Some Coda Appreciation Because They're @codabound (go Read Their Works!!)

Well, looks like you'll have to find out!

he's in the walls....

HES IN THE GODDAMN WALLS!

i fucking love blaire

warmup stuff

calm down

There are girls calling me ragebaiters already for just asking for proof that they're qualified to hate with as much vitriol as they do. XOXO.

IF YOU IGNORE THIS, YOU ARE KILLING MY CHILDREN‼️

The situation is very dangerous. My children’s lives are in danger. Their skin is melting and peeling from diseases. There are no medical points or doctors to treat them. There is no food available for them. Israel is killing us. Please do not help it with that, but rather help me. I have nothing left but my children. After I lost my family, my home, and everything I have, I have no hope left but you. Imagine that you In my place. Please, with a heavy heart, I ask for your support

blaire is peak and why rusty can't write truly evil women

If you've found this post, I don't need to introduce Leasebound to you.

Instead, we're going to talk about the fandom.

Leasebound's fandom has a sort of Lemony-Snicket-esque schism, with Rusty's intended audience and (hilariously) the exact opposite. I've seen both sides of the Leasebound audience, and I've noticed something interesting.

...nobody hates Blaire.

Okay, that's a HELL of a sentence to make, and very exaggerated. I've seen 'Blaire unenjoyers' and other people treating Blaire like the Eric Cartman of Leasebound, it's an eye-catching statement that makes people read more of the text post.

But I wouldn't call it wrong, I'd give it a 'hyperbolic.'

Even on the side of Rusty's intended audience, Blaire isn't loathed. I've seen many enjoyers of Blaire who either talk about how much they went her to talk gender to them, so to say. On the flipside, the worst interpretation of Blaire is a misogynist who pushes her activism on other people, which is more or less her canon intent.

But if Blaire was as bad as Rusty Hearts portrayed her, I don't think we'd see so much art of Blaire. In fact, I put down a poll, and Blaire pretty much took the #1 spot for the 'character with the most fanart' almost instantly, beating out characters such as Jaden (who took silver), Riley, and Violet. And it pretty much sticks!

I've seen a lot of Blaire fanart from the Leasebound tag on both sides! I've seen a lot of Blaire discussion and discourse on both sides, either about the possibility of a redemption arc, a rewrite, thirsting over her, etc.

So...we can pretty much say Blaire is a bad strawman.

Strawmen are supposed to be one-note characters the main cast is supposed to be more interesting than and can fight with no pushback. Blaire is massively popular across the board in the Leasebound fandom, has discussions about her that are multi-layered, and has wonderful fanart from people that really like her.

Done. That's all.

But we're not done. We need to keep talking.

Rusty Leasebound is very good at some things. Her chapter focusing on Shez had emotional, gut-wrenching art, and there is a definite appealing quality to the way she draws things.

Some things, atleast.

But Rusty is not a great writer. There's tons of other essays and an entire discord server that can point all the flaws in her story out enough to write an epic worthy of the Mahabharata. Leasebound has largely forgotten what it is to be a mouthpiece for her political opinions, its characters are one-note and one-dimensional, she focuses on the wrong things at the wrong time, and many more that will make my fingers cry as I type this. But I want to focus of Rusty's tendencies to tell, not show.

Blaire is not evil. She's not even Maleficent or Ursula or Cruella evil. And she's no Makima either. Blaire is just a woman passionate about her beliefs, and makes the mistake of pushing them on other people. That's not evil, that's a flaw. Women cannot be perfect all the time.

But we're meant to believe she is evil. In this panel of the Actor!AU, we are TOLD by Rusty that Blaire is meant to be evil.

Blaire isn't evil! Come back to me when she puts a living creature in a blender, or something!

While the statement is understandable, you're using it in the wrong way! Because there is no reason for the casual Leasebound reader to ever believe Blaire is evil, the way you portray her!

(Yes, casual Leasebound readers exist. Quinty's one.)

And there's multiple occasions of this 'tell, don't show' narrative Rusty keeps pushing.

For example: Meriam.

Meriam is told to be the protective, strong mother, but I'm not sure that's entirely the case.

Meriam has serious flaws in her parenting that is never acknowledged. Shez was made to basically worry for her siblings at a young age, which sounds horrible for a young girl.

(side note: criticism of the comic has often lead to more interesting, and realistic plotlines for leasebound to include.)

