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dreamsgalore · 10 months

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Star-Crossed Chapter One (First Impact) - NSFW [Suguru Geto x Reader]

Summary: [adj] (of a person or a plan) thwarted by bad luck. not favored by the stars. ill-fated. refers to any lovers whose affection for each other is doomed to end in tragedy. experienced! suguru geto x inexperienced! reader

❥ status: completed

❥ content warnings: explicit sexual content. smut. dom/sub undertones. fem! reader. shy reader. dirty talk. inexperience. virginity mention. dry humping. teasing. kind suguru. fluff at the end. overstimulation. foreplay. light manhandling. hints of size kink. pet names. orgasm denial?

❥ note: This story takes place before the Hidden Star Plasma Vessel Arc of JJK> It's also more of an AU, taking place when all characters are 18+.

AO3 LINK | Story Directory

Suguru didn’t pay many girls much mind. That was until the day he met you. He was known to many as a playboy, never fully committing to any romantic relationship or only being invested in short sexual flings. Then you came around and turned everything on its head. It happened fast and was unexpected, but he was thankful you crossed his path.

The two of you met at a busy shopping district in Tokyo. The summer weather was beautiful and comfortable that day. The breeze was light. The Sun was out just enough to warm your skin without you breaking a sweat. Everyone in the neighborhood took the opportunity to enjoy it, as the area was more lively than usual.

Suguru had been out with Shoko and Gojo as they had a day off from their duties at Jujutsu High. The group had decided to stop inside a small alternative fashion store on the corner of a bustling intersection. That’s when he spotted you.

You were mindlessly sifting through a clothing rack, unaware of the wandering eyes searching over you. Suguru sized you up from afar, scanning from your buckled black Mary Janes to your white stockings that hugged your thick thighs gently.

You were clad in a pink, pleated skirt and a small white crop top to match. Your accessories complimented your outfit; a silver heart chain belt wrapped loosely around your hips, a small pink handbag tucked into your armpit, and sleek jewelry that sparkled in the sunlight.

Suguru wasted no time in approaching you, assuming that with your brazen sense of style, your personality would be just as bold. To his surprise, you were as shy as can be.

"O-Oh, hi there-! No, sorry, I'm not from around here…I just moved here a few months ago…"

As you spoke to him, he noticed you couldn’t keep eye contact with him for more than a few seconds. You stumbled on your words occasionally. He could tell how nervous and soft-spoken you were. When you did manage to look up at him, his heart skipped a beat or two. Oh, he was smitten with you.

The girls he usually goes for are outgoing and typically down for anything without much of a fight, but you. He could tell you were going to be a challenge. Though, this didn’t deter him. He was more excited than one would expect.

Your initial thought of Suguru was that he was kind of intimidating. He was astoundingly tall, his slender form leaned into your personal space without much care to your displeasure. Coupled with his dark features, his long, spiky locks, and his piercing, unwavering stare, he was very daunting.

You couldn’t deny that he was exceptionally handsome though. Your eyes unskillfully drift from his broad shoulders down to his tapered waist. Under his loose-fitting clothing, you could tell there was hardened muscle you assumed was from years of training. For what, you were unsure.

“Staring is rude, y’know. My eyes are up here, sweetheart.”

You jump. You’d been caught red-handed. “O-Oh, I-I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking!”

You swiftly bow apologetically multiple times much to his surprise. Suguru was only joking but he was stunned at how much you took it to heart. Maybe this good girl image wasn’t a farce. Maybe you were just as innocent as you looked.

He chuckles, “Don’t be sorry. I was just teasing you.”

He smiles and you swear it’s contagious as you couldn’t help smiling back.

“I really am sorry.

“Why don’t you make it up to me?" He murmurs.

You raised a brow, "How so..?"

"By giving me your name and number."

A dark blush burns into your cheeks, “M-My number?”

He nods, “Yes. If you’d allow me, that is.”

While he wasn’t sure how he managed to get your approval, he didn’t take this for granted. The two of you texted each other every day since then and grew close enough to go out on dates. You came to learn how intelligent and kind Suguru was underneath that suave exterior. You got to know a side of him that rarely anyone sees, even his friends.

In addition, Suguru loved how your mind worked. He realized under that shell of yours was a bashful, hilarious personality. He was utterly enamored by your beauty, inside and out.

Eventually, your relationship got to the point where Suguru started spending time at your apartment for dinner and movie nights. He would never stay. He opted to leave right after to not make you uncomfortable. He didn’t want to overstep your boundaries or make you feel pressured into anything. He’d be upset with himself if he ever made you feel that way.

Tonight, you’d convinced him to stay a little longer than usual. The two of you were caught up in a mystery thriller that was nearly two hours long. You didn’t want him to miss it so you permitted him to stay late to finish the flick with you.

You both were resting on the couch. Your body cuddled into Suguru’s own for warmth. Your arms were wrapped snuggly around his waist, holding him close. Suguru didn’t mind this, as you were taking baby steps with intimacy.

A week ago, you revealed to him that you were quite inexperienced with dating and that you’d never gotten this close to any boyfriend before.

“Sorry if this is a personal question to ask. You don’t have to answer if you’re uncomfortable, but are you a virgin?”

Your face burned a dark red in response. That’s the only answer Suguru needed.

With a gentle smile, Suguru leaned forward to match your height and held your chin with a benign grip before pressing a soft peck to your lips, “Don’t be embarrassed, sweetheart. If you want, we can take things slow. I don’t want to rush you.”

The goosebumps forming on your skin didn’t go unnoticed by him. Your eyes met with his own, his sharp gaze made you feel small, but you managed to answer, “I-I want to try new things with you, Suguru.”

He kisses you once more and rests his forehead against your own, “We’ll take things at your pace, baby.”

This led to the situation you’re in right now, attempting to get physically close to him without hiding away. Your body was heating up just from holding him like this. You thought it was embarrassing, but Suguru found it adorable. It was sweet that you were trying your best to experiment with him.

Looking down at you, Suguru took a moment to observe your current state. You were flushed, purposefully avoiding gaze to keep yourself sane. You could feel his stare boring into the side of your face, and you were trying hard not to break away from the screen, afraid your heart wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Suguru chuckled and snaked his hands around your waist, “You’re so cute, y’know that? You trying to get my attention?”

You finally peered up at him, nodding shyly, “Yes.”

“Well, you got it. C’mere, babe.”

Suguru guides you to his lap, allowing you to straddle him as he lays back on the sofa. He spreads his legs to accommodate you, holding your waist to keep you balanced. He cranes his neck to get a glimpse of your face, taking in your dazed expression. You were frozen like a deer in headlights, unsure what to do next.

Your hands shake as you perch them on his shoulders, “S-Suguru-”

Seeing you like this riled him up. Your whole body was trembling with anticipation. Your face was absolutely priceless. His mind went straight to the thought of you under him, trembling the way you are now.

Would you look at him the same way you are now or would you hide away into the sheets? He wanted to know badly, but he would take his time with you. He wants you to be willing to give yourself to him fully.

“Don’t worry, baby. Remember, we’re taking it slow. Just tell me if you want to stop and we can stop.” He whispered before pulling you in for a deep kiss.

You froze at the sudden action but slowly relaxed into the embrace, your eyelids fluttering shut as he pulled you in painfully close. You were still getting used to making out. You were ashamed at how much of a novice you were, but Suguru didn't seem to mind.

With a quiet moan, Suguru broke the kiss for a split second to utter, “Open up.”

Breathing heavily, you apprehensively obeyed and spread your glossed lips for him, wanting to tread into dangerous territory with the sorcerer below you.

Pleased with this, Suguru carefully dipped his tongue in your mouth, messily wrestling it with your own before moving to nip at your sensitive neck. His strong arms cradled you fondly, keeping you from slipping away from his touch.

A chill ran up your spine from the contact his lips made with your flushed skin. You’d never experienced anything like this before. Your mind was blank, unable to think of anything other than Suguru. The way his hands and lips felt on you, you couldn’t help but let a pathetic whimper escape you. You were surprised that a sound like that could even come out of you.

“Fuck, you sound so pretty,” Suguru murmured against your skin, “Are you wet, baby? Fuck, I bet you are. It doesn’t take much, does it? All the things I want to do to you…are you gonna let me? Are you gonna let me fuck your little pussy one day, baby?”

“Hnn, yes…” You whimpered, a blush dusting against your cheeks as you shut your eyes tightly.

"Mm, I'll hold you to that, sweetheart. I'd make your little cunt feel so good. You'll never want to leave me."

His words were vulgar, but you felt invigorated by them, hoping he wouldn't break his promise. With all the excitement, you grind your hips down into his own, earning a hiss from the man below you. You snapped out of your stupor.

Pulling back quickly, thinking you’ve done something wrong, you panic. “I’m so sorry, Sugu. I-I didn't mean to-”

“Don’t be. It felt good. You feel good. It's cute how excited you are.” Suguru's hands creep from your waist down to your plush bottom, giving it a firm squeeze.

You gasp, a shiver running up your spine as he begins exploring areas no one's ever before.

Slowly, his hands follow the curve of your buttocks down to the edge of your velour shorts where he plays with the waistband. He stops his long fingers there, waiting for you to permit him to move forward.

"Can I touch you? Down there?"

Your ears go numb with heat. This whole encounter had you squirming. Suguru knew it. He had you right where he wanted you. His question lingered on your mind for a bit. Your heart was practically jumping out of your chest. Eagerly, you gave him an approving nod.

"Y-Yes. Be gentle."

"Always, baby."

Suguru’s fingers trod carefully, dipping below the fabric of your shorts to feel the cotton panties beneath. You weren't expecting to get this far with Geto today. If you'd had known, you would've put on something far sexier, but maybe you're overthinking it. Suguru peers up at you while he moves one hand to your front to stroke your clit. You visibly twitch at the feeling, your insides flipping at his tender touch. He smirks.

"Mm, I was right. You're soaked. I've barely touched you, hun." His tone was amused, "How does it feel?"

You quiver at his wandering fingers, "Sugu, it feels…different. It feels so, so good."

Once again, your hips passively buck against him, and he keeps moving his fingers in tandem. Fuck, you were doing something to him. His dick was becoming painfully swollen. It took everything within him not to ravish you on the sofa, but he would wait just for you. You were such a sweet, charming girl. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit your inexperience didn’t turn him on. While he wanted to taint this good girl image you presented to the world, this didn’t stop him from wanting to protect you from the world either.

To relieve himself, Suguru raises his hips from beneath you, pressing his obvious hard-on against the crotch of your damp shorts.

You sigh lovingly, your head lolling back at the feeling between your legs and your fingers digging into his broad shoulders, “Please, Sugu-”

Fuck, you were going to be the death of him.

"I want you to get off on your own, sweetheart." He removes his fingers, much to your disappointment, opting to hold your hips, "Do what you were doing earlier. Keep moving your hips. Slowly."

Unsure of yourself, your body anxiously rocks with the motion of Suguru’s grinding hips. You were feeling shy now that you were consciously dry-humping him under his watch. He ogled you like a predator would its prey, never breaking away from your body. You had his full attention.

Working with you, Suguru matches your pace with his own hips and moans. You could feel your pulsating clit rubbing up against the fabric of your shorts and Suguru's hardened member protruding from beneath his baggy sweatpants. He felt so…big. Your panties were growing uncomfortably sticky with each fleeting second. Part of you was scared of where this could lead, but another part was ready to risk everything.

“Shit, look at you. You’re so fucking sexy. I can’t wait to be inside of you.” He grumbled, speeding up his hips until you were bouncing on his dick, “You feel how hard I am? All because of you? Are you gonna take care of me, baby?”

“Yes, ‘wanna take care of you-” You mewled, your hands pressed to his firm chest, “You feel so big, Sugu.”

Suguru brushes his lips against your ear, speaking just below a whisper, “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll train your pretty pussy well until all you can take is my dick.”

You had gone silent, unsure how to respond as you felt your stomach wound into a tight knot. Unable to handle the building pressure between your legs, you throw your arms around Suguru’s neck and bury your face into his shoulder, panting against him. He could tell by your clumsy thrusts that you were getting close. He wanted to push you over the edge if you’d let him.

“You gonna cum for me, pretty girl? There’s gonna be more where that came from, y’know. Whenever and wherever you want it, baby. On my face, on my fingers, on my dick…wherever you want it.”

Your teeth sink deeper into the meat of his shoulder, making him wince at the sharp pain. You were so, so close. You were ready to risk everything and finally rip the bandage off. You wanted to give into your temptation and let your desire free flow from your body. But you couldn’t. Not yet.

Your hips slowed before coming to a complete halt, stopping your chances of reaching the ultimate high. He stops with you. The silence between the two of you was deafening. You couldn’t bring yourself to look Suguru in the eye.

What if he was upset with you for stopping? What if he thought you were a coward for not going all the way? You wanted to retreat, to hide away from him. You were distraught with yourself for not doing more.

“I-I’m sorry, Sugu. I’m sorry for stopping. I just-”

“No, no, no. Don’t be sorry, sweetheart.” He takes your face into his hands, lifting your head so he had your attention, “Remember what I said? We’ll take things at your pace. Besides, you did so well. You really got into it.”

He leans in and captures your kiss-swollen lips in his own. You melt into him, letting the butterflies in your stomach consume you. Suguru was more than happy to have been your first sexual encounter. He didn’t want to rush you into anything. He was pleased with how far you’d gotten with him today. He was excited to see how far you’d go with him. Obscene ideas of how he’d take you when the time comes cross his mind, making him shift in his seat erratically. He could only imagine how you’d look when his cock sinks into you for the very first time. He was getting hard again just thinking about it.

“Suguru?”

He snaps out of his train of thought.

“Yes?”

“C-Can you stay the night? I understand if you can’t. I just wanna hold you.”

Suguru’s heart jumps. The two of you were polar opposites. He wasn’t used to being this vulnerable with any girl he’s dated. Something about you made him let his guard down. He loved that about you. You took his mind off the idea of dealing with curses and the stresses of Jujustu High.

He could stay up and talk to you for hours about the simple things that he never took the time to think about like how his day went and if he’s eaten today. You were such an attentive and caring spirit. He adored everything about you. He never wanted to leave your side.

“Sure. I’ll stay with you tonight.” He strokes your hair, “Let’s get some rest, hm?”

NEXT CHAPTER. ->

#galorelemons #lemon #smut #suguru geto / reader #suguru geto x reader #geto suguru /reader #geto suguru x reader #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #suguru geto/reader #geto suguru/reader

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beheworthy · 2 years

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Thor: Love, Thunder, and Character Regression

[Disclaimer: This essay talks negatively about Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and its director. Please do not read if you like them.

Major SPOILERS for Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Word count - 4.5k words

I suppose I should give a Table of Contents, given that word count:

1. Introduction 2. Credit where it’s due 3. Things sneakily changed from Thor3 4. Thor’s character regression 5. The issue with the end of his arc 6. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce 7. Thor & Jane 8. So where do we go from here?

Shout out to my partner in crime Rachel @notallthosewho-wanderarelost for providing information about everything Marvel as I personally don’t follow anything outside the hammer guy.

Without further ado, let’s go.]

- - - -

It’s something to see that Thor: Love and Thunder (Thor4) is getting praise for Natalie Portman’s portrayal of Dr. Jane Foster, Christian Bale’s turn as the villain Gorr The God Butcher, and Chris Hemsworth and Natalie’s chemistry. Because it’s getting criticism for director Waititi’s relentless comedy, tone, writing, direction, and writing of Thor as dumb and funny.

