Straight Ship??? On The Leasebound Tag???

Legally an adult doesn't nessescarily mean mature. I'd understand if someone would look at a story like this in a negative light.

You could at least age Marinette to 25 or 20. 18 is no different than 17.

I'd argue that 18 and 40 is no better than 15 and 40. I'd understand if someone was traumatised by this interaction.

Gabrinette.

Christine Taylor deserves the world.

I love her just as much as Jacob does

Tina <33

KRISMAAAAAAAAAA

A small comic about Palestine I created to appeal to more passive family and friends

Anyways if you have the money I urge you to donate to Ibraheem Hadi, a Palestinian who contacted me and whom I promised to highlight in relation to this comic:

gofundme.com

Donate to Help me and my family to evacuate from Gaza, organized by Devlin Downs

Title: "Urgent Relief: Support Ibrahim's Family in Gaza Amidst Devastation" … Devlin Downs needs your support for Help me and my family to

Otherwise there is always a need for eSims to keep Gazans connected

Stop pointlessly attacking people who didn't ask for your opinion.

It's a waste of everyone's time.

Meriam is not a well-written mother, sorry.

It's not a surprise, either. Meriam isn't the saint of a mother constantly portrayed in Leasebound, and I argue that the narrative does her injustice several times by not letting her be a person.

Shez's backstory is far from a shounen hero arc. It's sad, and it's a prime example of Rusty not capitalising on potentially great story arcs for her characters.

To begin, Meriam's story starts when her first husband abandons her in Austalia. She gets a job as a cleaner (and takes off her hijab), as well as takes care of Shez until Chris comes along and acts super creepy until he convinces her to marry him. And then chapter 12 happens.

Chris-era Meriam I will not call a bad mother. She was a young woman stuck in a horrible situation, and had to do what she could to help her daughters and her to survive the conflict.

My biggest gripe with chapter twelve is that Rusty calls it a "shounen" arc. Her portrayal of Meriam and her situation accurately does not look like a shounen arc; it's a serious abusive relationship that they need to escape. Meriam, I'd argue, was treated as 'motivation' for Shez and her backstory at best and a figurehead for why women shouldn't partner with men at worst. Rather than treating Meriam as a character, she's often portrayed as a sobbing mess at the mercy of her husband and then later a poor victim who finally got the life she deserved after escaping.

Since the story is a recollection from Shez, you could argue that's why Meriam is portrayed this way. Shez sees her mother as someone in constant need of saving- it's why she thinks that Meriam never had a life outside her kids and her abuse.

But I doubt rusty would write that. The narrative shows Shez as a great hero who inspired her mother to take action because her mother can't defend herself without her daughter - HER FOURTEEN YEAR OLD DAUGHTER- having to step in for her.

(This moment is particularly apalling; how could anyone see this as a power fantasy?!)

There are almost no healthy mother-daughter relationships in Lease Bound, which is really weird for a so-called feminist comic. Josephine and Jaden. Alexis and HER mother. And yes, Shez and Meriam.

Meriam is a deeply flawed mother. Meriam was married at a young age, had to take care of Shez alone in a foreign country, and then got abused. She will make mistakes, and she's made many, because she had no support from the outside and ultimately all she had were her daughters. That could make a strong, protective, fierce Mama bear....

...but she isn't. She's a **victim**. She's hurt, and she needs Shez to save her. She begs her ten year old daughter to help her after her daughter fights a battle for her. She needs her daughter to train to fight Chris for her. That's not something admiring, that's not a power fantasy. That is fucked up.

And that doesn't mean she needs to be rewritten! This can be good! This can be amazing, even! Meriam could be an actually interesting character, going in-depth on how her abuse didn't MAKE HER A STRONG PERSON! HER ABUSE WAS ABUSE! ABUSE DOESNT MAKE YOU STRONGER! IT TRAUMATIZES YOU! IT MAKES YOU NEED SUPPORT, AND THERAPY, AND YOU ARE HUMAN AND- GOOD GOD!

Why is she portrayed as the mother who can do no wrong because she got abused?! Why isn't she treated with a sliver of more nuance than "the victim"?! Why isn't Meriam seriously challenged, deconstructed, analysed, as anything other than "Shez's mom who got abused and made her hate men?"

That is bad writing! Framing abuse as a continuation of your political agenda instead of seriously exploring abuse and a person's psyche and how it affects someone!

And...well...that's how Meriam is written. That's how Rusty wants us to see her. And it's frustrating because sometimes- sometimes- Rusty gets it right.

This moment is poignant. It's my favourite Meriam moment because she's self- aware, and challenged by Shez. Rusty can do it- she just abandons it in favour of five hundred more pages of "trans bad men bad".

So...we explored all that. We tackled the surface of my feelings towards Meriam. What now?

I can't say more, because I feel like a broken record. In fact, go read up several other posts by incredibly talented Leasebound content creators who have made several dissertations on the story, and they will tell you that Lease Bound is, in fact, badly written, and that Rusty Hearts needs to do more with her story.

Thanks for reading! More about Meriam and Shez is coming soon, and I'll update this post when I finish writing it!

Teenage boys and grown men have equal capacity to be abusive. In fact, it's grown men who are known abusers, especially- say it with me now- those who date 18-year- olds at 40.

As a teenage girl, I think this is disgusting. You're entitled to any fics you want, but romanticising **this** in particular and the arguments you present for it is very, very harmful.

Did I disturb you by pointing out that youre engaging in a grooming fantasy that does, in fact, affect the young girls that will potentially read your novel? If you really want an age gap, why not have the character be a fucking ADULT (Not in legal terms, because being called "legal" is fucking gross) instead of some waif.

This is harmful to young girls, and I suggest you seriously evaluate what happened to you at 17-18. It's *not* okay for a grown ass man to be interested in a TEENAGER.

I'm sorry I, a *teenager*, would point out that 40 year old men cannot be in relationships with teenagers. I'm so sorry I told you to not perpetuate a harmful storytelling trope.

Side note: You looked all fancy throwing out those big literary names at my friend, but you conviniently forgot Nabokov. Perhaps you felt discomfort at mentioning his name in this pursuit....?

Gabrinette.

I'm sorry it took this long.

Many, many individual reports are coming in of how violent this night has been.

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

he's in the walls....

HES IN THE GODDAMN WALLS!

heh blur

lets just say

times a blur

i wiish that i could turn back time

cause now the guilt is all mine

can't live without the

trust from those you love