She's obviously traumatised, and it shows in her parenting. When she shuns out Rissa and her boyfriend; that's not good! If Rissa wants her family by her side, she won't get it because she's marrying a man. Meriam always keeps Shez on the pedestal like she's Luisa from Encanto.

Nobody asks how's Shez. Someone help Shez.

And there's so much more!

We get snippets of Riley, a MAIN CHARACTER'S backstory from one-off panels and dialouges, but we heard the majority of it from Rusty in the comment section, Rusty confirming fan speculation, the cast page, non-canon panels, etc. Nothing in the main story!

And that just makes Riley...really boring. The most interesting part of Riley is Blaire right now, and that's REALLY bad, considering we're supposed to dislike Blaire.

Here are some more examples of Rusty telling, not showing:

Muddles:

Riley:

Various statuses of offscreen characters:

Blaire and many others of Rusty's characters have fallen into one of her biggest writing flaws' clutches, but it's interesting as to how fan perception and works have essentially made one of the most three-dimensional characters of the comic, aside from Jaden. And that's one of the main problems with Leasebound.

I want to end this with an open letter. I don't know if she'll read it, but if you do:

Listen to criticism, and find out what's wrong with your comic. Tune in to different parts of the fandom, even when you don't agree with them. At the heart of the war, we all share one thing: reading your comic. Don't take that for granted; many amazing, better written comics would love to have the attention you have. Your art is good. I enjoy reading Leasebound when it's about the characters, not how we're supposed to percieve them. You have something; harness it before it goes away! And at the rate Leasebound is going- it might go away really fast.

Thank you for reading. I don't have anything else to say.

...

Hey, remember when a radfem accidentally reblogged a post by a non-radfem-

Coda's right; Josie isn't a boy mom.

Josie simply does younger sibling syndrome and tends to baby Jacob. I won't be surprised if you factor in her trauma too, and see her as sort of "giving a better life" to her late husband, who Jacob is named after.

In fact: Jacob's kind of messed up AS WELL as Jaden.

Even if Jacob wasn't parentified and made to basically raise himself (Jaden did that for him), Jacob was born right after his father died and even named after him. He's then said to look like his dad.

That's...kinda scary. I'd be scared if I were me. It's like some ghost I don't even know is following me, and everyone can see it, but they won't save me from it if it tries to engulf me.

Honestly, considering Leasebound is supposedly meant to be about strong and "well-written" female characters, and does so with the motherly characters within the story, I feel like a missed opportunity would be touching upon THOSE kinds of "boy moms".

I'm not talking about favoritism, like Josie with Jaden and Jacob, I mean...

Those moms on tiktok who post videos talking about how their sons are their entire world, and if their sons weren't their sons they'd be DATING them, meanwhile they avoid talking about their daughters like the plague, act like having a daughter is some sort of curse or punishment, the ones who view their daughters as "competition" because they envy their daughters youth or see their daughters as trying to "steal" the attention from their husbands, and make it obvious that they'd happily throw their daughters under a bus for their son. THOSE kinds of boy moms.

But knowing Rusty and how she handles a lot of heavy topics in her work, she'd probably write something like this in all the wrong ways. Especially considering this would force her to have to actually write a female character who's actually flawed if not downright a horrible person, and the closest she can seem to get to writing an "evil" female character is a woman with dyed hair and pronouns and a homophobic Christian mom.

I think if there was a lb tf2 au we should not erase the war crimes. Just a thought.

On that note: drunken one eyed Jaden with a sword that begs for heads.

My small family, consisting of two children, was living a simple life, full of safety and peace. My beautiful daughter Tulin, 8 years old, my son Zaki, 7 years old, and my husband Adnan. We used to wake up early to prepare breakfast and get our children ready for school, so they could continue their education like other children. We lived a normal life, and although it was simple, it was filled with love and warmth. But everything changed in a single moment, on October 7th, when fires erupted everywhere, and the sound of shelling and explosions filled the air. The children were terrified and refused to go to school from that day on, and our lives became consumed by fear and terror.

One dark night, while we were still hoping that the situation would calm down, there was a violent knock on the door. A voice warned us: "Leave immediately, you have to flee, the area will be bombed." We had no choice but to run. We left the house with only the clothes on our backs, taking nothing with us. We ran through the dark night, filled with fear and anxiety about what awaited us.