Which is interesting because Thor: Ragnarok (Thor3) had the exact same problem with even less of a plot as 80% of it was improv. Thor4 at least attempts to have a story and arc for Thor with themes and stuff, whereas Thor3 was just an orgy of anus jokes. But suddenly the comedy is a problem and the characters feel like caricatures to people. Now everyone wants serious Thor.

I, for one, am glad the world has finally caught on.

Keep reading

#thor love and thunder #marvel #thor #jane foster #thor x jane #odin #chris hemsworth #natalie portman #anti taika waititi #anti thor ragnarok #analysis #write up #meta #text #i have things to say about my man

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fancyfade · 9 months

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What are your thoughts on Batman: Black Mirror? I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with that story mostly because I adore its characterisation of Dick and how the story depicts legacy and history, but Synder's ableism is so apparent.

If it's alright for me to share my two cents: I enjoy that a lot of the arc (particularly the first 3 issues) revolves around the theme of "history repeating; first as tragedy, then as farce" which was typical for Bat titles of the time. The Dealer and James Jr. trying to intellectualise "might is right" despite resorting to same old greed-fuelled murder. Dick Grayson coming into his own as a not-Bruce-Wayne Batman, who's standing on the shoulders of giants and reckoning with the ghost of the Batman's (and his) past. Barbara and Jim Gordon having to deal with Jim's biggest mistakes of all in the form of James Jr resurfacing. I also loved Dick and Babs' moments and their relationship draws on this theme: they have so much history together, they loved each other, they get each other like no one else does, they've been there from almost the beginning, they've been allies, partners, friends, lovers, exes, fiancés, and now they're something pretty un-labellable if you ask me. (Thesis-antithesis-synthesis in a sense :P)

But shit. The ableism is problematic. I think it's two main things, though I might be missing something. First is Dick's nightmare vision where his worst fear is him losing his legs. And second is James Jr being written as a "psychopath" as oppose to, I dunno, the literal embodiment of toxic masculinity (fucking wasted opportunity) to be a foil to our favourite flamboyant, pun-slinging, back-flipping, hoping-inspiring boy scout Dick Grayson.

What do you think of this arc?

I’ll confess that I am the odd one out in that I just. Do not get the appeal of black mirror. Even excluding the ableism (and it is VERY ableist). Like people say it’s great Dick characterization, and it’s fine, but it’s not like it stands out especially among other comics of the time IMO.

Like, Dick and Babs’s moments in this comic are not notable for me, because she is reduced and written as lesser to make her someone Dick has to protect, she is damselled and written as less competent – hwo does James get past her security so effortlessly? Why does she not finish him off when she has the advantage after beating him up initially? Like the whole reason I like Dick and Babs’ dynamic is because they are written as equals in the initial version of their relationship, Black Mirror just made it a stereotypical ‘scared woman (b/c she is treated as scared of James, even tho she does try to break out), strong man saves her’ thing. James Jr would not be a threat to Babs in her own solo title. That means I think it fails in being respectful of the depiction of her history, so I would say that Snyder does not succeed there.

I also would disagree that we see Babs and Jim having to deal with Jim’s greatest mistake, when like I said Babs doesn’t really do much.

I do agree that they had a lot of opportunity to parallel James and Dick as toxic masculinity vs healthy masculinity, but it’s wasn’t the authorial intention at all, so I don’t give it any credit for that. The authorial intention was “Good, neurotypical dick* vs Evil, neurodivergent James”. I would honestly consider the way they diminished Babs capabilities to prop Dick up more ableism in the story as well, in addition to sexism.

I think that critique of the Might is Right mindset is done much better in many 80s/90s Batman comics, including Batman: Venom. The text was much more overt there, and less hidden behind ableism.

Anyway, so sorry :P but basically Batman: Black Mirror is one of those “everyone talks it up” but I’m just like the *insert her GIF*. It’s a pretty stereotypical batman story. In terms of Dickbats stories, I consider it one of the more mid ones. I genuinely don’t know how it is so popular :P

*ignoring headcanons or readings of earlier texts…. The way Snyder writes him is intended to be read as neurotypical

#armed with a waffle iron #ask #dc comics #batman: black mirror #dickbats #2009 era batfam stuff #barbara gordon #sexism #ableism

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loser-man-central · 8 months

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Now that Undead Girl Murder Farce season 1 is over (Season 2 is hopefully coming but there's only a couple volumes of the novel out so maybe it won't work for a couple years)

Now time for my expert review

First Arc the Vampire one was great. Showed us who the trio is and their personalities. It established that Tsugaru is willing to kill anyone if Aya says I mean we already knew he would kill people but we didn't know he'd kill a child and then tell the father a JOKE about it. Without this arc we would probably be lead to believe Aya didn't really care for Tsugaru's jokes but she actually loves them, and it established Shizuku hating Tsugaru but we didn't know for sure why till later. And the mystery here is the only one I was close to solving I thought it was the girl maid and Raoul not realizing that he could cut off his fingers

It's a solid 8/10

The second arc is my favorite. Lupin and Erik's relationship is so interesting and one of my favorites in the show. I didn't care for Sherlock and Watson i'd like them more if they had epic mind battles with Aya but they are fine. They're just my least favorite in the show. But the real stars of the show were the Banquet. Carmilla and Allister had interesting fights with Shizuku and Sherlock. Shizuku and Carmilla fight here sets up their rematch in the Werewolf village and Allister is just cool! He's a completely normal human hanging out with a Vampire, Frankenstein's Monster, and Jack. Speaking of Jack his fight with Tsugaru is so interesting it alone made me love Jack so much! It added a sort of tragedy to Tsugaru who is usually so comedic and I loved it I feel like there is more to both of them we don't know! I love this Arc so much there isn't much mystery here since we know that culprit but we don't know how Lupin and his gay crush Erik would steal it since it seems so impossible and they did successfully steal the sliver box. I wonder what their gonna do with that in season 2 besides have it look pretty.

9.5/10

And the final arc the Werewolf one

I liked this one also It is what made me like Shizuku and Jutte is so great I hope we see her again some time. I knew some sort of fuckery was happening in the villages but I excepted it to be the Doctor but it seems he feels bad questioning what they have done when raiding the werewolf village. The mystery in this arc is my favorite so intriguing and I'm glad some of the Werewolf girls are safe now. Something I didn't expect was Aya to get the deduction wrong and Tsugaru to be that silly. I expected him to be silly but not "Be a furry" silly

And the finale

I felt like the art direction in the final season wasn't as grand as the others and then that fight with Jutte happened I loved that the finale is my favorite epsoide for sure

9/10

#undead girl murder farce #undead murder farce #arsene lupin #tsugaru shinuchi #aya rindo #shizuku hasei #jack the ripper #sherlock holmes #watson ugmf

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sistervirtue · 2 years

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your thoughts on hinata are giving me Thoughts too 💀 this is totally me rambling btw sorry if my interpretation is off 😭

The detail abt Hinata feeling she had to leave her loved ones to protect them from Robara, combined with what you said abt her wanting Robara to become less of a risk to others in part because it would be a huge weight off her shoulders, makes me think that a part of her also probably hopes that if that day were to come- she would be able to see her loved ones again without the risk to their lives.

Also, it's been a while since i read the ogreham arc, but i think it would've been really beneficial for Hinata and Robara's storyline if Aimoto had essentially given them the same narrative treatment as Akagi and Kaede- having their arc be made up of two parts, the first highlighting and exploring how the two conflict in character, and the second part having a resolution.

It could've been an interesting parallel of Hinata and Robara vs Akagi and Kaede, where the latter have a tragic end where they came to love and understand eachother a little better, the former could've had a kind of parallel course of events. Maybe a moment in battle where Robara is forced to reveal in some way that this image of himself he's been manipulating Hinata with is a farce and Hinata just has a sequence of dawning realization and fury.

Essentially I wish she had gotten a moment where she could sort of peak behind the curtain and recognize her own tragedy playing out and actually get a chance to regain the agency (is that the right word?) she lost however many years ago.

YES YES YES TO ALL OF THIS the parallels between them and kaeaka couldve been fucking INSANEEEE

Also i REALLY want to see hii reconcile with her family... they really did just want 2 protect her

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rhetoricandlogic · 1 year

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A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan – review

Marcel Proust and The Sopranos serve as the unlikely inspirations for this ambitious study of time and relationships

e title of Jennifer Egan's new novel may make it sound more like an episode of Scooby-Doo than an exceptional rendering of contemporary America, but don't be fooled. The book received rave reviews when it was published in the US last year, and for good reason; it has since been named a finalist for several prestigious American prizes. Egan has said that the novel was inspired by two sources: Proust's À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, and HBO's The Sopranos. That shouldn't make sense but it does: Goon Squad is a book about memory and kinship, time and narrative, continuity and disconnection, in which relationships shift and recombine kaleidoscopically. It is neither a novel nor a collection of short stories, but something in between: a series of chapters featuring interlocking characters at different points in their lives, whose individual voices combine to a create a symphonic work that uses its interconnected form to explore ideas about human interconnectedness. This is a difficult book to summarise, but a delight to read, gradually distilling a medley out of its polyphonic, sometimes deliberately cacophonous voices.

The "goon squad" of the title is not itself a reference to The Sopranos: there are no mobsters here. It is one character's name for time: "Time's a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?" Everyone in the book is pushed around by time, circumstance and, occasionally, the ones they love, as Egan reveals with great elegance and economy the wobbly arcs of her characters' lives, their painful pasts and future disappointments. Characters who are marginal in one chapter become the focus of the next; the narrative alternates not only between first-person and third-person accounts, but – perhaps just because she can – Egan throws in a virtuosic second-person story as well, in which a suicidal young man tells his tale to a colloquial "you". She also shifts dramatically across times and places: punk teenagers in 1970s San Francisco become disillusioned adults in the suburbs of 1990s New York; their children grow up in an imagined, slightly dystopic future in the California desert, or attend a legendary concert at "The Footprint", where the Twin Towers used to be, sometime in the 2020s.

The stories circle magnetically around a few characters who recur a bit more frequently than others, and broadly around the American music scene: Lou, a coke-snorting, teenage-girl-seducing music producer in the 1970s, becomes the mentor of an untalented young bass player, Bennie, who becomes a music producer himself, who hires a young woman, Sasha, who has a problem with kleptomania, who sleeps with a young man, Alex, who much later ends up hired by Bennie to engineer the comeback of Bennie's high-school friend Scott, who went off the rails as an adult and ended up one day in Bennie's office with a fish he'd caught in the East River, where Sasha's best friend and boyfriend in college had once gone for an early morning swim with tragic consequences. Bennie's wife works for a publicist named Dolly whose daughter, Lulu, will end up working with Alex; Bennie's wife's brother is a journalist who is arrested for the attempted rape of an actress named Kitty Jackson who has her own fall from grace and is later hired by Dolly to enable the public rehabilitation of a genocidal Latin American dictator.

Each chapter has its own distinct voice and mood, modulating from satire to farce, from melancholy to tragedy. I've never found a description of attempted rape funny before, but when Jules Jones writes (from prison) his account of his assault on Kitty Jackson during an interview, it becomes an uproarious parody of David Foster Wallace that owes more than a little to Nabokov as well, as Jules describes finding himself with "one hand covering Kitty's mouth and doing its best to anchor her rather spirited head, the other fumbling with my zipper, which I'm having some trouble depressing, possibly because of the writhing motions of my subject beneath me." Kitty sprays him with Mace, stabs him in the leg with a Swiss army knife, and runs away. "I think I'd have to call that the end of our lunch," Jules remarks.

If it comes as a surprise that an attempted rape can be hilarious, it is an even greater surprise that a PowerPoint presentation can be moving. Goon Squad becomes more fragmented, and more formally experimental, as it progresses: the penultimate chapter is written entirely as the PowerPoint slide diary of Sasha's teenage daughter Alison, whose brother is obsessed with pauses in rock songs. Those pauses, like the spaces between PowerPoint slides, become a metaphor for the gaps between what we mean and what we say, or the apparently unbridgeable distance between family members. The trick feels appropriate in a book preoccupied throughout by the effects of technology on our lives and culture, from the consequences for music of the digital revolution (as Bennie observes, digital production has transformed not only the industry of music but its sound as well) to the way in which technology is transforming our language. Egan's Orwellian final chapter imagines a future in which English has decomposed into radical text-speak: "if thr r children, thr mst b a fUtr, rt?"

Egan has said that the organising principle of A Visit from the Goon Squad is discontinuity; this may be true, but the reason the book works so well is because of the continuities she has also created: her atomised people collide, scatter and recombine in patterns that are less chaotic than they appear. Egan's characters, and the America they inhabit, are winding entropically down. It's a kind of meditation on the butterfly effect, in which recurrence becomes the measure of the chaos of our lives, the novel reimagined as a series of chain reactions. But Egan's vision of history and time is also decidedly, and perhaps reassuringly, cyclical: the impacts these characters have upon each other are engineered not by coincidence but by connectedness itself, as the people we bump against and bang into become the story of our lives.

#Jennifer Egan #A Visit from the Goon Squad #mahreviews #long post

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gunnerpalace · 4 years

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The Hueco Mundo Arc was Bad and the Beginning of the End for Bleach

(I am here lumping the Arrancar and Fake Karakura arcs into Hueco Mundo because they all sort of form a set, whereas the Early Karakura and Soul Society arcs are just Soul Society.)

Since I have now completed one of my magnum opuses by explaining how seemingly nobody has really read the Hueco Mundo arc correctly for like... 10 years... I want to generalize some observations from it about how people also take away the wrong things about the characters too.

Chad is... a Chad. He is Ichigo's bro for life. but he’s also frankly kind of a bad friend and person as a whole. He'll go and die for Ichigo, but he doesn't believe in what he's dying for. He does it out of obligation because he doesn’t really believe in Ichigo either, as both the Xcution and TYBW arcs make very clear. He does this over and over again throughout the series and you’re left with the sense he’s really just kind of purposeless and nihilistic. He is almost looking for a cause to die for.

Renji is also a Chad. Also sort of a puppy. He basically does the same thing as Chad, except for Rukia. And much like Chad does nothing to really build Ichigo up or support him, Renji does nothing to really build up or support Rukia. He’s just there. And he’s driven by his guilt over Rukia and his own attendant sense of obligation. He’s self-loathing and also seems to basically be looking to die to atone for his sins against her.

Orihime is incredibly selfish. I previously linked it, but @hashtagartistlife has already done a great write-up on this. Orihime inserted herself into Ichigo’s affairs for selfish reasons (to get close to Ichigo), she went to Soul Society for selfish reasons (to “protect” Ichigo when he never asked for it), she allowed herself to be taken to Hueco Mundo for selfish reasons (same), and she goes on being selfish in later arcs. She does not learn. She does not advance. She does not improve. She ultimately does everything for her own sake.

Ichigo is also incredibly selfish. Sera also has done a write-up on Ichigo, but I will take a somewhat different (if related position). She characterizes Ichigo as self-centered rather than selfish, and I feel that is painting with too broad a brush. I would say that Ichigo becomes “merely” self-centered by later in the series. To begin with, he is also selfish. His desire to protect is for himself as much as it is for those he wants to protect. He is always trying to make up for the death of his mother and his inability to save her, but on his terms and his terms alone. At first, he wants to protect only when it is convenient to him (and tells Rukia as much). Later, he wants to protect even those he shouldn’t (who are trying to kill him). It is only much later, in the Xcution arc, where he will compromise his values and desires for others (by killing Ginjou). I would say that even rescuing Rukia was as much for himself as it was for her (and he admits as much, with his “I made a promise to my soul!” line that Renji parrots to Byakuya). It is only the events of the Hueco Mundo arc and fighting Aizen that cause him to grow up and behave maturely in the Xcution arc.

