Tara788

She’s Bilbo’s bestie, she’s Thorin’s no-nonsense sister, she’s Fili and Kili’s loving mother, she’s a warrior, she’s a diplomat, she loves tea and music, she’s a wonderful dancer, she’s the queen of our hearts!

The first thing I’d do is make the characters actually be adults.  Still young, but adults, in the mid to late 20s range.  Mystery Inc. is a private detective type business that they run together.  In this universe, the supernatural/ghosts/etc are real, but not necessarily common, so when they take on a case, the culprit might be a person disguised as a monster, or it might actually be a real ghost.  The stakes can be higher; sometimes a bad guy is legitimately trying to kill them.  Sometimes the mystery they’re trying to solve is a murder.  Sometimes they actually get hurt on their cases.

Fred: the core of Fred’s character should be that he’s incredibly kind.  Like, give a stranger the shirt off his back kind.  The “Fred can’t talk to potential clients because he might take a case for free and we need to eat” kind.  He’s an honest and good person and sometimes gets himself into trouble because he assumes other people are too.  While he’s not very good at reading people or noticing ulterior motives, he’s brilliant when it comes to mechanical or engineering type stuff, so he’s the one who keeps the mystery machine running, builds their gadgets, and of course, designs the traps.

Daphne: she comes from old money, and her parents absolutely despise her life choices, to the point where they haven’t officially disowned her, but they have basically cut her off, so she doesn’t actually have access to any family money.  Growing up wealthy has granted her a variety of skills, including speaking multiple languages, horseback riding, and fencing.  She’s very into fashion and jewelry (even if she can’t afford it anymore) and has extensive knowledge of both that can occasionally provide a vital clue in a case. And even though her parents have cut her off, Daphne still has a wide network of contacts she can ask for favors sometimes, because she’s personable, and people tend to like her.  Daphne is also very emotionally intelligent, and is usually the one who can spot when someone is lying to them.

Side note - I ship Fred and Daphne, so I think I would start them off as an established couple for this universe.  Dating, engaged, married, I don’t care.  They are stupidly in love, ride or die for each other.  There’s no will they, won’t they, no worries about cheating.  They are in a healthy, happy, loving relationship, and no one (not even Daphne’s disapproving parents) are going to mess that up for them.

Velma: she is the forensics nerd who sometimes gets super excited about the wrong thing at the wrong time (”He was mummified in seconds? That’s so cool!” “Velma!  His wife is standing right there!” “Oh.  Sorry.”).  She’s not purposely insensitive, she just gets laser focused on her work and forgets to filter herself sometimes.  She’s also the one who can get so fixated on solving whatever mystery they’re working on, she’s willing to bend or maybe break laws.  Is breaking and entering really so bad?  Not if it gets them answers.

Shaggy: he is still the comic relief, but he’s the comic relief by being the only person in the group that actually has common sense.  He manages the business’s finances, he’s the only one who knows how to cook, and the others tease him for being a coward sometimes, but Shaggy maintains that if a ghost with an axe is coming for you, running is the only sensible option.  He should also have a range of random knowledge that sounds useless, but sometimes saves the day (ex ventriloquism, origami, the history of spoons, etc).

Not to mention, she has no significant relationships outside of Ron and Harry-- She's an emotionally un-anchored character and thus a less dynamic character. We know nothing about her parents. We know nothing about her home life. Her sacrifices and her decision to stick around in the deathly hallows both hit less hard than Ron's sacrifices and his decision to walk out, because the audience has spent the last six books getting a full primer on Ron's place in his family and his relationship to all of them, especially his mother and his sister, who everyone seems to forget was the real catalyst for him blowing his fuse.