After a long day of exhaustion and suffering, we arrived in Khan Younis, searching for a place to protect us. It wasn’t easy to find one, but after a long search, we found a school in Bani Suheila. We stayed there for 50 days, living in constant fear. Bombings were happening everywhere, and the situation kept worsening. We had no clothes or blankets to shield our children from the biting cold of the night. We tried to hide them under blankets donated by kind-hearted people, trying to find some warmth for them.

But even this shelter wasn’t safe. Shortly after, we received a threat from the occupation that the school and the entire area would be bombed. We had to flee again, so we decided to move towards Rafah, to Tel al-Sultan. We didn’t know where to go or where we could find safety. The cold was unbearable, and we had no money or resources to build a tent. We tried any way we could to find shelter. We built a tent from pieces of wood and fabric, but the cold was so severe, and my children were freezing, getting sick again and again.

We stayed there for several months, trying to endure, until the decision came to invade Rafah. That’s when everything collapsed. We had no more hope, and we didn’t know where to go or where we could find refuge. We decided to flee once again, this time to Muwassi Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah. But danger surrounded us from every direction, and there was no safe place. We built a new tent, but it was nothing more than pieces of wood and fabric. It didn’t protect us from the cold, nor did it stop my children’s tears that fell every night from the freezing cold and fear.

My husband suffers from high blood pressure, and I suffer from severe migraines that make it impossible for me to endure the harsh cold. We are now living on the seashore, in a tent that doesn’t provide us with adequate protection. My children cry from pain and cold, and I can do nothing but watch them, helpless, unable to offer them anything.

Please, to anyone reading this story, we are an exhausted family. We have been displaced four times and have not found a safe place. Our children are suffering, and our lives are in constant danger. We plead to anyone who can help us to save us. Any donation or help could be a lifeline for us in these harsh conditions. Save my family from this war, and give us a new chance at life.

@commissions4aid-international

@wellwaterhysteria

@junglejim4233

@kibumkim

@neechees

@riding-with-the-wild-hunt

@omegversereloaded

@evillesbinvianllainarchive

@ot3

@heritageposbot

@sayruq

@sweetoothgirl

@mazzikah

@briarhips

So I’ve seen some posts going around saying things like “boycotting doesn’t work, don’t bother boycotting Eurovision because they’ve already been paid. The only thing you can do to help is donate to organisations.” People are only saying this to absolve themselves of guilt. Don’t let them make you think that boycotting doesn’t work. It does.

Boycotting means that Eurovision will have a much harder time finding advertisements who want to partner with them, which means less funding overall. Boycotting means that they receive less money from televoting, ticket sales and merchandise. Boycotting means that their view count drops significantly and puts pressure on them to change their current practices. Boycotting means you won’t let Eurovision distract you while bombs are falling on Palestine. And most importantly: boycotting means sending a clear message that you will not stand for their support of Israel.

Eurovision is not staying apolitical. They have taken a political stance by letting Israel compete, just like they took a political stance when they banned Russia from competing. They are perfectly capable of banning countries for committing war crimes, so allowing Israel to compete shows that they are accepting and excusing Israel’s genocide. They are also sponsored by an Israeli company (MoroccanOil) so if you’re wondering how Eurovision could POSSIBLY side with Israel, there’s your answer: money.

Don’t give them any of yours. Don’t give them your viewership. Boycotting works, and if you’re feeling guilty for watching Eurovision, good. Feel bad. People are being killed, tortured, families torn apart and houses being bombed as we speak, so forgive me if I’m not sympathetic over you not being able to watch your fucking song contest. Not everything is about you. You’re going to have to feel uncomfortable sometimes when there’s a fucking genocide going on.

Lastly, not everyone is able to donate. Boycotting is a great way of helping if you’re not able to help financially. The Palestinian BDS National Committee and pro-Palestine organisations are encouraging people to boycott Eurovision, so even Palestinians themselves and Palestinian organisations are telling you that boycotting will help.

Eurovision is not worth it. You can find something else to do. Stream Hind’s Hall by Macklemore since all proceeds go to UNRWA. You can also help for free by starting your daily clicks on Arab.org.

And if you are able to donate, then great! Do that too:

And dear god, if you’re really not able to go without Eurovision then find a fucking way to pirate it. I am also begging people not to hate-watch Israeli’s entry because all that does is stop the boycott and make the viewerships spike again. The best thing you can do is fucking ignore them.