Rukia is selfless to a fault. She will blame herself for things that are not her fault (e.g., Kaien’s death, Ichigo’s suffering during the Soul Society arc) and give effusively charitable interpretations and leniency where it isn’t deserved (e.g., to Orihime for her role in her rescue). At the same time, she is also scarcely less prideful than Ichigo and will likewise make equally dumb decisions in the name of it, as Sera points out, if for different reasons.

Uryuu is the only one whose priorities are fairly well-adjusted. He tried to save Rukia from Renji and Byakuya because it was the right thing to do (despite his posturing about hating Shinigami). He went to Soul Society to save Rukia. He went to Hueco Mundo to save Orihime. He generally did his best in the Xcution arc. But he is also a loner self-sacrificing dumbass who tries to take on too much, as he demonstrated in both Xcution and TYBW, he too has his fair share of pride like Ichigo and Rukia, and his well-adjusted priorities are sometimes a poor fit for the crazy situations he winds up in (almost getting him killed by Full Hollow Ichigo Zangetsu for showing mercy when he shouldn’t, among other things).

They are, all of them, idiots.

And the whole point of the Hueco Mundo arc was to show you that, and to show you how their idiocy could go wrong. Their idiocy worked for them in Soul Society through luck (read: deliberate narrative construction) and then when faced with an eerily similar (read: deliberate parallel) situation in Hueco Mundo, everything went the other way (read: deliberately deconstructed).

Hueco Mundo was designed to tear our protagonists down through the exact same mechanisms by which Soul Society built them up. It was designed to undermine them. In some cases they grew from it as characters. (Ichigo, Rukia definitely did, Uryuu and Renji sort of did, and Chad and Orihime did not at all.) But this is why I characterize Hueco Mundo as a “dark mirror” of Soul Society. It was designed specifically to subvert everything Soul Society showed, by inverting the results. (Compare with “subverting expectations” for the sake of it, a la The Force Awakens vs. The Last Jedi, wherein things were not inverted but simply discarded, for good or ill. This is much more “stylistic” in comparison, and is designed to serve a point beyond itself.)

So... why?

I recently said this in response to another one of Sera’s meta posts:

I would argue that Bleach is only superficially more cohesive [than Naruto]. It starts with Ichigo as a nobody who tries to change things (to save Rukia) because nobody else will, and ends up with him being shoehorned into everything by everyone else as the chosen one while they all abdicate any real responsibility or role. It completely inverts itself in almost every capacity for no real meaning or reason.

Bleach really only makes cohesive sense to me as Kubo longform refuting the Monomyth in various ways; at first by splitting up his protagonist, then by inverting and mirroring the first effort, and then finally through this weird repudiation and assassination of his characters. “Fuck your hopes, beliefs, and dreams,” is one of the few arcs I can discern to the whole series.

Let me unpack that second statement.

The monomyth, or the hero’s journey, is a template of framework for understanding tales. The most commonly cited form was developed by Joseph Campbell in 1949 in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It has a structure sort of like this:

There are some variations (e.g., Campbell puts the Gift of the Goddess much earlier). Let’s use Campbell’s structure and see how it fits early Bleach:

The call to adventure: Rukia's arrival.

Refusal of the call: Ichigo refuses to do her Shinigami duties.

Supernatural aid: Rukia turns him into a Shinigami with her glove. He goes on to learn the basics with her at his side, using various supernatural tools.

Crossing the threshold: Rukia's abduction by Renji and Byakuya (the guardians of the threshold). (Yoruichi is the helper, Kisuke is the mentor.)

Belly of the whale: the dangai and the kotetsu, and the entry into Soul Society

The road of trials: Ichigo running around Soul Society, then fighting Ikkaku, Renji, and Kenpachi.

The meeting with the goddess: Literally Yoruichi, Flash Goddess, giving Ichigo the flying wing and later the cloak, and also later his tenshintai training.

Woman as temptress: again, also literally Yoruichi, in the nude and tempting him.

Atonement with the Father/Abyss: Literally Ichigo fighting with “Old Man” “Zangetsu” to learn bankai.

Apotheosis: Learning bankai.

The Ultimate Boon: Rescuing Rukia.

Refusal of the Return: Staying in Soul Society for a week, not really wanting to leave Rukia there.

The Magic Flight: Having to run back through the dangai.

Rescue from Without: Kisuke saving them from plummeting to earth.

The Crossing of the Return Threshold: Ichigo going back home.

Master of Two Worlds: Taking his body back.

Freedom to Live: Having summer break.

Well, would you look at that? It’s basically beat-for-beat a perfect match. (You could interpret 12-17 a bit differently but you would get essentially the same overall result.)

If it’s such a perfect match, then how do I claim this is a refutation of the monomyth? Because Ichigo is only one half of the protagonist. Rukia is the other half. This hero’s journey... is really the journey of two people, and it is really a quest to find self-worth. That alone makes it a subversion of the monomyth.

Then we have the Hueco Mundo arc, which subverts and undercuts all of this. Not only was the victory incomplete but the journey will be repeatedly darkly, “first as tragedy then as farce.” As I said, all the behaviors that worked in Soul Society fail in Hueco Mundo.

The point is to drive home that having 16-year-olds save the world is stupid. Relying on teenage child soldiers is stupid. They got lucky the first time. Because teenagers are idiots. (Rukia and Renji, despite being somewhere between about 70 and 150 years old, certainly don’t act their age, so they can be counted too.)

Now, lest you think I’m being ageist here, it is rather obvious that Bleach is unreserved in its criticism: adults are idiots too. (Real life certainly bears this out.) But it’s harder to see that in the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo arcs unless you actually pay attention and think about it.

The arc that makes that explicitly clear is the Xcution arc, where we are again relying on 17-year-olds (whom almost entirely fail) and a bunch of absentee adults who shirk their obligations and responsibilities only to be pretty stupid when they do finally engage and continue to refuse to accept responsibility. (Isshin is a fine example, but by no means the only one.)

Then we have more of the same with TYBW, and it ends with nobody getting any satisfaction and everyone doing what they hate, in direct contradiction to their stated desires and their characters in general. (I could find many more analyses of this by myself and others but I can’t be bothered at the moment.) Literally everyone’s character was assassinated, including Aizen’s, Isshin’s, and Ryuuken’s.

So, we have a subversion of the monomyth through splitting the protagonist, we have a dark inversion of the monomyth to undercut it, and then we have the thorough destruction of our protagonists and authority figures which ultimately ends with them all being absolutely and completely compromised.

Add this on to my constant observations (the most recent being in a post on Yoruichi) that no one is allowed to be friends in Bleach, that no romantic relationships are allowed to exist in Bleach without death, and that family structures are always strained and estranged within Bleach, and what do you get? A treatise on the absolute and total breakdown of all bonds and connections, and the forsaking of all ambitions and dreams. Bleach is not a heroic tale, but a cautionary warning to make your peace with your lot in life, as everyone in it does.

It is the anti-shounen. It is the anti-monomyth. It is The Big Downer Series. It is designed, very carefully and thoughtfully, to make you feel bad, mistrust authority, and give up hope. No one and nothing is reliable, not even yourself: the world will betray you until you betray yourself too.

That... is the only consistent and persistent theme of Bleach as it actually exists as a whole. It was Kubo spending 15 years telling you to go fuck yourself.

And it really started terminally on that trajectory with the Hueco Mundo arc. It didn’t have to be that way. The Soul Society arc’s clever subversion of the monomyth could’ve been just that: a clever subversion and nothing more. Hueco Mundo is when Bleach started to suck because it’s when Bleach became about beating its readers down and making them feel bad. Surprise, it’s also when the readership started to drop.

(Now you could still save Bleach after Aizen’s defeat, but it’s messy because you’ve got that much more baggage again to deal with. But it ends sufficiently abruptly that you can do it, which is the whole point of like, Demons of the Sun and Moon, even if my thinking at the time I started that was not so explicit and clear as it is now. The question is: why would you want to when you can just cut back to earlier?)

tl;dr Bleach from the end of Soul Society onward is just Kubo increasingly desperately jacking himself off onto the rest of us about how much the world sucks, and everything from Hueco Mundo onward is compromised shit designed to push that agenda ahead of everything else, including telling a good story.

#Bleach

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vultures-and-scavengers · 4 years

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Credits Where They’re (Not Quite) Due

Miyala Naida is my main OC, and has been for the last three or four years. She was the first OC I ever created on SWTOR in 2012, and while her first incarnation was a Madness Sorceress, she has altered over the years to become a well-meaning yet corrupt Jedi Shadow. She is a woman who cares about her own people and her own ideals. While oftentimes those line up with the good of the galaxy, they don’t always, and her methods are not kind either. Miyala’s morals are not my own, and she has turned into a depiction of the Order’s decline and what that meant for the sect of the Shadows, which have a great deal of my own personal lore behind them. Miyala is a very good Shadow, and that means she is not a good person.

Miyala was born 44 BBY, and when she was 8, she was picked to be a Shadow Padawan by Master Xua Distombe. She finished her training when she was 21, a year before the Clone Wars started, six months before her twin sister, Sinya. As part of her training, she constructed the persona Seku Caliga, a Twi’lek smuggler who ran away from home and discovered a talent for mechanics and flying. Seku Caliga is not the only alias Miyala created and used, but Seku was her most often used.

About a month after Miyala was Knighted and became a full Shadow, she begun a long-term mission that continued into the Clone Wars. As Seku Caliga, she began a thriving smuggling operation that sold weapons to both sides, and contracted mercenaries, saboteurs, and slicers to obtain information and cause damage. The information gained from these undercover operations allowed the Republic to predict sabotage efforts, network weaknesses, and understand CIS capabilities.

For the next seven months after her long term missions, Miyala ran various ops for the Jedi Order, either posing as a Knight who had refused command, or as a smuggler who had been contracted by the Council. Shadows, who had often carried the brunt of the dirty work the Senate asked of the Order to enforce Republic law and political goals, are generally by nature jaded, and her time with clone legions only furthered that distrust. At the end of those seven months and after a particularly gruesome mission, she placed a fake lightsaber on General Zey’s desk, and said she wasn’t coming back to the Order.

Miyala returned to using the name Seku Caliga, but she kept all her Shadow connections: after all, Shadows were a tight knit group. From time to time, she agreed to do jobs for the Republic, if appropriate compensation was promised. She met the ARC trooper Jesse through some of these missions, and the two became as close as they could under the stress of the war. It was a passionate affair, and a month before the end of the war, Miyala discovered to her initial dismay that the precautions they had taken were not enough.

She managed to contact Jesse one last time, planning to tell him about her pregnancy, but the call was short, and in the end, she was only able to wish him luck on the attack on Mandalore. She would never hear from him again.

With the Force growing more and more clouded, Miyala sliced into any and all security records she could find of her own face, and deleted them, until the only records of her left were that of an eight year girl who had been determined as “not quite Force sensitive enough” and was removed from the Order. The Jedi Miyala Naida no longer existed.

When Order 66 went out, Miyala saw opportunity in the face of tragedy, and embezzled millions of credits from Jedi Order accounts, funneling them through fake companies and offshore accounts like the Shadows had taught her so very well. Seku Caliga, already a wealthy woman with dozens of connections the galaxy over, became one of the wealthiest smugglers in the galaxy overnight.

She rapidly put this wealth into play, hiring smugglers and salvagers and slicers to obtain whatever they could from the carcasses of the Republic and the CIS, often selling to the Cartel, the Empire, or other criminal syndicates. She also bought off the loyalty of a True Mandalorian clan, Baat’aran. She offered a steady stream of credits in exchange for protection, and for Jedi hunting services, on the condition that it was never know she was asking them to capture Jedi to bring back to her alive.

Their clan had been shattered in the Mandalorian Civil Wars, and Baat’aran, still in the process of rebuilding, couldn’t afford to turn down her offer. Miyala did once last thing: she went to the Empire, and purchased a Venator, and a pair of Acclamators. The purchase of these massive ships put a dent in her wealth, but one Acclamator she gifted to Baat’aran, while the other became a hub of operations for her own syndicate, Gloaming Lotus.

Seku Caliga then took the Venator and disappeared from the face of the galaxy, not four months after the rise of the Emprie. Her business ventures thrived, Baat’aran grew its numbers, and eventually rumors about her location and status died down.

In truth, she had taken the Venator, nicknamed Vengeful Farce, to Wild Space, where she remained, raising her daughter alone, while managing the efforts to track remaining Jedi, especially Shadows, on her own. There were only a handful of those who knew where the Venator remained, and Miyala homeschooled her daughter in how to hide, but also how to repair droids and ships. Moving the cruiser place to place, collecting old ships in the hanger as new repair projects, and teaching Sidhi the ins and outs of being covert, as her daughter’s Force sensitivity put her at risk, kept them from being track by the Empire, or even suspected as funding the efforts to find Jedi and relocate them to the Venator.

When Sidhi was eight years old, Miyala and her returned to the galaxy. Miyala began to lend occasional aid to Rebel cells, but one in particular caught her attention. This cell was led by former Pantoran Naval officer Commander Althae Drios, whom Miyala recognized from her initial stint as Seku Caliga, before the Clone Wars. The two resumed their friendship, having both developed a deep respect for the other years ago, and then eventually married.

Under the influence now of her second mother, Sidhi was a die-hard Rebel, which meant Miyala was drawn more to the cause. Undeniably a Fallen Jedi by this point, Miyala’s own past actions in the name of the Republic, and later vengeance upon Palpatine’s Empire began to weigh on her. Four years before the Battle of Yavin, Miyala left to seek the traditional homeworlds of the Jedi. Tython, Ossus, Dantooine, and Onderon: planets that had long histories intertwined with Jedi. She sought to make peace with what had become of the Order and the Shadows, and what had become of herself.

In her long meditations and travels, Miyala studied the Order of the past, and when she returned, she had no answers. But she had begun to believe that one’s relationship with the Force could not be defined by a Code or an Order, and when ever she heard murmurs of rebuilding the Jedi Order, she scoffed.

She would never be a “light-sider” again, but neither would she be as Dark as she once had been, either. The Galactic Civil War exhausted the bulk of her capital, and one of her two Acclamators was destroyed during the Battle of the Second Death Star. The old ship was no match for Imperial Star Destroyers, and Miyala loaded it with explosives and sent it slamming into part of the Imperial Fleet, though with the numbers of ships they had, it was hardly noticeable in the scheme of things.

Miyala handed her enterprise fully over to Clan Baat’aran at the end of the war, and settled down on an Outer Rim world with her wife, where they had two more kids, Izak and Jela. Their half-sister doted on them, but their sister in-law, a former Inquisitor, spoiled them rotten.

how does her story end? idk

#oc: miyala naida #oc: sidhi naida #oc: althae drios #oc: xua distombe #tcw ocs #clone wars ocs #she's not a strong force user #but she is a crime lord #her power is not in the force but in money and knowing how to invest it #still love this bitch #though shes gotten far far more serious over the years

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dogbearinggifts · 5 years

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Before and After: Why Vietnam is Core to Klaus’ Character Arc

I love Klaus.

I have ever since I read the comics. When watching the show’s intro for the first time, I actually cheered a little when he appeared onscreen; and each subsequent episode only served to further convince me of the perfection of Rob Sheehan’s performance. It goes without saying that he’s easily my favorite Hargreeves sibling, and I have no complaints regarding the abundance of Klaus fanart.

