with a lot of heart, trying their best (and/or failing) in a world that is failing, even if they themselves don't always make as interesting mistakes as the side characters.

Now to some characters I think do not work (I’m not going to cover all of these, this IS my “not interesting” category lol): Mark from Invincible has the potential for an interesting arc, but the show moves through it too slowly, and it’s really his arc/what is just the plot of the show that is interesting, not his personality. Edward (and Alphonse) Elric are out of place in their own show; they consistently make the lore less interesting because we have to experience it through their eyes. Luz isn’t really any less interesting than other Owl House characters, but the show as a whole struggles to realistically depict trauma and stakes. Thrawn, as I mentioned in a previous post about realistically depicting trauma, the value of life, and the inner lives of characters, isn’t written about by Timothy Zahn like he’s an actual person. And I used a picture of Siri here, but Brando Sando’s Warbreaker struggles in general to show its characters actually talking, or making surprising/interesting decisions.

One of the worst protagonists possible is definitely Jon Snow. His personality gives stock photo, and he’s weak-willed even for a GOT man, yet he can survive anything and do anything and everyone loves him. It completely reinforces that all someone has to do is be lucky and handsome to deserve the spotlight. Like yeah, he’s kind. But I don’t care because he’s literally nothing else. And I think for a show to actually comment on how fucking lucky he is in an interesting way would require them to not suck him off and to give him a wider range of emotions.

Megalopolis (2024)

In this movie, the villains wave Trump flags and flags with swastikas and the hero, who at one point is accused of being the statutory rapist of a girl who made a career off of being a virgin, who it is then revealed was hiding that she's an adult, and who the hero also didn't sleep with in the first place, survives getting shot in the head because of his thing that he created, which also is the key to utopia. The point of all this and much, much more, is that utopia is good. This movie believed it so hard, every beautifully weird choice so earnest and grateful to be alive, that I believe it too!

2. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

In this movie, which is in part one of the most faithful adaptions of a source material (in this case, French sci-fi comics Valérian and Laureline, first published in 1967) of all time, and which is in part more like John Carter (beloved-to-me 2012 movie, based on the 1912 book A Princess of Mars) than the comics, Valerian begs Laureline to marry him and she says yes only when he agrees to help a species whose planet the humans destroyed directly as opposed to through the courts. She doesn't want him to die for her—she wants trust, a man more than a soldier. And her ability to love the way she does is tied to her being a woman. It would be considered feminist if it were still the 60s, and that's what's so good about it. This adaptation's weakness and its greatest strength is that it's about a couple more than anything else.

3. Starship Troopers (1997)

In this movie, tough, fiery, pining Dizzy Flores, who was a male character in the book, wins the heart of teenage fascist war hero Johnny Rico by following him around and then being the reason he succeeds. She dies in his arms. She was his most true friend. At the end, he meets up with his other teenage fascist war hero friends, one of whom is his ex-girlfriend who never loved him, and they celebrate their domination over a species that is more intelligent than humans previously wanted to believe. It is brilliant satire, it is so fucking fun, and Johnny Rico finds his confidence and self-respect. He will use it to send more young people off to kill.

4. Are You Here (2013)

In this movie, I have nothing to lovingly make fun of. It's advertised as a dramedy and acknowledged by many to be more of a drama. It is the best portrayal of bipolar I have ever seen, in fact the only good one I have ever seen. It is explicitly pro-medicine, pro-modernity, pro-the real world, pro-meeting other people where they're at, pro-trusting and respecting the people you love enough to ask them to be better. No one who is said to have bipolar actually has BPD. Not one single scene shies away from letting its characters be weird, have weird ideas, have weird feelings, have regrets. It is perfection and it is needed.

5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Watching this movie, viewers experience the retro-futuristic, sci-fi trance version of an orgasm, which is actually just what every orgasm should be like if you're doing it right. This movie lets you know from the start, as you watch apes fighting, that it has something grand to say about humanity and won't come down to earth about it. An undeniable movie.

6. Speed Racer (2008)

Believe me, it was hard to pick just one Wachowski sisters movie, but I wanted to limit myself to one movie per director. Their best sci-fi work is Cloud Atlas (2012): six weird, intertwined stories, some centuries apart, with actors playing multiple different characters across time, racial, and gender divides, focused on the gradual progression of society, the choices individuals can make to change their lives and their worlds for the better, and how the large and small connect. But Speed Racer is even better than that. The climax of the movie is a race, of course—and Speed, who has spent the movie up until this point with his loving race car-making family and girlfriend, rejecting and exposing the corruption of corporations and healing together from the tragic loss of his race car driving older brother, falls behind in the race because something in his car needs fixing. With no one but himself, he remembers his brother's advice. He closes his eyes. He feels what the car needs. Deep in the moment, he fixes the car and goes barreling past every other racer, an explosion of color and art and stars, his family's words in his mind, and he wins without ever opening his eyes.

7. District 9 (2009)

This is Neill Blomkamp's best movie and also his best movie set in South Africa, where he was born and a place he's set multiple sci-fi stories in that address real societal issues. In this one, our main character undergoes a gory transformation into a member of the alien race that is stranded in Johannesburg, hated and oppressed by humans, due to his own ignorance when working to force them into a worse internment camp. He ultimately helps the only truly moral person, a member of this alien race, for his own selfish gain. It is a matter-of-fact, deeply impactful movie that pulls no punches. If something would be gory in real life, it will be gory here.

8. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

In this movie, George Lucas introduces a level of lore and layers to the Star Wars galaxy and the Skywalker saga he had not previously. OF COURSE the Jedi would have a proxy they use to measure the force-sensitivity of children. OF COURSE a federation for trade might end up being important. OF COURSE there would be annoying and stupid people in the galaxy who the Jedi might have to overcome their negative feelings on. No one should EVER edit this man.

9. Paint (2023)

In this movie, Owen Wilson plays a visually Bob Ross-inspired man named Carl Nargle, who struggles with being replaceable and with being unable to put in emotional effort. But in typical Owen Wilson fashion, this also means he has a great capacity for enduring love, overwhelming sadness, and irresistible charisma—all in a quiet, long-suffering man. Set in the quaintest town with the quirkiest people, Carl Nargle is beloved, hated, and remembered.

10. The Green Knight (2021)