#thoughty thoughts

i need it. I need postal dude edit with this.

But then you realize, you've been spoiled. Some combo of writing, art, and timing got you attached and now ANY of those things being off will drive you a bit mad.

Different issue, different writer, different characterization. You supposedly had your blorbo in this story, but they are so Wrong, it feels like false advertising.

Then... the writing is good! This is The Character done right again, yay! But... but they are ugly now. This new artist... does not draw them with the floofy hair. This artist doesn't care for dynamic lines of action. Everything is stupid squiggles and nothing is pretty.

Then... the deadly combo. The writing has no viv and the art... is still being done by Squiggles McDumbDumb. Not gripping. Not pretty. This burning desire to NOT read this is now warring with your completionist inner wolf.

Yeah yeah, he will do everything for his love and nothing is more important than them. Yawn. Yeah yeah, he's the most powerful of them all, but also has childhood trauma. Yaaaawn.

Does he have a job? Does he have friends? Can we see him interacting with people who aren't the protagonist?

Does he have family? Are there people he likes and has relationships with outside of the protagonist? Does he have any responsibilities that can't be easily dropped for the protagonist's sake?

Is he a dick to protagonist's friends/family for no reason other than seeing them as competition/danger/annoyance?

I had all of zero rl friends through half of high school. Yet, at the age of 31, I have since become the sort of person who can say seven of my closest friends and actually mean that.

Yes, the 30's and 40's were filled with movies that had an all-male cast. And yes, there were a lot of people in the 50's who thought a woman's place was demurely cleaning and cooking in the kitchen. And yes, sexual assault has been disturbingly used as a pickup line in romance stories since the dawn of the pulp novel.

But there have ALWAYS been a large number of people who have known those tropes are bullshit. In every decade. And they had different ways of responding to that aspect of the culture.

Maureen O'Sullivan's Jane, for example, responds with the most delightful deadpan sarcasm. At some point, I should make her a distinct set of gif sets showing this. But there's so many lovely examples.

In Jane's introduction in Tarzan the Ape Man, the safari crew are worried about her being a drag on the trip, unable to defend herself. So they hand her a rifle and ask her how she shoots. She outshoots every one of their target records and sweetly replies "Like an angel."

And while I have to search, I remember one of the 1930's serials containing lines with the sass dialed to 11 like "Oh, Tarzan! I'm so glad you kidnapped me and violently dragged me to your cave to have your wicked way with me among this wild and dangerous bunch of jungle animals."

She says as Tarzan waits on her hand and foot, in their furry den he built with his own hands, bringing her fresh-squeezed organic fruit juice like the devoted boyfriend he is.