That said, I still have some quibbles with how he’s portrayed in fandom.

I don’t believe fans get his character wrong—not at all. He’s kind and empathetic, strikingly intelligent and a world-class idiot, funny and tragic, delightfully inappropriate and in desperate need of a hug. All of these traits are upheld and celebrated in many fanworks I’ve seen.

However, some fanworks tend to gloss over the fact that the Klaus of the first four episodes is a very different person from the Klaus of the final six. His kindness and empathy, and the depths of tragedy he’s endured, only come to the fore in the latter half of the first season. In the first half, many of his more admirable traits remain hidden beneath a layer of selfishness and an appetite for drugs that can never be sated. Yet I’ve noticed that in fanworks, his characterization in the latter episodes is often retroactively applied to his characterization in early episodes, resulting in an amalgamation of traits that fails to capture just how deeply his time in Vietnam broke and refined him.

Klaus Before Vietnam

We meet him as he’s leaving rehab, joking with everyone from his fellow patients to a sour-faced leader who tells him to stay sober. Even before he buys drugs in a back alley, we know he has no intention of taking this advice. When we see him being revived from an overdose not too long after, it’s expected. We knew he would do this. He didn’t take rehab seriously while leaving; why would he take it seriously once he’s out? The biggest surprise in that scene is his high-five with the paramedic, which doesn’t establish his reckless attitude so much as widen its scope: A medical professional has just snatched him from the jaws of death, and here he is, laughing and giving a high-five. An overdose isn’t enough to scare him sober. To Klaus, it’s just another high.

It’s established early on that he suffers from PTSD, and that his heavy use of drugs and alcohol is tied to this—both as a form of self-medication and a means of shutting his powers off. However, we don’t learn this until after we’ve seen him picking through his late father’s study in search of cash or valuables, still wearing a medical bracelet from rehab. When Allison catches him in the act, rather than expressing shame or changing his tune, Klaus brushes off her pointed question about the bracelet and cracks a joke at their father’s expense: “Thank Christ he’s not our real father so we couldn’t inherit those cold, dead eyes!” And when Luther orders him to return the valuables he stole, Klaus rolls his eyes, does as he’s told, and accuses Luther of being too uptight.

On the one hand, this is Reginald Hargreeves he’s insulting. A man who bought seven children and proceeded to abuse and degrade them in order to mold them into highly effective crime fighters. A man who wouldn’t allow his own children into his precious study for reasons that are almost certainly idiotic and myopic, and who couldn’t be bothered to look up from his work to bid them goodnight. It isn’t just that Reginald is a worthy target of these insults—it’s that he’s earned them. Klaus is merely paying his due.

On the other hand, the man can’t be more than a few days dead. None of his other siblings seem particularly upset about his passing (not even Luther can muster more than a grim determination to learn the cause of his death) and Diego especially shows little respect for this particular dead man. Even so, none of his other siblings use their father’s death as a chance to steal his possessions. Both Vanya and Diego’s financial situations would greatly benefit from the sale of their father’s stolen valuables, and neither are particularly fond of him, but Klaus is the only one who steals his possessions. None of his siblings joke at Reginald’s expense, and none of them dish out the number and quality of insults Klaus heaps upon him. His antics are humorous, but they are also presented as the result of an all-consuming addiction and as a coping mechanism for an as-yet-unnamed traumatic experience.

A key to his character—if not the key to it—is his tendency to hide his pain and fear behind jokes and laughter. We see it first when Allison finds him in the study, and he jokes about how he knows Reginald is dead because if he wasn’t, none of them would be allowed in his study. That line tells us a lot about Reginald, and a lot about their childhood—but it has the ring of a joke, so the full significance doesn’t sink in immediately. It surfaces in other, smaller lines as well, such as when he tells Five that “My longest relationship was—what, three weeks? And that was just because I was getting tired of trying to find a place to sleep.” The picture it paints of his time on the streets is grim, but once again, it’s delivered in a lighthearted manner. I don’t think this is because Klaus isn’t capable of being serious, as Five and Luther imply when kicking him out of the van; rather, it’s a coping mechanism. Klaus turns his pain into a joke and hides behind the humor so he won’t have to confront it. While this enables him to keep his darkest emotions at bay, it has the unfortunate side effect of making him appear carefree to his siblings—making drugs look like an attractive option when Luther learns his Moon mission was a farce.

Throughout the first four episodes, Klaus is repeatedly confronted with the costs of his addiction, and repeatedly decides to continue paying that cost. I’ve already mentioned the opening sequence, where only the presence and expertise of a paramedic saved him from death by overdose*; but in the second episode, Pogo confronts him and all but states he knows Klaus stole the box and did away with the contents. His threat is veiled—“If the contents were to be returned, the guilty party would find themselves absolved of all consequences”—but considering Klaus was homeless for an unspecified period of time prior to this, I think it’s safe to assume Pogo meant to say, “Find that journal, or you’re out on the streets again.” Despite this, and despite Ben’s earlier cajoling to live a more healthy lifestyle, Klaus simply sets about searching for the journal. The thought of giving up drugs to avoid situations like this in the future doesn’t seem to occur to him.

Another significant moment of confrontation comes in the motel, where, after hours of brutal and ineffective torture, Hazel and Cha-Cha coax him into telling them everything he knows about Five simply by grinding his pills into the carpet. Here he is, taped to a chair, physically weakened by constant torture, lack of food and water, and ever-encroaching withdrawals. He’s lasted ten hours without telling them a thing, yet when his drugs are threatened, he betrays his brother almost immediately. From the tears he sheds and the defeated tone with which he delivers the news, it’s clear Klaus loathes himself for what he’s doing and despises his own weakness. Yet when he escapes the motel with their briefcase, his first thought is of pawning it for drugs.

There are, however, hints of the good man beneath the addiction. Klaus has no desire to speak to the man whose torture made him an addict by age 13, but when Luther intimates that learning Reginald’s cause of death is important to him, Klaus attempts to contact their father anyway. He gains nothing from this, but he does it anyway because having that piece of knowledge is important to Luther and he seems to want to give his brother that peace of mind. When Pogo tells him to search for that journal, Klaus doesn’t argue or storm out of the house; he instead searches through the dumpster. And when Five offers him $20 to pose as his father to gain information about the glass eye, Klaus puts more effort into earning those $20 than many people put into earning six figures. It’s clear that it’s not just the money he cares about; he also has a desire to please his siblings and help them get what they want. Arguably, his primary motivation in each of the last two situations is selfish (having a place to live and access to valuables with Pogo; getting money from Five) but he puts more effort into those things than might a person working from pure self-interest.

How he speaks to the ghosts offers another clue. It’s true that he would rather ignore Zoya Popova than ask her how she died, and that he only speaks to her at Ben’s urging; but he doesn’t demand she hand over whatever information she has and then continue ignoring her. Instead, he addresses her gently and as an equal, tells her she has a beautiful name, and listens to what she has to say, despite his obvious revulsion toward her death wound. When the other ghosts chime in, he only tells them to shut up when they’ve crowded him and all begun telling him of their grisly deaths in rapid succession. Reginald likely taught him to see the ghosts as a tool to exploit, but when Klaus is forced to speak with them, he never treats them as anything less than human.

Now, I’ve heard some fans argue that his handling of the scene just before Eudora’s death is further evidence of his selfishness, because rather than stay and help or run back when he heard gunshots or even warn her that Hazel had a partner, Klaus simply made a run for it. I disagree. Klaus, in that situation, was an unarmed hostage, weakened by torture, withdrawals, and what seems to have been an entire twenty-four hour period without food or significant amounts of water. Had he attempted to use the martial arts training it seems all of the Hargreeves kids received, his movements would have been sluggish at best—and while some styles do teach moves to disarm an opponent with a ranged weapon, those moves hinge on the element of surprise and rapid action. Klaus would have been capable of neither. Warning Eudora that Hazel had a partner would not have given her much of an advantage, as Cha-Cha could have shot her as she was turning around; even if she managed to turn before Cha-Cha could fire, nothing would have prevented Hazel from retrieving his dropped pistol or simply lunging at her from behind. Klaus’ attempted warning likely would have urged Cha-Cha to shoot sooner than she did, and would have urged Hazel to take action as well. As for why he didn’t turn around when he heard gunfire? It’s not clear how far he managed to crawl within those few moments, but ventilation shafts are incredibly noisy places to be. It’s entirely possible he couldn’t hear the gunshot over the sound of metal echoing against metal. Yes, his focus upon boarding that bus was on the briefcase and the drugs he intended to purchase from the sale of whatever it contained, and it’s certainly fair to condemn him for not being more concerned over her fate, but I don’t think it’s fair to condemn him for ignoring Eudora’s death when he likely didn’t know she had died in the first place.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, Klaus did exactly what police officers want hostages to do in situations like that: He left. He got to safety and allowed the trained officer to take over. Eudora knew the risk she was taking in that situation, and while it’s certainly not fair she died (I for one would have loved to see more of her, and she didn’t deserve a sudden end like that) she ensured Klaus made it out alive—which had been her goal from the beginning.

Klaus in Vietnam

Admittedly, we don't know much about these ten months. However, based on what we see from Klaus’ flashbacks, and what we know of history, we can extrapolate—and since these ten months gave us the kinder, more empathetic, more outwardly-focused Klaus this fandom loves, I intend to do just that.

Dave is the reason Klaus stayed in Vietnam, and he is absolutely crucial to understanding the complex effects his time at war had on him. But because Dave is front and center to all this, and we don’t see much else regarding Klaus’ service, I feel as though other factors aren’t brought up as often as they should be. So I’d like to address some of those other factors before I discuss Dave and his relationship with Klaus.

When Klaus was swept up into battle, it’s clear he had no idea what he was doing. He’d never been to boot camp; how could he know anything? But this is where his experience in Vietnam would have differed from his experience in the Academy: Reginald made him go along on missions with his siblings, even though at the time, his power would have seemed of little use. I believe Reginald did this in hopes that he would discover some of his more combat-ready abilities, but this strategy backfired, as it seems Klaus spent these missions watching his siblings fight from the sidelines. The men he served with, though, would have done their best to teach him everything he should have learned in boot camp. His teachers likely would have been impatient and more than a little grouchy because—to their minds—he should have known it all before he arrived and he would have seemed forgetful; however, Klaus seems to be a quick study, so I believe he would have caught on fast.

But these men wouldn’t have helped Klaus succeed out of the goodness of their hearts. No, they would have taught him what he needed to know and made sure he could put it into practice because, at some point in the very near future, their lives could very well depend upon his expertise on the battlefield. For the second time in his life, Klaus would have been a part of a team that he didn’t choose to join. For the first time in his life, he would have known his contribution was absolutely essential. In the Academy, Klaus was able to sit back and watch his siblings do most of the work while he chatted up a few ghosts; his siblings may have even preferred it on some missions, as they all believed his power was useful only in a handful of situations. In the Army, he would not have had this relative luxury. The lives of his fellow soldiers would have depended upon him every bit as much as his depended upon them. Klaus would have been needed, he would have known he was needed, and I think he rose to the occasion.

And I don’t believe he was anything close to an outsider there. I’ve spent a fair amount of time around service members, and the one thing many of them share is gallows humor. In a war zone, you have to find something to laugh at, or you’ll crumble. When it comes to jokes, nothing is sacred and the inappropriate is often welcome. If you’re sitting there, saying “Wait, that sounds like Klaus’ sense of humor,” then you’ve caught on. Klaus’ siblings might roll their eyes at his tales of waxing his ass with chocolate pudding, but the men he served with would have found his misadventures riotously funny. Remarks that earned glares and dismissal from those who grew up seeing him as little more than dead weight would have earned him admirers and friends in Vietnam.

Dave is the only other soldier we meet, and he is the first to see Klaus after he appears in the tent. He’s the first to speak to him, the first to offer some words of comfort, and the first person Klaus seems to fall head-over-heels in love for. Aside from that, we know little about his character, but one thing is clear from the disco scene: Dave was absolutely infatuated with Klaus.

All this might seem like little more than set dressing, but consider it for a moment. Reginald treated Klaus as a perpetual failure, calling him his “greatest disappointment.” His siblings treat him as an occasionally useful nuisance at best, but it’s clear his addiction has taken a toll on those relationships, eroding trust and causing them to search for an ulterior motive in every interaction. Before he meets Dave, he has given himself over entirely to the downward spiral, intending only to remain as high as possible until his eventual death, and Klaus knows it. He tells Hazel and Cha-Cha that none of his siblings will notice he’s gone—likely a result of his addiction sending him out on the street in search of drugs, where he might remain for weeks at a time. He later tells Five and Diego that his power is “pretty much useless…I’ll just be holding you back.” He cries before he gives up everything he knows about Five, as though ashamed of his own weakness. When God tells him “I don’t like you very much,” he sighs and says “Yeah, me neither.” Klaus might mask his pain with humor, but that pain includes low self-esteem and a deep-seated sense of self-loathing.

I said before that we don’t know much about Dave, but I like to think we can extrapolate a bit anyway. When he seeks Klaus out on the bus, I like to think it wasn’t just because he found Klaus attractive, but because that was just what he tended to do. I’m of the opinion that Dave Katz was everybody’s friend, or he tried to be; that he was the one who would be there to offer his fellow soldiers a helping hand or just a few words of encouragement. This would have made him popular within his unit, and deservedly so.

And this man, the one who treats everyone well and tries to make an impossible situation seem less hopeless, who seeks out a total stranger just because he looks nervous and tries to put him at ease—this man is completely in love with Klaus.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Klaus thought himself unworthy of that love.

He didn’t stay sober in Vietnam. Drug use was common among soldiers in that war, and people on both sides died in some pretty horrific ways. Seeing the bodies would have been bad enough; seeing their ghosts walking around and begging for help would have been almost unbearable. But I think he took a different approach to getting high while serving. Prior to Vietnam, Klaus overdosed often enough that it was no longer frightening to him; after spending the money he got pawning the box, he comes home in a drug-fueled haze and, upon waking, looks for something else to sell, having used up all the drugs he bought the previous day. In the States, Klaus had few responsibilities to uphold, and few reasons to avoid bingeing.

In Vietnam, however, people depended on him. He would have had regular duties in addition to fighting, and he would have needed to be in a state sufficient to perform them. So I think he learned how to pace himself. Rather than deciding to sober up, I think he determined how much he needed to use to make the ghosts disappear, and how much he could use without impairing his judgment to the point of endangering others. I think guilt may have been a part of it, too: If Ben’s “I know you’re better than that. And Dave? He knew it too” remark is any indication, it seems Dave knew about Klaus’ addiction. And it seems he joined Ben in urging Klaus to get clean. Klaus likely would have felt he couldn’t get clean, not with mutilated ghosts everywhere he looked, but I think a part of him wanted to. I think he wanted to show Dave he was better than that, but even if he hadn’t been in the middle of a war zone, he’d been an addict for most of his life. Maybe he felt like it was too late to pursue recovery. This would have sharpened his sense of self-loathing, but from all we can tell, Dave’s love remained constant.

Klaus After Vietnam

We get our first clue that a dramatic shift has occurred when Klaus reappears on a bus and breaks down in tears; our first hint that something terrible has happened comes moments later when he screams, throws the briefcase, and curls up in the fetal position in full view of passerby. This moment is often referenced as the tearjerker it is, but rarely do I see it compared to his previous excursion on a different bus, where—having just escaped a solid day of starvation, torture, ghosts, and PTSD flashbacks—Klaus hugs the briefcase to his chest and laughs as he joyously wonders what might be inside. This is our first signal that Klaus is more open to his emotions and more honest with them. Rather than push the trauma aside and crack a joke to his seatmate, Klaus weeps openly and unleashes his helpless anger once the bus has stopped.