The relationship lending Hermione much-needed flaw and complexity and emotional believability as a teenage girl is literally her relationship with Ron. That he brings out something irrational and mad in her is foundational to her character-- in fact, everything that's notable about Hermione's character is in some way inextricable from Ron because they were written as inextricable narrative equals. Her position in wizarding society as an undesirable? It's Ron who constantly reacts to this. Her relentless striving for justice? It's Ron who ends up invested in her causes in a real emotional capacity (buckbeak, the elves, etc). Even their pettiness is inextricable from each other. Their jealousy. Their mutual fixation.

Hermione is with Ron. They're happy. It's great. He's her first love, she's his. They get married right out of high school. It's the 00s. They have kids. Beautiful. Whatever.

This doesn't mark the end of her character development. You don't just stop changing as a person once you get "shackled" - you grow together, change together. And with a strong foundation (which they have), this can be really good for a relationship.

It's not actually feminist to write a woman into a superhuman role where she requires no help and no support to excel in both the private and public sphere-- this "unfinished revolution" under capitalism, where women have been integrated into the workforce without having the onus of domestic labour lifted from them, is an outright focus of specifically Marxist feminists.

Draco Malfoy spends most of the books calling Hermione slurs and barely viewing her as human, but apparently he is a better fit for her because he has higher grades than Ron?

Also the weasleys are poor and even though most won't admit it a lot of people believe to some extent in prosperity gospel. That rich people have inherently better character simply because they are rich.

And the seven owl grades in question are particularly academically demanding subjects-- since they are the exact ones required for becoming an auror or a healer.

What can be conceded, however, is that Draco most probably had an Outstanding in potions-- whereas Ron and Harry both received Exceeds Expectations apiece. Being better in one subject can hardly be held as some ironclad evidence of superior intellect, especially when the instructor of the subject in question had a not-insignificant bias for and against these students.

If the stunt with Vanishing Cabinet is held as evidence of Draco's apparently obvious genius, one is compelled to bring up the fact that Ron Weasley was a chessmaster of such incredible strategic mind at the tender age of eleven, that he won a game of death chess with two extra handicaps.

mombastian time

And that is that posts like this are happening.

Girls and women are inspired by Tauriel, are EXCITED to see a woman on the screen who doesn’t end up limited into the action lady stereotype of “the male action hero but with breasts”. A character who can retain her femininity and still kick ass, who can feel affection for others without it limiting her ability as a warrior or ending up as the damsel in distress.

Whether you personally connect to her character or not, there are still people who do. Who finally feel that they are getting a voice, and a powerful voice at that, in the fantasy world. Tauriel stands up and says “I recognize that I have a responsibility to my King, but I also have a responsibility to myself, and to the rest of the world, and I will never forgive myself if I take the easy road in life when I have the strength to defend those who need to be protected.”

Not only that, but Tauriel is never Kili’s, or Legolas’, damsel in distress. She doesn’t need saving or protecting from either of them, and Kili repeatedly needs saving and protecting from her. He falls for her not because she’s a delicate flower that needs protecting, but because she is a strong and capable warrior, and he respects that. He wants that from her. 

That is an INCREDIBLY powerful message to send to women, and young girls, who feel that they are otherwise powerless. That they don’t have to just sit back and do as they are told, or let themselves be protected and favored by men. That they have the right to stand up for what they think is right, and to act upon their own moral compass, without sacrificing their femininity or falling into a stereotype character mold.

Whether you decided you dislike her because she’s an embellishment of Unnamed Male Elf #3 from the book, or because you felt she had too big of a role, or because you let society convince you that a female character can’t have a love interest and still be strong and powerful, or because you’re just unapologetically sexist, or what have you, the point still remains that Tauriel was born, and she served the purpose that Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson envisioned, and that was to create a voice for women in the world of The Hobbit, without pigeon-holing her into one of the cookie-cutter forms that women tend to take in films.

Whether you specifically like Tauriel or not, women and girls are seeing her and are inspired by her and identify with her. They feel empowered by her, and that they finally get a voice in The Hobbit. And that’s pretty damn important to me.

just fuckin loves teaming up

with other species.