Immediately after returning to the States and to his own timeline, Klaus rapidly spirals downward. I believe Dave’s sudden and traumatic death had much to do with it, although it’s made clear that PTSD also plays a role. He’s always lived recklessly with little apparent care for his own life, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s toyed with the idea of suicide in the past; but it isn’t until after his return from Vietnam that he becomes so indifferent toward his own impending death. When a paramedic revives him from an overdose, he laughs and gives the man a high-five; when he briefly dies at the rave, his only words on the subject are “Oh. Well, that’s a relief.” I don’t think Klaus is actively suicidal here—that is, I don’t think he intentionally pursues his own death—but I do think he figures that, well, if he drinks himself to death or one of those vets cracks his skull, it’s no loss.

With that in mind, Diego’s observation that “You’re luckier than most. When you lose someone, you can still see them whenever you want” probably saved his life. I think Klaus has spent so much of his life trying to keep the ghosts at bay that he forgot, for a while, that his power could actually be an advantage. Until Diego said this, I don’t think the notion of using his powers to contact Dave occurred to him; I think he was so overcome with grief and self-loathing that he didn’t even see there was another option besides numbing the pain.

That said, I don’t think his decision to sober up was entirely selfish. He does directly benefit from it, yes. He gets to see Dave again, tell him all the things he never got to say. Just seeing his face would probably have been a relief. But as Ben later implies, Dave likely encouraged Klaus to give up the drugs—and I think Klaus probably wanted to, on some level, if only to prove that he was everything Dave thought he was. So when he flushes his stash down the toilet, I think he’s doing it with the knowledge that this is what Dave would have wanted. He knows he’s condemning himself to long hours of painful withdrawals, but I think he also knows Dave will be overjoyed when he not only gets to see him, but gets to see him sober.

The Klaus of the first four episodes never would have done this. This was a man who had been drinking and using since he was thirteen, who had almost certainly taken advantage of his siblings to feed his drug habit, and who likely only attended his father’s funeral because the Academy presented a veritable buffet of valuables to pawn. Drugs drive him to steal, they drive him to betray his family, and he chooses to continue poisoning himself to keep from having to see the ghosts that haunt him.

If Klaus met Dave in any other context, he may not have chosen to forsake drugs to be with him. The Vietnam War was an ugly conflict, and it’s understandable that Klaus wouldn’t have wanted to face it sober; but it also forced him to become a person others could rely on. The other men in his unit depended on him every bit as much as he depended on them, and Klaus would have been very much aware of that. Now Dave is relying on Klaus to facilitate their reunion, and Klaus is rising to the occasion. He is needed, he knows he is needed, and he does what he must to ensure he doesn’t let Dave down.

We see him rising to the occasion multiple times after he chooses to get clean. When Luther is drunk and distraught and chooses to run out in search of drugs to forget his pain, Klaus runs after to try and keep him from destroying his own life the way he destroyed his. When Allison needs a blood transfusion, Klaus volunteers immediately. When he sees Vanya locked in the anechoic chamber, he sets about trying to make Ben corporeal so he can attempt to free her; and when his siblings are beset on all sides by Commission henchmen, he pushes his newfound power as far as he can and manifests Ben to save them.

It’s worth noting that he at first gives up in most of these situations. When he’s searched a seemingly endless list of places without success, Klaus decides to head home and weather the withdrawals there; and when the lights and noise become torturous, he crawls across the floor in search of that single pill. When Pogo assumes he’s still high, he runs upstairs in search of drugs; and when Luther makes him the lookout, Klaus goes across the street and gets a burrito instead of watching out for his siblings. In each of those situations, he gives up and nearly returns to old habits when—and only when—it seems he isn’t needed after all or is otherwise unable to help. Luther rejects his urging to go home; Pogo rejects his blood; his siblings reject his help. Yet in each of those situations, it soon becomes clear that he either is needed or that he can contribute to a solution in some other way.

He also empathizes far more readily than the Klaus we met in rehab. When he sees Luther stumbling around the living room in a drunken rage, he does joke at first, but immediately tries to comfort him when he realizes the gravity of the situation. He assumes Vanya might be frightened by her newfound power, as he is by his; and when he learns Reginald’s death was a suicide, he sheds a few tears on the man’s behalf. This is the man who abused and degraded him, caused him to develop PTSD from quite a young age and refused to see his drug and alcohol abuse as a cry for help, who scarcely even acknowledges he has just died—and Klaus has enough empathy to recognize what a dark place he was in prior to his death, and mourn for him.

Again, the Klaus we met in early episodes would not have done any of this. That Klaus would have stayed home and gone right back to drugs instead of going after Luther. If he did offer his blood for Allison, he would have turned Pogo’s rejection into a joke before going off to find drugs. He likely would have crumbled under the strain, rather than pushing himself as far as he could to try and help his siblings—because this Klaus genuinely believed he had nothing of value to contribute and that it was best if he remained sidelined while his more combat-capable siblings took care of business. This Klaus has fought alongside men he came to know as friends, alongside a man who loved him wholeheartedly and unconditionally, and he did his best to keep them safe without once accessing his powers. The old Klaus likely would have laughed at Reginald’s announcement of his untapped potential, dismissing it as another ploy to scare him into doing the dishes or a twisted carrot-and-stick approach to keeping him clean. The new Klaus has already discovered and cultivated his potential to be a good soldier and a good friend; the thought he might have more potential where his powers are concerned simply never occurred to him before Reginald mentioned it.

And that brings me to the biggest change those ten months wrought in him: Focus. Prior to Vietnam, Klaus’ focus was primarily on himself. He acted for the good of others on occasion, such as when he tried to conjure Reginald for Luther or when he helped Five gain information on that eye. But by and large, Klaus lived to feed his drug habit. Drugs were the most important thing in his life, and everything else—from the trust of his family to the safety of his siblings—was an afterthought at best. His was a selfish existence, motivated only by the ever-present lure of the next high and the looming threat of withdrawals.

When he returns from Vietnam, the shift in focus is clear. Ben’s constant urgings that he pursue a healthy lifestyle for his own good fell on deaf ears, but a single reminder from Diego that his power will allow him to reconnect with Dave convinces him to pursue sobriety. Rather than return to the safety of the Academy and allow withdrawals to take their course, Klaus pushes through the pain and searches for a brother he believes to be even more vulnerable than he. And rather than cave to mounting pressure as he did with Hazel and Cha-Cha, Klaus discovers and uses a power he only suspected he might have. Before Vietnam, Klaus’ focus on his own solace and pleasure caused him to stagnate in the belief that he was next to useless. After Vietnam, Klaus’ focus on the safety, well-being, and peace of mind of those he loves leads him to push at boundaries he thought unyielding, and to discover new capabilities he never would have believed existed.

Klaus’ time in Vietnam was horrific, that much we know. He spent ten months walking through fire, and although Dave was at his side, the pain it left him with will never really leave. But the same fire that left him with scars also refined him. It’s going to take some time for all the impurities to rise to the surface; battling addiction is a process that grows easier with time, though still a lifelong one. But it is a beginning. His true self is starting to shine through.

*********

*Unless you’re of the mind that God would’ve sent him back, had he truly died. I tend to think his death at the rave was the first time God has decided to revive him rather than letting him stay, since everything about the afterlife seemed like a surprise to him; however, there’s no way to know God wouldn’t have sent him back had he died in that ambulance.

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roxannepolice · 5 years

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Long asks anon again, here to offer my opinion on the current wank. Rey as a character is rather blatantly breaking sw story rules and nothing is going to get SFF fans hackles up like rule breakage. This is root of both the MarySue accusations and current wank. Rey has a tragic backstory thats doubling as the only failure she can call her own. But its a) damn near entirely offscreen and b) serves as convenient justification for why shes competent at near everything that comes up.

Reys instantly good at the force because of a convenient force download that to the best of my knowledge only occured in the noncanon KOTOR II and quite frankly cant blame most of the general audience for not getting because without prior knowledge or the novelizations why would they? She has darkness in her but as so far used and touched it consequence free and its almost entirely symbolically externalized on the Kylo (and in SW symbolism is Real in a way it isnt in other narratives) Shes strong in the force because Light rises to meet Dark but to quote the current crop of movies ‘thats not how the force works) or at least thats never how it worked before. Shes the first SW protagonist to go behind enemy lines and come out with both hands in the second movie. For ppl wondering how come Luke and Ani never get labeled MarySues, this is why, they got thier asses handed to them, Rey hasnt. There /is/ something /off/ in Reys story, and ppl pick up on it. if you can make a post (w/ over 1k notes!) about how great it is that a character meant to prop up 7hrs worth of movies has little to no character development to go through, somethings off. If multiple ppl can make posts about how its neat Rey can tap into the darkside (still characterized as evil in ST) consequence free (with some quite frankly stupid justifications, 'shes disciplined’ really? jedi lacked a lot of things thats not one of them) somethings off and again, if the only failure your main heroine has is /entirely retroactive something’s off/. If the story were getting with the is the story most ppl think we are, a 'female empowerment’ (i dont feel particularly empowered by being told I have an equal chance at being a deus ex machina but ok) than well, her story is over and theres no need for IX (hell it could have been over in TFA, most ppl assumed she had accepted her place as the future jedi in that one) and no need for reylo The ST was always gonna deconstruct all that came before it purely by virtue of being a sequel. The tragedy of anakin skywalker is now a farce, the happy ot ending now a tragedy, and the mythopoetic structure shot to shit in the name of serialization and perpetual warfare. this stand true for all the sequel characters including rey and ben. the only question is are we going to get anything out of it? I compare it to home renovation. You can knock out a wall and the walls gone, but new opportunities arise. With Benlo, I’m reasonably confident that there will be at least some attempt to take advantage of the new space. With rey and the resistance kids? not so much. it just feels like they knocked down a blue wall to rebuild it as pink one and at the point it just feels like a waste of time because ive seen this before. Ive seen pure cinnamon roll desert orphan reform jedi order If this was all youre going to do that the fuck was the point? which circles around to my problem with team good guy this go around and That Scene. JJ twisted the story into a pretzel to justify the winners of the last round being the underdogs again and then rian twisted so much further the storys head may as well be up its own ass. And then at the very end he shoots it all to shit and rushes to reassure us its all gonna be okay. He removes the entire point of the underdog trope /the tension that comes from the fact that they might lose/. I mean there wasnt a whole lot of that to begin with already but really? So theres no tension that Reys gonna win so her journey feels frictionless, and theres no question where shes gonna end up so full offense why give a shit? Thats where the whole 'can rey lose a fight?’ thing comes from. Ppl want conflict in her arc to justify its existence and give us a reason why this her story to begin with. if the only character going through growth for all three movies is ben, if the only characters whos fate is up in the air is ben, and if all the tension in the reylo relationship comes from ben, then why is this /reys story/? why not just make it about the character actually driving all the drama and thus, the story? As a final thought, im going to add that having Kylo be aware and insecure that hes never gonna be as Iconic as Vader was a great story choice, regardless of where ends up. Current Rebels, on the other hand, seems to have not gotten the memo that they are never gonna be as iconic as Original Rebels, and the story itself seems to being trying to sell them to me as being better. Rey is Luke but better, Poe/Finn are Han wo the smuggler grit, and id be lying if i said it didnt piss me off.

Long asks anon to kick down ur door again, AND ANOTHER THING. SW is a lotta things. Subtle aint one of them, and St hasnt changed in that regard. If you have to debate it chances are either a) ur arguing counter to the text in which case mor power to you but not really helpful for predictions or intended meaning or b) /it aint there. A bunch of ppl didnt like anidala, but nobody doubted we were supposed to think they were in love by the end of AOTC, bunch of ppl didnt like poes arc, but no one doubts he fucked up by not listening to holdo was the intended take away. Which brings to rey and flaws or lack there of. Were told rey has flaws but she has yet to suffer any real consequences from them with the exception of The Damn Parentage Wank, which again, pulls the double duty of making her hyper competent at everything. Because rey has no consequences for her flaws, from a story function pov there aren’t any. If rey did have a flaw to overcome, we would all agree what it was

Now won’t you all just look at this beautiful, spot on rant which has been lagging in my askbox since the last time Rey’s flaws or lack thereof were the discourse’s focus (November, I believe?) and suddenly became a thing again, courtesy of Tweetgate. I think you really summed up the crux of this debate wonderfully, anon.

I particularly agree with the part about Rey not getting narratively punished for whatever flaws we’d like her to have (great point about returning from behind the enemy lines with both arms still in place), when SW don’t stay away from allowing characters to get “punished” even for otherwise applaudable features - vide Padmé, whose idealism is what Palps manipulates into gaining more power (this is why Padmé will never come off as a Mary Sue or too perfect, btw). But I’ll say even more - Rey doesn’t even get called out on her flaws, except for by Ben, who’s mostly dismissed as a baddie like Palpatine saying Luke was foolish to rely on his friends. Let’s just consider one thing - both Anakin and Luke get called out on their flaws by Yoda (Anakin repeatedly and by lots of other people for that matter) whereas with Rey, the same grumpy-yet-jolly senex pops up from the afterlife to further inform us what a great jedi material she is.

TBH, I have a very cynical theory as to why Rey is being pushed as the main character while it’s difficult to deny that it’s Kylo Ben who does all the plot heavy lifting. I’m pretty sure Ben’s arc was the first one DLF thought out (and the big question is, was it the only one they thought out) and only later on decided to make Rey the main character, which also involved much less spontaneous writing. Mind you, it’s not as if benepemption didn’t have a manufactured subtaste to it, but with Rey’s heroine’s journey stiff structure occasionally substitutes any in-world explanations of her actions (this is why I have to hope renperor has some narrative purpose rather than happening because lovers need to be separated and anti-hero needs to achieve what he wanted in 2nd act). I feel as if whatever potential her character had (and hopefully still has, pending IX) got smothered by layer upon layer of making her likable by everyone, which largely relied on negative characterization: she’s not helpless, she’s not too naive, not cynical, not too emotional, not too emotionless, not morally corruptible, not anything you’ve ever complained about regarding any SW character, not falling for the bad boy, not not not - and in the end it’s kinda difficult to say what Rey is like and while the goal of making her widely likable was achieved, it also made it almost impossible to view her as loveably flawed/annoying like the classic characters. And on top of all this is the matter of making her a nobody just like you!, as DLF appears to say with uncle Sam’s gesture (which also kinda assumes the existence of a Star Wars fan as some uniform entity? because if you identify with her, good for you, I just don’t understand why the franchise assumes I’ll identify with her by the grace of being a SW fan alone), because, as you excellently put it, the message here is that everyone can be chosen by God - which again, it’s not as if the saga ever contradicted this, so why the hell make a case of it? I can’t agree that it’s made into Rey’s flaw, though, imo her low birth only serves to further frame her as an oppressed virtue. And I definitely agree regarding too much of her growth being left off-screen, or before the story ever begins. The problem here isn’t even that it is left off-screen (it’s not as if we had huge insight into any of the pt or ot characters) but rather that her characterizations is left off-screen while being depicted as at least untypical (unique to put it bluntly) for her situation (same goes for Finn). A hopeful, kind person growing up on her on her own in slavery under a nicer name is a rarity and DLF makes a case for it being a rarity - and this sparks up curiosity in her past, as if market pandering to Re/sky wasn’t enough. So from this pov her un-reveal being frustrating isn’t just a case of not wanting to love her or her self only a potentially deeper psychological question getting answered with well, light.

I should add, Ben’s arc feels like the most spontaneous one (though Finn’s may yet be a masterpiece) and he’s the one to admit his fear of not living up to Vader’s legacy, because I think he’s the character serving as the creators’ vessel, more or less like Luke was Lucas’ avatar in ot. In his fear regarding Vader’s legacy one can feel Disney’s fear due to having bought popculture’s holy grail and not being entirely sure what to do with it. On this background, Rey (a literal scavenger of OT’s pieces) and rebels 2.0 repeatedly blessed by Leia come off as what DLF would want to be. And the result is that the character which was supposed to be Vader 2.0 proves the most original and surprising one, whereas “breaths of fresh air” come off as room aromatizers with “fresh” written on them.

And as far as the plot being bended into a pretzel and then disappearing up it’s own ass, well, a part of me is still hoping that taking virtually the same villains as before is a mythological-psychoanalitical metaphor of a nigredo repeating itself until the unconscious gets accepted by the conscious…. but, tbh, as the leaks flow this hope is withering.

#asks #cleaning up the askbox #long asks anon #sw negativity #let rey free from the corset disney

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newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Caldor Fire ‘knocking on the door’ of Lake Tahoe area (USA Today) A rapidly expanding wildfire is approaching the outskirts of the Lake Tahoe basin and has become the nation’s No. 1 priority for firefighting resources, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. The Caldor Fire, which is only 10 days old, has exploded to nearly 123,000 acres and taken out 632 structures including more than 450 homes. It helped spur evacuations and, along with several blazes across the state, led to the closure of nine national forests. Nearly 18,000 properties were still in danger from the blaze, which was 11% contained as of Tuesday evening. “It is knocking on the door to the Lake Tahoe basin,” said Chief Thom Porter, director of CAL FIRE. “We have all efforts in place to keep it out of the basin but we do need to also be aware that is a possibility based on the way the fires have been burning.”

Genocide prosecution of former president tests Bolivia’s justice system (Washington Post) On the day before Bolivian former interim president Jeanine Áñez was arrested and detained this year, accused of gaining power by fomenting a coup in 2019, she left her supporters with a message: “The political persecution has begun.” And in the five months since, as Áñez’s mental and physical health has deteriorated in jail, the conservative former leader has become a symbol of the deepening polarization in Bolivia. To some, she’s the victim of a vengeful, politically motivated justice system under her socialist successor, President Luis Arce. To others, she’s a usurper who staged a coup that dislodged longtime president Evo Morales, and then presided over systematic human rights abuses by police. On Saturday, a day after prosecutors announced new charges of “genocide” against her, Áñez cut her own wrist, in what her lawyer described as “a cry for help.” The question of whether and how to prosecute those responsible for the violence that followed Morales’s resignation and flight from Bolivia in late 2019—including shootings by police that left at least 20 people dead and 98 injured—is testing this politically volatile South American nation.

China to add 'Xi Jinping Thought' to national curriculum (Reuters) China will incorporate "Xi Jinping Thought" into its national curriculum to help "establish Marxist belief" in the country's youth, the education ministry said in new guidelines published on Tuesday. The Ministry of Education said Chinese President Xi Jinping's "thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era" would be taught from primary school level all the way to university. The move is aimed at strengthening "resolve to listen to and follow the Party" and new teaching materials must "cultivate patriotic feelings", the guidelines said. Since coming to power in 2012, the Chinese President has sought to strengthen the ruling Chinese Communist Party's role in all areas of society, including its businesses, schools and cultural institutions.

Japan further expands virus emergency areas as cases surge (AP) Japan expanded its coronavirus state of emergency on Wednesday for a second week in a row, adding eight more prefectures as a surge in infections fueled by the delta variant strains the country’s health care system. The government last week extended the state of emergency until Sept. 12 and expanded the areas covered to 13 prefectures from six including Tokyo. With four new prefectures added to a separate “quasi-emergency” status, 33 of Japan’s 47 prefectures are now under some type of emergency measures. Japan’s state of emergency relies on requirements for eateries to close at 8 p.m. and not serve alcohol, but the measures are increasingly defied. Unenforceable social distancing and tele-working requests for the public and their employers are also largely ignored.

Duterte confirms he’ll run for Philippines VP next year (AP) Tough-talking Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has confirmed rumblings that he will run next year for vice president, in what critics say is an attempt at an end-run around constitutional term limits. Philippine presidents are limited by the 1987 Constitution to a single six-year term. At least two former presidents, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, have made successful runs for lower public offices after serving as president, but not for vice president.

Kabul evacuation going at a 'significant pace' (BBC) Evacuations from Afghanistan's Kabul airport have picked up pace, with about 82,300 people now evacuated overall. The Pentagon says more than 10,000 are currently awaiting evacuation. Up to 1,500 Americans may still need evacuating, Secretary of State Blinken says, and US is "aggressively reaching out". Some US troops have already started to leave as the effort enters its final phase. Turkey is also pulling out troops, apparently abandoning plans to help secure Kabul airport.

Afghanistan ‘marching towards starvation’—UN food chief (Reuters) Millions of Afghans could soon face starvation due to a combination of conflict, drought and the coronavirus pandemic, the executive director of the World Food Programme said on Tuesday, calling on political leaders to act fast. “There’s a perfect storm coming because of several years of drought, conflict, economic deterioration, compounded by COVID,” David Beasley told Reuters in Doha. “The number of people marching towards starvation has spiked to now 14 million.” Afghanistan is facing economic collapse after foreign countries and institutions said they would withhold aid and monetary reserves after Islamist Taliban insurgents took control of the capital Kabul on Aug. 15. Beasley said the international community faced some very difficult decisions, warning it would be “hell on earth” for the people of Afghanistan if the economic situation deteriorated.

Some Afghans vow to resist Taliban from mountain enclave (AP) In a mountain valley north of Kabul, the last remnants of Afghanistan’s shattered security forces have vowed to resist the Taliban in a remote region that has defied conquerors before. But any attempt to reenact that history could end in tragedy—or farce. Nestled in the towering Hindu Kush, the Panjshir Valley has a single narrow entrance and is the last region not under Taliban control following their stunning blitz across Afghanistan. Local fighters held off the Soviets in the 1980s and the Taliban a decade later under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a guerrilla fighter who attained near-mythic status before he was killed in a suicide bombing. His 32-year-old foreign-educated son, Ahmad Massoud, and several top officials from the ousted Western-backed government have gathered in the valley. They include Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who claims to be the caretaker leader after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. But experts say a successful resistance is highly unlikely. While the Panjshir Valley remains as impregnable as ever, it’s unclear how long its residents can hold out if the Taliban besiege the area or attack it using the U.S.-supplied armaments they have seized in recent weeks. And Western countries are unlikely to help.

Leaked footage shows inmates abused at Iran’s Evin Prison, prompting rare official apology (Washington Post) The head of Iran’s prison authority apologized Tuesday after a hacker group released footage showing guards beating and kicking inmates at a notorious prison for political detainees and foreigners. The footage, from northern Tehran’s Evin Prison, was distributed to news outlets including the Associated Press, which first reported on the leaked video and said time stamps on the footage showed it was recorded in 2020 and this year. Scenes from the video showed what appears to be a suicide attempt by a man using glass from a bathroom mirror he smashed, guards dragging an emaciated man along floors and stairs and two men—a guard and what looks like another prison employee—engaged in a bloody fistfight, as other prison employees watch and try to separate them. The Associated Press said the group that shared the videos, called “the Justice of Ali,” claimed to have “hundreds” of gigabytes of data from a hack conducted several months ago. “I take responsibility for these unacceptable behaviors,” Mohammed Mehdi Haj-Mohammadi, the head of Iran’s Prisons Organization, said in a message posted on his Twitter account Tuesday, in a rare acknowledgment by the authorities of official abuse. “I will commit to not letting these horrific incidents being repeated, and deal seriously with law breakers,” he added. The prison, built in 1971 during the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, soon gained notoriety for human rights abuses. After the 1979 Iranian revolution, Iran’s clerical rulers continued to hold political prisoners at Evin, which was the scene of mass executions in 1988.

Middle East Heat (Foreign Policy) This summer, several picturesque countries in the Middle East became tinderboxes. As extreme temperatures and severe droughts ravaged the region, forests burned, and cities became islands of unbearable heat. In June, Kuwait recorded a temperature of 53.2 degrees Celsius (127.76 degrees Fahrenheit), while Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia all recorded over 50 degrees (122 degrees). A month later, temperatures in Iraq spiked to 51.5 degrees (124.7 degrees), and Iran recorded a close 51 degrees (123.8 degrees). Worst of all, this is just the start of a trend. The Middle East is warming at twice the global average.

Through four wars, toll mounts on a Gaza neighborhood (AP) The electricity is out again tonight in what’s left of Zaki and Jawaher Nassir’s neighborhood. But from the shell of their sitting room, its wall blown open by Israeli missiles, twilight and a neighbor’s fire are enough to see by. Here, down a narrow lane called Al-Baali, just over a mile from the heavily fortified border separating northern Gaza and Israel, cinderblock homes press against each other before opening to a modest courtyard below the Nassirs’ perch. Until this neighborhood was hammered by the fourth war in 13 years between Israel and Hamas militants, the Nassirs often sipped coffee by a window, watching children play volleyball using a rope in place of a net. Other days, the couple looked out as relatives pulled fruit off the yard’s fig and olive trees. Now they spend day after day surveying the wreckage of the May 14 airstrike from broken plastic chairs while awaiting building inspectors, the gaping holes in surrounding homes serving as windows into their neighborhood’s upheaval. In the skeleton of one building, children play video games atop a slab of fallen concrete. In another, a man stares out from beside a bed covered in debris, ignoring the ceiling fan drooping overhead like a dead flower. The smell of pulverized cement and plaster dust hangs in the air. Each afternoon, demolition workers arrive to hack away at this real-life stage set so that the Nassirs and their neighbors can start rebuilding—again.

Algeria says cutting diplomatic ties with Morocco (Reuters) Algeria is cutting diplomatic relations with Morocco, Foreign Minister Ramdane Lamamra said on Tuesday at a news conference, accusing its neighbour of “hostile actions”. Morocco and Algeria have had strained relations for decades, mainly over the issue of Western Sahara, and the border between the two countries has been closed since 1994. Algeria last week said lethal wildfires were the work of groups it has labelled terrorist, one of which it said was backed by Morocco. Algeria backs the Polisario movement that seeks independence for Western Sahara, which Morocco regards as part of its own territory.

#headlines #news

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florrickandassociates · 6 years

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TGF Thoughts: 2x07-- Day 450

Recap under the cut!

Big things, of the secret variety, are happening at LG. The conference room’s walls are covered; NDAs are laid out on the table. There is also one big, comfy looking chair in the conference room, looking out of place amid all the standard office chairs.

Lucca’s the first to ask what’s going on. Marissa isn’t sure—it’s top secret; all she knows is that the partners’ schedules have all been cleared.

“Have you seen this?” Marissa changes the subject. “Chicago lawyer playing cards.” “What?” Lucca asks. “Most wanted playing cards. They already have the four dead lawyers,” Marissa explains. The website peddling these cards? Is in Comic Sans. Thank you, whoever made that choice. I’m guessing you did it intentionally and I appreciate it. It’s an alt-right website, Marissa says. “What are you doing looking at an alt-right website?” Maia asks. “I look at everything,” Marissa states. I don’t think it’s that weird! Weren’t they just on a case about belonging to radical groups online?

Lucca wants to know if any of the RBL lawyers are in there. Marissa says she’s going to order a deck and find out. Maia’s appalled at the thought of giving this group money (tbh I am too).

Maia asks what’s going on in the conference room, and Marissa shrugs and says, “The ways of the partners are mysterious to us mere mortals.” Have I mentioned that I love it when we can see the power structures at work? Because I do.

Marissa tries to get information out of Diane—even how long the meeting will last—but Diane doesn’t say anything.

Luckily for us, we’re viewers and not employees, so we get to know what’s happening. It’s an audition for the DNC’s business, conducted by Ruth Eastman. I didn’t expect to see Ruth back on the show, ever, after how badly the writers botched her season seven arc (so much promise squandered!) But here she is. And she’s used much more effectively in this episode.

While I’m thinking of it, the promo for this episode was in Russian, but nothing in the COTW (aside from a few mentions of collusion) is about Russia. So… was the entire promo a shout-out to the TGW/F/The Americans fans? It wouldn’t be the first time. And I’ll take it.

“We’re in a very peculiar time,” Ruth says. Diane laughs, because a good 25% of Diane’s dialogue these days is just laughter. Ruth isn’t bothered: she says laughing is the “only sane reaction these days.” Diane agrees wholeheartedly. “We’re living in a time of farce, not tragedy,” the writers have Ruth explain. (I phrase it like that because, come on, that’s exactly the point of this season’s tone.)

Ruth is there with an interesting opportunity: the DNC wants a plan to impeach 45 ready to go if a blue wave happens in November, and so they’re auditioning law firms to decide which arguments (and which lawyers) will be the most effective. For now, this all has to stay hush hush, lest voters get the idea that a vote for a Democrat is a vote for impeachment and get scared off.

After some build up, Ruth turns to write on a white board. The marker doesn’t work. “New!” she says, pleasantly, discarding it. She starts the build up again: “This is the question we want you to ponder and answer…” But the next marker doesn’t work either. “WELL, SHIT!” she says angrily, throwing the marker to the floor. This is the best thing Ruth has done on this show.

Carine, a woman on Ruth’s team, volunteers to get more markers. Ruth keeps going with her spiel.

Carine grabs the nearest employee, who happens to be Maia, and asks where the black markers are. They flirt/banter on their way to the supply closet, and Carine thinks Maia looks familiar. Maia deflects the question and shows Carine the markers (they only have pink and purple, because it’s funnier that way).

“Seriously, I know you from somewhere. Where?” Carine insists. Maia thinks for a minute. “Okay, so you know how we just had a little exchange back there and I made you smile, you made me smile?” “Yes, I remember.” “Well, remember that when I tell you who I am,” Maia says. I wonder how many times she’s used (or will use) that line.

“Are you a serial killer?” Carine jokes. “Oh, close. Maia Rindell,” Maia introduces herself. Hee.

Carine recognizes that name. Maia walks away to avoid prolonging the awkwardness, but Carine isn’t as put off as Maia assumes…

Meanwhile, Lucca is working on a case about a film shoot when she notices Francesca walking down the stairs. She excuses herself from a meeting, and her client assumes it’s because she has to pee. His pregnant wife always has to pee, so he feels it is his place to inquire about Lucca’s bathroom habits. No matter how many times Lucca says she doesn’t have to go to the bathroom, the client won’t believe her.

Maia greets Francesca. Lawyer, professional greeter, same diff.

Francesca has brought Lucca a present, and Lucca asks Maia to go deal with her client (“and tell him I’m not going to the bathroom”). I have a question! If Lucca could spot Francesca from the room she and the client were sitting in, can’t the client see that Lucca is by the stairs and not, in fact, in the bathroom? ANYWAY. Maia’s job in this episode consists of knowing where markers are kept, greeting visitors, and informing Lucca’s clients she’s not in the bathroom. Is… there no work for Maia to do? Should I be concerned about RBK’s future? Are they overstaffed?! WHY DOESN’T MAIA DO WORK?

“Very nice meeting you. I think your dad stole some of my husband’s money,” Francesca tells Maia. Ok, People Recognizing Maia is my new favorite running gag. “Sorry,” Maia apologizes. “That’s a good thing. He’s an asshole,” Francesca says, emphasizing asshole. She’s so fun.

In Lucca’s office, Francesca tells her that she’s given up drinking, except wine. Well. That’s… something, I guess?

Francesca’s gift is a stuffed dog that sings “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and claps its hands and waves its ears. It is adorable and grating. “For my grandchild,” Francesca says, touching Lucca’s stomach. Why do people just go and touch pregnant women’s stomachs without asking if they can? I have never understood this.

Over the course of this whole scene, the dog’s flapping ears are visible, at least in part. It is wonderful and distracting and the only thing that could make it more Good is if they were in an elevator.

Even rewatching this scene, with captions on, I cannot see anything other than the dog and its ears. I think Francesca is saying she wants to be in the baby’s life and Lucca’s saying she doesn’t want Francesca involved. But I don’t know. Because ears.

After Francesca leaves, Lucca immediately moves to discard the dog. Francesca doubles back and almost catches Lucca in the act, but the second she turns around again, Lucca shoves the dog in a drawer.

“People understand emoluments,” Adrian is saying when we return to the conference room. They do? By that name? ‘Cause I just had to spell-check that word (even though I know what it means). I’m joking, because I think what Adrian means is that people understand the idea behind it. Still, a weird sentence.

Julius is opposed to the whole idea. He thinks the Dems are starting with the goal and working backwards. Some other partner wants to go after collusion. And Diane wants to go for obstruction, because of the precedents. (And the fact that there are so many paths that could make a good case is why I disagree with Julius. Maybe they’re starting with the goal, but how much does that matter if there are many valid reasons for having that goal? But then, I guess Julius would take issue with my use of “valid”…)

Adrian is against what Andre (the other partner) wants to pursue: collusion. He thinks it has too many Russian names for the public to understand it. Adrian’s whole strategy here is to find the argument that will be the easiest to sell.

Diane is so fired up about this, and I love it. (I also think she’s making the best case.)

“He’s not above the law!!” Diane exclaims. Nobody’s above the law! (Sing it with me!)

Julius won’t quit with these silly arguments. Now he’s comparing Republicans wanting to impeach Obama to what’s going on here. I don’t think it’s just my political bias speaking when I say that’s ABSURD.

Julius’s whole thing is that 45 was voted into office so he shouldn’t be impeached and then removed from office. So… Julius is anti-the concept of impeachment? I think his argument is a little more nuanced than that and he’s making the better case: that impeachment isn’t a tool for political parties that didn’t get their way. I’ll spare y’all my half-informed political rants and instead make this point: I appreciate that even Julius’s points have some validity to them. Too often, this show simplifies these arguments or handles them poorly, and this episode… does a pretty good job.

Ruth steps out for a minute, and reminds RBL of their mission: to choose a strategy, something that will stick the way emails stuck to HRC. (Don’t remind me!! Those goddamn emails.)

With Ruth out of the room, Adrian tries to get Julius to stop losing them a client. Julius says he’ll play devil’s advocate. Then Adrian tries to get Liz to speak up. She’s been watching and taking everything in.

Ruth takes a call about “Barnsdale. Illinois 1st.” She asks Lucca if she can use some random office, and commandeers it before Lucca can respond. She picked a bad office to have a private conversation in, though, because it’s one of the ones with the angled glass walls. These offices—which I’ve been wondering about for WEEKS because they don’t seem the slightest bit private—have gaps in the windows and it seems like (and turns out to be the case that) someone in the hallway would be able to hear every word said inside of the office.

And it just so happens that Lucca overhears the exact conversation she needs to overhear: a Congressman up for reelection is being asked—well, more like told—by the DNC that he can’t run again because he’s a groper. Lucca recognizes what this means: it’s the district Colin was thinking of running in.

So Lucca does what all Good characters would do: distracts Colin at work with her presence until he forgets what he’s talking about, then walks away.

Colin’s first thought is that something happened with the genetic screening. Lucca says it’s not that; it’s about his mother. “I didn’t want to run; my parents wanted me to run,” Colin says when Lucca asks him about the Illinois 1st. “Oh, so you’re not running?” Lucca counters. And Colin? Can’t answer that definitively.

Colin says he won’t run if he has to campaign, but if all he has to do is get the support of the DNC, he’ll run. Uh huh.

Lucca’s fear is that she’s being used for political gain. It’ll look better if she and Colin are together. Colin tries to keep Lucca out of it, even going so far as to say Lucca can tell his mother to “fuck off,” but… you don’t have to watch the rest of the episode to understand that’s never going to happen.

Then Colin asks about the genetic testing. Lucca says, “Oh, everything’s… good.” Colin mentions a family history. Does anyone else feel like she might be hiding something here? This is a weird scene. She’s already said the baby’s fine, yet they have her double back for this conversation AND they mention Colin’s family history? It would not shock me if Lucca was waiting on some test results and keeping it to herself. But also, like, I have seen this show and it would surprise me even less if we never heard about this again.

I may have to take back what I just said about Julius, sadly. Diane makes the more nuanced point I extrapolated from Julius’s words and Julius tries to rebut it. So. Whatever. It’s in early scene cross-talk (you know, the lines that aren’t meant to make a point but are rather meant to show you that there’s heated debate, so you can jump in mid-scene and it won’t feel awkward), and I’ve heard weirder things (like Alicia explaining why we don’t need female politicians in 220, a line I don’t think I was supposed to notice because I was supposed to be paying attention to her poise and the ease of her answers) in early scene cross-talk.

This audition doesn’t seem to be going well. That’s when Liz speaks up. She starts talking about some evidence that came across her desk at the DOJ. At first, I thought the writers were trying to introduce new facts into their hypothetical, and I was disappointed. But that’s not what they’re up to. Instead, they’re having Liz tell an increasingly elaborate, and possibly not baseless (would ANY of you be surprised if pieces of evidence similar to the ones Liz invents actually existed?) story to prove her point. Liz is demonstrating that the story keeps changing. “You’re all missing the point! It’s not about choosing one charge or another for impeachment. It’s about everything. It’s about who he is. It’s about what the presidency is. Charging him with obstruction, that’s going by the old rules. And the new rules are these. ‘I have a tape.’ ‘Where’s the tape?’ ’15-year-old was raped, and I’ve got the evidence.’ ‘Where’s the evidence?’ ‘Same place as the tape.’”

Diane laughs. “My God, this is insane!” Julius replies.

“No, no no no. This is shameless,” Liz clarifies. “And impeachment has to be shameless, or else it’s gonna fail.”

“So. You lie,” Julius accuses.

“No, no no no no no. You just don’t back down,” Liz says. “But there is no tape!!” Julius says. “Uh-uh. That’s what you said. I didn’t say that,” Liz argues. God, that’s what reading the news today feels like. Like logic and facts are no longer persuasive.

“Listen. This isn’t about truth anymore. And it’s not about lying. It’s about who’s backtracking, and who’s attacking,” Liz concludes. I don’t know what to think, and I love that. Liz’s approach is outlandish. It’s also convincing. And it’s maddening. These things should be based on facts. And yet!

I love that I can agree with Liz and think her point is absurd/laughable at the same time. I love that the show is able to capture the way that laughable and strategic can be the same today. It’s super effective.

When Ruth leaves for the day, Adrian immediately begins talking down to Liz in front of all of the partners. “Liz. Liz, Liz, Liz, what the fuck are you doing?!” I do not like this side of Adrian, especially when Liz is (obviously) being strategic and novel.

And also effective! Ruth tells her colleagues at the DNC that “we might have something here.”

Aaaand, credits. Another female writer this week! She wrote an ep last season too. And she’s great: I spent 17 minutes convinced the Kings had written this one because she captured the tone and the big moments so well. Also, I just googled her (her name’s Tegan Shohet) and she has a really fucking impressive resume. She did her undergrad at Harvard, has a law degree from Yale, and she has another degree from Oxford.

Maia and Amy (hello, Amy!) are kissing at a bar after the credits end. They’re out on a double date with Marissa and Drew, the guy from the ricin scare. Drew has this look in his eyes like he’s on something. I don’t like it one bit.

He and Marissa start making out mid-conversation. It’s almost aggressive, and not like Amy and Maia’s kiss just moments ago. Part of that is, I think, that we’re supposed to see Amy and Maia as a bit passionless right now, but it also seems… weird. Something is up with this dude. I don’t trust him.

But I would rather watch him and Marissa making out than hear Amy and Maia state “facts” that screw up the timeline!!!!!!!!!!! LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU WITH YOUR “WE’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR FOUR YEARS” BUSINESS WHEN I LITERALLY WATCHED YOU MEET AT MAIA’S 18TH BIRTHDAY PARTY; I’M BUSY WATCHING THIS AWFUL DUDE STICK HIS TOUNGE IN MARISSA’S MOUTH.

Drew also has no filter. Oh, and then he gets up at hits someone, claiming they took an upskirt of Marissa. But before that happens…

Amy and Maia are talking about getting married! And we didn’t get to see how they smoothed things over after 2x02? What a shock…

(Well, also, I feel like this ep pretty strongly suggests they didn’t really work through that.)

Seriously though, what the hell is Drew doing? What is his deal?

Marissa, who believes someone took an upskirt photo of her, reacts to Drew’s actions as though he’s a hero. She rewards him with a kiss. That makes Maia smile, because… I don’t really know. It makes Amy roll her eyes. Can we have Amy as a regular and not Maia?

“We need to toast your news!” Marissa says, making plans for the second consecutive weeknight. “Our news?” Amy wonders. OOOOOF. That relationship cannot be in a good place.

Maia seems kind of… turned on? By Drew and Marissa.

Amy doesn’t believe that the dude in the bar was actually trying to take an upskirt. Amy thinks Drew just wanted to hit someone. I agree with Amy here.

Amy then asks if they have to see them again. Maia says that Marissa’s a friend.

Amy tells Maia to talk to Marissa because people like Drew can be “dangerous in a relationship.” I had that same thought just from the way he was kissing her in public (it seemed quite possessive). And you know what I don’t need? For another investigator on this show to end up in an abusive relationship.

(That said, this is MILES better than any Kalinda/Nick bullshit.)

Now cameras are being installed in the conference room.

Marissa clearly stayed out for several more hours after Maia and Amy headed home. She’s wearing sunglasses at her desk and can barely answer questions. That’s also a big warning sign. Marissa’s hungover at work. It’s not a pattern yet, but I’d hate to see it become one.

Lucca meets with some partners about her client, Lock. She wants to give them a heads-up, but it seems he’s already left the firm because of Lucca’s pregnancy. Well, he said her “mood swings,” but lol.

Even Liz, who’s very understanding, is inclined to believe the client. Every time Lucca tries to defend herself, someone tries to comfort her or calm her or tells her not to get upset. I love Cush’s delivery of the line, “I’m not getting upset…” because she says it with just a hint of confusion. She doesn’t sound upset (at least not unreasonably so). She sounds like someone who’s slowly realizing that no one will take her words seriously as long as she’s pregnant.

Every time Lucca tries to take action, the partners shut her down and offer to help. It’s just weird. I can’t speak to whether or not it’s realistic because I’ve never been pregnant, nor do I work at a law firm managed mostly by non-parents (or any sort of law firm, for that matter), but it feels like it’s realistic. It’s subtle and the partners are encouraging, but they are making assumptions about Lucca’s work performance and capabilities based on the fact she’s having a baby.

Ruth appears! RBL is now one of four! Naturally Adrian believes this is because of what he and Diane were saying, and not because of anything Liz said. He believes this so strongly he calls Liz aside to give her an order. “No more shit Liz, okay?” He says like she’s a child (a child with a potty-mouth, I guess). She calls him on it. “Adrian, when did you get the impression that you could order me around?” He denies it, and Liz goes STRAIGHT to talking about their marriage. The teacher who married his student for her ties in the legal world CONDESCENDED TO HER? I’m just shocked. (Lol no, this is how I have been picturing their marriage for a few weeks now.)

Adrian asks Liz again to get behind the obstruction charge (Diane’s idea) so they can seem united. She says she’ll consider it.

I wonder if the reason Adrian can’t see that Liz has a plan, and that her plan is working, is that he’s so used to underestimating her.

Adrian and even Julius get behind Diane’s plan. It’s so transparent that they’re trying to show they’re united. “Now, we may disagree, but we find consensus,” Adrian explains. LULZ.

As soon as Adrian says “consensus” and Julius echoes it, Diane announces she’s changed her mind and now sides with Liz. This surprises even Liz! Ooh, will we get more on the Diane/Liz tension?

“I’m tired of ‘when they go low, we go high.’ Fuck that! When they go low, we go lower. Impeachment isn’t just about the law. It’s about persuading people. And if it’s one thing that we’ve seen this past year, it’s that lies… persuade. Truth only takes you that far… and then you need lies.” Guys, I’m seriously terrified by how much I understand this. Even the fact that my first reaction upon hearing this was, “she has a point” and not, “what??? That’s a lie!” scares me. When TGW was airing, I wouldn’t have believed that Diane would ever say this. And I wouldn’t have believed that would be my reaction. But, then, I also wouldn’t have believed this country would elect Donald Trump. What I’m saying is that regardless of whether this is a good strategy or not, or if it’s morally sound, or hypocritical, the way that it’s not easy to dismiss or laugh at is… the point.

Julius calls this “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” “You’re just as bad as you’re accusing him of being,” he explains. ACCUSING? Come on, Julius. If you think the word “alleged” would need to be in a sentence that calls him a liar…

Anyway. Another thing I love about Diane’s speech is that it’s coming both from a character place AND a political place. The next part of her rant makes this point well: “I’m just done with being the adult in the room. I am done with being the compliant and sensible one. Standing stoically by while the other side picks my pockets, while the other side gerrymanders Democrats out of existence. A three million person majority and we lost the presidency. A Congress that keeps a Supreme Court justice from being seated because he was chosen by a Democratic president.”

(I am gonna keep going on this but LOL Julius what planet do you live on where that’s not what happened? FACTUALLY THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED.)

Diane has always been the adult in the room. That’s a role she’s fantastic at playing, and she loves it. And now she’s tired of it?! That can’t just be because of Trump. That’s what someone who lost her best friend, lost her husband, lost her money, lost her clout, watched her candidate lose an election, and, finally, felt and still feels like there’s a target on her back would say. Why should she be the one to hold things together when everything else is falling apart? What’s the point of acting like the rules still apply?

Julius says some nonsense about how if Diane really believes that, she’s lost all faith in the law. To which Diane replies that she has a gun in her desk “and I’m this close to taking to the streets.” That, my friends, is someone who is all of the things I said above, and also on drugs, would say. And somehow, that person is… Diane Lockhart.

(And weirdly, while I can’t say it’s necessarily the direction I want to see the writers take Diane, I can’t honestly say it’s out of character. Terrifying, right?)

IT DID NOT CATCH MY ATTENTION THE FIRST TIME THROUGH BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT MAIA IS DOING AT WORK? CHECKING TWITTER. (I mean, I check Twitter at work. I’m sure most people check their phones at work. You could catch the most productive employee on Twitter at work. But somehow we have endless amounts of time to show Maia not working and no time to show Maia working.)

Carine is back, to tell Maia about her own father. He was a disgraced senator, so she’s part of the “damaged offspring club” too. Hey, where are Zach and Grace? Is Zach still in Paris (lol) with his wife (hahahaha) writing his memoir (bwahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaha)? How’s college treating Grace? ANYWAY. NOT THE POINT.

The point is that Carine and Maia are making a connection.

Also that in one scene, Maia manages to: Surf Twitter on her work laptop, flirt, and make plans to go drinking. Writers, come on. Throw me a bone. Give Maia work to do. (Two of these things are not her fault—Carine and Marissa come over to talk to her—but still!)

Marissa pops by to invite Maia to go out dancing at 10 pm on a work night. Maia turns it down initially, but then says maybe. What does she have to lose? She could show up hungover the next day and it wouldn’t matter. IT’S NOT LIKE SHE HAS ANY WORK TO DO!!!!!!

When Marissa leaves, she’s all “luv uuuuuu” (that is my approximation of the tone) and Maia quietly whispers back “love you.” Am I supposed to be getting the feeling that Maia’s crushing on Marissa? She also smiles a little after Marissa walks away.

“There’s a tweet I think you should see,” Maia informs Lucca. Lucca asks if it’s about work (of course it isn’t; that would require Maia to be working NO I WON’T STOP) and it’s about Colin’s campaign. Specifically, a horribly racist tweet about how he got a “black girl” pregnant (“hashtag Sally Hemmings”)

“So I’m a black girl. A black, pregnant, plantation girl,” Lucca responds. Maia is like “I don’t think it implies that” which, I mean, I buy Maia holding that opinion because it would mean she is super privileged, white, and didn’t pay attention in history class and you KNOW I would believe all of those things. But also, it’s a mean tweet that refers to Lucca as “a black girl.” Why would Maia even want to defend that?

Lucca’s TRENDING too. I wish Lucca would trend. Not for this. I mean publicity for the show.

Also trending is Earth Day. Wanna know something fun about Earth Day? It is in April. Specifically it’s April 22nd (which is a Sunday and the day of the next episode, but I will ignore that because it’s close enough and Earth Day could be trending in advance). Lucca is due in May. She is four months pregnant. WHAT MONTH IS IT, SHOW?

Maia accidentally kicks a drawer under Lucca’s desk and it begins to sing. “What is that?” she asks. “It’s a dog,” Lucca replies, as though that explains anything.

Lucca furiously begins to type—to Tweet! This is a bad idea. Has Twitter ever been a good idea on this show when it was controlled by anyone other than Eli or Marissa Gold? (No.)

Lucca (@lquinn) has fired off a reply tweet (“I’m the black woman having Colin Morello’s baby and my name is Lucca Quinn. Did Sally Hemmings have a law degree? #MoreLikeMichelle”) that is snarky and probably misguided, especially since it’s a trap laid by Colin’s campaign manager NotEli. (He isn’t getting a name.)

More bickering, verging on nervous breakdowns, are happening on the DNC live feed. The juiciest live feed since the NSA was listening to Alicia? Anyway.

“I’ve spend the last few months feeling fucking deranged! Like I’m living in some bad reality show! Going numb! All Trump, all the time! What’s real? What’s fake? Well, you know what? I just woke up,” Diane yells. And by yells, I mean yells. Damn.

Liz takes Ruth outside to try to get her to get Julius out of the audition. Liz always has some kind of plan.

Later, Adrian walks into Diane’s office, concerned. “I have never been more all right,” Diane says. U SURE? Did you just take a hit of something? Adrian asks how much of this is show and Diane is like, it’s a show!

Adrian wants to know about the gun in her desk. Yeah, I feel like that’s a valid concern, given that there is a GUN IN HIS WORKPLACE. Not only is that probably illegal but it’s also a hazard.

Marissa brings more bad news: the Chicago lawyer playing card deck, and we get to hear a few of the names in it. David Lee (IS ANYONE SURPRISED?). Patti Nyholm (Ditto). Laura Hellinger. WAIT WHAT? LAURA HELLINGER IS THE SWEETEST. (Can you tell I just rewatched season 4?) What is there to hate about Laura Hellinger!? Why bring her name, of all the names, into this?!

The partners decide to ignore it for now—why give it more attention?—but Adrian, Liz, and Diane are all in the deck. Damn.

Upon seeing her own face on a card, Diane says, “To answer your question, Adrian, yes, I have a gun in my desk.”

It’s at that moment Ruth interrupts to ask Julius not to join the RBL team for the remainder of the audition. Julius, after hearing he’s out, flips off the other partners. Professional. Though I can’t really criticize him, because it’s not like anyone else is being professional.

Maia tries to convince Amy to go to the dance club with her. Amy has a trial starting the next day and she doesn’t want to go, so it’s an impossible sell. Maia makes a bogus excuse: she thinks she should go so as not to be impolite. To Marissa. She sees. Marissa. Every. Day. She and Marissa are friends. It is not impolite to say no to going to a dance club at 10 pm on a work night with someone you went out with the night before. This is an excuse. Maia wants to go out; Amy doesn’t. So Maia’s looking for any reason she can find to go out.

Maia also misses a crucial detail—that Amy’s trial starts tomorrow so there’s no reason to wish her good luck now. This seemed weird the first time through, but then I realized: Maia and Amy live together. And that’s the kind of comment you make to someone you’re not going to see for a little while.

Lock wants Lucca to be his lawyer again. Lucca suspects that Maia might have called him (no that would involve Maia taking initiative so it’s unlikely). But no. The answer is that he’s on Twitter. And that’s when Lucca realizes that she has power.

She shows up at Colin’s door. “I’m not gonna marry you. I’m not gonna pretend otherwise. I’m not gonna lie, I’m not gonna mislead, and I’m not gonna be the woman who stands by your side. I’m the mother of your child, a close friend of yours, and a registered voter in the 1st Congressional District of Illinois. You want my support, you’re gonna agree to my terms,” she demands.

She goes on: she will do one appearance a month, issue a statement, and do interviews. Damn. Colin didn’t even have to negotiate for that.

Francesca is also at Colin’s house. So is NotEli, whose first words to Lucca are “Wow, that’s pregnant.” Off to a great start!

NotEli’s name is Stephen Rankin-Hall. I will continue to call him NotEli.

Now we get some exposition about the campaign. We’re actually doing this. The writers wrote Alicia out and found a way to bring campaigns back.

More deliberations in the conference room. The DNC is watching in real time, and they’re missing the fire of the deliberations with Julius. Using all the coded language in the world, Ruth requests that RBL show their “more pugnacious attitude.”

As soon as she leaves, the partners prove they got the message loud and clear. “They want us to be street,” Liz says, with a trace of anger. No one’s thrilled about it, but they’re all willing to play along. “I will be the angry black woman,” Liz decides. “And you can be Black Lives Matter,” she says to Adrian. (He chuckles.) “What about me?” Diane wonders. “You keep us calmed. But we can’t be calmed. But you’re the white conscience,” Liz says. LOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOL.

And back to the conference room they go, playing their roles perfectly until they’re screaming at each other about how fantastic Ta-Nehisi Coates is. It’s hilarious. And it piggy-backs off of the point the show made last week: there are certain roles that even (especially) those who call themselves progressives expect people to play based on their race. Diane’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown and she gets to be the conscience because she’s a classy white lady. Liz and Adrian have been strategic throughout all of this and they’re understood when they play up their anger in a very specific, stereotypical way.

(I don’t know that this strategy actually works in the context of the show, since we know that Liz and only Liz is chosen, and I’m going to guess her initial idea helped her more than this show. Even still. The firm is flat out told by the DNC that they will do better when they fit into an easy, familiar (racist) narrative.)

Liz and Adrian sit together in his office after their performance. “I never know how far is too far,” Adrian says. “At least you’ve reached a point in your life where you can admit it,” Liz says. That’s pointed.

Just want to take a moment to say I’m very happy with the addition of Liz. She’s fascinating, Audra’s fantastic, and I can tell so much about Liz from even the tiniest moments. Also, usually characters who are as sneaky as she is towards the other regulars come off as villains. That’s not how Liz comes off, and she was literally introduced as Alicia’s biggest rival and reintroduced as someone who made a move against Diane.

Maia invites Lucca out dancing. She’s going to turn it down anyway, but then Colin, Francesca, and NotEli show up and she has a good excuse not to go.

NotEli and Francesca want Colin and Lucca to get their story straight. “Look, we’re not expecting you to be the good little wife or girlfriend. That’s the old playbook. It stopped working in 2016,” NotEli says. Oh for fuck’s sake. You can’t just add the word “little” in there and distract me from the fact you are talking about Alicia.

But this line reminds me of two things that I’ve been thinking about lately. The first is that the Good Wife narrative really isn’t timely anymore. It certainly was in 2008. It even was in 2011 when I started watching. But now? Who cares? A dude abuses his office, and now, I think, the media is more likely to wonder about what woman is going to run for his seat than about whether or not his wife will stand by his side. Well, either that happens or absolutely nothing happens and millions of people think it’s perfectly okay to have a president who makes comments about “grabbing women by the pussy.” Either way: it’s not the narrative that fascinates people (or the media) today. And if you’re not caught in the middle of a scandal? It’s even less essential. “Family values” haven’t totally disappeared from politics by any means, but this isn’t 2008.

The other thing this line reminds me of is that, well, I fucking miss Alicia Florrick. It may be accurate to say that “the good little wife” is the old playbook. It’s been on the way out for a while now, so it’s only semi-accurate to say it stopped working in 2016. It is, however, accurate to say that The Good Wife ended in 2016. I like the idea of revisiting these themes, in a very different world, with a very different character. What I don’t like as much is that every time I see Lucca get pulled into situations that very, very few people would understand, I can’t help but want her to call up her close friend who’s lived through it. There are very few other moments when I long for Alicia to be on this show. And I still don’t, really, want her to make a guest appearance. But I want Lucca to have a friend. I want Lucca to have that friendship. And I can’t believe that Lucca and Alicia had a falling out, off screen, big enough that Lucca wouldn’t have reached out to Alicia for advice. If they’re not going to give me Alicia, can they at least stop teasing me?

(“Good little wife”? TEASE.)

Anyway I love how blunt Lucca is. For some reason, NotEli believes Lucca and Colin will be asked where their child was conceived, and he also believes this is a question they should answer. Colin starts to answer, saying things got intense when they were on opposite sides. Lucca jumps in and bluntly says, “So we worked through all that tension by fucking in the courthouse restroom.”

NotEli and Francesca stare at her and Francesca laughs, thinking (hoping) Lucca’s joking. But she’s not done. “It was a family restroom, so we locked the door,” she adds. NotEli says maybe they’ll have to massage this a little. Or you could, like, not talk about where you fucked?

And then the toy dog starts to sing, because of course. (It’s less effective this time.)

Now we’re at the club with Marissa and Maia. Maia’s theme song is playing. Seriously, just read these lyrics: “I clock out my 9:00 to 5:00. I’m ready for the weekend to bring me back to life. Don’t live to work, I work to live.” See?! It’s Maia’s song! Working normal hours (in a profession notorious for requiring long hours) and viewing a job as a chore and not something she’s passionate about!

MAIA IS SO AWKWARD, BUT SHE IS ALSO SO COMMITTED TO ACTUALLY TRYING TO DANCE.

(As you might expect, Marissa is not at all awkward.)

Carine appears at the bar when Maia goes to get a drink! They start talking about their fathers until Maia’s like, “Do you really want to talk about this?” and Carine says no. And then Maia says she wants to dance, so they start dancing. And they get pretty into it.

A little later in the evening, Maia and Marissa talk at a table. Marissa has her arm around Maia. “Am I boring?” Maia asks. You want me to answer that, Maia? You are, and it’s not because you have a stable relationship. I actually find that interesting. ANYWAY. In the world of the show, Maia is worried she’s boring because she’s in a long-term relationship.

Marissa calls Maia a “fucking ninja.”

“I feel like I’m cheating,” Maia worries. “You’re dancing. Or do you mean with me? Because I’m ready for anything,” Marissa responds. Is Marissa saying she’s bi? Or is she joking? Or just drunk? I feel like we may see more on this front. But maybe not.

Oh my God. I have accidentally paused the screen on the most awful drunk!Maia face and I’m not going to post it because I’m not cruel.

“What do you want?” Marissa asks. “I don’t know. Sometimes I want stability. Sometimes I don’t,” Maia answers. Hmmm. Much as I would love to see Maia in a committed relationship, what I would love even more is an arc where Maia, whose life had been very stable up until the scandal, realize that actually, maybe she doesn’t need to follow the easiest, most stable path. Maybe she’d rather be single, or with someone else, at this stage in her life. Wanting stability is a very Alicia thing. It doesn’t have to be a Maia thing, too.

(Nope, I will not turn this into a backdoor way to talk about Alicia and her priorities. I am tempted, but I will resist the temptation.)

Marissa just asks Maia wants right now and Maia says, “That’s the question.” Marissa tells her to go dance, but Maia decides to leave instead.

Maia also tells Marissa that Drew is “great.” I am on Amy’s side here…

Carine finds Maia outside and starts to say goodbye when… Maia kisses her. In the middle of the street. Carine kisses her back. And then they get in an Uber together and make out. Nice, Maia.

I don’t have strong feelings on Maia cheating, mostly because I am not sure I consider her a cheater for this. This behavior—and the behavior we’ll get to in a minute—is cheating. But… she’s cheating on someone she’s had doubts about, someone she barely wants to spend time with, someone who testified against her in court (??), and someone we’ve barely gotten to know. That’s not to say that cheating is justified if that’s the case. It’s not. My point is that I don’t know what Maia’s going to do next. If what she does next involves keeping this from Amy and acting like everything is normal, then yes, she is a cheater and ughhhhhh, Maia. But if this is really the final straw/a wake-up call that causes her to either work through her issues with Amy (including actually telling her she cheated) or break up with her, then it feels like less of a betrayal to me. I don’t know where I’m going with this. Moving on. I am sure I will have more thoughts, hopefully clearer and more fully formed ones, once the next episode (that addresses this plotline) airs.

Carine gets called into work, where she falls on the ground because she is drunk. They have to leave, but she wants to stay a few more days!

Ruth tells the name partners the DNC’s decision: they’re hiring a team of lawyers from various firms, and they just want Liz. “Like the Avengers,” Diane observes. Yes, you read that right. Diane made that observation. Diane Lockhart.

Adrian calls Liz “Wonder Woman” and Ruth corrects him that “That’s the Justice League.” Hee. Look at Diane and Ruth, knowing their superheroes better than I do! (Though I actually understood both of those references.)

Will Liz actually take the offer? I’m unsure. I don’t want anything that means less Liz, so I’m hoping either she doesn’t take it or she does but it doesn’t reduce her screentime.

Ruth tells her assistant to turn off the DNC cameras. But he can’t, because Maia and Carine are busy having sex, on camera, in the office. You’re such a good employee, Maia.

Carine would know about the cameras, but I don’t think this is a set-up (I think she’s just drunk, though wouldn’t be shocked if it was a set-up). Maia wouldn’t know about the cameras, but for fuck’s sake, Maia, do you think you’re supposed to be having sex at the office? Oh, you know what? It’s Maia. She probably thinks that’s what offices are for.

(I so badly want to end my recap there, but also, this Trump impeachment Schoolhouse Rock style song is A++++++ and I’m not sure why it exists but I’m glad it does. It’s also by the same guy (Jonathan Coulson) who did all the BrainDead recap songs (if you did not watch BrainDead, you should) so I’m a very happy fan.)

(Omg, and the slow instrumental “If You’re Happy and You Know It” over the credits is great.)

#The Good Fight #TGFThoughts

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